“Mr Clarke. Jim James sent me.”
“Yes, yes,” he motioned for Harry to sit down. “I do apologise, we didn’t expect you so soon. Everything’s quite in order though.” He picked up the phone and dialled, “Janet? The Paxman file, if you please.”
“Paxman?”
“Yes, that’s your new name. Now, can I get you anything? A cup of tea? Scotch? Yes, you look like you’ve had a rough day.” He walked over to large display case and took a bottle of whisky and a glass, “Excuse me if I don’t join you. It’s a little early for my stomach.”
There was a knock on the office door as Harry accepted the drink, and an older woman in a strict business suit entered and placed a large file on the desk. Clarke took out two British passports and an envelope and handed them to Harry, took up some reading glasses from the desk, and looked through the file.
“Now then, Jonathon and Sarah Paxman. I understood you’ve had a little trouble recently, so we felt it would be better to change the names completely. And your birth dates have been shifted by three years and one month for you, and one year and three months for the girl, so she’s over eighteen now. We like to change these details, or they can stick out like a sore thumb to anyone who’s looking for them.”
Harry flicked through the passport. His had several pages of visas and stamps. Clarke continued, “Open visas for both Hong Kong and the mainland, and we’ve put in a few interesting trips for you: Europe, Japan, and you’ve both been to Bali last year. Yours is five years old, but you can always come to us if you want to renew it.” Harry looked in the envelope. “That’s a credit card, good for ten thousand US dollars. The name matches your new passport, of course.”
“And how much do I owe you?”
Clarke looked up from the folder. He took off the glasses and looked at Harry. “The bill is going to Mr James, and do say hello from me when you see him again. We will, of course, destroy all record of you the minute you leave this office. Any questions, Mr Paxman?”
Harry grinned and sipped his whisky. He took out a cigarillo from his coat, “No, Mr Clarke. Everything seems to be quite in order.”
*
Harry was soon back at the café. His heart jumped, Mui’s seat was empty. The empty coffee cup sat next to the uneaten sandwich. She was nowhere in sight. He tried to stay calm and sat down. A minute later she came from the bathroom, looking pale. She smiled when she saw him, and sat opposite. “How did it go?”
“No problems,” he said, and handed her the new passport.
She looked inside. “Sarah Paxman? And my birthday’s wrong.”
“You should memorise it.”
“Harry? What happened this morning?”
“I don’t know. I guess the men in the van were Huang’s. I don’t know how they found us.” He took the passport back and slipped it inside his coat.
“What are we going to do now, Harry? Where are we going to go?” She looked at him. Her face was grey, and her eyes tired, but he was amazed how well she was standing up after the events of the morning.
“We’re going to Seoul. I have some contacts there, and now we can travel anonymously.”
“What if they come after us again?”
Harry looked at her. He didn’t have any answer to that.
*
Outside on the street they bought a new bag and a few clothes, and a new coat for Mui. At a public payphone, Harry put the flights on his new card, then went to an exchange bank and took out money from his old accounts, and separately changed the cash into Korean won. In Korea, everything could be paid in cash without raising eyebrows.
That accounted for most of the money he’d got out of Huang, though he still had a little left from the job in Japan. At least the credit card from James might cover a lot of the medical costs, if they ever got Mui to a doctor. They went straight to the airport. Neither of them wanted to spend any longer in Beijing than necessary, and Harry knew they would be safe once they went through customs.
The airport officials stamped their passports with barely a glance, and then they had a few hours to kill. Finally, Mui was hungry, so they ate in an airport restaurant and sat drinking beers. Mui said, “Nobody says anything about me drinking when I’m with you.”
“They assume I’m responsible. Anyway, you look older than you are.”
“I was thinking that. I think I’ve aged a lot. I was thinking about my friends, too. I won’t be able to talk to them when I go back. Everything’s changed.”
“You’ll find it easier when you’re back. You’ll get into old routines.”
