You lost on purpose. The three kings came from you,” Kazu said to Solomon. They were standing outside the izakaya building. Kazu lit a Marlboro Light.
Solomon shrugged.
“That was dumb. Giancarlo is a social retard. He’s one of those white guys who has to live in Asia because the white people back home don’t want him. He’s been in Japan for so long that he thinks when Japanese people suck up to him, it’s because he’s so special. What a fucking fantasy. That said, not a bad guy overall. Effective. Gets shit done. You gotta know this by now, that people here, even the non-Japanese, say the dumbest things about Koreans, but you gotta forget it. When I was in the States, people used to say stupid-ass crap about Asians, like we all spoke Chinese and ate sushi for breakfast. When it came to teaching US history, they’d forget the internment and Hiroshima. Whatever, right?”
“That stuff doesn’t get to me,” Solomon replied, scanning the dark streets for a taxi. The trains had stopped running half an hour before. “I’m good.”
“Okay, tough guy,” Kazu said. “Listen, there is a tax, you know, on success.”
“Huh?”
“If you do well at anything, you gotta pay up to all the people who did worse. On the other hand, if you do badly, life makes you pay a shit tax, too. Everybody pays something.”
Kazu looked at him soberly.
“Of course, the worst one is the tax on the mediocre. Now, that one’s a bitch.” Kazu tossed his cigarette and crossed his arms. “Pay attention: The ones who pay the shit tax are mostly people who were born in the wrong place and the wrong time and are hanging on to the planet by their broken fingernails. They don’t even know the fucking rules of the game. You can’t even get mad at ’em when they lose. Life just fucks and fucks and fucks bastards like that.” Kazu wrinkled his brow in resignation, like he was somewhat concerned about life’s inequities but not very. He took a deep breath. “So, those losers have to climb Mount Everest to get out of hell, and maybe one or two in five hundred thousand break out, but the rest pay the shit tax all their lives, then they die. If God exists and if He’s fair, then it makes sense that in the afterlife, those guys should get the better seats.”
Solomon nodded, not understanding where this was going.
Kazu’s stare remained unbroken. “But all those able-bodied middle-class people who are scared of their shadows, well, they pay the mediocre tax in regular quarterly installments with compounding interest. When you play it safe, that’s what happens, my friend. So if I were you, I wouldn’t throw any games. I’d use every fucking advantage. Beat anyone who fucks with you to a fucking pulp. Show no mercy to chumps, especially if they don’t deserve it. Make the pussies cry.”
“So then the success tax comes from envy, and the shit tax comes from exploitation. Okay.” Solomon nodded like he was starting to get it. “Then what’s the mediocre tax? How can it be wrong to—?”
“Good question, young Jedi. The tax for being mediocre comes from you and everyone else knowing that you are mediocre. It’s a heavier tax than you’d think.”
Solomon had never thought of such a thing before. It wasn’t like he saw himself as terribly special, but he’d never seen himself as mediocre, either. Perhaps it was unspoken, even to himself, but he did want to be good at something.
“Jedi, understand this: There’s nothing fucking worse than knowing that you’re just like everybody else. What a messed-up, lousy existence. And in this great country of Japan—the birthplace of all my fancy ancestors—everyone, everyone wants to be like everyone else. That’s why it is such a safe place to live, but it’s also a dinosaur village. It’s extinct, pal. Carve up your piece and invest your spoils elsewhere. You’re a young man, and someone should tell you the real truth about this country. Japan is not fucked because it lost the war or did bad things. Japan is fucked because there is no more war, and in peacetime everyone actually wants to be mediocre and is terrified of being different. The other thing is that the elite Japanese want to be English and white. That’s pathetic, delusional, and merits another discussion entirely.”
Solomon thought some of this made sense. Everyone he knew who was really Japanese did think he was middle-class even when he wasn’t. Rich kids at his high school whose fathers owned several country-club memberships worth millions and millions thought of themselves as middle-class. His uncle Noa, whom he’d never met, had apparently killed himself because he wanted to be Japanese and normal.
An empty taxi approached them, but Solomon didn’t notice, and Kazu smiled.
“So, yeah, idiots are going to get on your case and notice that your dad owns pachinko parlors. And how do people know this?”
“I never talk about it.”
“Everyone knows, Solomon. In Japan, you’re either a rich Korean or a poor Korean, and if you are a rich Korean, there’s a pachinko parlor in your background somewhere.”
