Inspector O 02 - Hidden Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

were brothers and worth training. He was a very quiet man. Pickinglocks was a quiet profession, I always thought, so it didn’t surprise me that he never responded when I greeted him in Russian. If we needed to get into a building, we’d wait outside for him to arrive. He’d walk in past us without looking up, and emerge a few minutes later. In those days, most doors weren’t locked anyway, so it was rarely a problem.
    After cuts in the Ministry’s budget—part of a larger move, we were told, to embrace “new realities”—the lock man moved on to other things. He opened his own shop, exactly when more people were installing locks to keep out the reality of an increase in the number of crooks. So, no more designated lock expert, no assigned equipment, and no approved procedures for entering all of the suddenly locked buildings. There was nothing to do but follow the old practice, sitting around outside, figuring whoever was inside would have to come out, or, if they’d already left, would eventually return to open the door and go back in.
    One drizzling afternoon last autumn, when Chief Inspector Min was at the local market, he fell into conversation with a merchant, a Chinese-Korean who showed up a few times a year with a suitcase full of goods. Min came back to the office with two small bags, one of which he laid on my desk, like a cat bringing a wet, dead bird into the house.
    “What is it?” I nodded at the bag.
    “Exactly what we’ve been looking for, Inspector, a lock-picking set. I used what was left of our office funds, since we’ll never get anything from Central Supply.”
    “Other office chiefs come back with rice cookers, or even a small icebox. What good is this?” I opened the bag and held up two narrow metal blades, one slightly thicker than the other, each attached to a wooden handle—some sort of junk wood, though I couldn’t tell for sure what it was because it was painted black. “Made in Romania.” I read the small stamp on the handle of one of them. “Good for breaking and entering in Bucharest maybe, but probably worthless in Pyongyang. Have you ever seen the bookcases they make there? Nothing fits with anything else.”
    I was right, the lock-picking tool was worthless even for getting into a morgue. I went around the side to a window set high on the wall and tried to see in, but the window was curtained. Just as I got on the sidewalk leading back to my car, a harried-looking man in a blue coat walked past, opened the door with a key, then slammed it so hard a puff of dust rose from the top of the door frame.
    Another knock on the door, answered this time; the peephole opened, and I could see an eye looking out at me. “What do you want? We’re closed for lunch.”
    “I don’t want lunch. Inspector O.” I flashed my ID toward the peephole. “On a case. Open up.”
    “How do I know you are legitimate? You aren’t even wearing a pin.”
    This was no time for a discussion of political symbolism. “It fell off. Open the door. You know who I am, I just told you.”
    The door opened. The man in the blue coat peered around the edge. Now that I got a good look at his face, he looked familiar. “Sorry, Inspector, I’m not trying to be difficult. My orders are not to let anyone in until we finish the autopsy. Believe me, it’s not my idea, I’m not looking for trouble. I don’t even want this job. I studied bridge engineering in college. Someday maybe I’ll show you my designs, very well received in their day. Cables, vaulted whatnots soaring above river gorges. Meanwhile, can you do me a favor? Go away.”
    At least I knew that the body was still there. “Who gave you the order for the autopsy?” At that moment, my cell phone rang. No one had any reason to call me, and no one but Min was supposed to know my number. It was very loud. I’d wrapped it in a glove, but that did no good. Worse than the volume was the tune. Birds stopped singing, stunned, when they heard it. As