Hideo Furukawa - Belka, Why Don't You Bark?

“Just speculation,” the old man said.

“Yes, speculation. We do that.”

“And that created this situation. This world we’re in. Gangsters all over the place, riding around in heavily armored cars—not that this keeps the gangsters from being blown sky-high, along with their bodyguards.”

“We’ll keep the speculations coming. Ha ha ha! ”

“Not long ago Freedom Daily reported that they’ve started targeting rigs?”

“The Chechen mafia? Trying to get control of the rigs? Hell yes! Of course! That seems to have irritated the Russians. Still, it’s not a lie. The information may not have come from you, Uncle, but even so. On another note…”

“What is it, Nephew?”

“You don’t belong to either side.”

“Let us drink a fourth time.”

“ Na zdorovye !”

“Delicious.”

“Delicious indeed.”

“It’s best not to probe too deeply, wouldn’t you say? I’m helping you, yes, but only because you’re valuable to me. Those articles you print stir things up. I would advise you, for instance, not to call me inappropriate nicknames. That would be dangerous. You mustn’t ask me what sort of nickname I have in mind. You understand? Take care. I’m warning you. I’ve bought you. Don’t ever forget that.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“And why not?”

“Because I value my life.”

“And?”

“And?”

“It boosts sales.”

“It certainly does! Good ol’ capitalism! Ha ha ha! ”

“You have a charming smile.”

“And this is a marvelous restaurant, isn’t it?”

“Nice and loud?”

“Conveniently loud. So conveniently.”

“Sometimes it’s quiet.”

“Quiet? Is it?”

“A rumor for you.”

“Yes?”

“People have seen yakuza here.”

“Yakuza? The Japanese mafia?”

“Yes. They’re here to foster international cooperation. The Russian mafia is stronger at the moment, right? This month they’re pushing back at the Chechens. What do you make of that? Balance is more important than anything, right? And then—this is simply a rumor, of course—the yakuza turn up. What happens next? Here’s a prophecy for you. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole Far East turns into an enormous powder keg.”

“If you’re right, we’ll change the name of our newspaper.”

“Change it? No more Freedom Daily ?”

“That’s right… to Terror Daily . Na zdorovye !”

Three days later. Same restaurant. Unusual sounds mixed in with the Russian. A conversation in Japanese. Jeering, tongue-clicking, raucous laughter, a ribald exchange. Hey, dick, is this the best champagne they got? What the fuck’s up with this sweet shit? It’s from Moldova, Boss. Mol… what? Where the fuck is that? Whatever, forget it. Is it me or does this shit taste exactly the fucking fuck like those vitamin drinks back home? Am I right or what?

Everyone in the circle laughs.

Zoom in on the man at the head of the circle.

The Boss, they call him. Long black hair swept back over his head, a mustache, a double-breasted suit, pot belly. Can’t be more than forty. His eyes roam restlessly, like a reptile’s.

Boss, here’s something new .

Ah. Cognac?

From Armenia.

This is better. Get some caviar too. Good stuff, from the Caspian. Enough for everyone.

The Boss pauses, then continues. Not a bad place, huh? Officially recognized casino and everything. Not bad. Got one up on us in that respect, here. These Russians.

All at once, he gets a different sort of look in his eyes. He turns to the next table.

“So what’d you do today?” he asks.

The person sitting there looks completely out of place. She’s a Japanese girl, not yet in her teens. Eleven, maybe twelve. On the verge of puberty. “Rode the tram,” she says coldly.

“I took her around,” adds the handsome young Slavic woman seated beside her, speaking in Japanese.

“Have a nice time?”

“Yeah, great,” the girl tells her father, her tone even icier.

She is peculiarly plump. Certain areas of her body seem bloated out of proportion. She isn’t obese, but her face and her chin are flabby. Her hands too. She gives the impression, somehow, of an infant who was inflated, some days ago, to this enormous size.

The table where the girl and the Russian woman sit is littered with an odd chaos of dishes: pineapple cake, apple kudzu tea, reindeer steaks, piroshki… Everything, from the desserts to the meat dishes, has been picked at and left unfinished.

“Ah,” her father says. “Anyway, have Sonya take you around again tomorrow.”

With that, this Japanese mafioso, hefty like his daughter, turns his gaze toward the entrance, his eyes assuming their former steeliness. Two Georgian guards stand just inside. They’re built like professional athletes. The Russians furnished these two men as protection for the group of “businessmen.” Georgians had always blended perfectly into the Russian mafia, ever since the early days of the Russian Federation. They seemed perfectly at home in this world, with its peculiar customs and the Vors as its unquestioned leaders.

Nice outfits, huh? says the girl’s father, The Boss, as they call him. They’re raking it in, you can see that. Every one of those fucking guys we saw today, they all had on Italian suits. You notice that?

Gold necklaces, gold rings. Gold bracelets.

No gold nose rings, though, huh? one of the men in the circle says.

The Boss erupts into laughter. Then he looks back at the table. So you got three kinds of caviar. The price depends on the size, see? Look at these fuckers. Fucking big, aren’t they? You gotta love seafood. The treasures of the sea, right? The Caspian’s sort of a sea too, you know. And we’re gonna make a business out of this shit, these treasures of the sea. The Boss runs through it all again. Lectures them. They’ll import poached seafood from Russia—shrimp, crab, sea urchin—and export stolen cars from Japan. It’s a fucking two-way Russo-Japanese venture! And we make it all look legal! Man, how fucking lucky are we that Nippon and Russia are neighbors like this, fucking linked up by the fucking Japan Sea! We get a foothold here, and you know what? You know what, you dickheads? It’s not just the little tip of Siberia, is it!

No, because there’s Sakhalin too.

And don’t forget the Kamchatka Peninsula! Feel like I’m gonna bite my tongue every time I fucking try to say that word. You know what I’m talking about, right? Kamchatka, huge peninsula sticking out into the Sea of Okhotsk. Fucking huge.

The Russians are there too?

They got organization. They got a boss. You know. A Vor.

It’s great, getting into this stuff. All in support of Japanese-Russian friendly relations.

The Boss laughs uproariously. He guffaws again. The future is fucking rosy. Think big, you dicks! Think big! he says. He gives them another little lecture, this time about how easy it is to launder dirty money in the new Russia. Japanese-Russian friendship , he says a few times, borrowing the phrase from his underling. Russian mafia and Japanese yakuza unite! How about that, you dicks! Solidarity!

Once again he’s in stitches.

Anyway , he says, losing the grin, we’ve got our first fucking deal.

The main house is gonna like that, huh? one of the men says.

Except , the Boss says, that from now on, this Russian link is ours.

His voice is lower now. Secretive.