Booting the BMW
The police officers who had responded to the report checked the circumstances and put Lee Geun-bae into the patrol car. They already knew him well. After subduing the struggling Lee Geun-bae inside the vehicle, one of the officers approached Ma Seok-do and me.
“Detective Ma, aren’t you heading back?”
“You go on in first. I’ll go in after I talk with Mr. Lee Gang-han here for a bit.”
“Is he someone you know?”
“You know the person I told you about before. The one who sits down and studies for three or four hours straight.”
“Ah, that person you met while you were studying for the promotion exam? The one who studies with his butt glued to the seat?”
“That’s the one. I’ll follow soon, so go on ahead.”
“Understood.”
The police car carrying Lee Geun-bae left the apartment complex. Once the police were gone, Ma Seok-do approached me closely.
“Mr. Gang-han, did you finally become a city hall tax official?”
Ma Seok-do grinned widely and extended his hand.
“Yes.”
I answered his smile with one of my own.
“I knew you’d pass. I’ve never seen anyone study as hard as you at the library. As expected, amazing. But what happened with that bastard Lee Geun-bae?”
“What about him?”
“That bastard Lee Geun-bae. He’s a real headache in this neighborhood. A very notorious local thug.”
“Ah, his automobile tax was delinquent, so I was going to confiscate his license plate, but he obstructed official duties…”
“Wow. I thought you only studied hard, but it seems you’re pretty strong too.”
Ma Seok-do laughed heartily, his face covered in stubbly beard.
“I learned some special tactical martial arts when I was in the search and rescue squad.”
“Oh, really? Goodness. The more I see you, the more interesting a character you become, our Administrative Officer Lee Gang-han. Anyway, if you’re free later, let’s have a glass of soju.”
“I don’t drink during work hours.”
“Who said right now? I’m saying later, when you have time.”
Ma Seok-do mimed snapping a soju glass with his pot-lid-sized hand.
“Let’s do that.”
As I dusted myself off and stood up, Ma Seok-do rose with a disappointed look.
“Are you heading back to city hall?”
“No. I still have some work left.”
I trudged toward the BMW parked facing forward next to Lee Geun-bae’s Audi.
“92 Ga 6653.”
When I entered the license plate into my PDA, it pulled up 7 delinquent automobile tax cases totaling 2.26 million won.
“Goodness… All the imported cars in this neighborhood are chronic delinquents.”
Seven delinquencies meant he had never intended to pay his taxes.
Since it was parked facing forward, I walked around to the front to remove the license plate. But a hollow laugh escaped me.
“Goodness. Will you look at this? They stuck the front bumper right up against the apartment’s outer wall so I can’t take the plate off.”
Chronic delinquents press the front bumper flush against the outer wall. That leaves no space to fit your hand, making the plate impossible to remove. I let out a bitter smile and clapped my hands together twice.
“What’s wrong?”
Ma Seok-do, who had been watching me, came over and asked.
“It’s a delinquent vehicle. They’ve pressed the bumper right up against the wall, practically touching it, so I can’t remove the plate.”
“Hah, there are such awful people.”
Ma Seok-do kicked the BMW’s tire with his sneaker-clad foot as if it were absurd, then asked again,
“What do you do in cases like this?”
He had asked the question, but then suddenly smiled awkwardly. Come to think of it, Lee Gang-han must undoubtedly be a complete newbie who had just started work.
“I’ll try calling the owner first, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll proceed with a boot seizure.”
However, contrary to Ma Seok-do’s expectation, the countermeasures for a wall-adjacent parked vehicle rolled off my tongue smoothly.
“Boot seizure? What’s that?”
“For shameless delinquent vehicles like this BMW that park flush against a wall to prevent front license plate confiscation, or use illegal modifications like welding, it’s a method where we immobilize the driver’s side front wheel with a ‘vehicle boot’ and attach seizure seals to the driver’s door and the boot’s locking device to fundamentally block the vehicle from being driven.”
“Wow… Mr. Lee Gang-han. I could tell when you were studying at the library, but the way that rolls off your tongue makes you sound like a complete veteran civil servant.”
Ma Seok-do jested.
“Rather than just standing there, there’s a yellow boot in the trunk of the city hall car over there. Could you bring it here?”
At what was like a command disguised as a request, or a request disguised as a command, Ma Seok-do flinched and shrugged.
“Heh, even though we’re both public servants, I’m still your senior in rank……”
Ma Seok-do grumbled as he went to get the vehicle boot. I crouched down next to the front wheel to attach it.
That was when I saw it.
