The New Recruit Test Begins
More easily than expected, the conversation had gone well.
After Song Tan went inside the building, he took the stairs up to the second floor.
The air had changed, ever so subtly.
A faint odor drifted through the hallway, as though stale cigarette smoke had been mixed with a harsh, cloying perfume.
Far down the corridor, a man was leaning against the wall.
He looked to be in his twenties, dressed in a gray hoodie.
"How did you... get here?"
The man pushed off the wall and looked Song Tan up and down.
"I came to see Flutterby. He’s in there, right?"
"Flutterby?"
The man tilted his head and squinted one eye.
"You’re not talking about our boss, are you?"
"Probably him. Tell him I’d like a word."
The man glanced toward the stairs, then asked in disbelief, "And who the hell are you?"
"Song Tan, detective with Annam West Station."
"A de-tective?"
The man’s gaze swept over him again.
This time there was less suspicion in his eyes than plain contempt.
"Hah."
He let out a derisive snort and scowled threateningly.
"You’ve really picked the wrong day, you son of a bitch."
His eyes turned cold.
"You’re that bastard they’ve been saying has been doing snatch-and-grabs around here lately, aren’t you?"
Song Tan gave a slight shrug.
"I think there’s been some misunderstanding."
"Misunderstanding, my ass. You barge in here demanding to see the boss? That’s all the proof I need."
The man had already convinced himself that Song Tan was the thief.
"You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here alone. You can recite your last words today, because you’re not leaving here in one piece."
The man in the gray hoodie was secretly thrilled.
He was going to catch the snatch-and-grabber who’d been tearing through Seongnak-dong with his own hands?
That bonus was already in the bag.
"Hey, Jeongtae. Who’s that grasshopper-looking little punk?"
Just then, three men came down the stairs and spotted the two of them in a standoff.
"Boss! Perfect timing. This bastard here’s the snatch-and-grabber who’s been stirring up trouble around here lately!"
"What?"
The expressions on the three men’s faces hardened at once.
One in front, three behind.
It was the very definition of being trapped.
"You’re dead t—"
In the blink of an eye, Song Tan had closed the distance and plunged into the gray hoodie’s guard.
"Aaaah!"
He twisted the man’s arm, then struck at his ankle and threw off his balance.
The man dropped to his knees and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Agh! My arm, you fucking bastard!!!"
Song Tan hadn’t broken it. He had only twisted the tendons and muscles to render it useless.
Of course, that kind of pain was often worse than a clean break.
"You son of a bitch."
Now that their younger brother was down, the trio charged at once, cursing viciously.
But the result was no different.
"Ugh."
Their clumsy attacks never so much as touched a hair on Song Tan’s head, and with a single twist of their tendons, the whole thing ended cleanly.
"Ghhhhh..."
"A-a ambulance! Please, just call an ambulance!"
Song Tan looked down at the four men writhing in pain on the floor, then said quietly, "This is your last warning. Go fetch Flutterby. If you don’t want both your legs the same way."
The warning was dry, emotionless.
The four men, shaking in agony, somehow found that even more frightening.
It was as though he’d really do it without a second thought, the way a child might snap a grasshopper’s legs.
"A-alright, alright! I’ll go. But first we need a hospital... ugh, it hurts... it really hurts."
The man in the gray hoodie pleaded with Song Tan, tears streaming down his face.
When Song Tan stepped closer and casually tapped one shoulder, the pain somehow became bearable.
The gray hoodie felt gooseflesh rise all over his body.
"Go on. And hurry back."
"Y-yes! I-I’m going."
Instinct told him one thing with perfect clarity.
He must never, ever fuck with that human being.
The gray hoodie took off at the fastest speed he could manage, scrambling up the stairs.
***
His name was Do Du-min. He was the man everyone called Flutterby.
On the surface, he was a respectable business owner with a legitimate event-planning company, but in the shadows he made his money arranging college girls for wealthy men and supplying women to entertainment venues.
At least in Annam City, people said that if you didn’t go through him, it was hard to make a living selling women.
That didn’t mean he was a gangster himself. He was more of a half-assed middleman, the kind who played older-brother, younger-brother with the local crews and moved among them like a parasite.
