by James Church
“How did we get into this, anyway?”
“You said I shouldn’t trust the people in my apartment house.”
“For now, for the sake of argument, we’ll grant the perfectibility of the people in your humble dwelling, Inspector. But there are other people, many other people wandering around, from all sorts of places.”
“Chagang.”
“Yes, Chagang.”
“Maybe even worse.”
“Leave the Chinese out of this. My only point is, you don’t know who might be padding down the dark halls of your apartment house at this moment.”
“Well, I think I might. More to the point, I know who isn’t, and anyone who doesn’t belong there isn’t. Maybe the doors of your building are open for one and all. At my building, there is an old woman who guards the entrance. She has nothing better to do than stop people she doesn’t recognize, and if she says they can’t pass, they don’t.”
“What about Yang? Could he get into your building, with a Ministry ID?”
“I doubt it.”
“Well, he did.”
A warning flag hoisted itself up the flagpole. “How do you know?”
“Because he was at your apartment this morning after you left, and he says he couldn’t find the wallet.”
“He went into my apartment? My apartment? Without asking my permission?”
“I told him to.” Min had his head down so he didn’t have to look at me.
“Well, that’s that, then.” I was determined to keep an atom of nonchalance in my voice, and nearly did. “If you don’t need me, I’ll be going.”
When Min picked up his head, he had a doleful look on his face. Having the apartment of one of our own staff searched was wildly beyond anything we’d ever done in our office. No chief inspector could expect to pull something like this and hope to keep his people with him. All I could figure was that Min was under so much pressure on this case it had undermined his judgment.
“Now, Inspector, this minute. I want that wallet, and I want it to be full of nice, crisp euro notes, all in order.” He was trying to sound resolute, but I could tell he felt bad.
“I thought Yang brought it back.”
“I told you, he said he couldn’t find it.” Min thought a moment. “Would you describe Yang as one of your perfect people?”
“Go to hell. You can go straight to hell.” My voice was unnaturally strained, it had taken on the timbre of a fighter plane off in the distance, lining up to strafe a truck convoy at dawn. I shook off the image. My parents had been killed in a strafing attack during the war, a lone jet in a barely light sky. I rarely thought about it, but when I was mad, it bobbed to the surface sometimes.
“Well, is he?” Min caught the ominous rumble and pushed back slightly from his desk.
“Yang is fine. Still a little shaken, but he’s coming out of it, slowly. The man just needs some more time. It was a shock, losing his family like that.” Min had crossed another line, this one worse than the first. It was galling enough that he had ordered a search of my apartment, but I was even angrier at what he was insinuating about Yang. The only thing to do was to change the subject, or walk out. “So, you and Yang discussed the death of that fellow in the noodle shop?”
Min was glad to follow my lead. “Yes, we talked about that. And if it was only that, it would be dandy. But the guy that Little Li dragged over here last night was out again in an hour, and he was spitting mad about how he was treated.”
“He was treated fine. No one roughed him up. Neither Yang nor Li would do that. He had a nasty disposition, that’s all, and he was extra interested in the money. In case anyone has forgotten, he was sitting next to a man who fell off his chair into the great void under suspicious circumstances. We needed him to answer a few questions. Yang would have made a few mournful queries, Li would have taken a couple of hours typing up the report, the guy would have signed it, and he could have walked into the night.”
“Except for one thing. He’s somebody’s son.”
“Oh, excuse me. I’m somebody’s son.” I hesitated. Well, I was, even though I’d barely known my father. “You’re somebody’s son. We’re all somebody’s son, unless we’re somebody’s daughter.”
“Good, thank you, Inspector. Further lessons on lineage will be especially useful when we are on our way to a fucking coal mine in the fucking mountains.”
“It’s that bad?” Pressure apparently didn’t even begin to explain what Min was feeling.
“No, worse, much worse. He is not only someone’s son, he is someone’s husband . . . stop . . . don’t say anything, Inspector.” Min raised his voice and started speaking faster. “I don’t doubt that he is also someone’s cousin, and someone’s nephew, as well. Let me put it in words that will be plain, even to you. He is well connected. He moves in important circles.” He took a deep breath. “And he is now our enemy.”
“Why was he in that little noodle restaurant if he is such a big shot?” It was unsettling to see Min so rattled. We had lots of enemies. One more wouldn’t kill us—unless it was someone close to the center.
“I don’t care. I don’t care at all where he dines. He can come in here and dance on my desk if he wants to.”
“What about his dead friend?”
“Case closed. Episode never happened. Our prime witness is untouchable.”
“No, not yet, there is blood work and—”
“Closed. Locked. Sealed. I don’t care about his dead friend, not for one single, solitary second. Got it? The pathologist called to say the chances of getting anything back from the lab this century are zero; she said she’s sure it was his heart, and if she’s sure, that’s good enough for me. Now, bring me that wallet, and there better not be one bill missing.”
“The dead man, the owner of the wallet, had a business card from Club Blue in his jacket.”
“Anything else?”
“Some gum.”
Min threw up his hands.
“And”—I didn’t think this would weigh very heavily with Min, but I might as well throw it on the scale—“I saw the manager of that same club coming out of the Gold Star Bank last night.”
