The Plotters
Page 29
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Hanja said.
Reseng shot him in the thigh. ‘You get another bullet each time you speak.’
The car next to them climbed several floors and stopped. Reseng lit a cigarette and smoked it while watching the other lift burn. People were gathering in the plaza.
‘Not quite the box office smash I was hoping for,’ Reseng muttered.
He opened one of the suitcases Hanja had brought. It was filled with ten-thousand-won bills. Reseng fired four shots at the glass wall of the lift and smashed it open with the butt of the revolver, then grabbed handfuls of cash and tossed them out. The bills fluttered down onto the plaza. With a satisfied look, he emptied the rest of the suitcase out of the lift. Hanja watched, stupefied. Dozens of police cars and fire engines were pulling up. Between them and the hordes of shoppers scrambling to grab the cash, it was instant pandemonium.
Reseng pulled another Molotov cocktail and can of paint thinner from the bag, shook them at the lift’s security camera, lit the rag and set the bottle in the middle of the lift. Hanja’s face darkened with terror. He opened his mouth to say something, but Reseng pointed the gun at his face and slowly shook his head. Hanja closed his mouth.
Reseng took out his mobile phone and called Mito. She answered.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you change the world,’ he said. ‘To be honest, I don’t really believe it’s possible…but you’ll find a book and a locker key in the second drawer anyway. Please tell Misa I’m sorry I couldn’t join her.’
Mito started to ask what he was talking about, but he hung up. He took out his mobile phone’s USIM chip, burned it with his lighter and dropped it on the floor. Then he lit a cigarette and took a drag. Everyone in the plaza was staring up at him. Were they watching the fire? Or were they waiting for more money to rain down? Maybe they’re waiting for me to die, or for me to kill someone, he thought. A police officer yelled through a megaphone. But Reseng could not make out a word; the sound was lost in the cacophony of all the spectators. Maybe the cop was asking what he wanted. What do I want? he asked himself.
Reseng fired two shots at a vehicle parked below the lift. The police and spectators standing near the car scattered in a wide circle. Reseng took out another Molotov cocktail and chucked it at the parked car. It burst into flames. Snipers were being deployed to the hotel side. One on the roof, one in the hotel room across from the lift and one on the skybridge. Though he only saw three, he figured there were more hiding elsewhere. Outside the plaza, TV crews had finally arrived and were setting up their cameras. Cameramen were edging through the crowd to get a shot of Reseng. The police officer was still yelling through his megaphone. Reseng realised the cop was trying to reason with him. He held a bomb in his left hand and shook it at the crowd.
Suddenly, Hanja started chuckling. Reseng turned to look at him. He didn’t stop. Reseng cocked his head, raised the revolver and shot Hanja in the left thigh. At the sound of the gun, the commotion in the plaza grew louder. Hanja groaned, but started talking anyway.
‘I guess you want to be like Chu. But can people like us ever live up to him?’ Hanja chuckled. ‘Do you know why you hate me? It’s because you and I are like twins. You’re furious because you’re so much like the thing you hate most. But what can you do about it? This is just how we turned out.’
Hanja didn’t seem to care that talking meant taking another bullet. Even while grimacing in pain, he never lost his mocking gaze. Reseng pointed the gun at him.
‘How the hell are we alike?’
‘Look,’ Hanja chuckled, still unable to suppress his laughter, ‘what I really want to know is which of us is more like Old Raccoon. You or me?’
Hanja or him? Him or Hanja? Which one? Reseng lowered his gun. ‘So, who do I look like now?’ he asked.
Hanja stopped laughing and stared at him. A shot rang out. Reseng looked down at his chest. There was a hole in it. Reseng felt the hole with his finger. The blood was dark. The bullet must have pierced his liver. When Reseng was turning his head to see where the bullet had exited, a second bullet passed through his lung. His ears filled with the sound of running water. Cool water rolling over a bed of gravel. Water as ice-cold as it had always been. But now he thought it wasn’t such a bad place after all. He would become a stone at the bottom of that stream. Or some flat moss. Or a butterfly dodging drops of water as it fluttered away.
Reseng fell to his knees, his mouth curling into its trademark smirk.
UN-SU KIM was born in 1972 in Busan and is the author of several highly praised novels. He has won the Munhakdongne Novel Prize, Korea’s most prestigious literary prize, and was nominated for the 2016 Grand Prix de la Littéraire Policière. He lives in Jinhae-gu, South Korea.
SORA KIM-RUSSELL’S recent translations include The Hole and City of Ash and Red by Hye-young Pyun, Familiar Things and At Dusk by Hwang Sok-yong, and the short story collection Wolves by Jeon Sungtae. sorakimrussell.com.
PRAISE FOR THE PLOTTERS
‘More than a crime novel, more than violence and mystery, The Plotters promises both temptation and beauty.’ Eka Kurniawan, author of Beauty Is a Wound
‘An incredible cast of characters…A first-rate thriller.’ Le Monde
‘A rich, funny, cynical Korean roman noir…
A delicious surprise.’ La Croix
‘Awe is my reaction to The Plotters. The novel thrills me like a wolf feels when it has smelled blood.’ Kwon Yeo-seon, author of Niche of Green
‘Like a veteran killer…quickly, coolly, and without hesitation, Un-su Kim commands sentences and stories that stab the reader between the ribs.’ Park Min-gyu, author of Pavane for a Dead Princess
‘A book of revelations for murder both violent yet graceful, dark yet poetic. With sharp humour and sparkling prose, Un-su Kim stylishly spins the tale of the extraordinary life of an ordinary assassin.’ J. M. Lee, author of The Investigation
‘More than a detective novel, this story has all the hallmarks of a thriller: traps, betrayals, cold-hearted violence, cynicism, smoothly performed assassinations…A warm yet disenchanted worldview, tinged with melancholy…A thrilling novel.’ Fall Review
‘A must-read.’ Actu du noir
‘A whole other Korea at work.’ Libération
‘Now this is a story with power and style. The one-two punches of humour are a nice bonus…You’ll be laughing out loud every five minutes…You’ll find yourself contemplating the meaning of life, death, and desire for a long, long time. Make sure you leave your evening free, because you won’t be able to put this book down once you start.’ You-jeong Jeong, author of The Good Son
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Copyright © 2010 Un-su Kim
English translation copyright © 2018 Sora Kim-Russell
The moral right of Un-su Kim to be identified as the author and Sora Kim-Russell as the translator of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Originally published in Korea as 설계자들 by Muhakdongne Publishing Corporation in 2010
This edition published by The Text Publishing Company in 2018
This book is published with the support of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea)
Cover by W. H. Chong
Cover image from iStock
Page design by Jessica Horrocks
Typeset by J&M Typesetting
ISBN: 9781925603767 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925626742 (ebook)
A catalogue record for th
is book is available from the National Library of Australia