The Bubble Match

by Merav Tuson Vardy

  I’m standing at a red light, thinking which way to go. If I take a left to her place with that disgusting mattress, I will definitely not be having sex with her there. If I take a right, to my apartment, nothing will stand in our way. The car behind me blinks its light at me; the traffic light went green. I take a right, to my place, and wonder what gave me pause in the first place.

  I let her inside first. She walks into my apartment and looks around, maybe remembering the last time she was here. She takes off her shoes and walks, somewhat uneasily, toward my bedroom. I know she is voicelessly recounting those disgusting words I said to her last time - Have you seen enough? Or would you like to check the bedroom? Feel free to take your cloths off and wait in bed for me. I’ll be along when I’m done watching this fascinating TV show you so annoyingly interrupted…

  God, I’m an idiot.

  I follow her as she climbs up the stairs, her footfalls slow and heavy. It doesn’t take a lot of emotional intelligence to tell that this sluggishness reflects her anxiety at eventually reaching the room at the end of the hall. I understand – less than an hour ago we were in the heat of the moment, her blood boiling, temporary insanity combined with perhaps some shortage of blood in her brain; so she was willing to go all the way with me in some fancy restroom. Now she’s had some time to think. To cool down and come to her senses. Her brain is working overtime now. She’s concerned – and she has every reason to be. I’d be, if I were her.

  I mean, it’s not like I’ve been an island of fucking stability.

  Just the opposite, in fact. Until very recently – today, really – I’ve done everything I could to scare her away from me.

  Just before her hand closes on the doorknob, I hug her from behind, embracing her tightly. When she leans her head against my chest I no longer know which of us this hug is meant to comfort.

  “Please don’t be afraid. You’re safe here, I promise.” I slide the hair off the back of her neck and kiss the soft spot where her back meets her neck. She lifts her head and our eyes meet.

  “Nothing will happen tonight, okay? We’ll just go to sleep.” I give her my word.

  I take her by the hand and lead her into the room, onto the large bed. I wonder if she notices that my virginal excitement rivals hers – she’s the only woman who ever lay in my bed. She is stretched out on her back and her long hair is spread around her on my purple satin sheets, and I find this image unbearably sexy. I lean in for a quick, shallow kiss. I spot the disappointment on her face – she was clearly expecting more, but I made a promise before we came in here, and I intend to keep it.

  Her eyes follow me as I remove my suit jacket and unbutton my shirt. Her hands fidget with her own buttons and I note that they are shaking slightly. I place my hand on hers and gently hold them in place.

  “Let’s sleep with our clothes on, I think.” I know that if she gets any more undressed, I won’t be able to stay this sensible.

  I stroke her hair until she falls asleep on my arms, and when she is breathing slowly and steadily, the words “I love you” escape my lips.

  And in her sleep, she whispers back, “I love you, too.”

  Her eyes are closed so she can’t see the tears running uncontrollably down my cheeks. At this point I can only pray for some sort of divine intervention. For someone up there to cut me some slack, just once – fuck, I’m begging, please.

  Just this once.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There’s a great deal of commotion just outside my office door. I get up to find out what it is, but before I even reach the door, two uniformed policemen charge into my office.

  “Kim Ji-Yon?”

  “That’s me,” I confirm.

  “You need to come with us. Immediately,” says one of them, pulling out a pair of handcuffs and signaling me to hold out my hands.

  “Those won’t be necessary,” I say. I have no idea what they want with me, but whatever this is, it doesn’t bode well.

  At the police station, the two officers escort me up the staircase when I hear a familiar voice calling my name. I look up to meet the cantankerous gaze of Lee Sung’s father. Initially I’m surprised to see him, but then I remember that he’s a senior police interrogator. He’s in his natural habitat; I’m the one who doesn’t belong.

  “Kim Ji-Yon. Last time I saw you I thought you were my future son-in-law. Who would’ve thought we’d end up on either side of an interrogation room, huh?” he smiles viciously at me, a lopsided, vindictive grin. I suppose I lost his favor after I failed to propose. I can also assume that his dear daughter didn’t bother explaining the circumstances that led me to that. The same could probably be said about the circumstances of the photo circulating around, in which his half-naked baby girl’s hands are all over me. It’s no surprise that he wants to stab me with a rusty knife and twist it around a bit.

  “I’ve been wanting to get my hands on you for years, you piece of shit,” he hisses when we’re alone in the interrogation room. “You got my daughter pregnant and took off like the cowardly prick you still are.”

  So I guess he isn’t just mad about the wedding. I now realize his hatred for me feeds on a much larger lie. Un-fucking-believable. I suppose Shin Su-Yon got her pregnant – I wonder if he even knew.

  “Of course, you can ask that someone else conducts this investigation. But I can tell you right now, it makes no damn difference. Our case against you is rock-solid.”

  “Which case? No one’s even bothered to explain what I’m doing here.”

  “Tell me, what were you doing yesterday? Starting from the early evening.”

  Making out with Mi-Ok in the women’s restroom of a fancy restaurant. If someone called the police about that, I’m truly worried about the degree of some people’s boredom.

