Seoul On Fire

By Byron Bales

The Englishman didn’t have a chance. Not really. He fought like a demon once he realized what was happening. He wasn’t just getting rolled. Hell, he had enough sense to give over his wallet to a couple of ugly goons. No, robbery was just a blind for what these guys had in mind. He wasn’t sure how he knew this. He just knew. Something had been nagging at him these past few days. The way his friend had been acting.
Friend? Yeah, right!
Rainwater ran down a brick wall from the street above, and freezing wind whistled through the vacant underground shopping arcade as the big thug went through his victim’s wallet. The little guy propped the Englishman against the wall, putting in shots to his face and gut for nothing more than fun. Didn’t matter; those final whacks with the sap had taken the fight out of him. The Englishman slid down the wall, plopped to the cold, wet pavement like a puppet whose strings had been cut, taking whatever this little slope head dished out.
The giant, the one called Moon, stuffed the passport and wallet into his pocket, didn’t even bother counting the money. He rolled the Englishman over on the concrete, tore out the custom-tailored labels from his suit, checked his shirt for initialed cufflinks, and took his monogrammed handkerchief. But the point was really driven home when the giant pulled garden shears and pliers out of a canvas bag. He sat on the Englishman’s back, threw out his arms, grunted for the little guy to begin the manicure—right up to the knuckles.
The last thing the Englishman felt was his third finger being snipped off, and the last thing he saw was the little pug scooping it up, dropping the bloody stub into his pocket. Incongruously, his last thought was one of wonderment: why these guys didn’t want his own mother to recognize him. Mercifully, he wouldn’t feel his teeth being ripped out of his skull.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Byron Bales
• Release date: May 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9780984485215

Byron Bales

I was born in St. Louis in 1942. At 15, I dropped out of school and worked various jobs, one being a spotter for detectives conducting surveillances. In those late days of the 1950's, surveillances were low-tech indeed and in certain situations, where no photograph or other identification was available, it was preferable in low population areas for one operative to first 'spot' and plot a subject's movement pattern and then point him/her out for another detective or team to follow. Easy enough for an inconspicuous youngster to avoid suspicion. The average detective, as a non-owner of an agency, earned around $10 a day. I was paid two dollars per spot. Until the day when the gumshoe assigned to the case eloped with a bottle of bourbon. I handled the surveillance, thereafter the agency owner, a tight-fisted, hard-drinking, crusty Irishman tried fobbing me off with the customary two bucks. I balked, an argument ensued, insults and physical threats exchanged, but I began receiving seven bucks per shadow. The old detective drove home the point that this work was dangerous, and that an operative must maintain confidentiality at all times. Tell no one, he warned, absolutely no one as your life may depend on secrecy. He was fond of displaying an old bullet wound, claiming that he received it when certain criminal elements discovered he was a private dick. I eventually learned that the old shamus didn't want the authorities alerted to the fact that he was working an underage kid, and as for the bullet wound, the clumsy bastard accidentally shot himself in basic training during World War I. In those days of conscription, the Army would have scooped up a dropout in no time, so I enlisted in the Marine Corps. Following Boot Camp in San Diego, I was posted a mere two miles away at the Naval Station right there in Dago handling base and brig security with the Marine Detachment. Eventually, I got what I'd requested in Boot Camp, a transfer to the First Marine Division's FMF-Fleet Marine Force. A fancy name for floating infantry. I picked up a secret clearance along the way and in addition to infantry duties (crew-served weapons; the old 3.5 rocket launcher), I served at various times as an interrogator. It was with an element of the 9th Marines (E-2-9) where I traveled around Asia, and later, during the Cuban Missile Crisis with the 5th Marines, I bounced across the Caribbean and Central America as a courier. Discharged in 1963, I headed for New York City and gained an inspector's position in a retail credit organization. That led to my own P.I. license after the prescribed time. I handled every manner of criminal case; private and indigent (court-appointed defendants), surveillances, industrial undercover, bounty and repo work before specializing in insurance investigations, particularly locates and bogus death claims. After working solo for 10 years, I formed a company in 1979 specializing in international claims work, particularly Life and Health claims, and more specifically; Questionable Death Claims and Disappearances. I began writing fifteen years ago, but never bothered with publishing anything until 2003, with The Family Business, by Asia Books. I'm retired, but I handle an occasional assignment, providing it's in Asia or Pacifica.

