Hidden Moon

ID?”

“I doubt it.”

“Well, he did.”

A warning flag hoisted itself up the flagpole. “How do you know?”

“Because he was at your apartment this morning after you left, and he says he couldn’t find the wallet.”

“He went into my apartment? My apartment? Without asking my permission?”

“I told him to.” Min had his head down so he didn’t have to look at me.

“Well, that’s that, then.” I was determined to keep an atom of nonchalance in my voice, and nearly did. “If you don’t need me, I’ll be going.”

When Min picked up his head, he had a doleful look on his face. Having the apartment of one of our own staff searched was wildly beyond anything we’d ever done in our office. No chief inspector could expect to pull something like this and hope to keep his people with him. All I could figure was that Min was under so much pressure on this case it had undermined his judgment.

“Now, Inspector, this minute. I want that wallet, and I want it to be full of nice, crisp euro notes, all in order.” He was trying to sound resolute, but I could tell he felt bad.

“I thought Yang brought it back.”

“I told you, he said he couldn’t find it.” Min thought a moment. “Would you describe Yang as one of your perfect people?”

“Go to hell. You can go straight to hell.” My voice was unnaturally strained, it had taken on the timbre of a fighter plane off in the distance, lining up to strafe a truck convoy at dawn. I shook off the image. My parents had been killed in a strafing attack during the war, a lone jet in a barely light sky. I rarely thought about it, but when I was mad, it bobbed to the surface sometimes.

“Well, is he?” Min caught the ominous rumble and pushed back slightly from his desk.

“Yang is fine. Still a little shaken, but he’s coming out of it, slowly. The man just needs some more time. It was a shock, losing his family like that.” Min had crossed another line, this one worse than the first. It was galling enough that he had ordered a search of my apartment, but I was even angrier at what he was insinuating about Yang. The only thing to do was to change the subject, or walk out. “So, you and Yang discussed the death of that fellow in the noodle shop?”

Min was glad to follow my lead. “Yes, we talked about that. And if it was only that, it would be dandy. But the guy that Little Li dragged over here last night was out again in an hour, and he was spitting mad about how he was treated.”

“He was treated fine. No one roughed him up. Neither Yang nor Li would do that. He had a nasty disposition, that’s all, and he was extra interested in the money. In case anyone has forgotten, he was sitting next to a man who fell off his chair into the great void under suspicious circumstances. We needed him to answer a few questions. Yang would have made a few mournful queries, Li would have taken a couple of hours typing up the report, the guy would have signed it, and he could have walked into the night.”

“Except for one thing. He’s somebody’s son.”

“Oh, excuse me. I’m somebody’s son.” I hesitated. Well, I was, even though I’d barely known my father. “You’re somebody’s son. We’re all somebody’s son, unless we’re somebody’s daughter.”

“Good, thank you, Inspector. Further lessons on lineage will be especially useful when we are on our way to a fucking coal mine in the fucking mountains.”

“It’s that bad?” Pressure apparently didn’t even begin to explain what Min was feeling.

“No, worse, much worse. He is not only someone’s son, he is someone’s husband… stop… don’t say anything, Inspector.” Min raised his voice and started speaking faster. “I don’t doubt that he is also someone’s cousin, and someone’s nephew, as well. Let me put it in words that will be plain, even to you. He is well connected. He moves in important circles.” He took a deep breath. “And he is now our enemy.”

“Why was he in that little noodle restaurant if he is such a big shot?” It was unsettling to see Min so rattled. We had lots of enemies. One more wouldn’t kill us-unless it was someone close to the center.

“I don’t care. I don’t care at all where he dines. He can come in here and dance on my desk if he wants to.”

“What about his dead friend?”

“Case closed. Episode never happened. Our prime witness is untouchable.”

“No, not yet, there is blood work and-”

“Closed. Locked. Sealed. I don’t care about his dead friend, not for one single, solitary second. Got it? The pathologist called to say the chances of getting anything back from the lab this century are zero; she said she’s sure it was his heart, and if she’s sure, that’s good enough for me. Now, bring me that wallet, and there better not be one bill missing.”

“The dead man, the owner of the wallet, had a business card from Club Blue in his jacket.”

“Anything else?”

“Some gum.”

Min threw up his hands.

“And”-I didn’t think this would weigh very heavily with Min, but I might as well throw it on the scale-“I saw the manager of that same club coming out of the Gold Star Bank last night.”

“So what? He was probably putting his money in the bank. That’s what people do these days, don’t ask me why. I wouldn’t trust a bank with my money. And our dead friend might have liked drinking clubs. It means nothing to me. All I care about at this moment is that wallet, not gum, not business cards-the wallet.”

“It wasn’t his wallet, I told you. We didn’t touch his wallet.”

“He says it is his. He says you stole it.”

“A lie.”

“A well-connected lie, Inspector.” He stopped for a moment and seemed to regain some composure. “Alright, of course I know you didn’t steal the wallet, but how are we going to explain it when we send in a report that claims your apartment now doubles as our evidence custody room?”

“Where do you suppose he got all those big euro bills?”

“Not from the bank robbery.”

“How do you know?” Min was developing a bad habit of telling me things I did not know.

“Listen, the robbers got away with three bags of small bills, nothing bigger than a fifty. From what Yang says, the wallet had mostly one-, two-, and five-hundred-euro bills.”

Fine. Good. You have so many facts, why don’t you take over the investigation? Here.” I pulled the few notes I had on the case out of my pocket. “You can have these. Best of luck.”

“Inspector.” Min’s voice dropped to a soothing register. “It’s your case, you have the lead. Keep your notes. You do as you see fit. I’m just telling you a few tidbits that I happen to know.” He folded his hands on the desk and leaned toward me. “Look, it is painfully obvious every day that I’m not as good a chief inspector as Pak was, but what can I do?”

This came out of nowhere, though I knew it wasn’t nowhere or he never would have said it. It must have been eating at him for a long time. I’d have to do something, suggest we sit and talk to clear the air. It was past time for that, anyway. But not now. Right now we had a big problem-an accusation that we had stolen some money. It had to be fixed in a hurry. “Anything else you happen to know?”

“Not at the moment. If anything pops up, we’ll chat.”

It was irritating, that phrase. “Thank you. I’m interested in things that pop up, always have been. Sometimes I say to myself, ‘O, try to pay more attention to things that pop up, can’t you?’ ”

Min frowned before looking down at his desk. He moved a file folder from right to left, straightened it, then moved it back where it had been. “Don’t let’s be at each other’s throats, Inspector. It won’t do either of us any good.”

“There are some times, Min, I have the feeling there is nothing that will do any good.” That came out harsher than I meant it, but it was out and there wasn’t any way to make it softer. Better just to let things cool off. I left without saying anything else; Min’s sigh was audible all the way down the hall.