Chapter 8
The man seemed used to people reacting to him with fear.
He casually snapped the cigarette he had been holding in his mouth.
Instead of a harsh smoky smell, it gave off a strange mint scent.
Then our eyes met. Even after hearing those people’s comments, I kept staring at him without looking scared, and he seemed a little puzzled by that.
‘I don’t know about scary.’
Of course I did not.
The standard I used to judge a man’s looks was Grandfather.
Back in his younger days, Grandfather’s nickname had not been Wolf, or Lion—
but Cerberus.
The three-headed dog of hell.
How could someone like me, who had grown up looking at the “dog of hell,” be afraid of an ordinary person?
‘Well, I can tell he’s at least somewhat handsome.’
The man had a high nose bridge and deep-set eyes. His gaze was sharp, but there was also something lazy about it.
‘But what does that matter?’
He was a man who came to take my money—and my lung health too.
I was just thinking about slamming the door shut when the man spoke first.
“Fine. Since you said with your own mouth that you are the owner, I’ll ask.”
At his next words, I realized something.
“Does this pawnshop deal in people too?”
“E-excuse me—?”
I had been completely wrong.
The man was neither one of Hugo’s people, nor a customer.
He was just—
‘some crazy lunatic…’
The lunatic, who seemed to have lost not only his manners but also his morals, casually added even more.
“It’s nothing special. I was hoping you might buy me.”
“Oh, that is very special.”
“Why? This is a pawnshop, isn’t it? You hand over an item and receive money.”
“So you’re saying that you are the item right now?”
Even if I bought this man, what would I do with him?
Use him as a totem to scare away problem customers? But he himself seemed like the biggest problem customer of all.
While I was thinking that, he let out a small laugh. It sounded mocking.
“A pawnshop is a business that deals in all kinds of things. You buy expensive things cheaply and sell them dearly. Whether that thing is a human or an object, there is not much difference to people like you, is there?”
“Why wouldn’t there be a difference? For one thing, I have display cases for objects, but I do not have any display case large enough for a customer like you.”
“So the problem is the display case?”
“No. If I had to pick one, I’d say it’s more a problem of common sense.”
The man stared at me as I answered every provocative remark he made. It felt like he was observing me—or maybe checking something.
What, did he think I could not observe him too?
Because of the time I had spent living on the streets, I was used to staring contests. I looked right back at him.
‘He definitely isn’t one of Hugo’s people. Hugo is cowardly, so he would have sent someone easier to handle and less intimidating-looking.’
Then where on earth had this lunatic come from?
I went over Grandfather’s ledger in my mind. There definitely had not been anyone with an appearance like this in it. So he was not an old customer either.
As I thought that, the man spoke again.
“Fine. If that is so, then I’ll ask for something else.”
“It’s after business hours.”
“There is something I want to buy.”
“What kind of item are you looking for, sir?”
“Hah?”
The man looked dumbfounded by my sudden change in attitude, but it could not be helped. I gave him a shameless smile.
Since today was the first day after reopening, even though I had tried to encourage consignment sales, quite a few customers had sold me things they had been holding onto for a long time.
So my cash reserves had dropped somewhat.
‘That’s right. Make money, money.’
Even a lunatic’s money was still money. If I thought of it as gaining experience dealing with difficult customers, then it was not impossible.
Quietly, I clenched my fist.
“I’m looking for weapons. But I don’t see any on the first floor.”
“Weapons are stored on the second floor. If you tell me the details, I’ll bring down a few that match what you’re looking for. Unfortunately, that’s our policy.”
“My client is very picky. That is what is unfortunate.”
His client?
Then had this lunatic come on someone else’s request?
I answered with a smile, but my mind was racing.
“My eye is pretty picky too. I’m sure you’ll be satisfied.”
“I said I want to see them and choose for myself.”
“You can see them and choose for yourself. If I narrow them down first, you can choose from among those. Please understand—it’s for safety reasons.”
