been in this business for twenty years. I’ve killed countless guys, including friends of mine. I even killed my protégé. I gave him baby clothes at his daughter’s first birthday party. But if what you say is true, then I’ve been taking orders from a chair all this time. And you broke a defenseless woman’s neck because a chair told you to.”
Chu downed another glass. As he caught his breath, he poured more whiskey for Reseng. Reseng ignored it and took a sip of his Heineken. He was tempted to blurt out that he hadn’t broken her neck, but he swallowed the words back down with a mouthful of beer.
Instead, Reseng said, “You can’t shit in your pants just because the toilet is dirty.”
Chu sneered.
“You’re sounding more and more like Old Raccoon every day,” he said. “That’s not good. Smooth talkers will stab a guy in the back every time.”
“Whereas you sound more and more like a whiny brat. Do you really think this tantrum you’re throwing makes you look cool? It doesn’t. No matter what you do, you won’t change a thing. Just like you changed nothing for that girl.”
Chu unzipped the top of his jacket to reveal the leather gun holster under his arm that had been refashioned into a knife holster. He took out the knife and set it on the table. His movements were calm, not the slightest bit menacing.
“I could kill you very painfully with this knife. Make you shiver in agony for hours, blood gushing, steel scraping against bone, until your guts spill out of your body and hang down to the floor. Do you think you’ll still be mouthing off about empty chairs and systems and claiming that nothing has changed? Of course not. Because you’re full of shit. Anyone who thinks he’s safe is full of shit.”
Reseng stared at the knife. It was an ordinary kitchen knife, a German brand, Henckels. The blade was razor-sharp, as if it had just come off the whetstone. The top of the handle was wound tightly with a handkerchief. Chu preferred that brand because it was sturdy, the blade didn’t rust easily, and you could buy it anywhere. Other knife men looked down on the brand as a lady’s knife that was good only for cooking at home, but in fact it was a good knife. It didn’t chip or break easily the way sushi knives did.
Reseng peeled his eyes away from the knife and looked at Chu. Chu was angry. But his eyes lacked their usual venomous glint. The whiskey he’d guzzled must have gotten to him. Reseng thought about his own knife in the drawer. He tried to recall the last time he’d stabbed someone. Had it been six years? Seven? He couldn’t remember. Could he even get the knife out fast enough? If he made a move for it, Chu might grab his, too. And if he did manage to get the knife out of the drawer in time, could he hold his own against Chu? Did he have any chance at all of being the victor?
Unlikely. Reseng took out a cigarette and started smoking. Chu held out his hand. Reseng took out another cigarette, lit it, and passed it over to Chu, who inhaled deeply and leaned his head way back to stare at the ceiling. He held the pose for a long time, as if to say, If you’re going to stab me, do it now.
When the cigarette had burned halfway down, Chu straightened up and looked at Reseng.
“The whole thing’s fucked-up, isn’t it? I’ve got all these goons coming after me, hoping to get a taste of that reward money, and meanwhile I have no idea who to kill or what to do. To be honest, I don’t even care if there is anything at the top. It could be an empty chair, like you say, or there could be some prick sitting in it. Won’t make any difference either way to a knucklehead like me. I could die and come back in another form and I still wouldn’t understand how any of this works.”
“Will you go to Hanja?”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t.”
“Then where am I supposed to go instead?”
“Leave the country. Go to Mexico, the United States, France, maybe somewhere in Africa … Lots of places you could go. You can find work in a private military company. They’ll protect you.”
Chu gave a furtive smile.
“You’re giving me the same advice I gave that girl. Am I supposed to thank you now?”
Chu downed his whiskey, refilled it, downed it again, then emptied the rest of the second bottle into his glass.
“Aren’t you going to drink with me? It’s lonely drinking by myself.”
Chu wasn’t joking. He really did look lonely sitting there at the table. Reseng drank the glass of whiskey Chu had poured for him. Chu opened the Johnnie Walker Blue and poured Reseng another shot. Then he raised his glass in a toast. Reseng clinked his glass against Chu’s.
“Oh, that’s much better,” Reseng said, sounding impressed. “I like this Johnnie Walker Blue stuff better than that ‘real man’s,’ or whatever, Jack Daniel’s.”
Chu seemed genuinely amused. He didn’t say much as they worked on the rest of the bottle. Reseng didn’t have anything to say, either, so they drank in silence. Chu drank far more than Reseng. When the bottle was empty, Chu stumbled into the bathroom. Reseng heard the sound of pissing, then vomiting, then the toilet flushing several times. Twenty minutes passed and still he did not come out of the bathroom. All Reseng heard was the tap running. His eyes never left Chu’s knife where it sat in the middle of the table.
When Chu still hadn’t come out after thirty minutes, Reseng knocked on the door. It was locked and there was no answer from inside. He got a flat-head screwdriver to pry it open. Chu was asleep on the toilet, hunched over like an old bear, and the bathtub was overflowing onto the floor. Reseng turned off the water and helped him to the bed.
Once he was stretched out flat, Chu started to snore, as if he were getting the first good sleep of his life. His snoring was as loud as he was tall. It was so loud that even Lampshade timidly poked her head out from inside the cat tower, crept down to the bed, and started sniffing at Chu’s face and hair. Reseng sat on the couch and drank several more cans of beer, then fell asleep watching Desk and Lampshade enjoying their new game of swatting at Chu’s hair and walking across his chest and stomach.
When Reseng awoke in the morning, Chu was gone. His big backpack was gone, too. All that was left was his kitchen knife with the handkerchief wrapped around the handle, lying in the middle of the table like a present.
A week later, Chu’s body arrived at Bear’s Pet Crematorium.
By the time Old Raccoon and Reseng got there, it was raining hard, just like on the day of Chu’s visit. Bear held an umbrella over Old Raccoon as he got out of the car.
“Is it done?” Old Raccoon asked.
Bear looked surprised at the question. “I haven’t started yet.”
Chu’s body was in a toolshed. Bear had refrigerators for storing bodies, but they were small, meant for cats and dogs. He didn’t have anything big enough to fit all six foot three of Chu. Old Raccoon unzipped the body bag. Chu’s eyes were closed.
“I counted twenty-seven stab wounds,” Bear said with a shiver.
Old Raccoon unbuttoned Chu’s tattered shirt and counted the stab marks himself. Other than the one that had entered at the solar plexus and pierced a lung, most of the wounds hadn’t proved fatal. The assassin could have killed him easily, but instead
