Chapter 4

The Client

At eleven on Friday morning, I went down from the second floor and knocked on the door of Landlord Kim's management office on the first.

I couldn't hand it over envelope and all. I took the ten Shin Saimdangs out of the envelope and put them in my wallet, then pulled a 1.3-million-won card loan from the bank ATM and bundled it all together. The card loan rate was 17.9 percent a year. In ten years of brokering commercial property, I'd told clients dozens of times: whatever you do, don't take a card loan.

When Kim took the 1.8 million won, he didn't count it bill by bill. He gauged the thickness once with his hand and nodded. Building owners in this neighborhood don't count money. They know it by the thickness.

"The rest by next month."

"Yes, sir."

"Mr. Bong, you didn't push yourself too hard for this, did you?"

"I didn't."

Kim looked at me for a moment, then closed the office door. On my way back up the stairs, I touched my inside jacket pocket. The empty envelope was in there.

Now I couldn't give it back. To give it back I'd have to find 500,000 won somewhere again, and that 500,000 was already in Kim's safe. Money I'd been holding had turned into money I'd spent.

Back in the office, I almost threw the empty envelope in the trash, then just tucked it between the binders on my desk. Throwing it away would get rid of the evidence. Evidence of what, I didn't know myself.

In the afternoon, Cheolho came by. He had a convenience store bag. Two banana milks and four triangle kimbap.

"Boss, you haven't had lunch, right? Mrs. Park said you've been skipping meals lately."

"...Cheolho, use that money to pay your interest."

"This isn't my money. I got it doing a bag-carrying gig yesterday. Eighty thousand won for the day."

Which meant it was Cheolho's money. I took a banana milk and stuck the straw in. Milk hitting a stomach that only ever got coffee mix felt strange.

Cheolho sat on the sofa and held out his phone. A hunter community board was up on the screen. The title: "Got scammed on a jeonse dungeon. Anyone know a guy named Cha Gapdon?" Views: 3,200. Forty comments.

"I posted it last night. I figured I wasn't the only one who got hit. And there really were others! Someone in the comments got scammed in Bongcheon, and there's one from Sadang too. I thought if we all got together, it might give us some leverage."

With the straw still in my mouth, I scrolled down through the comments. Mixed in between the victims' comments were a few short ones. The usernames were all different, but the tone was similar. That guy was always easy to reach, though? If there's an appraisal, it's probably not a scam. OP, did you actually read your contract?

Comments like that showing up on a victim's post were common. Except these had all landed at once, exactly twenty minutes after the post went up.

"Cheolho, delete this post."

"What? Why? People are just starting to gather..."

"Victims aren't the only ones reading it."

Cheolho blinked. Then he looked at the screen again and stared for a long time at those comments with their all-different usernames. His face went pale bit by bit.

"...Do you think Gap-dol saw it?"

"Who knows. But moving as if he did is the cheaper bet."

Cheolho deleted the post right there. After deleting it, he set his phone face-down on his knee and sat still for a long time. I unwrapped one of the triangle kimbap and set it in front of him. Tuna mayo.

After Cheolho left, I opened my phone. Gap-dol's texts had been coming in three times a day all week.

Boss~ When are you sending clients??
Boss there's another C-rank next to 4-11 this one's really gonna go fast~
Boss?? Busy??

The number of tildes and question marks went up every time. If I didn't bring clients, I hadn't earned the envelope. People like Gap-dol don't hand out envelopes for free. If you don't do 500,000 won worth of work, that 500,000 comes back later as something else. Usually as a threat.

So I made up a client.

"Sir, my client keeps hesitating. She's about to get married, and she wants to see the appraisal original. Not a copy. There's been a lot of news about forged appraisals lately."

On the other end of the line, Gap-dol went quiet for a moment. Then he burst out laughing.

"Oh, those are the clients who buy best. Suspicious people, once they trust you, they trust you all the way. I'll show you the original. See you tonight at that karaoke place in Bongcheon."

Bongcheon 2-8 Dungeon. The dead karaoke bar. The glow-in-the-dark stars were still there.

Gap-dol sat on the sofa with his legs crossed, waving a document envelope. Today, instead of the checkered jacket, he wore a navy knit sweater. The gold chain was the same.

"The original. Look, look. State-certified seal."