"Heh-heh-heh... my pretty little things."
Do Du-min had both feet up on his desk and was gazing at the jewelry in his hands with rapturous delight.
"Mmm, that smell... I live for you girls, I really do."
Bang!
"B-boss!!"
“Ugh.”
Startled by the sudden crash of the door, Do Du-min toppled out of his chair and landed hard on his ass.
His face, frozen in shock, slowly flushed red and then pale with rage.
"You son of a bitch!!!!!"
The deafening roar made the gray hoodie flinch.
He knew exactly how vicious Do Du-min’s temper was.
But now was not the time to worry about that.
"This isn’t the time for this! There’s chaos downstairs!"
"Huuuh... You little sh—"
Forcing down his anger, Do Du-min shoved the gold into the safe and glared at the gray hoodie.
"If this is nothing, I swear to God I’m going to kill you."
He reached into a golf bag and pulled out a club.
"T-there’s some bastard downstairs throwing a fit right now, and... he’s not normal."
"What kind of bastard has that much nerve? Does he know where he is?"
The gray hoodie left out the part where Song Tan had identified himself as a detective.
He hadn’t even considered the possibility that it might be true.
"I thought he was just some thug because he said he wanted to see you right away, but that wasn’t it."
"So what if he’s a thug? Just beat the shit out of him and send him packing. Why is this such a mess?"
"It’s... Je-pil, Jeong-gu, and Jeong-ho all got taken down by him."
"What? Is that true?"
Only then did Do Du-min’s face grow serious.
Those three had been personally brought in because they were decent with their fists.
"Is he some bum living on the streets? What does he look like?"
"I’ve never seen him before. And if he were just some hoodlum, would he really come here alone and start this kind of riot? He must know exactly who you are, boss."
That wasn’t entirely wrong.
Do Du-min made no secret of the fact that he had close ties with the local organizations that ran this area.
Once the conclusion was reached that the man was at least not a gangster, Do Du-min tightened his grip on the golf club.
"Lead the way. I’ll crush this crazy bastard myself."
In his younger days, he had done time on the streets too, and he still believed he could overpower one or two thugs with brute force. He had no hesitation.
So Do Du-min boldly headed down to the third floor.
But...
"Ugh!! S-stop! I surrender!! Aaaagh!!"
He, too, would end up rolling across the hallway floor while screaming.
"Are you Flutterby?"
"Aaaagh! It hurts! I said it hurts!!"
"If you don’t answer me properly, the pain will only get worse. For the record, I don’t joke around."
Do Du-min’s head snapped up at the flat, emotionless voice.
His voice trembled as he asked, "W-who are you?"
"Song Tan, detective with Annam West’s Violent Crimes Unit."
"A... detective!?"
Do Du-min hadn’t thought for a second that he was a cop, especially not when he looked that young.
Now that he knew the other man’s identity, however, he suddenly thought this might actually work in his favor.
"Wait, what kind of detective does this!? You come barging in here and beat an innocent man like this!? Huh!? I’m not letting this go, ever! I’ll file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, and I’ll blast this all over the media, you hear me, you fucker! I’m going to do everything I can!"
Do Du-min switched tactics and started shouting loudly, but Song Tan merely looked at him and tapped his shoulder.
Then—
"Kyaaaagh!!!"
A scream so shrill it made the blood run cold burst through the hallway.
The four burly men kneeling nearby began shaking all over.
"See? Do I look like I’m assaulting your boss right now?"
At Song Tan’s question, the four men shook their heads violently.
"N-no way! If that’s assault, then we’re basically serial killers. Absolutely."
Hadn’t they felt it themselves?
The pain had been so unbearable they’d thought they were going to die, and yet now they could rotate their arms without the slightest trouble.
It was as if they’d been possessed by a ghost, and that only deepened their fear.
"Exactly. Flutterby is awfully dramatic, isn’t he?"
Song Tan patted his shoulder twice, almost encouragingly.
Do Du-min was panting hard, staring at him with eyes full of terror.
By now, his shirt was soaked through with sweat.
"Just answer my questions. Then nothing will happen. Easy, right?"
