“Anything else?”

“Smarmy group in the hotel; a few of them are still shy a coat or two of hospitality paint.”

“Something wrong with the hotel? The room not up to your expectations?” He leaned forward to show me that he cared.

“The room is fine. Everything is fine. Our meeting earlier this evening in that dark cave was fine. You’ve made a hit with those three house dogs, by the way. Maybe you should throw them a bone every so often, though.”

The austere smile materialized from around a potted palm, and drinks were placed in front of us.

“Thank you, Michael,” the major said. “We’ll order in a few minutes.”

The white coat disappeared into the jungle.

“Do you always circle around a conversation like this?” The major lifted his glass. “A toast to you, Inspector. Welcome home.”

“Major what? Major who? Major from where? Is there a new special group operating outside the normal channels?” I clinked glasses. “Normal channels. Normal. You know what’s normal? Dawn, the sun coming up over the next mountain. That’s perfectly normal. But this, I don’t get the feeling this,” I waved my glass in his direction, “is normal.”

“Off we go, circling again.”

“OK, no more circles. I’ll lunge. Where are you from?” I took a swallow of my drink.

“Seoul.”

I took another swallow. “Do they have menus here, or do we make it up? Incidentally,” I pointed over his shoulder, “whoever installed the wire in that ficus behind you didn’t know what he was doing. It dangles, like a water snake over a pond.” The drink had skipped my stomach and gone to my brain. “I wouldn’t use a wire if I were you. If you use something like that snake in the ficus, it has to be transcribed. Transcribers always fill in what they can’t hear, and they always get it wrong. Hire a note taker. I’ll bet that woman in the red dress is a terrific note taker.”