Watch your step."
"Jesus." The Irishman closed his notebook. "They aren't going to be happy to hear this. Kang shot by Military Security. What a mess." Fie turned off the tape recorder and tucked it in his coat pocket. "Hell, and bloody hell."
"That's it. Nobody's happy these days." I pushed my chair back. "I'm going tomorrow if I can get a reservation on the train. Unless it's already tomorrow."
"I thought you had enough of trains."
"See you around sometime, Richie."
"Would that be an offer?"
"Hardly. I'm not the type to defect. And you know I won't work for you. I wouldn't work for Kang. Why would I want to serve the queen." I pulled an envelope out of my back pocket and threw it on the table. "A present."
My hotel was not far, but I took a few wrong turns, partly to see if I was being followed, partly just to walk in the night air. I figured the Irishman would sit in the dark awhile, sipping his tea, wondering what I hadn't told him. It was his job, to listen for what people didn't say. He must have heard loud and clear the word I never said-revenge. They'd probably look for Kim; maybe they'd find him, maybe they wouldn't.
Trying to track him would keep them busy enough so they'd miss what else I had left out. It wasn't much.
It was quiet until dawn, not peaceful, but the heavy silence that weighs on the hours, so that you crave the smallest sound besides your own breathing, crickets or even just the wind to show that the night is rolling unbroken, that it will end. When the sun finally came through the rear window, I peered outside. The dirt path from the back door went down a small slope W.-M to a slender, solitary birch tree. A man slumped against it, his legs across the path and his feet, bootless, on the grass beyond. He gazed toward the mist lifting from the hills, only his eyes never blinked. A breeze came up, making the tree's top branches sway and the leaves dance with a sudden, nervous energy that scattered the light across the ground. I must have stared a long time, but not because I needed to be sure. From the moment the sun came through the window, I knew it would not be Kang.
The girl's book I left where it was, and the flowers, too. As I shut the front door behind me and turned toward the station, I thought I spotted a line of geese heading south. They were flying straight as an arrow, high in an autumn sky that was as blue as anything I'd ever seen.