Book preview

Prologue

Seoul

The Englishman didn’t have a chance. Not really. He fought like a demon once he realized what was happening to him. He wasn’t just getting rolled. Hell, he had enough sense to hand over his wallet to a couple of goons. No, robbery was just a blind for what these guys had in mind. He wasn’t sure how he knew this. He just knew. Something had been nagging at him these past few days. The way his friend had been acting.

Friend? Yeah, right.

Rainwater trickled down brick walls from the street above, and freezing wind whistled through the darkenedcorridors of the underground shopping arcade under renovation. The big thug went through his victim’s wallet as the little squirt propped the Englishman against the wall, putting in shots to his face for nothing more than fun. Didn’t matter; those final whacks with the sap had taken the fight out of him. The Englishman slid down the wall, plopped to the cold, wet pavement, taking whatever the squirt dished out.

The giant, the one called Moon, stuffed the passport and wallet into his pocket, didn’t even bother counting the money. He rolled the Englishman over on the concrete, tore out the custom-tailored labels from his suit, checked his shirt, cufflinks, handkerchief and belt buckle for anything monogrammed. But the point was driven home when the giant pulled garden shears and pliers out of his coat pocket.He sat on the Englishman’s back, threw out his arms, grunted for the runt to begin the manicure – right up to theknuckles.

The last thing the Englishman felt was his fourth finger being snipped off, and the last thing he saw was the little pug scooping it up, dropping it into his pocket. Incongruously, his last thought was one of wonderment: why these guys didn’t want his own mother to recognize him.

Mercifully, he wouldn’t feel his teeth being ripped out of his skull.

With the last of the fingers and teeth in his pocket, the squirt sat back, rubbed his chin in thought, leaving the Englishman’s blood streaked across his face. He handed the tools back to Moon, removed a tile cutter from his pocket, tapped it in the palm of his hand. Any point in taking out the eyeballs?

They sat on the body, mulling this over with the combined intellect of a twelve-year-old, passing a pint of whiskey between them. Moon belched a noxious odor of garlic and booze, expelled a thick plume of his warm breath that permeated the dark passageway like poison gas. To add to this concoction, he farted, then shrugged, said why not; the Englishman wouldn’t need to see anything where he was going, anyhow.

The squirt guffawed and snapped his fingers. Damn, Moon could be a funny guy sometimes.

Their job finished, Squirt started to squeeze through the partition that divided this area from where the construction workers would be in the morning. Moon grabbed him by the collar, spun him around, and pushed him over to where water had pooled into an empty wheelbarrow. He made certain that his associate washed the blood off before going up to the street. Somebody had to do the thinking in this crew.

Squirt turned in circles for Moon to inspect his clothes, face, and hair. Satisfied, Moon pushed him towards the hole in the partition leading to the stairway.

Emerging from the concourse, they tracked blood from their shoe soles for two city blocks.

Chapter 1

Mount Bromo - East Java

Roth sat on a rickety chair outside the hostel, looking at photos of the stiff in the crater. The features in the close-ups matched the insured’s passport, except that they were decorated with dried blood, and gashes criss-crossed a blob of meat that had once been the man’s face.

Positive identification was Roth’s first priority, and there was no question about it; the dead man was Brofman. The guy had taken no climbing equipment, just hiking shoes and a yellow nylon parka which, at some point, he’d taken off and tied around his waist.

The nights up on the mountain were cold, but by 8:00 a.m. it normally reached seventy degrees on the summit and even warmer in the bowels of the crater.

