AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter is sooooooo long lol, hope y'all don't mind but I figured since I'll probably be busy for a while I'd make this one a little extra 💕 Enjoy! :)

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Four Little Diamonds

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Part III

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They were pulled up across the street from Wendy’s place in Taepyong when Yeri leant forward across the back seat and said, ‘Do you want me to explain now?’

‘Explain what?’ Irene said.

‘About the glitter industry.’

‘Not particularly,’ Seulgi said, hands on the steeringwheel.

‘Wow.’

‘No,’ Irene said, ‘go on. I’m curious now.’

‘Irene,’ said Seulgi.

‘Let her speak.’

Seulgi looked at her. She thought about it for a minute. She thought about whatever Wendy would say to them the moment she let them into the house. What crackpot theories she would drop on them out of nowhere and how she would go about describing things that would confuse them and for what outcome. Stalking about the smoky house like a goblin saying things like Look into it, man! Groovy ! She looked at Yeri. She seemed almost innocent in the narrow afternoon light but the truth is often falsified in such an environment and that was no exception.

‘Alright,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Whatever. Go on.’

‘Nah,’ Yeri said.

‘What?’

‘It’s ruined now. You’ve ruined it.’

‘What? How?’

‘You’re not excited by it, that’s clear. You don’t care. Typical sheep behaviour.’

‘Sheep? What?’

‘Just going about your day, oblivious to everything. You don’t even care. It’s happening right under your nose and you don’t even know it!’

‘And you…do?’

‘I know these people, you know?’

‘I know,’ Irene said, not knowing what there was to know. Not knowing anything, really.

‘Through my dad, I mean. I know them all. I know what they’re like.’

‘Glitter fiends?’

‘I’m serious.’

‘Uh huh. So, what do they do, then? The government, I mean. What do they do to the glitter industry?’

‘They’ve already done it.’

‘Done what?’

‘Are we going? I’m bored.’

She opened the back door and stepped out into the street. Seulgi and Irene looked at one another in silence and looked at Yeri out in the street, stood in the middle of the road picking at her nails, hair thrown about by the wind. It occurred to Seulgi that they had never quite met anyone like Yeri before. There was something uniquely terrifying about her. Wheein was brash and perhaps dangerously lazy at times but she was good at her job and that was undeniable, almost as good as Seulgi. Hongki was much the same, a poorly handled lunatic whose sanity was balanced forever on the precipice, but a proud and competent officer, who always saw that things were done.

Then there were the recruits. Seulgi knew little about them other than the fact they idolised her in a way Irene found amusing and Seulgi herself found a little unnerving. Not as well-rounded as Wheein, not as unnaturally gifted as Seulgi, but willing to do whatever, and disciplined, if nothing else. Then, Joy. Quiet, hesitant to give much away about herself or anyone, but that made her so much easier to work with. No sudden outbursts like Hongki, no falling asleep at the desk like Wheein, none of the newbies’ -ups. Just solid work, even if for selfish reasons. Then, Wendy. She found after short reflection she couldn’t quite describe Wendy at all. What was there to say of her that made sense? What of Wendy herself made any sense in the first place? Her mild insanity, her obscene ideas on anything and everything, the mystery surrounding her. How could you describe something like that to someone? And then there was Irene, and what could be said about Irene that Seulgi hadn’t said already? Hadn’t thought about for far too long to ever be deemed healthy. Everything about her. She thought for a moment that there was nobody in the world she knew better than Irene now, and perhaps in a sense that was an oddly touching reminder of how far their relationship had come. How much they had grown together.

But for all her flaws and faults – for all their collective flaws – they weren’t quite Yeri. That much was obvious even knowing her as little as Seulgi did. There was none of the same laser-focus that Seulgi herself possessed and none of the competence under pressure like Wheein and none of the endearing enthusiasm from the newbies. There was the same unhinged lunacy simmering under the surface as in Hongki, but without the same penchant for professionalism, or the experience. There was the same unbridled sceptical insanity as in Wendy, but where Wendy’s lack of energy and carefree nature limited her, Yeri had nothing of the sort. And there was the same irritating voice in Seulgi’s ear as when she had listened to Irene drone on and on so long ago, but without any of the myriad quirks that made Irene so appealing, so utterly beguiling in every sense of the word. There was just Yeri. Brash, reckless, and without a care in the world for anything regardless of importance. And more than a little crazy, that was for sure.

She was roused from her momentary mind-wandering by Irene tapping her on the shoulder. ‘Are we going?’ she said, echoing Yeri. Seulgi looked at them both. She went on up to the door and knocked and waited. They stood for what felt like ten minutes in the cold. When Wendy answered they didn’t see her at first. She was hidden around the back of the door and she poked her head out and eyed them and Yeri in particular and nodded at nothing in the house and let them in. It smelled as it often did, of weed and cookies. The same dim smoke hung like smog in the diningroom, the livingroom. Likely upstairs, too.

‘You could’ve called,’ Wendy said.

‘We don’t have your number.’

‘Huh.’ She thought about this for a moment. Then she took the tray of cookies from the table by the couch at the far end of the livingroom and ate one and wobbled it about as if to offer them one.

‘Thanks,’ Yeri said, taking three. ‘Man, my head is still killing me. Crazy.’

‘Hello.’

‘Hi. Nice to meet you.’

‘Who is this?’ Wendy said.

‘A friend,’ said Irene. ‘Just, y’know, ignore her. Or something. She’s harmless.’

‘Harmless.’

‘Mostly.’

‘Is she clean?’

‘What?’

‘Is she clean.’

‘In what sense?’

‘In all senses,’ Wendy said. She eyed Yeri and Yeri smiled at her and took another one of the cookies. Seulgi and Irene were still stood in the doorway peering in. It hadn’t changed much at all. If anything, the clutter had become even more general. Pizza boxes and donut boxes and old magazines and comicbooks piled high on both couches and beside the table where the cookies had sat and foodpackets everywhere and the same smell of weed, asive, permeating. Yeri had another one of the cookies. ‘Nice place,’ she said.

‘Thanks.’ Wendy studied her with a sort of wise caution. She was wearing a black bandana tied tight around her head and she wore a baggy pair of grey sweats and a jacket, even indoors. ‘Well,’ she said.

‘Well what?’ said Seulgi.

‘I assume you’re here for something. You’re not just visiting. You never just visit.’

‘Uh, yeah. Thank you, by the way.’

‘For what?’

‘For everything you’ve done for us. For helping us with that, uh, issue, we had. And for the van.’

She made a little peace sign and ate one of the cookies and shuffled over to the door and past them and back into the rest of the house. ‘Don’t mention it,’ she said, not turning to see if they were following but they were. ‘What’s a little help between old friends, you know? Groovy. Real groovy . I enjoyed myself, for what it's worth.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘How is it, by the way? The van.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t have it.’

‘Where is it?’

‘The recruits have it.’

‘Who are the recruits?’

‘You met them,’ Seulgi said, following Wendy up the stairs at the back of the house. ‘They were the ones with us in the van. The ones that helped us.’

‘Dunno,’ Wendy said nonchalantly. Seulgi turned and looked at Irene and Irene stifled a laugh and shrugged. Wendy led them into the back room, the same room they had been in sometime before, tinkering with old Soviet gadgets and digging through dogeared cardboard boxes for antique items and memorabilia that in all honesty belonged in a museum somewhere. The cabinets had not moved but the walnut wood desk by the window on the left had gained even more junk and there was a single swivel chair that Wendy wheeled about and sat looking at them with her hands in her lap like an oddly dressed school principal.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Go on, man. What you need, I’ll supply it. As always.’

Seulgi looked at the others behind her. She looked at Irene for a long time. Something inside of her felt a little guilty not coming out and saying it immediately but she turned back to Wendy without a word and said, ‘I’ve, uh, got a list. A couple things I need you to do with the car while we’re gone.’

‘Gone where?’

‘Wherever. I just need some stuff for it by tonight, if that’s okay with you.’

‘Depends what it is, man. Depends what it is. Because if you need, like, spiked tires or something? I can do that. Hoo, boy, I can do that. But if you’re looking for a big shiny new engine like that van? By tonight? Not sure I can do that, man. Not this time, if you know what I mean. Or something.’

‘Wendy.’

‘Yeah. Sorry. Give it over.’

