Hidden Moon

Chapter Four

It was Sunday, but I went to the office anyway. Now that SSD had moved in on the case, it would be harder for us to drop. But there is always a hole in the clouds. If the case was actually supposed to be solved-which I still doubted-then SSD would fumble around and trip over evidence, but we might eventually pull some facts together. If it wasn’t supposed to be solved, I knew SSD would make sure we didn’t get ourselves in trouble by finding anything remotely like a concrete lead. It was unlikely we’d discover anything at the party Miss Chon had mentioned, and that was fine. A party is, after all, a party. No harm in standing around.

Meanwhile, I decided to drive over and nose around the neighborhood near the bank. There were a few residents in the old apartments who spent the whole day doing nothing but sitting around with their eyes open. Imagine my surprise when it turned out, on the day of the robbery, they had all been somewhere else. None of them knew a bartender with a high-pitched voice and a scar on his face, either, though a couple of them flinched when I told them they’d better believe I’d remember how they helped me out on this.

I went back to the office and made a few phone calls to my friends to see if anyone had heard anything out of the ordinary. None of them had. Han picked me up around five o’clock; he didn’t have much to say on the drive over. I’d never been to a party at a bank, but the festivities at the Gold Star were not what I had expected. There were several foreigners, mostly Europeans, mostly male, mostly sipping Scotch. A few of them stood talking to young Korean women whom the bank had rounded up to serve as hostesses. They were in traditional Korean dress, pale colors that made them look like the sky at dawn, quiet and calmly innocent. They laughed among themselves, smiled at the foreigners, and moved away when Han and I walked in the door. I didn’t recognize any of them.

Miss Chon acknowledged our presence with a nod but didn’t come over to greet us. Han felt put out immediately. “We shouldn’t have come. I knew we shouldn’t have come. There is nothing to learn at this sort of event.”

“Relax, have a drink, talk to one of the girls.”

“That may be your ministry’s style, Inspector, but SSD still has high standards. These people are all suspects, every single one of them. I don’t mingle with suspects.”

“Why are they all suspects?”

“Because they are all at the scene of a crime.”

“Good thinking, Han. My orders, on the other hand, are never to pass up a glass of good Scotch. One of these foreigners may have observed the robbery; so much the better. You pretend they’re suspects, I’ll pretend they’re witnesses, and we’ll see who gets to talk to the prettiest girl.”

Han scowled. “Don’t tell them who I am.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll pretend you’re not even here.” I picked up a drink and waved a girl over. “You may ignore him,” I said to her. “But you must not ignore me.”

“Why would I ignore you, Inspector?”

“Have we met?”

“Yes, but you seem not to remember.”

“Forgive me, truly. If we had met, surely I would remember your smile.”

She gagged but recovered nicely. “I used to supervise the Ministry’s guesthouse,” she said. “Your chief inspector, Pak, got me the job.” There was a pause, just a heartbeat, as she watched me. Speaking of a nonperson who had died in a nonevent wasn’t wise. “You were there for a lunch with a German delegation some years ago. Or perhaps it was Austrian. They were unhappy with their schedule. They kept saying they had requested a meeting with the Minister but that no one was paying any attention to them and all they were doing was sightseeing. My waitresses said they hardly ate a bite and talked the whole time about lodging a protest.”

“Your waitresses said that? They knew German? No one told me.”

“So, you remember the lunch, but you have forgotten me.” She took my arm and led me under the security camera. “This is better. The camera can’t find us here.”

“Some reason it shouldn’t?”

“What do you know about the manager?” She glanced at Miss Chon.

“She’s tough.”

“She has to be. She’s a woman. And she’s a foreigner.”

“I was positive about the first, and pretty sure about the second. But she looks Korean.”

“She isn’t. She’s Scottish.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Well, that’s what her passport says. I’m supposed to be watching her, but she is good at slipping away.”

“I thought you were in charge of waitresses.”

“A man can’t follow a woman, Inspector.” She laughed at nothing and put her hand on my arm. “The Ministry finally figured that out. Isn’t that wise?”

“If you were going to buy some silk stockings, where would you go?” I made a point of not looking at her legs. I can stand around at parties alright, but small talk is not my forte. The first thing that came into my head was stockings. The wisdom of Ministry personnel matters could wait for another time.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what size I wear?”

“No, I am not. I’m sure it’s something very petite, and not my business. But I do need to know, do they sell them in the city? Or would you have to put in an order with someone going outside to bring them back?”

“It depends, Inspector. On the side of the train station, there is a Russian who is said to sell such things from a suitcase he is said to carry.”

“Okay, now I’ll ask. What size do you wear?”

“Smile, act like I’m a good hostess.” But after I smiled she said, “No, never mind. Just look interested.”