Chapter 4: Out the Window

The brass key turned without a sound.

Si-on had his shoes in one hand and his torn school shirt in the other, and the collar still on his throat.

He had tried to get it off in the dark.

Somewhere in the night the buckle had been locked, and the Devil had the only key to that too.

He walked down the white stairs on the outside edges of his feet.

The ground floor was dark and the glass doors to the garden stood unlocked, which should have told him something.

Outside, the grass was wet and the sea was black below the wall.

A persimmon tree hung over the path, heavy with fruit, and under it sat Ko Du-sik on an upturned bucket, eating a rice ball.

"Evening," Du-sik said.

Si-on stopped.

"It's four in the morning."

"Then good morning."

Du-sik stood up, brushed rice off his coat, and kept chewing.

"He said you'd come out about now. I had money on five."

"Get out of my way."

"I can't. It's my job." Du-sik swallowed. "I'm sorry, kid. Honest. I'll try not to break anything."

He came forward with both hands open.

He was the size of a door, with a broken nose and a shaved head.

He moved with the patience of a man who had never lost a fight in his life.

Si-on slipped the first grab and ducked the second.

He put a left hook into the big man's ribs that would have folded a normal person in half.

Du-sik grunted.

That was all.

"Huh," he said. "That's a good hook."

He swung a paw down, and Si-on rolled under it and came up inside.

He hit him in the stomach three times, with the speed of a boxer who had trained since he was ten.

Du-sik doubled and wheezed.

"Okay," he gasped. "That one hurt."

Si-on took the half-eaten rice ball out of the man's other hand, threw it as hard as he could at his eyes, and ran.

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