by James Church
“That’s fine,” I said. “You suppose I could talk to him?”
“Could be, but you’ll have to be patient. This switchboard is being upgraded, and they’ve got wires crossed all the way from here to the border. Yesterday I tried to connect to a Kang and you know what I got?”
“No, what did you get?”
“Kanggye.”
“Ouch.”
“In case I lose you, what’s your ID so I can call you back?”
I gave her my name and number.
“Okay, Inspector, hang on, here we go.” The phone buzzed and clicked for a few seconds, and then another voice came on. “Hello.”
My watch said 2:05. “Inspector O here, calling for Deputy Director Kang. Official business.”
“Inspector, I know who you are, and you’re late.”
“Blame the switchboard.”
“I’ve been reviewing your file.”
This is rarely a good sign, but it helps to sound unconcerned. “I’m sure you found it fascinating. Especially my poor performance in photography class.”
“Your chief inspector rates you highly.”
“That’s just for the file. He needs that in case he ever wants to get rid of me. If he gives me a low rating, no one will take me.”
“No, he’s very specific. You have solved sensitive cases involving high-ranking cadre. You have protected your Ministry from disturbing developments. And you have a reputation for following orders in a discreet and sensible manner, with excellent results. What does that mean, I wonder?”
“I wouldn’t know. You’ll have to ask Pak.”
“I might do that.”
“Kang, we’re each of us busy, in his own way, and I’m glad to have reached you. But my office is hot, I still haven’t had any tea, and it will probably take me all afternoon to track down a battery for that camera.”
“Exactly why I like your type, always charging ahead to protect the people of the motherland.”
“I’ll tell you what, Kang, why don’t we have a beer?”
A slight pause, then a short laugh. “I thought you’d never ask, Inspector. I’ll meet you at the Koryo Hotel, say at six o’clock. Precisely.”
“Good.” I hung up and walked across the hall to Pak’s office. Pak looked up warily. “He wants to have a beer.”
“Where?”
“At the Koryo.”
Pak raised an eyebrow. “Funny place to have a meeting. Not an accident, as the Russians used to say, even if you did mention it first.” A smile quickly passed across his face. “Quiet day. Thin walls. Watch your step. And Inspector”—Pak walked over to the blackboard and began beating on it furiously with the chalk—“mind your manners.”
8
Kang was sitting on one of the benches at a wooden table in the beer hall at the front of the Koryo Hotel. As it usually is, the hotel was quiet and cool. I never figured out where the coolness came from. There was no air-conditioning. Maybe it was all the marble—the floors were marble, and so were the pillars where they weren’t mirrored. The marble was too dark for my taste, mostly black and gray, but if it kept the place cool in August, I wasn’t going to lodge a complaint on aesthetic grounds.
When the architect first presented the plans for the hotel, they probably looked grand. Two towers side by side, a revolving restaurant on the top, a marble lobby with high ceilings. The scale model must have been fantastic. Scale models usually are. One of my first assignments when I joined the Ministry was to investigate the disappearance of funds from the central offices of the Union of Architects. There were little models everywhere, models for government buildings, movie theaters, apartment houses with perfect balconies and intact facades, parks with winding pathways and beautiful landscaping. Architects make good scale models, but they make lousy thieves. The key to a suitcase was hidden under a marble kiosk in one of the model parks. It wasn’t so hard to find. Who ever heard of a marble kiosk? Once I had the key, finding the suitcase was no problem. The key was for French luggage. None of the architects had been to France, but one of them, the deputy chief, had been to Beijing recently. I paid a call on him at his apartment, late at night. He had a lot of second-rate silk scarves and windbreakers lying around, draped over chairs and on the bed, along with a woman he said wanted to learn about masonry structures. He said the goods were for family members, and I told him he was under arrest unless he showed me the French-brand suitcase he used to carry all that stuff back from China. The key fit; the money was inside, wrapped in a red and white jacket. The woman got dressed in the meantime and left. I saw her a few weeks later while I was walking down a street in my sector. She was wearing a green scarf, but she didn’t say hello.