Brofman had tried to walk down into the cone. A dumb thing to do, but few people really understand volcanoes. Some years before, Mount Bromo had spurted an ash cloud a thousand feet into the air. Now, it looked harmless enough. The crater descended at a 45-degree angle. Seemed easy enough to walk down into it. Never mind the toxic mist rising from the crater lake, and the occasional magmatic volatiles. This was one of Indonesia’s most popular attractions.

Some photos had been taken by the rescue team from the rim of the volcano before they descended into the crater to retrieve the body. These were included with the police report given to the insurance company by Brofman’s family, and showed a yellow speck halfway down into Bromo’s mouth. The fool’s jacket.

From the hostel, Roth could see the summit. He’d have to go up in the morning, get a good look-see for himself, do his add-ons and take-aways, determine if the guy committed suicide. In a sense, he had–but unless he intended to, it was an accidental death under the terms of his life insurance policy. No suicide note had been found. But few suicides bothered leaving a letter–their mind when they decided to end this journey called life being in a very dark place.

Just after sunrise, along with a few dozen tourists, backpackers mostly, Roth headed out to Bromo, a light breakfast under his belt. It was a long hike from the guesthouses.

At the point where the tourists climbed up to the rim, there was a wooden stairway. Sissy enough. Roth started up the steps.

A few tourists were stalled on several of the landings, taking a breather. Roth labored up past them, swearing that he’d never smoke again. He reached the top and, panting hard, looked back, estimated that he’d climbed 500 steps, or maybe thirty flights of stairs.

His breathing regulated, he lit a cigarette. He inched forward to look over the rim. How deep could the crater be?

Plenty deep. Maybe a mile down. Mount Bromo’s elevation was greater than 7,000 feet, but this side of the crater had been blown away, leaving a plateau on the westerly reaches where villages had sprung up. He looked across to the northern edge of the rim; saw a column of backpackers–ant-like figures–circumventing the crater’s mouth along a well-trod path. They were about two miles away, but depth and distance were deceptive.

A sign at this point read:

‘Warning: Do Not Climb Into The Volcano.’

Roth had arranged to meet the rescue-team leader here, and shortly Kareem came trudging up the steps with two of his guys. Little older than kids, actually. Kareem was an amiable young man of around twenty who would guide Roth this morning in whatever he wanted to do.

His boys carried lengths of nylon rope across their shoulders. Stakes, hammers, and goggles dangled from their belts. These and their thick-soled boots were the only equipment they had. The youngest kid wore a Yankees baseball cap.

This boy handed Roth a pair of plastic goggles. Roth field-stripped his cigarette, rolled the paper up and stuck it in his pocket. He put the goggles around his neck, and they began walking around the rim. Halfway around the summit they overlooked the area where Brofman, insured for 500,000 dollars–if double indemnity kicked in–had ventured into the volcano.

Wind from the southeast whipped the edge of the crater, gusting, forming mini vortexes that funneled ash around their position. They donned their goggles. Kareem walked on another hundred yards. Yes? he asked, looking at Roth. We go down?

Roth looked over the rim again. This wasn’t going to be fun. But if Brofman contemplated suicide, maybe there was a note or something down there. Needle-in-a-haystack time.

Why here? he questioned. Why not above that point where Brofman went down? I want to descend exactly where he did. And I’m interested in any bits of paper we might come across.

It is best here. Over there, it is steeper in places. Big ledges that cannot be seen from up here. It does not look so, but going down there is far worse than here.

Probably what fooled Brofman. Roth cursed beneath his breath. Was this necessary? What had happened to Brofman was obvious: death by misadventure. The descent looked easy enough–fun, even–and Brofman was over confident, wanting a tale to spin for the folks back home. He’d taken some photos at the rim, and apparently had another tourist snap his picture as well. Then, he entered the mouth of the dragon. Kareem had explained it yesterday: Brofman had gone up to look at Bromo, but by the second day, when he hadn’t returned to the guesthouse, the rescue team was sent out. There was little mystery, since there were few places he could have been, the likely one being in the belly of the beast–a common story here on the mountain. They’d spotted the speck of yellow down the sheer drop, and binoculars picked out his body below.

