Jade Lady Burning (33 page)

“First thing,” I said.

“And will you tell me what you find out?”

“Yes. I will.”

He nodded. Not quite a bow but good enough for cop to cop. I nodded back.

As Ernie and I stepped down the treacherous stairway, Lieutenant Pak stood at the top, hands thrust deeply into his overcoat, watching us.

So far, this case fell fully under Korean jurisdiction. But Lieutenant Pak knew he’d need my help to ferret out information on the military compounds. And I’d need his if the assailant turned out to be a Korean. So far, we were cooperating.

We’d see how long that lasted.

When we got back to the jeep, Ernie unlocked the chain around the steering wheel and started up the engine. “You almost stepped on your dick back there, pal,” he said.

“Yeah. You think he was suspicious?”

“Of course he was suspicious. He’s a cop, isn’t he?”

“But we’re the investigators assigned to this case for the U.S. side. He’s not going to think we had anything to do with it.”

“Not as long as you keep your trap shut.”

Ernie backed away from the wall, turned the jeep around, and swooshed through the growing blanket of snow. On the way back to the compound, slush and shattered ice ran after our spinning wheels. Frozen ghosts vanishing in the night.

I thought of Cecil Whitcomb and how pale and shriveled his body looked. Just yesterday I’d talked to him, gazed into his eyes, watched as he dispassionately read a note from a beautiful woman pleading for a rendezvous. And I thought of the two women who’d maneuvered us into this mess.

All the shit started with Eun-hi, the sexiest bar girl in Itaewon. For quite some time I’d wanted to get my hands on her flesh. Before it was for lust. Now I had a different motive.

O
THER
T
ITLES IN THE
S
OHO
C
RIME
S
ERIES

Quentin Bates

(Iceland)

Frozen Assets

Cold Comfort

Cheryl Benard

(Pakistan)

Moghul Buffet

James R. Benn

(World War II Europe)

Billy Boyle

The First Wave

Blood Alone

Evil for Evil

Rag & Bone

A Mortal Terror

Cara Black

(Paris, France)

Murder in the Marais

Murder in Belleville

Murder in the Sentier

Murder in the Bastille

Murder in Clichy

Murder in Montmarte

Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

Murder in the Rue de Paradis

Murder in the Latin Quarter

Murder in the Palais Royale

Murder in Passy

Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

Grace Brophy

(Italy)

The Last Enemy

A Deadly Paradise

Henry Chang

(Chinatown)

Chinatown Beat

Year of the Dog

Red Jade

Colin Cotterill

(Laos)

The Coroner’s Lunch

Thirty-Three Teeth

Disco for the Departed

Anarchy and Old Dogs

Curse of the Pogo Stick

The Merry Misogynist

Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

Slash and Burn

Garry Disher

(Australia)

The Dragon Man

Kittyhawk Down

Snapshot

Chain of Evidence

Blood Moon

Wyatt

David Downing

(World War II Germany)

Zoo Station

Silesian Station

Stettin Station

Potsdam Station

Lehrter Station

Leighton Gage

(Brazil)

Blood of the Wicked

Buried Strangers

Dying Gasp

Every Bitter Thing

A Vine in the Blood

Michael Genelin

(Slovakia)

Siren of the Waters

Dark Dreams

The Magician’s Accomplice

Requiem for a Gypsy

Adrian Hyland

(Australia)

Moonlight Downs

Gunshot Road

Stan Jones

(Alaska)

White Sky, Black Ice

Shaman Pass

Village of the Ghost Bears

Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis

(Denmark)

The Boy in the Suitcase

Graeme Kent

(Solomon Islands)

Devil-Devil

One Blood

Martin Limón

(South Korea)

Jade Lady Burning

Slicky Boys

Buddha’s Money

The Door to Bitterness

The Wandering Ghost

G.I. Bones

Mr. Kill

Peter Lovesey

(Bath, England)

The Last Detective

The Vault

On the Edge

The Reaper

Rough Cider

The False Inspector Dew

Diamond Dust

Diamond Solitaire

The House Sitter

The Summons

Bloodhounds

Upon a Dark Night

The Circle

The Secret Hangman

The Headhunters

Skeleton Hill

Stagestruck

Cop to Corpse

Jassy Mackenzie

(South Africa)

Random Violence

Stolen Lives

The Fallen

Seichō Matsumoto

(Japan)

Inspector Imanishi Investigates

James McClure

(South Africa)

The Steam Pig

The Caterpillar Cop

The Gooseberry Fool

Snake

The Sunday Hangman

The Blood of an Englishman

Jan Merete Weiss

(Italy)

These Dark Things

Magdalen Nabb

(Italy)

Death of an Englishman

Death of a Dutchman

Death in Springtime

Death in Autumn

The Marshal and the Madwoman

The Marshal and the Murderer

The Marshal’s Own Case

The Marshal Makes His Report

The Marshal at the Villa Torrini

Property of Blood

Some Bitter Taste

The Innocent

Vita Nuova

Stuart Neville

(Northern Ireland)

The Ghosts of Belfast

Collusion

Stolen Souls

Eliot Pattison

(Tibet)

Prayer of the Dragon

The Lord of Death

Rebecca Pawel

(1930s Spain)

Death of a Nationalist

Law of Return

The Watcher in the Pine

The Summer Snow

Qiu Xiaolong

(China)

Death of a Red Heroine

A Loyal Character Dancer

When Red is Black

Matt Beynon Rees

(Palestine)

The Collaborator of Bethlehem

A Grave in Gaza

The Samaritan’s Secret

The Fourth Assassin

John Straley

(Alaska)

The Woman Who Married a Bear

The Curious Eat Themselves

Akimitsu Takagi

(Japan)

The Tattoo Murder Case

Honeymoon to Nowhere

The Informer

Helene Tursten

(Sweden)

Detective Inspector Huss

Night Rounds

The Torso

The Glass Devil

Janwillem van de Wetering

(Holland)

Outsider in Amsterdam

Tumbleweed

The Corpse on the Dike

Death of a Hawker

The Japanese Corpse

The Blond Baboon

The Maine Massacre

The Mind-Murders

The Streetbird

The Rattle-Rat

Hard Rain

Just a Corpse at Twilight

Hollow-Eyed Angel

The Perfidious Parrot

Amsterdam Cops: Collected Stories