by James Church
“Well, then,” I said, “thanks again for everything.” I got out with difficulty. I’d barely closed the door when the car pulled away.
The restaurant was half full. No one looked up when I dragged myself across the room. I took a table against the wall, so I could lean back and take some strain off my shoulder. After something to eat and a drink, I’d go home to sleep. In the morning, I’d start full bore on the case, no more half measures, no more wondering what its importance was, or to whom. It was vitally important, above all to me. I still didn’t know whose toes I’d stepped on, or even if that was the right part of the anatomy. But it was clear I couldn’t back off. If I solved it—and it was going to end up involving more than a bank robbery, that I knew—the odds were I wouldn’t have to go back to that room with the ash club. Which would be good, because if I did have to go back, the next time they sat me in that chair, I might not stand up again. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, the man in the brown suit was standing beside me.
“May I join you, Inspector?” What a silly question. Of course the man could join me. From here on out, he practically owned me. It was clear he could haul me back whenever it suited him, as long as he thought I knew something about whatever it was that was such a threat to someone at the center. I absolutely didn’t want to sit in that darkness again. Better if he came to visit me, someplace I could see his eyes. “I was saving it for a beautiful woman, but she didn’t show up. So, please.” I nodded toward the chair opposite me.
The man smiled. There was nothing menacing in it. His face had taken on more color. This close, in the light, I could see he had an intelligent manner. “No hard feelings, I hope, Inspector. We checked, we double-checked, we decided you were not the man we were after. What can I say? You’ll accept my apology, surely. Let me buy you a drink.”
The last thing in the world I wanted was to let him buy me a drink. “Of course, I would be honored.”
What shall we have for such an occasion? Something out of the ordinary, I think. They probably have something they shouldn’t, hidden away in the rear. These places always do. Excuse me.” He got up and limped to a door at the back of the room, knocked once, then turned the handle and walked in. A minute or so later, he emerged with a bottle in his hand. “This is good Scotch,” he said. “Real Scotch. Not that colored water everyone drinks.” The waitress brought over two glasses. “Better without ice.” He poured some into my glass and then poured his own. After he held up his glass to the light, he looked at mine and laughed. “Here’s to friendship, Inspector, wherever we find it.”
The rest of the evening came out of the bottle. We drank until I couldn’t sit up straight, but the more he drank, the more dignified he seemed to become. Some people get sloppy when they drink; not him. Eventually, he asked if I wanted to know why he limped. I shrugged. “Of course you do, Inspector. Something for you to think about. Learn a lesson.”
He had been sentenced to a labor camp as a young man, a fifteen-year sentence for not reporting a conversation with a visiting Hungarian. “My elder sister had been sent to Budapest during the war; they thought she was an orphan, and the Hungarians took her in along with hundreds of others. She was there for several years, learned Hungarian, went to school, almost married a Hungarian man, but something happened and she finally came back to teach. She took ill one day and a week later was dead. It was a shock, let me tell you.”
Though I was drunk, I watched his every move, one step removed, as if I were watching myself observing him. He wasn’t the interrogator anymore, no trace of it. He sat across from me, dignified and composed, in contrast to my inability to keep my head upright. I sloshed my drink. He drank his with a careful flourish. Each time he raised the glass, it began a ritual, an elaborate code, a tribal ceremony that had a beginning, a middle, and an end. The glass went up to his mouth, he took a small sip, then lifted the glass slightly before it began a downward arc, his sleeve seemed to billow, his elbow ticked out an elegant degree or so, and as the glass settled onto the table, he smacked his lips, once.
He never gestured when he spoke, except when he was drinking. At first I assumed it was the alcohol, but then I realized it was the glass in his hand. He used the glass to point, to emphasize an argument, to indicate a joke was coming or had just been made. I could tell from the way he did this that the size of the glass made no difference, nor its shape. The glass didn’t have to be full. But it couldn’t be empty. He never gestured with an empty glass.
As an interrogator, the man in the brown suit was in complete control. He sent that message in a way that you understood, precisely, without any doubt. When he asked a question, you were forced to concentrate on his voice. That was why he stood in shadow. No distractions, no physical cues, no watching his hands or even the slightest play of emotion around the lips, unless that’s what he wanted you to see. No eye contact, only his words. But what had begun as technique had taken over completely. He was left with this and this alone—only the glass in his hand freed him.
He took a sip, waved the glass in my direction, then started it again on its journey to the table. “After she died, I wanted to thank the Hungarians, but I didn’t know how to do it, so I hung around outside their embassy. I saw someone at the corner, a Westerner. I walked over and asked him if he understood Korean. He said he did, that he was Hungarian and could carry on a conversation if I didn’t speak too fast. I told him I was grateful to the Hungarian people for taking care of my sister, that she had spoken highly of them and their country, and that I hoped to be able to repay the debt. He smiled and said if I came back to this corner the next afternoon, at the same time, he would drive by and pick me up.” The glass was empty; he pushed it aside and composed himself. Sitting very still, he continued, “The next day when I got to the corner, a security man emerged from behind a tree. He said I was to come with him. They said the foreigner I had talked to was a Hungarian spy, and that I had disgraced the country. I wrote a confession. I was shaken, believe me. They put me in the back of a truck with ten other young men, and a woman who was weeping, and we drove off to a camp in the mountains.” He stopped talking, just stopped, as if he had run out of words.
