AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yay for cliffhangers? :D

Enjoy this one! <3

6

Dirty Little Lies

It seemed to be a lifetime just sitting there, waiting for Joy to do something, to speak or leave. But she did not. She just stood in the doorway not doing anything. Looking at Seulgi with an expression she couldn’t place at all. The music running outside. Something funky, upbeat. Groovy, man.

‘I need your help,’ Seulgi said.

‘Forget it.’

‘Joy. Please.’

‘You’ve needed my help before. Look what happened.’

‘I, uh. I don’t know what happened.’

‘I’m talking about Kim Taeho.’

‘Oh. He’s dead.’

‘Ya think?’

‘How do you know about that?’

‘News travels fast,’ Joy said. ‘Real fast. Especially to places like this. We hear everything, all the time. Nothing gets past us.’

‘Uh huh. Well. I need your help with one thing, please. Please, Joy.’

‘You always do.’

‘Because you always help me.’

‘Yeah, well. Maybe I shouldn’t.’

Seulgi looked about. As if the walls themselves might be listening to her there. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Just sit down. Just let me talk to you for a minute.’

‘No.’

‘I paid.’

Joy stood a moment. She sighed. Then she sat at the opposite end of the couch looking at Seulgi, her legs crossed one over the other, pale in the dim light, saying: ‘Okay. Whatever. But this is it. You talk to me, you tell me, then you leave. Deal?’

‘Deal.’

She made a motion for Seulgi to continue.

‘I need your help.’

‘You’ve said that.’

‘It’s because I do.’

‘Well tell me what you need my help with,’ Joy said.

‘So will you help me?’

‘That depends.’

‘On?’

‘On what you need help with. Jesus, maybe your friend was right – you are kinda slow sometimes, aren’t you? Where is she, by the way? Your, uh, partner. The pretty one. With the nice hair. And the nice face.’

‘She’s in jail. Or about to be.’

‘Oh, .’ Joy leant forward. ‘Are you serious?’

Seulgi nodded.

‘What for?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Well. Tell it to me.’

‘There’s no time.’

‘If you want me to help you, I need to know what’s going on. So, tell me.’

Seulgi sat a second. Not quite knowing how to proceed. She thought of Irene and the boat and the guy shooting at her and Kim Taeho and finally of what he had said. Then she shifted and said, in a quiet voice, ‘We tried to track down this guy, Kim Taeho. The one you told us about. The White Lotus guy.’

‘White Lotus? The gang?’

‘That’s what the tattoo was on his neck.’

‘Huh.’

‘What?’

‘I, uh. I thought he was just a gardening enthusiast or something.’

‘You thought he was a gardening enthusiast?’

Joy shrugged. ‘The tattoo,’ she said.

‘You get many gardening enthusiasts in here, do you?’

‘Oh, you’d be surprised. We get all sorts of people in here. Like, you wouldn’t believe. A couple weeks ago I had a guy come in paying top money to see me and you never guess what his hobby was? Or what he told me, at least. He said he painted midgets.’

Seulgi just looked at her.

‘Yeah, can you believe that? So I got to asking him what he meant and he said it was exactly what it sounds like. He was a lawyer, but three times a week he’d look in the local papers and the telephone book and ring up a couple midgets – or…small people? Whatever, I don’t know the correct nomenclature – and he’d get them to come over and then he’d paint them. Sometimes with brushes, sometimes finger painting. He told me it wasn’t ual or anything but, well, that’s bull. Why else would he do it? And why specify midgets? Why not just paint normal-sized people? He said he didn’t discriminate between genders either. Just as long as they were legally midgets. With, like, documentation and . Can you imagine?’

‘Joy.’

‘Uh huh. Yeah. Sorry. It’s been a long week. So, Kim Taeho – you found him?’

‘We did.’

‘Did you kill him?’

‘What? No.’

‘Because he’s dead and you found him so…I mean, I’m just putting two and two together here.’

‘I didn’t kill him.’

‘Did Irene kill him? Is that why she’s in jail?’

Seulgi shook her head. ‘Can I finish?’ she said.

‘Go on. Sorry.’

‘We found him. Or, really, he found us.’

Joy shifted nervously and sat straight again but Seulgi had already noticed. ‘He found you?’ Joy said ‘What?’

‘So that information you gave us? We went and checked out a location where another witness had claimed to see him taking part in a robbery at a grocery store. And we ended up getting ing nothing out of it. Nothing at all. And then we go back to my apartment and I’ve got a letter from an anonymous person telling us to meet him. It says he knows who stole the Leeum painting and where it’s going and when. And it said we had to meet him on a boat party on Saturday night. Told us what he’d be looking like and everything.’

