The Door to Bitterness Read Online Free PDF

odor. Water. Not seawater then, probably regular drinking water. Then a gust of wind blew more splats of rain against the window behind me.
    Maybe rainwater. How had it gotten in here? No leaks in the roof. Barely noticeable was a small doorway seated neatly into the wall. Not hidden, but unobtrusive. I grabbed the varnished wooden handle of the short door and pulled. The smell of the sea rushed in, along with rainwater and gusts of wind. Kneeling, I peered outside.
    An escape hatch. A fire escape, actually. The outer edge of the stone wall fell straight down, forty feet, to piled boulders lashed by angry surf. Along the wall ran a pathway just wide enough for one man to walk. It was damp and slippery, but in case of fire it would be a means of escape. Where the pathway led I couldn’t be sure. Beyond the corner of the hotel, it wound off out of sight. I considered climbing out there to see where it went but thought better of it. What for? Besides, the footing looked treacherous.
    Boots stomped angrily up wooden steps.
    Quickly, I closed the door, and when I turned, I noticed something under the desk. A strip of embroidered silk tasseled with lengths of string. Without thinking, I grabbed it and stuffed it into my jacket pocket. The footsteps grew louder. When they entered the room, I stood and stared into the eyes of Lieutenant Won.
    He was outraged. In angry Korean he asked what I was doing here. I didn’t bother to answer. What good would it do? I was investigating a crime, he knew that. Instead, I asked him why he was so angry.
    “This is the office of the owner,” he told me in Korean, as if it were obvious why that would make him angry.
    “Mr. Bok?” I asked.
    “No,” Won answered, incredulous. “He’s only the manager.”
    “Who’s the owner?”
    “Not your business.”
    I was used to this. Korean cops protecting higher-ups— from the indignity of having to be interviewed by a foreign cop, from the indignity of being associated in any way with crime. The way the KNPs figure d it, two Americans had committed the robbery and the shooting, and since they appeared to be GIs, it was the job of Ernie and me to help catch those GIs. It wasn’t our job to talk to Korean big shots. And any suggestion otherwise, I knew from previous experience, would be taken by Lieutenant Won as an insult to his competency. We were being spoon fed the little the KNPs wanted us to know, and that’s all we would get.
    But this case was different.
    Sure, it was their country, and according to all law and international treaties, the Korean National Police, and only the Korean National Police, had jurisdiction over this case. Ernie and I were here as invited guests, presumably to help shed some light on the GI angle, and the Korean cops could show us as much as they wanted—or as little as they wanted. But all that was just law. The moment I’d stepped into this puddle of blood, law no longer meant anything to me. It was my weapon that had been stolen, my badge. And it was those two items that had been used in the commission of these crimes. Without my stupidity, without me allowing some smiling blonde tart to drug me and drag me into an alley, this casino would’ve never been robbed and, more importantly, this puddle of blood wouldn’t be on this floor.
    I pointed at the blood.
    Lieutenant Won and Ernie walked around the desk.
    Lieutenant Won’s arms were crossed, and his nose was scrunched. He’d known the blood was here, but for some reason he hadn’t wanted us to see it.
    “Woman shot here,” he said, pointing at the ground.
    Mr. Bok told us earlier about the young female dealer who had been shot, but he hadn’t been specific as to the location of the shooting. Now we knew.
    Lieutenant Won pulled a brown pulp envelope out of his pocket. He opened it and let Ernie and me peer inside. It was a bullet from a .45, with its nose scrunched up as if it had hit metal. Then he pointed at a brass hinge attached to the escape