The old man was standing next to me. "Even in this sadness, in this ugly time, the roses want to bloom," he said quietly. "Here are your keys. You better keep these gas coupons. Or maybe put 'em back where they came from." He touched the bill of his cap in a small salute and watched from the side of the road as I drove down the town's main street, past a half-ruined guesthouse called the Rainbow Inn and a park where a woman and a frail girl were sweeping imaginary leaves from the gravel walkway.
At the edge of town, the street made a sharp bend and gave way to a two-lane, rutted dirt track. I couldn't drive fast, but with a full tank of gas, I made it to just outside Manpo with only one stop. A bridge was down, and two soldiers were directing traffic through a field to a ford across the river. They weren't checking papers, but when I parked at the water's edge, waiting my turn, one of them looked at my plates, then stuck his head in the window. "You really from Hamhung?"
"Nah. Never been there." From his accent I could tell he wasn't from that part of the country. "Hamgyong people are kind of thick. I won this car in a card game with a couple of them." He laughed and waved me on, forgetting that he meant to bum a cigarette.
8
The four tables had been overturned, their legs snapped off and broken into pieces. Each of the vases was shattered, the flowers strewn around the room. On the rear counter, a pool of blood was soaking the pages of a book that lay face down.
Kang sat on the floor with his back against the wall. "I've been waiting for you, Inspector." He spoke each word distinctly. "What took you so long?" He saw me grip the pistol in my coat pocket.
"Don't worry. I'm not armed."
"Somehow, I don't believe you, Kang. I never should have."
He looked around the wreckage of the room. "Inspector, if you don't mind, I'm not in the mood for your moralizing. You know, I hoped you would get here first. But you were behind them each step of the way, weren't you?" Fie tapped his watch and held it to his ear. "Battery's gone." He smiled faintly. "Sound familiar?"
1 took the pistol out of my pocket and held it at my side. "What happened here?"
"We don't have much time left. You're allowed one guess, Inspector."
His smile faded. "They came looking for me. And now they're desperate.
They know they have to get this done." He glanced back at the counter, as if he still couldn't grasp what had happened, but from the set of his shoulders, I could see that he knew.
"Do you know where they took her?"
"Somewhere her screams will be muffled." He looked up at the ceiling, but his eyes were half closed; he must have been watching something ugly inside his head, because he grimaced. "Do us a favor, Inspector. Shoot me. You hate me, and you'll be a hero. They'll give you a medal."
"You killed Pak. If you didn't squeeze the trigger, you caused it.
Your whole network has been torn up by the roots, people flung like garbage across the landscape. So I will shoot you, Kang. But if I do it right now, your soul may float free. First, I want to know it's soaked in regret, that it will drag around the stinking mud into forever. I don't want to look up and think of you near the stars."
"That's your problem, Inspector, not mine. You have a funny urge to judge me. Go ahead, but we both know you can't. Pak was my friend. He told me to get away and leave him. It wasn't the first time."
The pistol jerked up in my hand and I fired one shot near Kang's head almost before I knew what I'd done. "Shut up." I could taste the anger; it was all I could do to keep from taking aim and firing again. I wouldn't miss the second time.
Kang didn't flinch. "Alright, you don't believe a word I say. In that case, there's not much to discuss."
"I've got most of this figured out, Kang. Only a few things I don't understand."
I waited, but Kang was silent. "For openers, you set me up."
Wrong," he broke in, and then stopped himself from saying more.
"Military Security was after you because you were poaching on their territory, smuggling cars. You tried to distract them by trailing me in front of them. You brought me up here to Manpo to meet Lena, threw me in her bed, and when that got you nothing, you dragged her down to Hyangsan to try again. That didn't work, so you killed her."
It was so quiet in the room that it felt as if I were alone. Kang didn't move; his breathing had become shallow and fast. "What are you talking about?"
"I ran across Lena at Hyangsan." I waited, but again Kang sat silently. "She said she was there for the tourists, but why all of a sudden would she go down there? Funny thing, you were there just before I arrived.
Did you set it up, so I'd meet her again?"
Kang ignored my question; he didn't even seem to be listening anymore.
"We sat on a hillside and talked for a few minutes. About her father.
And Pikkusaari. Interesting fellow, is our friend Pikkusaari. That night I got a frantic visit from the local security man. There were sounds coming from one of the buildings at the temple. He went in to check.
Then he panicked and came for me. I went up there. Lena was inside, lying in the mud. She had been beaten." I paused because I could hardly speak with the picture in my mind. "She was still alive, but you couldn't recognize her face. It was gone. It took her a few minutes to die." I took a deep breath. "It was like watching an animal."
Kang's body slumped. His voice was drained, dead. "You can't believe I would do that. She was supposed to leave Hyangsan a few hours after I did. We were getting out of the country. I loved her. I wouldn't kill her."
"She wasn't going anywhere with you." The anger was building in my throat, but I knew Kang could hear the doubt creeping in. I could hear it myself. "Were you ever with her at the Koryo?"
"Go to hell, Inspector."
"Were you in that room in the Koryo on the eighth floor with her?"
"What business is it of yours?"
"A blue button in the closet of the room where the body was found.
It was hers, wasn't it?"
"Congratulations, Inspector." Kang applauded gently. "Does that help you fill in some details of your investigation?" He stopped clapping and rested his face in his hands. When he looked up, he was in control of himself, but finally I could read his eyes. "She liked the Koryo. She said that room reminded her of an old movie. I always had a vase of flowers there for her." He stopped and looked at the crushed remains of the purple flowers on the floor. "We're about to get company, Inspector.
They'll be circling back any minute, they always do. Have you any idea what is going on?"
"You mean the army trucks in Pyongyang?"
Kang's laugh was short and bitter. "So the answer is no, you don't know. You've been stumbling after that dead Finn the whole time." He kicked at a table leg lying at his feet. "This is what's about to happen.
The furniture is being replaced. I mean all of it. The iron broom of history.
Prisons emptied, old wrongs righted, intelligence operations gone awry dragged back into the sweet cleansing sunlight." Kang laughed again, with less bitterness. "Sunlight is our new god, Inspector. Don't you love the sun? All bad things happen in darkness, but only good can come of light." With an effort, he turned to look back at the countertop.
I could see he was forcing himself to commit the whole scene to memory. "This took place in the light, Inspector. This, right here, all in the name of vanquishing evil. This is goodness in the flesh." He gestured around the room, his hands fluttering like a bird with a wounded wing, wondering how to land.
"Why do they want you so badly? It can't be just car smuggling. I saw Kim gun down one of your men two days ago. He gave me some story about enemy agents, but what he meant was, he had license to kill your people. It's something that happened a while ago, something you and Pak were involved in. Do you know what Pak had in his office?