The One Who Ran

With a grating rattle, the old freezer heaved itself open.

The shopkeeper had been wiping down the broad wooden platform spread beside the door. At the noise she straightened, rag still clenched in her hand. She was a middle-aged woman with a tight perm, and she ran a curious eye over the two men. Strangers. She had never seen either of them in this cramped little neighborhood.

It was the beginning of June, and the heat had come early. The shopkeeper was dressed for it. Ethan and Chen were not. Dress shirts, black suits, ties knotted to the throat—they stood frowning hard into the ice-cream case, digging through the tubs.

"Hyung! There's only one of those. Give it here!"

Ethan, having lost the chocolate ice bar, snatched at Chen's lapel.

"Eat something else."

"Do you really have to take the one your little brother likes?"

"It's hot, I'm annoyed, so shut your mouth."

"Hey, you boys! Leave that open any longer and the ice cream'll melt into soup. You're not children—what's there to fuss over for so long?"

She slapped the dust from her rag, plainly displeased. Chen, who had by then picked something for Ethan as well, shut the freezer.

"Ugh. I don't want this one."

"You see? He's no better than a child. Here—could you ring us up?"

Chen held out a ten-thousand-won bill and tossed Ethan the chocolate bar he himself had chosen first.

"Thanks, brother."

Ethan smiled with perfect innocence and worked the ice cream between his hands.

"Ma'am. How long have you been in this neighborhood?"

This time they had better walk away with something. The shopkeeper settled onto the platform and fanned herself, and Chen lowered himself to her level, dragging loose the tie that was choking him.

"Born and raised. This shop's been mine thirty years now. Sick to death of it, I am. You boys climbed up here, so you know. Road's too narrow and steep for a car, and I'm so afraid of wrecking my knees I can't even bring myself to go down into the lower neighborhood! Every other hillside slum is in an uproar over redevelopment, and this place hasn't heard a whisper. Why is that?"

Ethan listened to the talkative woman in silence, the ice cream caught between his teeth, and let his gaze wander. Three years of wearing out their shoes had finally produced an address, and it had led them here—to this small, shabby pocket of the city. The multiplexes, the villas, the single apartment building: all of them so old it was impossible to guess when they had been built.

"That's fortunate. We're looking for a mother and daughter who used to live here. This is the mother. This is the child. There may be a difference in age from when the pictures were taken, but the faces shouldn't have changed much."

Chen produced the photographs at once. Right trail or wrong one, his mind turned fast. He was exceptional at finishing whatever he was given by the most efficient route available, and this was the first job he had failed to close after three full years. The mother and daughter in the photos did not resemble each other by so much as a fingernail, and they had vanished just as thoroughly, wiping away every trace.

"These two are mother and daughter?"

"Yes. They might still be living here. Or they might have left a very long time ago."

"Hard to say. This neighborhood's full of gloomy types. But this girl..."

"Have you seen her?"

The shopkeeper screwed up her face, chasing some faint memory, and glared down at the photograph on the platform.

"The face is familiar. I feel like I've seen her, and then I feel like I haven't."

"Come on, ma'am. If you saw her, you saw her. If you didn't, you didn't. What am I supposed to do with an answer like that?"

"Excuse me, young man? I'll be sixty the day after tomorrow, and that's how you talk?"

"You dropped the formalities first. I thought you wanted to be friends."

"Finish your ice cream and be quiet, Ethan."

Ethan and Chen had worked side by side for a long time, and they were opposite in every way that mattered. Chen judged and moved by reason. Ethan was the sort who charged in without a glance left, right, forward, or back, and in a moment like this he was better off keeping his mouth shut.

"Is this kid a foreigner?"

"She's mixed. Aside from the color of her hair and her eyes, she isn't any different from a Korean."

"The face looks right. But the girl I saw didn't have hair like this. Aigoo—you startled me!"

It was the first hopeful answer in three years. Chen shot to his feet and looked down at the startled woman.

"You've seen her?"

"Ah—yes, yes. I think I remember."

