known muggers and questioned them thoroughly. The KNP interrogation methods are extremely effective. They don’t have to worry about civil liberties. As long as the guy lives through the interview, the KNP’s are safe from criticism.
It was the last possibility that seemed most likely to me.
When Whitcomb became a freelance thief on Yong-san Compound he’d elbowed into someone else’s territory. He didn’t know it, but it was a territory that had been extremely well-organized for decades.
Ernie nodded as I spoke.
“The slicky boys,” he said.
“Exactly.” I leaned forward. “Think about the bruises that Terrance Randall told us Whitcomb had on his legs.”
“They tried to discipline him?”
“Right. And when he kept it up, the slicky boys hired Miss Ku, used her to dupe you and me into giving Whitcomb that note, then killed him when he showed up in Namdaemun.”
Ernie sipped on his coffee, set it down. He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
“Why?”
“Koreans wouldn’t rock the boat like that. They knew Whitcomb would only be here a few more months. They’d try to discipline him but if it didn’t work, they wouldn’t kill him. Bring too much heat.”
“Maybe his sloppy thievery would’ve brought even more heat. Ruined a sweet deal.”
Ernie thought about that. “Maybe.”
“And maybe they knew that by compromising us, by getting us to take money from Miss Ku, they’d effectively eliminate the Eighth Army CID from the investigation.”
“Because we’re the only two investigators who even have a prayer of solving a case off-compound?”
“Right.”
“And they wouldn’t be worried about the Korean police?”
“No.”
“‘Cause they got them in the bag?”
“Right again.”
Ernie thought about it. His brow crinkled.
“But that would mean that they would’ve had to know that the case would be assigned to us. That we were on call the night they killed Whitcomb.”
I stared at him.
“Jesus,” he said. “That means they must know damn near everything about us.”
I nodded. We both let it sink in. Finally, I spoke.
“And they expect us to roll over on this. To protect our own butts.”
“Shit.”
Ernie glanced at the two women at the next table. They’d been waiting for him to look over. When he did, they smiled and slowly sucked on ketchup-covered french fries. Ernie stared but he wasn’t seeing them.
“I’m not worried about protecting my own ass,” he said. “It’s hung out there often enough before.”
“Then we have to go through with it, Ernie,” I said. “We have to go after the slicky boys.”
“Nobody’s ever done it before.”
“We’ll be the first.”
A tremor went through Ernie’s body. His lips tightened. I knew he had made a decision. And once Ernie makes a decision he usually doesn’t back away from it, even when he gets hit over the head with a two-by- four.
“You’re damn right we’ll be the first,” he said.
We finished our coffee, stood up, and strode toward the door. The girls had finished their french fries and I almost wanted to go back and talk to them, but we didn’t have time.
We stepped out into the frigid winter air. I took a deep breath, trying to clear my mind of all the jumbled nonsense that had been tumbling through it before. For the first time since we started on this case I felt as if I knew what I was doing.
Whether or not what we were doing was a smart move was another matter entirely.
We’d be going after the slicky boys, the most highly organized criminal organization in the country, to prove that they murdered a British soldier.
Not exactly a routine case.
9
The killer crept from shadow to shadow as silently as the night itself. Charcoal smeared his face, and his black clothing made him almost invisible.
It was warm in the midnight alleys. Summertime. Crickets chirped from a row of quivering elms across a broad expanse of road; the raw dampness of the River Han filled his nostrils.
At the back wall of the yoguan, the killer grabbed a drainage pipe and probed with his foot until he found a toehold in the brick. In the moonlight he hoisted himself up, inching skyward like a huge, lethal spider.
He passed two windows, making no sound. When he reached the third floor, he paused. Listening.
Heavy breathing. Moans.
“Yobo. Dasi hanbon.” Lover. Once again.
Repeated over and over by a woman’s voice. A voice the killer knew only too well.
Straining with the massive muscles of his neck and arms, the killer pulled himself higher and peered through the open window, past a curtain of fluttering silk.
The light of the moon shone into the room, bathing the two bronzed bodies in a golden, almost holy glow. He saw her face beneath the man’s shoulder, her eyes pinched closed, her mouth cooing soothing words as she ran the long fingers of her soft hands over his back.
Hands that had once touched me, the killer thought.
How many months had she lied to him? Too many. Probably from the very beginning.
The rage bubbled up from his gut like lava exploding from a volcano. Still, his years of training kept his movements deft and silent.
He crawled into the room.
For a time the lovers didn’t notice him. They were still too far away, still enfolded in their cocoon of ecstasy. The killer placed himself at the foot of the bed, feet spread shoulder-width apart, watching.
The woman noticed him first. Her eyes popped open. She pushed up on her lover’s shoulders, unable to say anything-unable to scream. The lover twisted his head, grunting, and then his eyes widened in shock, finally spotting the dark monster looming over them in the shadows.
Before they could move, the killer’s fist shot out like a bolt of black-gloved lightning. The lover’s head snapped back. He rolled off the woman, a lewd slushing “pop” ringing through the room as he slid out of her body.
The woman screamed. The killer backhanded her with his ironlike knuckles.
The lover was on all fours now, shaking his head, moaning, but when he started to rise to his feet, the killer shot forward, jabbing his fingers brutally into the man’s neck. Slicing deeper, gripping flesh, he jerked backward with all his strength. The lover’s throat flopped out onto his naked chest.
Blood splattered everywhere. Against the wall, onto the sheets, along the outstretched arms of the screaming woman.
Choked by her own terror, still, the woman’s body moved. Clutching at a blanket. Kicking back toward the open window.
As her spine slid over the wooden sill, the killer grabbed her feet and shoved. The woman fell backward, thudding against brick outcroppings on the side of the building and finally smashing, headfirst, into the street below.
Bone cracked.
She lay silent in the alley. A naked doll, twisted and broken.