“Bad luck,” I said softly.
Anyone else might have laughed, or roared in protest, or sighed. He sat motionless. Finally he put his fingers around his glass and tipped it back and forth. “When I got out I was a little older, thinner, and had this limp. Ash, the guards carried clubs made of ash. Mostly they kept order by shouting at us and waving the clubs. But one of the guards took an instant dislike to me, no reason, he just did. He tried everything he could to kill me. One day he beat me so hard his club broke. I couldn’t move for a month. I finally healed, all except for my leg. Six years into my sentence, a car drove up to the gate, a colonel got out, and they hustled me over to him. He asked if I was well, I said I was. He asked if I had been fed, I said I had. He told me I had been wrongly sentenced, that the vermin responsible had been punished, and that I was now free to serve the people. He shook my hand, looked around at the other prisoners, and led me out the gate to his car.”
“Luck changes.” I could hear I was mumbling, but it wasn’t my main concern. By now I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
“That’s how things happened in the old days, Inspector. In the old days, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
In a sudden spurt of clarity, I sat up. “You been watching me long? I saw you on the train, you were watching me.”
He moved back his chair. “Put your head on the table and sleep a little. I’m sure we’ll meet again.” I didn’t see him leave, but I heard the irregular gait of his footsteps disappear into the long night.
8
“You’re back.” Min put down the newspaper he wasn’t reading. He stood up and moved around his desk toward me. “Are you alright?”
“Fine.”
“We were worried. You didn’t show up for work, no one knew where you were. I called the Ministry, they called around. SSD
said they had no idea where you were, that they didn’t want you for anything. They said they’d check. A few hours later they got back in touch. They said you were out of the system.” Min put his hands up, in a gesture of helplessness. He swallowed hard. “ ‘Out of the system’—what a term. It sounds like a piece of meat that dropped off the table.” Min looked closely at me. “You sure you’re alright?”
“I already told you, I’m fine. They finally figured out they had the wrong person. Made friends with me, took me out for a drink afterward.”
“Sure, I know, you don’t have to talk about it, probably shouldn’t. But the Minister doesn’t like it when they snatch his people like this. We’ll have to send something in, a piece of paper or something saying you’ve reported back on duty. I’ll call and tell them you’re here.” Min picked up the phone.
“Let’s wait a while, okay? Give me a few minutes to get my head clear. Why don’t we review things, just go over what we know. That Blue Paper on Yang, has there been any follow-up?”
“Inspector, you’re in no shape to review anything, and frankly I’m not in the mood.” He put the phone back down. “You shouldn’t even be here. Go home, get some rest.”
“There isn’t time for that. Look, a new unit is out there. First Yang spots them nosing around my apartment, then I get the feeling I’m being watched out on the street, and then I get hauled in.”
“Where? SSD wouldn’t dare do it. Who?”
“I don’t have any idea. I don’t even remember being picked up.”
“They beat you?”
“No, I drank too much.”
“That’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it.” Min started to pick up the phone again. “They hurt your shoulder, didn’t they?”
“It’s not so bad.” He was right, this wasn’t a good time to review. Lying down would be better.
“You look like a man who doesn’t want to move his arm if he can avoid it, Inspector. And your left hand is odd. Like the blood isn’t getting there in normal fashion. Maybe you should see the doctor at the Ministry. I’ll call and tell him you’re coming.”
“No, he’ll make a record of it. Just let this go. I know a doctor. Really, it wasn’t so bad.” I nodded toward a chair. “You mind if I sit for a minute?”
“Sure, sit. Let me get you some tea.” Min hurried out of the room before I could stop him. I put my head against the wall and closed my eyes. My shoulder did hurt now, worse than last night. Maybe I’d go home for the rest of the day.
“Here, it’s good tea. Yang brought in a package, said he got it somewhere. I don’t know.” Min held out the cup, changed his mind, and put it down on his desk. “Forget the damned tea, Inspector; get to a doctor, would you? You won’t be a lot of use to me if you end up having only one arm.” He took a quick step to his file cabinet, opened a drawer, and then slammed it shut. “Bastards.” He stood with his back to me for a moment, then turned around. “They really did that? Apologized, then took you out for a drink, after doing that?” He nodded toward my shoulder. “Get it fixed, Inspector. Don’t come back until you do.”
9
The next day I stayed home and tried to sleep. The doctor at the morgue had given me four pain pills. “It’s all I have,” she said. “Cut them in half, in quarters if you can. Take as little as you need so they’ll last. It’s not dislocated, nothing’s broken, though they could have shattered the collarbone or severed a nerve. It could have crippled you for life. It’s bad enough that the bruise is so deep. You’ll be in pain for a week, at least a week.” She helped me back into my shirt. “Good thing you’re right-handed.”
“They knew it.”
