The Drunken Dog

  Taehyung leapt out of the seat, startling an old woman awaiting her bus. His eyes rolled down from the sign to what appeared to be a pub. Waiters and waitresses in black and white uniforms busied themselves serving lunch as a bartender polished glasses behind the bar.
  “It was a pub?!” he cried out.
  He muttered under his breath as he stepped into the building. The noises of a dozen conversations and the clinking of cutlery filled the air. Taehyung weaved through the bee like paths of the waiters as he wandered through the building. The lighting was dim and the primary source came from the entrance. Most of the surfaces were made of a polished dark wood.
  Taehyung wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Yira had said to follow the drunken dog, but that made little sense to him when the drunken dog was a building.
  His ears pricked up as he heard, low, secretive whisperings and he peered out of the corner of his eye to see a cluster of men  dressed in black, huddled together in a table at the furthest corner of the room. His body stiffened as he recognised two of the men from Seok Tae’s gang, sending a sense of panic and urgency through his body.
  He turned away, trying to avoid catching their eye, and with his head down low he returned to his search around the room. Although the place was a bar like any other, the walls pieced together a history, displaying countless framed photos each taken on the same spot in front of the bar.
  Waiters, waitresses, chefs, and bartenders all stood lined up and smiling behind the glass. The faces changed and so did the dates, but a few men and women reoccurred in every frame.
  “Like our photos?”
  He looked up to see a waitress grinning beside him, pale skinned and fiddling with her hair.
  “Oh yeah, is that you?” he asked with a smile, pointing to a woman in the centre of the picture.
  “Yep, that’s me!” she giggled. “This was taken earlier this year. I’m Hani.”
  “Hi Hani,” he greeted. “I’m sorry but don’t you have to work?”
  “I’m on break,” she said. “I know things are getting really busy right now but that’s not my problem for the next ten minutes and a half.”
  Taehyung laughed.
  “Yeah, our boss likes to take a yearly photo of all his employees,” she explained. “It’s like tradition. His dad did it before him. We’ve got photos dating back decades. My boss says it’s what makes this pub unique.”
  “Well, I’d agree with him on that.”
  Hani pointed to the bartender. “You see him? That’s Namjoon. Every year he pulls a face in the photos. If you look closely you’ll see he’s gone cross eyed.” She pointed to a waitress by the very side. “This is Jung Soojung. She’s really quiet but she always covers my shifts when I really need it.” Her finger fell on the next woman. “Jessica. Nobody knows what happened to her or what her Korean name is. She’s our business’s biggest mystery. She just poof! Vanished. I don’t think she ever quit though either.”
  “She just disappeared?” he asked.
  “Uh huh,” she answered, nodding. “Boss got all worried too. Tried calling a bunch of people such as her landlady and her other job but came up with nothing. We didn’t even know where her other job was, just that she was a maid.”
  Taehyung’s eyes lit up and he glanced back to the corner table. “She was a maid?”
  “Yeah, for some rich dude.”
  He turned to Hani and tried to conceal his eager smile. “So…do you know the name of her landlady?”
***
  He stood before a massive house with uncut grass and paint job long in need of renewal. It was a quiet neighbourhood, not even a car rolled by in the streets, but it only served to make Taehyung that more anxious.
  He checked the address Hani had given him and confirmed that he was in the right house. He looked behind him one last time before he knocked on the door. He had the strange feeling of being tailed, although he supposed it may just have been paranoia brought on from two near death experiences.
  A skinny old woman opened the door wearing thick glasses that magnified her eyes and a snow white perm.
  “…Yes?” she answered, her voice creaky and infirm.
  “Hi, hello, are you Yoo... Yoo Jinseok-ssi?”
  “Yes I am young man, what brings you here?”
  “I would like to ask you if you know anything in regards to a woman named Jessica?” he said, trying his best to keep his voice straight.
  “Yes, I was her landlady, who are you?”
  “I worked part time at the same bar she worked and I haven’t heard from her in a while. I’m just a little concerned and I was wondering if you know anything about it,” he lied.