She took the crumpled paper from her pocket and passed it to Wendy. She read it a couple times. She wheeled her chair around and opened one of the plastic drawers stacked on the desk and nodded at whatever was inside they couldn’t see and turned again and stashed the paper in the pocket of her jacket. ‘You sure you need this?’ she said.

‘Yeah.’

‘Sure you’re sure?’

‘Wendy.’

‘Yeah, man. Just, uh…making sure, you know? Not what I expected.’

‘Can you do it?’

‘Does the Pope in the woods?’

‘What?’

Wendy was quiet a moment. Then she said, ‘Dunno. Something about bears.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I can do it, man. Sure I can. By tonight, yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What time?’

‘Before nine. We’ve got somewhere to be at ten.’

‘Anywhere nice?’

‘Romantic riverside date,’ Irene said. ‘Yeah, real romantic . Like you wouldn’t believe.’

‘Oh, that right?’

‘Sure. You’ll never guess who’s gonna be there.’

‘Man, tell me.’

‘Just a couple illegal jewellery dealers. And a buncha clowns. Literally.’

‘Man,’ Wendy said, ‘that’s some groovy .’

‘Real groovy.’ Irene turned to Yeri. She was stood by the door, just dawdling, as if the world and everything it contained was merely an inconvenience to her. As if nothing held any interest or purpose or importance, and perhaps in some way she was oddly right about that. ‘Yeri,’ Irene said. She turned and shrugged and smiled a lazy smile. ‘You gonna tell us about your little theory yet?’

‘What?’ Yeri said. ‘What theory?’

‘Your glitter theory.’

‘It’s not a theory. It’s the truth. And it’s not about glitter. It’s about the glitter industry.’

‘Uh huh. You might wanna hear this, Wendy.’

‘Yeah, man,’ Wendy said, sorting through her drawers. Seulgi turned and looked at Yeri. ‘Alright,’ Yeri said, ‘but you’ve got to promise not to tell anyone.’

Irene made a little pinky gesture in the air.

‘Right. Cool. Well, the word in the air is that there’s this big buyer in the glitter industry. I’m talking someone, or some thing, that buys way more glitter than anyone else. Like, millions of tons of glitter and . Or maybe not that much. I dunno what that really weighs. Whatever. But there’s this mysterious figure buying up all the glitter, and it’s not just a Korean thing either. Nope. It actually started in America. It’s big talk over there. Real big talk. So, it’s in a bunch of different countries, and the crazy thing is, nobody knows who it is.’

‘Who what is?’

‘Who’s buying up all this glitter. I mean, who could it be? And what could they need it for?’

‘Clowns?’ Irene said.

‘What for?’

‘Kids’ parties?’

‘That’s a load of parties.’

‘I dunno, then. Strippers?’

‘Nah. Too easy to get everywhere.’

‘Cooks?’

‘Cooks?’ Yeri said.

‘Yeah. You know…edible glitter.’

‘Not the same thing. But I know who it is.’

‘You do?’

‘Sure.’

‘Well?’

Yeri looked around. When she was satisfied they were suitably alone she continued, voice a little quieter and yet no less enthusiastic. ‘It’s the government,’ she said.

‘The government.’

‘Or more specifically, it’s the army.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Okay, so, here’s how it goes. During the Iraq War—’

‘Where is this going?’

‘Hear me out. Hear me out.’

Irene looked at the others. Even Wendy was sat listening to her, if only with her eyes hooded and lazy. ‘So,’ Yeri said, ‘during the Iraq War, the United States army needed a way to accurately and consistently jam the radars of everyone on the ground in Iraq. You can’t ever get soldiers or planes or bombs or anything close to anywhere if they know exactly where you are at all times, right? That’s simple . The problem is, they needed a way to do this that didn’t cost tens of millions each time they had to do it – you know, with specialist equipment and – and the problem with that was they had to do this every single time they flew a plane over, or dropped or bomb, or did a sortie, or a cargo run, or put boots on the ground, or anything, really.

‘So, you know what they did? They bought all the glitter in America. Literally bought it by the ton-load. And then they filled their planes with boxes full of it, just big boxes full of ing sparkly multicoloured glitter, and they went on their bombing runs and their sighting missions and just let loose. They just dropped it all out, all over Iraq. Just tons of this glitter going everywhere like ing snowfall. Crazy . And it worked, too. Worked every time. Because they used to do this back in the Korean War, too. They used to call it chaff. Basically you’d use an extremely thin material, something really light, like thin aluminium or some , and you’d use a ton of it to simulate an aircraft or a helicopter or a sea vessel or an incoming attack. It worked in two ways. Either it’d confuse the out of an incoming guided missile and send it off course – kinda like how jet planes deploy flares and , right? – or it’d show up on the radars as a bunch of individual blips or mess them up and , and nobody on the ground would have any ing idea what was going on. One minute it looked like thousands of enemies coming in at once, the next it looked like nothing. Like a glitch or some .

‘So, yeah. Now you know. It wasn’t the clowns or the strippers or the cooks. It was the government. Every government. Whenever you see on the news or some about a glitter shortage, or you hear someone talking about it – you know, rumours and – be afraid, my friend. Be very ing afraid. Because it means war. Means your country’s gearing up to go bomb the out of some foreign place and they’re snatching up all the glitter they can find to hide their planes from the radars of said foreign place. You follow?’

Irene and Seulgi looked at each other in the silence that did indeed follow where they did not. They looked at Wendy. ‘Well,’ Irene said. ‘What do you make of all this?’

‘What?’

‘I figured if anyone knew about any of this, it’d be you.’

‘Man,’ Wendy said, sounding half asleep. ‘I don’t know what she’s talking about.’

‘What?’

‘Not a clue, man. Not a C-L-U-E.’

‘Huh.’ Irene looked back at Yeri, stood in the doorway shrugging, whistling. Perhaps it was almost impressive how she managed to be even stranger than Wendy in some regards. Or perhaps not. She didn’t know.

‘Hey,’ Yeri said, ‘you got anything to drink? Preferably strong. And if it’s whiskey, on the rocks, please. With ice. Two cubes. Or three, I’m not fussy.’

‘I’ve got soda,’ Wendy said. ‘And sparkling water.’

‘What flavour sparkling water?’

‘Black Tea and Lemon.’

‘I’ll pass, thanks. Nice place you got here, by the way.’

‘You’ve said that,’ Irene said.

‘So? Can’t I say it again?’

Seulgi turned to Wendy. ‘Can you get us this, then?’

‘Sure, man,’ Wendy said, smiling a hazy, comfortable smile. ‘Sure can do. Be round tonight to pick it up, yeah?’

‘Yeah. We will. Thanks.’

‘Anytime, man. Anytime. You know where I am, and where I am not.’

‘What?’

‘Figure of speech, you know?’

Seulgi shrugged. She thanked Wendy again and nodded for Yeri to leave and went on down and out to the car. It wasn’t until she was outside that she realised Irene hadn’t followed them. ‘Where did she go?’ she said. Yeri shrugged. They stood on the kerb a minute just waiting. When she came out she seemed none the wiser.

‘Where were you?’ Seulgi said.

‘Just inside.’

‘Why?’

‘What?’

‘Why didn’t you come out?’

‘I was just catching up with a friend. What’s up with you?’

‘A friend.’

‘Yeah. We’re friends now, y’know? She’s a lot cooler than you.’

‘Thanks.’

Irene kissed her on the cheek and set off down the street. ‘Where are you going?’ Seulgi said.

‘Well, I’m assuming she needs the car, no? So, I’m going to grab a cab or something.’

Seulgi thought about it for a second. Then she followed without a word, knowing that Irene was right and knowing that Irene knew she was right and knowing also that Irene would be no less than entirely smug about it if she brought it up at all. So she did not. When she turned around she remembered Yeri was still with them, still following.

 

♣  ♣  ♣

 

It had just gone four in the afternoon when the cab pulled up across the street from the precint and let them out after Seulgi had paid. They went on in with Yeri following, curiously quiet, as if she were still in her own world. Or perhaps always would be, in a way that was comfortably disarming. No fuss, no mess. Just a general self-contained madness. She had spoken very little since earlier that day. Perhaps the cumulative hangover had forced her into silence or perhaps she simply didn’t feel like it. Seulgi couldn’t tell. There was almost nothing about Yeri she could tell at all.

