After a six-hour fight of a trip, the worn-out bus finally stopped in the parking lot of a cheap motel on the edge of San Jose.

Creak!

The door opened, and the players came off the bus groaning, like zombies.

Thanks to the air cushions Suho had handed out, their backsides had come through more or less intact.

Six hours of vibration and noise had wrung every bit of strength out of them anyway.

“Ah… is this San Francisco or is this hell?”

“This is the hotel? It’s not going to come down on top of us?”

“This is the worst. I want to go home right now.”

Three or four players looked at the building, which seemed ready to collapse where it stood, and each of them got a piece of his despair out.

And no wonder.

The motel in front of them looked enough like a haunted house that you’d have believed it if somebody told you it was one.

A few of the others sat straight down where they were, without the will to pick up their bags.

“You guys want to get food?”

“Let’s just rest first. I don’t want to do anything.”

“Ah… my life.”

It was all exactly what Suho had expected.

Every bit of the joy the players had felt at winning the division series was gone.

And from here it was going to get worse, not better.

Right at that moment.

Suho, the freshest-looking man there, went straight over to Taylor, who was getting his bag together.

“Sir. I’ve got a good way to fix this.”

“A way? What way? That sentence doesn’t even have a subject in it.”

Suho leaned in and said it low, close to Taylor’s ear.

It was short enough that none of the other players noticed.

But Taylor’s eyes went wide in an instant.

“Th— that’s possible?”

“I think so. I did it a lot in Korea.”

Suho intended to put that experience to use.

“All right. It sounds like a good idea… but are you sure? It’s going to be hard on you.”

“It’s no trouble for me. Winning is what matters, sir.”

“Right. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life in baseball… give it a try.”

About the time Taylor’s permission came down, a few of the men were gathering to sort out dinner.

Mark came over to Suho as well.

“Suho! Burgers, let’s go!”

Suho shook his head.

“Let’s eat something other than burgers.”

“Oh? Like what? Did you think of something you want?”

“Yeah. Dungeness crab.”

Mark’s face fell in an instant.

“Hey. I told you before. It’s expensive. You know our meal money for the whole series doesn’t come to thirty dollars.”

“No, I’ve got a way to do it. Just come with me.”

Suho went past Mark and straight over to the group that had gathered to eat.

“Have you decided on anything yet?”

One of the players answered in a lifeless voice.

“Not yet. Figured we’d just grab whatever.”

“Then how about you invest ten bucks with me?”

“Ten dollars? Why?”

“I’ll get you the San Francisco specialty.”

There was only one thing that came to mind at San Francisco’s specialty.

Dungeness crab.

The players’ eyes went round and they looked at each other like the whole thing was ridiculous.

Dungeness crab for the price of a burger combo?

Or is there some other specialty I don’t know about?

He isn’t going to collect the money and run, is he?

But the players got rid of the suspicion quickly enough.

Because how much was ten dollars a head going to add up to anyway?

Minor league pay is poor, but Suho didn’t look stupid enough to run off with that kind of money.

If anything, what he’d shown them in the games made him as shrewd and as smart as anybody there.

And among them was the pitcher Suho’s diving catch had bailed out in the division series.

Ryan Pepiot took out his wallet.

“Ten dollars, here.”

He held it out to Suho.

“You’re going to show us the magic again, right?”

Suho took the money with a short nod.

“Of course.”

And in that instant.

“Ten bucks? Fine.”

The other players started pulling tens out of their wallets, one after another.

The commotion brought over the men who were still collecting their bags.

“What’s going on? You get something for ten dollars?”

“He says he’s going to show us magic.”

“Magic? Big deal.”

“The magic is food, apparently.”

“Well, that’s a whole different story. I was going to go lie down anyway. Here.”

In no time everybody was holding out ten dollars.

Bill the color man and John the play-by-play man came over and put in ten apiece.

Taylor, the only man there who knew the plan, pressed a hundred-dollar bill into his hand.

“Put that toward whatever else you need out there.”

Suho gave a short nod.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll bring back the change.”

“No. Spend all of it.”

And last of all, Suho went over to Cash, who had his bag and was heading into the motel alone.

“Cash. Ten dollars.”

Cash ran his eyes up and down Suho without a word.

What strange thing is he up to now?

But Cash pulled ten dollars out of his wallet and held it out immediately.

Because every strange thing Suho had done so far had worked.

And Cash was a first-round pick on top of that.

Ten dollars was pocket change to him compared to the other minor leaguers.

Everybody handed over their money and went off to their rooms.

Left alone with him now, Mark blinked at him like none of it made sense.

“You’re not collecting mine?”

“You’re coming with me. Give it to me later.”

“So where exactly are we going?”

“I told you. Dungeness crab.”

“It’s fifteen dollars however cheap you get it. You collected ten. So you’re eating a five-dollar loss on every one and covering the rest yourself? I keep telling you not to do that. You think they’re going to appreciate it?”

Mark corrected himself.

“No, they’ll like it. It isn’t their money. But there’s no need for it. You think they’re going to pay you back?”

Suho scratched the back of his head and said it quietly.

“I wasn’t planning to put in my own money.”

“You— you weren’t?”

“No.”

