“Only six months? Six months is nothing. If it’s so bad, why don’t they send you home? Declare you persona non grata.”

The major laughed, but it wasn’t particularly pleasant. It was more like the sound of a dead limb coming off a tree on a hillside nearby. For the first time, I noticed he had a classic Korean face, the sharp features that opened the gateway to a thousand different expressions. My grandfather had warned me that people with these faces were real Koreans-the purest of the pure, he called them-and that you couldn’t trust them because you could never figure out what was going through their minds. “The women are the worst,” he’d say. “A woman with that face will be a princess one minute and a bird of prey the next. I don’t like Chinese, but a little Chinese blood mixed in isn’t altogether bad. Your grandmother had Chinese blood. Remember that, boy,” and I’d nod, wondering if any of the girls in the next village were pure-blooded and, if they were, would they ever take the road in front of our house so I could watch as they passed by.

Kim’s voice battered into my consciousness. “Kick me out? How could they? I countersign all of their orders, and much as I would be tempted, I couldn’t chop off on that one.” He laughed; another limb crashed to the ground.

“You countersign all of the orders?” I lifted my glass and tilted it toward the major to show him how empty it was.

“Another drink?”

“Tell Michael to bring the whole bottle.”

He pushed the button and Michael materialized.

“Shall I bring the bottle, sir?”

“As always, you read my mind, Michael.”

“Michael, the mind reader,” I said as the white coat vanished. “He also runs your very good recording machines and picks locks, am I right?”

“No, Inspector, the lock man is the busboy. You had a question about my countersigning orders?”