When she went in through the office doors Wheein was sat at her desk scrawling something on a pad of paper. She looked up at Seulgi and waved at Irene and looked to Yeri behind them and then she rolled a page of paper into a ball and tossed it at Seulgi and laughed.

‘Thanks,’ Seulgi said.

‘You’re welcome.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Like, in general? Or right now?’

‘Right now.’

‘Not a lot. I’m bored.’

‘You want something to do for a change?’

Wheein wheeled her chair back. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Why, you got something for me?’

Seulgi turned to the others. Yeri was just stood there, nonchalant as ever. ‘This is Yeri,’ she said. Wheein gave her a little wave and Yeri waved back much in the way a child would and said nothing.

‘She your new friend?’ Wheein said.

‘Something like that. You mind if she stays here for a while?’

‘What?’

‘Yeah,’ Yeri said. ‘What?’

‘Why is she staying here?’

‘Yeah. Why am I staying here?’

‘It’s not safe where we’re going tonight,’ Seulgi said.

‘We had a deal that included me introducing you to my friend, and part of that deal also included me coming along with you. This? This wasn’t part of the deal.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You can’t back out now.’

‘Wheein?’

‘That’s bull.’

‘Sorry,’ Wheein said. ‘You gotta honour your deals, you know? Girl code and .’

‘See? At least someone’s making sense!’

‘Yeah,’ Irene said. ‘And what do you mean, it’s not safe where we’re going?’

‘You know what I mean,’ Seulgi said.

‘Oh, so you’re looking out for her safety but it’s alright that I’m going along?’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘How noble of you.’

‘Irene.’

‘I’m coming,’ Yeri said, ‘and that’s final.’

Seulgi turned her. She turned back to Irene, arms folded in front of her chest, and then to Wheein, as if looking for support that none of them would give. ‘,’ she muttered. ‘Fine. Jesus, fine. Whatever. You can come along, but if you get hurt, it’s your fault. You understand me?’

‘Sure. Whatever.’

‘Why do you even want to come along anyway?’

Yeri shrugged. ‘Bored,’ she said. ‘Told you that already.’

‘Jesus. Some of you people.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Wheein said.

‘Just—’

‘Uh huh.’ She wheeled back to her desk and tore off another sheet of paper and balled it and threw it at Seulgi’s head.

‘Stop doing that,’ Seulgi said.

‘You gonna tell me what you’re planning on doing tonight, then? Or am I gonna have to get it out of one of you two instead?’

‘We’re saving the world,’ Irene said.

‘Again?’

‘Sure.’

‘Cool. What does that entail exactly?’

‘It’s complicated,’ Seulgi said.

‘Is it? Or can you just not be bothered telling me?’

‘Little of column A, little of column B.’

Wheein crumpled another sheet.

‘Don’t do that,’ Seulgi said.

‘Tell me then.’

‘What are you even doing? Why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be out with the others? Don’t you have a job to be doing?’

‘Got any more questions you wanna ask?’ Wheein said. She tossed the paper ball at Seulgi and it hit her square in the chest with an airy thwap and fell to the floor.

‘Stop doing that.’

‘To answer your many questions, I’m doing my job. Or not doing my job, technically, since there’s nothing for me to be doing. I’m waiting for them to get back.’

‘Get back from where?’

‘They’re out.’

‘Out doing what?’

‘I dunno. Something. Ask Hongki, not me. Hey, maybe you should take charge, you know? Maybe you should ask him nicely about retiring or something. Maybe he’d give it up for you, being, y’know, the best cop in Seoul and all.’

‘Detective.’

‘Detective, cop, what’s the difference?’

‘A cop—’

Wheein threw another paper ball at her.

‘I said stop doing that.’

‘Why are you here?’ Wheein said. ‘And not out doing…whatever it is you do nowadays. God, we’re really ing unorganised around here, aren’t we?’

‘Yeah,’ Irene said.

‘Chased any clowns today?’

‘No,’ Seulgi said, flat as ever.

‘Shot any Mexicans?’

‘No.’

‘Raced any Thais?’

‘It was just the one Thai, actually,’ Irene said.

‘Fair play.’

‘But no, is the answer.’

Wheein leant back in her chair and stretched her arms across the rests . ‘So,’ she said, ‘you gonna tell him yet?’

‘What?’ Seulgi said.

‘That you shot—’

‘Shut up.’

‘What? You did shoot—’

‘I know what I did. You don’t have to ing say it out loud.’

‘What, you think he’s listening or something?’

They both looked at his office door. As if there might be something supernatural in merely talking about him. As if it might summon him from the depths. ‘I’ll tell him in my own time,’ Seulgi said. ‘When I’m ready. And when he’s ready.’

‘People in Hell want icewater.’

‘What?’

Wheein clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth. ‘I don’t actually know,’ she said. ‘I had somewhere I was going with that. Dunno what I meant but…yeah.’

‘Something about Hell freezing over before that happens?’ Irene said.

‘Yeah! See? Knew I could count on you.’

‘I’ve got something I need to tell him,’ Seulgi said.

‘Feel free. He’s in there.’

‘You sure this time?’

‘I saw him go in. So, unless he’s leapt out the second-story window in some strange attempt to escape from…whatever there is to escape from in this office, then yes, he’s in there.’

‘You could’ve just said that.’

‘I just did.’

‘God.’

‘What? God what?’

She wanted to say: You’re just as bad as Irene. Instead she turned to them and motioned for them both to follow her and then she knocked on Hongki’s office door and waited for him to tell her to come in. He was sat behind his desk with his one bad leg still in the cast stretched before him and when he saw her he seemed for a moment to be surprised by her presence. Then he saw Wheein and Irene and immediately was sullen and angry at everything again. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I assume you’ve got something to say, Kang, or you wouldn’t interrupt me like that.’

‘Sorry sir. But, uh, yes sir. I do.’

‘Well. Go on then.’

‘It’s about the diamonds case.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘Uh, sorry sir.’

He made a gesture for her to continue.

‘We think we’ve made contact with someone who can lead us to the diamonds, sir.’

‘Think, or you know?’

‘Know, sir.’

‘Know, or positive you know?’

‘Positive, chief,’ Irene said. He looked at her and nodded in the way he usually did when talking to Irene, a sort of reluctant acceptance of the fact that, somehow, some way, she was a part of their team now, as if he couldn’t quite grapple with how or why or even when it had happened, just that it had. He nodded to Yeri by the door. ‘Who the is that?’ he said.

‘This is Yeri.’

‘Who the is Yeri?’

‘I’m the help,’ Yeri said. ‘Who the are you?’

They all looked at her. The silence in the room seemed to swallow up all their small world. Hongki put both his hands on the desk and pulled himself up and stood hunched in the low light like a demon. ‘Who the am I?’ he said. ‘Who the are you?’

‘Who the are you?’

‘Who the are you.’

‘No,’ Yeri said. ‘Who the are you?’

‘Seulgi.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Who is this?’

‘It’s, uh—’

‘I’m Yeri,’ said Yeri. ‘I’m here to help you get those diamonds back. You got a problem with that or something? What is it with men thinking they can talk down to me all the goddamn time? What, is it because I’m young? Or because I’m small? I don’t even think they know. They just see me and they’re like: Hey, it’s her. Who the are you? like that, y’know? Well. Who the are you?’

Hongki said not a word. He just studied her for a long time. Seulgi ran a hand across her forehead. The air felt thick enough to be tangible, touchable. She thought he might open one of the drawers and take out a big American movie-style Smith and Wesson and shoot her. Or perhaps he might pull out a remote control and punch a button and the floor beneath them would open up and drop them fifty feet to their dark and squalid doom somewhere in the beating heart of the Earth. Instead he nodded to her. As if to say: You’ve got guts, kid. Well played.

‘Kang,’ he said. He never tore his gaze away from Yeri.

‘Yes sir,’ she said.

‘Tell me about what you’re doing with this diamond case.’

‘Uh, yes sir. Yeri here helped us get in contact with someone who claims to know who’s behind the disappearance of the diamonds and the robberies. Claims they were all by the same person.’

‘As we guessed.’

‘Yes sir. We managed to set up a meeting with her tonight.’

‘Where?’

‘This place under Jamsil Bridge. It’s an old parkinglot.’

‘Sounds quiet.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Do you trust it?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he said, looking at her at last. Irene shifted nervously.

‘Sir.’

‘Do you trust it or not?’

She paused for a while. Then she said, not entirely convinced, ‘Yes sir.’

