9. Inspector Park Min-jae (1)

First love, first time, first murder.

A person's firsts are always special. And I was no exception.

Resonance of Sin steals glimpses into other people's lives. And the way it does so is nothing like watching a film or a drama on TV — it carries an immersion, a sense of oneness, as if I myself had become the victim.

That, presumably, was why I'd reacted with such ferocity toward Bae Do-hyun, the first person I had ever used it on. At least for a few moments there, I was Eun-ji.

Which was also why I could still call to mind the face of the policeman, Park Min-jae.

"We just have some bad history."

"Fucking pig bastard," Yoo Dong-cheol spat. "Man didn't stumble into dirty work — he went around handpicking the worst of it everywhere he went."

"So where do I find this guy right now? As quietly as possible."

"Quietly, huh..."

Yoo Dong-cheol mulled it over before opening his mouth. "But why's it gotta be quiet? You ripped a steel door off its hinges earlier, and then there's — this. This arm. One look at that and it's obvious you're a straight-up monster. Someone built like you could just tail the guy and cave his skull in somewhere nobody's around. What's with the roundabout approach?"

I shook my head at the loan shark's brainless suggestion. "Do you have any idea how many CCTV cameras are strung up across South Korea?"

"Beats me. A few hundred thousand, maybe?"

"Public institutions and local governments alone have more than 1.6 million. Add in the private ones hanging on shops, apartment blocks, and walk-ups, and you're looking at a minimum of 16 million nationwide. In Seoul and the capital region, a blind spot doesn't exist — not from the mouth of an alley to the end of it. Walk down any street, and the camera looking down at you changes every three seconds. You follow?"

Yoo Dong-cheol came back at me with a dumb look on his face. "Still, if you jam a cap down low and cover your face with a mask or something—"

"You think covering your face settles it? And where, exactly, do you plan to take off the cap and the mask? The second anyone sticks to you from the moment you step out wearing them and starts tracing your route, the whole thing comes apart — guaranteed. And you want to know what's even scarier?"

I pointed past the officetel window, at the cars streaming down the road. "Every single one of those is a CCTV camera on wheels."

"Dash cams?"

"Dash cams. South Korea has over 25 million registered vehicles, and ninety percent of them are rolling with always-recording units. So you got lucky and found a CCTV blind spot? You think there won't be a single car parked in that alley? Even if the cops do nothing but sweep the dash cam footage from every vehicle parked there, your route is getting traced. Every single time."

Not the sort of thing a third-rate hoodlum who'd spent his life playing along the margins of the law had ever once considered.

Yoo Dong-cheol pushed back anyway. "But in the movies they always slip away somehow. And by your logic, this country's clearance rate should be a hundred percent — and it isn't, is it?"

"That's a manpower problem."

"A manpower problem?"

"Do you have any idea how much crime there is in South Korea? There simply isn't the time or the budget to catch every petty offender dumped on them each day — and every one of them means paperwork on top of that. So no, the clearance rate falling short of a hundred percent isn't a matter of 'ability.' It's a matter of 'manpower.'"

I tapped Park Min-jae's face on the monitor with my index finger. "But an active-duty violent crimes detective getting abducted by an unknown assailant? By brute force, at that? I promise you, they'll run the man down even if it means grinding hundreds of investigators at the regional agency into the dirt. However strong I might be, a bullet puts me down like anyone else. So where brains can do the job, you use brains."

"Ha, you sly son of a bitch. Smart. I'll give you that."

"If you get it, quit flapping your gums and give me Park Min-jae's routine. You've clearly thought this through and scouted somewhere already."

Yoo Dong-cheol hesitated for a moment before finally speaking. "Ah, this is gonna drive me insane. You never — and I mean never — tell anyone you heard this from me."

Scowling, he worked the mouse on his laptop. A satellite map filled the screen: the blocks behind Bupyeong Station's north plaza, cheap multi-unit housing and nightlife dives tangled together in a chaotic sprawl.

"This is a spot the violent crimes boys out of Bucheon watch his back for. He stops by every Thursday to make his collections..." His voice dropped. "Truth is, my own boss is with this crowd."

"Your boss?"

"Yeah. The Sikgu gang in Bucheon. They're nothing like neighborhood punks like me. Real organized crime — they keep knife men on the payroll."

"Organized crime with knife men?"

I glanced sideways at the shattered fire door.

"I mean, sure, you'll be fine — you're a monster. But I'm not, you know. You go in there, and it's obvious you're gonna paint the place red again. Even one syllable of my name slips out, and I'm a dead man."

"Don't worry. That won't happen."

"Right. I totally believe you."

Yoo Dong-cheol zoomed in on the satellite map. "Here."

"CCTV?"

"You think they'd have any? That's the office of gangster punks running an underage prostitution ring. Like they'd leave evidence of their crimes lying around? One fake camera bolted over the building entrance and that's it — the third-floor interior and the fire-exit stairwell have had their lines ripped out entirely. Park Min-jae doesn't want footage of himself taking bribes either, so whenever he comes around, he deliberately takes the dark alley by the fire exit, where there are no cameras. Far as I can tell, if you want to catch him without getting caught, that's the one and only spot..."

Yoo Dong-cheol was still trembling uneasily, his broken wrist shaking.

"Car model and plate number."

"Black Grandeur IG. Long-term rental with one of those rental-company 'Heo' plates. Number's 382 Heo 91X8."

Once I'd committed every line of the notepad to memory, I rose from the chair without a backward glance. "That's me done, then. Get that wrist seen to. And live an honest life — unless you want to see me again."