Okay, we go down here, Roth sighed.

Kareem handed Roth a pair of thick gloves, which he put on as the boys hammered a long spike into the ground. Kareem tied a length of rope to it, swung two more lines across his back. One of his boys did the same.

Kareem went over the ledge first, advising Roth to always keep one hand on the rope, no matter how firm the ground seemed beneath his feet. Loose ash covered the surface, giving the inside of the cone a smooth appearance.

The boy with the other ropes would serve as anchor. He also carried steel stakes, hanging on a thick belt.

Roth followed Kareem over the edge, then the anchorman. The kid wearing the baseball cap stayed on the rim.

Isn’t he coming? Roth shouted down to Kareem.

No. He stays there. Kareem smiled.

Why?

In case misfortunate befalls us; he can guide the next rescue team to our bodies.

To hell, you say.

But of course, Kareem called up. The crater is so large that, if we fall, even those people on the opposite rim would not spot us unless they were looking directly at this point. Even then, untrained eyes wouldn’t even see us being swallowed up. The size of the crater is very deceiving, much larger than it seems.

Once they dropped below the rim, the air was immediately still, and hot. They pulled their goggles, already fogging from condensation, down around their necks. Initially the descent was shallow, little more than a steep walk downhill, but the loose ash began giving way under their feet. Kareem descended backwards regardless, easing down with both hands as ash formed around their ankles, at times piling up around their calves, then their knees.

After thirty minutes they were maybe halfway to where Brofman’s body had been found. Soon, the angle became sharper, the footing more precarious, and they started small landslides that became larger landslides.

They stopped at this point, and the boy on anchor hammered in another spike, this one longer. He wrapped a length of rope around it and tossed this to Roth, who passed it down to Kareem.

We believe it is about here that Mr. Brofman began sliding, Kareem called.

A hundred feet deeper, he called out again: By this point, he was surely tumbling out of control.

They went deeper, easing backwards over larger rocks and boulders, which, from the rim, had looked like pebbles. Anyone’s depth perception would have betrayed him. The leather on Roth’s boots was cut, with gashes on the toes, sides, and heels–just from walking through this razor sharp magma. He picked up some ash and examined it.

Just then, a pancake of ash two hundred yards away separated from the surface and slowly began sliding past them. It cascaded over more magma and the slide grew in size and depth. The men froze and watched as dust kicked up and swirled around them. Had they descended at that spot, they’d have been carried down under tons of ash and rock into the cone. Kareem looked up at Roth, smiled stupidly. Roth’s stomach turned over at the mere thought of what could have happened. Still might happen. He realized that the long stakes they’d driven into the ash weren’t at all deep enough. How long would Kareem and these kids survive in this business?

But they continued down, using two more lengths of rope, and reached a clump of jagged boulders at a shelf some twenty feet wide. Here, a gust swirled around them,forcing them to again adjust goggles over their eyes. They waited for the wind to abate, pulled the goggles down around their necks.

Kareem stood firmly on this level space and dropped his line. He signaled that Roth could do likewise. He pointed around to the boulders where some scraps of cloth clung to a rock, flapping in the wind. Dark splotches of blood stained the ground and a large boulder.

His body stopped there, Kareem explained, pointing to the place. The level ground had finally halted Brofman’s fall. He was probably still breathing, and continued to bleed."

Roth looked back up to the rim. From where they stood, the boy waiting up there was barely a dot.

Roth wondered at what point Brofman knew he was in trouble. When he was just sliding? Or, more likely, when he began tumbling, slowly first, then picking up velocity, crashing down at forty, fifty miles an hour? His exposed flesh had looked like an anatomy class, lacerated a thousand times over.

There were bits of paper and yellow material stuck in the rocks, and cigarette butts left by the rescuers last month. Roth compared this location to the photos taken by the rescue party here at the scene. Brofman’s body had come to rest with his back crashed against the boulder, as though he was sitting peacefully, sunning himself, looking up at the rim. The death mask was gruesome: one eye looking straight on, as if in surprise, the other eye ruptured in its socket, looking down.