  “Oh yes, that poor dear. She’s missing isn’t she?”
  “Yes, have you heard from her?”
  She shook her head. “No. It’s been a while since I saw her. I rented a room to her and her sister a long time ago. I need the money after my husband died, but that was a long time ago. I believe she moved into a nice little apartment.”
  “She had a sister?” he asked, surprised.
  “Yes. They didn’t look much alike and they had different names because they were half-sisters, but gosh they were close. They worked together at the same places and they talked together like they had a secret language. She moved out too but I don’t know where. I’m afraid I don’t know much else about them after that.”
  “But do you know anything else about her? Anyone else I could contact?” he pried, desperately pushing for some sort of clue although he hid it from his voice.
  “Oh I don’t know…” she said, searching through her memory. “…But she did have these two very good friends who came over quite often. A man and a girl, very short, and she had this short pixie cut. I think I remember Jessica mentioning that she worked at the groceries next to the park.”
  Taehyung forced down a sigh of relief. “Thank you very much ma’am. I think I’ll see if she knows anything.”
  “Oh well, I wish you good luck young man,” she said. “I do hope she’s okay. She was a sweetheart.”
  Taehyung stepped away from the house and the door shut behind him. As he crossed the road, he saw a black Maybach drive by him, speeding away into the next street.
***
  He ambled down the white aisles of the Asian supermarket, the speakers sounding announcements above him. He approached a grey painted door with the words ‘staff only’ printed in blocky white letters and he looked behind him to assure that no one was watching before he slipped in.
  He stepped into the quiet halls, not even a cough to be heard. He passed a number of shut doors in search of signs of life, passing an open room displaying an empty desk. A cup of pens sat on the edge, and a Chinese lucky cat stood beside it, waving its paw.
  Taehyung was amazed the back could be so empty. He had found no one fitting Yoo Jinseok’s description so he had hoped he’d find someone here, but as of the moment it looked unlikely.
  As he reached the end of the hall, he found one last grey door, slightly ajar, letting in a strip of natural light. He pushed it open to reveal the scene of a loading area. A large inanimate truck sat parked before him and a number of cardboard boxes lay discarded by the bins. A single worker stood hunched over by the truck, snatching bottles of milk from a crate.

  Recognition lit up in Taehyung’s eyes as the woman stood up. She was very short in figure and a little stout, with short, dyed blond hair.
  His first instinct was to shout out, to catch her attention, but something made him bite his lip. He watched silently from the door as the woman crept away, evidently stealing the milk and putting them in a fabric shopping bag.
  When she began slinking out of sight, taking off towards the parking lot, Taehyung hurried after her, remaining a few metres back and out of sight while keeping her in his field of vision.
  He followed her out of the car park, passing a children’s playground active with families, and crossing many roads.
  “This must be what it feels like to be a stalker…” he muttered.
  She entered into a quiet, secluded neighbourhood, appearing to wander around aimlessly as if she were just a visitor checking out the houses.
  Growing impatient, he considered showing himself and calling out to her, but suddenly, she stopped in front of an old, grey painted house, every curtain and blind of every window shut tight.
  She fished out her keys and unlocked a door, and a shadowy figure greeted her, shying away from the light and speaking in whispers, and for a brief second, he caught a glimpse of the face he had seen in the photo.
   “J... Jessica?!” he yelled.
  The two women jumped in surprise and scrambled to get into the house, but before they could shut the door, Taehyung grabbed a hold of the knob, holding it in place despite their combined effort to yank it closed.
  “Who are you?!” the shorter girl yelled. “I’ll call the police.”
  “Sorry, but I know the police,” he replied. “No, I’m really sorry for scaring you, I really am, but can you please hear me out for a second?”
  “Why should we?” she questioned. “If you don’t get out right now, I’m going to-”
  “It’s about Seok Tae!” he cut in.
  The two women fell silent, their eyes growing fear. Jessica covered with her hands and looked like she was about to faint.
  “He found me?” she choked.
