by James Church
“It annoyed someone so much that she cut off her own ear and put it on his doorstep? As I said before, it shouldn’t have been hard to find a woman with only one ear. And in my experience, women don’t cut off their own ears.”
“Did I mention we made lists of everyone who might have had a grudge against the vice minister?”
“You did. Come on, uncle, this isn’t a real case, is it? You’ve been making it up as you went along.”
“Of course it was a real case. It’s one reason why I never made chief inspector.”
He had never talked much about his career, so this jarred me. “All right, you went down the list of everyone who might have a grudge. It was a long list. Then what?”
“In those days, we were trained to be methodical, and that meant a lot of shoe leather. We didn’t have computers. Headquarters assigned eight people to the case, and each was given one province. Inherently, the workload was uneven, though there was some effort to smooth out the inequalities as things proceeded. If we found that the general had been in a particular province for any length of time, we devoted a second person. I remember the inspector who got Yanggang Province ended up with not much to do. The general had been there only once, to go hiking. By contrast, after he became vice minister, he often went to Wonsan to eat seafood and sit on the beach. He put down in his travel orders that he was going to give guidance and investigate conditions at the railcar repair facility there, but no one believed it. The point is, he met a lot of people in Wonsan and that meant a lot of grudges, so naturally Wonsan, even though it was just a city, got its own investigator. I had a pretty good idea that Wonsan would end up having nothing to do with the case, and on this, at least, I was right. It wasted a lot of manpower that could have been used elsewhere, but that’s a hard argument to make when people think that being methodical is a substitute for using their imagination and experience.”
“Did anyone look for other body parts?”
“Like fingers?”
“Like anything. I would have thought one team would proceed on the basis of hypothesis A, a nasty grudge, and another team would look at hypothesis B, murder. I’d even have assumed, for the sake of argument, that the vice minister committed the murder himself and put the ear there to shuttle the investigation off on the wrong track. Maybe he had railroad images in his head.”
My uncle smiled. “You are your father’s son, and yet you are my nephew.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant. It might have been praise, and considering the circumstances, for once I gave myself the benefit of the doubt.
The brown car with the policemen in front cruised by again. About thirty meters past us, they pulled over and turned off the engine.
My uncle took this in without much interest. “Where’s the seal, do you think?”
“Don’t play games. You already know, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t know. Although I have a hunch.” He stood up slowly and began strolling in the opposite direction from the car. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter Three
The return trip was easier than I would have guessed, and was more comfortable than the shipping crate. Back in Yanji the next evening my uncle went straight to his workshop to commune with his woodworking tools. I never saw a man so happy to be reunited with a Turkish saw. The first thing I did was to call the office. Waiting for the connection, I started having second thoughts. It had been almost two days since I’d disappeared. My unexplained absence and the discovery of Lieutenant Li’s corpse must have set off alarm bells from one end of the Ministry to the other. They would have instantly concluded that, like my predecessor, I had defected to North Korea, and that my uncle’s presence for the past two years had all along been meant to facilitate the operation. As far as the Ministry was concerned, it would all fit neatly with what had already been suspected in some quarters. A terse message from the Mongolians would have told them that K had been murdered, poisoned. The boulder-sized nurse would have implicated both my uncle and me in K’s demise. The nurse’s story was unlikely to stand up under serious investigation, but the Mongolians would be doing the investigating, and MSS—having only one hypothesis bag—wouldn’t be looking for alternative explanations.
No, calling wasn’t going to do me any good. It would simply raise the level of tension. Before the second ring, I hung up the phone. Yanji was probably already crawling with special MSS teams gathering information, questioning people, rooting around for evidence to confirm what they’d decided already—that I was a traitor and had doubtless benefited from a hidden support structure long in place.
It would be best if they didn’t suspect I had returned, at least not before I had a chance to get in touch with someone in the Ministry who would listen to my explanation. If the teams had been watching the house, of course, they’d already know where I was, but the chances of that were slim. They thought I’d defected, and defectors didn’t return home to make sure the windows were closed or the lights had been turned off.
The lights! I hurried back to my uncle’s workshop.
“Turn off the lights. Were your shades closed when we left?”
My uncle was working on an old set of sketches. “Why, are we under air attack?” He didn’t look up.
“No, but I don’t want anyone to know we’re home.”
“So if the shades had been closed while we were away, it would be no problem if we left on this light because no one could see.”
“Uncle, if they think we’re here, they’ll bust in with guns blazing. You’ll never get those plans finished.”
“Why didn’t you say so? Turn off the light, by all means. I can sit in the courtyard and sketch. No one can see me in there. I promise not to sing.”
“And don’t answer the door. Even if it’s Madame Fang.”
“Especially if it’s Madame Fang. Where are you going? If you see Gao, make him cough up the money he owes us.”
“I’m not going to see Gao. I’m not going to see anyone until I get back to the office and put things straight.”
“Tell me how it turns out.”
“I’m taking two empty bags for hypothesis, do you think that will be enough?”