"Y-yes, yes! I’ll do that!"
Do Du-min straightened up like a soldier on parade and nodded furiously.
"Didn’t you recently sell off a runaway high school girl? Her name was Kim Sang-mi."
"N-no?"
For an instant, Song Tan’s eyes flashed with a razor-bright light.
"Lying...?"
"I-it’s the truth! We didn’t sell her ourselves, we just introduced someone to her."
"Explain in detail."
"Th-there’s this idiot named Yong-pal who runs around with runaway kids and acts like some kind of kingpin. He’s got the Annam Sikgupa backing him, but that’s not the point. Anyway, that bastard Yong-pal asked me if I knew anywhere I could sell off a girl like that, so I really only made the introduction."
Do Du-min voiced his grievance at full length.
Then he began spilling details nobody had even asked for, without pause.
"That Yong-pal bastard is a repeat offender. With the Annam Sikgupa behind him, he lures in runaways, feeds them, lets them sleep under a roof, and quietly stacks up debt. How the hell are runaway kids supposed to pay that back? The only thing left is to work it off with their bodies."
"So where is Sang-mi now?"
"Th-that’s... a little difficult to say..."
Song Tan silently raised a hand.
"Chan-won! In Seongnam-dong, Albatross! She’ll be there! Probably!"
Terrified, Do Du-min blurted it out at once.
"Hmm..."
Song Tan held his gaze for a moment, then rose smoothly to his feet.
"Come with me."
"W-where?"
When Song Tan looked at him without speaking, Do Du-min shot to his feet.
"Right! I’ll go! I love following you around. Ha-ha..."
With a miserable look on his face, Do Du-min had no choice but to trail after Song Tan.
***
"But I swear to God! I had no idea she was underage. I’m serious. Please, save me."
The three detectives were at a loss for words as they watched Flutterby confess to the crime with his own mouth.
"Flutterby, what the hell did you eat? Why are you suddenly like this?"
"No! I lived my life wrong. Even if I was tricked, if I’d sensed something off, I should’ve called the detectives immediately. Sob... I’m truly, deeply repentant."
Watching Do Du-min go so far as to cry, the detectives were dumbfounded.
Their eyes naturally turned to Song Tan.
The look said: what the hell did you do to turn this slippery bastard into that?
Song Tan answered blandly.
"We actually communicated better than expected."
It was a completely unbelievable statement.
"Heh... Well, I’ll be damned."
The veteran detective’s dry laugh echoed inside the car.
And that was how Song Tan’s initiation into Violent Crimes came to an end.
***
A few days later. Annam West Station, Violent Crimes Team 1 office.
"Hey, Joo-ttol, they found Kim Sang-mi. She was in Chan-won, just like Flutterby said."
"Well, that’s good."
The veteran detective shot Song Tan a glance.
"Hey, rookie. That’s thanks to you. Nice work."
"Not at all. I just did what the seniors told me to do. I think I was just lucky."
As Song Tan modestly downplayed it—
"We’ll see whether it was luck or skill."
Lee Joo-seok answered for the veteran detective.
Drreek—
Lee Joo-seok opened a cabinet drawer, took something out, and tossed a photograph onto the desk.
"Starting today, you’re coming with me to catch this bastard."
"Who is he?"
"A man suspected of being a gas-delivery guy—our slang for a drug supplier. We don’t know his name, age, or anything else. All we’ve got is this one photo."
The photo looked like a CCTV capture, but the quality was so bad the face wasn’t clear at all.
All they could tell was that he was a man wearing cross-shaped earrings, looking down at his phone.
Lee Joo-seok tilted his head and asked Song Tan, "Well? Think you can catch him?"
The veteran detective listening from behind shook his head and returned to his seat.
He muttered under his breath, barely loud enough to hear, "Here we go again. That rookie-verification sickness of his. He’s going to drag some innocent kid into this too. Tsk tsk."
It was, in truth, a ridiculous mission—like finding a needle on a beach.
But Song Tan nodded without hesitation.
"I’ll give it a try."
Tracking a target from absolute nothingness was basic training for a pursuit squad, after all.