Aftermath
Gijo did not try to stop Hansu as he tore past with a bow in one hand and arrows in the other. There was room in him for only one thought: Ma-ryang and the men had to live.
Hansu's mind must have been the same. The instant the man with the gun came into view, he drew without a hitch and sent three arrows flying, one after another.
While they were in the air, the world seemed to slow. They rose in a long arc and buried themselves in the man's back, the way iron leaps to a magnet. He went down, and time found its proper pace again.
Gijo ran first to where Ma-ryang and the crew were and took the situation in hand.
"Anyone hurt?"
By then Taesik had already come around and was piecing the scene together. Ma-ryang ran a quick eye over him and answered.
"All of them, safe."
"Good. You all came through it. Thank you."
Once he was sure no one was injured, Gijo gave the men a word of encouragement and went straight to Hansu. The moment he did, every department head of Cheongsan drew in around them—Ma-ryang, Seogwang, Seok-mun, Dae-ik, Hyeon-su, Wang-chul, and Hansu. For the first time, Cheongsan's seven department heads stood together in one place. Oh Yang-soo, come late at the wheel of a jeep, joined them.
They all knew why Gijo had gone to Hansu. The man in real trouble now was Hansu. Put an arrow in a man and fall into police hands, and the punishment would be a heavy one. Hansu had to be gotten clear first.
Gijo took the jeep key from Yang-soo, pressed it into Hansu's hand, and said,
"Manager Shim, get out of Busan. Not Seoul. Go wherever you have to, lie low, and send word."
Hansu understood. As he took the key and a little cash, Wang-chul spoke.
"Go to Daegu."
"Daegu?"
"Yeah. Hold on."
Wang-chul pulled the notebook and pencil from his breast pocket and wrote out an address.
"Find Yun Mal-ja and tell her I sent you. She's got an empty room. And tell her mother you're a friend of the son-in-law."
"Son-in-law?"
Hansu asked. Gijo and every other man there stared at Wang-chul. They had all believed he was unmarried.
Feeling their eyes, Wang-chul laughed.
"My girl's mother took a liking to me, so she calls me her son-in-law. Ha ha. We aren't married yet."
They nodded at that. But Ma-ryang objected.
"Daegu's too near Busan. Somewhere else'd be better, I'm thinking."
Almost before the words were out, Wang-chul said,
"Then go to Gunsan! Hold on."
He wrote another name and address in the notebook.
"Find Kim Seon-ae. She's got a spare room too. Tell her mother I sent you, and say you'll be imposing for a few days."
Once again every man present turned to look at Wang-chul.
"She's just a close friend."
While the rest of them tried to imagine the life Wang-chul must be leading, Gijo spoke.
"Manager Shim, Gunsan will do. Call the moment you arrive."
"Yes, sir. I'll phone the Seoul office as soon as I'm there."
"Don't linger."
Hansu ran for the jeep and turned the engine over. Gijo, the six department heads, and Oh Yang-soo set about putting the scene to rights. Wang-chul gathered the trucks loaded with beer and made for the 55th Quartermaster Depot, while the other managers rounded up the transport men—clubs still in their fists—together with the gangsters they had put down.
Gijo and Ma-ryang looked over Jeon Hyeong-san, the vice-boss, lying where the arrows had dropped him. He was a vicious man, but whether he lived or died would decide Hansu's fate. Face-down with three arrows in him, Hyeong-san could not so much as stir.
Ma-ryang studied where the shafts had struck and whispered at Gijo's ear.
"Luck was with him. Both shoulders and the left side. Living won't be any trouble."
Gijo met his eye and nodded, and Ma-ryang went to the man and drew the arrows out of his body.
"Aaagh!"
Each time one came free, Hyeong-san screamed, unable to bear it. Ma-ryang snapped off the heads, kept those, and flung the wooden shafts into the flames roaring over the bus. The evidence went with them.
Gijo took out a handkerchief, picked up the revolver Hyeong-san had dropped, wrapped it, and slipped it into his pocket. While Ma-ryang staunched the wounds, Gijo stood over the man's head.
"Would you like it going around the Busan streets that you went down with a gun in your hand, full of arrows?"