Roth picked up a scrap of weathered paper flapping in the wind. It was a flyer from one of the hostels, a guide to spots of interest around the area, and it carried another written warning:

‘Take all due care and caution. Under no circumstances should you descend into the crater of Mt. Bromo’

Brofman had carried his death notice down with him.

There was another bleached-out scrap at Roth’s feet. He picked that up, too. The wrapper from a pack of Rizla cigarette papers. No telling if it had been Brofman’s, but it was an easy guess that it was. Maybe the guy thought it would be hilarious to roll a joint and get stoned inside a volcano.

Roth shook his head and looked around some more. He took some photos of his own, and then they started back up. What had taken an hour coming down required six hours of slow, hard climbing back up. By the time they reached the rim, shadows poured down into half of the cone.

That evening the temperature dropped to forty degrees, and Roth relaxed with aching arms and tired shoulders in a filthy dump that passed for the village restaurant. It was crammed with backpackers. He drank room temperature beer rather than going back to his cold diggings furnished with only a bunk bed and hanging kerosene lamp, its amenities a bottle of water and a roll of toilet paper. The toilets were another bonus; communal, first-come first-served holes in concrete slabs, and a thermometer indicated that the hot water for showers got way up to sixty degrees.

The food was awful, but the freshly arrived backpackers huddled around the tables munched down mystery meat smothered in a sauce of suspicious origin, deliriously happy with roughing it. They yacked excitedly about trekking up to Bromo in the morning. Roth studied the kids at the tables, laughed to himself: whoever ran this dump knew how to separate suckers from their money. Treat ‘em like shit, overcharge for the total lack of quality, but call it atmospheric, and idiots couldn’t cram enough witless anecdotic memories into their itinerary. Morons galore.

Roth’s work often took him to five star hotels and resorts, those places where a subject stayed or a loss occurred. But it cut both ways, and to date, his worst accommodations had been in Gaya, India, in barely describable squalor costing twenty-five cents a night, shared with a breed of four-inch-long cockroach. The legs of the cot stood in buckets filled with water, or those creatures would have shared his bed. Hell, maybe they would have shared him.

Roth wanted to take some down time, maybe hop over to Bali for a few days. Wouldn’t take more than a few hours from Surabaya. But there was no time on this itinerary. There hadn’t been any down-time for the three months, in fact. He had to get up to Manila on a hospitalization claim, and then back to Bangkok before heading to China next week. That case was already late, and Nina, his next senior partner in the New York office, was bitching at him to move his butt. After China, he had to get out to Guam, and he already knew that a package with more claims had been express-mailed to his place in Bangkok.

He finished his beer, took his paperback and three more large beers to his room to drown his misery, maybe help him get chummy with the bedbugs. It would be his second night sleeping with his clothes on.

As the sun burned mist from the peaks in the morning, he drove down the mountain to Surabaya. He returned his rented vehicle and waited for the plane to Kota Kinabalu, on Borneo’s northern tip, where he’d lay over for the flight to Manila the following morning.

It was noon when he landed in Kota. He took a taxi out to the edge of Rahman National Park, where there was a pricey resort on the South China Sea. He’d sneak in a day of relaxation. Fabulous place, as cushy as the dump up at Bromo had been primitive.

He shaved and scrubbed off two days of grime, called downstairs for a massage. As was his luck, rather than receiving a sweet, young Malay, the only available masseuse was an older gal who might have been Lou Ferrigno’s stunt double. He got thumped and twisted around for an hour, then went out and slept by the pool for most of the afternoon.

Come evening, still tired and possibly dislocated, he went down to the circular bar off the lobby, straddled a barstool next to a half-dozen guys in khaki and denims who were toasting what they called a grand adventure. At closer inspection they looked like those guys he’d seen on posters, a bunch of hearties who beat the bush and seemed fond of pushing four-wheel-drives through mud, stopping occasionally to light up one of the sponsor’s cigarettes. Mostsported the trendy sculpted three-day stubble, like it was a George Michael look-alike convention. Even had a public toilet nearby.

