The casino was located beneath a shipyard and had a horde of Mafia guards on patrol. Patrons who visited were top-class financiers, politicians, military officers, and the like. The doorman wearing a double-breasted coat escorted the customers. Inside the underground casino was a chandelier, illuminating the damask wallpaper, wooden mosaic flooring, and shag carpeting. Various equipment stood like reticent sentinels: a jukebox playing jazz music from the Prohibition era, a roulette board, and a blackjack table. With their drinks in one hand, people casually squandered their money while enjoying secret conversations. A middle-aged bartender silently made cocktails behind the bar set in the corner.
That was when the unexpected suddenly happened. Soldiers draped in gray rags soundlessly appeared from the back door and began firing their submachine guns. Fragments of the chandelier and walls scattered into the air, raining over the customers’ heads. Like a flock of sheep struck by a bolt of lightning, the customers stampeded into each and every direction, wildly stomping over and on one another to escape. That was the first thing the soldiers were going for.
In the heat of the confusion, the croupiers swiftly grabbed the machine pistols they’d hidden away, but before they could even aim, the soldiers’ suppressive fire pierced their chests and brought them to their knees. The five soldiers immediately cut across the casino floor and rushed into the manager’s room in the back. They promptly disposed of the manager, then ripped the carpet off the floor.
Embedded in the floor was a large electric safe. One of the soldiers took out a notepad and punched in the numbers written in it on the electronic keypad. A gear deep inside the safe made a heavy clicking sound, and the door opened. The soldiers took a peek inside.
The safe was empty.
Their astonishment was as clear as day. Almost instantaneously, an electronic alert howled throughout the building, and fireproof shutters slammed to the ground with a heavy clang. The soldiers, aware of what was going on, shot the shutters, but the thick screens were designed to withstand bullets. After a few seconds, the ceiling sprinklers went off, sending a liquid over the soldiers, the croupiers, and even the patrons who couldn’t get away.
The liquid wasn’t water, however; it was a white substance that almost immediately evaporated when it came into contact with clothes or the floor. The patrons and employees, who had breathed in the air, began to cough violently. The soldiers promptly held their breath, but it was already too late.
One after another, everyone in the room began to collapse onto the floor. Almost no one was able to do anything of use. They simply clasped their throats, bent forward, and passed out. The white substance was just a type of knockout gas that affected the respiratory system; it wasn’t fatal.
However, the one soldier who had the most accurate grasp of the situation shot himself in the head. His blood and brain matter sprayed the wall, leaving a pattern that symbolized the last moment of his life. The remaining soldiers, on the other hand, lacked the clarity of mind to act on the spur of the moment. And just like the casino patrons, they fell to the ground.
There was only one difference between the patrons and the soldiers: The latter would never be allowed the luxury of a peaceful death.
I visited a small accounting firm by the coast. Ango used to work here in his early days before he became a top-secret intelligence agent. Everyone starts at the bottom of the pecking order sometime in their life.
Once I arrived at the office, I told them why I came. The guard and administrator both beamed as they escorted me to the back. The Mafia’s not all steel, guns, and explosives. These kinds of people are necessary, too.
This place was used as an accounting facility that washed the dirty money the Mafia brought in illegally. Three years ago, Ango was headhunted by the Mafia and worked here as an assistant.
The guard and the admin ended up bringing me to a windowless room hidden behind a wall. It was a dim space with secret Mafia assets, money-laundering ledger sheets, and other records stuffed in bookshelves lined up against the wall, plus a desk in the middle. There was nothing else except for a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling, faintly wobbling.
“There ya go. Now if ya don’t mind, I’ll be gettin’ back to work,” came the administrator’s husky voice once he’d taken me to the bookshelves.
He claimed he had work to do, but I’d glanced into the room next door earlier and saw that his desk was covered in bonsai plants and a book on shogi—nothing else.
“Thank you very much.” I expressed my gratitude. “By the way, there’s a bit of burgeoning conflict unfolding at headquarters right now. Please be careful.”
“The only things here are old documents and stacks of securities that can’t be cashed. Attacking this place would just be a hassle.”
The administrator smirked. He had been the treasurer in charge of the Mafia’s finances for years. Perhaps he could instinctively sense where the sparks of war would land.
“This is a nice workplace.” After surveying the room, I called out to the administrator as he was leaving, “Maybe I should ask to be transferred here.”
The skin on his face crinkled as his lips curled into a grin.
“Most young’uns who say that don’t even last three days before they head for the hills. It’s boring here.”
After thanking the administrator for his time, I faced the open bookshelves once more. Ango’s records were here. Accountants have always been the epitome of meticulousness itself, but the people who manage the Mafia’s under-the-table accounts must be capable of writing out in detail everything that happens during the course of business. That way, even if they’re killed, the successor can take over for them without delay. I flipped through the business logs of the prior accountant. He was apparently well organized, even more than your average accountant, but just one single month of records alone was like reading a full-length novel—basically one long lyric poem about the underbelly of society.