Mui shook her head. “I don’t even know what we used to talk about. It feels like a different life.” She looked at Harry, examining the lines and bruises on his face. “I don’t know if I want to go back.”
*
The flight was uneventful. Mui was no longer excited about travelling to a new place. Night covered the snow-bound city when they finally stepped out into the frigid Seoul air. They got a twin room at an airport hotel, and ordered hamburgers from room service.
Wrapped in a hotel bathrobe, her hair still wet from the shower, Mui looked healthier, with some colour back in her cheeks. She almost looked like a schoolgirl again. Harry felt tired and sore. On the flight his knee had swollen like a grapefruit. After eating, Mui ordered a bucket of ice to their room, and made an ice pack with a towel. She held it on his leg as he sat back on the bed, happy to fuss over him. “Your forehead’s turned purple,” she said, looking over his injuries.
“I know. It’ll be fine.” He let her nurse him. It cheered her up and gave her something to take her mind off things. It cheered him, too.
“What are we going to do tomorrow, Harry?”
“First things first. I need to contact a few people, and we’ll get you to a doctor as soon as we can, but it might take a few days.”
Harry watched Mui as she nodded, her head down and her eyes far away. She was no longer excited about possibilities. So far nothing had gone as planned. She was tired, and so was he. His eyes began to close, and he was soon asleep.
When he woke in the morning, Mui was asleep in his bed, clinging on to him tightly. He gently uncoiled her arm and stood. The sheets on her bed hadn’t even been ruffled. He tested his knee; he could hardly bend it. It would loosen up with a bit of exercise. He limped towards the bathroom. Half an hour later, as he emerged from his shower, Mui was up. “I made coffee,” she said, and handed him a cup.
“Thanks. It’s early. You could get some more sleep.”
“That’s okay. When I’m up, I’m up, especially on these things.” She held up her bottle of pills, took one out and swallowed it with coffee.
“Suit yourself, but stay here this morning. I have to go see some people. I should be back by lunch.”
Mui lit a cigarette, and watched as Harry pulled his trousers on under the bathrobe. “I could go with you?”
“No, better if you stay here.” She turned down the corners of her mouth, and looked up at him with her biggest cow eyes. He laughed, and ruffled her hair. “You relax for a few hours. I’ll be back before lunch.” It didn’t cheer her any.
He strode out as best he could into the snowy morning, trying to stretch out his leg. The cold air didn’t help. All the snow had been swept into great dirty piles of ice by the sides of the roads, brown and black and filled with grit, mud and rotting leaves. More snow was gently drifting down around him from the dull grey sky.
First he had to get a phone. It was no good leaving messages for people if they couldn’t contact him, but he couldn’t go direct to any of his old contacts, in case they were being watched. He didn’t have many phone numbers on him, most of them were in his old apartment, which wouldn’t be safe, or had been left behind in his hotel room in Kowloon. Still, maybe there was one place he could go.
An hour later, Harry limped into the lawyer’s office, leaving the flustered receptionist to complain through the door behind him. The office was wood panelled and thickly carpeted, and
the young Korean behind the desk was expensively dressed in a three-piece suit. Heavy gold jewellery flashed from his fingers and wrist. He looked up surprised, then turned his head to the side, like a dog listening, and studied Harry’s face. He spoke to the receptionist in Korean, and she closed the door. Then he turned back to Harry, and motioned for him to sit down. “It’s Harry, isn’t it? What can I do for you?”
“Jun Ji-Soo. You’re the most crooked lawyer in Seoul. Am I right?”
The lawyer’s eyes turned stern. “You flatter me I’m sure.”
“Still, you know most of the people in Seoul that I know. And the ones you don’t know personally, you know how to contact.”
“Not everybody in Seoul who knows you is very happy with you, right now. Some of my clients are distinctly unhappy with you. Looking at the state of you, maybe some other people aren’t very happy with you, either.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Anyway, Mr Jun, I need to get some messages to people, but I need it to stay under the radar, very hush-hush.”