"Please tell us everything. If we find this child because of you, the reward won't be small."

Chen's eyes lit, and he took a step closer. Ethan, who had been surveying the neighborhood, went suddenly serious and waited for the shopkeeper's answer. The person searching for the child was desperate. This time, he wanted to bring back good news.

The bright click of dress shoes rang down the marble corridor.

Seol-woo came toward the entrance of the hotel suite, spinning his car key around one finger. The two doormen posted at the door bent low.

A folding table had claimed one wall. In the basket on top of it lay phones of every make, and other electronics besides.

"Here."

He set his phone down without protest. It was one of the rules observed by the circle that formed this vicious cartel of influence—security, kept absolute. Barring devices at the door was analog, and it worked remarkably well.

This was where the people who moved the country gathered. Old men like water in a well that never flowed, and the meetings they presided over were boring beyond belief. He had invented one excuse after another and stayed away for something like three months. In the end his grandfather's thunderous order had fallen, and he had been dragged up to the suite against his will.

"I'll open the door."

One of the doormen stepped in beside Seol-woo as he straightened his clothes, touched a card to the lock, and opened it.

"Ah—CEO Cha Seol-woo, there's a call—"

"He's already gone in. Leave it."

Another man who had been standing by the basket came after him with the phone in hand, but Seol-woo was already inside.

The farther he went down the suite's inner hall, the closer he drew to the front room, the thicker the acrid smoke became. A wonder the fire alarm isn't screaming. Seol-woo himself smoked, and even he felt faintly sick as he waved the haze aside and approached the table where the others sat.

"Seol-woo!"

Joo-hee was the first to rise. She had nagged and nagged her father until he brought her along, and she had been waiting for him as if her life depended on it.

"Well, look who it is—our son-in-law! Getting a look at your face is harder than it ought to be."

"It's been a while."

Kang-il, seated beside his daughter, stood and offered his hand. Han Kang-il, the current mayor of Seoul and a man spoken of as the next presidential contender, was counting the days until he could bind himself by marriage to CH Group.

The father and daughter were all warm welcome. Seol-woo came toward them with a face that gave nothing, traded a perfunctory greeting with the others already seated, and found his place.

So the man threw that whole fit because he couldn't be bothered to come himself. Seol-woo scowled at Chairman Cha's empty chair and immediately tossed back a drink.

"Chairman Cha is absent today, I take it."

The white-haired old man at the head of the table, the one who led the gathering, opened his mouth. In this world he was known as the Elder of Pyeongchang-dong. Baek Chang-seok was a four-term lawmaker and leader of the ruling party, a man whose connections and power were so vast that rumor claimed he could swallow even a president if he put his mind to it.

"CEO Cha has come in his place."

"Speaking of which, Elder—the gift isn't ready yet? You have no idea how long I've been craning my neck for it."

The heavyset chief of the Central District Prosecutors' Office leaned his bulk in close to Chang-seok and whined. And he calls himself a man. Geun-cheol bared yellow teeth and hurried him along with lust naked in his eyes, and the sight was contemptible.

"You'll be contacted separately. Wait."

"Ha ha ha. Really, now. Must you keep a man in such suspense?"

Displeasure sat plain on Chang-seok's face as he glared at Geun-cheol, who swallowed as if he could already taste what he was being denied. The daughter he had spoiled rotten had caused an accident, and now this boor was bragging about the promised payment in a room that mattered. His brow creased of its own accord. Handing anything at all to a pig in heat felt like a waste. But he was a man who lived by the old saying that a gentleman's word is worth its weight in gold, and he could not take back what his mouth had already given. He had nodded.

Chief prosecutor in nothing but title—a stupid, greedy little wretch. There was no profit in drawing closer to him. Chang-seok clicked his tongue and lifted his glass.

"What sort of gift has the chief prosecutor this anxious?"

"Ah, the Elder was going to—"

"Ahem! We'll leave it there."

Of course. Seol-woo sat in a room where useless talk multiplied and felt the minutes go to waste. In this time I could have read another approval and run another hour. Cementing connections was useful, no doubt. This was merely the tedious method of his grandfather's generation, and his father's.