“For safety reasons, huh. Then I promise I won’t damage any of the other pawned items. If something like that does happen, I’ll compensate you with double the item’s value.”
“No, it’s not for the safety of the items. It’s for the customer’s safety.”
“…My safety?”
This was the second time the man had looked completely taken aback. His face clearly said that no one had ever told him something like that before.
I answered calmly.
“Yes. You should not get hurt.”
“Do I look like someone clumsy enough with weapons to injure himself?”
“Well, people do not usually get hurt on purpose. You never know.”
Really, he argued over everything.
I was grumbling inwardly when his eyes suddenly narrowed sharply.
“So it seems you keep some very valuable things upstairs.”
I nodded without hesitation.
“Yes.”
In a way, that was only natural.
Every item customers left behind was valuable in its own way.
The price was not the issue. Even if it looked worthless to other people, it still held memories and meaning.
But the lunatic seemed displeased by my answer.
“Fine. Then I’ll leave it to you. Bring them down. The weapon I’m looking for is a sword.”
His tone suddenly turned cold.
‘What is this? Is some huge amount of money involved or something?’
“It is a one-handed sword with a diamond-shaped blade. The hilt is set with pearls and other jewels, and there are signs of use on the edge.”
As I listened to his description while flipping through the ledger, I hesitated for a moment.
The description of the sword felt oddly familiar.
Because it was in the ledger? No. It felt like I had heard of it somewhere else.
“Does it have any other features?”
“It does. The most important one.”
I had been tilting my head, trying to search my memory, but at his last words I turned around.
“The thing I’m looking for is stolen property.”
There was a sharp edge in the way he looked down at me.
I met his gaze for a long moment.
“What should we do? It seems you came to the wrong shop.”
I snapped the ledger shut.
“We don’t deal in stolen goods here.”
Money was important, but wrong was still wrong. I crossed my arms firmly.
One corner of the man’s mouth twisted upward.
“Is that what you believe? Or just what you want to believe?”
“I mean it sincerely. We do not deal in stolen goods. We don’t buy them, and we don’t sell them.”
“You said your eye is picky. So when you look at an object, can you tell right away whether it is stolen or not?”
His tone was clearly mocking.
He was asking whether there was any way to know if a customer was deliberately trying to fool me.
An object could not exactly say, This person is not my owner!
How could anyone tell just by looking whether something was stolen?
“No. That’s impossible.”
“Right, then—”
“But we do our best to tell.”
I decided to explain calmly.
“When an item comes in, we check and compare the certificate. We also do second and third checks using purchase receipts and auction records.”
There were probably not just one or two people who misunderstood pawnshops like this.
“If it’s an item without a certificate—like a doll or a book—then the conversation with the customer becomes the clue. How they felt when they bought it, how much they cared about it, why they are leaving it with us instead of selling it, things like that.”
“And what if the purchase receipt, auction record, and certificate you checked are all forged? Have you never thought about the possibility of being deceived?”
“Of course I think about it every day. I worry about it every day.”
I looked him straight in the eyes.
“But if someone put three locks on a door and a thief still broke in, then whose fault is it? The fault of the person who didn’t put on a fourth lock? Or the fault of the thief?”
The man’s face listening to me was as cold and stiff as winter frost.
“Even if I go through second and third checks, if an item I appraised later turns out to be stolen, then I will cooperate with the investigation as much as possible.”
If that kind of thing happened, I would be a victim too.
“So I’ll listen to your advice after you catch the thief who hasn’t even shown his face yet, sir.”
I spoke firmly to the man.
‘Oh? Come to think of it…’
Suddenly, I felt a strange sense of familiarity.
His oddly hostile attitude toward pawnshops, his suspicion that we dealt in stolen goods, even the nonsense about human trafficking.
I had definitely heard this kind of story before.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Now I finally understood.
I still did not know exactly what kind of person he was, or what he was looking for.
But—
‘I think I know where he came from.’
