Fair Trade

“Let’s stop arguing about who is using whom. I didn’t fly all the way here from Washington to argue with you.”

As she shrugging her shoulders, the food she ordered arrived. Sei gave a tip and asked for many napkins.

“Hey, Rose. Giulio Parenti and Yuri Petrov. You managed to survive these two. What do you think is the reason?”

“Because I’m a little attractive. Even when I asked them both to kill me they couldn’t come to kill me.”

“Well… I admit you have a unique charm. So, changing the question, why did Giulio Parenti appoint you as a mule?”

Gavin turned his words around, but Sei knew what he meant. Taking a pen out of her bag, she began to write something on the napkin.

“You have to ask Giulio that. Why are you asking me that? I’ve never been curious. People like him usually need someone to do their odd jobs.”

“Rose, do you really not know who you’re dealing with now? David Meyer is stinking rich from his arms and drug smuggling. He supports things related to prostitution, kidnapping, and contract killings. The Petrov family is what such a guy trusts the most, and Giulio knows that very well. Though Giulio is also a great guy his problem is that he is too emotional to be a powerful mafia leader.”

“What do you want to say?”

“I want to exterminate all the evil parasites, and cockroaches of society. So I need your help. You’re the only one involved with both of them.”

“I’m sorry, but I ran away from Giulio Parenti. Of course, I will have to go back again. But I’ll run away again. I’ve decided I am not going to be working for Giulio Parenti.”

The conversation between the two was drowned out by the loud noise around them. Sei hadn’t even touched her hamburger yet. Thinking about it, she began to unwrap her burger and remove the lettuce from inside.

“There are so many great criminals in the world, why are you so obsessed with them?”

While she was licking the mayonnaise on her hand, she took a bite of the meat and bread separately. She still had a pen in her left hand.

“…Logan Smith, my younger brother.  We had a big age difference. He wanted to be a cop like me, but the guy who went to the football game came back as a corpse. Of course I almost became crazy from digging around about his case. But Carlos, who was closest to Logan, said something strange. It’s the mafia who killed Logan.

He said it was the mafia who killed Logan. The reason was…  they didn’t like the way he looked at them. Logan was only sixteen. Besides, he had poor eyesight, so he wore lenses when working out, but in his autopsy, he wasn’t wearing his lenses. The situation was so ridiculous.”

His voice trembled as if he was overcome with emotion, but then he continued with a clear tone.

“Of course, I caught the criminal. Do you know who it was? Before you, there was a guy named Elio who worked as Giulio’s courier. I was about to arrest him for first degree murder. But, Giulio Parenti shot him in the head mercilessly. He ran away to hell before he could be punished.”

Sei folded the napkin without saying a word.

The grief of losing his family. There was an unexpected drama about him. After listening to it, she understood the man’s sadness and his desire for revenge.  When she didn’t say anything, he lowered his voice, looking serious.

“All that’s left now is Yuri Petrov’s stuff that Jang Young-guk stole. It’s something I’ve been watching for a long time. I figured if I handed it over to Giulio Parenti, Yuri would take him down. But Jang Young-guk intervened in the middle. It killed an innocent citizen and I had to protect your father.”

“…Then you deprived him of his freedom in the name of protection?”

“A life with a leash may be better than dog death.”

“Do you think my dad is satisfied with it?”

“Sei.”

When he called out her real name, Sei only moved her eyes to look at her surrounding.

Gavin would never have come to her alone. It wouldn’t be strange if everyone in here were the FBI disguised as guests.

Thoughtfully, she fidgeted with the burger bag and suddenly she crumpled it.

“If you don’t have anything to say…”

“Hand over the item. Then I’ll help you.  You and Jang Young-guk. And I’ll even send your mother to Korea. In that place, the three of you…You will be safe.”

“Thank you. However… there is no safe place in this world.”

Sei dropped the napkin in her hand in front of him. Then, after bidding farewell to the owner with a smile, she went outside.

No wonder Sei cut him off at an unnatural timing and left. Gavin lowered his gaze to the napkin she dropped a while ago. He looked around him warily and was about to pick up a napkin when a waitress, who was wearing exceptionally high heels, gently stepped on it.

Gavin raised his head and frowned. But he couldn’t ask her to move her feet. While trampling on it, the woman said, ‘You left this much?’ and cleared Sei’s place.

‘Damn it, damn it…!’

The napkin was completely crushed and soaked in someone’s spilled cola. Gavin swallowed back swear words and carefully straightened the crumpled napkin.

“…What is this?”

The napkin, which he thought would have something important written on it, only had the mascot of the hamburger store.

‘Are you kidding with me? No, that can’t be true.’

Gavin placed a tip and card on top of the bilge and called the waitress. Then, while the payment was being made, he looked over at the seat where Sei had been sitting a moment ago. Then, under the table that the waitress had cleared, he saw the bag of burgers she had crumpled down.

Gavin nimbly picked it up with his beastly hunch and hid it, and as soon as he got back his card, he ran out of the burger house and into his parked car. He looked around him nervously and opened the crumpled burger bag.  An excited smile spread across his face.

“I knew it wouldn’t be normal.”

*  *  *

Sei received the address of Chloe’s new house. She climbed the stairs contemplating how many cameras should be installed there. The old hydraulic lifts of her apartment used to test her patience, so she took the stairs as it was faster.

‘Please, I need you to notice that the waitress is a fake….’

Was she from Yuri Petrov’s side or from Giulio Parenti’s?  Or maybe it was some other force, but Sei could feel a murderous spirit disguised with kindness in that woman.

Arriving in front of the house with muffled footsteps, she found a broken doorknob.

Even with safe cameras and security, if it’s someone bold enough to blow up the door handle….

Just when Sei, who was lost in her thoughts, had a bad premonition and was scanning the place to escape, “Come in if you don’t want a hole in your head.”