A cool breeze blew through the slightly opened window. The man, leaning his arm not on the steering wheel against the window frame, tilted his hand and pressed his knuckles against his lips. He tried to suppress his repeatedly bursting laughter, but it wasn’t easy. His laughter once again burst out, mixing with the cool breeze before dispersing.
After dropping Geun-yeong off at Boramchan Clinic, Kyung Jiho headed straight to Miari. An operation was underway to wipe out both the broker and the contact who were trafficking methamphetamine, using a member of Samsik’s faction who was selling drugs by exploiting foreign employees as bait. He was going to relieve Lee Dongjae and his team, who had been staking out overnight near Samsik’s faction’s headquarters.
Evidence of drug administration had emerged and an internal investigation had begun, but these were the kind of guys who would overturn everything, destroy evidence, and flee the moment a warrant was issued. Even if they caught one or two, they’d exercise their right to remain silent and play that game while drawing lots to decide who would take the fall. To prevent such a situation, the fastest and surest way was to arrest them in the act. That’s why the leader of the Violent Crimes Unit 1, to which Kyung Jiho belonged, ordered them not to raid immediately but to wait until they held a party and then bust the transaction site.
Kyung Jiho, sitting in the front seat of Lee Dongjae’s car parked at a distance, received the log written overnight. As Kyung Jiho was looking through the log, which didn’t contain anything noteworthy, Lee Dongjae said:
“It was quiet all night. I’m wondering if these bastards have caught on.”
“I heard it was quiet in front of Seonjeong Station too. If they’d caught on, that area would have been in chaos first.”
He had received reports that the area with a concentration of establishments managed by Samsik’s faction had also been quiet all night. Lee Dongjae glanced at his junior officer dozing in the back seat and said:
“In the middle of the night, I got a call from a suspicious number. When I answered, there was this pervert-like person just breathing and then they hung up.”
“A suspicious number?”
“Yes.”
Lee Dongjae opened his phone and showed the number. Kyung Jiho, seeing a familiar number, frowned, then snorted with his face still crumpled and said:
“It’s a number unrelated to Samsik.”
“Oh, is that so? Do you know this number?”
“I think I might.”
While saying he might know it, Kyung Jiho handed back the phone, organized the log, and was about to get out of the car when Lee Dongjae grabbed his arm.
“You should tell me who it is before you go, shouldn’t you?”
Staring at the face of the guy who looked even more like a gangster as he contorted his expression out of curiosity, Kyung Jiho muttered, “Wow… really, this bastard, how did he end up looking like this?” and then said:
“Go straight home today. I’ll tell Hyeonho to clock you in.”
“Yes. That’s good.”
“And if you get a call from that number, don’t answer.”
“What? Yes. But who on earth is it?”
Kyung Jiho looked at the face of the guy who now looked completely like a gangster with an expression that seemed to say, “that’s suspicious.” And he recalled a certain kid who had been misunderstanding him as a gangster all this time. He wondered if he looked this intimidating in that kid’s eyes too.
“Huh? Who is it?”
To answer who this number belonged to, he would have to talk about the kid he had left with Tae-gu. Of course, Lee Dongjae wasn’t unfamiliar with the kid. But somehow, it felt awkward to talk about him. He could simply say he had picked up a kid who was crying after suffering domestic violence, put him in his car, and taken him home, but somehow he felt hesitant. While pondering what the source of this hesitation was, he smacked the head of the guy who had started losing his temper, saying, “Damn, this is so frustrating!”
“This bastard, what an attitude.”
As he got out of the car, leaving behind the guy who now looked like nothing but a gangster with his aggrieved expression after being hit on the head, he said:
“I’ll tell you later, but anyway, don’t answer that call.”
“Ah, shit. This is frustrating. Fine, I understand for now, hyungnim.”
At that same time, at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. A man who had come early in the morning—just barely late enough to no longer be called dawn—and had been sitting in the lobby waiting chair for Lee Dongjae Detective’s arrival, received the news that Lee Dongjae wouldn’t be coming into the office today, but only after waiting for three hours.
As a result, Lee Hyeonho, the duty officer for the district who had simply relayed the situation from the Criminal Investigation Division after hearing three hours later that someone had been waiting for Detective Lee Dongjae since morning, had to endure a chillingly cold glare from a complete stranger.
The man, who had clenched his molars so tightly that his jawbone could be seen moving, stopped as he was getting up to leave and turned around. Ji Seokhun stared at Lee Hyeonho’s face, which had an expression that seemed to say “what now,” and asked:
“Then perhaps, is Detective Kyung Jiho… in the office?”