“Better take three.”
“Uncle, you realize they probably think I defected and that you helped me.”
“What a thought! And yes, it already crossed my mind.”
“I also don’t know who is on our side in all of this.”
“Don’t worry, the advantage is with the defenders if they are on the high ground.”
“Are we?”
“We’d better be.”
2
At some point, a team was going to be sent over to the house to do a thorough, regulation-style search: bookshelves ripped from the walls, floors pulled up, water pipes cut open, the entire ceiling taken down. There were a number of reasons to avoid things getting to that point, not least that they never cleaned up or repaired the damage if they didn’t find anything. Nothing of mine would cause problems—my wife had taken all of my money, which meant, fortunately, there wasn’t any unexplained cash lying around. My main worry was that I couldn’t be sure what my uncle might have in his workshop beside tools or in those notebooks other than plans for bookshelves.
I needed to get to the office pronto, as Tuya would say. I couldn’t roll there like her and didn’t want to chance using my bike. My best alternative was a car, which, of course, I no longer had. There were usually taxis waiting in front of the New Sunspot, a curry restaurant about ten minutes away. I avoided curry, so none of the staff was liable to recognize me. However, most of the taxi drivers had done jobs for MSS at one time or another, meaning the odds were at least a few of them would know my face. I had to hope I could spot a new driver and slip into his cab unnoticed by the others.
Luckily, it was near dinnertime; most of the drivers were either in the restaurant or napping in their cabs. One of them was reading a newspaper. I jumped in the back.
“Extra money if
you get me to the pharmacy before it closes.”
He looked in the mirror as he started the engine. “Depends,” he said.
I retrieved the two hundred yuan that I keep in my wallet for an emergency. “Here,” I said. “This is yours if you don’t get stopped for speeding or going through a red light, and you’d better do both.”
We pulled away from the curb, tires squealing. Everyone in the restaurant must have run to the window to see what was going on, but I was already hunched down in the seat.
“That’s good,” I said. “I’ll put in another fifty if you don’t get into an accident.”
The driver grinned into the mirror. “You’re a regular cash machine. What’s your hurry? And which pharmacy are you so hot to get to?”
“There’s a place not far off Renmin Road, on Juzi Street. Know it?”
“Sure, I drive a cab, don’t I? There’s a pill joint closer if it’s such an emergency.”
“No, the place I’m going has bear parts in the back. I need some for tonight, if you know what I mean. Let’s move it, we’re practically standing still.”
The driver accelerated. “Oh, that’s the happy game. I hear starfish do the trick. You ever tried them?” The cab cut between two buses and lurched around a corner. “Me, I stay away from that stuff.” He grinned again, this time to himself. “Don’t need it.”
“Good for you. Take the next left and cut through the alley.”
“You want to drive?”
“No, I just want to get my bear parts, and you want your two hundred yuan.”
“You said two fifty.”
“Sure, but you still might crash this thing. Next right. About fifty meters, then pull over.” I threw the money into the front seat before we stopped rolling and jumped out. “Have a good night.” I slammed the door and took off down the street.
The driver stuck his head out the window. “Make way, man in a hurry!”
I ducked into the pharmacy, waited until I saw the cab pass by, and then went back out to the street. The office was a block away. Since no one would be expecting that I’d show up, I wasn’t worried about running into extra security around our building. It was going to spoil the element of surprise if I went in the front door, though. Whoever was at the front desk could identify me as I stood in front of the camera. Going through the Bank of China might work, assuming I could get in. It was past business hours, but there was a night janitor. I rang the night bell and waited. Nothing. I tried three long rings.
The janitor appeared, lifted the grate, and unlocked the door. “Yeah?”
“Buzzer on our door is out. I need to go through.”
“Funny, you’re the only one tonight with that problem.” She stood aside and let me pass. “I heard you had taken a trip.”
“Oh?”
“None of my business.” She locked the door and pulled down the grate. “You want me to turn on the lights so you can find your way to the back?”
“Thanks. Let’s just keep things as they are.”
She nodded. “Did I see you?”
“No.”
“That’s what I figured. Sometimes people ring the bell and then run off. I’ve got offices to clean. Don’t trip on the threshold on your way out.” She picked up a pail and a mop and padded away.
No one was around when I slipped into the MSS building from the old front entrance. The door opened to a dark hallway that wasn’t much used, went past the Level 1 steel door to the file vault, and led to my office. I stepped in, turned on the light, and shut the door. Even before I sat down, the phone rang.
3
I let it ring. After the fourth one, it stopped for about ten seconds, and then piped up again. My plan had been, after collecting my thoughts, to call Beijing and tell them I was back. Obviously, this wasn’t going to work. Someone hanging around the office would hear the phone and come in to answer it if it kept ringing. I took a chance and lifted the receiver.
“I thought your uncle was going to send me a report, or is he still duck hunting?” When she was angry, and, worse, made a point of sounding angry, there was a thick layer of Yunnan in the woman’s voice that wasn’t appealing.