The original appraisal was on thicker paper than the copy, and the seal was stamped plump in red ink. The appraiser was Heo Wijeong, the grade was C, and it was dated seven months ago.

"Is this appraiser famous?"

"Doesn't need to be famous. State-certified is enough. Boss, you think banks lend because they trust the appraisal?"

"They don't?"

"Banks trust the guarantee insurance. If there's a certified appraisal, the guarantee insurance company issues a guarantee, and if there's a guarantee, the bank releases the loan. Even if it blows up later, the bank just collects from the insurer, so they don't lose anything. And the insurer went by the certified appraisal, so procedurally there's no problem."

"Then what about the appraiser?"

"The appraiser just says, 'It was C-rank on the day I appraised it,' and that's the end of it. Dungeons change in a few months, right? Who's going to prove otherwise? So nobody looks again. Nobody has a reason to."

Gap-dol rattled on happily while I nodded along. Maybe because it was the kind of bragging he couldn't do in front of just anyone, his mouth got loose around someone he believed was on his side. The 500,000-won envelope had made me that someone.

"But how many dungeons do you own, sir? For someone like me, buying even one is a stretch."

"Oh, it's not my money I'm buying with."

Gap-dol waved a hand.

"There's someone up top who fronts the money. I'm just the guy who keeps it rolling. If you want to go big later, I'll introduce you. He's not interested in places like Sillim. He only does the big ones."

"The big ones?"

"Gangnam. Eventually it all goes to Gangnam."

I smiled and turned the page of the appraisal. Someone up top fronting the money. And Gangnam.

"But, sir."

I deliberately put on a slightly nervous face. The face of a naive neighborhood realtor. I'd practiced this face for ten years.

"If I bring a client... and something goes wrong later. If the tenant asks for the deposit back. I'm a licensed realtor, so I'd carry some liability..."

Gap-dol got up from the sofa. Then he put his arm around my shoulders. His sweater smelled of cologne.

"Boss, don't worry. When that happens, you just pass it on."

"Pass it on?"

"The title. Any dungeon that looks like it's going to be trouble, you transfer it to someone else ahead of time. As a sale. Then the tenant has to ask the new owner for the deposit, right? But the new owner has bad credit. Doesn't own a thing. Then that's it. There's nowhere to collect from."

"...And who plays the new owner?"

"Plenty of people like that. Give 'em 500,000 won and they'll stamp their seal."

Gap-dol grinned. A gentle face. The moment the number 500,000 came out, I thought of the empty envelope tucked between the binders.

"I've already passed on two of mine. And that kid—Cheolho or whatever—his one, 7-2, I'm passing that on next week too. Kid posted about it online. He deleted it, but I'd already seen everything."

I smiled. Still smiling, I slid the appraisal back into its envelope and handed it over. My hands didn't shake. Ten years at the contract table had trained them.

Next week.

Once 7-2 goes over to a straw owner, Cheolho has to sue a man with bad credit. Even if he wins, it's paper. Han Soyeong's 4-11 would go the same way eventually, just in a different order.

There was less time than I thought.

Halfway up the karaoke stairs, I stopped.

"Sir, do you have something like a listing sheet? My client might want to see more than just 4-11. So she can compare and pick."

Gap-dol looked up at me from the bottom of the stairs. A brief, measuring look. Then he shrugged.

"Sure I've got a list. But that doesn't go out. If you want to see it yourself, come by my office. Tomorrow afternoon. It's an officetel near Gangnam Station."

"Tomorrow afternoon."

"Boss, you're really bringing that client, right?"

"Of course I am."

I climbed the rest of the stairs. Convenience store light was smeared across the Bongcheon night street. I went into a convenience store and bought a box of coffee mix. The hundred-stick box. As I handed my card over at the counter, I realized it was the very card I'd pulled this month's card loan on.

An empty envelope, a 1.3-million-won card loan, and next week.

The math was simple. Before Gap-dol passed on 7-2, I had to find something among his holdings that was worth real money. If it wasn't there, I'd end up as the neighborhood realtor who sold out his clients for 500,000 won. All I could do was hope it was on that list tomorrow.

I sat down on a plastic chair under the parasol outside the store and tore the box open. I emptied the first of the hundred sticks into a paper cup and went back in for hot water from the dispenser by the register.

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