"What are you talking about... I never held a gun..."
Cold sweat pouring off him, Hyeong-san glared up.
"Then the gun in my pocket isn't yours."
"Never seen it in my life..."
"Good. Then this is what we tell the police. You never drew a gun, and we never put an arrow in you."
"Well, obviously..."
Proud to the bone, Hyeong-san agreed. Three hundred gangsters failing to put down a civilian transport crew of fifty was shame enough on the Busan streets. If word also got out that he had stood there with a revolver and been dropped by arrows, the disgrace would be the kind a man does not live down. He meant to keep what pride he still had as a gangster.
"Your trucks burned, and our bus burned. Let's not reckon the losses against each other."
"Fine..."
"I don't know how far up you stand, but if there's a man above you, tell him to come to Cheongsan Shipping."
"Tell him not to come and he'll come looking all the same..."
"Understood. We'll be waiting."
When the talk was done, Ma-ryang shouted at the gangsters they had subdued.
"Take your boss! Get him to a hospital now and he won't die, so move!"
Four of them rose. Watching the club-wielding transport men for any sign of trouble, they came up to the vice-boss, got him under the arms, and hauled him off.
"Send the gangsters home before the police get here. You take the men and start for Seoul."
"Oughtn't I to stay, hyung?"
Ma-ryang told him of the talk with the mobile-squad commander and said he himself would answer for having ordered the Molotovs. He was afraid that otherwise Gijo would end up bearing the whole affair.
"It's all right. The police aren't going to admit firebombs were flying around out here."
Gijo smiled, meaning to set him at ease.
"I know Busan. Settle the men up top and the rest of them will write it off as if it never happened."
"You sure you can handle all the cleanup alone, hyung?"
"Of course. Just trust me and President Oh. Go on, quick, before the police show."
A fire engine was already nosing into the rotary.
"Aye, hyung. I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what! I told you to go. Wait a while at the Daegu lodgings for now. I'll send Manager Ko Wang-chul there."
Ma-ryang gave Gijo a deep bow and turned to the transport crew. He broke up the gangsters, loaded the men onto the trucks that carried no beer, and climbed into Truck No. 2. From the trucks, he and the crew bowed their heads to Gijo and to those left at the rotary—Yang-soo, Seogwang, Seok-mun, Dae-ik, and Hyeon-su. Gijo and the others waved them on their way.
"All right. Shall we head for the 55th Quartermaster Depot? We'll see Ko Wang-chul off, and the Busan side has work to do."
Gijo set off on foot with the four of them toward the depot, three kilometers off. The onlookers blocking the road split down the middle and opened a path for his party.
At the 55th Quartermaster Depot, Gijo offered not a word of excuse for the twelve hundred bottles of beer lost. He simply said he would make them good. The contract left him no choice. Dealing with the U.S. Army, Cho Choong-hoon had done as he always did: if a beer shipment failed, the goods were to be compensated in full, in cash. Gijo carried out the terms without a murmur.
Coming out of the American office, he spoke to Wang-chul, who had been waiting.
"The trucks that were bound for Masan, and the men from the rotary, will be waiting at the Daegu lodgings. Join them and go straight through to Seoul."
"Yes, sir."
"And once you're in Seoul, split up the trucks and the men. They can't all sit in the yard the way they are."
He was speaking against whatever might come next.
"Understood, sir. But the cleanup—how are you going to..."
Wang-chul was worried for him too.
"You're confident enough when it comes to cleaning up your own affairs with women, aren't you?"
Gijo poked him squarely in that tender spot, and Wang-chul scratched his head, sheepish.
"Understood, sir. I'll be going, then."
Wang-chul led the trucks out of the 55th Quartermaster Depot.
With the whole transport crew sent off toward Seoul, Gijo was walking for the main gate of the American post when a U.S. military police officer came up to him.
"I'm sorry about earlier. We had orders to keep, same as anyone..."
Gijo had no wish to make an issue of the military police having refused to help.
"I understand."
The officer offered his hand.
"I don't work the transport side, but I've never seen men like you. You actually punched through a place that was a battlefield."
"For Koreans, getting through each day is a war. It isn't over yet."
