Tokyo Underworld Read Online Free PDF

not help matters.
    Faced with such obstinacy, Lansco turned to the Tosei-kai, employing a band of young Korean thugs from the gang to revisit all the shop owners and describe what would happen to them if they did not revise their inventory plans. This new sales strategy proved remarkably more effective than the previous one. Soon, the downtown area was inundated with gumballs. Lansco phones were ringing left and right with calls from shop owners begging for more. When Lansco raised gumball prices, the phones rang even harder.
    Usually, however, such forceful tactics were not necessary. The demand for their first-floor goods among the local populace, though they were forbidden by law to buy them, proved to be far higher than anyone had expected, especially as the Occupation neared its end and a mini-boom from Korean War procurement orders began injecting the first signs of life into the economy. Lansco moved Zippo lighters by the box, nylon stockings by the carton, and the heavily rationed commodity of sugar by the sackful. They brought in their wares by the truckload and, when the coast was clear of watchful MPs and Japanese police, set them down on the sidewalk in front of the store for sale to passersby, who hauled them off in three-wheeled carts. In one insane afternoon, thecompany sold 4,000 pounds of stolen spaghetti. It was a time when people did not need to be strong-armed into accepting American products – with the exception perhaps of gumballs.
    Another foray was into the field of slot machines. The opportunity arose to rent several slot machines and install them in the 52-room Hotel New York across the Sumida River in Eastern Tokyo, among other spots. The hotel was a popular place for GIs on leave from the Korean War because of its bountiful supply of ‘onlies’ – girls who would contract to spend an entire week of R&R exclusively with one soldier. Upon acquiring the slot machines, Zappetti, who was preternaturally skilled in such matters, rearranged their inner workings so that hitting the jackpot became virtually impossible. The GIs played the machines, almost never won, and never seemed to catch on. But then again, they weren’t around long enough to grow suspicious. Zappetti increased slot machine revenue by purchasing bags of as yet unstamped 10-yen coins pilfered from a government printing office in Sugamo, which were usable as slot machine tokens, and he sold them to the R&R GIs.
    The amount of money Lansco made was extraordinary. At any given time there was several hundred thousand dollars in cash in the company’s coffers – US dollars, military payment certificates, Japanese yen, even some Korean won. Membership in the company also grew. The first addition was Ray Dunston, a big, raw-boned, ruddy-faced Australian, around fifty years old, who was welcomed into the company because he possessed a valid license to sell sugar (still among the most tightly rationed commodities) and because he was willing to contribute $250,000 of his own money in operating capital. Dunston had also started an English ‘academy’ in Tokyo, something his partners found curious since he had never graduated from high school and could barely string together two correct and complete sentences. Another addition was an American businessman formerly connected to the GHQ who was fluent in Japanese and who went on to work forthe US Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. Still another was a Canadian drifter who possessed uncommon skills in the recondite art of falsifying bank documents. Also joining up were two more White Russian Communist capitalists, who would end each business day with Yuskoff in a smoke-filled yakitori shop across the street, getting drunk and singing Russian Eskimo songs. When it came time to go to bed, Leo would stagger back to the office, open up a fresh jug of sake, and curl up with it on the vinyl-covered sofa on the second floor. In the morning, the bottle would be empty. He was the only person