Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Before finishing the contract with Foreman Gary, there was something to end first.

Daisy and I sat facing in a quiet café in the city.

Before going out to the war proper, a sure lining up of the front between the two of us came first.

On the table lay a few sheets Daisy had prepared.

She drank a sip of coffee, then drew a line in a very firm voice.

"Jeong-su. First there's something to make sure. I have no thought of quitting Commonwealth Bank. My career is very important to me."

What is this one saying?

When did I tell her to quit the bank?

"Of course. I never hoped you'd throw the banker title either. Rather, you have to be at the bank for us to pull a loan."

At my cool answer Daisy narrowed her brow slightly and raised a pen.

"That's the problem. Australia's large banks have ethics rules tremendously tight. Especially a loan-department employee registering as a director of a real-estate related business is a perfect conflict of interest, and a violation of the ban on side work. No, side work is banned for any business."

She looked straight at my eyes and warned.

"If we formally set up a real-estate company, my name gets listed at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Then our bank audit team will find it right away, and that day it's my neck. That is, we cannot partner formally."

"······What?"

In that moment my words stopped dead, as if hit in the back of the head.

Partnership doesn't work? Then what were the things we did until now?

Why did we go around seeing the house?

"No, wait. If partnership doesn't work, how were you going to do the loan and the name······."

When I asked, flustered, Daisy, who had been making a serious face, suddenly burst an annoying laugh, poot.

"Who said they gave up investing? I said we can't set up a company, I didn't say we can't make money."

"You really······ picking a person up and setting them down?"

When I let out a sigh of relief deep, Daisy slid one sheet in front of me and whispered.

"Instead of setting up a company, we'll go thoroughly in a personal-investment form. That's the way to avoid the bank's watch and still use my position to the end."

The more we talk, this seems to become a form of inside dealing?

Is it all right?

For now I listened to her words.

Daisy's eyes, back in banker mode, shone sharp.

"The house, I'll buy 100 percent in my sole name. Then I can pull every internal benefit given only to a banker."

"Use the internal benefit, and how much loan comes out?"

Daisy tapped a calculator and said.

"Originally if you take a loan you have to put a deposit of 20 percent or more, but I'm an employee, so I can get a loan at 5 percent of the house price. On top of that an ultra-low rate is possible, and the expensive mortgage insurance is fully waived. I'll take a loan of 200,000 dollars like that."

"Huh? Wait. The house price to agree with the foreman is 180,000 dollars. Why take a loan of 200,000 dollars?"

At my question Daisy grinned and answered.

"Then what money do you fix that haunted house with? Take a 200,000-dollar loan, pay the 180,000-dollar balance, and 20,000 dollars left. That 20,000 dollars, you combine with your 20,000 dollars. Then it's 40,000 dollars total. We pour that money wholly into remodel cost."

"Ah······."

"And when all the work ends and we sell the house, the profit is exactly five to five. How is it?"

I nodded slowly.

Only then the overall picture Daisy had laid drew in my head.

She had set the value of that house, repair complete, at a minimum of 400,000 dollars.

She pulls the bank benefit and bears a 200,000-dollar share in loan and name, and the 20,000 dollars of capital I put in and my building skill she priced at exactly 200,000 dollars.

'Wow······ smart. And sharp too.'

I stumbled a bit because the system was different from Korea, but it was a fully reasonable way of calculating.

"Good. If it's that way, it isn't bad. But."

I brought up a very important problem to pin down.

"The plan is good, but you said you'd buy the house 100 percent in your name? Then how do we do the risk after the house is fixed? Build the house and you sell it clean and run, and I can't do anything."

At that Daisy showed a thick laugh.

"A shame. I could have cheated."

"Hey!"

"A joke, a joke! Did you think I wouldn't mind that too."

I shot Daisy with eyes full of distrust.

Daisy laughed and went on.

"Right. Australian real estate, the name on the documents is thoroughly king. So it means we need a safety device that protects you 100 percent."

