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  “I was serious about the robbery.” Min opened a folder and pretended to read. “It happened Wednesday before last, about noon. Why the duty officer didn’t bother to look in the daily file and alert you, I’ll never know.” From the way he squinted, it was clear he was skipping over details he didn’t want to tell me. It was equally clear he was not telling me the truth. There had been nothing in the duty file about a bank robbery. But he knew that I knew he was lying, so it didn’t bother me. He was trying to get to the point, and the best way there happened to be through a minor bending of fact. “The Gold Star Bank. They used to deal in foreign investment, illegal currency swaps, funding overseas operations.” He looked up to make sure I was listening. “Last year, they saw which way the wind was blowing with all of this talk about new economic realities, so they set up a section for domestic customers-savings accounts for merchants who will stand in line for hours to deposit the week’s profits. Some of the local foreign businessmen opened euro accounts rather than keep stacks of cash in their hotel rooms. Nothing was insured. Why bother? Who ever thought a bank would be robbed in safe, gray Pyongyang.”

  In a heartbeat, I knew we didn’t want to get saddled with this case. The lack of entry in the duty log could have been an oversight. But if everything else Min had said so far was true, the Ministry wasn’t remotely interested in a solution as such; they wanted a political problem solved for political reasons, having to do with the current tides in the capital. Ocean tides were reliable and predictable, pretty much a function of the moon. Political tides were more complicated, and usually more dangerous.

  Convincing Min to throw the case in the bottom drawer and forget about it would be difficult, but nothing was impossible; well, not this, anyway. The Ministry could be pacified eventually, and all would be well in our little sector of the world. “Yes, good question,” I said. “Who would have thought there would be a bank robbery in the capital?”

  “Someone obviously did, Inspector.” Min closed the folder as if it were a precious old book and laid his hand atop it, to keep the facts from flying out. “Somebody thought about it, they planned it, and then they executed it. In broad daylight. In your district, I might add, with silk stockings over their faces. That must have been a sight. Witnesses say they sounded like Koreans but not from Pyongyang. Some in the Ministry apparently think they might have been Chagang people. It’s possible, I suppose, though I don’t think there is anyone in Chagang smart enough to conceive something like this. You haven’t heard a peep from your contacts?”

  Min was Pyongyang born and bred. He thought this one of the luckiest things in his life, being born in Pyongyang, and seemed prouder of that than of being a chief inspector. Not surprisingly, he had a low opinion of anyone from the provinces, even if they outranked him. If he had to, he could leash his contempt. I’d seen him do it more than once with the Ministry’s senior party secretary, a wiry, bad-tempered man from North Hamgyong-the only place Min considered even more backward than Chagang. During army service, Min had been stationed in the mountains of Chagang. He was tight-lipped about what he did, but he made it plain the place hadn’t rubbed him the right way. He never had a good thing to say about it, or anyone he met there. Whenever we had a few drinks, he made especially unflattering comments about Chagang women.

  I didn’t care where people thought the robbers were from; in fact, the last thing I wanted was a discussion of the suspects. “My contacts are relaxing in the sweetness of the season, those able to buy their way out of going down to help the farmers for a few weeks.” This was where I needed to plant a seed of doubt in Min’s mind. “I have to say, already something about this case smells funny to me. This robbery-if that is what it was-happened over a week ago. There was nothing in the duty file”-I watched, but Min’s face didn’t change expression-“so why is the Ministry only getting around today to asking us to begin an investigation? By now, the people in those stockings could be anywhere. It seems to me that this isn’t going to get solved, not at our level, and we would be doing ourselves a big favor to let it expire from inattention.”

  “Could be; the suspects could be anywhere, as you say.” I had a momentary surge of optimism that we were about to drop the whole thing. “But in fact”-Min’s eyes darted into the hallway, then slid back to me tinged with conspiracy-“one of them isn’t. Keep this to yourself, Inspector. He’s not just anywhere, he’s somewhere specific, by which I mean, specifically in the morgue.”

  “This is a secret?” It was painfully clear that Min was not going to let go of this as easily as I’d hoped. There was more to it than he’d first let on. If the bastards had all vanished without a trace, skipped back to wherever they were from, it would have been one thing. But now it appeared we had a body, and that would complicate matters. When there was a body, there was liable to be paperwork, and if there was paperwork, boxes would have to be checked.

  “No, Inspector, it is not exactly a secret, but we want to be discreet about this case. The fellow was hit by a bus, one of those new red double-deckers someone is shipping in from overseas.” He paused to consider this fact. “I doubt if the import approvals are in order, but that’s not our problem, bus imports.”

  I nodded but said nothing. If I waited, Min would find his way back to the main point.

  “The bank robber had run out of the bank and was in the middle of the street when someone-perhaps one of the foreign businessmen lolling around-pointed out he hadn’t taken the silk stocking off his face.” Min gestured at an imaginary mask. “So he stopped to remove it. That was the wrong thing to do, in the middle of the street, in front of a new red double-decker bus traveling, I’m reliably informed, at a high rate of speed. Where did a gang of bank robbers get silk stockings, do you suppose?”

  “Was the gang from Chagang? Maybe they got the stockings there.”

