ura hello work c.16: NIGHT ESCAPER!!!
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16 – NIGHT ESCAPER （夜逃げ屋：YONIGEYA）
RISK: ＊＊＊＊
SALARY: ****
HARD LABOR:****
ILLEGALITY:****
MR. A, WHO FLED IN THE NIGHT AND RECEIVED NEW IDENTITY PAPERS.
After the collapse of the ‘bubble economy’, the amount of people contacting moving companies and requesting a sudden relocation ‘because of a certain situation’ (情事がある) increased dramatically. This kind of sudden move is commonly known as a yonige (夜逃げ：‘night escape’).
Nowadays it’s not uncommon for guys to run a perfectly legitimate moving company, which nonetheless help a few people to yonige on the side. But they get so many requests, it’s impossible to accept everyone. Besides, some of the clients might be on the run from the law, or owe money to the mob. It’s dangerous to help these people, so the moving company turns them away. One fellow told me it’s normal to get ten requests a month for the ‘special night service,’ but out of those ten, he might take only one a month – the safest-sounding one! There’s months where he turns everyone down.
It’s fair to say that the legitimate mover has to be very very careful when choosing the client for the ‘night service.’ The cops could charge such a mover with ‘aiding and abetting,’ or if the client is on the run from the mob, the mob could come to take revenge! Of course they charge these ‘special’ clients much more than the regular moving fee, but even then it’s not usually worth the risk.
But, the gods take away, and the gods also give: if you’re turned down by a ‘regular’ mover, it’s possible to get an ‘appointment’ with a ‘specialist’ moving company that ONLY accepts clients too dangerous for regular movers.
A friend of mine was kind enough to introduce me to Mr. A, who was helped by such a ‘specialist.’ Mr. A used to run his own business in Osaka, but his management skills weren’t all that, and the business kept losing money. What’s more, he was going deeper and deeper in debt. Then the ‘Great Hanshin Earthquake’ hit. He knew that if he was ever going to escape the debts, he’d have to do it right then! Using the post-quake confusion as a cover, he moved to a different city, and bought new identity papers as well. Nowadays, he has a totally new life, a new name, and seems free from worry.
I’M THE ONLY YONIGEYA WHO ALSO PROVIDES IDENTITY PAPERS!
Mr. Blackfield (40, not his real name) is a yonigeya (夜逃げ屋 : night escape specialist). He met me in a family restaurant in the Ikebukuro neighborhood of Tokyo. My first impression was that he was a big, strong guy. He must do a lot of the moving and lifting himself! He warned me straightaway that I shouldn’t use his real name or be a nuisance to him. I promised that I’d do what he said, and he began to talk:
“I made a lot of money off of that earthquake! I’m a Tokyo guy but when I heard the news I jumped up and ran to Osaka. It’s really an ideal condition for those wishing to escape their lives. Including our Mr. A, I helped three or four people after the quake. I don’t just mean that I helped re-locate them; I set them up with new identities as well.”
I assumed he was talking about the koseki (ed. note: koseki (戸籍) refers to a piece of paper - the ‘family register’ or ‘record of family history’ which has historically been used in Japan instead of, say, a Social Security number, when applying for jobs, insurance, bank accounts, or places to live). I asked him to tell me about the illegal koseki trade:
“Here’s the simplest way to get one: just go to a place like Yama-ya (山谷) and buy one off of a drifter. (Yama-ya is an neighborhood near Asakusa – an open-air ‘day-labor’ where guys who lost their jobs in the recession go to find pick-up work.) But if a guy has been homeless for too long, he’s already marked as ‘dead’ and his koseki is useless. So you have to check! You pay the homeless one or two thousand dollars, and sell it to the client for twice that. It doesn’t matter how far you run, if you’re using your real name to get apartments, jobs, and so on, it creates a paper trail. Your enemies can find you! I’m the only guy who provides ‘complete service.’ I help you become a completely different person. I’m damn handy, if I do say so!”
I asked Mr. Blackfield what kinds of people he helps:
“At first, I tried hard to turn away people that seemed too risky. I’d be taking customers that had, like ‘man-woman trouble.’ Usually this is a woman who is fleeing from a stalker or a violent husband. That happens a lot. Next most common was people deep in debt! But of course those guys can’t pay ME a lot, can they? So they’re troublesome. It sucks because the only people who can pay you a lot are generally on the run from, ‘dangerous folks,’ which I then get caught up in their problems! But, what the hell, for $10,000, I’ll risk it! That’s not a small sum, my friend! So little by little I began to specialize in the ‘risky’ clients.”
