The Taste of Lies Chapter 21

In the vacant lot where construction had long been halted, seeds that had blown in from somewhere sprouted and weeds grew thickly. Around autumn, when the aster and cosmos would be in full bloom there, Sangtae buried a cat and poured out every last drop of the bottle of whiskey he had brought.

The sweet smell of liquor was terribly sorrowful. No tears came.

In just under thirty minutes, Sangtae returned to the nightclub. He hadn’t been gone long, but the bouncers’ atmosphere was unusual.

“What happened? Everyone’s faces… Did you get chewed out by the managers?”

“Ah, never mind that. Go over to the office. Answer whatever the manager hyung-nims ask you properly.”

The oldest one answered, his cheek swollen. Something had clearly happened, but even if he asked, it didn’t seem like he’d get an answer. Reluctantly, he shook his hands clean and headed toward the back door behind the building. A mere bouncer couldn’t use the entrance the guests used.

“Whoa―!”

Sangtae flinched. A harsh impact sound and a man’s scream greeted him. He hesitated at the entrance of the corridor lit with red light.

The sounds coming through were brutal.

Someone was being beaten collectively.

He had heard that not only the manager Ki and the floor manager, but even the owner who stayed holed up in the office and never showed his face, was a gangster. He himself had been a neighborhood punk, and punks and gangsters were on different levels.

Should he go in?

Even if he later lied that he hadn’t heard them call because there were too many customers, wouldn’t it be wiser to avoid this moment for now?

Just as his hips were about to retreat backward, hot air blew out from inside. The steel door, left a hand’s breadth ajar, clanked open and banged against the outside wall.

“Who’s there?”

An angry voice came from inside. Sangtae frowned and gritted his teeth.

Damn, I’ve been caught. Now it’s no use trying to run. If they interrogated the bouncers, they’d quickly figure out that the one who came and ran off was him.

“I heard you were looking for me….”

He stretched out his words and made his voice as polite as possible.

“Are you the cat?”

A burly man who popped out from inside asked abruptly. Sangtae couldn’t understand the question and just looked back and forth between the name tag on his chest and the burly man. The name tag read “Mr. Fox.” Still, correcting the burly man’s words would only get him beaten worse with no return, judging by the atmosphere.

The hesitation lengthened. The burly man asked again in an angry tone.

“I’m asking if you’re the bastard who threw away the cat!”

“Yes, that’s right. It’s me. I was told to bury it properly, so I was just coming back from doing that.”

You should have asked that way from the start. Sangtae nodded.

“…Huh! Why are you doing this? Let go of me!”

The burly man grabbed Sangtae by the collar and walked down the corridor. The shirt buttoned all the way to the neck choked him. Even as he pleaded, coughing and gagging, that he’d walk on his own feet so please let go, the burly man didn’t loosen his stubborn grip.

“Hyung-nim, I’ve brought him.”

The burly man threw Sangtae, who he’d dragged along. Sangtae pitched forward and smashed his nose into the moldy-smelling carpet. Next to him, he heard a sobbing sound. It was the voice of the person who’d been beaten.

Fuck, I’m screwed.

He didn’t know the details, but he knew that much.

Still lying prone, he rolled his eyeballs upward. He saw women’s slender ankles and high-heeled sandals, crocodile leather shoes, and black shoes that would suit a funeral parlor. In addition, a handful of mixed nuts that had fallen right before his nose.

This wasn’t an office—it was a karaoke room for drinking and singing. And one reserved only for big spenders.

“You’re the one who got the cat from Gicheol and went to bury it?”

A question dropped from above. The voice was different from the burly man’s. It carried the weight of years, so Sangtae answered while still lying down.

“Yes. And?”

“This bastard!”

“This fucker got it right!”

As soon as he answered, the surroundings stirred. The man with the weight of years silenced the ones making threatening noise and asked again.

“And you’re the same bastard who took a bottle of whiskey from the back liquor storage before going to bury the cat?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with…”

Tsk tsk, a tongue-clicking sound was heard.

“Ugh!”

