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.
Buy me Gucci so people don’t fucking piss around with me.
Tokyo Disneyland is for middle-class fucks. Take me to Florida.
I felt like I was being tested, so I did everything she asked. It got so I thought she was always silently asking me, You wouldn’t, by any chance, happen to have popped my mother?
She couldn’t have guessed, there was no way. And yet…
It’s just my imagination.
And every time I gave her anything, the brat got fatter. Creepily obese.
And then, finally, when I was going to Russia for a business talk, she ordered me to take her along, take her where ordinary fucks, laymen, couldn’t go. And we were attacked, and she was taken hostage.
By the client.
“I’ve had enough,” the Boss said. “I’m gonna end this with my own hands.”
He stopped the video. He stood up. For the first time, he looked long and hard at the body of the messenger from the main branch, this new Buddha, lying in the corner. Oh shit, he said. But his tone was cheery. How old am I? Thirty-… nine, that’s right. Still in my prime. Pecker’s still in working order. If you think I’m gonna be a pawn in someone else’s game, fucking think again. He pushed open the door to his office. Walked out into the hall. Went in to say hi to the boys in the main office. His expression was bright, relaxed.
“Gather the soldiers,” he said. “All of ’em.”
You mean… all of them? they asked.
“Yup. We’re crossing the Japan Sea. It’s war.”
What the hell, why not set up an organization in Russia? Take over Siberia, maybe, the Boss thought with a chuckle. A hacking sort of chuckle: Kekh kekh kekh kekh. He hadn’t noticed, but his stomach wasn’t hurting anywhere near as bad. He briefly explained the situation to the guy in charge of the boys and gave instructions for disposing of the body, told him to find someone to take care of the slime, say some hothead got out of control or something, find a way to buy some time.