He ordered a beer and dug into a finger bowl of cashews as a few of the adventurers looked over, nodded to the new arrival.

Roth returned acknowledgement, took a pull on his brew. How’re you doing? one guy asked.

Been better, Roth shrugged.

Which team you with?

Roth was dressed similar to these guys, but without the sponsor’s logo on everything. You mean, with your bunch?

Yeah.

Roth shook his head. Just passing through. You guys the ones who do that trek through the jungle?

It’s called ‘The Challenge’, Roger, the first guy, answered. There are different teams every year. This is my first time. Been on the waiting list for three years, and finally got my chance. Took an extra week’s vacation to fit this in.

What’s your line?

Stockbroker. Roger thumbed to the guy next to him. Josh here is an attorney. Philadelphia. And Ted’s an aerospace engineer. Phoenix. He pointed to the other guys propped up against the bar, naming them off.

At the end of the bar was an American woman. That’s Rhonda, the sponsor’s coordinator, Roger added.

Rhonda smiled, gave a mock two finger salute touching the brim of her spanking-clean baseball cap bearing the sponsor’s logo. She was thirtyish, good-looking with promising eyes. Her tan cotton safari shirt was opened to the third button, revealing a generous bit of cleavage, maybe as a reward for these guys finishing their trek. She was nursing a club soda, probably mulling over which one of these guys to take up to her room later. Looked capable of taking them all on.

Roth nodded, called down to her. Where you from?

Pittsburgh, she answered sweetly. Bubbly, actually.

Well, sign me up, Rhonda. Providing it pays well.

Pay? Roger shook his head, smiling like he had a secret. It doesn’t pay. In fact, you’ve got to carry your own expenses.

Roth screwed up his face. Let me see if I got this right: you bust your ass humping a jeep through the bush, slopping through mud and swamps and shit, making someone else’s ad, and you have to pay to do it?

That’s right. Several of the guys looked over for Roth’s approval.

Why in hell would you do that?

For the challenge. Roger thumbed to the others, who smiled down the bar at Roth. Camaraderie. We’ll be friends for life.

Challenge? Roth was incredulous. He stared at Rhonda. You people staple your logo on their foreheads, and they pay you to take their mug shots with a dozen other suits dumb enough to buy into this fantasy?

Rhonda, employed by the tobacco company, shrugged defensively. Sure, she knew these guys were stupid, but the waiting list for health-club commandos was longer than her considerably lengthy legs. So, for promotional reasons, why not tap into all that pent-up machismo and turn a tidy profit at the same time.

Roth cracked up. My clients pay me to do this kind of shit. And it was shit. Here he was, up to his crack in work and grime, jumping from one toilet to another while these guys actually paid to wallow in the mud. He shook his head and slapped the bar. What a racket. Whoever thought of this scam is one smart sonofabitch.

The group grew quiet, a few turned away, ignoring Roth. They didn’t need this. Until he’d come along, they’d been heroes, posing around their jeeps in rugged-looking safari gear, cigarettes dangling from their mouths. Good for sales. Part of the package was a waiver they signed to allow their photos in the sponsor’s ads.

Roth knocked back his beer, threw some rupiah on the bar, grabbed a last handful of cashews. He’d have his next drink by the Jacuzzi outside. A zinger came to mind: You guys won’t be buddies for life. Somewhere along the way, you’ll realize that you actually paid to peddle someone’s cigarettes. You’ll take the pictures off the wall because you won’t wanna be reminded of being idiots. He pointed to Ted, the aerospace guy. A rocket scientist should be able to figure that out.

He turned away, then back again, a canary-eating smile on his face. Saaaay, there’s this volcano over on Java whose acquaintance I recently made. How about you fellas pay me to let you climb down into it? You boys trot on over there this weekend while Miss Titsberg and I wait here, examine the true meaning of camaraderie.