"Seol-woo, shall we leave first? Just the two of us?"

Joo-hee had been watching him from across the table, taking his measure, and now she spoke. She had barely seen her fiancé in weeks. She wanted time alone with him.

"Yes. Nothing important on the table today anyway—CEO Cha can slip out. What do you think, Elder?"

The moment Joo-hee found her courage, Kang-il seized it and pushed the mood along.

"Well, that's true enough. CEO Cha?"

"Then I'll take my leave first."

Seol-woo did not miss the opening either. Chen and Ethan were already past the hour they should have called. Storming out alone would give these old men more to chew on than leaving with Joo-hee, his fiancée.

"Yes, yes. You're at the age when things are sweet."

"I'll be in touch before the next gathering."

They sent the pair off in high spirits and sank back into talk that wasn't worth hearing. Seol-woo and Joo-hee left the suite wearing matching looks of satisfaction.

The reasons, of course, stood a very long way apart.

It was nearly midnight. The alleys of the entertainment district, thick with places built for wine and women, were as bright and gaudy as they always were. People laughed and chattered, drank until the mood rose, and now and then fell into some small quarrel—every class of person packed into the same streets.

A woman tore through the press of them and caught every eye that lined the alley. She wore a white hospital gown with every button ripped away, the cloth flapping in a ruin around her, and she ran the filthy lane barefoot. Her long golden hair streamed behind her on the headwind, and colored lights slid over it like a panorama.

"What is that—are they filming a movie?"

"At this hour? There's no camera."

"Did you see her eyes? Gorgeous. Must be a foreigner."

"Looked Korean to me."

People murmured as she flashed past. A few pulled out their phones and took pictures. By the time her back had faded, burly men in black suits were following the road she had taken.

Dami ran as if her life were the only thing left to spend. Her breath climbed to the top of her throat. Bits of asphalt raked the soles of her feet. She could not stop. Deep in the alley she looked wildly for somewhere to hide. An instinct that had lain buried for a long time shouted that she would last longer in a loud, crowded place than in a quiet one where no one stood.

The way behind her had gone noisy. The guards were close. Her body was reaching its limit, and her speed dropped hard. She had not been running for even an hour. She could not let them drag her back this easily. It was her first chance and her last, and heaven had handed it to her. She prayed, desperately, that she would not suffer the disaster of falling asleep on her feet.

She swore again that she would hold out to the end, swept her eyes over everything around her, and slipped into a knot of people who had just paid their bill and come spilling out in a loose, noisy cluster. Most of them were pleasantly drunk. The doormen of the VIP bar they had left were too busy tending their customers to look at anything else.

She swallowed against a dry throat and darted for the entrance. Hesitate even a little, and every eye would find her.

"Did somebody just go in?"

"What? Who?"

One of the doormen, who had stepped away from the door to match a customer with a designated driver, tipped his head. Something had fluttered behind him. He wasn't sure. When he looked toward the entrance, the stairs were empty, and the door at the bottom of them was still swinging.

"Hey. The driver isn't here yet?"

He was about to go inside and check when one of the customers, who had been making a scene without pause, caught him by the ankle. Must have imagined it. He let it go. He had just seen the driver and the customer safely out of the parking area when several men appeared—bigger than he was.

"Have you seen this woman?"

Hyun-tae held Dami's photograph up in front of both doormen.

"Can't say I have. You?"

"No. First time I've seen her."

"You're certain? She vanished somewhere around here. We've already turned over every other bar nearby. Mind if we step inside and look around?"

The courtesy of the request sat badly with the dirty impression the man made. The bar's doormen glanced at each other.

Running, at a time like this. The plan had come apart, and Sang-chul was thrashing like a madman. Hyun-tae had taken his orders and come out himself, and he knew perfectly well that forcing the matter here would only cost him.

"Oh—right!"

"What?"

The doorman remembered the presence he had felt at his back before he put the customer in the car. The realization hit him late, and he shouted.