‘Well.’

‘Sir?’

‘Go and get me those diamonds, Kang. And you, too. And you, three. And Wheein.’

‘Yes sir?’

‘I want you on the scene as well, just in case anything goes wrong. Bring those new girls along with you. I can’t afford anything going wrong again, and neither can any of you, because if it does, it’s…’ he made a slicing motion across his neck.

‘Yes sir,’ Wheein said.

He looked at Yeri again. She was watching him with a sort of idle fascination. ‘You should stop that,’ she said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘That.’

‘What the are you talking about?’

‘Smoking.’

‘I don’t smoke,’ he said.

‘That’s what you tell people. That’s why you should stop.’ They looked at her for an explanation. Or perhaps to get her to shut up but she did not, naturally. ‘The way you’re rubbing the table with your thumbs,’ she said. ‘Telltale sign of someone who wants a cigarette. You want something in your hands. You like the feeling of the cigarette in your grip. You’ve gone years rubbing at it, so long that you can’t get enough of it now. It’s like your heroin, not even the cigarettes themselves, just the feeling of them. The texture. The touch. So, you tell people you’ve quit smoking, and maybe you did for a while, but you’ve picked it back up again, and now you’re too ashamed to tell anybody because you really did want to stop, but you can’t help it. It’s the stress of the job. Either that or something in your personal life. Maybe your wife left you? I dunno. Maybe that’s why that portrait’s facedown over there on that shelf. But you should stop. Really. I think you should.’

‘They’re menthols.’

‘I’m a Christian.’

‘What?’

Yeri just shrugged. ‘Are we going?’ she said to Seulgi and left before they could reply. Seulgi looked at Hongki and bowed a slight. There looked to be no anger on his weathered face. Or the truth could be there was so much of it that it had taken on a different, more subtle form. He sat again and stretched out his bad leg and closed his eyes and let out a long and weary breath and was oddly silent, tranquil almost.

‘Sir?’ Wheein said.

‘You…’ he stopped. He started again and stopped, as if he was stuttering. ‘You get me back those diamonds,’ he said. ‘Goddamn it.’

‘Yes sir,’ Seulgi said. And before he had chance to lose his mind she was out the door and tailing Yeri down and out into the street. She was stood dawdling on the sidewalk when they went over to her, Wheein behind them.

‘What the was that about?’ Seulgi said.

‘What?’

‘You pull that again and you’ll be lucky to keep your ing head.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Babe,’ Irene said. ‘Babe.’

Seulgi ran a hand through her hair. ‘What?’ she said. She turned and stood on the edge of the sidewalk and flagged down a cab while Irene talked to her.

‘You sure about this?’

‘What?’

‘What you said back there when he asked you if you trust this . You said you don’t know.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well.’

Seulgi turned to her.

‘Well, do you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Seulgi said.

‘I think we should think of something else, y’know?’

‘Like what?’

‘I dunno.’ Irene paused. Seulgi whistled and waved to a cab at the far end of the street. It stopped and turned around. ‘I just, I really dunno. You know all that they teach you in the movies about cops and ? About them always following their first instinct?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, my first instinct is telling me that something’s up. I dunno what. I just think it. I feel it in my gut, you know?’

‘We’ll be fine,’ Seulgi said, not really paying attention.

‘Babe. Babe, look at me.’

‘What?’

‘Are you okay?’

‘What?’ Seulgi said again.

‘Something’s bothering you, isn’t it? Something’s been bothering you for a while.’

Seulgi stood quiet for a long time. She looked almost strangely unlike herself there, did Irene. Almost too caring, if that were at all possible, too concerned for Seulgi’s wellbeing. But they had changed so much in such a short amount of time and nothing was out of the ordinary anymore. Nothing except Seulgi refusing to talk. She looked at Wheein and nodded. ‘You know where to go tonight?’ she said.

‘Sure. Parkinglot, Jamsil Bridge, quiet, properly a set-up or something.’

‘It’s not a set-up.’

‘Fair. I’ll see you there, partner. What time?’

‘Ten or so.’

She blew a kiss and winked at Irene. ‘It’s a date,’ she said. Then she went on back inside and left them there. The cab pulled up two spaces down and Seulgi leant in through the passenger window before Irene could say anything.

‘Where are we going?’ Yeri said.

‘Back to Wendy’s. I need my car.’

‘It’s a rental,’ Irene reminded her.

‘Whatever.’

 

♣  ♣  ♣

 

The car wasn’t where they had left it on the street. They stood in the spot it had been not three or four hours before, Seulgi with her hands in her pockets, Irene with her arms folded, Yeri picking her fingers and humming to herself in the dwindling light of the late evening, and they stood in silence until Irene spoke at last.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Shall I ask? Or are you going to?’

‘Ask what?’

‘Where the is it?’

‘I assume Wendy has it.’

‘Well. I mean, yeah, of course. What I meant was: How?’

Seulgi put her hand in her jacket pocket again and took out the set of keys for the rental and held them up in the warm amber streetlight. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘And I don’t think I want to know, knowing her. Just as long as she has it. Come on.’

‘Babe.’

She stopped and turned. Irene was still standing there on the sidewalk, fighting back the cold in only a white shirt. ‘What?’ Seulgi said.

‘Are you sure about this?’

‘About what?’

‘This. What we’re going to do.’

‘Yeah. I am.’

‘Promise me.’

Seulgi looked at her for an uncomfortable amount of time. She would not lie to Irene. Not directly, in any case. She could hide things and remain quiet and pretend nothing was wrong but she would not lie when provoked, not like that. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But we have to now. The meeting’s all set.’

‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’

‘We’ll be fine.’

‘What did you ask?’

‘What?’

‘Of Wendy. What did you ask her to do to the car?’

‘Just look it over a bit. See if it was okay.’

‘Okay,’ Irene said. ‘Okay for what?’

‘Just okay in general.’

‘Mechanical issues?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Uh huh.’ Irene looked at her. It was obvious to tell when she was hiding something. There was this strange and rather adorable sheepishness to her that was so unlike Seulgi, so very un-stoic, un-herself. ‘Well,’ Irene said, ‘whatever you say, babe. I trust you. Let’s go.’

‘Wait,’ Yeri said. They turned to her. ‘Either of you got a smoke? It’s been, like, three days.’

‘No.’

‘No.’

‘Well. . Whatever. After you.’

They knocked and waited and a moment later Wendy let them in. She looked exactly the same as earlier. The driveway outside appeared empty from where they had been standing and it wasn’t until Wendy led them through into the garden around the back that they saw the car in the garage behind the closed doors. Irene turned to Seulgi, standing squinting at the car as if it might have changed drastically in a few hours. She looked as if she wanted to ask the same question Irene herself did: How the is it here, and what did you do? Instead she nodded and said, ‘Is it done?’

‘It’s done, man.’ Wendy leant against the passenger door and tapped the roof a couple times and smiled lazily. ‘All as you asked. Donezo, baby.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m as sure as can be sure.’

‘What?’

‘It’s all water under the bridge, man. Water under the bridge.’

‘Okay, good. Thanks. What time is it?’

Wendy looked at her bare wrist. ‘About nine,’ she said.

‘Uh huh. Irene?’

‘She’s right,’ Irene said. ‘Somehow.’

Seulgi turned to where Yeri was standing by the plastic garden table. She had something in her hand that looked like an enormous metal eggwhisk with a funnel spout on the end of it. ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ Wendy said. ‘Don’t touch that. Put that down, man.’

‘What is it?’ Yeri said.

‘Sonic equaliser.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a sonic equaliser, man.’

‘What does it do?’

‘Equalises sonics. Duh.’

Yeri held it up and turned it in her hand and put it down again as if satisfied. ‘Well,’ Seulgi said. ‘Thank you again. For everything.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

‘Seriously—’

‘I mean it, man. Don’t mention it. Keep it on the down low. The real down low, if you dig?’

‘I dig,’ Irene said.

‘See? Groovy.’

‘Can you open the door?’ Seulgi said.

‘Sure. You going already?’

‘Did you want us to stay?’

‘I wouldn’t mind.’

‘That’s not like you,’ Irene said. ‘You sure you’re alright? Sure the government’s not got to you or something?’

‘Woah,’ Wendy said, almost offended. ‘Don’t be saying that, man. That’s some spooky . Some voodoo hex curse , you dig? You say that, you speak it into the world, you know? Can’t be doing that, man. Can’t be doing that at all. N-O spells No, you dig?’

