Bad Blood Read Online Free Page B

Japanese kids agree to this crazy deal in the first place. Eighteen, nineteen years old, selling themselves, three years of hard work in exchange for a trip to America. Maybe I could understand it if their country was one of those poor and dirty places, but Japan isn’t a poor country. You Japs got everything now, I told Hamabuchi. So why do they do it? I asked him.”
    D’Urso knew why, but he knew he was going to have to hear why again. Out of respect. “What did he say, Mr. Antonelli?”
    â€œThey make their kids crazy over there in Japan. Did you know they have to take tests to get into kindergarten over there? Can you imagine?”
    He thought about pointing out to the old man that rich kids right here in New York have to take tests to get into ritzy preschools, but he decided not to bother. Antonelli was hip; he just liked to pretend he was an ignorant old fool from the old country.
    â€œIn Japan these kids take tests all the time, and if they don’t pass, they’re finished. It makes these kids cuckoo. Hamabuchi told me that a lot of these kids go to school ten hours a day, six, seven days a week. But why? I asked him. He said because they all want good jobs with Panasonic and Sony and Toyota, all those big companies they got over there, and the only way to get an executive job is to go to one of the top colleges, but if they don’t get fantastic grades on these stupid tests, they end up going to a number-two school, which only gets them a so-so job with a so-so salary in a country where a lousy cup of coffee in a diner costs you five bucks. That’s why these kids agree to sell themselves to Hamabuchi’s gang.”
    D’Urso nodded. “The Fugukai.” He wanted to let the old man know he was still paying attention.
    â€œRight, the Fugukai. These’re kids who didn’t pass their college entrance exams. They feel hopeless, John. They don’t know where to turn. That’s when Hamabuchi’s people step in and sweet-talk them, show them that there’s still a chance for them, a chance to restore their honor , which is a big thing with these people. The Fugukai promise them a trip to America, the land of opportunity. If they agree to commit themselves to three years of on-the-job training—that’s just what they call it, too—then they can have room, board, and passage to America. These kids are so depressed, they agree to it like that.” The old man snapped his fingers, but D’Urso didn’t hear anything.
    D’Urso figured it was his turn to look smart. “And the beauty of it all is that we don’t have to honor their original deal with the Fugukai. They’re ours for as long as we want them. We can work these people for twenty, thirty, forty years. We pay off Hamabuchi in three, then after that we pocket roughly eighteen to twenty grand annually on each one. We’ve got twelve hundred in the country now, eighteen more on order . . .” D’Urso pulled out a pen and did some figuring on his napkin. “Three thousand slaves times eighteen grand a year is . . . fifty-four million a year for forty years. Not too bad.” So why don’t you let me have a better cut, you fucking old bastard you.
    Antonelli pressed his finger on top of a pignoli nut that had fallen off one of the cookies and put it in his mouth. D’Urso watched him chewing thoughtfully, staring out the window. It was just starting to rain. The old man was getting as inscrutable as the goddamn Japs.
    â€œThey can’t all be cooperating. These kids aren’t dummies. You must be having problems with some of them. It can’t be running that smooth.”
    D’Urso’s stomach tightened again. He suddenly remembered that priest who always interrogated him in the Confession box when he was a kid, the one who wouldn’t take his word for anything, who always assumed he was hiding some big mortal sin.
    â€œHamabuchi’s