  “I was at a restaurant,” I reply curtly.

  “Yes, at Parc. We know. Where did you go after that?”

  “To bed.”

  “Alone?” Where is he going with this?

  “No. With a woman,” I reply indifferently. This isn’t the Joseon dynasty anymore.

  “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? I already know you went home last night with a girl named Shin Mi-Ok.” He’s making it sound like I brought home some cheap hooker. I want to strangle him. “My question, however, is this: do you admit to murdering the poor girl?”

  I stare at him, stunned, trying to understand if this is some sort of sick joke, some mind game he’s playing with me.

  What the hell is he talking about? She seemed exhausted this morning, so I let her sleep in and notified her team leader that she won’t be coming in. I assume she woke up after I left and went home to change.

  “Have you checked the building’s security cameras?”

  “As you well know, the recording from the security cams is missing.” I feel a numbing helplessness when he blames me for that, as well. “But the doorman remembered her. Pretty well, too – he said she was the first woman you ever let into your apartment. He remembered her name, too, because she’d been at your place before, not too long ago. He even remembered that last time, she was distraught when she left – practically fled, he told us.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and try to comprehend what he’s saying.

  “Speak!” he bangs a suddenly furious fist on the table. “What the hell have you done to her?”

  “Nothing, I haven’t done anything,” I say, defensively.

  He looks at me dubiously and shakes his head.

  “This morning, the doorman in your building discovered a trail of blood leading from the elevator, which he then reported to the police. The trail was found to originate from your apartment. My team broke in to find your place looking like a goddamn slaughterhouse. No one can survive losing that much blood, so I ask you again – what did you do to that poor girl?”

  I am silent, too horrified to speak.


  “Allow me to jog your memory.” He places a tablet in front of me and swipes through the crime scene photos. My living room is a jumble of broken glass and bloodstains. I glimpse at it and lose the ability to understand or even hear the rest of what he’s saying. A slow chill spreads through my organs. My whole body is shaking.

  The photos slam me back into the trauma of seven-year-old me. I had just heard the gunshot. I was too young to recognize it precisely, but I knew it was a bad sound, ominous. I climbed up the stairs to the second floor, terrified, one hand clutching the railing, the other holding the drawing I had just finished. I called out to Mom over and over again – she was the only one there, other than me – but she did not answer. When I opened the door to my parents’ bedroom, everything was covered in blood. The carpet, the walls, the bed, the dresser. Everything. In the shattered mirror I saw the destroyed reflection of my mother, still sitting at her dresser. I stood at the door, frozen, and watched as my mother’s bloodied body slowly tumbled to the floor. I sat on the floor and cuddled up to her, my body stiff with fear and shock. I remember vomiting copiously.

  The flashback makes me feel ill and I think I might vomit now, as well. My legs refuse to carry me; I buckle against the gray wall of the interrogation room and slide down to the floor.

  This isn’t happening.

  This cannot be happening again.

  I tried to force myself not to love her and failed. And when I finally confessed, I knew. I knew something bad would happen to her, too. My curse. Everyone I love dies.

  “My fault,” I mutter, burying my head between my knees. “It’s my fault.”

  “You admit to killing her?” I raise my head and realize that my last sentence sounded like a confession. I silently shake my head.

  “I need my lawyers.”

  His phone rings and he picks up, not saying a word, just listening to the other side and nods.

  “Your lawyers can’t save you. The evidence we have against you is as abundant as January snow. They just told me that four months ago, the missing girl was seen leaving a room in the Hilltop hotel – a room you paid for – heavily bruised and apparently beaten.”

  I bang the back of my head against the wall.

  “A hotel staff member told us you requested a dress, size small, to be placed in the room – when the maid came to deliver the dress, she noticed your guest’s previous dress torn and discarded.”

  I again bang my head against the wall.

  I need to get a grip. Before it’s too late.

  I grab the back of the chair and pull myself up. My legs still feel like rubber when I plop down on the chair in front of the chief interrogator.

  “I’ll tell you everything I know about that night at the Hilltop.” My mouth is very dry; I cough several times before I get my voice back.

  “I’d just gotten back from Taiwan. On my way home from the airport, Jeremy, a friend of mine—” I am forced to remind myself that he is no longer my friend, “—called me and asked me to come to his room at the Hilltop as soon as possible. While I did pay for the room, I never used it for myself, apart from that night. When I got to Jeremy’s room, Mi-Ok was already there – she was bruised her dress was torn – I thought at first that Jeremy did something and I punched him, but it turned out it was Mi-Ok’s ex-boyfriend. I can easily identify him, tall guy, goatee – they were at the Octagon and at some point, she wanted to leave, and he dragged her to the parking lot and tried to rape her. Jeremy was concerned because he’d heard them arguing at the club, so he went after them and ended up stopping the bastard. Yes, I stayed with her that night at the room, but I swear it was just to keep an eye out, look after her,” I end up breathless, having rushed through everything I remember.

  The chief interrogator listens attentively and seems to give my account serious consideration. He might loathe me with every fiber of his being, but I’ve always considered him a decent man, unlike his daughter. Then again, I might be wrong about him, too. I’m starting to think that I’m a fairly shitty judge of character. Shin Su-Yon. Lee Sung. Jeremy.

