<Begin Segment 43>

FS: I would have... you know, one time I had a real bad idea. You know what they call Kuromaki in Japan? Kuromaki is the Black Dragon Society.

TI: Okay, right.

FS: You've heard of 'em.

TI: Yes.

FS: They're the government pushers, they elect people who they want. They make a law what they want. They're pushers, and they bribe people and they take bribe to do work for you, for them, anything. I had a idea of kidnapping that guy. But where could he go? Found out that he didn't have no yakuza to guard him, police won't guard him, couldn't trust the police. The only thing he could do is have a few bodyguards at home that he can afford, and bury the money in a hole someplace, in a hole. So I made a -- I know a yakuza boss in Ikebukuro. And I gave him the idea what I want to do. He said, "Toku ii kangaira na." He said, "Musuto wa ne?" He can't go to police. He's a robber, why should he go to police? And he was saying he can't go to police. He's a crook. So I said, "I got to do something first." What I did was I made a study of all the movement around that guy's house, twenty-four hours a day. When I left off, I had somebody else do it, some other people come, mailman, what time he come. Udon man, deliver udon, what time? Sentaku ya, what time? Gomi tori, what time? Everybody go in and out, what time the servant came. What time the old lady went to so and so place, where did she go? Everything, had that thing done for one whole month. And week after week was almost identical, movement. So I gave this whole thing to the yakuza no boss, and he says, "You know," you know what he told me? He said, "I'm a yakuza, I do a lot of dirty things. I even kill people. But this is gonna be too big. And I think it could be done, there's no question it could be done. You hold 'em for ransom. But don't tell everybody you're holding him for -- get everybody away from the house and then ransom. 'If you don't tell me, I'm gonna cut your finger off one at a time,' you know, things like that." Now, whether I do or not, I don't know. But the thing was intimidation, "and he's gonna tell you where the money is." And that was my idea. And there was a fortune in that one guy's place. A fortune, because he couldn't bring it to the bank. And if he brings it to the bank, the government gonna find out. They're gonna tax you. So he had to hide it. So he's a crook of all crooks. He couldn't go to authority, so we had 'em. And the yakuza boss knew it. He said, "Frank," he said, "Sumida," (...) "Where do you come up with these ideas?" Oh, he liked it. He wanted to do it. But then we went to talk to the lawyer buddy of ours, we explained to him. Because we had to get him in, too, because we had to get -- once we got all that, how do we get rid of all those stuff? I heard he had some jewelry, too, diamonds that he held for, what do you call, exchange. Because people donate their own money, but they got jewelry, so they took it off. So we had to get the lawyer to dispose of a lot of stuff. Security papers. And I didn't know nothing about that, and the yakuza buddy didn't know, we had to get a lawyer. So we got him in, so there were three of us now. And the yakuza told me, he says, "One of the best ideas I ever heard, but I don't think we should do it. Because I'm afraid we'll have to kill that person. Because you're not going to kill the man because he's gonna tell you, but you're going to go after his wife. And pretty soon, you're gonna kill his wife, and then what? And maybe he's gonna say, 'Well, get another wife,' which is easy for a guy with money." And that was the catch. The lawyer said, "Well, if you kill my wife, I'll get another wife, I'll get a better-looking one, young one. Go ahead. I wanted you to get rid of her. And some people are looking way to get rid of wife. You can't beat this way." So that's when it killed me. I said, "God damn." But we're talking about untold fortunes. One month I spent. You know that legal paper, time, who went through, what time they went, everything.

TI: Oh, that's a fascinating, interesting --

FS: That would have been one of the best money-making deal in all Japan, you know? And I won't even feel guilty. That was the beauty, no guilt. And always, I think to my dying day, I dream about this a lot of time, even now.

TI: Well, it almost makes like a plot for a movie or something.

FS: And I think, gee, well, what if we did it. And I said, "What if I die doing it? Is it worth it?" But what if we succeed? Oh, this guy Uchida Isamu, I'm going to tell you about him. He died young. He died of some kind of sickness, rokumaku or TB or something. Anyway, he died. I don't know if anybody knew about it, but I'm going to go on record. He's dead anyway. But he engineered to hijack a whole train. This train was going to Chitoshi up north to a air base, it's a big air base. And all the PX item was there, coffee, cigarettes, cosmetic, anything worth money. And this was the early part of Japan when all this thing would have gone. And he hijacked, he did hijack all that one time. He stopped that whole train in no man's land, you know what I mean? Nobody said... and how did he get rid of all that? Good question. How did he get rid of it? He had a yakuza friend supply a lot of trucks one after another. They went to there, and they had a manifest of all that load. Cigarettes in this one, you know what I mean, all the number. Some of them they didn't even touch. They didn't want it. But all the other side, they opened, they put it all on the truck, then they hid it. And the truck where they hid it was not too far. It was a big warehouse. You could drive a truck through. They unloaded that, and they sold it piece by piece.

TI: Now, how did you find out about this story?

FS: I've heard from the horse's mouth. He's the one that told me in Santa Fe, "Don't go fool around. Hide yourself tomorrow morning, there's gonna be a big riot. So get lost." I said, "Where?" He said, "Don't go your room, 'cause the guards will come right through there." So I said, "Well, the only place..." he said, "Didn't you work at a mess hall?" I said, "Yeah."

TI: Right, yeah, you told that story earlier.

FS: Yeah, he said, "Well, go in the mess hall and stay there."

<End Segment 43> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.