The Inn of the Red Dragon in Kanggye was a wreck. The TV lay on its side, smashed. I stepped on the pages of a paperback book scattered over the floor. A moan came from the back room. The clerk was lying on a bed, his face to the wall. He rolled over when he heard me at the door. He had been pistol-whipped, badly.
"Welcome back, Inspector. I don't have any vacancies." It was hard to understand him because his face was so bruised.
"Who?"
He coughed and his body tensed in pain. Maybe a rib was broken, too. "What difference does it make? I don't keep score anymore. They asked about you."
'And?"
"I told them I didn't have any registration papers for anyone of your description."
"They believe you?"
"That's when they broke my ribs. What do you think?"
I turned to go. "I'll be back. I've got to get to Manpo."
He shook his head. "Too late. You'll never make it."
"I need some gas."
He wiped the blood that was oozing from his mouth. "Grandma Pak might have some gas coupons." He moaned again and rolled back to face the wall. "If she's still alive."
The place where Grandma Pak usually sat was empty. The blanket was still on the floor, along with her eyeglasses. The frames were bent and one lens was shattered. At least it wasn't a bullet hole. I looked along the bottom of the wall for a loose board, anything that might be a place to hide papers. In the corner was a different, older party newspaper. April 15, 1962. The editorial on the front chattered about loyalty in bold letters.
Underneath the newspaper was a small wooden box. Loyalty covers a lot of sins, they like to say. Maybe that was what she figured.
The box felt worn and smooth, the corners rounded from being handled.
It had been made without nails, from Siberian chestnut. It was notched along the top to make the lid fit perfectly; the grain on each side matched precisely all the way around. I didn't have to look twice to know whose hand it was from. My grandfather worked four months, morning and night, on that box. Most of the detail work was on the inside: a carving of a tiger on a rock, with a pine forest stretched below. You could even see the pinecones. I opened it up. There were some old train schedules and a black-and-white photograph of a young woman, her mouth set, staring into the camera with wide, dark eyes. Underneath were three gas coupons, the fancy ones with scenes of workers embossed on the front and farmers in a rice paddy on the back. They had expired twenty years ago. I put two in my pocket, then put the box in the corner again, under the newspaper. Maybe Grandma Pak would find her way back. I wanted the box there if she did.