I nodded.

"Anyway we have to go find a lawyer and make a private joint-venture agreement. 'Jeong-su provides 20,000 dollars in material cost and remodel labor, and Daisy puts up a loan of 200,000 dollars and the name. Profit is split five.' We get that notarized legally. This is a private contract of the two alone, so our bank can never know."

There was more behind.

"And?"

"And on the basis of this contract, I'll put a caveat on the title of that house in my name."

"Caveat? What's that?"

"It's called a warning registration, and also an injunction against disposal. Explaining easy, a warning sticker. If you put a caveat, that house, even in my name, absolutely cannot be sold or take an additional loan without your permission. A sturdy lock that protects your right perfectly."

I nodded.

If that is possible legally, I could receive legal protection enough.

I lifted the coffee cup and lightly tapped it toward Daisy.

"Perfect. Let's go get it notarized right now."

"Whoa. Hold. You have to book. This isn't Korea."

Ah... right, this is Australia.

The system is really frustrating.

And so we had to wait another week.

* * *

"Right, please check the contents."

Lawyer Arthur, glasses on, set a thick printed document in front of us.

"In Miss Daisy's name, using the bank's internal benefit, raise a loan of 200,000 dollars. Of this, pay the real-estate balance with 180,000 dollars, and combining the remaining loan of 20,000 dollars and Mr. Han's starting capital of 20,000 dollars, proceed with the remodel on a total budget of 40,000 dollars. Interior-work labor is provided in full by Mr. Jeong-su, and on a future sale of the property, net profit excluding loan principal and incidental costs is split exactly 50:50 by the two."

The contents of the joint-venture contract the lawyer read were exact, not an inch of error from what we had agreed in the café.

"And to protect Mr. Jeong-su, immediately on purchase a caveat is set in Mr. Jeong-su's name on the title of the property. Do you agree?"

"Yes. I agree."

"I agree too."

At the lawyer's question Daisy and I nodded at the same time.

We scrawled our signatures on the prepared contract, and Lawyer Arthur stamped the Australian legal notarization seal on it, bang.

"Congratulations. The partnership of the two of you has taken legal effect."

The way out of the lawyer's office.

Daisy and I, as if by promise, looked at each other and grinned.

Think of this quietly, isn't it a bit scary?

I am an unmatched laborer of thirty years' career, and Daisy is an insider at a large bank who works the magic of loans.

A perfect fraud combination that would smash every legal, financial, and technical barrier of Australia was being formed.

'Maybe I caught a jackpot.'

An idea just rose, and somehow I came this far, and looking back quietly I am holding a jackpot.

"Right, then shall we go cook our first mark······ no, our dear owner, Foreman Gary?"

At my shameless words Daisy burst a light laugh.

Preparation to transform the rotten drug haunted house of Fairfield West into a goose that lays golden eggs was all done.

* * *

The next morning.

During work in the logistics yard, a whining vibration rang in the pants pocket.

Checking a moment, it was a short text Daisy had sent.

[This afternoon at 3, the last signature on the contract. Prepare.]

So it finally begins.

I quietly curled the corner of my mouth.

Now on the documents that drug haunted house comes wholly under our control.

And lunchtime.

To my side, chewing a sandwich in the outdoor rest area, Foreman Gary came and sat, as always.

But unlike usual, on his face floated the smile of a bodhisattva who had set down every anguish.

"Jeong-su. I got a call from my lawyer. This afternoon the bank-side loan approval drops, and the deposit all comes over, he said."

"Yes. I got a call from the partner too."

"Heh heh······. You really bought that headache of a house. Right, please look after our parents' house well."

Foreman Gary tapped my shoulder, light and yet strangely bitter.

"What is it, foreman? What's this about buying a house?"

Peter, who had been smoking beside and listening, pricked his ears and asked, and the other workers turned their heads, wondering what it was.