He took out ads in the evening paper, and classifieds. Just by this small measure alone, he was instantly flooded with a great number of requests.
“My first ads were, like, ‘We help move people who have jouji (‘a certain situation’) so if you’ve been turned away by other moving companies, come to us.’ We got mobbed with hundreds of desperate letters, phone calls at all times. We couldn’t do it all! We were so busy, I began to wonder if it was worth the money. We took as much as we could – I didn’t care who the client was, or what bad things he’d done.”
Mr. Blackfield employs three men in his company. They’re all zenkamochi , (前科持ち: ex-cons) and some are former Yakuza.
“That’s the only way to do it, yo! Some of the situations we face, it’s like something you’d see on a special report on TV! And it’s not like we can call the cops for help. So I can’t afford to have employees to get scared when shit jumps off.”
More than half of his clients are running away because they owe money. So Blackfield has to move them without the toritate gyousha (取り立て業者: debt-collector) finding out.
“Most of these clients owe over $30,000. And they think yonige is easier to than to declare bankruptcy. So I have to make sure I get paid in advance, right?!? As long as I get mine, they can owe as much as they like to whoever they like! I’m open-minded about that. My rates? It’s different for every client. For instance, a single man living in a one-room apartment don’t have a lot of stuff, so I’ll charge him $3,000 – moving furniture is extra. It’s sure more than a legit mover – even more than the average yonigeya. They pay more for us because we’ll take dangerous jobs!
“A surprisingly large amount of clients want us to move their whole family! As if it’s as easy as making one person disappear! If they agree to throw out all their furniture, I can temporarily re-locate them to a room above a pachinko parlor that my friend owns. No one would think to look for them there!
But some of these clients - they want to bring the furniture. They want to make the wife and kids disappear too. There’s no way for me to move them all stealthily, but other movers won’t help them either. I got to charge them $5,000 to 10,000, and even that is an act of charity on my part.”
THE ‘NIGHT ESCAPE’ OF THE YOUNG YAKUZA WHO STOLE FROM HIS BOSS
I asked Mr. Blackfield to tell me the most dangerous situation he’s ever encountered. He said that it was a tale of failure, so he didn’t want to talk about it. Making a very sour face, he reluctantly continued:
“I got a sudden phone call from a young gangster. ‘Help, save me! If I go outside they’ll kill me! I stole from my boss. It was stupid, I know, but now I’m cooped up in here. I see black Mercedes circling the block! I didn’t know what else to do, but I saw your ad so I’m calling.’
“I didn’t know if his call was being wire-tapped or not, so I cut him off before he could say more. I said I’d consider helping, on three conditions: First, we had to do this right now. Second, I couldn’t guarantee him a new place to live. Third, this would cost him $20,000. He agreed. I hung up without telling him when I’d come, or even IF I would come. Again, wiretapping was a concern. I took two of my guys, and we left in two vehicles: a passenger car, and a windowless van. We drove around his apartment but didn’t see anything suspicious. I went in and knocked. No response – I didn’t know if he had already been kidnapped or if he was just being cautious.
“So, I called out the name of the moving company we used for the ad he’d read (because we’re not idiots, we change the name of the company and the phone number after every client). Then the door half-opened, revealing the face of a young Yakuza, white with fear. He said he was ready to go, right now. We surrounded him and marched downstairs to the passenger car. We got in the rear seat, from the right side. Then we secretly opened the left rear door and shoved him into our van which was parked in the next spot.
“After that, I had the passenger car drive off, as a decoy, to see if anyone was tailing it. But the Yakuza were too smart for us; they came right up to our van as soon as the car was gone. They marched up in formation, and began kicking the van, yelling at us to come out. I told the client I was really sorry, and then opened up the door for the Yakuza. I had my van driver’s safety to think about, you know. The client was screaming, clinging to both my legs as the mobsters dragged him outside. It was pretty rotten, but we’d been caught by the fuckin’ mob, man. There was nothing else to do! Maybe you want to tell me that if I was a competent yonigeya, I wouldn’t have gotten into this jam in the first place. Don’t say it! That client was pretty much doomed in any case. Sometimes, when you lose, you lose, and that’s that. We did all we could to help someone that no one else would help. And then we lost!”
