Chapter twelve
I set off for Seong’s Garage the next morning. The previous night two of Na’s men had been over the Genesis with devastating thoroughness. If there had been so much as a pin in that vehicle they would have found it. But there was nothing, apart from the items that I had found when I took the car from Namdaemun Garage.
I reached Seong’s Garage promptly at eleven o’clock. As I drove in I noticed a three-ton Army lorry parked directly opposite the garage. One of its rear wheels was punctured. A young conscript, his beret pushed to the back of his head, sat on the running board smoking a cigarette.
I went into the office and found Seong having a heated discussion with an Army sergeant. Seong acknowledged my presence with a sour nod.
The sergeant was a large man and his burly frame threatened to burst out of his battle dress. He wore a double row of campaign ribbons on his left breast.
‘I dunno whether you blokes think this is a bloody regimental workshop’, grumbled Seong. ‘What’s up now?’
The sergeant held a tyre lever in his hand. In his giant grasp it looked puny and ineffective. ‘Got a heavier one than this, mate?’ he asked.
‘Be with you in a minute’, Seong said to me, then turned to the sergeant again. ‘What’s the matter with that one?’
The sergeant made a rasping noise with his tongue. ‘It’s about as much use as a knife an’ fork on the tyres I got’.
Seong rummaged in a tool box. ‘Talk about Dad’s Army’, he said bitterly. ‘Ain’t you got any bleedin’ tools of yer own? You’ve ’ad me jack already’.
‘Don’t blame me, mate’, said the sergeant. ‘I’m only on this thing for the ride’. He jerked his thumb towards the lorry. ‘The driver they’ve given me’s a dead loss – sits on his arse smoking fags’.
‘Why don’t yer put yer toe round ’is backside?’ suggested Seong. ‘You’re a sergeant, ain’t yer?’
The sergeant laughed mirthlessly. ‘What, and have him write to his member of the Assembly? Not much!’
Seong handed over a set of tyre levers. ‘Why ain’t you got a spare?’ he asked. Because Laughing Boy out there left it at the depot’, said the sergeant sourly.
Seong wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Stone me!’ he said. ‘You’re getting’ some bright bastards nowadays, ain’t yer?’
‘You can say that again, mate’, said the sergeant bitterly. He left the office and walked across the road towards the lorry.
‘Right’, said Seong, ‘now we can get settled up. Got the paperwork?’
‘Here it is’, I said. ‘Have you got the money?’
‘I’ve got it, mate’, said Seong. ‘It’s all ready for yer’.
He looked out of the window and saw that the sergeant was coming back again. ‘Oh, blimey! ’ere we go again!’
‘All right if I use your phone, cock?’ asked the sergeant. ‘What’s up this time?’ demanded Seong irritably.
‘Need to ring the workshop’, said the sergeant. He favoured me with a ponderous wink as he lifted the receiver.
‘Conscripts!’ exclaimed Seong with disgust. ‘Bloody useless waste of the tax-payers’ money, if you ask me. You goin’ back to Seoul after this, Mr Moon?’
‘Yes’, I said.
‘I’ll run you to the station’, offered Seong with unexpected affability.
He crossed to a ramshackle looking safe in the corner and opened it. From the telephone the sergeant’s voice could be heard, raised in loud protest.
‘I know all about that’, he was saying testily. ‘This damned dimwit’s come out with no tools, no spare – sweet Fanny Adams! … Yes, I know damn well we’re late – ’
Seong slipped several thick wads of notes on the table in front of me. ‘It’s all there’, he said. ‘Fifteen million smackers’.
I started to count the notes.
I glanced at the sergeant out of the corner of my eye and saw that his eyes were raised desparingly to the roof. His plaintive monologue continued: ‘Well, what the ’ell am I supposed to do about it? … Yers, they call it a garage, but’. He broke off suddenly as he saw the money on the table. ‘Reckon there’s some sort of racket going on here’, he confided to the man on the other end. ‘Lolly all over the flippin’ shop’.
Seong overheard this remark and shot a look of concentrated venom at the sergeant. ‘You mind yer own bloody business!’ he rasped.
The sergeant waved two expressive fingers at Seong, then bawled into the telephone: ‘Right-oh, Noh! See you later’. He gave Seong a mock salute and went out.
I finished counting the last bundle of notes. ‘Fifteen million won it is, Mr Seong’, I confirmed. ‘Right’, said Seong. ‘I’ll run you to the station’.