Foreman Gary, whose mouth had been itching, from the tale of the drug-dealer tenant who had tormented him, excitedly unfolded to the colleagues the saga of me appearing with a working Commonwealth banker partner and buying the haunted house outright.

"Good heavens······. Jeong-su, you're really a lunatic! What means are you going to take all that vicious chemical smell out with, buying that house?"

"Hey, still tremendous! How long since you came as a working-holiday person, and you buy a house in Australia. You're a guy who will really become big."

The colleagues looked at me with faces mixed of shock and admiration and raised thumbs again and again.

"Haha. What. Anyway I'll tear the inside and fix it all, so the rougher the house the more gain for me. It's nothing."

I waved a hand at ease.

And so the harmonious lunch passed, and all afternoon I pulled the forklift lever and waited only for finish time.

Right after work, still in the work uniform, I drove toward the single-story brick house in Fairfield West.

Opening the front door with the key handed over in advance from Foreman Gary, as expected a disgusting chemical smell stabbing the nose hit.

But instead of covering my nose, I stood quiet at the entrance and slowly looked around the empty living room and kitchen of 158 square meters.

'In pyeong, roughly 48?'

If they had been ordinary Australians they would have called a cleaning company, only added paint, and in summer at the toxic smell creeping up raised both hands and both feet and thrown it again at a dirt price.

But to my eyes this house was not a contaminated ruin, but a bonanza picked up off the floor with not one competitor.

Arms folded, I drew in my head a picture of how to fix the house.

The first thing to do is full demolition.

The smell of this house will have penetrated deep not only into the floor carpet but into the pores of the plasterboard on the walls.

So rather than leave it clumsy and shed blood tears later, better to tear from the start.

From tomorrow call a waste company right away, wait, what do they call it in Australia? Anyway call that, and with a sledgehammer and a pry bar tear out the plasterboard of ceiling and walls, and the carpet.

Overnight, three or four days would be enough.

Leave only the frame like that, next wash with industrial degreaser and dry it hard.

And here the core secret, paint a vicious oil-based primer over all the concrete and timber posts, and the chemical molecules will be trapped in the primer film and suffocate forever.

This will take about three days total.

Next step, structure change, plumbing, wiring.

Daisy said so.

Everything else I can do, but plumbing and wiring, I have to call an Australian plumber and electrician.

Rather than leave it all to them, I make it all, and having them only sign seems the way.

I have no thought of making this house in the ordinary Australian way.

I mean to remodel on the basis of Korean interiors at least twenty years on.

A house with a minimal structure that lets in a lot of natural light.

This too will take about four or five days?

Next, plasterboard fixing and joint compound.

This takes a bit of time.

First stick new plasterboard and do the joint work to make the seams flat, and to realize the future trend of no molding, the right angles have to finish falling like a knife.

This absolutely needed a person.

To shoot a nailer, someone has to hold the material.

Will this take a week?

Next, bathroom waterproofing and tile, call five days...

Floor and finish carpentry will be needed too.

The floor, lay laminate, easy to clean.

What do you use this shabby carpet for.

Anyone who walks the house in shoes is all for execution.

If you're Korean, take the shoes off.

And ceiling molding, get rid of it entirely.

However I look, it looks stuffy.

While at it, frame the door casings thin so the pyeong looks big.

This too will take about four or five days.

Next, paint and fixture setting.

With airless spray equipment, cover the whole house in pure matte white. Hang push-to-open cabinets and recessed lights...

"All in, exactly a month and I'll slap the rice cake."

Call a local contractor and from demolition to completion a full three months, and an estimate where the house price flies on labor alone, but run night work after finish and weekends full, and my labor alone was enough.

When a perfect schedule was arranged as a spreadsheet in my head, I smiled satisfied.

"Right, then the first thing to do······ shall I tear the carpet up first?"

I took out the cutter and pry bar I had brought.

And I shoved the blade deep into the yellowed carpet full of stench, and began ripping the floor without mercy.

The hellish remodel race of a thirty-year laborer who would overturn Australian floors finally raised the curtain.

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