In the Korean way of doing business, small-talk was an essential ingredient in launching any kind of deal. Yun waited patiently for the old man to exhaust the niceties before he got down to what he had come for.
"Have you learned anything about the man I described for you?" Yun asked.
Chon puffed at his pipe. "Possibly. There was a man here for a short time. You said early September, I believe. Two days before the Pyongyang bombing?"
Yun nodded.
"He left that day for Beijing. The basic description fits him, but for the mustache and long hair." Chon shrugged. "They say he changes his face like I might change my shirt."
Beijing, Yun thought. Interesting. "Do you know if he has any identifying marks? Tatoos? Scars? Anything I could sink my teeth into?"
"A scar, I'm told. On the palm of his right hand. It runs diagonally from the base of the index finger."
"A knife wound, perhaps?" Yun glanced at his watch. He had only a few minutes left.
"Most likely. They say it doesn't bother him, though. He's left-handed."
Left-handed. That was an angle he could get a fix on. Korea was said to have fewer left-handed people than any other country. Why, he had no idea. But it was one of those seemingly inconsequential facts that he had read and retained for future use. Knowledge of the arcane was one of his specialties. "Does he have a reputation as a killer?"
"I would call him a professional assassin. He's apparently available for other kinds of tasks, however, at a rather exhorbitant price. The NSP probably has a file on him. They have more than likely used his services."
Yun looked at the old man hopefully. "Does he have a name?"
Chon smiled. "Most of us have names, don't we?" Then his smile faded. "This information required great risk to obtain, my friend. Great difficulty. I'm afraid the oranges will be rather expensive today."
"Anything within reason."
"He goes by the name of Hwang Sang-sol. Works out of Hong Kong."
Hong Kong. Even more interesting. Yun toyed with the piece of paper in his pocket, looking at the old merchant thoughtfully, eyes narrowed. Should he show it to Chon? It was a piece of evidence he had a funny feeling about. He had made a conscious decision to leave it out of his official report. He was not sure exactly why. It was not something he would normally do. He had only showed it to a few colleagues around the Namdaemun Police Station, where he was assigned to the Detective Division. He hadn't bothered telling them he had found it on the body of the most recent murder victim, one of the two cases he had been assigned under Prosecutor Park. Anyway, no one professed any idea of what significance it might have. None of them, however, possessed the storehouse of knowledge Chon had acquired through countless years of living by his wits while dealing with some of the most unsavory characters to inhabit the city's shadows.
"You have something else that worries you," said Chon. It was a statement, not a question.
He was accustomed to the old man's mind-reading act. Of course, it was really an ability to read people's moods. A finely developed nunchi, the Koreans called it. A highly sensitive set of psychological antennae. "Yes," Yun said. "The problem is I don't want it spread around the streets where this came from." He took out the piece of paper, about four inches square. On it was drawn a box with the word poksu written inside. "I'd like you to make a few selective inquiries. Very casual. Does it mean anything to anybody?"
Chon stroked his goatee as he stared at the symbol. "Vengeance, or payback," he murmured. He pondered it for a moment with dreamy eyes. "It stirs something in the back of my mind. Something from many, many years ago. Too many years ago." He shrugged. "My memory has grown rusty. I'll see what I can learn, or remember."
Chapter 8
A rotund man in his mid-thirties, Park Sang-muk had been a public prosecutor for more than a dozen years. It was not the greatest job in the world for a lawyer, but the pay was decent and you didn't have to vie with other attorneys for clients. He was one of the more capable prosecutors, no doubt due to his insistence on being provided with every relevant fact in a case, no matter what effort was required to obtain it. Somebody else's effort, that is.
He was not noted as an energetic person, except when it came to actions that might endear himself to his superiors, especially the Minister of Justice. He sat behind a large desk covered with neat piles of documents, the more pressing ones stacked closer at hand. He pulled a cigarette from a pack of Turtle Ships, a Korean filter tip, lit it and took a deep drag as he looked down at the sheet of paper that had just been laid before him.
Koreans traditionally shied away from open confrontations in public. They would rather give an ambiguous answer than risk offending someone with a purely negative reply. But in the privacy of his office, Park saw no reason to allow Captain Yun Yu-sop to save face.
"You have two important cases open," he said in a slow cadence, his impassive gaze fixed on Yun, "one dating back to March, the other from early last month. They involve cold-blooded murders of two prominent businessmen of this fair city. One a relative of the new president. As head of the task forces on these cases, you bear the brunt of responsibility for them."
Since former President Roh Tae-woo had launched his War Against Crime in 1990, the Korean National Police had attacked cases like these with a massive show of force — a task force ranging from twenty-five to sixty officers, headed normally by a police superintendent. Park knew that based on knowledge, age and experience, Yun should have been at least a superintendent, one rank beyond captain, and probably head of the Detective Division of his station. He might even have been a senior superintendent and chief of the station, but the perversity of his nature had held him back. The Confucian tradition, which governed most interpersonal relations in Korea, put the emphasis on "we," on the group. That was why business negotiations moved so slowly. Decisions were normally made on a collective basis. But Yun Yu-sop was an individualist. He had expressed contempt for the task force concept, claiming it a waste of manpower, an attempt to solve cases by sheer weight of numbers. Because of his reputation as one of Seoul's top homicide investigators, however, he was put in charge of task forces on the two cases Park was concerned with. But he had insisted on a minimum number of officers.
"The great Yun would do the job with a small group," Park said with heavy sarcasm. "So where are the results? Do you have any idea of the damnable pressure I'm getting over these cases? Here I expected something from you that would point a finger at the perpetrators of these despicable crimes. But what do I get?" He placed the cigarette on a brass ashtray shaped like a dragon's head and lifted the paper from his desk, waving it as though about to toss it aside. "I get a silly list of names and dates, that's what. People killed in accidents, missing persons."
"A list that may have great significance," Yun said. "In pursuing the investigation of the two homicides, I came across something very mysterious, something with the earmarks of a puzzling conspiracy."
Park took a deep puff on the cigarette and blew a stream of smoke toward Yun, as if trying to emulate the dragon on the ashtray. "Something very mysterious, a puzzling conspiracy," he repeated, his face twisted in contempt. "Those are terms that imply doubts and uncertainties. Am I confused, Captain, or isn't your job to bring me answers, not questions?"