Chapter 17

[Where are you.]

Five minutes after he sent the message, the read receipt had still not appeared.

[The lecture is over, so call me.]

He typed another message and sent it. Tick, tick. While the second hand of his wristwatch moved busily, there was no reply from her.

He had been glaring at the screen, waiting only for the read receipt to appear, then clicked his tongue low.

As if he had known this would happen, he shook his head inwardly.

He typed a new sentence and sent it.

[I’m coming that way now, so call me when you see this.]

He refused to wait any longer. If she would not answer the phone, he could simply go find her himself.

Leaving the lecture hall, Iheon did not stop by the faculty office and headed straight for the parking lot. His steps cut through the damp air peculiar to underground parking without hesitation.

Once in the car, Iheon mounted his phone on the holder and started the engine right away. As he fastened his seatbelt and reached to shift the gear from P, the phone rang.

It was Jei.

The woman who had stayed silent while he waited miserably for half a year had called the moment he decided not to wait anymore.

It was an absurd coincidence. One corner of his tightly shut lips pulled crookedly.

Iheon stared at his wife’s name on the screen, then pressed the call button. From the phone switched to speaker mode, Jei’s slightly breathless voice flowed out.

—Oh, Iheon. I just saw your message. Where are you?

She asked first the very question he wanted to ask.

“Where are you?”

—Me? I’m near the building we went to yesterday……. Let’s see, where is this……

As if looking around, Jei changed her words.

—No. The streets here are narrow, so it’d be hard for a car to get in. Should I come to where you are?

“I’m already on my way.”

—Then should I come to where we parked yesterday? How long will it take?

“Thirty minutes.”

—Okay. I’ll go first and wait, so see you soon.

The call was short enough to make the fact that she had been gnawing at his nerves all day seem pointless.

Iheon took his foot off the brake. The car, letting out a low engine hum, quickly left the underground parking lot.

* * *

The passenger door opened, and the sweltering outside air rushed in all at once.

As soon as Jei sat down, she placed the bag on her shoulder onto her lap and fanned herself with a neatly straightened hand.

“Ugh, I thought I was going to die of heat.”

Perhaps she had been walking around for quite a while, because her cheeks were red and sweat stood in beads on her forehead. Still, her expression was bright.

When he met her, he had intended to press her on why she had not answered the phone again, but seeing her face flushed red from the heat, the words disappeared.

Instead of demanding an explanation, Iheon raised the strength of the air conditioning.

“Now I feel like I’m alive.”

After the heat that had burned her face gradually subsided, Jei took a notebook from her bag.

“First, what I found out at the real estate office.”

The open notebook was packed with hastily scribbled writing.

“They said redevelopment approval came through around this time last year, so the building was left empty. But it seems there was some friction between the building owner and the business operator on the first basement floor.”

Iheon raised an eyebrow as if to tell her to continue.

“It seems the person who actually ran the shop and the person who signed the lease contract were different.”

“And?”

“The building owner naturally paid the compensation to the lessee who was the contracting party, but that person wiped his mouth clean and vanished?”

When the actual operator found out, he supposedly threw a fit, asking why the money had been given to some unrelated bastard, and dug in, saying he would never leave.

Since the building had to be emptied before demolition could begin, he must have thought that if he held out to the end, he would eventually get money too.

“Even after the building owner filed an eviction suit, the man who had been holding out suddenly closed the shop and disappeared.”

Leaving all the fixtures and furniture behind.

“It seems they couldn’t demolish carelessly because the things inside the shop were still there. If he suddenly reappeared later and clung to them claiming his fixtures had been damaged, it would be a headache. From the building owner’s side, it was unsettling too.”

“So did you find out the name of the actual operator?”

“The real estate owner contacted the building owner and asked for me.”

Name, Shin Gyeongho, age mid-forties.

“They said he isn’t very tall, but his neck is thick and he looks rough and bulky.”

“Any other unusual details?”

“They said one ear was blunt and lumpy, like chewed and spat-out gum.”

It sounded like cauliflower ear.

“More like wrestling than judo, maybe.”

“Can you infer that just from the shape of an ear?”

“Not exactly. It commonly happens to judo, jiu-jitsu, and mixed martial arts athletes too. But if he’s short, thick-necked, and has a developed upper body, that’s closer to a wrestler’s build.”

Iheon asked if there happened to be any CCTV or photos. Jei shook her head and said she had instead gotten Shin Gyeongho’s phone number from the building owner.