‘And?’

‘Lotus tattoo on neck, about five six, five seven. Moustache. Not a five-seven moustache, but…you know.’

‘So, what happened?’

‘We got on that boat, with a little help. Don’t ask how. But we got onto it and we found him there. Only, someone else did as well. Some other White Lotus guy. And he starts shooting at Kim Taeho, and then everything kicks off. There’s this big chase on the boat, this big gunfight. And he’s chasing Taeho and I’m chasing him and I corner him in the kitchen and we fight.’

‘And? What happened?’

‘I incapacitated him with a fish.’

‘With a fish?’

‘Uh huh,’ Seulgi said. ‘A cod.’

‘Whoa.’

‘And so we swim back to shore, an-’

‘You swam back to shore? From where?’

‘About half a mile out? I don’t know. It was quite far away.’

‘And you swam it.’

'Yeah.'

'What about the fish?'

'What?'

'Is it okay?'

'I put it back in the tray. With some ice.'

'So the fish is okay?'

Seulgi nodded. ‘We got to him, and we took him back to the hotel we were staying at. For safety reasons. That’s why we couldn’t go back to my apartment or anything like that. And he starts talking. Says he was the one that sent the letter. Then he tells us everything.’

‘What did he say?’

Seulgi looked about. To make sure they were still alone. Then she said: ‘He and those other guys that came in here – Joonyoung and Taeyang – they stole the painting. The Cube, from the Leeum.’

‘. Are you serious? Properly serious?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they weren’t gardening enthusiasts, Joy. They were White Lotus guys. Doing it on behalf of the higher-ups. Look, it’s too difficult to explain the whole thing, but they did it. And then Taeyang and Joonyoung get knocked off so they can’t blab to anyone about it. So there’s no evidence of it or anything. So they can’t give up the names or the appearances of the bigwigs in charge of it all. And then Taeho figures he’s next in line, so he goes into hiding, and he finds me and sends me this letter.’

‘How did he find you?’

Seulgi looked her and laughed dryly.

‘What?’ Joy said.

‘You know, you’re a pretty good liar.’

‘What?’

‘You’re good at acting like you don’t know what’s going on.’

She was playing with her hands in her lap and trying to smile and failing. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

‘Kim Taeho. He said you told him that we asked. That you gave him information.’

‘,’ Joy said. ‘I mean, . Look. I'm sorry. I didn’t think anything would come of it. I was scared, Seulgi. He came to me and everything. Properly asking. I didn’t know anything about it. I wanted to stay out of it.’

‘You were lying.’

‘What?’

‘Just then. Pretending you didn’t know. All this time we've been talking.’

‘I’m sorry. . I didn’t think anything would come of it.’

‘Yeah, well.’

‘I didn’t tell him where you lived or anything like that. I don’t even know myself. I promise.’

‘I know,’ Seulgi said.

Joy looked at her. Fear and panic multiplied in her eyes. ‘How did he find you then?’ she said.

‘I don’t know. He said it was easy to track us to the hotel. Because we even used our real names.’

‘Wow.’

‘What?’

‘Well, I mean.’ Joy held up her hands. ‘No offense, but that’s a little…stupid, no? I mean, I’ve heard some about detectives in my time. Been with my fair share of them, too. But that is seriously short-sighted.’

‘Yeah. Well.’

‘What happened then?’

‘He tells us everything,’ Seulgi said. ‘About how they’re planning on selling it to a foreign businessman. About how they meet at this club three times a week to discuss business. About how they’re going to-’

‘Whoa,’ Joy said. ‘Wait a minute. Wait just one minute. Am I supposed to be hearing this? You’re not putting me into some just by telling me it, are you? Actually, forget it. I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to know. I really don’t.’

‘Joy.’

‘No, I’m serious. I don’t wanna know.’

Seulgi was quiet a moment. She ran a hand through her hair. The music had changed to something she didn’t recognise. ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you the stuff that won’t get you in any .’

With some reluctance Joy motioned for her to continue and she did.

‘It turns out Taeho isn’t the only one that could track people. Some other guy from the White Lotus gang shows up out of the blue and kills him. Must’ve tracked him the moment he popped on the radar again.’

‘How did they kill him? I mean, weren’t you there or something?’

‘I went down to the lobby to check out.’

‘And what about the other one? Your, uh, partner, or whatever?’

‘She was in the bathroom.’

‘What?’