“Ah, Miss Du, what a surprise.” I spoke softly. “I’m in a meeting. Let me call you back later.”
“Don’t whisper at me, buster. My cousin’s bulldozer will be there at dawn if there’s no report from you by midnight tonight. I’m through with this runaround. Clear?”
“Perfectly. Don’t worry, we’re making great progress. It’s all about—”
She hung up, saving me the trouble of having to invent what I meant by progress.
I looked at the clock behind my desk. It was still slow. The junction box with all the wires needed a special tool to open it, so I pulled the whole thing, clock and all, down from the wall and put it in the bottom drawer of my desk. I dialed the special emergency number to MSS Headquarters.
Just as a voice on the other end of the line answered with perfect duty officer protocol, “Go ahead,” there was a soft knock on my door.
I hung up. “It’s open.” I placed both hands on the desk. That way there wouldn’t be any questions about my intentions if this wasn’t a friendly visit.
In walked the older man with the brush haircut. “Figured you’d be back,” he said. “Mind if I sit?”
I motioned with my head toward a chair. Too soon to move my hands. “Is the Penguin joining us? Or Miss Bao? I’ll have the table moved in for her.”
“Don’t bother, I’m by myself. It’s just us, for now. My name’s Wu. We skipped the introductions last time we met. That was around two in the morning, and you were in a bad mood. I guess this is better.” He took out a pack of cigarettes. “You smoke?”
“Not lately.”
He put the cigarettes away. “We friends yet?”
“Why, you going to shoot me?”
He laughed. “No. You might want to do that yourself later, but not before we have a conversation.”
“I didn’t defect, if that’s what you want to know.”
“I can see that. Let’s not jump ahead, all right?”
“You mind if I make a phone call before we get started?”
“Sure, be my guest.” He looked at the bolt holes and wires on the wall where the clock had been. “We have all night.”
“So there is no misunderstanding, I’m going to pick up the phone and dial home.” My uncle answered on the third ring.
“Uncle, Miss Du called me a few minutes ago. If you don’t get something down on paper for her about the investigation, her cousin is going to be at the house with his bulldozer at sunrise. She means business. I think she hates men.”
“Can I turn on a light yet? It’s damned dark in here.”
“Go ahead. I’m at the office. It doesn’t matter anymore who knows we’re home.”
“You doing all right?”
“Fine.”
“Don’t forget what I said about the high ground.”
“Write a page, even a half page for Miss Du, would you? You have her phone number; it’s on my desk in the library. Call and tell her that a report will be waiting when she arrives tomorrow morning. I’ll be back late.” I looked at the old man, who nodded slightly. “See you when I see you.” I hung up.
“Miss Du? Tough as they come. You have business with her?”
“Nothing productive. You want to hear the story?”
“Depends on where it fits. Let’s start at ground zero. I warned you about Ping Man-ho, remember? You do any research?”
“I’ve been busy, you might say.” Also, the person who said he’d keep his ears open about Ping now had a bullet in his head.
“I also warned you about your uncle, didn’t I? What happened in Mongolia?”
“Plenty, most of it confusing. Whose idea was it to send me there in the first place?”
The old man pointed a finger skyward. “Up top.”
“How does Fang Mei-lin fit in this?”
“Excuse m
e, this is my interrogation. If you want to ask questions, get your own.”
“Sure, why not? If people aren’t giving me fuzzed-up orders, they’re grilling me. I’ve about had it. On top of which, my deputy was killed by a gang that has its sights on moving into my sector.”
“Who killed Wong?”
“Huh?”
“Wong was working for us. He was getting us close to Mike. Who killed him?”
Click. Li, my trusted deputy, was working for Mike, so Wong was ordered by MSS to kill Li. One loose end tied up, but I didn’t especially like it. “What makes you think Wong is dead?”
“Something we found in a warehouse in Tumen we’ve been checking now and then.”
“Tumen is my territory. Did you bother to let me know, or was that too much trouble? What if we were both watching the same warehouse?”
“Were we?”
“I don’t know. Were we? What did you find that made you so sure Wong was dead?”
“Blood, his blood, on the floor. We keep samples from all our officers, just in case. Sounds grim, but there you go. It came in handy on this one, and this isn’t the first time.”
“People bleed sometimes.”
“Especially if they’re shot. It was a small-caliber weapon, something like a woman carries. Nice and dainty.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it was a woman with one ear.”
“No games on this one. Beijing is not pleased with the turn of events. Incidentally…” Wu yawned. “The body showed up at a North Korean port a day ago. Kind of strange for a corpse to buy a railway ticket. You know who killed him or don’t you?”
“I don’t.”
Wu’s eyes narrowed, and he stared at me for a long minute. Then he pulled a gun out of his pocket and put it on a small table beside the chair. “This is the gun. It had been fired once. No prints, which always impresses me. It was made in the U.S. You recognize it?”
“Nope. I don’t hang out much around people who favor pearl handles.”
“You have your weapon nearby?” He didn’t tense up, which told me he already knew the answer.