A white player piano at the entrance to the Koryo’s beer hall provides a contrast to the dim, muffled mood that otherwise settles over you as soon as you walk past the doorman into the hotel. The doorman acts friendly and touches the brim of his scarlet hat if he recognizes you or guesses you are important, but he closely questions anyone or anything that looks like it doesn’t belong. The piano had arrived by truck one rainy morning. The doorman was about to wave it away until he glanced in the back and found a ten-dollar bill.
At first, the hotel staff only put classical music rolls in the piano, mostly heroic-sounding pieces that made people stride quick-step across the lobby. Now the invisible hands at the keyboard were playing a Beatles tune. I didn’t know the title, but I knew it was from the Beatles. The song was the staff’s idea of a joke, a pinprick for the puffed-up types who strut past the doorman, stand around the lobby swaying in time with the music, and then stop abruptly when it occurs to them that whatever they are hearing isn’t familiar and could, conceivably, get them in trouble. I know it was meant as a joke, because I gave the staff the idea. I also gave them the piano roll, which I’d found by accident in a bin filled with piano rolls outside a small music store down a narrow side street in Berlin. I was looking for Mozart. I came home with the Beatles. Procurement trips were often like that.
Most people would have waited until I arrived, but Kang hadn’t. He was already sipping a beer. It might have been bad manners, but I was sure it wasn’t. With someone of his rank, it was bound to be calculated, an effort to make me uneasy, to show he didn’t care what I thought of him. I stood beside the table, waiting for acknowledgment of my presence.
“Inspector, have a seat.” He took a sip from his glass but didn’t look up. “I hope you don’t mind, but I started without you.” I just stood there. Until he looked at me, I wasn’t going to move. Finally, he turned his head and nodded for me to sit. “It’s hot in my office, and I was thirsty.” This was unexpected. People like Kang don’t usually explain themselves.
“Glad you did,” I said, and slid onto the bench opposite him. “I’m a little late.” Kang looked at his hands. He was older than I was, and senior. I needed a touch more deference. I hadn’t shown any during our first meeting this morning; it wouldn’t hurt my case to throw in a little now. “I’m sorry, traffic can be a problem. Used to be, we could zip anywhere we wanted. Just hop in the car, pick any lane, and there you were. Never even had to flick the turn signals on. No one to see it anyway. Now, cars and buses and trucks all tangled, trollies holding things up. This isn’t progress.” He was still examining his hands. I switched gears. “I hope I didn’t keep you long.” I paused. “Sorry.”
Kang looked up. “There are two kilometers between your office and the hotel. This isn’t downtown Tokyo. Try leaving five minutes early next time. It’s only going to get worse, or better, depending on your point of view.” Some people would have smiled when they said this, to cover the ambiguity. Kang didn’t change expressions. He didn’t even blink.
I nodded to the waitress, who knew I ordered only Pyongyang beer when meeting someone from the party. She raised her eyebrows, her way of asking if she should bring a plate of dried fish. She knew I never got it for myself; it was too salty. I nodded again.
“You seem to know the staff
here pretty well.” Kang had changed his shirt since I had seen him in the morning. “That’s good. Staff can be quite observant, very useful for information.” Still his face was blank. Not a muscle twitched; there was nothing to read. He wasn’t holding a conversation, he was just watching me.
“Mmm, hadn’t thought of that. I’ll see that it gets in our duty manual.” I was going to get riled in a minute, which might be what he wanted. There was no sense in playing his game, so I changed the subject. “Hotel seems pretty full.” At that moment the piano began a new song. I pretended not to recognize it. “Pretty, might be Russian,” I said.
“Not Russian. You don’t know the tune, Inspector?” I shook my head. “It’s the theme song to The Godfather. I brought the piano roll to the staff a few months ago from Berlin. Funny store. All the piano rolls thrown together in a big bin out in front.”
