Hidden Moon

4

Yang was on the phone when I stuck my head in his office. It was unusual; he didn’t talk much on the phone. I backed up and listened from out in the hall, but there was not much to hear. He said “yes” once or twice, “no” once, then banged down the receiver.

“Sorry, Yang, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Nothing to interrupt, O.” He looked sick.

“Anything the matter?”

“No.” He paused, then said it again. “No.”

“I was wondering if you would do me a favor.”

“If I can.”

“What did you find out from that fellow you questioned the other night?”

“The red shirt? Very nasty, very assertive, very unhappy.”

“Who was he?”

“That I didn’t determine. He refused to give me his registration card, wouldn’t fill out any forms, threatened me with terrible punishment.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him his trousers were unzipped.”

“True?”

“No, but it sort of broke through his resistance. It’s hard to be adamant when you’re checking your fly. After that he calmed down a little. Still wouldn’t answer questions, though. I let him use the phone. Twenty minutes later, a big black car pulled up outside. Two toughs in long coats ran up the stairs into my office and told me they had jurisdiction.”

“And they were?”

Yang shrugged. “Didn’t matter. One of them had a pistol on his hip. I couldn’t keep the guy, anyway. He hadn’t done anything, remember?”

“We don’t know he had nothing to do with his dinner companion’s murder.”

“Murder, is it? I thought the doc said it was his heart.”

“Maybe.” I hadn’t shared the autopsy results with Yang, and I doubt if Min had. Yang wasn’t someone who rang up the morgue on a whim. I suppose the morgue might have called us late at night with some more information and he took the message, but I never got a message. Curious; maybe Yang did more than sit around in the quiet before dawn. Maybe he was coming out of his shell a little. “That’s all?”

“No, but there’s not much more. When they got downstairs, the two toughs shook hands with our nasty friend, then they all got in the car and drove away. The toughs in the front, him in the back. I got the license plate from the guard at the gate.”

“And?”

“Special. No traces.”

“You wouldn’t kid me.”

“No, I was surprised as hell. They didn’t dress like anyone I ever saw from around here. Greasy shirts, though not like his. They had funny accents.”

“I’ll bet.”

“The guy made a lot of threats, O.”

“Scared you? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you scared.”

“He made me angry more than anything. That’s what’s wrong with-” Yang choked off the thought abruptly. He waited a moment until it was gone, or buried back where it had been. “Anyway, he left this, though he didn’t know it at the time.” Yang put a small identification wallet carefully onto the desk. “He may be looking for it by now. But maybe not.”

“He left it?” If Yang didn’t know the man in the red shirt was dead, I figured it wasn’t my place to tell him.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“You lifted it from him? And you don’t think he’ll miss it?” I opened the wallet and thumbed through the contents. “Why is that?”

“All phony. Pretty good, but phony. The residence address is given as Huichon.”

“Swell.” When I got to my office, I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. “Hey!” I went back to Yang’s office. “Huichon. That’s in Chagang.”

Yang looked up. “You should get out of Pyongyang more often, O. Of course it’s in Chagang. Where’d you think it was, Scotland?” He smiled at me. I should have felt good, to see him smile again after so long, but somehow it gave me a funny feeling.