“So what? He was probably putting his money in the bank. That’s what people do these days, don’t ask me why. I wouldn’t trust a bank with my money. And our dead friend might have liked drinking clubs. It means nothing to me. All I care about at this moment is that wallet, not gum, not business cards—the wallet.”
“It wasn’t his wallet, I told you. We didn’t touch his wallet.”
“He says it is his. He says you stole it.”
“A lie.”
“A well-connected lie, Inspector.” He stopped for a moment and seemed to regain some composure. “Alright, of course I know you didn’t steal the wallet, but how are we going to explain it when we send in a report that claims your apartment now doubles as our evidence custody room?”
“Where do you suppose he got all those big euro bills?”
“Not from the bank robbery.”
“How do you know?” Min was developing a bad habit of telling me things I did not know.
“Listen, the robbers got away with three bags of small bills, nothing bigger than a fifty. From what Yang says, the wallet had mostly one-, two-, and five-hundred-euro bills.”
Fine. Good. You have so many facts, why don’t you take over the investigation? Here.” I pulled the few notes I had on the case out of my pocket. “You can have these. Best of luck.”
“Inspector.” Min’s voice dropped to a soothing register. “It’s your case, you have the lead. Keep your notes. You do as you see fit. I’m just telling you a few tidbits that I happen to know.” He folded his hands on the desk and leaned toward me. “Look, it is painfully obvious every day that I’m not as good a chief inspector as Pak was, but what can I do?”
This came out of nowhere, though I knew it wasn’t nowhere or he never would have said it. It must have been eating at him for a long time. I’d have to do so
mething, suggest we sit and talk to clear the air. It was past time for that, anyway. But not now. Right now we had a big problem—an accusation that we had stolen some money. It had to be fixed in a hurry. “Anything else you happen to know?”
“Not at the moment. If anything pops up, we’ll chat.”
It was irritating, that phrase. “Thank you. I’m interested in things that pop up, always have been. Sometimes I say to myself, ‘O, try to pay more attention to things that pop up, can’t you?’ ”
Min frowned before looking down at his desk. He moved a file folder from right to left, straightened it, then moved it back where it had been. “Don’t let’s be at each other’s throats, Inspector. It won’t do either of us any good.”
“There are some times, Min, I have the feeling there is nothing that will do any good.” That came out harsher than I meant it, but it was out and there wasn’t any way to make it softer. Better just to let things cool off. I left without saying anything else; Min’s sigh was audible all the way down the hall.
3
I was ready to waste a few hours at the Traffic Bureau trying to locate the file on the accident. The accusation about the wallet and the search of my apartment told me that the pressure on Min was at a danger point; the case had sharp edges, and anyone handling it was going to get sliced. The sooner we dropped it, the better. But I had to admit, there was something odd about it, something that made me want to hold it up to the light one more time before dumping it in the trash. For one thing, it wasn’t usual for a bus to hit a man wearing a silk stocking over his face. It would be interesting to see what the Traffic Bureau file said, and I figured the case would have been discussed enough in the halls that it would be easy to find what I needed. I just had to make sure I didn’t find out too much.
When I got to the Traffic Bureau, a sign on the front window said they were all in a political meeting and wouldn’t be open for business until after lunch. I walked in anyway. Sure enough, the front desk was deserted, but there was more laughter from a room in back than I normally associate with political meetings. Finally, the door opened, and a line of traffic officers in white uniforms came out. Most of them had deeply tanned faces, from being outside in the weather all the time. I recognized a couple of them. They nodded as they walked past but didn’t say anything.
I went up to the front desk as the officer on duty sat down and told him what I wanted. “Who needs to know?” He stared at my identification card. He was a little man, very fine bone structure. He moved like a bird.
“I do.”
“And who are you?”
“What do you mean, who are you? It says so right here, on this card. Got my picture, my name, the signature of the Minister of People’s Security. That is usually enough. You have special requirements around here these days?”
“What’s your problem? I asked a simple question, who needs to know. It has to go on the release form.”
“I told you—I need to know. And I told you who I am. That’s who goes on the release form. Me. We finished with the formalities?”
He took my ID, looked at it for a long time. “Sorry. No such incident.”
“What do you mean, no such incident? There’s a body in the morgue that says there was.”
“Really? You talked to him, did you, the body?”
“No, but I talked to the person who did the autopsy.”
“Really? Someone told you they did an autopsy?”
“Not exactly.”
“No, not exactly. Not at all, from what I hear. If there is nothing else, Inspector, we’re busy.” He picked up the phone. I put my hand on his little wrist, gently. Even so, it wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
He put the phone down, stared at my hand for a moment, then looked up at me. He was trembling with rage. “Never do that, Inspector. Never, ever do that.”
I patted his wrist. “That didn’t hurt, did it? But we weren’t done with our conversation. I showed you a valid identification card. You are blocking my investigation. That is against regulations.”
He stopped trembling long enough to sneer. “There is nothing to block, Inspector. That’s what I told you. We have no file; there was never any accident like you described. Go away. And I mean now.” The sneer was replaced by a grin. “I hear SSD is moving into the case. That’s bad news for you inspector-boys, makes you look like a bunch of ducks.”
