companies made that up to sell alcohol to fake men like you.”
Chu didn’t laugh at the joke. Instead, he kept staring at Reseng as if he wanted him to hurry up and drink. Reseng stared down at the glass. It was a lot of alcohol to swallow in one shot. He fished the ice cubes out and dumped them on the tray. Then he gulped the whiskey down.
Chu looked satisfied. He stood up, looked around the room, and went over to the cat tower. Timid Lampshade went back inside and refused to come out, but curious Desk tiptoed closer to Chu and sniffed at his hand. Chu gave the cat a scratch behind the ears. Desk seemed to like it; she lowered her head and purred.
Chu played with the cat for a while before coming back to the table, picking up his glass, and sitting on the edge of the bed. He flipped through the books strewn around on the bedspread.
“Did you know I didn’t like you at first? Every time I went to Old Raccoon’s library, you were reading. That annoyed me. I’m not sure why. Maybe I was jealous. You seemed different from the rest of us.”
“I never read. I was only pretending to when you were there. So I’d look different.”
“Well, you did. You looked—how should I put it? Kind of soft.”
“You were in the library a lot, too. I bet you read as much as I did.”
“I hated reading. But I bet even I could handle this one.”
Chu was holding The History of Syphilis.
“That’s not what you think.”
Chu flipped through a few pages and laughed. “You’re right. It’s not my speed. Why are there no damn pictures?” He tossed it back on the bed and picked up the one next to it, called The Blue Wolves. “Wolves? You planning to quit and raise wolves instead?”
Reseng smirked. “It’s the story of eight of Genghis Khan’s warriors. Plenty of animals like you in that book. It took the Blue Wolves just ten years to build the largest empire in the world.”
“What happened to them after?”
“They moved into a fortress and turned into dogs.”
Chu looked intrigued as he flipped through a few pages of The Blue Wolves, but he seemed to struggle to understand the sentences and soon lost interest. The Blue Wolves landed with a thunk on top of The History of Syphilis.
“So what’s this I hear about you killing the girl?” Chu asked.
Reseng’s earlobes turned hot, and he didn’t respond. Instead, he picked up the bottle and filled a glass a third of the way with Jack Daniel’s. Chu’s eyes followed him closely. Reseng gazed at the glass for a moment before drinking. It tasted sweeter than the first glass.
“Where’d you hear that?” Reseng asked. His voice was calm.
“Here and there.”
“If you heard it while on the run, then I guess that means everyone knows.”
“Lot of crazy rumors in this business.” Chu raised an eyebrow, as if to ask why it mattered where he’d heard it.
Reseng looked Chu straight in the eye. “Did Bear tell you?”
“Bear is a lot quieter than he looks.”
Chu was taking care to defend Bear, which almost definitely meant that Bear was the one who’d told. There were plenty of places where word could’ve gotten out, but Bear had no reason to take risks for Reseng’s sake. Around here, no one took foolish risks or went out of their way when it came to Chu. Least of all Bear, with his two daughters, whom he’d struggled to raise on his own. Reseng understood. Had it been a detective sniffing around, Bear would have taken it to the grave. All the same, he couldn’t help feeling annoyed. When word leaks out, it doesn’t have to travel far before you end up in a plotter’s crosshairs.
“Did you really think you could save her?” Reseng asked, not backing down.
“No, of course not. I’m not the type to save anyone. I’m too busy trying to keep myself alive.”
“So there’s nothing strange about what I did. You’re the strange one.”
“You’re right. I’m the strange one. You did what was expected of you.”
What was expected … Those words made Reseng feel both relieved and insulted. Chu moved over to the table and poured more alcohol. The bottle was already almost empty. Chu emptied his glass again, opened the second bottle, and poured himself another glass. He gulped that one down, as well.
“I wanted to ask you something,” Reseng said. “Did you ever go back to see her?”
“Nope.”
“Then why let her live? Did you think the plotters would pat you on the shoulder and say ‘It happens to all of us’?”
“To be honest, I have no idea.”
Chu drank another glass of whiskey. For someone who had gone without any alcohol for two years, he was having no trouble consuming an entire bottle all by himself in less than twenty minutes. His face was turning red. Did he really think he was safe in Reseng’s apartment?
Chu asked, “Have you ever met any of the plotters who’ve given you orders?”
“Not once in fifteen years.”
“Don’t you wonder?” Chu asked. “Who’s telling you what to do, I mean. Who decides when you use the turn signal, when you step on the brake, when you step on the gas, when to turn left, when to turn right, when to shut up and when to speak.”
“Why are you wondering that all of a sudden?”
“I was standing there, looking at this girl who was just skin and bones, and I suddenly wondered who these plotters were anyway. I could have killed her with one finger. She was so scared, she just sat there frozen. When I saw how hard she was shaking, I wanted to find out exactly who was sitting at their desk, twirling their pen, and coming up with this bullshit plan.”
“I would never have guessed you were such a romantic.”
“It’s not about romance or curiosity or anything like that. I mean that I didn’t realize until then just what a cowardly prick I’d been.” Chu sounded on edge.
“Plotters are just pawns like us,” Reseng said. “A request comes in, and they draw up the plans. There’s someone above them who tells them what to do. And above that person is another plotter telling them what to do. You know what’s there if you keep going all the way to the top? Nothing. Just an empty chair.”
“There has to be someone in the chair.”
“Nope, it’s empty. To put it another way, it’s only a chair. Anyone can sit in it. And that chair, which anyone can sit in, decides everything.”
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s a system. You think
