Bamboo and blood

3

The next day, Pak sat in my office, drumming his fingers on my desk again. Same march of the doomed, if anything at a more somber pace. We hadn't heard anything else from Sohn.

"I still can't even remember what century I'm in, and they want me to jump in an airplane again! How many days since I got back from New York?" I looked out at the empty street.

"Two days. Tomorrow will be three. The century isn't important, as long as you can correctly locate the planet."

"Maybe Sohn has forgotten us."

"Not a chance. He'll be back. Didn't I tell you something big was up?"

"Sure, always something big and important. And when it's not important, it's earthshaking. Trumpets every damned time you turn on the damned radio. Nothing ever says: 'This is beneath your notice, O, don't concern yourself with it.' I'm so low in the food chain, I'm expected to vibrate to everything." I sat down and put my ear to the top of my desk. "Wait! I hear far-off rumbles."

Pak stopped drumming. "Quit kidding around."

"Who's kidding?" I put my ear against the desk again. "Let's make it eight hundred kilometers to the west."

Pak motioned for me to get up and shut the door. There was no one else around, but shutting the door had become a ritual that Pak was reluctant to give up. "How did you find out?" He didn't want to know, but felt obliged to ask.

"I vibrate, remember?"

"Go on."

"There was a defector in Beijing a few days ago. High level. Very, very high level. Am I right?"

Pak gave me a noncommittal look. "Whatever happened, if anything happened, will be reported to us, all in due time, in proper channels, with proper vibrations, I'm sure. Someone just has to figure out the angle. This is bad, but it is good, precisely because it is bad. Things are less dangerous, and that means they're more dangerous. That sort of thing."

I continued. "This morning, on my way to the office, I stopped at District Headquarters. After my trip, I figured I should look in and say hello. I saw a lot of nervous people running around covering their hindquarters, erasing signs that they were ever in the same room with this defector person. I barely got over here and settled with my feet on my desk when I started receiving a lot of nervous phone calls from people who wouldn't tell me why they wanted to know what they wanted to know. The question that naturally occurs to me is, what does it have to do with us? I never saw the man."

"A party secretary who defects," Pak said, "cannot but have something to do with us. How can you be so sure you never saw him? Did he ever drive through your sector?"

"I'd guess he probably did. It's hard to get anywhere in the city without going through my sector."

"Did he ever meet with anyone, talk to anyone, smile at anyone, nod to anyone while he was passing through your sector?"

"How should I know? I don't follow people at his level. That's State Security's job, if they ever wake up long enough to look at their daily operational packet. It's not my worry."

"Well, of course, these things are beneath you, O. By no means should you worry about them. Keep on not worrying until someone comes a-knockin' to find out what you know, or don't know. And someone will. Soon. They always do. This… situation… has rattled a lot of expensive teeth. At the Ministry last night I heard most of the special squad was sent in a hurry to Beijing. Of course, they made things worse. Bunch of thugs standing around the streets. Did they think he'd change his mind and come back home after he looked out the window and saw their ugly faces? Speaking of ugly, I wonder if your friend Mun tagged along with them. Maybe he'll be back to question you."

I thought of the man at the Foreign Ministry whose ambassador had disappeared. "So what? He'll find nothing, because there's nothing to find."

"Really? Mun already knows we recently entertained a visitor of dubious credentials."

"We didn't entertain him. He was assigned to us."

"And you didn't go out walking with him?"

"What has this got to do with anything?"

"Sometimes, Inspector, I think you must have been hatched in another galaxy."

"No, I meant, what does all of this have to do with being snatched by Sohn and sent away on another airplane? If I fly into Beijing, I'll be landing in the middle of this mess. You don't want that, do you?"

Pak went into statue mode: no response, not even any sign of comprehension.

"For the record, the chief inspector declines to answer."

"Ask Sohn."

"Do you actually think he will tell me anything?" I already knew what Pak would say, but I let him say it.

"Probably not."