This was sometimes called “healthy tension” between different parts of the Ministry. Actually, the Traffic Bureau hated us, the construction troops despised the traffic cops, and nobody could stand the guards at the camps. I could stay and make a nuisance of myself, but it would tie me up for an hour, and even then I knew I wouldn’t see the whole file—which, if I stopped to think about it, I had to admit I didn’t want to see. But I also didn’t want some runt of a Traffic Bureau clerk telling me what I could see and what I couldn’t. His superior would be more amenable, even offer me tea, but claim to have no information. He would make phone calls, he would tell me: You can rest assured, Inspector, I’ll call all the way up the line if that is what it takes. He would promise to make inquiries: Most certainly, Inspector, we will continue to search the records. He would get back to me: As soon as I hear anything, absolutely as soon as I hear, I’ll call you. None of it remotely true. Better to leave now and cut my losses.
On the walk back to the office, I decided enough was enough. I’d put the case file in the bottom drawer and forget about it. Min wouldn’t like it if SSD took over, but that was the least of my concerns. If he had to deal with it in the Saturday meeting, that was his problem.
When I got back to my office, I heard voices coming from Min’s room. A minute later, my phone rang.
“O here.”
“Inspector, come into my office, please.”
“I need to write up one of those daily reports for yesterday.”
“No, you don’t, and you didn’t get anything done at the Traffic Bureau, just like at the bank and that bar. We need to talk.”
Min was behind his desk, and in a chair against the wall was a lanky man, probably in his late thirties, wearing an open white shirt with cuffs that could knock your eyes out, a blue blazer, and tan slacks. His hair was short and neat. He had a dark complexion, made darker by the large, square sunglasses that hid his eyes and a good deal of territory around them.
Min stood up as I walked in, which put me on my guard. “Inspector, I want you to meet someone.” The other man nodded but didn’t get out of his chair. “This is Lieutenant Han, from SSD. He’ll be working with you on the bank robbery.”
So, the boom had been lowered, even faster than I’d expected. Maybe too fast. I eyed the man from SSD, a long, thoughtful look, nothing to suggest I was surprised, or concerned, or already felt quicksand up to my waist. The man from SSD returned my gaze, or maybe he didn’t. He might have been sleeping, for all I knew; you couldn’t be sure what was going on behind those big dark glasses. I turned back to Min. “Good of SSD to make the offer to work with us, but unnecessary. This is an important case.” I paused to make sure I had the next sentence phrased just right, with the sarcasm decently buried. “They should handle it, and we wouldn’t want to weigh them down.” Lieutenant Han didn’t respond, but Min did, before anything like an awkward silence had a chance to establish itself.
“The State Security Department has been assigned to this case, Inspector, in conjunction with us.” Min was talking fast, clipping words like hedges; that usually happened when he was nervous or in the presence of people who clearly were—or might conceivably be—a threat. “You can imagine how the Center wants all resources working together. The Minister has personally approved.” This I doubted, unless the word “approved” was taken in the strictly literal sense of signing one’s name to a piece of paper. Min must have read my mind. “The signed order is coming down later today. You and Han here can start before it arrives. Take some time to get acquainted, get used to each other’s mode of operations, that sort of
thing. You’ll need to give him a full briefing on where things stand. Teamwork, Inspector.” Min’s voice was looking for a false bravado it couldn’t find. “That’s the new way. No more lone-wolf policing. Teamwork.” The word seemed to give him a certain ballast. I was afraid he might repeat it again, but he only looked at us in turn and fiddled with a pencil.
Now there was an awkward silence. Han finally stood up. I thought maybe the reference to wolves had stirred him. “All we have to do is solve this, Inspector. After that, we can go back to normal.” He spoke with his mouth mostly closed, in a voice that sounded like he was borrowing it from someone else. This kid was not going to be much help, already I knew that. I’d trailed along with SSD many times before, and it was never pleasant. At our level, they were a threat, alright, but not the usual type. When they weren’t lazy, they were stupid. The combination was inevitably lethal for someone; I always tried to make sure it wasn’t me. The only time it was really serious was when SSD headquarters became personally involved. Those people had heft, that we knew, and you didn’t want to get in their way.
“Fine, good to have you with us, Lieutenant.” I took the silk stocking out of my back pocket. “You wouldn’t have the match to this, would you?”
Min sat down. The chair creaked, but he said nothing as he covered his eyes.
Han followed me back to my office. He looked around the room. “Where’s your computer?”
“We don’t have computers.” This was the first sign of trouble. SSD had a bigger budget and was better equipped. Even more galling, it liked to rub our noses in the fact that it was operating from a higher plane than the rest of us. What SSD wanted, SSD got. “We don’t need them, actually.” I gestured around the room to suggest the office was more than sufficiently equipped.
“Is that so?” Han went over to my file cabinet. “You have everything in here?” He opened the top drawer, where I keep my wood scraps and my sandpaper. “What’s this?”
“I keep that mostly empty for evidence.” He didn’t say anything. I pushed the drawer shut. “You like wood?”