“Oh.” She considered this. “Well, that’s something, I suppose.” Her voice faltered, and then she snapped it back where it belonged. “Sleep as much as you can. Don’t move your shoulder around for a couple of days, then try to flex so it doesn’t get stiff. If you can put some heat on it, that would be good. Maybe heat up a brick and wrap it in cloth, anything like that. When you’re taking these pills, don’t drink any alcohol. Not a drop. Come back in a week. And try to keep moving your fingers.” She walked me to the door. “Do you have anyone who can help out for the next few days? Maybe cook a meal, or help you wash?”
“No. I can manage.”
“I doubt it, but we’ll see.”
“Thanks. I was never here.”
“No, you weren’t.” She gave me a half smile. “Maybe none of us are.”
10
The pills made me jumpy, or maybe I was already jumpy because of how the man in the brown suit had sidestepped my question about why he had been watching me on the train. There could only be one reason he wouldn’t answer the question—he wasn’t finished with me. I worried with that through the haze of the pills, then the haze got deeper and the worry softened into a white cloud that drifted away. It was the best I’d felt in a long time, watching that cloud. I must have been dozing when there was a knock on the door. Getting up was difficult; I could only use one arm. “Just a minute.”
When I opened the door, it was Miss Chon. I was surprised and irritated. “You shouldn’t be here. One of us is going to get the other one in trouble. I already told you, you’re a suspect. Now I’m a suspect, again.”
“A fine welcome, Inspector. In Kazakhstan, we invite visitors in and offer them a piece of fruit. And if we’re both suspects, wouldn’t it be strange if we didn’t get together?”
“I don’t have any fruit.”
She looked past me into the room. “You don’t seem to have much of anything. I thought you were fooling when you said you didn’t have any chairs. You live like a hermit!” Her fingers touched my arm. “I heard.”
“You didn’t hear anything, and you’re about to go away.” I backed up a few steps, sank down on my knees, and then rolled onto my side on my blanket. “How did you get past the old lady at the entrance?”
“I’m a bank manager, Inspector. My job is to talk people into things they don’t think they want, and out of things they do. She didn’t put up much of a fight, especially after I told her I was worried about you. She said people here have been wondering what’s wrong.” Miss Chon stepped tentatively into the room. She had on a long coat that was cinched around her waist. “I’ve been calling and calling you at your office. Whoever answered said you weren’t there and that you don’t have a phone at home, not in your room, anyway. That’s all they’d say.”
“Good, that’s all they’re supposed to say, and anyway it’s true. Some people have phones. I don’t want one. It would only ring at the wrong moment.”
She laughed, and my shoulder stopped hurting for a few seconds. “Oh, and when would that be?”
“When I’m not here, when I’m here, anytime at all.” Sometimes, they say, laughter stays in a room, but it didn’t in mine. It faded quickly, as if it wanted to get out of there as soon as it could. “I told you the other night, I’m not a social creature, I’m antisocial. Right now, I’m particularly antisocial. When I throw a party, I’ll send you an invitation. I need to sleep.” I closed my eyes. The door slammed before I managed to say, “Thank you for coming.”
11
Min put me outside for a few days, said I needed exercise and fresh air. “Stay away from the office,” he said, “I mean it.” He couldn’t give me any leave, but this was nearly as good. I didn’t want to be out of the office, but I still couldn’t think straight because of the pills and the pain. The one thought that marched around in the haze in my head was Miss Chon. Every time I blinked my eyes, she was standing at my door, and I wondered why I didn’t have any fruit. I tried to force myself to forget the fruit and concentrate on why she had come to my place. Foreigners didn’t do that; they stayed in their hotel rooms, or somewhere. So what was she doing at my room?
I thought of an answer, but it disappeared in a burst of pain from my shoulder and I gave up thinking about anything. Midmorning, while I was sitting on some steps watching the sunlight as it came through
the new leaves of the trees, an army guard marched over with an old man. “He’s causing trouble.” He handed me a piece of paper. “Get him out of my area.” The guard was young; the collar on his shirt was too big. But he was serious about his job. He gave me a serious frown and walked away.
I stood up. “You heard the fellow. He said you’re a troublemaker, Grandfather. Are you?”
The old man looked at the ground when he spoke. “You’ll believe what you want.”
We were standing on the sidewalk. Nobody stared directly at us as they walked by, but they all slowed, as if the thin, bent figure were a dead animal on the road. I skimmed the paper the guard had handed me. “Don’t let’s make this complicated. This is a list of complaints against you.” I held it up for him to see. “It’s a long list. You’re lucky it got to me before it went to someone else.”
He looked up at that. I thought he had the eyes of an old dragon, powerful eyes, smoldering for centuries with indignation. “I’ve not bothered anyone in this city,” he said. “No one has cause to complain. I live my own life. I follow the rules. I speak the words. If this generates complaints, then the Leader himself is as guilty as I am.”
“How about we lower our sights for the moment and just go over the list, shall we?” I looked around to make sure he hadn’t been overheard. “Leave other people out of it, if you know what I mean. We’ll make a few notations, maybe close the file and get on with our lives. It might be that easy.” I went down the list with my finger until I found something that could be dealt with in a simple word or two. “It says here you told a group of people at a restaurant that food prices were too high. True?”