The officer nodded. As a mark of respect, he opened the main gate himself so Gijo could pass.
Stepping through, Gijo felt light. Losing one truck stung, but no one had been hurt, and losing twenty percent of the beer was something he could accept. He had judged an overland haul to be all but impossible. He had braced himself to lose every bottle Ma-ryang's team was carrying, and instead they had held on to all they could. He did not think they could have done better.
Oh Yang-soo, Kim Seogwang, Oh Seok-mun, Seong Dae-ik, and Jeon Hyeon-su were waiting outside the gate. Seogwang came hurrying up first, his step hitching.
"Did your business go all right, sir?"
When Gijo explained, Seogwang's face flushed scarlet and he fumed.
"Oh, for—! Those stiff-necked bastards. A mess like this breaks over us, and they still mean to collect their damages?"
"Manager Kim, the Americans know perfectly well how we got that shipment through. We have to show them we keep a contract."
"Ah, I know that. Even so, it's too much to swallow..."
He was so choked with the unfairness of it that his eyes had gone red. Gijo patted him on the back and turned to Dae-ik.
"Dae-ik. I told them we'd pay the U.S. Eighth Army for those twelve hundred bottles by four o'clock today. I also said I want the hauling fee in full. The men suffered too much. If we took only what was left after they deducted the lost beer, it would be too bitter a thing. We collect our fee as our fee, and what we owe, we pay back apart from it."
At that, Dae-ik's eyes reddened too.
"Yes, sir."
Gijo turned a small smile on Hyeon-su.
"Hyeon-su. Is the work coming along?"
"Yes. Thanks to Manager Oh, the real knot has come loose."
"All I did was make the stone cauldrons. The work was yours, all of it," Oh Seok-mun said, abashed.
"I only got to Busan a few days ago, and I still haven't seen the stone cauldrons Manager Oh made. Once this is all settled, I'll come by the plant."
"Take your time, sir."
Seok-mun looked at Gijo with a pang of pity. He was not the only one. The other three department heads, and Oh Yang-soo with them, watched Gijo fighting on alone, respect and an ache of sympathy mingled in their eyes. Even under those looks, Gijo smiled as brightly as ever.
"You've all worked hard. I'm sorry for it, but we'll have to part here for today. Once this affair is finished, I'll come to the plant."
He sent the four department heads back to the seasoning plant, then set off with Yang-soo for the Cheongsan Shipping office. The moment they arrived, Gijo went to the telephone and gave Choong-hoon the news. When Choong-hoon had heard how the beer was delivered and what had been done in its wake, he spoke.
"Thank God nobody was hurt. And you did right, getting Manager Jang and Manager Shim clear."
He, too, was worried for the pair who had thrown Molotovs and loosed a bow in Busan.
"I'll come down to Busan tomorrow myself. I can't leave you to clean up a mess like this alone."
"It's all right, hyung. You ought to stay in Incheon."
"No. The work here is as good as finished. I'll bring someone who can help. Tell me not to come and I'm coming anyway."
"Thank you, hyung."
"Gijo, we pulled it off. Four thousand eight hundred bottles, Incheon all the way to Busan—because it was us. There isn't a firm in the Republic of Korea that could have done what we did!"
Gijo was grateful to him for the bracing.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
"Right. Tomorrow, then. It's hard, but hang on a little longer."
"I'm all right, hyung."
"All right, he says! I hear you. Wait for me."
When the call ended, Oh Yang-soo spoke.
"I'll run out to Seomyeon Rotary and back. Got to haul off that burned bus and see the fire crew."
"I'd be grateful, hyung."
"If anything comes up, you tell Secretary Kim who you're meeting and where you're going before you leave. I won't be long."
Yang-soo pressed the point and went out. After he had gone, Gijo lifted the receiver again.
The police, the fire station, the gangsters, city hall. Facing all four alone was more than his own strength could manage. He needed a man who could stand up to every one of them. He gave the operator the name and waited for the other party to come on the line.
A moment later, a familiar voice sounded in the receiver.
"Mr. Lee! What's the matter? Calling on this Kim Doo-han himself! Hahaha!"
At the sound of Kim Doo-han's voice, the strength welled up in him like a spring.