“My dad is a great guy. He’s incredibly honest.”
“I’m sure he is.” Kazu faced him squarely, his arms still crossed against his chest.
Solomon hesitated but said it anyway: “He’s not some gangster. He doesn’t do bad things. He’s an ordinary businessman. He pays all his taxes and does everything by the book. There are some shady guys in the business, but my dad is incredibly precise and moral. He owns three parlors. It’s not like—”
Kazu nodded reassuringly.
“My father’s never taken anything that wasn’t his; he doesn’t even care about money. He gives away so much of it—”
Etsuko had told him that Mozasu paid the nursing home bills for several of his employees.
“Solly, Solly. No, man, there’s no need to explain. It’s not like Koreans had a lot of choices in regular professions. I’m sure he chose pachinko because there wasn’t much else. He’s probably an excellent businessman. You think your poker skills came out of a vacuum? Maybe your dad could have worked for Fuji or Sony, but it wasn’t like they were going to hire a Korean, right? I doubt they’d hire you now, Mr. Columbia University. Japan still doesn’t hire Koreans to be teachers, cops, and nurses in lots of places. You couldn’t even rent your own apartment in Tokyo, and you make good money. It’s fucking 1989! Anyway, you can be polite about it, but that’s fucked up. I’m Japanese but I’m not stupid. I lived in America and Europe for a long time; it’s crazy what the Japanese have done to the Koreans and the Chinese who were born here. It’s fucking bonkers; you people should have a revolution. You don’t protest enough. You and your dad were born here, right?”
Solomon nodded, not understanding why Kazu was getting so worked up about this.
“Even if your dad was a hit man, I wouldn’t give a shit. And I wouldn’t turn him in.”
“But he’s not.”
“No, kid, of course he’s not,” Kazu said, smiling. “Go home to your girlfriend. I heard she’s a looker and smart. That’s good. Because in the end, brains matter more than you think,” he said, laughing.
Kazu hailed a taxi and told Solomon to take it before him. Everyone said that Kazu wasn’t like regular bosses, and it was true.
A week later, he put Solomon on the new real estate deal, and Solomon was the youngest one on the team. This was the cool transaction that all the guys in the office wanted. One of Travis’s heavyweight banking clients wanted to purchase land in Yokohama to build a world-class golf course. Nearly all the details had been worked out; they needed to get three of the remaining landowners to sign on. Two were not impossible, just expensive, but the third was a headache—the old woman had no interest in money and could not be bought out. Her lot was where the eleventh hole would be. At the morning meeting, with the client present, two of the banking directors gave a strong presentation about the beneficial ways of structuring the mortgage, and Solomon took careful notes. Right before the meeting broke up, Kazu mentioned casually that the old woman was still holding up progress. The client smiled at Kazu and said, “No doubt, you will be able to handle the matter. We are confident.”
Kazu smiled politely.
The client left quickly, and everyone else scattered out of the conference room shortly thereafter. Kazu stopped Solomon before he had a chance to return to his desk.
“What are you doing for lunch, Solly?”
“I was going to grab something from downstairs. Why? What’s up?”
“Let’s go for a drive.”
The chauffeur took them to the old woman’s lot in Yokohama. The gray concrete building was in decent condition, and the front yard was well maintained. No one seemed to be home. An ancient pine tree cast a triangular shade across the facade of the square structure, and a thin brook gurgled from the back of the house. It was a former fabric-dyeing factory and now the private residence of the woman. Her children were dead, and there were no obvious heirs.
“So how do you get a person to do what you want when she doesn’t want to?” Kazu asked.
“I don’t know,” Solomon said. He’d figured that this was a kind of field trip for Kazu, and his boss wanted the company. Rarely did Kazu go anywhere alone.
The car was parked in the wide, dusty street opposite the old woman’s lot. If she was home, she would have noticed the black town car idling not ten yards from her house. But no one came outside or stirred within.
Kazu stared at the house.
“So this is where Sonoko Matsuda lives. The client is confident that I can get Matsuda-san to sell.”
“Can you?” Solomon asked.
“I think so, but I don’t know how,” Kazu said.
“This will sound stupid, but how can you get her to sign if you don’t know how?” Solomon asked.
“I’m making a wish, Solly. I’m making a wish. Sometimes, that’s how it starts.”
Kazu asked the chauffeur to take them to an unagi restaurant not far from there.