Inspector O 04 - The Man with the Baltic Stare Read Online Free PDF Page B

He looked at me carefully. “Yes, it does. The neck size is good? Sit, why don’t you?” He pointed to the brown chair. If I could see his reflection in the desk, he could see mine. He didn’t need to look up to know how I was reacting. “Here I have tea. We canenjoy some fish, a wonderful bowl of soup, and whatever else you might like.” He pressed a button under the desk.
    “Is Michael on duty?” I glanced around the room. “Or will we have one of the morning crew? Paul, perhaps?”
    A door off to the side opened and a middle-aged man in a suit and tie walked in. He eyed me briefly before turning his attention to Major Kim. “It’s not going to get any better if we continue to wait. You know that already, I assume.”
    Kim took the top off the teapot and looked inside. “We have a meeting at nine o’clock.” He put the top back in place. “That’s why we call it a nine o’clock meeting.”
    The man grimaced. “Your decision, of course.” He started out the door and nearly knocked over an aide carrying a tray.
    “Paul.” I waved him in. “Good to see you. Put the things down and get out your notebook. Tomorrow, no four A.M . wake-up call, understood? Not four thirty, either. Let’s say nothing earlier than five o’clock. Go ahead, write it down; the major doesn’t object.”
    Major Kim sniffed one of the dishes and handed it to the aide. “I don’t want this served ever again. Am I clear?” The aide nodded. “Good. And take note of the Inspector’s instructions about the wake-up call. If that’s what he wants, that’s what he gets.” The aide nodded again. “Dismissed,” said the major.
    “Well,” said the major, after the aide had closed the door, “nothing here is easy. But then, there’s no reason to expect it should be. That’s part of the challenge. In case you’re wondering, the man in the suit is one of mine. The aide is one of yours.”
    Mine. Yours. Marking territory, like a dog walking along the street. “A division of labor,” I said. “Very smart. Would you like me to haul a few buckets of water?” I looked around the room. “At the very least, let me arrange your chairs for the nine o’clock staff meeting.”
    “Jumping to conclusions, aren’t we, Inspector?”
    “You tell me.”
    The major laid the dishes out on the desk. “Eat first, business later. I’m always hungry in the morning. You?”
    “At my age, appetite is no longer central to existence. I don’t give it much thought anymore.”
    “A weary thing to say, Inspector. You aren’t going to be glum all day long, I hope. We have a lot to accomplish, and we might as well be cheerful about it. If I weren’t careful, I could be depressed all the time, but what’s the use of that?”
    “A new day dawns. The world is fresh, and yet we confront the same question as we did last night: What is this about?”
    “Have some soup.”
    “I don’t want soup. I want to know what this is about, because if I don’t find out damn soon, I’m leaving.” I didn’t think Kim would be fazed. He wasn’t.
    “Leaving. Again. I would have told you last night, but you left in a hurry. Don’t press your luck, Inspector. I’d hoped to give you a lot of space to get used to things, but that’s not going to be possible.”
    “I see.”
    “No, I doubt that you do.” There was the tiniest flash of steel in his voice. “The fact is, from here on out, you are under my direct command. You take orders from me; you report to me; you jump when I tell you to jump.”
    Really? What led him to believe such a thing? I’d just spent five years on a mountaintop not following anyone’s orders. I was going back in harness at the snap of his fingers? Not likely. “Yesterday, you were my insurance policy, my best pal. Now you are suggesting I am a draft animal. Something happen overnight?”
    The major smiled obliquely; I checked off one of his thousand expressions. “I’m still your pal; don’t misunderstand. But I’ll crack