Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [71]
What was she hoping for? I wondered.
Had it been a casual idea on the spur of the moment? Or had something occurred to make her put off bringing us together until the very last minute? Or had she reckoned she could use my unpreparedness to advantage by means of this unexpected encounter?
“Do you take turns being man in charge?”
“No.”
His businesslike, unfeeling tone was, of course, put on. The resulting expressionlessness had ironed smooth the creases of feeling, so that within himself he adroitly balanced absolute submission against absolute resistance. Dealing with such a fellow outside a cage was next to impossible. Once in the cage together perhaps one would have to challenge him to a dangerous gamble: bite or be bitten. But I had no time to try that here.
“I imagine you’re at something of a loss … all of you … with your head man dying so suddenly.”
“Right.”
“Are you the only one left to take charge? Or will you get someone from outside to be head man?”
“Maybe we’ll split up.”
“Why?”
“The leaders of the Association had trouble with the dead boss. Because minors are easy to spot. Kids run away from home and form gangs of toughs who suck the blood of other runaways. Once they’re found out the police are on their tail, and they can’t do anything.”
Kids who run away from home … something passed through my mind, leaving shock waves in its wake. Kids who left home … If the brother had been the head of an organization that preyed on boys who ran away from home, it would be only natural for him to have a completely different point of view from us concerning the husband’s disappearance. I wondered if she knew this. Was it because she knew it that it occurred to her to have me meet this boy?
“I read the messages of condolence for the whole bunch.” He constantly shifted his body, perhaps trying to escape from the stifling atmosphere, and abruptly he became defiant. “It made me cry. The boss really had a heart. It made me cry. No matter how many times we were raided we never let anything out. Not one of us wants to go back home. The leaders of the Association never understood. Everybody liked the boss. They really loved him. Wait and see. We’ll do something, one way or another; we’re not going to drop things here.”
“But the criminal has been arrested by the police, I heard.”
“Don’t be stupid. He was a scapegoat. The boss was done in with a pistol. How could workmen in temporary quarters have pistols?”
“Do you have anyone particularly in mind?”
“Well …”
“The Association head doesn’t approve, does he?”
“That’s why I said that maybe we’ll split up.”
“I wonder if the money’ll keep coming in.”
“Ah. Our customers are the best. The kids out front are all sexy, too.”
Perhaps at long last I was able to understand just what sort of work was involved. It was somehow unbelievable that there was not a single one of the gang at the microbus stand in the river bed, but … high-type customers … sexy kids. A gang of boys who were in the homosexual business, and the brother pulled the strings. If this one handled things cleverly, maybe he could get by without getting entangled with the law. But not just anyone could manage it. There’s got to be a marriage of taste and profit. Thinking of it in this way, I understood the meaning of the tawdry impression the funeral made. I would imagine everybody in the Association was embarrassed by this group. So the executives