Free Hidden Nexus by Nick Tanner

could lead an indolent and lavish lifestyle owning expensive foreign cars and elegant houses in fashionable residential areas.
     
    Fujiwara looked upon this incredibly glamorous lifestyle with envy but regardless of his possible resentment, until now, he had carried out his activities and used his organized power to guarantee his leaders’ sumptuous lifestyle on the understanding that he would either inherit or grow his own organisation enough so that he too, in his own right, could become Oyabun . It was this dream, this promise, that Fujiwara was still clinging to but meanwhile the burden of having to pay the tribute money was having undesirable, negative consequences and he was coming to severely begrudge his hand-to-mouth existence.
     
    He wondered, not for the first time, about how his life had become so pressurised and so stressful and how it was that his dreams of an effortless slide into affluence and high living had become so horribly complicated and monstrously derailed. At what point in his life did he begin to stop trying he wondered and at what point did an expectant future dissolve into a helpless nothingness? At what point did the dreams begin to warp? Of course he had sadly realised some time ago that he was neither cut out for business nor, for that matter, management nor organisation either. This latter realisation he had found difficult to accept as it signalled, after all, that in all probability he would not be offered a higher position in the organisation. He would not be made Oyabun . Duty, deference, hard work and loyalty had been the key tenets which he had religiously followed, but each one, he now recognised, was wholly beyond his abilities and inclinations. He was no longer sure where his future lay.
     
    On the other hand he had only ever known work for the Yakuza – he had only really known the work of an enforcer. He considered himself good at that - violence and intimidation. He was good at it and he enjoyed it.
     
    He disturbingly recalled the fate of Sazaki and Miyagi two of his colleagues who had found the pressure to be so great that they had committed suicide. Fujiwara had not reached such a denouement, but he knew that something would have to give - soon. He was by no means a coward, but neither did he have much stomach left for the fight. Both the stress and the shame could lead him quite easily into suicidal thoughts.
     
    He picked up the newspaper that was lying on his desk and skimmed over the headlines – unable to focus much beyond the bold print. One story in particular smashed into his consciousness – ‘Strangled woman mystery’. He read a little of the story amused at the stumbling description and pallid guesswork of the journalist who without an adequate range of facts had limped to the conclusion that it was all a pitiful indictment on the change for the worst in Japanese society that could see an innocent woman taken down without anyone coming to her rescue.
     
    He grinned maliciously and then laughed out loud. Fujiwara’s conclusions were far more brutal.
     
    The bitch deserved it. It was as simple as that.
     
    He laid down the newspaper. Reading hurt his eyes. Reading hurt his whole body.
     
    He glanced at his watch and traced the second hand as it crawled slowly from four around to eleven.
     
    Nine forty-five!
     
    Time was dragging. He was sick and tired of sitting in the dingy little office and sick and tired of staring at a computer screen that resolutely refused to tell him what he wanted.
     
    Reparations were due to his Oyabun by Monday and he desperately had to get some money from somewhere and given his present lack of credit he was sure not to receive any special favours or allowance for deferral.
     
    He picked up his leather jacket that was lying on the floor and wandered down the long, dark corridor and into the main reception. The place was empty – they didn’t really open until ten, and anyway the time of day seemed to be becoming