Mr. Blackfield likes to brag about how good he is at what he does, but even he has to turn down some people:
“One time, I got a call in the middle of the night. Some guy, really freaked out, yelling, ‘Come and get me now!’ He sounded like a criminal on the run! You get those guys from time to time. I’ll help them if I don’t have other matters to attend to, but I don’t want to get involved in anything heavy as murder. You could catch an ‘aiding and abetting the escape’ charge or possibly even ‘accomplice’. I’m running a place of business here! What if a bunch of cops or gangsters bust in? That would be no good! I don’t mind risky jobs, but if the police look for me in earnest, they’re gonna find me. So, that’s why I turn down guys like the guy I’m telling you about. I asked him, ‘What have you done?’ But he wouldn’t answer. ‘You’re a midnight mover, so fuckin’ midnight move my ass!’ He was all yelling at me. I didn’t know the particulars of his situation, so I couldn’t really judge him. On the other hand, I had to keep a cool head. Is he a killer? What’s he mixed up with? It looked too risky so I just threw out my phone! I only use one cell – phone at a time, so if I dump it, he can’t bother me again, and neither can whoever was chasing him! I never knew what wound up happening to him.
“The actual process of moving is not that hard. As long as we do it systematically and according to plan, our success rate is almost 100%. Of course, if you include guys like the ‘midnight yeller’ and the ‘young yakuza’ guy, where we don’t even manage to start properly, it drops to around 80%.”
BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR NEW IDENTITY
“The real hard part comes AFTER the move. I tell everyone that. You have to watch everything you say and do, for years! You’d be surprised how many people mess that part up. After a certain amount of years, they feel – based on nothing – that the jikou (時効: statute of limitations) has expired and they start talking about their past. They start saying a bunch of stuff they shouldn’t say. Even that friend of yours, Mr. A. I have a feeling he’s not going to last too much longer, even with that new koseki I got him. If you tell your new friends, in your new city, the wrong stuff, who knows how far that information will spread? And you can’t talk to your old friends. Even your brothers and sisters, your family. If you are serious about your yonige, you’ll let your family think you’re dead. It’s the only way.
(In Japan, the family can file a missing persons report. If seven years has passed and the body has not been found, the family can have the missing person legally declared dead)
“But otherwise, if you even get a little sloppy, make one little mistake, you’ll be caught. Your past will catch up to you in a big way! The most common mistakes are using a cash card, or credit card, registered to your former identity. That stuff leaves a paper trail. It doesn’t matter how far away you moved, buddy! Anyone checking the report of your credit / cash card use will know the exact location and time you used it. You have to take all the money out of the bank beforehand! You have to plan ahead a little bit.
“The other big mistake is phones. Don’t call anyone from your old life! Period. The third mistake is filing a change-of-address form with the post office so you can still get mail from your old life. That’s just illogical! Dudes can check that stuff. Dudes can trace that stuff. ‘New identity’ doesn’t just mean a new nickname and a new apartment, it means you are dead to your old life! Otherwise, they’ll catch you sooner or later.”
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Wow, heavy stuff. I’d hate to think about what happened to that “young gangster”.
Fascinating interview!
By the way, isn’t 山谷 Sanya, not Yamaya?
Awesome as always. When I lived in the sticks in Saitama, midnight movers would come about every 3 months to my neighboring apartment room. The room had some weird tenants! Sometimes I would hear babies crying at 4am, and other times I would just see scary older dudes going in and out.
@craig: honestly i did this translation so long ago, I don’t remember if I ran that name (山谷) past my Japanese friends or not.
I’ll ask them tomorrow!
damn yo, you update quickly! one more story. can’t wait for the next one.
Speaking about kanji, isn’t there a little mix between 事情 and 情事 ?
This detail set apart, great job. Still as interesting a serie as ever. Thanks for the translation, and for getting your hands on that book to start with.
THIS blog, THIS fuckin’ blog, is where the interesting reads are. Not one of those JapanToday news-aggregation sites or insipid “Let’s talk about oden” diary sites. Plus, Steve doesn’t come off as somewhat of a pompous ass, like Curzon at MFT or, sometimes, just a leetle beet, Marxy at NeoJaponisme.
@Francois: Thanks! You can find the book at any Village Vanguard or sometimes at Book Off
@catoneinutica: Thanks! I am indeed the shit. But it’s hard to get a big head when – like me- the vast majority of one’s referrals come from a Japanese-language catfight site.