She showed him the phone number written in her notebook.

Iheon entered the eleven digits beginning with 010 into his phone and pressed the call button.

If Shin Gyeongho was the first demon, the call would not connect.

Sure enough, only the kind voice of an automated message flowed out, saying the customer’s phone was turned off and the call could not be connected.

“Do you know exactly when contact was cut off?”

“According to the building owner, at first the signal still went through, but from about four months ago, the phone was completely off.”

Four months ago.

Iheon engraved that point in his mind.

If Shin Gyeongho was one of the three demons Muerte had killed, the time his phone went off was highly likely to overlap with the time he was murdered.

“Instead, this.”

Jei held out a business card she had tucked into her notebook. It was a card with a gold logo on a black background.

On the back, beneath the shop name 【Bar. Stella】, was a name that was clearly a stage name, along with a phone number.

“Who is this?”

“The card of a girl who used to work at that shop.”

“Where did you get this?”

“I was walking around this area and went into a hangover soup place that’s open twenty-four hours. While asking the auntie working there this and that, I stumbled onto this.”

“…….”

“It seems he used to come to that hangover soup place after work. One day he said he’d moved shops and asked her to spread his contact around if any customers were looking for a bar, leaving a tip and a few business cards.”

He must have searched through the drawer to find it for her. Jei said the real one was this card, her face full of pride.

“How about it? I’m pretty good on my own, aren’t I? Do you trust me a little now?”

Unaware that his insides had nearly been turned over while she wandered around without a single call, she sparkled her eyes and looked triumphant.

“Ha.”

Iheon let out a hollow laugh and lightly tapped the steering wheel with the edge of the card.

“What. What kind of reaction is that?”

“I was just wondering what on earth my wife, who carries her phone as a mere accessory, was doing out there……”

He scanned the card in his hand once more and added low.

“I was admiring you because the results were quite useful.”

* * *

A blue dusk was settling over the avenue. The high-rise buildings with marble exteriors lit up one by one, shining brightly beneath the fading sky.

Bar Stella was located in one of those newly built high-rises, completed not long ago.

The revolving door at the center of the building led to the office lobby, and at the far left was a separate entrance leading directly to the shop.

There was no signboard. All there was was a single gold star set above the entrance and the word “Stella” engraved below it in cursive.

It was an exterior that seemed to say only those who knew what this place was should come looking.

Before coming here, Iheon and Jei had first called the owner of the business card.

The woman, who had answered warmly, thinking they were customers, changed her attitude the moment Shin Gyeongho’s name came up. The laughter vanished at once from her smoothly flowing voice.

She did not deny knowing him. She simply said she detested being dragged into troublesome matters and tried to hurry off the phone.

After persistent persuasion, the two finally extracted a promise to meet.

Of course, her time was not given for free.

The condition was that they would request “Somi” by name, seat her at a table, and order a whiskey set sold at the shop.

“We open at eight, so come after that. It’d be even better if you don’t come.”

8:30 p.m.

They visited the bar after the rush of the opening, leaving some leeway.

When they pulled open the heavy, thick door, classical jazz with a striking cello line greeted them.

Unlike the restrained exterior, the interior was extravagant. In the center of the ceiling, which opened two stories high, dozens of crystal chandeliers hung down.

Each time the glass ornaments holding the soft light sparkled like jewels, finely broken light wavered over the deep navy walls and red velvet sofas.

Famous paintings hung here and there, and brass wall lamps brought to mind a European theater from a century ago.

At the far end of the hall, a long bar made of black marble sat like a stage. Behind it, a display case reaching to the ceiling filled one whole wall.

Every shelf was packed with bottles of different shapes and colors. From amber whiskey to clear gin and deep blue liqueur. The bottles, penetrated by the indirect lighting behind them, shone brilliantly like crystal.

Even though it sold the same alcohol, the atmosphere was completely different from the underground establishment Shin Gyeongho had run.

Here, even vulgar desire seemed to be wrapped as an expensive ornament and put on display.

Perhaps because business had only just begun, there were still many empty seats in the hall. There were only two customers seated side by side at the bar and a group occupying the sofa seats deeper inside.

Conversations carried on in quiet voices and the clear sound of glasses with ice clinking occasionally seeped through the jazz music.

The two stood at the entrance for a moment and looked around the hall. Soon a staff member dressed in a black suit approached without a sound and bowed.