Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era (Bungo Stray Dogs 2)

His name was Ango Sakaguchi. Dressed in a business jacket and round glasses, he looked like an academic, but he was actually one of us. Ango was the Mafia’s personal informant.

“Hey, Ango! Long time no see! Looking good!” Dazai raised a hand with a smile.

“You’re calling this ‘looking good’? I just got back from doing business in Tokyo…and it was a day trip. I’m as worn out as an old newspaper.”

Ango twisted his neck back and forth as he seated himself atop the bar stool next to Dazai. Then he took off the small crimson leather bag hanging over his shoulder and placed it on the counter.

“Barkeep, the usual, please.”

The bartender almost immediately set a golden liquid down on the counter before Ango. He had started making the drink the moment he heard him walking down the stairs. The foam rose out of the glass, glistening serenely in the glow of the low-hanging lights.

“Business trip, huh? Lucky dog. I wanna go hang out in Tokyo, too. Barkeep, more canned crab,” Dazai said, shaking the empty can. There were already three empty cans in front of him.

“Hang out? Not everyone in the Mafia lives to kill time like you, Dazai. I was actually working.”

“If you ask me, Ango,” Dazai continued, a fresh piece of canned crab between his fingers, “everything in this world is just a way to kill time until we’re dead. Anyway, what kind of work was it?”

Ango’s gaze briefly wandered before he replied, “Fishing.”

“Oh, nice. Catch anything?”

“Nothing. It was a waste of time. I heard there were going to be some top-grade items from Europe, but it ended up being nothing more than the usual junk you’d see at a local flea market.”

Fishing is code in the syndicate for purchasing smuggled goods. Usually, the goods we bought were weapons or illegal articles made abroad. On rare occasions, there’d be fine art and jewels as well.

“There was an antique watch that wasn’t so bad, though. It was crafted by a watchmaker during the late Middle Ages. It’s probably a fake, but someone will be willing to pay for such fine craftsmanship.”

Ango gave us a glimpse of a box wrapped in paper inside his bag. On top of it were things he brought with him during his business trip, such as a small umbrella and cigarettes.

“…What time did the deal end?” Dazai suddenly asked while observing the goods.

“Eight PM. And I came straight back after it was over.” Ango smirked wryly before adding, “At any rate, I did what I was paid for, so it looks like I’m not going to be fired today.”

“That’s pretty meek coming from you, Ango Sakaguchi—you’re the man who knows everything about the Mafia,” Dazai added with a smile.

Ango, the Mafia’s personal informant, exchanged secret information with other syndicates. He wasn’t affiliated with any of the executives’ factions. The boss gave him direct orders for when a deal would take place, and he formed alliances with other syndicates, sometimes acting as a mediator to convey critical and highly sensitive information involving collusion, defection, betrayal, and the like. Put simply, he was a secret messenger. Almost all the important information that decided the course of the syndicate went through Ango before reaching the boss. Naturally, if he were tortured to talk, the intel he could provide about the Mafia would be worth more than gold. A role as essential as his could not be left in the hands of an idiot. It required someone as tough as wrought-iron wire.

“Compared with the youngest executive in Port Mafia history, my achievements are no different from a schoolboy’s. By the way, are the two of you here today for a meeting of some sort?”

“Were we, Odasaku?”

“No,” I answered in Dazai’s place. “We didn’t plan this. Dazai just happened to be here when I came by.”

Stuff like this happened all the time.

“Oh, really? I just had a feeling I’d run into you both if I came here tonight, so here I am.” Dazai grinned, as if amused by his own words.

“Did you need us for something?” asked Ango.

“Not really. I just thought if I came here, it’d be one of those nights. That’s all.”

Dazai then flicked his glass with his fingernail.

I knew what he was trying to say. We often gathered at this bar as if we were trying to avoid something. Then we would shoot the breeze under the guise of “communication” until the dead of night. We frequently ran into one another here for some reason. Even though we were all part of the same syndicate, Dazai was an executive, Ango an informant, and I a bottom-of-the-pecking-order grunt with no title to speak of. Under normal circumstances, we shouldn’t have even known one another’s names, much less drunk together. But here, we could hang out regardless of position or age. Perhaps it was thanks to our vast differences in the Mafia’s hierarchy.

“By the way…,” Dazai abruptly muttered while staring off into space. “Odasaku, it’s been a while since we all started drinking here together, and yet, I’ve still never really heard you complain about work.”

“I agree. Unlike Dazai and myself, your work is somewhat unique.”