Part 20 (1/2)
The beam vanished. ”Answer the question or I shoot you both.”
Ken sighed. ”It's me, Jiro.”
”Ken-san?”
”Hai.”
”Oh, wow. Sorry dude. I thought you were one of those drunks from down the way. They're always taking pot shots at my door. One of them ruined the rust I've been cultivating. You see that s.h.i.+t?”
Ken nodded. ”Could we maybe think about coming in? We've still got to find rooms for tonight after we get what we need from you.”
Jiro backed away from the door and Annja could see him for the first time. He looked all of about twenty years old with short, bristly, jet-black hair sticking out at all angles from his scalp. He was dressed in black jeans and a gray sweats.h.i.+rt. From inside the building, Annja could make out the steady thumping of a ba.s.s line.
”Took you long enough to open the door,” Ken said. ”My companion was getting nervous about your neighbors.”
Jiro eyed Annja. ”Sorry about that. Got the tunes crankin' upstairs. I'm Jiro.”
”Annja.”
Jiro glanced back at Ken and said something in j.a.panese. Ken frowned. ”That'll be enough.”
Jiro backed away from the door. ”This way, folks.”
He led them down a short corridor to an old elevator. He pulled back the grate and stepped inside. Annja and Ken managed to fit, as well, but only just.
Jiro slid the grate shut. ”Next stop, the store.”
The elevator whined as it strained to reach the upper level. At last, Annja made out ambient light spilling out of the rooms upstairs. The elevator ground to a halt and Jiro opened the grate again.
”Welcome.”
Annja stepped out and was met with stacks upon stacks of crates and boxes, all with lettering in a variety of languages.
”What is this place?” she asked.
Ken stood beside her. ”You've been doing well for yourself, Jiro.”
”Yeah, business is pretty decent.”
The music was louder up there. Jiro found the remote and turned it down. ”Sorry. I wasn't expecting anyone tonight.”
Ken shook his head. ”Didn't you tell me once that all of your customers drop by unannounced?”
”Well, yeah, but-”
”Here we are,” Ken said. ”And we need stuff.”
Annja cleared her throat. ”Are you going to answer my question?”
Ken pointed at Jiro. ”His place, he should explain.”
Jiro bowed. ”I'm a bit of a collector. Other people rip stuff off and I take it in and resell it. I'm a distributor of sorts.”
”You're a fence,” Annja said. ”You traffic in stolen goods.”
Jiro frowned. ”You make it sound so dirty.”
”It is illegal.”
Jiro sighed. ”Man, just when I thought Ken might have scored himself a really cool babe, you gotta go and pull that holier-than-thou c.r.a.p. Yeah, it's stolen, but so what? I'm just taking a small piece of the pie away from the big corporate suckholes who profit endlessly from cheap labor and tax breaks. They're the bigger thieves.”
”And Jiro doesn't actually steal the stuff himself,” Ken said. ”He just sells it at a bit of a profit.”
Annja glanced at him. ”You're defending this?”
”Sure.”
”I find that interesting given everything we've talked about in relation to good versus evil.”
Ken smiled. ”I told you I used the Yakuza for their connections. I told you I paid them a decent sum of money for their help. And they are as illegal as they come. Why are you so shocked that I would use other illegal channels to achieve my goals?”
Annja shrugged. ”I just thought that you might steer away from this stuff.”
Jiro leaned against a crate. ”It's a little different here than back Stateside, Annja. Sometimes things are intertwined in such a way that it's almost impossible to separate them. And I happen to supply lots of people from a pretty broad spectrum.”
Ken held out his hands. ”And we certainly need his help.”
”We do?” Annja asked.
”You know of any other stores in Ueno that are going to carry what we need at this time of night?”
”No.”
”Neither do I. And besides, I always believe in trying to throw a few bucks to my friends if I can manage it.”
”Just a few?” Jiro asked. ”I would have left the door locked if I'd known you weren't going to make it worth my time.”
Ken sighed. ”We need stuff for hiking and camping in the mountains.”
”Which mountains?”
Ken raised an eyebrow. ”The ones around here.”
Jiro held up a hand. ”Hey, my man, you never know what people are going to ask for. I had a guy in here last month going to Kathmandu looking for some serious gear to handle the big stuff. How am I supposed to know what your plans are?”
”All right, just get us outfitted, will you? And try to make it compact. We don't need the five-star treatment, just the bare necessities.”