‘He came in with a silenced weapon. It only took a couple seconds.’

‘Jheez. The luck behind that. Or lack of luck, I guess? Anti-luck. Whatever. So, he ends up dead in your hotel room, and then what?’

Seulgi sighed. ‘I’m ed, Joy,’ she said. ‘I should've been there in that room. Irene could've gotten hurt. Could've died. And it's my fault. I didn’t report any of it either. It was all off the books. It had to be.’

‘So, what?’

‘Hongki showed up and took my badge. I’m off the force for twelve weeks. And Irene’s back behind bars.’

‘What for?’

‘About a dozen things. At least.’

‘And now what?’

Seulgi looked at her. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I had to pay -knows-how-much to even get in here and talk to you and I’m taking a risk doing it.’

‘Three hundred thousand won,’ said Joy. ‘For half an hour.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘Oh, he’s not here.’

‘This is all I’ve got left,’ Seulgi said. ‘All I can do anymore. Look, I have to get to that club tomorrow. And I have to get in and find out what that guy knows.’

‘What guy?’

‘The guy Taeho told us was going to be there to discuss business. This is important , Joy. I just know it. Nobody else believes me – believes either of us. But I’ve got a feeling we’re onto something. This could be the biggest bust in the history of the force. There’s no other way around it. I’ve got to get to that club.’

‘So. What do you need me for?’

‘I need your help with something.’

‘You’ve said that.’

‘Because it’s the truth.’

‘No, I mean…’ Joy rubbed her head. ‘You’re a slow one, Seulgi. I mean – what do you need my help with?’

‘I need you to get something for me. A couple of things.’

‘Listen, if this is-’

‘Please, Joy. I need this. It’s all I need. It’s the last thing I'll ever ask of you, I promise. The very last thing.’

‘What do you need?’

Seulgi looked around again. Nobody had come to listen to them. The music played and played. She turned back to Joy. The pensiveness on her face. Then she shuffled along the couch and leant over and told her exactly what she needed and then she told her a second time and a third so that Joy was sure. When she sat back Joy just looked at her.

‘Please,’ Seulgi said.

‘You know what you’re asking of me, right?’

‘I wouldn’t have come to you if I had anyone else. Anyone at all. But you run with these sorts of people. There’s shady going on here all the time. Shady guys.’

‘And I don’t want to get involved in that.’

‘And you won’t. I just need this. Please.’

‘Even those? The last thing you mentioned.’

‘Even them.’

‘You really need them? I mean, they don't seem that important.’

Seulgi nodded. Joy sighed. ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Jesus. Why am I ing agreeing to this? If it were anyone else but you, I’d have walked out that door twenty minutes ago. . Alright.’ She looked about. ‘. I’ll be right back.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Stay here,’ Joy said from the doorway. She disappeared through the curtain and Seulgi was left alone in contemplation. She thought a moment Joy might not return. That she might be escorted out by one of the big guys in the black suits and that would be that. But not a minute later Joy came back with a scrap of paper in her hand and handed it over and stood bobbing anxiously from one foot to the other and tapping at the cold tiles. ‘That address,’ she said. ‘It’s a retail mall in Jamsil. Go in from the front, that’s the north entrance. On your right on the way in you’ll see a room with a bunch of one-day lockers in it. Go there at 3PM tomorrow and you’ll find what you need.’

‘Thank yo-’

She waved Seulgi away impatiently. ‘Don’t thank me,’ she said. ‘After this, don’t ever ask me for anything again. Jesus, I can’t believe I’m doing this.’

‘Joy. Thanks.’

‘Go. Please.’

And then, when Seulgi was by the curtain, she said: ‘I hope you find what you’re looking for.’

‘Yeah,’ Seulgi said. ‘So do I.’

♣   ♣   ♣

She didn’t even bother driving out of the lot. She just slept there most of the night. When she awoke it was almost eleven in the morning and a soft pale sun hung enormous in the clear sky. Her jaw hurt. She wanted desperately for something to drink, anything, even whiskey. Some guy at the end of the lot looked at the Ferrari and disappeared again. She sat thinking for a while. Watching the minutes tick away on her wristwatch. Just before twelve she started the engine and pulled out of the lot and started southbound toward Jamsil.

When she stopped it was in Gwangjin, twenty minutes north of Jamsil across the Cheonho bridge. She pulled the Testarossa up along the kerb of an old street of shops and got out and went into the nearest CU and bought a couple sandwiches and a big bottle of water and went out to the car again and ate. It would have been good for her to think about the painting, about what Taeho said, about whether in truth trying to get into that club in Gangnam in less than twelve hours was even feasible at all, but what she was actually thinking was: Is Irene eating sandwiches? Will they let her eat sandwiches in prison? Is she okay? Will she still be cracking jokes and being sarcastic behind bars? Who knows.