According to this game, my next question was supposed to be, “What’s The Godfather?” But I wasn’t about to spar endlessly with the man. “Ah, that’s why it sounded familiar.” I laughed. The man’s face was never going to give me a clue, so I moved my attention to his hands. “I remember, I saw it in Prague.” It’s hard for people not to react at all. If they keep their faces under control, they often do something with their hands. Just a finger lifting off the table, one thumb tapping the other, nothing you’d normally notice.
In fact, at that point I’d never been to Prague. I had seen the movie, though, in Budapest. If Kang had done anything more than flutter the pages in my dossier, he’d know I supposedly passed through Prague last year on official business. He might even have skimmed some of my reports, filed from the embassy in Prague thanks to a family friend who worked there and agreed to cover for me after I ignored my orders and went to Hungary instead. Eventually, I figured, I’d get to Prague, maybe the next time I had orders to Budapest. We had a lot of trouble with the Hungarian security ministry; it didn’t put up with much, so liaison visits were often necessary to straighten out “incidents.”
Precisely because they were unauthorized, my two short days in Budapest had been sweet, the Tokaji warming my blood after dinner, the smell of morning pastries waking me even before room service knocked on my door. Even the constant rain, melancholy as it dripped off the old stone houses, was a welcome change from the relentless downpours that left buildings at home looking sodden and cold. The rain couldn’t dampen my spirits, so I was surprised to find what did. What made me lonely was the sound of the signs above the shop doors, creaking and rattling in the wind. There is nothing like it in Pyongyang; the wind blows, but there are no signs.
After I mentioned Prague, Kang sat completely still, his hands resting on the table, not a peep from them. Then, with a strange smile, he turned his beer glass and held it up to the light. “German beer is quite good,” he said, “but the Hungarians only make good pastry. Now, why is that, do you suppose, Inspector?”
My stomach gave a little warning lurch. Kang was better than I thought, maybe deeper than I’d guessed. I shrugged. “Something tells me we’re not here to discuss pastry, or to compare notes about the outside.”
Kang’s eyes went from expressionless to dead. It must have been something he had practiced, because he was very good at it. It was as if a clear lens several millimeters thick had come down over them. All of a sudden, his eyes didn’t reflect the light; they didn’t react to what they could see. His voice stayed smooth, no hint of threat, but without anything in his eyes the overall effect was disconcerting. I knew he had finished sparring. He was going into battle. “What time did you leave the surveillance site this morning?”
“It’s in my report.” I took a piece of dried fish without realizing it. “Must have been about 7:00 A.M.”
“How about 6:30?”
“If you say so.”
“No, Inspector, when do you say it was?”
“I’d say it was when the sun had just burned through the mist. Third row of hills was soft against the horizon.” I was getting annoyed. The fish was salty, and I didn’t know what Kang was up to.
“Very poetic. But to be a little more precise, what time might that have been?”
“Six fifteen. I looked at my watch when I got into my car. I may have sat there a minute or two before I turned on the engine. By 6:45 I was back in the city.”
“At 7:10 you walked into Pak’s office. I looked at my watch when you threw the camera onto the desk. You made good time. No traffic problems at that hour?” He smiled faintly. I smiled back. There was more to this than just checking my progress into the city. I’d let him string it out, if that’s what he wanted to do. Intelligence types never liked to get right to the point.
“At 6:40, a farmer walking along the highway found a body. He had a watch, too—the farmer, I mean.” Kang paused, waiting for my reaction. I said nothing. “Just up the road there was a car in the ditch. Rear tire had blown. The left front window was shattered.” I sat back from the table so I could see him better. “Want to know what color the car was?” Kang’s eyes were coming back to life. “It was black. No plates.” He didn’t pause to get my reaction. “You’re in for a cartload of woe, Inspector.”