‘Hey,’ Yeri said, still by the table. ‘You got a smoke?’

‘I got weed. I mean, I got, uh…legal medicinal herbs. For your convenience.’

‘You got any cigarettes?’

‘I got lots of things, man, but cigarettes ain’t one of them.’

Seulgi took the keys from her pocket and opened the car and stepped into the driver’s seat. ‘Is she safe to drive?’ she said.

Irene giggled.

‘What?’

‘She. You called it She.’

‘So? What’s wrong with that.’

‘Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything.’

‘Wendy?’

‘She’s good, man,’ Wendy said. ‘Never touched her in that way, you dig?’

‘Uh, sure.’

‘Good lookin’.’

Irene and Yeri climbed in and closed the doors and waved at Wendy while she opened the garage door. When Seulgi drove out down the driveway and into the street Wendy was still there, still waving lazily to them.

 

♣  ♣  ♣

 

They pulled up in the abandoned parkinglot just below the arc of Jamsil Bridge at ten minutes to ten and cut the engine and sat in the darkness listening to the distant rush of traffic out in the greater world and they said nothing. A strangeness in the car between their trio that was unpredictable and dangerous, Seulgi silent and contemplative, Irene nervous and fidgeting, even Yeri almost on edge. Seulgi had parked so that the car sat by the enormous leering arc of the bridge above. At the far end the gravel runoff ascended back onto the distant streets and the same behind them. They watched, waited. At five minutes past ten Seulgi checked her watch.

‘Well?’ Irene said.

‘She’s late.’

‘I knew something was off. Yeri.’

‘Don’t blame me,’ Yeri said. ‘I’ve done nothing. I told you I’d get you a meeting and that’s what I’ve done. This is your judgement call.’

Seulgi and Irene looked at one another. She was right and they knew it. In some peculiar manner they were only just getting accustomed to it seemed Yeri was right more often than not, minus the obscene and the borderline insane manifestations of her endless paranoia at the world. Or idleness. Whichever suited better. ‘She’s supposed to be here by now,’ Seulgi said.

‘Yeah, well. She’s not, is she?’

Seulgi opened the glovebox and took out the Glock and two spare magazines and cocked the slide back. She held it up in the pale domelight and checked the magazine and loaded it again and cocked the slide a second time. ‘Did you have to bring that along?’ Irene said.

‘Would you have preferred it if I didn’t?’

‘What was it Hongki said again? No ing up, something like that? Remind me. I forget.’

‘It’s for protection.’

‘Uh huh. And we’ve seen how well that’s gone before.’

Seulgi set the Glock down in the footwell beneath her feet. ‘Babe,’ Irene said. ‘Babe.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t do anything stupid and brash. Please.’

‘Look.’

She nodded to the gravel offramp up ahead. A faint light had started up out there in the darkness and they could hear the distant report of a car engine. The white cones cut across the hood of the Hyundai and swept away and the car pulled up some thirty or forty feet ahead and silhouetted entirely by the bridge and the night so that all shape of person and car was swallowed up one and the same in the wake of the dimmed headlamps. Nothing moved. The lights from the headlamps had been cut and then it came again from behind and turning they made out another car closing them in from the rear.

‘Two,’ Irene said. ‘Why the are there two?’

‘She was supposed to be alone with this guy,’ Seulgi said. ‘Yeri, what is this?’

Yeri held up her hands. ‘Why are you asking me?’ she said. ‘I know as much as you.’

‘If there’s something you’re not—’

‘I know nothing. Honestly. If I did, why would I still be here with you?’

The second car turned side-on and stopped but the engine did not. They sat in silence like a triune of the lost and the damned unaware they were witness to their own execution. The doors of the car in front opened and out stepped three men and then a further two from the car behind. They stepped around the side of both cars and forward into the splayed dark canopy cover of the bridge like phantoms and it was only then that Seulgi and Irene saw all five of them were carrying automatic rifles. ‘,’ Irene said. ‘Oh, . Babe. Babe!’

‘What?’

‘Call Wheein or something. Can’t you call Wheein?’

Seulgi looked toward the offramp. She could make out only the distant silhouette of Wendy’s white van parked across the street in a lull of streetlight. ‘I can’t,’ she said. The men stepped closer and stopped.

‘What?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why the not?’

‘My phone’s in the glovebox.’

‘Then ing get it out! Jesus, what are you—’

‘Irene.’

Irene looked at her but her eyes were on the men in front. ‘Get down,’ she said.

‘Babe—’

‘Get down!’

She had no time to tell Yeri to do the same. They raised their rifles like men at a shooting gallery and Seulgi unbuckled her seatbelt and leant over and grabbed Irene and forced her head down against the centre console and that was all she could do before they broke the night's silence with temporary pandemonium. She had no time to even think about the fact she was going to die and so was Irene and that was that.

 

♣  ♣  ♣

 

By the time they had opened fire Seulgi had Irene covered only partially against the dashboard. There was no room to cower in the footwells and nowhere else to hide. They saw it first, the enormous light erupt from the gunbarrels like a holy event and paint the night in a thousand carnival flashes. Then they heard it. The rifles were fully automatic and it took them no more than fifteen or twenty seconds to empty five magazines into the car and only five or ten more to shoulder the rifles and climb back into the two black Kias and turn out to leave.

Seulgi sat only a moment. Not even that. She looked to find Yeri laid out against the back seats, unharmed and alive and as confused as she was. She looked at Irene, hand still over Irene’s hair. Then she looked at the front windscreen and the rear and the side windows and then the hood. In a hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition they had succeeded only in scuffing the paintwork and leaving pockmarked holes the size of small coins in the glass and spent shellcasings sat neatly against the windscreen wipers like debris deposited from a thunderstorm.

Seulgi sat up slowly. She did not know what she had expected. Everything had gone too quickly to decide between deep and sorrowful regret and acceptance. She knew that she had expected to die very suddenly and without fanfair, executed in an abandoned parkinglot in a cheap rental car by faceless thugs on a cold and quiet night. The fact she was alive was puzzling. The fact all three of them were alive and unharmed moreso. But the relief she felt seeing Irene look at her, dishevelled and pale and angry but alive, was incomparable entirely. ‘Are you okay?’ she said. She ran a hand across Irene’s face and Irene swatted her away. She looked ready to say something but she did not. She just say there gathering her breath.

‘What the ?’ Yeri said. They ignored her. Seulgi started the engine and turned the car toward the distant offramp and hammered the accelerator before Irene had a chance to say anything. She thought she knew what she might say.

‘Where are we going?’ Yeri said. The Hyundai came up off the ramp and back onto the road with the tires squeeling and the shellcasings tumbling down from their lodgings in the windshield like brassy rainwater. The black Kia that had been ahead of them was at the far end of the street and turning left. Seulgi gave them no quarter. She had been in that situation so many times before it felt almost second nature to her and perhaps the fact of that alone was cautionary at a glance but she paid it no mind. Car chases seemed to have become a daily part of her job. Wake up, brush her teeth, get dressed, get into a car chase. Then crash. Then blow up. Or watch Irene crash. And then shoot somebody. She looked back at the sidewalk through the rearview mirror and found Wheein and the van gone. Where she didn’t know but it didn’t matter. Yeri asked her something again from the back seat and she floored the accelerator and turned left after the Kia and kept on going.

‘Babe,’ Irene said, to no reply. The world receded much slower than Seulgi would have liked. They made five minutes into Gangnam in the black dusk following a thin trail of exhaustsmoke and the shape of a car wobbling between the streetlights like an illusion. When they stopped and pulled up it was across the street from where the Kia had been parked. The doors were still open and the engine still running. They had gone through the back door of a nightclub not even a minute before Seulgi had pulled up.

‘Babe,’ Irene said again. Seulgi unbuckled her seatbelt and stashed the Glock down the waistband of her pants and got out with the others in tow. She took only a second to survey the damage the gunfire had caused. The paint on the roof seemed to have evaporated and the front-left headlamp had been obliterated utterly. ‘Babe,’ Irene said. She went around to the back of the car and unlocked the trunk and opened it up. Yeri and Irene stood a distance back. They looked at the idling Kia. As if the men might have returned to lay waste to them a second time.