  Min snorted. “They don’t have silk stockings in Chagang, Inspector. The women all wear baggy pants and have sunburned faces. Besides, we don’t know where they were from.” He made an odd noise with his lips, an expression of annoyance at my attempt to goad him. “No one knows, but I can tell you, this one fellow won’t be going back there, wherever it is. He didn’t do well against the bus.” Min looked down at his desk and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I was called to the morgue this morning before you came in.” The chief inspector did not like corpses and hated the morgue. He only went there under extraordinary circumstances. I mentally filed away the bad news that someone had convinced him that this case was extraordinary. “I didn’t actually see the body, of course, they wouldn’t let me, but they showed me a photo, several photos, actually.”

  A warning flag went up. Where was the body? “And you didn’t press the point, I suppose.”

  “What point?” Min looked at me with a hint of concern, a minute lifting of the eyebrows that no more disturbed his placid exterior than a wispy cloud might mar the sky at dusk.

  “Let me review, just so I have it straight.” My presentation had to be subtle; it was important that the chief inspector never know what hit him. I repeated a few points; sometimes it helps to say things to Min more than once. “This feist, assuming that is what it was, happened several days ago. Nothing was reported to us.” The passive was the safest route here. Min didn’t twitch. “It happened in our sector, but we were not informed. We might even say that the news was withheld.” Again the passive; again I paused. Min offered no protest, though his brow suggested a notch more concern. “You were brought into the case this morning and called to the morgue-a place you hate to go.” Min rocked slightly from side to side in confirmation. “When you got there, they wouldn’t let you see the body. Maybe they don’t even have it anymore. They showed you pictures, all no doubt taken in poor light with an old camera.” Again, no protest. “All of this you are instructed to mention to me only now, at lunchtime.” I looked at my watch, and Min glanced at his. “After lunch, actually. I’m telling you, it doesn’t sound like there is much urgency to this thin
g. And if I were suspicious, I’d say there are already signs it belongs in category three.”

  When he heard the term “category three,” Min pursed his lips and closed his eyes, his brow still minutely troubled. Over the years, completely out of channels, a classification system for cases had grown up among the sector-level inspectors. The Ministry often sent down memos warning against the use of this unsanctioned system, only reinforcing suspicions that it was pretty close to accurate. Category one cases were simple enough-those we were expected to investigate and, where possible, solve. Category two cases were those we were expected to be seen as investigating but not to solve. Category three cases were those we were to avoid-leave every stone unturned. In fact, for a category three case, it was best not even to record that there were any stones. No records, no files, no nothing.

  A moment later, Min’s brow cleared of concern when he realized I was not questioning his judgment but something larger, beyond his control. What was beyond his control-like bus imports-did not worry him. Category three cases never worried him. “Leave it in the compost heap, Inspector,” he’d say when we were faced with a case that screamed at us to steer clear. “Let nature take its course.”

  I waited for Min to mention the compost heap. Instead, I heard, “But what if this is not category three, Inspector?” There was an undertone of petulance in his voice I didn’t like. “The Ministry has made it plain to me there is plenty of urgency to this one. Plenty of it. This file here”-he picked up the file and waved it like a cardboard battle flag-“is marked ‘Urgent.’ But there is also, shall we say, caution at the upper levels.”

  “Caution.” The word hung in the air between us. “First discretion. Then caution. In equal measure, I suppose?”

  Min rocked slightly in his chair, another small sign of annoyance. The chief inspector was not a man of grand gestures. Especially when he was seated, you had to pay attention to know what was going on in his nervous system. “I was told,” he said, “and this is all informal and just between us, that at first some thought…” He paused and regrouped for a moment. “Careful consideration, let us call it, was given to pretending the entire episode never happened.” He looked to make sure I was following his train of thought. “But there were seen to be a number of problems with that course, especially in this enlightened age of fresh ideas and new realities.” If Min was hoping I would nod in agreement, he was disappointed. He continued, “In the old days, this episode at the bank would have been declared a nonevent, nothing more said. We would have been instructed, quietly and discreetly, to keep our ears open for rumors of anyone with extra spending money. Either we would have found them, or we wouldn’t. But that was then, this is now.”

  “Maybe so, but I’d say that having someone with a silk stocking over his head riding on the front of a double-decker bus… ”

  “Red.”

  “… a red double-decker bus in the middle of the day would get noticed. Rumors would start going around.”

  “Oh, yes. It is worse than that, let me tell you, Inspector. An English businessman about to enter the bank stopped at the front door for some unknown reason and saw the whole thing. Maybe he’s the one who made the fatal suggestion that the robber remove the stocking from his face. By now, the whole damned foreign community has heard the story from this Englishman, and they have heard it in detail. More detail than, in fact, actually exists. They’re spinning tales about it, laughing over drinks in their snobby bars. This is what comes of opening to the outside. Too many eyes that don’t know when to look the other way. Too many eyes, too many round eyes.” He shook his head. “And then what? Options fade, exits close, impossible orders come down to the Ministry from above, and before you know it, they pass through the Ministry like a dinner of bad fish and land, at last, on us.”