Hey, fuck-off, huh, one of them snapped.

Oh, Roth exclaimed, taken aback. Your four-by-four comes equipped with a tough guy. Four-letter words to boot? Maybe we take this outside, junior? Roth flicked a cashew at the guy, bounced it off his shirt. But now that I know how this works, you gotta pay me to slap you around. No freebee bruises for the photographer.

The guy looked away and no one spoke.

Roth left the bar, laughing. He called back. Damn! Someone is one brilliant bastard. Why can’t I think of these things?

But he had nothing to be smug about. He should be in New York managing the business, not running down into volcanoes. Not exactly high IQ stuff. Roth was being a shit, and he knew it. He had no reason to pick on people because he was miserable with all this work.

Still, they were suckers, and needed to have their parade pissed on.

Chapter 2

Seoul

As Harry Koniges was finishing his coffee, a large group of arrivals came pouring into the hotel lobby. He paid his check quickly and walked from the hotel restaurant towards the revolving doors, keeping his eye on the concierge desk. A fortunate thing – a multinational computer conference. Solid. No one knew anyone else at these gatherings.

Harry mingled with the newcomers as though he were one of them. He began chatting with a Indiana distributor, watching luggage pile up around the bellhop’s station. His eyes fell on a pair of expensive matching leather suitcases whose owner went off to the men’s room. He excused himself from the Midwest hayseed, pointed out the cases to a frazzled bellhop, and instructed him to put them into a waiting taxi. Rule number one in his racket was never lay hands on target property when there was an unwitting bellhop able to do it for him.

He went outside, tipped the kid, and jumped in the back of the cab. He changed taxis a few blocks away, took the suitcases to his flophouse where people didn’t ask questions.

He dropped the cases in his room. He’d check them later. But now he needed another score. Several scores, to make up for the ten grand he’d dropped at the crap tables down in Kyongju over the weekend.

Harry was an American, a petty criminal. Scores were easy here in Asia. He boosted lockers at railway stations and bus depots, lifted whatever he could from hotel rooms, did an occasional credit-card scam. Cautious, small-time stuff. Quick, easy, low risk.

As a Westerner, he had a certain high social visibility, yet he was rarely challenged. Orientals always assumed that round-eyes were wealthy, honest, and knew what they were doing. Besides, Harry had pleasant, regular features: light-brown hair, warm brown eyes, straight teeth. A trustworthy face. His personality matched: ever-smiling, joking, teasing, flirting. He easily explained away incriminating incidents – like when he got caught with someone else’s luggage – because no one who dressed this well could possibly be a thief. He carried an assortment of business cards advertising himself as a freelance journalist, a real-estate consultant, marketing rep, anything that allowed him access to a lot of places, and while he kept a small room on a permanent basis in Taipei, he rarely stayed in one place for more than a few nights.

Currently, Harry had overstayed his visa in South Korea, but he’d get a bogus medical certificate from a small-clinic doctor, pay him to create a letter certifying hospital confinement, then Harry would report to Immigration on the way out of the country that his overstay was unavoidable. He was seldom questioned. After all, medical emergencies happened to travelers all the time.

And he never spent more than three months in any country where a visa was granted on landing, avoiding those places where it was necessary to apply for one firsthand: Vietnam, Burma, Laos, and the People’s Republic of China in particular. For one thing, visa applications left a paper trail, and for another, those were poor countries. Never steal from paupers. Moreover, he wouldn’t want to be arrested for theft in a communist state. That would mean confinement in a rat trap prison while expulsion orders were drawn up, maybe even extradition back to the States.

Harry definitely didn’t want to go back home; a one-year sentence in a re-education camp would be better than ten to twenty in a US prison. And there were some people back home who would like to talk to him. Hell, they wanted to talk to him in California, Nevada, Florida, New Jersey, and New York.

Last week he had rented lockers at Seoul Railway Station, and with his compact key-making machine, reproduced the keys, returning the