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

Or rather, their hell daddy.

Shit. Hell… hell. Whatever.

He tried to reason his way out of the dilemma. His stomach twitched. It hurt like fuck. He had diarrhea too. The client was using him, it was clear. That was one way of looking at it. He was just a piece in someone else’s game, a pawn, the king of the pawns. You could look at it that way. ELIMINATE THE TARGET. ELIMINATE. ELIMINATE. The three bullets he’d just sent over brought in more than a hundred million yen. Again. Business. What am I supposed to do, my daughter’s been taken hostage! My fucking hands are tied.

I just have to keep sending over more bullets.

He would send another.

Recruiting even non-yakuza wasn’t easy anymore. Still he demanded that arrangements be made. Arrangements couldn’t not be made. They had his daughter. Though he realized, in some shadowy corner of his heart, that maybe this was just an excuse. Maybe all the spiritual agonies he was suffering, the blistering pain in his stomach, the boys the organization had sacrificed… maybe none of it had anything to do with his daughter.

He clutched his stomach. Fuck, have I gotten skinny.

Losing my imposing presence.

He had a bad feeling about all this. And his instinct was right. The main branch registered its displeasure. They were scraping the bottom of the barrel, and they hadn’t yet found a taker. One of the main branch’s advisers came as a messenger. He implied, without actually saying so, that the Boss was guilty of actions at odds with the Way of the Yakuza. It was perfectly clear what the problem was. Perhaps, the Boss thought, he’d gone overboard in trying to find his bullets. The messenger told him of various other unpleasant rumors.

Then, finally, he cut to the chase. “So you mean to start a war in Russia?”

The Boss gaped. Had someone ratted on him?

You’re sending hit men over, aren’t you? the adviser shouted. The main branch will not stand for out-of-control violence of that sort! He went on bellowing. It dawned on the Boss that they must have heard about the cash flowing in from the far side of the Japan Sea. Aha, he thought. So that’s it. They noticed how well we’re doing, so they did some poking around…. We made a bit too much, I guess.

The messenger’s next statement confirmed his suspicions. “The main branch is considering your expulsion. Your territory would go right to the Chief. They’re ready to replace you. If you want to put things back in order, it’ll cost five hundred million. You’ve got the money, I’m sure. You’ve been making it hand over fist in Russia.”

“Five hundred… million?”

“That’s what the main branch wants.”

They did their homework, the Boss thought. With our fucking coffers as larded as they are, we could send ’em five hundred million in a flash. And they want us to hand it over, just like that? Pay our dues? You must be fucking kidding, the Boss thought. The man they called the Boss, who had just been threatened with the loss of that title. My boys died for that money. The first guys I sent over as bullets were my own, you know, official members of this organization! They laid their lives on the line, all for my little darling. And you’re telling me to fucking cough up that money ? Cash I got at the price of my boys’ lives?

No boss would agree to that.

Not even a hell boss.

The messenger gazed coolly at the Boss. As if to say, So, what’s it going to be? You dick, the Boss thought. You think you’ve got me by the balls, and you’re laughing inside. You’re fucking chuckling. Messenger from the main branch, my ass. Think you can give me advice, do me the favor of sharing your great wisdom? Just trying to get your bit, you fuckhead. No sooner had this thought flashed into his mind than he put his hand behind his back, lifting his suit jacket. He kept a Beretta tucked into his belt for protection. He whipped it out. He fired. The gun. At the fuckhead.

Three shots.

No, four shots.

Then, without so much as a glance at the body, he grabbed his stomach and moaned.

The incident had taken place in a closed room. The Boss’s office at headquarters was totally soundproof, bulletproof, constructed so that it would be safe even if people smashed their way into the building—or, conversely, even if his boys were working some bastard over, torturing him. The Boss took three or four small bottles of medicine out of a cabinet, grabbing at them like straws, and gulped them down. Digestive tonics. He rocked his head back and forth a few times, trying to reset himself. He rubbed his hands down his front where the esophagus was, to make sure the medicine was on its way. Phew , he sighed. The gastric acid in his breath stung, but not so much he couldn’t bear it.

He dropped himself into a leather chair.

He picked up the remote control on the table. This one worked both the TV and the video deck. The TV was positioned in front of him. He turned it on. The screen flashed white for a second, then faded to black. The video player was already going. There was already a tape in the deck. He rewound it for a while, then pressed PLAY.

His daughter appeared.

My darling.

She sat in a cold-looking room with a dog, glaring into the camera. Glaring, that is, through the screen at him. At the man they called the Boss, her father, him, himself. A fucking hostage video. The client in Russia sent them at regular intervals. This was the latest. Nothing had changed. The girl still cursed at her father. The same foul-mouthed harangue. “Fucking dick,” she spat. The only thing that had changed was the dog. The dog looked like he was guarding her. He’d been a puppy the first time he appeared in a video, but in no time he had grown into an adolescent, and now he could have been called a young dog. The dog, too, glared into the camera.

A girl and a dog, staring, unblinking, straight at the lens.

Fact is, they looked creepy.

They looked heartless.

C’mon, the dog too? the Boss thought. Even the dog looks at me like that!

What, are you sizing me up? Seeing how much weight I carry?

Darling, the man thought again. My darling by my first wife. Fucking little brat. He stared at the screen, transfixed, unable to tear his eyes away. He remained slumped in the leather chair as if in a trance. “All the shit I’ve been through for this brat…” he said, aloud this time. All the men I’ve sacrificed, he continued voicelessly, in his mind. Then, once again, he spoke aloud. “My child… my own child. You think I fucking love you? Damn you!”

The second he’d said those words, the floodgates broke. Okay, it’s true, it was my fault. I’m the one who forged that fucking parasite’s death certificate to make it look like she’d been sick. I would never have married that dumb bitch if my uncle hadn’t forced me. What was I gonna do, he would have made me chop off a finger. Besides, I needed someone like her if I was gonna set up my own organization, starting so late in the game, in my thirties already. Except that she was fucking useless. She was a totally hard-core fucking stupid dumbass bitch. So I popped her. Dirtied my fucking hands with her. That was good, though, because that way I was able to make my woman official, make her my woman. The Boss’s second wife was only twenty-three. She was tough. She looked after the young guys in the organization real well. The boys. They looked up to her, the Boss’s woman. They called her Big Sister. She gave me a daughter too, another daughter, bound to me by blood. A year-and-a-half old. The half sister of that one there… that one .

I hate her. The Boss admitted it. He hated that darling in the videos. But even I couldn’t bring myself to pop my own daughter. We’re father and daughter, after all, so I let you live, as if I had no alternative. Even after I killed that stupid bitch mother, which I could do because she was nothing to me. And just look what happened! The way she glares at me, that girl. The way she glares at her stepmother. Who did she think she was? And then she started swelling, getting so fat it was like someone put a hex on her. As if her dead mother’s deadweight shifted to her. Her face got pudgy. She was in elementary school, but you could hardly believe it. Her wrists bulged, bulged more. My god, I thought, she looks like a fucking fat infant! What, is she fucking imitating her newborn sister… her half sister? Man, is she creepy. And ugly. And the way she looks at me, revulsion in her eyes. And demanding. I want this, that, that. I WANT IT! She screamed, and I bought the shit. Bought everything, no matter what. Everyone has it, so buy me one! That was never her game. She told me, ordered me, to buy things no one had. Forced me.