  Min pinched the bridge of his broad nose. “Us,” he said in a resigned tone. His eyelids fluttered delicately. They did that sometimes. I often wondered if it was a practiced gesture. It had to be done just right; otherwise it would look like a nervous tic. “The whole damned foreign community knows,” he said, “and you, the inspector whose district includes the bank, have heard nothing?” He was suddenly silent, and then he made that noise again with his lips. I had a feeling I knew where we were heading. “I have on this badge, as you can easily see, Inspector.” He pointed at his chest. “It is said to signify our allegiance and great respect for those to whom we offer such things without question.”

  I had to admit, this was another mark in Min’s favor-irony. He was good at it, almost masterful. Anyone looking at a transcript of his remarks could never accuse him of anything. But anyone who heard him could not mistake what he felt.

  “You, on the other hand”-his eyes settled on my shirt-“are naked in that regard. Well, I usually don’t give a damn what you do once you leave this building, but before you go out the front door on this investigation, especially this investigation, you will find your own badge somewhere in your desk amidst all the wood shavings and you will put it on. Am I clear?”

  There was a silence that seemed best unbroken. Min rarely pressed anymore on the badge, a small portrait of one or the other of the Leaders. I never wore it when I was on duty. I rarely had it with me off duty, either. The failure to wear it on a regular basis went into my file every once in a while, but no one followed up. I was the grandson of a Hero of the Republic, the flesh and blood of a revolutionary from the glorious struggle against the Japanese. In the years I grew up in his house, this national hero, my grandfather, told me stories about the early days, about events and people. He had a great store of rumors. I learned plenty, and I remembered details. Even now, half a century later, a number of still-important individuals didn’t care to have those details repeated.

  Displaying the pin was not so much the problem; it had nothing to do with politics. The problem, frankly, was putting it on every morning. I didn’t like the little holes it left in my shirt or the way it pricked my finger. So it stayed in my desk drawer in a relatively honorable location near the front. I made a show of considering Min’s request, put my hands in my pockets and rocked back on my heels.

  “Anything else I should know?” I probably should have rephrased what came next. “Like, for instance, what you aren’t telling me?”

  Min massaged his temples. The battle of the badge had been fought again, to no avail. He cut his losses, as he always did, by letting it drop. “You know what I know, Inspector.” This was another lie, but it was only of a bureaucratic sort, nothing malicious or personal. The file Min had been waving over his head was practically empty. If it had three pieces of paper in it, I would have been surprised. The Ministry didn’t know much more, or they wouldn’t have assigned us the case. If it was really so sensitive, they would have handled it themselves, putting together a special squad under the Minister’s direct supervision in a concerted attempt to keep the State Security Department from moving in and taking the case away from us.

  “One last thing, Inspector.” Min adopted a tone that meant he hoped I would accept what he said without comment and go off to do as he instructed. It was a forlorn hope, but he clung to it. “The Minister wants a solution by the end of the month.”

  “That’s not so far away.” I looked around for a calendar. There was none. The chief inspector thought the photographs were too posed and the colors unreal. “You ever seen cheeks that red?” he would ask. We soon learned it was a rhetorical question.

  Min sat back and closed his eyes. He knew I didn’t work well with deadlines. “Just be glad this didn’t happen in February. We’d have even fewer days to solve it.”

  “Are we done?”

  “I am.” Min smiled, a little grimly, the sort of thing a man with his eyes closed will do. “I’m done. You are just getting started. I want daily reports.” There was no sense giving orders if he couldn’t see their effect; his eyes opened, reluctantly. “Daily means every day, incidentally. We’ll finally get to use those new forms the Ministry distrib
uted in January. They have to be filed in multiple copies, so press hard when you fill them out. But not too hard, or the paper will tear.”

  “What if I fill out a batch for you right now: ‘Nothing to report.’ It could save time. This is category three, trust me.”

  “Solve this, Inspector, all will be merry, they will sing your praises. The Ministry wants it solved. Screw it up, and I will be instructed to write your transfer order, in multiple copies, to someplace cold and lonely.”

  This wasn’t much of a threat. He would sooner slit his wrists than transfer me. But it was all he could think of at the moment, I could tell. “Is this the new management style we keep hearing about? Very effective.” I grinned at him, but he wasn’t about to let me break the mood. He looked somber, almost painfully so. “Alright,” I said, after deciding there was no way around it for the moment. “Only one thing I need.”

  “What’s that?” Though he long ago accepted his limitations, at heart, Min is not really a placid man. He usually hides behind a bland mask; except for a wrinkled brow or fluttering eyelids, his face rarely shows what he is thinking. Money is the exception. When the subject comes up, almost imperceptibly, his eyes narrow until they are slits. It is animal-like, something a tiger might do while watching a deer walk across an open meadow. You imagine evil things, watching his eyes disappear.

  “Inspector, you were about to say something?” The eyes were practically gone.

  “Me? Yes. And it was this.” I blinked to gain enough time to remember. “I know we are in straitened circumstances… ”

  “Get where you’re going, O.”

  “Money; I’ll need some.”

  “Why?” Ever so slowly could the chief inspector speak, so that even a single word consumed a large amount of time and space.