As if that sound were a signal, a leather shoe kicked Sangtae. The women shrieked in surprise. In his upside-down field of vision, Gicheol and a waiter, beaten into bloody pulps, knelt down.

Something had gone terribly wrong. Even saying “I’m screwed” wasn’t enough.

The kicks continued.

He could have grabbed an ankle and tripped his opponent, but Sangtae didn’t do that. Even if he took down one, the next would clearly hit him twice as hard.

Besides, the atmosphere felt like he shouldn’t.

But he couldn’t just take a random beating forever, so he curled his body like a snail and groaned, enduring the violence.

“Stop. Our chief is getting upset.”

Another voice cut in. Miraculously, the kicks stopped abruptly.

The crocodile leather shoes walked over with a thud-thud and lightly tapped Sangtae’s temple. Sangtae trembled and raised his gaze upward.

Above the crocodile leather shoes, a mirror ball glittered. Scattering red, yellow, green, and blue light, the mirror ball looked just like a demon’s halo.

As the crocodile shoes gave a slight chin gesture, the burly man who had dragged Sangtae here quickly took out a cigarette, placed it between his lips, and lit it. Sangtae swallowed. His mouth tasted bloody.

Phew. After blowing a long stream of smoke, the crocodile shoes said to Sangtae.

“Do you know what kind of liquor you stole?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Then how did a clueless bastard like you manage to pick out the one bottle of 12 million won whiskey that we had set aside? The one we were saving to serve a VIP guest? Thanks to you, I ended up serving our esteemed chief a cheap fake in a fancy bottle. Do you know how ridiculous I looked, you little vermin!”

Sizzle―

“Ah! …Huh, huk.”

The sound of searing flesh was chilling. Through the round, black-edged hole in his shirt, a burn as red as an ink pad and fingernail marks were visible. Even though the smell of burnt meat was coming from himself, it was nauseating.

Sangtae thought he understood why the man was angry at him. The gentleman in the crocodile leather shoes was the owner of the Mul Nightclub, and he had told the waiter to bring the premium liquor he had prepared in advance to serve a VIP guest. The waiter, thinking the counterfeit they had made for sale was the real thing, brought it, and at that moment Sangtae was pouring the real whiskey onto the cat’s grave.

And that was when the trouble started.

Since it was liquor his own establishment produced and sold, the owner would have quickly realized it was fake. The reception was cut short, and one by one, they interrogated those without alibis for the time the liquor went missing, eventually reaching Sangtae.

So, Sangtae had offered up a 12 million won whiskey to pray for the repose of a cat that had been hit by a car. Even as he thought he was truly screwed, a snort of laughter escaped him. He genuinely thought pouring it on a cat’s grave was a better use than feeding it to the mouths of gangsters.

“This crazy bastard is laughing?”

The shoe kicked him in the chest. Not content with kicking him in the solar plexus, the crocodile shoes stomped on his stomach, his arms, and his legs. Unable even to scream, Sangtae was pushed around and eventually flopped over onto Gicheol and the waiter’s bodies. They shoved him away as if he were filth.

Crash!

A thick glass shattered against the wall. Sangtae, still on the ground, was showered with glass shards.

“Mr. Shin.”

The black shoes turned at an angle. The women’s sandals fluttered like sparrows and disappeared from view. The crocodile leather shoes—Mr. Shin, the owner of the Mul Nightclub—answered politely.

“Yes, Chief.”

Chief.

He was today’s VIP guest. At the bottom of his low, heavy voice lay a mean streak.

“I had someone important to meet today, and I thought I’d invite you along too, Mr. Shin. But this kind of shoddy treatment—I find it very displeasing.”

“I’m sorry, Chief. How can I make up for this discourtesy…”

“Having those trashy faces sitting next to me and spoiling my mood is already a discourtesy, you gangster bastard.”

Smack!

A sound of flesh meeting and parting was heard. Sangtae unconsciously raised his head. The chief had slapped Mr. Shin across the face. Sangtae’s eyes widened. The chief’s face was not unfamiliar.

“Boss!”

“Hyung-nim! Are you all right?”