  “No, no!” he said. “Not quite. He hired my… fortune teller friend to track down the box you stole.”
  “He hired Kwon?”
  A strange look crossed his face. How famous was she? “Yes, he hired Yira to find the box you stole.”
  “She didn’t try to steal anything,” her friend cut in, “she was taking what was hers!”
  “Excuse me?”
  “You heard me, whoever you are. It belonged to her! The rest came as an accident.”
  “Sunny, please, lower your voice,” Jessica shushed, bringing a finger to her lips. “You don’t want to attract attention. Please, I’d like to talk to him privately for a moment.”
  Sunny looked unwilling, but she nodded. “Fine. I’ll see you in ten minutes.”
  She retreated to the next room, glaring at Taehyung suspiciously until she was out of sight.
  “Now,” Jessica began. “Tell me. What do you know? How did you find me?”
  “Well… Yira in a way led me here,” he answered, a little reluctant to credit her. “Seok Tae hired her to locate the box because it contained incriminating evidence. She gave him directions for what to do which I also followed to get here.”
   A look of panic fell on her face and she shook her head. “He knows where it is? No. No, no. He can’t.” She grabbed him by the arms, her hands clawing painfully into his flesh. “Please, you have to stop him. Please don’t let him get to it first.”
  “Wait, you mean you don’t have it?”
  “No, when Seok Tae came to ransack my apartment, it was all I could do to get away at the last minute; I gave the box to my sister to hide. I haven’t had the chance to speak with her since.”
  “Trust me, I want to get the box, but why do you need it so much? And what did your friend mean when she said it was yours?”
  Jessica sighed. “It’s not the box. It’s what’s in the box; a ring. Hwayi- Seok Tae’s son promised it to me before he died.”
  “You were dating his son?!”
  “Yes. We were almost engaged. He asked me but I told him I wasn’t ready yet, so he said he’d hold onto the ring until I was ready to say yes. That’s why I can’t let Seok Tae get to the box first, I have to have that ring, it’s the last thing I have of him.”
  “Then why did you steal the box?”
  “It was an accident. Seok Tae didn’t like me so we had to keep our relationship secret. We had a good friend pass letters to each other, and we always met outside in places like the park, or a café, or the gardens. When Hwayi died, I had to sneak into the room to get the ring, but I was nearly caught and in a stupid panic I ended up taking the entire box. I don’t want the documents, or the box, just that ring. I need the ring.”
  She clasped her hands together in a pleading gesture. “Please, please help me. I can’t leave the house until Seok Tae gives up on me.”
  Taehyung nodded. “I’ll try. But can you tell me where your sister might be?”
“Soojung still works at the same pub I used to work at.”
***
  Taehyung ran to the pub, crossing the street the moment it turned green. The day was turning to evening, and the sky was growing dim.
  “Please don’t be closed yet, please don’t be closed yet!” he prayed under his breath.
  As he approached the pub, he breathed out a sigh of relief as the doors were still open and the lights were shining onto the street, but as he drew nearer, his steps slowed to a halt and he stared ahead in horror.
  The place looked like it had been burgled. Chairs and tables were knocked to the floor, broken plates and glasses spread out across the room. People outside stared in with grim curiosity on their faces as they watched the shaken workers sweep up the mess.
  A girl stood biting her thumb in the corner; her arms wrapped tight around her chest as if she could fall apart, and tear trails shined on her face.
  “Hani!” he called out.
  She looked up at him with wide eyes.
  “What happened?!”
  “I don’t know!” she cried, her breath heaving.
  “Are you okay?”
  “I-I’m fine,” she replied, taking in deep breaths. “T-these men just came in, I don’t know what they wanted. They grabbed her by the arms and pulled her outside. She screamed and fought back and kicked over several tables and chairs, but they still got her into the car. T-this one guy came back and paid us for the damage, but they told our boss that if he said anything to the police, they’d be back! I don’t know who they are, who do you think they were?”
  He felt the blood drain from his face as it dawned on him. “Hani? Who did they take?”

  “Soojung!”