Chapter 52

The Director of the Sabine City IRS had a thoroughly unremarkable name, Johnson.

Johnson had no illustrious background to speak of. Back in the years when people still believed ideals could be realized through effort alone, a man who dared to fight, who had courage, and a little luck, could still distinguish himself from the crowd.

But now, without some other source of support, the position of Tax Bureau Director in a second-tier city was, for Johnson, more or less the end of the road.

What he had to think about now was how to preserve his top-tier pension, and how to make his last few years a little less painful.

A great many people assumed that an IRS Director, even one in a small city, ought to be the sort of hidden rich man with numerous deposits and pieces of real estate. In truth, that was rarely the case.

The lives of most Federation officials stuck in this middling stratum were far shabbier than people imagined. On the contrary, the real rank-and-file workers, the ones on the front line, tended to have more complicated sources of income.

A grassroots administrative manager who spent all day in an office and had already been placed on the Office of Internal Oversight’s inspection list, where exactly was he supposed to get any black income from?

That said, the various donations and social benefits he was entitled to were still there, and those were all legal income.

The Federation government paid them high salaries and gave them the highest level of social insurance precisely to minimize the chances of their being influenced in the course of their work, or reduced to someone else’s hound.

Of course, that did not entirely mean Johnson was poor. Sometimes poverty was not merely a description of wealth, but of power as well.

In any case, he was a man who fell short when measured upward and still stood above those below him. If he could hold on to his pension, so much the better.

At this moment he was deeply troubled. The joint operation between the Federation FBI and the IRS had ended in failure, which also meant he had no way to quickly calm the present situation. If the people above truly lost their temper, the days ahead would not be kind to him.

He was beginning to regret the indulgence he had shown Michael. Precisely because he was nearing retirement and no longer wanted to offend anyone, he had gradually allowed the flaws in the people under him to grow unchecked.

Just as he was scratching at his scalp in frustration, the telephone rang. He frowned. From the indicator light he could tell it was an outside line, and if it had made it through his secretary, then it was a call worth taking.

He drew a few deep breaths, steadied the turbulence in his chest, then picked up the receiver...

A little later, Director Johnson informed the old woman at home that he had an engagement that evening and would not be eating dinner there.

He lived together with his children, in a neighborhood next to Michael’s. The environment there was somewhat worse than Michael’s community, mainly in terms of greenery and overall facilities, but the houses were larger and could fit more people.

Brooding over these vexing matters, he drove to the warehouse district on the outskirts of the city center and stopped by the roadside not far from it.