Chapter 13: Cha Pulls Lia Back

The venue was in the basement of a building that had been, at various points, a laundry, a recording equipment warehouse, and a private dining room for people who preferred not to be seen dining. Cha Joon-ho knew this because the man who had told him about it had used all three iterations, and owed him a debt from the third.

He parked two blocks east, where the street widened enough to lose a car among the delivery vehicles, and walked the rest of the way with his hands in his coat pockets and his face doing nothing in particular. It was eleven forty-three. The venue's exterior announced itself only as a staircase descending beneath a steel door propped open by a fire extinguisher, which suggested either a fire code violation or someone's preferred ventilation strategy, and both possibilities said something unflattering about the establishment's regard for the people inside it.

He did not hurry. Hurrying produced witnesses.