She got out of the car and wandered down the street in the shade. People hemmed in the lees. People not really paying attention to anything. She made sure the Testarossa was never out of sight. About halfway down the street she stopped outside an old gift store and stood a moment peering through the dim dustmottled glass as to make out anything beyond. A small sign hung above the door that said Charlie Don’t Surf. She looked about. Cold and quiet. Then she opened the door and went in.

She was greeted by a bellchime and the smell of burning incense. Smoke hung like an instrument of some recent witchcraft. So that she could see very little. There were trinkets on the tables on the right and far down the other end of the narrow room and bookshelves filled with old memorabilia from all around the globe and paintings and other accessories hanging from the walls and things on higher cabinets she didn’t recognise, medieval helmets and brass trays and plates and dishes and old Spanish doubloons and postcards from California and Venice and Barcelona and quillpens and fountainpens and old Egyptian papyri and so many other things, t-shirts and baggy jeans and Zubaz pants and hippie bracelets preaching Peace and One Love and Beatles vinyl CDs on a stacked shelf near the front of the store.

‘Can I help you?’ the guy behind the counter said. He seemed to pop up on the left out of nowhere. He reminded Seulgi of Wendy. Wearing his big brownrimmed glasses and with his long and wiry hair receding at the temples and lank, wearing a green shirt and a gaudy green jacket over it. He looked at her carefully. She watched him in return.

‘I’m just looking,’ she said.

‘Yeah, we’re all just looking.’ He smiled at her. An affable smile, a lazy one. Not quite all there. Very much a Wendy smile. Cut from the same cloth. ‘You looking for anything in particular?’ he said.

‘I don’t think so. I’m just looking.’

‘Yeah, man. I understand. We’ve all got to do a bit of searching, you know what I mean?’

Seulgi just smiled at him. She looked around. There were shelves with old DVDs and Blu-Rays and VCRs from thirty years ago and trinkets and memorabilia still in these hidden parts of the store and everything smelled like old wood and damp and incense. By one of the shelves she stopped and blinked and blinked again. There were perhaps two dozen small copper tins meant for holding tobacco or sweets or cigarettes, each bearing emblems and pictures on the front. One was of the American show Dynasty. One of M*A*S*H. One a grainy picture of Marilyn Monroe holding a cigarette in her left hand. And there was one right at the back with Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas in their white and blue suits, white and blue pants, sockless loafers, bigfaced watches, smiling up at her, and the words MIAMI VICE emblazoned across the top in faint green and purple lettering.

‘Well I’ll be,’ she muttered. She thought a moment longer. Then she took the tin and put it on the counter and asked him how much.

‘For this?’ he said, swaying a little. He smelled of weed and incense and cologne. And of dirt, a strange earthy smell to him.

‘Yeah.’

‘Thirty thousand won.’

‘For that? Really?’

He shrugged. ‘They’re antiques, man.’

‘Where’d you get this?’

‘A friend gave it to me.’

‘A friend.’

‘Yeah, man. A friend.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a tobacco tin, that’s what it is. If you wanna use it for that. Or like, anything else, man. You know what I’m saying?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, not knowing what he was saying. She handed a couple bills across the counter and he took them and folded them into his jacket pocket and smiled a long and lazy smile at her. ‘You know what I saw this morning, man?’ he said. ‘I saw a dog with wheels for legs. Wheels for legs, man! It had no legs at all. Just four wheels! Just wheeling about. I’ve never seen anything like it. It looked just like some pet dog, man. But with wheels. Crazy. You know what I’m saying?’

‘Yeah,’ Seulgi lied.

‘Crazy, man. Anyway, enjoy your day.’

‘You too.’

‘And come back if you’re looking for anything else. I’ve got everything you can think of here. Even things you can’t. Know what I’m saying? You know it?’

Seulgi smiled and thanked him again and went out into the cold with the tin in her jacket pocket. She stood a moment looking back at the glass. The anneal glare in the cool light. As if were melting by candlelight. As if it were a dream. She set off back down the street and got into the Testarossa and put the tobacco tin in the glovebox and sat a while. It was almost two in the afternoon. Already the sun had begun to fall in the west. The quick days of winter. She started up the engine and drove to the address Joy had given her in Jamsil and parked opposite the north side of the mall and waited.