What lay in the trunk was a custom foldout compartment with black foam padding and an assortment of weaponry fit for a police armory or action movie. There was a semi-automatic AR15 rifle and three magazines and two smoke grenades and an extra handgun with ammunition to spare and a rose gold wristwatch and a pair of diamond-studded earrings and a silver bracelet and a small and nimble switchblade with a scarlet grip.

‘What the actual ?’ Irene said. ‘What are you doing? Babe.’

Seulgi took the wristwatch and checked the lugs and swapped it for her own watch. She took one of the smoke grenades and dropped it neatly into the pocket of her jacket and then she took the AR15 and turned it sideways and checked the ejection port and the magazine release and unfolded the buttstock. Resting against her shoulder it looked almost comically out of place but Seulgi wasn’t making any sort of joke. She took one of the fresh magazines and loaded it and pulled back the charging handle and let it snap into place again. ‘Babe,’ Irene said. ‘Seulgi. Seulgi, look at me.’

‘What?’

‘What the are you doing.’

‘They’re in there.’

‘Wait.’ She put out an arm to stop Seulgi and grabbed her and spun her half around. ‘Just wait,’ she said. ‘What are you doing? Did you need hear what Hongki said? About not causing a scene?’

‘They’re in there, Irene.’

‘Okay. Yeah, they are. So, what? You’re gonna go in and start shooting up with the place like a ing maniac?’

Seulgi said nothing. Irene took one good look around and back at Yeri trailing them and ran a hand through her hair with a sigh. Under any other circumstance Seulgi would’ve taken a moment to admire just how effortlessly good she looked. And then she did anyway. ‘,’ Irene said. ‘. You’re crazy, you know that?’

‘You’ve said.’

‘As crazy as me. Maybe crazier.’

‘Yeri,’ Seulgi said.

Yeri looked at her.

‘You can stay here if you want. With the car.’

‘Nah. I’m good.’

Seulgi nodded. As if there was no way to argue this at all. She climbed the stairs at the back up to the door and went on in with the others following. She didn’t know where she was going, only that the hallway was dimly lit and she could hear music coming from the main room somewhere up ahead. She didn’t check to see if the other two were still following her but they were. At the far end she turned left and stopped by a red door leading through into some other room beyond. ‘Wait,’ Irene said. She gave a look that said: What the are we doing here?

‘Trust me,’ Seulgi said, not entirely sure she trusted herself. She pushed the handle down and opened the door and went on through. They came out in the back of a cloakroom of some description. On the left were coats and scarves and handbags with numbered tags hanging from an old clothesrack and a dim and smoky unmanned reception area at the front. The woman that turned to them turned seeing the barrel of the AR15 first and almost made to run when Seulgi told her it was okay. ‘Where did they go?’ she said. The receptionist said she had seen them going through the door under the stairs to the main room at the back. As if she knew already what they were talking about.

‘Where does it lead?’

‘Into the basement,’ the receptionist said. ‘That’s where we keep all the drink and stuff.’

‘Is there another way in?’

She nodded.

‘Where?’

‘There’s a way down behind the bar in the main room.’

‘So there’s a way out, then.’

‘Babe,’ Irene said, to no reply again. Seulgi turned the corner to the bottom of the stairwell. She could hear the music now loud enough to almost feel. Could smell the sweat and taste the cheap vodka. From there the flickerlights strobing across the top of the stairs made a mess of the darkness like hallucinatory patterns gesturing madly. The door on their right was dark but not obstructed. ‘Wait,’ Irene said. ‘Just, please. Seulgi. Wait a minute.’

She turned to them. Yeri seemed not to care about much of anything but Irene was different, there was something to her that was unsual, a sort of hesitation, a concern. ‘What are we doing?’ she said.

‘You two go and find that other entrance.’

‘Wait.’

‘I’ll go in this way. If they’re still in there, we can cut them off.’

‘Just wait a minute.’

‘And don’t get hurt.’

‘Seulgi, for god’s sake.’

Seulgi pushed the door in with her elbow and pivoted left with the gunbarrel trained against the darkness in a swift and practiced movement that was almost disconcerting in how calm and organised it looked. She didn’t have the time or the care to see where Irene and Yeri were. The single dim ceilinglight descended down a cold stone staircase into the basement. It smelt of moss and damp and vaguely of apple cider. She still had the gun raised when she saw the brief flicker of a shadow run across the floor and dissolve into the pale roomlight from whence it had suddenly originated. She thought only for a moment about what to do next. About what possible action was sane or rational, about what a normal person would do. Then she pulled the trigger and let loose four rounds from halfway up the stairs.

In the immediate aftermatch she thought briefly about why she had done so and what she meant to accomplish. Perhaps it was only an employee there in the basement. Or perhaps it was the men from the car but even so, she had no intention of killing them, or killing anyone. She thought about what Irene would say. Probably: Holy ! And then Wendy. Probably: Woah, man! Groovy! And Wheein would laugh, most likely. And Hongki might combust. Then she fired another four rounds and took the stairs two at a time. She didn’t know why she’d done that either. By the time she went through the doorway two of them had scrambled toward the stairwell at the opposite end and she could just about make out the sound of disorganised chaos erupt from above. She didn’t think about the third man and when she pivoted to her right it cost her.

He grabbed the barrel of the rifle and swung it around and Seulgi with it. She went skittering across the floor with the rifle and dropped it just in front of her. What followed felt like a lifetime or two. The goon by the door saw her and he saw the rifle. The two men that had turned to flee looked at her and looked at each other and started back toward her. No doubt they would kill her. They had already tried once. People upstairs had begun to evacuate. Seulgi thought about Irene. She thought about how much she loved her and how much Irene meant to her and how stupid she sounded because she was moments from dying on a beer-stained basement floor in some upscale nightclub in Gangnam. Then she thought, strangely, of Hongki. What he would say if he saw her there. Perhaps: You’re supposed to be our best detective! Or: Get back to work, Kang! And there was something oddly comforting in that. The musing that followed on her own unfortunate demise lasted only a second but it was all she needed.

Yeri would see her body and not know what to do or say. Joy would shake her head and say something to the effect of how the world was ed up. Wendy would be silent, contemplative. The new recruits would mourn, no doubt. Maybe even shed a tear or two. Wheein would laugh, maybe, or cry, or both. Irene would be unconsolable. But Hongki? The thought of that was ludicrous, if only for the fact that Hongki would forbid her from dying. He would simply refuse to allow her to die.

Get up, she said to herself. The two men were only five or six feet away. The man that had thrown her to the ground had his eyes on the rifle by her feet. She shifted a slight back and drew the Glock from where it had been stashed in her pants and cocked the slide and fired three times, once for each of their knees. She hit the two coming toward her and down they went. They howled. The one on the right grabbed at his kneecap and immediately his hand went red and the blood flowered against his pants. The third shot she had swung to fire at the goon by the door and it had missed, predictably. She had no time to fire again He kicked at her hand hard enough to knock her sideways and then he was on top of her, hands wrapped around , forcing the life from her.

She thought of Hongki again but the only relevant thought was: I’m going to die. His grip felt impossible to break. She thrashed and kicked and nothing found its mark and he leered down at her with spittle wet on his lips and sweat slick on his brow and choked her until she was red in the face. She drew up the gun in her hand to fire. He watched her do it. With his left hand he let go of and grasped at her gun hand and tried to pry it from her fingers with enough power to make her wince. She could taste the salt from her tears streaking down her swelling face. The lights on the ceiling were going out or perhaps only felt as much but the difference was negligible. She tried to push him onto his side and flip around and he held her there and grabbed at her wrist and forced the gun closer and closer to her face. She heard the stock scrape against the floor. It was so close she could see the barrel turning slowly toward her skull. She thought: This is it. This is where I die, being a ing idiot, trying to impress the woman I love. Typical.

The next thing she felt was the air returning to her lungs and the world come back in all coloured and whole again and decidedly more painful than she remembered. The Glock sat there on the floor. He lay there slumped half on top of her like a corpse. She looked up. Irene was stood with a broken beer bottle and Yeri behind her surveying the carnage with a sort of morbid fascination. Seulgi tried to gather her breath. She sat there for a long time trying and failing and trying again. Irene never said a word. She looked as if she had been crying, which wasn’t like her at all.

‘Well,’ she said.

Seulgi gasped and wheezed.

‘A little thank you might go a long ing way, y’know?’

‘Thank you.’