“It’s so hard to keep things quiet these days, what with modern technology…”
“Yeah, tell me about it. I also need it fast, this afternoon. And yes I know that speed costs extra, but I’m willing to pay. Can you do that?”
The lawyer sat back in his chair, smiling. “You want me to be your messenger boy.”
Harry looked him in the eye, “It’s important. It’s got to be on the quiet. And if you can’t trust a crooked lawyer, who can you trust.”
Jun smiled, “True, very true.” He looked Harry up and down, taking in the bruises. “If it’s very urgent, perhaps we can come to some arrangement.”
*
Back at the hotel, there was nothing much more for them to do but wait. Mui seemed tired, but it was as much from the constant dashing of her hopes as anything. She refused to believe they might finally be near the end. For a while, the two played cards, but without much heart. Mui watched TV, disinterestedly. Harry stared at his phone, willing it to ring. The afternoon was quiet, doleful, as more snow fell outside. Mui stood up to light another cigarette, and looked through the window.
Outside, the broad, muddy brown Han River drifted past, going nowhere. All the lights of the city seemed to be on the far side. As the sun settled towards the horizon, it finally broke through the clouds and glinted off a tall, dull bronze building further down the river. Mui pointed, “What’s that?”
Harry looked up, “The Six-Three building. Tallest building in Korea.”
“It’s ugly.”
“Don’t say that to a Korean. They’re rather proud of it.”
Mui shrugged, and turned back from the window. “Will it work this time, Harry? Will I get to see a doctor?”
He looked her in the eye. “I hope so, Mui.”
She stabbed out her cigarette. Her face was drawn, haggard, and her shoulders slumped. “I hope so too.”
*
The next morning, Mui was up early. She was staring out of the window again, smoking and sipping her morning coffee. The river wound on past the hotel, slow and indifferent. Harry had just woken up. He sat up in the bed, rubbing his eyes.
The phone rang.
Mui froze. For a moment she just stared at it, as if she didn’t quite understand. She didn’t dare to hope. Harry picked it up.
“Hello? Yes. Yes it is.” He held up a finger to Mui, telling her to wait, and took the phone out into the corridor.
“Who is this?”
There was a moment of silence as the phone at the other end was passed to someone else. Some muffled Korean conversation. Then, “Harry, you bastard.”
He recognised the voice immediately. “Jin-Ho. The very person. Is this line secure?”
“It better be, I just paid some kid ten thousand to borrow his phone. Why all the secrecy? Your past isn’t catching up with you, is it?”
“Worse than that, listen…”
“Shame. I always wondered what you were running from. What can I do for you?”
Harry said, “You’re still in the medical business, I hope.”
“Depends what you mean. Medical fraud, dodgy ops, insurance fraud, no problem. Still, not actually a doctor, though.”
“But you can find me a doctor, right. Under the radar, super quiet.”
“Yeah I know, hush-hush. What do you need? Somebody shot you? Again?”
“Not yet. Transplant specialist. In fact, transplant rejection specialist.”
“Ooh, well that’s pretty special. I’ll tell you what, give me an hour. I’ll get back to you. Very urgent, I suppose.”
“No,” said Harry. “More urgent than that. Is Morrison still around?”
“Montana Mike? Yeah, I’ll be seeing him later.”
“Good. Tell him to get a package ready for me. The full works.”
“Understood Harry. Gotta go, this kid wants his cell back.”
Harry hung up, and walked back into the room. Mui looked at him, trying not to expect too much. “We have to wait,” he said.
The room resumed its tense atmosphere of the day before, neither of them saying much, or even knowing what they could say to the other. Now, they just needed one thing to finally go their way, but outside the dark heavy snow clouds piled up one over the other, and made the day seem like night.
It was almost evening when the phone rang again. Harry answered it immediately. “Hello?”
“Harry. Jin-Ho. What’s up?”
“Tell me you’ve got something.”
