At the first landing, I groped for a light switch. My fingers stumbled on it. I nipped the switch.
Nothing.
Somebody’d cut off the lights.
Not good.
Maybe if Ernie were here we would’ve charged down headfirst, kicked some ass, and taken names. But I was alone. And the only light in the building was a faint glimmer from the fluorescent bulb back in the Admin Office. If something went wrong, I had no backup.
I took a step backward, scanning with my eyes into the darkness.
“Dreamer.”
It was just a whisper but it rushed through my body like a jolt of lightning.
I stood perfectly still, barely breathing. Wondering if I’d imagined it. The voice had been deep. And raspy. As if the inner lining of the throat was made of sandpaper.
It must’ve been my imagination. Nerves getting to me. Causing me to hear things. Psychosomatic.
I took another step backward.
“Dreamer.”
My name, Sueno, means dream in Spanish.
It wasn’t my imagination. It was real. Someone-or something-lurked down there in the darkness.
“Don’t go,” the voice said. “I came here to talk to you.”
It was a flat drawl. American, no doubt. Southern, probably.
I tried to make my voice sound as steady and as firm as I could. “Who are you?”
“Who am I? That’s a cop question. I thought you could do better than that, Dreamer.”
The words slithered out of the void. The ramblings of an ancient serpent.
“What do you want?” I asked.
There was a long pause. “You.”
My eyes darted through the darkness, hoping to discern one shadow from another. I didn’t move. I was fairly safe here. If he tried to come at me, he’d have to climb the wooden steps and I’d hear him before I saw him. If he had a gun, he probably had a bead on me right now. Moving wouldn’t do any good.
“You were at the Tiger Lady’s this morning,” he said. “I saw you. Strutting around like the buffoon you are. And that partner of yours. Bascom. Never has there been a bigger fool. I’ll gut him some day, with my little blade.”
I had to pry more information out of him. Keep him talking. If I fell for his insults, I’d lose my concentration and I’d learn nothing.
“You killed Cecil Whitcomb,” I said.
Rocks clattered. He was near the coal bin. I turned slowly, raised my gun in that direction.
“It was necessary,” the whisper said.
“Why?” I asked. “Why was it necessary.”
He barked a short, brutal laugh. “You don’t fool me, Dreamer. I know what you two did to Miss Ku. Tortured her. Let her bleed. Let her scream. And then killed her slowly.”
“It wasn’t us who killed her,” I said.
“Didn’t want to get your hands dirty? So maybe you turned her over to the KNP’s. Same difference. Still, you’re responsible. You’re the ones who found her. You’re the ones who betrayed her.”
“We didn’t betray anyone,” I said. “You paid Miss Ku to give us that note. Then you killed Cecil Whitcomb when he went to Namdaemun. We went after Miss Ku because we’re after you.”
“So now you found me.”
I heard shuffling over coal, moving to my left. I followed the sound with the barrel of my gun.
“There’s plenty of room down here,” the whisper said. “Come on down. I don’t have a pistol, I don’t even have a knife. Leave your. 38 on the landing. It’ll be a fair fight.”
“Like the one you gave Cecil Whitcomb?”
“Sure. Just like that. But you’re bigger than him and you think you’re tough.”
Down the hallway, a door slammed. I jerked back, my finger twitching on the trigger.
I wasn’t sure but I thought I heard a hissing sound down below.
Footsteps clomped down the corridor. They were coming at me from two directions. Out of the darkness of the cellar something flew at me. I leapt back, twisting the gun barrel skyward, and fired.
The explosion of the shot reverberated in the stone-lined cellar.
Too late, I realized what had been thrown at me. A piece of coal. It rolled back down the steps.
The footsteps in the corridor started running, heading this way now. I crawled out into the hallway and aimed my revolver at the oncoming shadow. Moonlight drifting in through the doorway glinted off the barrel of his gun. My finger found the trigger.
The dark figure stopped suddenly.
“Sueno!”
“Top!”
“What the hell you doing shooting off your damn weapon in the goddamn building?”
“There’s somebody in the cellar.”
“Who?”
“The guy who killed Whitcomb.”
The First Sergeant froze for a second, then turned his pistol toward the stairway and stepped past me.
“Wait!” I said. “There’s no light.”
He started down the stairs, but stopped and turned back. “You still have bullets in that thing?”
“Plenty.”
The First Sergeant trotted off to his office and returned with a heavy-duty flashlight. Covering each other, we crouched our way down the darkened steps.
27
The beam of the First Sergeant’s flashlight bobbed through dust and intricate cobwebs: disused office furniture, the coal furnace, ancient cardboard boxes filled with yellowing files, mops and buckets. Nothing else.
“Who’d you say was down here?” the First Sergeant asked suspiciously.
The odor of gunpowder drifted above the must and cobwebs.
“Somebody was here,” I said. “I’m sure of it. I was talking to him.”
The metal door of the fuse box stood open, a couple of plugs missing.
Behind the furnace, falling snow drifted into the cellar. The wooden hatchway where the workmen brought in the coal was wide open. A padlock hung loosely on the hasp. Busted.
The First Sergeant’s face grew more grim but he didn’t apologize for doubting me.
Outside, what looked like footsteps led off through the slush. They were big, about size twelves, but whether or not they were sneakers or oxfords or combat boots we couldn’t tell.
“You say this guy talked to you?” the First Sergeant asked.
I nodded.
“What’d he say?”
“He said we killed the gal down at the Tiger Lady’s. And he virtually admitted to killing Whitcomb.”
“Virtually?”
“Well, he didn’t deny it.”
“What else did he say?”
“He said he was going to kill me. And Ernie, too.”
We followed the footsteps until they climbed back onto the sidewalk heading deep into the redbrick buildings of 8th Army Headquarters.
“You want back on the case?” the First Sergeant asked me.
“I never left it.”