I sat behind the desk in the middle of the hidden room and leafed through the documents. According to the records, Ango used to be a kind of hacker who bought and sold information. In the past, he drew out a scheme where he would work together with a gang to steal money from a corporation. They pretended they worked for the bank, opened the safe-deposit box, then swiped all the securities to exchange for cash. The plan was a complete success, so Ango and his team made quite a bit of money. But it was money stained in blood. The safe-deposit box and securities belonged to one of the Mafia’s front companies; Ango and his men basically swiped money right out of the Mafia’s pockets. Unsurprisingly, Ango was chased by hounds after that—armed mad dogs in black that tailed their prey through the night without so much as a howl or even a single sound.
Mentally exhausted and being fed misinformation, the gang grew suspicious of one another, leading to a shoot-out and their quick demise. Ango, on the other hand, continued to run. He was able to figure out in advance where the Mafia’s tracking unit would be next, allowing him to simply escape their reach throughout Yokohama. No less than six months went by.
For those six months, Ango managed to outsmart the Mafia’s tracking unit who knew Yokohama like the back of their hand, something that would’ve even put a government spy to shame. He was most likely somehow using the Mafia’s intelligence network in secret and leaking misinformation to confuse his enemies.
But there’s an end of the road for everybody. Nobody can evade the darkness of the night forever. Ango must have been prepared to die when he was captured in the slum’s underground aqueduct. Instead, he was brought before the boss, who wasn’t willing to dispose of someone with such outstanding information-manipulation skills.
That was the start of Ango’s second life.
—That was the first dramatic step of the man’s rise in the underworld. From what I can see in these files, there’s not even a shadow of Mimic in his background.
…Which meant Mimic and Ango didn’t have any contact until after this.
I fli
pped through the files some more until I found an account that caught my eye. Two years ago, Ango went to Europe for business after he had been in the Mafia for a year and gained their trust. His objective was to close a deal with a local stolen car broker. However, Ango ceased communication for those two months for unknown reasons. He didn’t seem any different once he returned, and he explained that some sort of misunderstanding with a local organization had led to his getting pursued as a criminal. And his story checked out, too. After looking into it, I discovered there actually was a mass arrest in Europe of organizations that smuggled stolen vehicles. The Port Mafia came to the conclusion that Ango must have gotten caught up in that, so no more questions were asked of him.
But in retrospect, it was hard to believe that Ango was on the run for two months because he couldn’t clear up such a simple misunderstanding. Nobody could confirm what Ango did during that period in Europe. With what I learned, I could only assume he used this time to meet with Mimic and come to some sort of deal—in other words, as a double agent. That would’ve meant Mimic had already been laying the groundwork to attack the Port Mafia from that moment on.
I closed the files, then sank deep into my thoughts to meditate. The room was dead silent. The only noises I heard were the sounds of passing cars, like a film far away. Something was off. Something about this scenario bothered me. Ango joined the Mafia, then secretly communicated with Mimic. From there, he waited for just the right time for both syndicates to clash. It was too perfect, like two computers playing chess. There were no signs of any unexpected actions, no curveballs…and that conversely made me uneasy.
I surveyed the room, thinking back to how Ango used to work here. That day, he had been in the same spot I was in at that very moment. Ango had been sitting in the chair with his elbows on the desk, his expression glum as he’d stared at me in silence.
This was where we first met. Ango was arrogant back then. He practically oozed displeasure, the bored expression on his face plainly illustrating that he didn’t feel he belonged in a place like this. I thought back to the way he’d looked at me. What did he say to me when we first met again? I believe it was…
“Could you please not get any closer? You smell,” he said with disgust and his elbows still on the desk. Dazai and I couldn’t even say a word as we stood stock-still by the door. An awkward silence descended over the hidden room.
I had heard around that this young man was the new guy, Ango Sakaguchi, but this was the first time I was actually meeting him. Dazai and I exchanged glances. We did indeed smell terrible. After all, we were on our way back from a mission. We must’ve reeked of oil, rust, and blood. My nose had given up sending signals to my brain a long time ago.
It was the middle of the Dragon’s Head Conflict. There was nary a night when you didn’t hear gunfire, and practically every drop of sewage water had been tainted with blood. The bodies of underground syndicate members piled up in every corner of the city. Even the MP couldn’t put a stop to it all, never mind come up with the manpower to inspect the crime scenes.
Dazai and I were given orders to clean up the fallen Port Mafia members’ bodies. We would photograph the corpses, then take their possessions back with us. We couldn’t afford to have the police take anything as evidence in their attempt to curb organized crime.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t a job you could afford to obsess over too much in the throes of war. What’s more, all the gunfights took place at the Yokohama Settlement’s waste-disposal site. That was where sludge and industrial waste oil were typically dumped illegally, and the police never went anywhere near it, let alone the neighboring residents.
And that was why Dazai and I were covered in oil and mud. The lingering stench was enough to send a stray cat on the other side of town running in the opposite direction.
At one point during our mission, Dazai had told me with an uncomfortable grimace, “It smells so bad that I want to cut my nose off.”
Glancing at us, Ango spoke bluntly. “Put their belongings on my desk, then stand back. Don’t open your mouth unless I ask you something.”
