Hidden Moon

PART III
Chapter One

I arrived at the Koryo twenty minutes early. The place was deserted except for a few security types and the doorman, so I stood around minding my own business. On the second-floor balcony, a waitress leaned against the railing, looking down into the lobby. At first I thought she might be waiting for someone, but there wasn’t any concentration in the way she stood or idly scanned the room. It wasn’t as if she was relaxed; it was more like she was longing for something but wasn’t sure what. When her eye finally caught mine, she looked away quickly, but I knew her glance would sweep back. I didn’t recognize her as part of the normal staff; probably she was new. Sweet looking, even from a distance, she had an innocent air, a country girl who could tell a joke and mean nothing by it. I smiled when she looked my way again. She smiled back; then someone must have said something, because she covered her mouth and retreated into the shadows. In her place, a tall hotel security man appeared. He gave me a sour look, but it wasn’t anything personal, just his normal expression. I winked at him and moved off to one of the benches so I could wait for Boswell. We were supposed to meet at six o’clock for dinner, though I wasn’t hungry.

A group of well-dressed Europeans made their way past the doorman. They looked around the lobby, the women with amused smiles, the men with a touch of contempt. One of the men said something to the others, and they all laughed unpleasantly. If they walked over and sat down near me, I would have to move. I didn’t want to have to listen to snide observations, and I especially didn’t want to have to answer any questions. Foreigners usually asked about the crops, as if I followed that sort of thing. It was Monday, the wrong day for anyone to be arriving by plane, and none of them were wearing travel clothes. I figured they had already been here for a few days; maybe that was why their guide was nowhere in sight, probably suffering from nervous exhaustion.

The man who had made the others laugh was thin. He looked even thinner because of the way his suit was cut. The jacket was over his shoulders, like a gray cape; a pair of glasses hung on a chain around his neck, where they bumped against his chest as he strolled toward the front desk, then toward the restaurant in the back, shaking his head slightly, calling to the others. You might have thought he was in a zoo, the way he pointed. I could see the girl behind the money-changing counter look down and pretend to concentrate on something else when he approached. It did no good; the man stopped and pulled out his wallet. He put several euro bills on the counter and summoned her, in bad Chinese. She looked at him blankly, though she knew perfectly well what he’d said. I checked my watch. These people were gawking as if they hadn’t seen the lobby before. They must be staying at one of the other hotels, maybe the Potang-gang, and were just crawling around the Koryo for laughs. If Boswell didn’t show up in the next thirty seconds, I was going to get up and leave. He could have dinner by himself, or with the cape-man and his friends.

After the run-in with the traffic cop, I had taken Boswell to Club Blue. I told him it was so we could have a drink together, but really I needed to see the tough bartender again. I wasn’t happy about having Boswell along, but there was no way to get rid of him. The tough bartender wasn’t there anymore. And the old owner had already been replaced, which was a surprise. I thought he might be roughed up a little but then crawl back, not that he’d vanish. The new bartender wasn’t talkative. The new owner wouldn’t stop. He pretended to be glad to see us and shook Boswell’s hand four or five times, until Boswell put it in his coat pocket and kept it there until we got back to the car. I didn’t think Miss Chon would be attracted to the new owner. His shoulders weren’t much to look at.

As we were climbing the stairs, Boswell asked me if there was much trouble at these sorts of clubs. I said no, nothing besides a stabbing not long ago. He pretended not to be interested. “Happens all the time, Inspector,” he said. “Drunken patrons in a scuffle, am I right?” Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a warning flag.

The wait at the hotel was getting long. Just as I decided to leave, Boswell came out of the elevator on the second floor, waved curtly to me from the balcony, and rode down the escalator to the lobby.

“Evening, Inspector. Shall we dine?” He looked at the cape-man with distaste. “That fellow should either put on his damned jacket or take it off.”

This startled me. “I thought you would be glad to see your countrymen.”

“They’re not my countrymen, they’re Italians. What do you suppose they want here?”

I ignored the question; how could I know what they wanted? It was like asking me about crops. “Where would you like to go to dinner, Superintendent?”

We were speaking in English, and the cape-man turned to observe us. He adjusted his coat and perched his glasses on his long nose. He glared at Boswell, as if our having a normal conversation broke some sort of unwritten rule. Their guide probably went to her room and drank every night.

Boswell took my arm and started leading me away. “What’s wrong with this place for dinner? They have a dining room here.”

“Here?” I knew the hotel had a dining room, I had eaten in it. But the Ministry didn’t like us to use it for entertaining guests, foreign or domestic.

“A problem? What’s the matter, doesn’t it fit with your Ministry’s guidelines?”

“I just thought you’d like to go out somewhere, that’s all. There are a few new places that visitors seem to enjoy.” I wouldn’t have minded ending up at the all-night foreigners’ restaurant, just to see the look on the lady in the silk dress as she walked us to our table. This time, I wouldn’t sit with my back to the door.

“I’m tired.” Boswell was slouching, as if to emphasize the point. It wasn’t a posture that fit him very well; it made him look like an oak tree in love with a dandelion. “I don’t want anything with singing or dancing. Let’s just eat here, Inspector. At breakfast, I peeked at the dinner menu. They have pot roast, can you believe it?” If the menu said so, I believed it, though I didn’t know how good it would be. Beef was tough; unless it was in a soup or grilled in little chunks, I couldn’t see why foreigners thought so much of it. “Anyway”-Boswell had dropped my arm and was walking ahead of me, his posture much restored by the chance to be sarcastic-“I can’t resist restaurants with mirrored ceilings.”

At dinner, our waitress was the same girl I’d spotted on the balcony. She pretended not to remember me. And from the way she moved, I could see she was nervous, just out of training and worried because she knew every step she took was being observed by her supervisor, an older woman who stood off to the side. Her hand shook when she filled the small glasses in front of us with liquor. A tiny bit overflowed, spilling onto the tablecloth. It was nothing, no one could have noticed, but it was not what she meant to do, not what she wanted. Her eyes were so pained that for a moment I thought she might faint. Boswell paid no attention. He downed the glass in a gulp, then sat and chewed in silence. I asked him how the food was; he only nodded. Once or twice he appeared to gather his thoughts, and I thought he was about to say something but nothing came of it.

“Maybe we should have gone somewhere else,” I said at last. He said nothing. “Something the matter?” I asked. It was fine with me not to carry on a conversation about nothing, but this was getting awkward. “If something is wrong with the food, we can tell the waitress.” It passed through my mind that the girl might be transfixed, actually physically incapacitated, if we complained to her about the food. “I don’t know pot roast, but my soup is not bad. Maybe you should try some. Here.” I pushed the bowl toward him.

Boswell put his fork down, then his knife. He looked at them intently for a moment, then at his plate, and finally, as if it cost him to do so, at me. “Have you never sat in silence, Inspector? It is not a mean thing to do. How can I think if someone is talking all the time?”

When the meal was over, he folded his napkin and left the table without a word. I sat for a while by myself, half expecting the man in the brown suit to show up, but no one else came into the dining room, so I finished my soup and went home. Something was eating Boswell, and it wasn’t the pot roast.