Bamboo And Blood Part 19

A smart young man-that was what I concluded when I saw Roh sitting on one of the white benches beside the fountain about an hour later. Smart, a little reckless, maybe a potential security risk. That's how it would go down in his file if anyone spotted him here talking to me. A security risk because he was out meeting with a security person from another office without checking first with his own. And I knew he hadn't checked with his own, because they never would have let him come here alone to sit with me. So he was a risk, and it wasn't my worry. It meant he'd answer some questions, as long as I gave him a comfortable lead-in. His head was down and he might have been reading the book in his lap. But he wasn't; he was waiting. As soon as he heard my steps on the gravel path, he looked up.

"Nice weather," I said. "A good day to sit underneath pine trees."

"This could get me into a lot of trouble," he said. "The word going around the halls is, the amba.s.sador doesn't like you."

"But you decided it was worth the risk. Otherwise you wouldn't be here."

"I was curious. People have been wondering about you ever since you showed up."

"Have they? And why should that be? I'm just a servant of the people, doing the people's business." He was smart and he was curious, but he knew enough not to trust me yet. That was alright. I didn't like people who trusted me too quickly. They could go the other way just as fast.

Roh closed the book. "The people's business. The people. The people."

"Our people. You know, the ones tightening their belts, again. The ones who would rather have guns than candy. I'd rather have guns than candy, wouldn't you?" I looked down at my belt. "I have at least two notches to go."

"Every day, I push aside the plate of candy in front of me. More guns, that's what I want, I tell the cook. That's why we're in Geneva, isn't it? To make sure when my mother goes for her food ration, she can be told, 'Here, have some more guns.'" He swallowed hard. "You're going to report me for that, aren't you?" He reminded me of my source on the campus back home, the girl who liked Rachmaninoff. I hadn't expected him still to have that much of an edge. I a.s.sumed being in the Foreign Ministry would have smoothed it off.

"All diplomats talk funny as far as I'm concerned. Especially inexperienced ones like you. I've stopped paying attention. But maybe you can tell me something. Why don't we go for a stroll? It's easier to talk when you're moving. I learned that somewhere. Even in a job like mine, sooner or later, you learn things. You don't realize until it's too late that you learned something; and then you don't remember where, or how, or why. There's no voice that automatically pipes up: Inspector O! Attention! Learning experience! All you can do is check for scars, or dings in the winds.h.i.+eld. That's where lessons usually come, at 80 kph on a bad road at night with no moon."

"You sound like my father."

"I wouldn't know." We walked past the small grove of oak trees that still clung to some of last year's leaves. There is nothing to recommend old leaves; they give nothing to a tree except the mournful appearance of days past. Once, when I mentioned to my grandfather that it was odd how oak trees clung to their leaves, he snorted. "Why blame the trees? Oaks are just too kind, that's all. Not like maples." He'd pointed his cane at a maple tree. "Greediest d.a.m.ned tree you'll find."

"You keep looking behind us," I said to Mr. Roh. "Don't worry. No one is following." Which was almost certainly not true. I couldn't go out without someone trying to stay a respectable distance back, pretending to be birdwatching, or window-shopping, or consulting a bus schedule and wandering off curbs. But the Swiss didn't need to follow me into this park; I'd already figured that out. They had the area under constant watch. Little cameras disguised as acorns, maybe, and too bad for the squirrel who ate one. If anyone was lurking, it was the Man with Three Fingers. I didn't think he would bother with Mr. Roh, though, unless he thought he could use the youngster to club me senseless. Roh might have been followed by someone from the mission, but I'd be able to spot them soon enough.

"Where are you from?" It was an uncomplicated question, I thought, nothing he would shy away from answering.

"I was born in Pyongyang." That meant he had seen the city in better days, in the 1970s, when the streetcars ran and the lights worked.

"You get into the countryside much?" Not as simple; there were jagged edges on a question like that.

"My mother's family is from Chongjin." He paused. "I was there just before coming here. My uncle was sick." Sick. That meant he was dying of hunger, but no one would say that, certainly not this kid who was starting to wonder what I was doing, regretting he'd come out to meet me, still weighing what he said to make sure he didn't say too much.

"How were things in Chongjin?"