I relaxed. So that was it. He didn’t think I had done anything, and he really wasn’t trying to make it look like I had. He needed my help; otherwise we wouldn’t be in plain sight in the Koryo at dinnertime. I nodded, partly because I finally figured out what he wanted, partly because I needed a second to think. “You’ve omitted a few details.”
Kang laughed. “Well, I must be losing my touch. I guess I’m not getting through to you. So let me try again. The body was about 250 meters from your observation post. It was wearing the uniform of a senior colonel. Someone had cut his throat.”
“Only he wasn’t a senior colonel.” My stomach sent up another warning lurch, and my mind started racing. How would Kang know where my observation post was? I had picked it out that morning; even my chief inspector didn’t know the precise place.
Kang rubbed his eyes. “I’m tired. You’re not listening. And if you don’t listen, you’ll just get in deeper.”
“No, I heard you. But there was no body, no car in any ditch when I drove back. And the car I saw was moving so fast, if it had blown a tire it would have gone airborne and smashed more than the left front window.”
“You done?”
“No. Was there a radio scanner in the car?”
“Strange question.” I could see I had caught him off guard. “How did you know?”
“I was put on camera duty. I don’t know whose job that is, but it’s not mine. I’m supposed to look after the safety of the good citizens of the capital, their foreign guests, and their fanny packs. Thirty kilometers down the road isn’t my jurisdiction. Dead bodies on the side of said road aren’t my problem. Especially if the bodies are wearing phony uniforms. Especially if the bodies are planted there after I go by.”
“That’s twice you jumped to a conclusion.” He looked past me, watching something in the lobby. “One more point. There was another body. On a hill near the road. A young boy. His throat had been cut, too.”
I exhaled. He was watching me again, but not carefully, not minutely. He wasn’t interested at this point to see if I twitched. Even so, he waited a few seconds before continuing, it was part of his rhythm. “The farmer claims he was checking the field at dawn and saw your car pulling away. He says he read your plates.”
I could have sat and pretended to consider this. That’s what he wanted, so I didn’t do it. “There was no farmer in no field, Kang. I was watching. That’s what we do almost all the time, we watch. That’s my job, and believe it or not, I know how to do it. What do you want from me?”
“Better.” Kang raised his head again. “Another beer?”
“I repeat, what do you want from me? I can’t work for you. We only work with the Investigations Department through liaison. A beer at the Koryo doesn’t count as proper channels.”
“You and I share a problem, Ins
pector.”
“That would be Colonel Kim.” A little light went on in Kang’s eyes, and went off just as quickly. I never thought I’d see it, that light. Now he realized I knew Kim’s real rank. I might as well go the rest of the way. “Let me guess. The Military Security Command is investigating your department. They’re trying to use me to get at you.” This was just speculation. All Pak had told me was that Military Security wanted a picture of the car, though it was clear he was plenty worried even with that. I had filled in the rest, about Kang being the target, while I was driving over to the hotel. Kang could only have been in the room for one reason, and it wasn’t to second the motion. He needed to find out what was happening, and he needed to know urgently. “If Military Security wants you, you must be in a lot of trouble.”
Kang folded his hands and rested them on the table. “Anyone”—he smiled—“involved with Military Security is in a lot of trouble.” He finished his beer, then put the glass to his cheek. “Difficult job, catching a speeding car at dawn on film.”
“You didn’t want that picture. Kim did.” I waited for that little light to flash again, but he must have disconnected it. I figured the conversation was over. “Thanks for the beer, Kang. I’ve got to clean my apartment.”
“Inspector.” Kang pushed something across the table. “Don’t forget this.”
It was my pin.
9
“That was the first time you met Kang?” The Irishman was studying the birds on the cloth as if he’d never noticed them before.
“No, I met him in Pak’s office, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah. I meant, that was the first time you spoke to him at any length.”
“Is it a problem for you, paying attention? We can end this right here, if that’s what you want.”
“I’m surprised you’re so polite. I thought you’d be, how to put it, nastier.”