‘For?’

‘For saving my life,’ Seulgi said.

‘Yeah, don’t ing mention it. Again. Again, Seulgi! You didn’t already forget the last time I knocked a man unconscious while he was on top of you, did you?’

‘No.’

‘No. Didn’t think so. Get up.’

She expected Irene to hold out a hand but she did not. She just stood there with the broken bottle in her pale grip and watched while Seulgi hauled herself to her feet and dusted down her ruined jacket and ran a hand through her hair. ‘Thank you,’ she said again.

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s it look like up there?’

‘What the do you think it looks like?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well,’ Irene said, ‘there’s nobody left, if you that was what you were wondering. You succeeded in chasing them all away. Jesus Christ.’

Seulgi nodded to nobody in particular. She looked at the two men writhing about holding their knees like injured sports players only a great deal bloodier and in considerably more pain. She took the Glock and checked the ejection port to see if a round had chambered correctly and then she grabbed the man on the left of the two by the collar of his shirt and pushed him back across the floor and held the gunbarrel to his one good knee.

‘What the are you doing?’ Irene said.

‘Where is she?’

He looked at her for a moment. He looked at her with a great intensity and a strange curiosity that seemed to gauge within her dark heart the true value of such a threat in such a place and what dangers denial of said threat might pose beyond what had already been perpetrated. Then he told her it was Room 46 of the Crown Memorial hotel ten minutes east and that they didn’t have much time before her arrived and she would be gone.

‘If you’re lying,’ Seulgi said, ‘I’ll come back and shoot you again.’

‘Babe.’

She safetied the Glock and stashed it back where it belonged and went on up and out to the car without checking to see if they were following but they were, as always. Irene was right. Nobody seemed to be around. Even the music had stopped. In the streets the distant traffic hummed with no real urgency. She climbed into the Kia and opened the glovebox and took her phone and rang Wheein. On the second buzz she answered.

‘It’s me. Yeah. The Crown Memorial hotel. Meet me in the lobby.’

Then she hung up and put the phone back in the glovebox. By the time she had finished and her door was closed the other two were sat and buckled and waiting. She looked at them each in turn. ‘Well,’ Irene said. ‘Are you going to tell me just what in the you think you’re doing?’

‘We were set up.’

‘No .’

‘By your friend,’ Seulgi said, turning to Yeri.

‘Me?’ Yeri said.

‘She was your friend.’

‘Who? Rosé?’

‘Who else?’

‘I don’t know anything about this!’

‘We could’ve died. We should’ve died.’

‘Again, I don’t know anything about this. You asked me if I knew anything about any missing diamonds and I said she might.’

‘And.’

‘And I guess maybe she does. Maybe that’s why she tried to have you killed, I dunno. Look, I don’t know , alright? If I did, would I have come along tonight? I was in the car too, you know. I could’ve ing died!’

Seulgi looked at Irene. ‘Are you going to ask?’ Irene said.

‘Ask what?’

‘Why we’re not dead.’

‘Later,’ Seulgi said. She started the car and pulled out into the road going eastbound against the night. When she cut the engine across the street from the enormous Crown Memorial hotel complex it was almost midnight. The cars lining the other side of the street were Mercedes, Ferrari, BMW. No Hyundais or Kias. Three minutes later they were joined by a great white van carrying four passengers. Wheein and the others climbed out and joined them on the sidewalk. Dahyun and Tzuyu saluted and Seulgi told them to drop it and Chaeyoung looked at her with a sort of concern that was confusing. ‘Holy ,’ Wheein said.

‘What?’

‘I thought you ing died, you know?’

‘What?’

‘Under that bridge, when I saw them shooting.’

‘Yeah. Well.’

Wheein sighed. She looked like Seulgi had not seen her look before. ‘I’m serious,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d lost you for a minute. You scared the out of me.’

‘I’m good.’

‘Yeah. How?’

‘I’ll talk about it later.’

‘What the happened to you?’

‘What?’

‘Your face.’

‘I got into a fight.’

‘Yeah, no . With what? A bear?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You gonna tell me what happened?’

‘She did some stupid ,’ Irene said. ‘And I had to save her.’

‘Naturally. So, what’s the deal? Why are we here?’

‘She’s in there,’ Seulgi said.

‘Who’s in there?’

‘The woman that tried to have us killed. The one behind this diamond thing.’

‘You sure about that?’

‘No. But I’ve got a feeling. Why else would she try to have us killed?’

‘Good point.’

Seulgi took the Glock and cocked the slide. The recruits looked at her with hesitation until Wheein drew her own and loaded a fresh magazine. ‘After you, partner,’ she said. They went on in through the lobby and up the stairwell. They made no sound. On the third floor they came out along the carpeted corridor and made along to number 46 and stopped just short. Seulgi stood on the left and gestured for Wheein to wait for her signal in silent. The recruits and Yeri stood a distance back. Irene stood to the side shaking her head. She tried the handle to make sure it was locked and it was. Then she stepped back and gestured to Wheein and kicked the door in on in its hinges and pushed ahead into the room with the gunbarrel raised to chest height.

They found Rosé in the livingroom. She was busy sorting an assortment of jewellery and bound stacks of cash into a briefcase on the glass table when she saw them and reached for the handgun beside it.

‘Nuh uh,’ Wheein said. ‘Don’t even try it.’

Rosé looked at Seulgi and laughed. ‘I thought you were dead,’ she said.

‘Yeah, well. I was. But then I came back to find you.’

Irene giggled.

‘What?’ Seulgi said.

‘I bet that sounded cooler in your head, didn’t it?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Seulgi,’ said Wheein. She held up a tiny glittering stone between her thumb and forefinger. ‘These your missing diamonds?’

‘Our missing diamonds, yeah.’

‘Sweet. Looks like you’re in some serious , Miss, uh…what’s your name?’

‘Rosé.’

‘Was it you?’ Seulgi said. Rosé stood and stepped back from the couch and the table with her hands raised and let Dahyun cuff her. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Yeah, it was me.’

‘All of it?’

‘Sure.’

‘Yes or no.’

‘Yes, it was all me.’

‘On your own?’

‘I had help.’

‘From the men who tried to kill me.’

Rosé smiled. ‘It’s just business,’ she said.

'So everything you told us, it was just a cover-up? A lie to get us to meet you? And then what? You planned to kill us. What then?'

'I needed you out of the way. I couldn't have cops sniffing around after me. You never know what might turn up. Everyone has loose ends. Desn't matter how careful you are.'

'And what about this other guy? Byungjae?'

'Kim Byungjae.' Rosé nodded. 'I made him up.'

'What?'

'The whole thing. I just needed a believable story to get you somewhere quiet and get rid of you.'

Seulgi turned to Yeri. 'You said you knew him.'

'I did?' Yeri said.

'She asked you and you said he was a big guy. Kind of an , I believe you said.'

'So? I say a lot of . What's your point?'

'My point is that this guy you said you knew doesn't ing exist.'

'What?'

'She just made him up.' Seulgi nodded to Rosé and Rosé shrugged.

'Huh,' Yeri said. 'Yeah, I wasn't really paying attention. Sorry about that.'

'Jesus wept.' She turned back to Rosé. ‘Why’d you do it?’

‘Why does anyone do anything? It’s good money. Real good money. And a couple other reasons that aren’t any of your concern.’

‘I wouldn’t be laughing if I were you.’

‘Have you ever been in prison before?’

Seulgi said nothing. Rosé nodded to Irene stood off to the side. ‘I bet she has,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you?’

‘Little bit, here and there. Not really a fan, y’know?’

‘You can just tell when someone has. Go on, tell her.’

‘Tell me what?’ Seulgi said.

‘How the prison system works. You got money, you don’t do time. Trust me. I’ll be out by the end of the week and there’s not a thing you can do about it. And then come next Monday I’ll be gone. So, well done, detective. You did good.’

‘We’ll see about that.’

‘Yeri.’

Yeri looked at her.

‘No hard feelings, yeah?’

‘ you,’ Yeri said. ‘You almost killed me!’

‘Yeah, well. Business is business.’

Seulgi nodded to Wheein and Dahyun and they led her out into the corridor with the other recruits and Yeri following behind. When she and Irene were alone Seulgi tossed the Glock onto the couch and sighed.

‘Now how’s that for a criminal mastermind?’ Irene said.

‘She’s not the first. And she won’t be the last, either.’