Mr. Roh looked at me carefully. This was the danger point, and he knew it. The question wasn't complicated; it could be deadly. If he told me what he'd really seen and if he'd misjudged me, he was finished.

"Don't worry," I said. "I'm still not planning to write anything down."

"I won't soon forget what I saw."

"Don't, don't forget. You understand me? Don't ever forget."

We fell into silence again, standing under trees with dead leaves in a dying afternoon.

"You want me to tell you something about the delegation, is that is it?" He shoved his hands in his pockets and thrust out his chin. "That's the game? Always games and countergames. I get tired of them."

"But you came out here anyway. You do have a conspiratorial frame of mind after all. I was beginning to worry." I wondered when he would get around to mentioning the delegation. I didn't want to raise it. I wanted him to open that door.

"Conspiratorial? No, just realistic. People criticize the Foreign Ministry for being unrealistic, but they don't understand. We know what's what."

"Maybe you do, maybe you don't."

"We know plenty, trust me."

"Like for instance."

"Like you can be sure the delegation leader understands perfectly well what the game is."

"Game? Whose game?"

"These talks we're in. They're part of the game at home. Some people want us to sell off the missiles to the Americans for money and food. Other people don't want us to do anything at all, just stall. And then there is a group that wants us to pretend we're making progress so another bidder will get involved."

"Really? Another bidder? Who would that be?"

He shrugged. Maybe he didn't know about the contacts with the Israelis, but it was more likely he did.

"Sure," I said. "You can't tell someone from the Ministry of Public Security, because it's a matter of security. Because you wouldn't want to get yourself into trouble, would you? Not you, or your family." It was a lousy thing to say. I wasn't going to threaten his family, even if that's what he thought.

I saw him damp down a powerful surge of anger. He waited to speak until it had subsided, and he could trust what he was going to say. "The delegation leader goes out at night sometimes. No one knows where."

"The security man at your mission doesn't keep track?"

"The security man is busy. The delegation leader found out he likes Portuguese."

"The security man likes Portuguese girls?"

"No, he likes Portuguese boys."

We walked up the hill and then back toward the rose garden. I saw someone duck behind a tree. "Time for you to get back," I said. "I've got things to do."

3.

That night, I went out for a walk. I figured I'd go down to the lake and stroll back, but I must have taken a wrong turn. One wrong turn usually leads to another. It should be simple enough to back up to the right way again, but it's not. You don't know you're lost until it's too late. By the time I realized I was lost, that I didn't know whether the lake was to my right or to my left, I was on a street that was dark and completely empty. The buildings were run-down, but that's what buildings tend to be when you're lost. The street didn't go anywhere, except to another street that was even darker and more deserted.

I didn't hear them at first, maybe because I wasn't paying attention. The footsteps behind me stopped and resumed, which told me whoever was on my tail was using sound, not sight, to keep close. There were lamps at either end of the block, but their light hung around the base of the posts. I got on tiptoe and pranced into the darkest spot I could find. From there, I sidled into a dark doorway. The door opened; I backed into a dark room. A waitress appeared, blond, in a long dress that was slit where it shouldn't have been. As soon as she said h.e.l.lo I knew she was Russian. "Jazz," she said. "You have ticket?"

I wasn't sure where this was going. "Ticket for what?"

"Jazz," she said. "Drink, jazz, and me. All included. Pay now."

"Thanks, I'll sit at the bar."

She shrugged. "Up to you."

There was only one person at the bar, a black man, older than I would have expected at a place like this. "Shakin' babe," he said.

"Yeah."

The lights went up slightly on the stage, and a group of four musicians began to play. It wasn't music you'd want to march to on Army Day, but it was interesting.

"Shakin' babe," the old man said. "That's shakin' stuff."

I nodded.

"You from here?" he asked.

"Nah." I'd never used "nah" before. I'd heard tourists use it, seen it in movies. It seemed like the right time. "Nah. I'm Mexican."

He lowered his head. "Cool." He lifted his gla.s.s. "Got to get me some freeholays one of these days."

"Later," I said and took my gla.s.s of beer to an empty table. The Russian girl appeared.

"Jazz," she said.