“Then how are you getting the crab?”

“I’ve got a way. Come on. Let’s go show the Quakes some magic.”

Suho was sitting in the back seat of a van with Mark taking up the space beside him.

The driver was the owner of the motel.

Suho had asked him politely whether he’d be willing to act as their driver.

The man had made enough money off a group booking that day that he’d volunteered happily.

The plan had been to pay for it, and now that was money saved.

Saving the Uber fare is a decent chunk on its own.

Then Suho took his phone out of his pocket.

Everything he’d searched for during those six hours on the bus was on it.

On the screen was the location of the San Jose Seafood Wholesale Market.

Mark was startled when he saw it.

“Whole— wholesale market? You’re buying Dungeness crab wholesale?”

“Yeah. That way we get it cheap, right?”

“Th— that’s what you collected the money for?”

“Yep.”

“Wow…”

For a moment Mark had nothing to say.

What was going on inside this man’s head that he could come up with something like this?

And no wonder.

To an American, a wholesale market was a world outside the consumer.

That was somewhere restaurant chefs and people in the trade went, not somewhere an ordinary person barged into looking for a cheap deal.

If you wanted to buy in bulk you went to a big-box store like Costco.

But wholesale markets were entirely familiar to Suho.

Korean shoppers go to the meat markets and the fish markets all the time.

Suho had gone often himself.

To eat even slightly better food, for the sake of his body.

Which meant this came out of a difference between two cultures.

I wonder what an American fish market is like.

Suho and Mark got to an enormous warehouse of a market that reeked of fish.

It seemed to be near closing time.

Workers in rubber boots were hosing down the floor and starting to clean up.

Mark had never run into anything like it, and the place flattened him.

“Uh… can’t we just go back and eat burgers?”

“Mark. It’s your turn. Go get them!”

“My— my turn to do what!”

“You’re the American. Go talk to him.”

Suho jerked his chin at a huge man in one corner, working through a ledger.

Mark set his back teeth.

Ordinarily he’d have said no.

Ordinarily Mark wasn’t the type to force himself to do things he didn’t want to do.

But he thought about what Suho had put together for his teammates on the bus that day.

Going over and saying a few words was hardly a big thing to ask.

“Um… excuse me? Could we buy some Dungeness crab?”

The manager answered curtly without taking his eyes off the ledger.

“Retail’s the supermarket up the road. We’re closed.”

“Ah… no, that isn’t what I…”

Mark faltered and looked back at Suho.

Suho poked him with a finger and whispered.

“The number. Cash.”

“Ah!”

Mark turned back to the manager and called out.

“Forty of them!”

The size of the squad, plus staff and the people traveling with them.

It came to about forty men altogether.

“…”

The manager’s pen stopped in midair.

He raised his head slowly and looked over Mark, and Suho standing behind him.

“What did you say? How many?”

Anybody could see the man was interested.

So a little confidence came into Mark’s voice.

“Forty. Right now. All cash.”

Then Suho stepped forward and set a thick wad of cash on the manager’s desk with a slap.

It was mostly tens, which made it a considerable thickness.

The manager’s eyes went wide.

And no wonder. Right before closing, a customer had turned up to clear out forty crabs that might otherwise have sat there as stock, and to pay cash for them.

The curt expression turned into a business smile in an instant.

“Well now! I didn’t realize who I was dealing with!”

The manager hurried his manners into order and started punching numbers into a calculator.

“Wholesale I’d normally have to get eleven a head for these. But you came all the way out here and you’re paying cash… nine apiece. How’s that?”

“N— nine dollars?”

“What, no? There’s nothing in this for me. I’m giving them away.”

Ordinarily, when a trader tells you there’s nothing in it for him and he’s giving it away, you shouldn’t believe a word of it.

But nine dollars really was very cheap.

There was no reason to turn it down.

Once it was settled at nine dollars, Suho stepped in.

“Um… we don’t have anywhere to steam these. Could you possibly steam them for us here?”

“Steaming usually costs extra, you know.”

“We don’t have a lot of budget…”

Suho put on a look you could break your heart on.

That look, on a man who had plainly come from another country and was having a hard time of it, isn’t an easy thing to beat.

“All right. I’ll do it.”

Twenty minutes later.

Suho and Mark loaded forty freshly steamed Dungeness crabs into the van, split among three enormous boxes.

They were still giving off steam.

Mark got into the car and let out a breath, as though sweating out everything he’d been holding in.

“Hooo…”

Then he looked around once and raised his voice.

“That was insane! I can’t believe that worked! Wholesale is great! How does a guy even think of a wholesale market? You’re not just good at baseball.”

“Wholesale markets are big in Korea.”

“And now I get to eat the local specialty! I want to eat it right now. I’m cracking one open the second we get back!”

Suho shook his head.

“If we’re going to eat the specialty, let’s eat it properly.”

“Wh— what, there’s more?”

“Yeah. It starts now.”

“What is it? Tell me…”

Suho laughed under his breath.

“A little hint. Team play? I’m trying to make everybody closer.”

Mark ran a suspicious eye over him.

What kind of crab eating needs team play?

He isn’t going to have us picking the meat out for each other, is he?

End of Chapter 34