“Yeah, an appointment tomorrow morning. Friend of a friend owes a few favours. Not free, not even cheap, but he can see you on the quiet.” He gave Harry a hospital address, “Very exclusive, very hush-hush. This is where the K-pop stars go for boob jobs. Oh yeah, Montana Mike’s got the package for you. Where do you want it?”
Harry told him the name of a central hotel, and they arranged to meet in an hour. Harry hung up and turned back to Mui. “Eleven AM. We’ll find out what’s going on.”
Mui half smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it. “I hope so.” She turned back to the window. So far everything had gone wrong. She knew she didn’t have to tell Harry why she was worried. She stared glumly out into the darkness gathering over Seoul. Across the city more lights were coming on, people were getting ready for the evening. She turned back to Harry. “Let’s go out.”
“Out? Where?”
“A restaurant. A nice one. You must know a few nice places. I can’t stand this room anymore.”
Her face had lit up for the first time in days at the idea. “Okay. You’d better get ready, or the good tables will be gone.”
Her face fell. “Oh. I lost the dress you bought me. I guess I could just wear jeans.”
“Or we can do a little shopping on the way.” Harry smiled as Mui’s eyes sparkled again.
“Really? That would be so much fun. Okay, wait.” She rushed towards the bathroom, then rushed back, kissed Harry on the cheek, “Thank you Harry,” and rushed back into the bathroom.
Half an hour later they were walking through a crowded shopping mall, the other shoppers sweating in their heavy snow clothes as they jostled through the stores. Mui was ticking off the stores as they passed, “Too old, too trendy, too ugly. A-ha!” She stopped in front of a small boutique, “Do you see that one, the black one, that’s what I want.” She took Harry’s hand and pulled him inside. The dress on the mannequin was a full-length evening dress with a low back and a long split. Mui cooed over it, then checked the price tag.
She chewed her lip as she converted the price in her head, then her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh,” she stood up to go. “Never mind.”
Harry grabbed her arm. He turned to the shop assistant, and asked her, in broken Korean, to find Mui’s size. Mui’s grin was a mile wide. “Really?” She went with the assistant and five minutes later was standing in the dress, asking Harry what he thought.
“You look wonderful,” he said, sincerely. “But there’s one little problem.”
Another ten minutes and they were leaving, Mui wearing the dress with black patent heels and a thick woollen shawl across her shoulders. With her bag of old clothes in one hand, with the other she held tightly onto Harry’s arm. “So, where are we going?”
“First we have to make a business call.” Harry held out his arm for a taxi, and told the driver the name of the hotel. It was a large, five star place with marble floors and great white columns in the lobby.
“I’m glad I dressed up,” Mui said.
Jin-Ho was waiting for them in the darkest corner of the hotel bar, sipping a dirty orange coloured cocktail through a tiny straw. He whistled at Mui as they walked over. “Dammit, Harry. I gotta get in your line of business.” Mui blushed, still clinging tightly on to Harry.
Jin-Ho was young, his clothes too fashionable and clearly too expensive. Mui didn’t think he looked trustworthy, but she trusted Harry. They sat down opposite him. When the waitress came over Harry indicated Jin-Ho’s cocktail, “Two more of the same, please.”
Jin-Ho spoke to Harry, but his attention was all on Mui. “What’s this about Harry? You disappear for a few weeks, then I hear from you through Jun of all people.”
“I got mixed up in a little overseas business. It’s complicated.”
“Yeah, she looks it.” Mui blushed again, and Jin-Ho finally turned to Harry, “You know you put three of Jun’s top clients in jail last year over that art heist? Do you really trust him?”
“Unlike you, Jun is an old-fashioned honest crook. He’ll do what he says he’ll do, what I pay him to do, and nothing more.”
“Yeah, well I’ll drink to that.” He raised his glass and turned back to Mui. “Here’s to honest crooks, honey.” They chinked glasses and drank.
Harry had spent enough time on him. “Have you got the package?”
The Sky Might Fall (Harry Vee, PI) Page 12