We did as we were told.
“You’re the new guy, right?” Dazai piped up. “Sorry, but can I use your shower? As you so politely pointed out, we smell awful—”
“I told you to keep quiet.”
Ango cut Dazai off, causing him to fall silent with his mouth agape. The other half of the sentence Ango had wrested from him idly hung in the air.
Regardless of how young he may have looked, Dazai was the leading candidate for the next executive. While Ango may have been a new hire at the accounting firm, that didn’t excuse his behavior.
He pulled the items out of the bags we gave him and began to inspect them one by one. IDs, keys, phones, knives, guns, pictures—he checked each item while recording them in his account book.
I had no idea what Ango was doing. I fully believed the evidence would be incinerated after checking them off with the names of the deceased. However, the new guy was inspecting each and every item, writing them down. Just what was he doing?
“What are you doing?” My curiosity got the best of me.
“How many times do I have to ask you to be quiet?” Ango replied as his pencil glided over the notepad. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m creating logs, of course.”
“I see,” I replied.
“Tell us your name!” Dazai suddenly yelled, causing me to jump in surprise. Ango’s eyes flicked over toward Dazai. Then, after a few moments of silence, he replied, “Ango…Sakaguchi.”
“Heh-heh-heh-heh…” Dazai began to chuckle, smiling from ear to ear for some reason.
“…What’s with the nauseating laugh?”
“You’re quite the interesting fellow, Ango. Doing that isn’t going to make the boss happy. In fact, it’s just going to cost more money and create extra work, never mind help you move up in the ranks.”
“Are you saying you know what I’m doing?” Ango asked with more than a hint of surprise on his face.
“You’re making records of the lives of the deceased. Am I right?”
Ango was caught off guard, his eyes wide in shock as if he’d just realized Dazai was there.
“When did you peek inside my logbooks?”
“I didn’t have to. It’s pretty obvious what you’re doing.”
I had no idea what made it so obvious, but stuff like this always happened when I was with Dazai, so I just quietly watched the scene play out. Dazai walked straight over to Ango with no regard for his reaction.
“The more violent this war becomes, the more the deceased start to just look like numbers. How many died yesterday? How many died today? The line between human losses and those of money and equipment begin to blur. There is no individual, no soul, and no dignity to death. But you’re fighting back against that. Anyway, could you read us one?”
Ango glared at Dazai in irritation for a few moments, but he eventually lowered his gaze to the files and began reading.
“Four of ours perished yesterday during the attack near the waste site: Kurehito Umeki, Shoukichi Saegusa, Miroku Ishige, and Kazuma Utagawa… Umeki was a former MP officer who was stigmatized and kicked out of the force for allegedly killing his colleague. He joined the Mafia soon after and proved to be a skilled leader in battle. He even led this small group. Umeki had already lost his parents prior to these events. He has a brother many years younger, but they haven’t been in contact. Whether he really killed his colleague is now forever a mystery never to be solved… Next is Saegusa. He succeeded his father in the Mafia and had been involved with the organization ever since he was a child. He had a way of calming situations down and was apparently loved by the shop owners on our turf. His dream was to become an executive… Now we have Ishige. She was a former sex worker who had been caring for her sick parents. She had poor eyesight but an excellent sense of hearing, which allowed her to hear the enemies coming before they attacked. Ishige likely played a huge role in the survival of many of our
members… The final victim, Utagawa, was originally an assassin for an enemy syndicate that became a Mafia subsidiary when they were nearly wiped out. Utagawa is survived by his wife and kids, who do not know of his life of an assassin nor his association with the Mafia. Perhaps they will never know.”
I imagined the lives of the four departed as I listened to Ango. While I couldn’t vividly see them, I felt closer to them and their existence, which was no more.
Ango closed his book, then said, “They all found peace. Nobody can take that away from them. The information in this book is evidence of their lives and the legacy of people who will never be recorded as simply ‘four deaths’ in a report. I started collecting this data in between jobs, and I have created the same records for all eighty-four people in the Port Mafia who died since the conflict began.”
I found myself in mute amazement. It was difficult to even imagine how much work that must have been.
“Does the boss know about this—about the fact that you’re collecting and recording data that has no strategic value?” I asked.
“Yes, I gather the files together every week and shove them in the boss’s hands myself. He was annoyed at first, but now he feels that this is ‘a valuable source of information for truly understanding the state of the entire organization.’ He has come to enjoy reading them.”
What he’d started as a side project between jobs turned into his main responsibility, one directly handed to him from the boss. I guess that explained why the boss gave orders to Dazai, a candidate for the next executive, to rummage through dead bodies.
“Fascinating, isn’t it, Odasaku?” Dazai brazenly patted Ango on the back. “There’s really nobody in the Mafia like this—a true waste of talent.”
“I told you to stay back. You’re going to make me start smelling.” Ango grimaced.
“Don’t you agree, Odasaku? Don’t you just wanna read these records?”
I nodded, then replied, “Name your price. I’ll buy them off you.”
Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era Page 7