“Huh? Detective Kyung? Detective Kyung is also out in the field today.”
Although he was answering as asked, he had a suspicious expression, wondering who this man was who knew two detectives from his team.
Ji Seokhun turned away from the man whose expression was gradually becoming more suspicious. He turned around so roughly that his coat tails made a loud swishing sound as they cut through the air. He headed straight for the exit.
His legs were so stiff that it was difficult to walk properly. His tense arm was tingling. His fist, which couldn’t be clenched any tighter, was itching.
His intuition had been right. The man who had first pretended to be a gangster, and then pretended to be Detective Lee Dongjae the second time, was Kyung Jiho. He was also a police officer. And he would currently be keeping Geun-yeong with him. He was sure of it.
As soon as he pushed through the glass door of the entrance, he called Detective Lee Dongjae. No answer. He called again. Still no answer.
His head throbbed as if his blood pressure was rising. He felt like he needed to scream right now. His steps quickened as he went down the stairs toward the parking lot. His feet kept getting tangled, and he nearly fell twice.
The man who hastily got into his car screamed as soon as he closed the door. He couldn’t contain the anger that was beginning to boil toward the man who had been toying with him all this time. He vented his fury at this unspeakably devious man by hitting the steering wheel again and again with both fists, putting all the strength of his upper body that was heaving at a large angle. Letting out howls like a beast in heat that had lost its mate, he struck down again and again, then grabbed the steering wheel and shook it as if trying to rip it out. As if it were the neck of the man who had taken his partner away, he struck it and grabbed it and shook it with the force of someone about to break and snap it, while screaming again and again with what was close to a shriek.
After a not-so-brief time, the luxury sedan that had been violently rocking—to the point where someone watching from a distance might have thought someone was having car sex in front of the government building—finally stopped moving.
Now the man was lowering his upper body, bowing his head, and burying his forehead on the steering wheel. His unfocused pupils were blurred gray.
The replacement alarm would start going off in the afternoon. And around this evening, Geun-yeong would replace his insulin. There wasn’t much time left. But right now, there was nothing he could do.
The uncontainable rage had turned into unbearable impatience. And the impatience had somehow turned into fear.
Am I going to lose him like this…
The man, with his forehead resting on the steering wheel held by both hands, closed his eyes. Wishing that what was in his grasp was Geun-yeong, he squeezed tightly.
Track 9. Creep
It was an old building with outdated ventilation facilities. The interior, where all kinds of corpses with different causes of death had resided, was permeated with a distinctive odor.
An older man who was so accustomed to that smell that it didn’t bother him at all, and a younger man who wasn’t accustomed to it but could tolerate it well enough, were facing each other across a metal autopsy table.
Today, an autopsy was scheduled for the body of a man who had died in a house fire overnight. The completely blackened body was in such a terrible condition that it was difficult to describe in words.
Dressed in protective clothing and wearing gloves, the two people with the body between them were silent for a moment. After finishing his own silent prayer for the deceased, Professor Baek Moonjong asked:
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Despite your appearance, you have a strong stomach. Do you normally eat anything without trouble?”
Hearing this, he thought of the meal he had eaten in the car on the way to work that morning. And he felt sorry to Detective Kyung for recalling that food when asked such a question. While apologizing in his heart, saying “I’m sorry,” he thought about his answer to Professor Baek’s question. The food Detective Kyung had given him resembled the meals from a countryside home’s yard, but he had eaten it well. To be honest, it wasn’t just that he ate it well—it was delicious. And he had eaten together with Detective Kyung using just one spoon, and somehow the utensil had tasted sweet—
“Yes. I tend to be that way.”
Geun-yeong quickly cut off the strange direction his thoughts were heading and answered.
“I see. This is perfect. Just perfect.”
With words that didn’t hide his satisfaction and a bright smile, Baek Moonjong took his eyes off the kid who pleased him in every way and looked at the corpse. With eyes that had become quite serious, he scanned the body from top to bottom and said:
“The first step in an autopsy procedure is to examine external trauma. If you just cut without looking, you might miss important clues.”
“Yes.”
“What’s the difference between a patient who died in a fire and a patient who was already dead before the fire?”
“If the patient was already deceased, there wouldn’t be any internal injuries from smoke inhalation in the airways.”
“Yes, that’s right. And one more thing, look at the fingernails.”
The corpse’s fingernails were loose, coming out from the fingertips, but all five were intact in shape. Understanding why he was told to look at the fingernails, Geun-yeong nodded.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
