Hidden Moon

4

I needed to calm down. As I walked back to my office, it felt like my feet were barely touching the floor. Some people float when they’re happy; I do it when my blood pressure goes up. A piece of wood would soothe my nerves, but not just any piece. I drifted up to my desk and grabbed the chair to keep myself from floating higher. Where was it? I opened the desk and rummaged around, but it wasn’t there and that annoyed me so I slammed the drawer shut. Min shouted, “Hey,” from down the hall, and I thought, to hell with “Hey.” I remembered I had put it somewhere, but where? A piece of Burmese rosewood; someone had brought it back from a trip a few years ago, and I’d hidden it away for a serious emergency. Burmese rosewood is hardwood, extremely hard. It looks exotic. It feels exotic. It made me think of jungles and elephants just to touch it. And that was what I needed right now, to think about jungles and elephants, not oaks and giant Scotsmen and Prague. It was in my file cabinet, under a couple of empty envelopes. I looked at it for a few seconds, rolled it around in my hand, and wondered if that explained why visitors from Southeast Asia always seemed so low-key. Why did they smuggle drugs, I wondered, when they had all that Burmese rosewood?

Just as I sat down and started to relax, Little Li poked his head in the room. “You want to hear something funny?” He was smiling, and he wasn’t going to go away until I let him tell me why.

“Sure, at least once a day, everyone should hear something funny.”

Just then my cell phone rang. It was in my desk, but the sound poured into the room, bounced against the walls and out the window into the street. The guards at the front gate started laughing, I could hear it.

“Li,” I said, when the fairies stopped dancing, “you’re a smart guy.” Well, I thought, actually bigger than you are smart, but smart enough. “A sharp guy like you-you went through the tech class, am I right?”

Li shook his head. His face was carefully composed. That much he had down pat, keeping his face under control. “I heard about your phone, O. It never rang around me, but I heard about it. Some people in the Ministry dial you just so it will ring. They think it’s hilarious.”

“Is it?” If my blood pressure got any higher, I would float to the ceiling. Li would watch with that serious expression on his big face as I bobbed up and down. “You alright, O? Maybe you want to go get a glass of beer?” he’d ask after a minute or two, looking up at me. “I can always come back later.”

I gripped the armrests on my chair. Li watched me do it, watched carefully, and then he measured his words. “No,” he said slowly, very calmly, “I don’t think it’s funny.” He waited. He watched as my grip on the armrests loosened a little before he went on. “But I don’t know the first thing about those phones. And I hope they never assign one to me. What good are they, anyway?”

That did me good, hearing Li say that. I took a deep breath and let go of the armrests. “Before the phone rang, you were about to tell me something.”

He smiled. “Yeah, those construction boys, they put in another order for my transfer. And they attached a threat. If I don’t come along, they’ll fix it so I’m moved into one of those units up in the mountains.” The smile disappeared. “You know what I mean? Those guards.”

“You don’t want that duty, Li.”

“I know that, O. You think I don’t know that?” We stared at each other, then the smile crept back on his face. “This transfer order is going to get routed clear across the country.” He held it up for me to see. “They’ll never be able to trace it. But the signature sheet will show that it’s still in process.” He laughed. “They don’t know who they’re dealing with, do they, O?” He laughed again and walked down the hall.

Well, I thought, they’re not the only ones who don’t know who they’re dealing with. Who the hell am I dealing with? I put the little piece of rosewood within reach and started a new sketch for the bookshelves. There wouldn’t be much room left in the office if I ever built them, but the plans didn’t take up much space. After a few minutes, I felt myself about to start floating again. I put down the pencil, picked up the piece of rosewood, and closed my eyes. I couldn’t work on the plans because other things were racing around my brain. Like the bank robbery. Like the missing owner from Club Blue. Like Yakob, the phony stocking salesman. Yakob, who was working for a Russian service. I stopped to think about that. Lots of people worked for the Russian service; we had long lists of suspects. Apparently, he was being watched by SSD. Or just as likely, he was working for SSD. And he was in contact with Club Blue. Funny connection: Han, Yakob, and the missing owner from Club Blue.

My shoulder started to ache. New list. Stockings, a bank robbery, and an ash club that nearly crippled me. I get knocked around with an ash club, and a few days later, out of nowhere, a Scottish policeman shows up, unannounced. That doesn’t happen. It never happens. Visitors don’t just show up. The Ministry has an entire wing of people whose job it is to screen visitors, slow them down, think up reasons they can’t be admitted: not yet, not now, not ever. You have a question? The answer is no. But I didn’t ask the question. Doesn’t matter, the answer is still no. They get paid for that. And they don’t get paid to let visitors suddenly appear on our doorstep.

I thought that over. No, the Ministry wouldn’t make that mistake. But what if the Ministry didn’t have any choice in the matter? What if the Ministry got a yellow envelope with a black seal on it, on Saturday, early in the morning, early when it was still dark? “You will direct Office 826 to be at the airport to meet the Air Koryo flight in order to receive a British police official. More to follow.” Something like that. Another list. Bank robbery-ash club-Scotsman. My shoulder was throbbing.

What else? The disappearing bank clerk. She’d stopped to talk to an old man with bad feet. Maybe he was a lookout. I shook my head and put the piece of rosewood down. The stuff was making me hallucinate.