"Fuck's sake, 'live an honest life'... Who does this guy think he is, some apostle of justice? What, why not go the whole hog — slap on a mask and throw a cape over your shoulders while you're at it?"

With Yoo Dong-cheol's quiet grumbling trailing after me, I stepped out through the gap where the door lock had been torn away.

The night sky was sinking into darkness. Then a thought brushed briefly through my mind — wouldn't doing this with an actual mask on be a little safer?

Fzzt, fzz-fzzt. A lone streetlight, its filament worn down to the end of its life, sputtered with irregular flashes.

"Ha. You bastards. The least you could do is file a complaint with the district office and get the damn thing replaced, promptly, every time. Gangster punks — ignorant to the last."

Park Min-jae cut the engine, stepped out of the car, and strode boldly into the back alley. He'd come and gone this way so many times now he could have walked it with his eyes closed.

He took the fire escape at the rear of the building up to the third floor. The back door — always locked without fail on any ordinary day — swung open as naturally as if it had been expecting him.

"Boss!! You're here, Boss!!"

"Since when am I your Boss, you gangster punk? Forget it. Where's Boss Kang, and why are you the one standing around here?"

"Ah, a slight problem came up on the second ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠floor, so he stepped down for a moment."

"A problem?"

"Nothing serious — just some troublemaker showed up, is all."

"Ha... Min-u. Let's keep things clean, all right? You know a needless commotion just makes life exhausting for the both of us. The money? Don't tell me I'm supposed to stand around waiting until he's done sorting out whatever that is and comes back up."

"Aigoo, no way, sir. It's all prepared, right here."

"I don't even need to count it, do I? I'll trust you and be on my way, then?"

Detective Park opened the door and left.

"Hey. He gone?"

"Yes, Boss. He's gone."

"Ha, that motherfucker, honestly. His manners get worse every damn time."

"Want us to bury him somewhere quiet?"

"Don't spout that lunatic shit, you punk. There are people standing behind that bastard. Quit running your mouth and go do some actual work."

On his way down the stairs, sneaking a feel of the thick envelope tucked inside his jacket, the corners of Park Min-jae's mouth curled into a smirk. None of this money was his whole share, of course — to Park Min-jae, it was little more than crumbs falling off someone else's table. But crumbs were still something. And more than that: holding a line like this meant that in time, he too could climb to a position where he'd sit back and collect without lifting a finger.

The flickering streetlight was still sputtering away, irregular as ever.

Far down the alley, an orange light blinked once over the sleek hood of the black Grandeur.

It was the very instant Park Min-jae moved to fish his car keys out of his pocket.

"Detective Park Min-jae?"

From one corner of the alley, out of the deep shadow behind the garbage bins, a low, dry voice dropped out of nowhere. In that instant, Park Min-jae's body locked up on pure instinct. Six years on the violent crimes squad had honed a sharp edge, and that edge was howling an alarm. He eased the hand bound for his pocket back out and carried it slowly toward the collapsible baton holstered on his other hip.

"Who's there."

When he saw the figure slowly slicing through the alley's thick darkness, a curse burst out of Park Min-jae before he could stop it.

"Ha, shit. What the hell kind of dumbass is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this supposed to be?"

Maybe five-foot-nine. A slight build. A black hoodie yanked down low. And on top of it all, a dirt-cheap mask like something out of a kindergarten party. It was so brazenly suspicious it nearly wrung a hollow laugh out of him.

"The world's a scary place these days."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean all of a sudden?"

"Even with the people's righteous cudgel in bed with gangsters and pocketing envelopes, they don't know the meaning of shame."

"Ha, you little shit. I don't know what gutter rat sent you or how you found me, but you touch me and this gets very big, very fast. So walk away while I'm still being nice about it. If it's the cops who catch you, count yourself lucky. See those gangster punks up there? They'll come down, sink you deep off the Incheon coast, and nobody will ever find so much as your corpse."

"That's what I pay my taxes for, though. Finding things like that."

"Taxes, my ass. I've never once met a punk who talks like that and actually pays them."

Click.

Park Min-jae drew the collapsible baton from his hip and snapped it open.

"Final warning. For real this time. I'm going to count to exactly three. If you're gone by then, we'll all pretend this never happened."

"On—"

Before a single number had left his mouth, the man in the cheap mask vanished from Park Min-jae's sight.

Crack!!

"AAAAGGGHHH!!!"

Park Min-jae's right arm — the one still gripping the baton — bent in a direction arms were never meant to bend. The baton rolled limply across the ground. He instinctively thrust out his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠left hand for the gas pistol tucked inside his jacket, but it was useless.

WHAM!!

The hand that seized Park Min-jae by the collar drove him bodily into the wall of the building — an impact violent enough to shudder the thick concrete. Park Min-jae felt every last trace of air leave his lungs in a single beat.

"Kghah—..."

Tears, snot, spit. Every opening on his face was leaking moisture at once.

"Shh! You'll wake the whole neighborhood. Quiet, now."

A hard hand clamped over Park Min-jae's mouth. This was not a human grip. It felt like having his face ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠locked in the jaws of some massive machine — a force no body that size could ever produce. No. Forget size. This was not a human being's strength at all.

And in that moment—

Vision warped.

The flickering orange glow of the streetlight vanished into pitch-black darkness, and at the end of that darkness appeared the face of Park Min-jae — a face so savage and vile that the sniveling wretch of the present would have been beyond imagining.

— End of Inspector Park Min-jae (1) —