Chapter 18

“Do you have a reservation, sir?”

The staff member asked politely.

When they said they had come to see “Somi,” he told them to follow him, as if he had been informed in advance.

He guided them to a sofa table somewhat removed from the central hall.

Tall planters and translucent partitions had been placed between the tables so that the eyes of the neighboring seats could not reach them.

“Somi, your reserved guests have arrived.”

As Iheon and Jei sat down, the man called for “Somi” through the radio microphone on his lapel. Then he left a polite greeting and withdrew.

Before long, the sharp sound of high heels came from the other side of the hall.

Click-clack, click-clack.

A woman in a red tube-top mini dress was crossing between the tables.

The dress clung tightly to her body, revealing without filter her full figure and smooth, shapely legs.

She was not especially tall, but the dangerously high heels and her upright posture made her look far larger than she was.

Somi seemed to have recognized the two from a distance and walked straight over. Even so, she quickly swept over Iheon and Jei’s faces and attire.

Her gaze paused briefly, in particular, on Iheon’s wristwatch. In that short moment, Somi seemed to estimate its value and pulled up one corner of her red lips.

Stopping before the table, Somi used the small microphone at the chest of her tube-top dress to place an order first.

“Bring one bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue here and some fruit.”

She did not even ask their opinion. Then, as if to say they could surely afford a price like this, she winked one eye at Iheon.

“By the way, what are you two to each other?”

“Does that matter?”

When Iheon asked indifferently, Somi shrugged.

“If I sit down however I like and get my hair grabbed, what then? Do you know how many tens of thousands of won this hair cost at the salon?”

Instead of Iheon, who kept his mouth shut tight, Jei answered.

“We’re married.”

“Married? Really?”

Somi’s eyes went wide, then she burst out with a puff of laughter.

“You do realize this is a really funny situation, right? Why would a married couple come looking for trash like Shin Gyeongho?”

“Let’s talk in detail once we’re seated.”

“Hmm—.”

Somi narrowed her eyes and briefly weighed the two of them, then plopped down beside Jei.

“That oppa looks like the type who’d get tired if I tried to talk to him, so I’ll sit next to you, unnie.”

She said it like a joke, but the laughter had already disappeared from Somi’s eyes. Then, lifting her chin high, she asked bluntly.

“That bastard, he’s dead, isn’t he?”

Iheon slowly straightened from where he had been leaning loosely against the back of the sofa. Rather than the question itself, interest stirred in his eyes as he tried to gauge where the certainty in Somi’s tone came from.

There was no ordinary anxiety or fear on the face of the person asking whether he was dead.

What could be read on her face was closer to anticipation.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

As a short silence followed, Somi looked back and forth between them.

“So he really is dead?”

The two still did not answer.

But to Somi, their silence alone seemed enough.

Her eyes, busy moving between Iheon and Jei, turned toward empty space, and her red-painted lips twisted.

“Kik……”

Somi lowered her head and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked as if trying to hold back laughter, but before long her slender shoulders began to shake.

“Haha, hahaha!”

Unable to hold it in in the end, the woman clutched her stomach and burst into loud laughter.

It was too high and sharp to blend with the jazz melody, and even the customers at the far tables turned to look this way.

Yet Somi could not stop laughing. She laughed for a long while, until tears formed at the corners of her eyes.

She looked less like someone who had heard a funny story and more like someone who had received long-awaited, welcome news.

“Wow. That son of a bitch really is dead.”

Her voice, soaked in laughter, split strangely.

Iheon watched Somi quietly. The more her laughter was exaggerated, the colder his eyes became. His face seemed more curious about why she rejoiced so much than about why she had guessed Shin Gyeongho’s death.

“Ah, you fucking bastard. If you were going to die like that, you should have paid me what I earned before you died. He spent a generous sum on his funeral money.”

After a while, when her laughter subsided, Somi caught her quickened breath. Then, roughly wiping her tear-smudged makeup with her fingers, she asked.

“How did he die?”

The corner of her mouth still held traces of laughter.

“Was he stabbed?”

“I never said he was dead.”

The low, indifferent voice cut off the lingering laughter at once.

Somi’s smile froze awkwardly. The fingertips wiping the moisture at the corners of her eyes stopped as they were.

“What? Then you’re saying he isn’t dead?”

“Who knows. I haven’t confirmed it with my own eyes.”

“Ah, jeez, you’re confusing people. So is he dead or not?”

“I’m curious about that too. Why you, on what grounds, judge that Shin Gyeongho is dead.”

Somi blinked. Her lips, parted in bewilderment, soon curled crookedly upward.

“What grounds? A man who was doing business just fine closed his shop one day and vanished, and now complete strangers come looking for him……”

“You asked if he was stabbed to death, didn’t you? Of course one could think he’s dead. But an ordinary death and a murder are far too different.”

“That’s because! If that bastard died, there’s no way he died peacefully!”

“So I’m asking why you think that.”

Somi narrowed her eyes. Her face seemed to be belatedly retracing what she had just said.

Just then, a cart loaded with liquor and fruit came through beyond the partition. As the staff member set the snacks on the table, Somi, as if she had been waiting, picked up the bottle first.

With practiced hands, she pulled the cork and poured generously into the on-the-rocks glass before her, as if tipping it over.

“You must be quite the fine gentleman, the way you nitpick every little word. Why? Are you afraid I might have stabbed him to death?”

Somi, glaring at Iheon with eyes full of complaint, emptied the deep amber liquid without once furrowing her brow.

“Anyone who knew that bastard would all react the same way.”

She set the glass down with a clack.

“People he cheated out of money, people he beat, people dragged around because he had a hold on them. Grab anyone and ask. How many people would be surprised if you said Shin Gyeongho was stabbed to death?”

Somi wiped the drop of liquor at the corner of her lips with the back of her hand and laughed.

“He’s a disgusting human being even a ghost would bite and spit back out.”

“Are you one of those people too, Somi?”

Jei, who had been quietly listening to their exchange, asked. The hand tilting the bottle paused briefly. Jei took the bottle from her hand and filled her glass for her.

“No.”

Somi rolled the glass between her fingers. Gazing quietly down at the liquid sloshing inside, her red lips twisted slowly.

“I’m all three.”

Cheated out of money, beaten, and dragged around.

“If that fucking bastard Shin Gyeongho is still alive, I’m going to kill him myself before long.”

Somi, eyes lifted, looked at Jei, who had filled her glass, and spoke clearly.

“Stab him in the heart, stab him in the lungs. Until the things inside that belly of his are torn to rags.”

“…….”

“So tell me. Is that bastard dead?”

“There is a high probability that he is dead.”

Iheon answered in a dry voice. For someone speaking of probability, there was not a hint of hesitation in his tone.

“A high probability—what does that mean?”

“Because no body has been found.”

The woman’s hand tightened around the glass.

“Then why are you saying Shin Gyeongho is dead?”

“There’s someone claiming to have killed Shin Gyeongho.”

“Who is that?”

“That’s what we came to you to find out.”

Somi’s gaze moved quickly between the two. It rested briefly on Iheon’s expressionless face, then shifted to Jei.

“Who are you people? Are you police?”

“We’re not police.”

Jei took her wallet from her bag. She pulled out a business card remaining in an inner pocket and held it out to Somi.

HJBC Current Affairs and Culture Division, Investigative Reporting Team, PD Lee Jei.

Somi looked back and forth between the card and Jei’s face.

“You’re from a broadcasting station?”

“I was. I quit now.”

“Then why carry an old business card?”

“At a place like this, it’s more useful than a long, tedious explanation.”