"That's cool," I said and finished my beer. The music became louder, faster, tearing apart. I reached, but it got away from me. I couldn't follow. I was lost, completely lost. Everything was moving in its own direction, the piano this way, the saxophone somewhere else, the drummer as lost as I was. How could it work? How did it happen? When did it take me to somewhere I'd never been?

I left the club a few hours later and found the way back to my hotel without much trouble. When I got to my room, I didn't even turn on the light. There wasn't anything there I needed to see.

PART IV.

Chapter One.

"You don't seem to be on the amba.s.sador's good side." The Man with Three Fingers had come up behind me across the gra.s.s. I hadn't heard a thing. "You don't seem to be on anyone's good side, actually. Not that I'm surprised."

"I'm enjoying the view and the air at the moment." I resisted the urge to turn to face him. Better to act nonchalant, as if I had known the whole time he was there. "If you want to sit down, feel free. Otherwise, go get yourself a cup of espresso or something."

He walked around and stood directly in front of me. "Admit it, O, you didn't hear me creeping up behind you. I could have taken your head off and you wouldn't have known it was happening until you saw your eyes staring up from the ground." He flexed what remained of his hand. "I don't want to sit down."

"Then don't." I settled back on the bench. "Excuse me if I don't get up."

"You disappeared, but I know where you were."

"That's good, because I don't have any idea." I thought he meant the jazz club, or maybe even the place the music had taken me.

"You were chasing a delicious piece of Turkish taffy named Dilara."

"I don't know anything about Turkish taffy."

"Delicious Dilara, that's what people say. That sort of thing can get you in a lot of trouble."

"You are blocking my view, which is beginning to irritate me."

"Is that so? I don't want to irritate you. I want to grill your kidneys and feed them to the fish. Do you actually think you are walking around this city on your own, Inspector? There is a caravan behind you, everywhere you move. Swiss, Americans, South Koreans, even Chinese."

"And you. Don't forget about you."

"No, I don't follow people anymore. I just wait for them to break circuits."

I thought it over. "Is that what the trigger was, an electric eye? It could just as easily have been me that night."

"Could have been, but wasn't. I wouldn't have left you lying there."

"Maybe not. We'll never know, will we? And you're still blocking my view."

"That disappearing trick the other night was unwise. It has some people thinking you are getting ready to jump s.h.i.+p. It's what your brother said-that you are planning a defection. And the word is out that s.h.i.+p-jumpers should be stopped ahead of time, in any way necessary. Everyone's nervous because of what happened in Beijing. The Center doesn't want any more incidents."

"I seem to remember they considered the man in Beijing a traitor and his leaving good riddance. That's what they said on the radio, isn't it?"

"They don't want the garbage to blow away. They want to bury it first."

"Bury?" I moved to stand up, but he put a hand on my arm and held me in place. He might have lost a couple of fingers, but he was still plenty strong. Starting a fight on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Geneva had drawbacks, so I gave him a long stare.

"You seem agitated, Inspector. Something the matter?"

"Maybe it's just me, but I'm averse to being threatened. It bothers me somehow. Makes my blood boil, causes me to see white streaks and hear nasty voices. That sort of thing."

"Then don't consider anything I say as a threat."

"Friendly advice, I suppose."

"Here's the problem, Inspector. You're in someone's way, and you refuse to get out of the way. So naturally that someone thinks the only thing to do is to move you."

"That's where stories of defection come in? And deep mountain lakes?"

The Man with Three Fingers didn't answer. He stared at something behind me for a moment, then turned abruptly and walked away in the direction of town. As he pa.s.sed by the last bench before the path turned away from the lake, a nondescript man in a brown coat stood up and followed him from a comfortable distance. It was so obvious it could only have been intentional. That seemed to be the Swiss style. No sense being subtle when you have so much of other people's money in your vaults.

"You must think us painfully obvious, Inspector, but your friend is way too c.o.c.ky in someone else's city. I've got to do something about all these bees, don't I?" M. Beret was standing about a meter behind me, addressing the back of my head. The Man with Three Fingers must have seen him striding across the lawn.

"Is it always necessary to come up from behind? Is there a rule against approaching someone in normal fas.h.i.+on?"

"Well, I suppose I might emerge next time from the lake in a frogman's suit, but then we will startle the swans, don't you think?"