She waited there for a long time. There was nothing much to pay attention to. It was an enormous building with a long arcade where shoppers appeared and disappeared en-masse and there was nothing significant to see. Some kid came and thumbsed up the car and she ignored him and immediately felt wrong for it. Irene would’ve given him a thumbsup. Of course she would have. By the time she had stopped thinking of Irene again it had just gone three. She sat in the car a while debating what to do. Whether Joy was telling the truth or not. And she realised very quickly that there was no other choice but to believe her.

The traffic had slowed in the middle of the afternoon. It was bitterly cold. She crossed by the end of the street and doubled back and made under the arcade and through into the lobby of the mall and turned right. Joy had not been lying. There was a long and quiet room, long rows of lockers on both sides of the wall. She looked at each of them in turn, inspecting them. Maybe twenty on either side. One about two thirds of the way down on the right had a small yellow post-it note stuck to the front. Seulgi took one more look around and confirming she was alone took the post-it and read it and a second time to make sure. It said: 4 LEFT, ACROSS.

She stood a moment. Then she took four steps to the left and turned and crossed to the opposite wall. A small trashcan hanging there at the end of the lockers. She reached in and felt for a small crumpled piece of paper and took it out and read it and put it back. It said SIXTEEN 1468. She tossed the post-it note away and searched for locker number sixteen and tried one-four-six-eight and to her mild surprise it opened.

Inside were a number of items on the top shelf and no note at all. She checked them and checked them again, making sure Joy had provided everything she’d asked for. A black SIG P9 handgun, already loaded, two spare magazines, an old Nokia burner phone and a spare SIM card in a plastic box. And the last thing she’d asked for. The one Joy had questioned her on. A pair of blue Revo Carlisle aviator glasses. The ones Don Johnson had worn in Miami Vice thirty-three years ago. Yeah. Groovy, baby.

She put the P9 and the magazines in the waistband of her pants and took the SIM from the box and fitted it to the phone and switched it on and then, making sure she was still alone again, took the glasses and put them on and stood a moment looking about. Yeah. So groovy. If only Irene were there to see her. To make fun of her again. To laugh and tell her how pathetic it was that she’d copied the suit, the pants, the loafers, the ing car, and now even the glasses, too. That she’d taken everything from Don Johnson. She’d stand there doubled over laughing and she’d say: Now trying telling me you’re not in love with him, Seulgi! Try telling me that now.

When she went back outside and unlocked the car it was ten minutes past three. A couple people looked at her. Maybe they were laughing. She didn’t know. All she knew was that the club in Gangnam opened in seven hours and she had to be there and that was final. And there was one more place she needed to go. She started up the Flat-12 and pulled out into the street, going east toward Taepyong and fast.

♣   ♣   ♣

It was almost an hour drive to Wendy’s in Taepyong and dark when she got there. Almost five in the evening already. Sunless in the cold atavism of winter. Seulgi parked up the car in the driveway and put the SIG and the spare magazines in the glovebox with the phone and pinned the sunglasses to the front of her shirt. She cut the engine and sat a minute. Wendy perhaps had already heard her. She the domelight and turned it off again and stepped out and went on up the path to the door and knocked twice and waited. Hands in her pockets. Not knowing what lay in the near future and not particularly wanting to know. She waited. After a while Wendy came and answered and stood there looking her up and down with no real expression on her face.

‘You been smoking again?’ Seulgi said.

‘No. Why?’

‘I can smell it.’

‘It’s an illusion. Your mind playing tricks on you. It’s what you want to smell. No weed here, man. None at all.’

'Why didn't you answer the phone?'

'Was that you?'

'Yeah.'

'I don't answer unknown numbers, man. You should know this by now. Who knows who's listening?'

‘Can I come in?’

Wendy looked at her. She turned as if someone would be in the hallway behind her but it was empty. ‘I think you better,’ she said. She led Seulgi through the kitchen. More pizza boxes and cookie wrappers had seemingly accumulated in every crevice and half-cleaned plates and cutlery sat piled high in the sink and along the drainingboard and on every other surface. So that she could see nothing of the worktops themselves. It stank even worse of weed. A dim haze through which they navigated together, Wendy with a sort of stoner’s meticulousness, unaware of everything, in her own little world. She shuffled through into the livingroom and Seulgi pushing the debris out of the way stood in the doorway and peered in and turned and turned back as if she had seen a ghost.

'Hey,' Irene said, sitting at the far end of the couch. Smiling that all-too-familiar smile. 'You took your time.'