‘And she would’ve gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for us meddling kids.’

‘What?’

‘Scooby Doo. You never seen Scooby Doo? What’s wrong with you?’

‘You told me you didn’t watch movies. Or TV.’

‘Yeah. But everyone’s seen Scooby Doo. Even me.’

‘Fair play,’ Seulgi said. She made to leave and Irene called out to her. ‘Wait,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Just…look, can you wait a minute? Please? Just a minute.’

‘Irene.’

‘We need to talk.’

‘Whatever it is—’

‘It’s about you, Seulgi.’

‘About me?’

Irene nodded. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me. I’m not stupid. It’s been like this for a couple weeks now.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Babe. I thought we were past this . Jesus, listen to me. Imagine me being the ing relationship counsellor for once. Can you believe it? Guess people really do change in strange ways. But seriously.’

She sat on the couch and motioned for Seulgi to join her and with some reluctance she did. ‘Well,’ Irene said. ‘Go on.’

For a long time she thought Seulgi wouldn’t reply. She looked so sheepish there, so small and insignificant. Then she sat back and shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to say, really.’

‘How about saying whatever’s on your mind?’

‘I…forget it.’

‘Seulgi. Please.’

‘It’s embarrassing.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You’ll laugh.’

‘Yeah, probably. But still.’

‘Alright,’ Seulgi said. ‘It’s just…I don’t know. You know how back when we met Jisoo and you got all jealous and stuff?’

‘I didn’t—’ she looked at the severity on Seulgi’s face and nodded. ‘Okay. Yeah, I was a bit jealous. Sure. I remember.’

‘Yeah, well, I guess it was a bit like that.’

Irene almost laughed. ‘What?’ she said. ‘What do you mean? You were jealous? Or what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I don’t even talk to anyone but you, really. What were you jealous of?’

‘See? I told you it’s stupid.’

‘No, go on. Please. I just wanna hear whatever’s on your mind.’

‘I don’t know,’ Seulgi said. ‘I know it doesn’t make any sense. But it just feels like recently you’ve been…I don’t know, ignoring me? Not ignoring me. That’s stupid. But paying less attention to me, and I know that sounds childish. But I started thinking maybe it was because, you know…’

‘What?’

‘Because you don’t like me as much anymore. I thought maybe you’d started to get bored of me. Maybe you didn’t love me anymore.’

‘What?’ Irene said.

‘I thought maybe the whole reason we worked in the first place was because I was so different, because we were, you know? I thought all the crazy that happened to us, all the insane situations we found ourselves in, that it made us bond. It brought us closer together. It made us realise how much we meant to each other.’

‘Well, you’re not wrong.’

‘Yeah, see? And I thought maybe if we ever stopped getting into all that crazy that you’d find out just how boring and one-note I really am. There’s nothing to me. If I’m not chasing after robbers in stolen cars or shooting up public places or nearly getting myself killed then I’m not really all that interesting at all. And I thought maybe you’d realised that. So when I saw you talking to Wheein and the others so much – even the new girls – I just…I don’t know. I know it sounds stupid. I know it’s irrational, I really do, but I couldn’t help it.’

‘So this,’ Irene said, ‘all of this today – this was because you thought you had to impress me? That you had to prove you were cool or some ?’

Seulgi nodded meekly.

‘And at the restaurant the other day?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You almost blew yourself up to impress me?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And the chase. And then again today. And the ing machinegun you had. And the three-on-one fight. All of that.’

Seulgi nodded again.

‘Jesus, babe. You know, as amazing – and quite frankly, disturbingly intuitive – of a detective you are, you’re pretty dense sometimes, y’know? You really thought you had to do all that crazy to, what, impress me? You thought I’d find you dull without it?’

‘Yeah. Kind of.’

‘We’ve been together for how long now? And you don’t think I wouldn’t have already said something if I thought you were boring or whatever? More than I’ve already said, at least, and I’m still here, aren’t I?’

‘I guess.’

‘Babe. Babe, look at me.’

She did, and Irene cupped her face gently with one hand and ran a thumb across her swollen cheek. ‘You don’t have to pretend you're John McClane or some to try and make yourself look like something you’re not, just for me. I love you, and I love you for who you are, not who you’re trying to be because you think that’s who I want you to be, because it isn’t. Or…something. You know what I’m getting at. , I’m still awful at this . What I’m saying is – I love you for who you are. And if you go and get yourself killed acting all tough and , I’ll never forgive you. It’s not cool or impressive, it’s just reckless. God, listen to me. I sound like your ing mother or something. You know, back when I first met you, I’d be totally down for all the we did today. Totally down. But now let’s just…y’know, keep it a minimum, yeah? How about a maximum of two car chases per calendar month?’

Seulgi smiled. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Sounds good.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise.’

‘Good. I think you owe me a meal now. Or two, considering I saved your life again. Twice today, actually.’

‘Twice?’ Seulgi said, and before Irene could answer: ‘The car.’

‘Yeah, the ing car. I was waiting for you to ask.’

‘How—’

‘When we were at Wendy’s and you gave her that list of your little modifications. Which, by the way, I’m guessing included that entire weapons cache you had stashed away in the trunk?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Thought so. Well, I figured something fishy was going to happen – I told you I’ve got good intuition and – and so when you and Yeri went downstairs I stuck around and asked her for a couple extras throwing in.’

‘Bulletproof glass.’

‘Bingo.'

'And a bulletproof hood too?'

'Bulletproof everything, really. You’re lucky I’m so incredible intelligent, aren’t you?’

‘I guess I am.’

‘See?’ Irene winked. ‘Not just the prettiest face in the world.’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’ She drew Seulgi in for a delicate and tender kiss and Seulgi giggled against her lips. ‘What?’ she said, drawing back and pushing a stray strand of hair out of Seulgi’s face. ‘What are you laughing at now?’

‘John McClane.’

‘What?’

‘You said I didn’t have to pretend I was John McClane.’

‘Yeah I did.’

‘The guy from Die Hard.’

‘Yeah. So?’

‘I’m starting to think you’ve watched a lot more movies than you’re letting on.’

‘C’mon, seriously? Everyone’s seen Die Hard. You’ve seen Die Hard, right?’

‘Sure. But I don’t remember the character’s name.’

‘That’s because you don’t pay attention.’

Seulgi laughed. Irene cupped her cheek in one soft hand and kissed her again. ‘We good?’ she said.

‘Yeah. We’re good.’

‘Oh, .’

‘What?’

‘What’s Hongki going to say about all this? About you taking a ing machinegun into a nightclub like a videogame character or some .’

‘It wasn’t a machinegun.’

Irene just looked at her.

‘It was an assault rifle. There’s a difference. A machinegun—’

‘Later, yeah? I want some food.’

‘At midnight.’

‘You got a problem with that?’ She glared at Seulgi and Seulgi shook her head. ‘Good. Because I’m hungry, and I think you owe me a couple favours here and there, don’t you?’

‘Guess I do.’

‘Starting with a proper romantic meal. And then maybe a movie.’

‘Oh,’ Seulgi said with a grin, ‘you’re watching movies now?’

‘Maybe I’ll start. Pick up a new hobby, y’know? I think I’d make quite a handy cinema critic.’

‘What film do you want to watch?’

‘You know what? I’ll let you decide, actually. Consider it my treat for coming clean.’

‘Coming clean?’ Seulgi giggled. ‘You make it sound like I’m a bad guy now or something.’

‘Alright. How about: Opening up to me. Better?’

‘Better.’

‘Well, go on then. Pick a movie.’

She thought about it for a second. Then she said, ‘There’s this new one I’ve seen out in theatres. I saw it advertised. It’s called Dragged Across Concrete.’

‘Sounds dark. What’s it about?’

‘I don’t know. I just like one of the actors.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Do—’

‘Don Johnson.’ Irene rolled her eyes. ‘Typical. Well, come on, then. Let’s go find a late-night cinema. Do they do midnight cinemas?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Shows how much I know, doesn’t it?’

When Irene was halfway to the door again Seulgi called out to her. ‘Irene,’ she said.

‘Yeah?’

She smiled warmly. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you too, you boring idiot, so don’t you go dying on me, you hear?’

‘I hear.’

‘Good.’ She stood waiting for Seulgi to move but she did not. ‘Come on,’ she said with a grin. ‘That wine’s not gonna drink itself, ya know.’