  He stares at the screen of his smartphone, as if contemplating a monumental decision, and eventually unlocks it and makes a call.

  “Check the security cams from the Hilltop, including the ones from the parking lot. Look into the footage from the Octagon, too. Let me know the second anything comes up.”

  He hangs up and looks at me. “What can you tell me about this friend of yours, Jeremy?”

  I raise an eyebrow. What could Jeremy possibly have to do with this?

  “I met him four years ago, in Australia. He’s Australian, but he grew up here until he was ten, so he speaks fluent Korean. He’s a good-looking guy. A player. Very loose morals. From what I know his family lives in Port Douglas. I also know he met with Mi-Ok a couple of times. But we’re no longer in touch – the only number I had for him has been disconnected since he left Korea.”

  “And tell me,” he ponderously scratches his chin, “what’s Jeremy’s last name?”

  Strange. I can’t seem to remember. I’ve only ever known him as Jeremy. Jeremy what, though? I’m not sure, but I think I might have glanced his passport when we flew to Tasmania together a while back. Something like… Stewie? Stewart? Stuart? Fuck. I can’t remember, but it definitely started with an S—

  “Something like Stu, Stuart, I’m not sure.”

  He’s scratching all the way up to his sideburns, now, and eventually he picks up his phone again. “Get me the photos of everyone who’s wanted for association with financial organized crime.”

  Ten minutes later, a young uniformed cop enters the room and hands the chief interrogator a thumb drive. He pops it into the tablet.

  “Tell me if any of these people looks familiar.”

  I swipe past an endless sea of faces. At some point the photos seem to meld together and all start to look alike. My eyes are getting bleary; I rub them and swipe on. There are so, so many – I feel as if the entire population of the world is wanted for financial crime. Meanwhile the chief investigator rocks idly in his squeaky chair, nibbling on a slice of pork jerky.

  “That’s him. That’s Jeremy,” I point at one of the photos.

  “Are you sure?” The interrogator shoots out of his chair to lean over the tablet.

  “Yeah. It’s Jeremy, I’m absolutely certain.”

  “I had a feeling.” He looks deeply troubled.

  “What feeling?” I grasp for some explanation.

  “That Shin Mi-Ok was either murdered or kidnapped by a financial crime organization. This guy,” he touches his greasy finger to the tablet screen, leaving a blurry stain, “is Alan Beaker. He heads Control the World – an organization you probably know as CTW. He’s a hacker – an incredible one – who’s been jumping between aliases for a while. Guy’s been a nightmare to locate. He’s been wanted by Interpol and a bunch of other international law-enforcement agencies for years. Always manages to slip away.”

  Jeremy, a hacker. Jeremy, the head of a crime organization. I try to wrap my head around what seems at first like delirious nonsense. I recall the attempts to hack Bubble’s core systems – criminals have always seen the memories stored there as prime stock for extortion – but the notion that Jeremy would have anything to do with something like that seems preposterous. At first.

  But the more I turn over the idea in my head, I am forced to admit that I know absolutely nothing about him. Not even his name, apparently. Whenever I asked anything about his private life, his childhood, his family, he would change the subject. All he ever told me was that his family lived in Port Douglas – another lie, I suppose – and that, unlike me, he had had a lovely childhood. I should have realized he’s too fucked up to come from a nice, happy family.

  I’m dissecting the memory of meeting him for the first time. I was sitting by myself on a beach in Cairns, drinking a beer. He app
roached me, we talked, he asked if I wanted to come to some pool party nearby. I’d been diving that day so I told him I was too tired for a party, but he convinced me, saying the girls there would be “both hot and easy.” I came with him and left less than ten minutes later with one of the girls; she was stunning, and just like he said, exceedingly easy. Too easy, probably – now that I think about it, I realize he’d very likely marked me as a target from the start. I dimly wonder if every girl at that party was on his paycheck.

  And to top it all, he’s a computer genius? What? I think of the many, many times I’d inadvertently given him access to classified Bubble records and documents. He’d always say how jealous he was that I’d had the insight to study programming and he never did. I believed him. Idiot. I never suspected he could even understand those documents.

  But he understood everything.

  And I understood nothing.

  “I suppose they planned to kidnap your girlfriend for ransom, and something went sideways. Turned into a bloodbath.”

  The word ‘bloodbath’ brings back the dizziness, the horror, the overwhelming guilt. The only thing I have now is the slender chance that she is still somehow alive – I cling to it like a mountaineer to a safety rope. She must still be alive. She has to be, because if my curse took her… that’ll be it for me, too.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The security cameras from the parking lot near the Hilltop corroborated my version of events, at least with regards to the attempted rape. The team combing my own building found some private dash-cam footage from the parking lot showing the car the attackers used. It looks like Mi-Ok was still alive when they took her.

  I hang on to that knowledge when I make my deal with the devil: If Mi-Ok is safe, I pledge never to look at another woman again. Well, I mean, I suppose I’ll have to occasionally look at other women, but I’ll vow to never touch another woman but her, as long as I live.