The front license plate of the BMW, parked flush against the apartment’s outer wall, reflected off the wall’s marble.
“Huh?”
When a startled sound escaped me, Ma Seok-do asked with a curious face.
“What is it now?”
“The front and rear license plates have different numbers.”
“Whaaat?”
Ma Seok-do was startled by the news that the front and rear license plates of the BMW had different numbers.
“What do different plate numbers mean?”
He looked at me.
“We should view it as a phantom vehicle ninety-nine percent of the time. An illegal vehicle used for crime.”
As I spoke, Ma Seok-do nodded in agreement.
“But how did you know the front and rear plate numbers were different?”
“The rear plate is ‘92 Ga 6653,’ but the front plate is ‘68 Do 7765.’ The front plate number was reflected on the marble wall.”
“Wow, you checked the vehicle number reflected on the marble in that instant? Our Mr. Lee Gang-han. You’d make a good detective.”
Ma Seok-do smiled slyly and tapped my shoulder.
“How about it? If you sit down and study a bit, you could pass the police officer exam easily too.”
“Detective Ma.”
“Yes?”
“Now is not the time to leisurely exchange jokes. This car is highly likely to be a phantom vehicle—an illegal car. In this case, according to the Automobile Management Act…”
“It can be towed.”
Ma Seok-do’s eyes sparkled. He immediately called the police station and a towing company.
“There. It’s all settled. Now we just tow the vehicle to the station, and the case will be closed.”
As Ma Seok-do finished calling the towing company and the police station, a beep sounded from the BMW. It meant the owner was unlocking the doors and approaching. We both looked toward the apartment entrance.
A man in a loose T-shirt and slippers was shuffling toward us from there. When he spotted us standing in front of his BMW, he seemed to hesitate for a moment, but soon changed direction and bolted.
“Wh…what? Th…that bastard…”
Ma Seok-do stammered in confusion.
“What are you doing? Anyone can see he’s a criminal. Let’s catch him together.”
Before I even finished speaking, I was already running after the slippered man.
“If he runs the moment he sees us, there’s a high probability he’s a wanted criminal…”
Ma Seok-do muttered to himself before shouting at me.
“Mr. Lee Gang-han, chase him that way. I’ll cut around the other side.”
As if calculating the angles, Ma Seok-do immediately started running toward the opposite side of Building 103.
***
By the time I ran to the east side of Building 103, the slippered man had kicked off his slippers and was crossing the parking lot, fleeing toward the apartment exit in front of Building 104.
“Sir. Don’t run away. I’m an employee of the Haedong City Hall Delinquency Team. You only need to pay the overdue automobile tax. So you don’t need to flee.”
Whether he heard me or not, the slippered man stopped running and turned around. He was panting heavily.
“Huff, huff… What? Haedong City Hall Delinquency Team? You guys aren’t cops?”
Upon learning that I was a Haedong City Hall tax official, the man let out a deep sigh and began to grin.
“Damn, I thought… you were cops. So how much is my delinquency?”
Short hair, stained clothes, tattoos creeping up from his nape to his ankles. A man highly likely to be a criminal was relieved to hear the words “tax official.”
“Seven cases, 2.26 million won.”
“Seven cases, 2.26 million? You made me run like this for just a few million won? Huh?”
The man suddenly threw a fit and spat on the parking lot floor with a ptui.
“If it’s only 2.26 million won, why didn’t you pay it and make a public servant run?”
I hit him with the bare facts.
Perhaps struck by the unexpected blow, the man flinched and his eyebrows twitched.
“Wow, city hall punks these days have some guts?”
As the man was sneering, a voice burning hot enough to boil a cauldron came from behind.
“Ah, you son of a… These are fresh from the dry cleaners, and now they’re soaked with sweat. Hey. Come here. Come here.”
Ma Seok-do, who had run to the opposite side, was walking briskly while panting. Seeing him, the man let out a hollow laugh and looked up at the sky as if bewildered.
“Civil servant bastards should take physical fitness tests like soldiers too. Fat pigs like that calling themselves public servants…”
While the man was muttering, Ma Seok-do had already approached right in front of him.
“You little punk. When an elder tells you to come, you come. You just had to make the elder come to you.”
Ma Seok-do seemed genuinely angry. With his already large frame and furrowed brows, it was hard to tell if he was a detective or a gangster.
“Hey, city hall official. I’ll pay the overdue taxes in installments, so move aside.”
The man grabbed Ma Seok-do’s shoulder and pushed him while acting cocky. Even then, he mistook Ma Seok-do for a city hall tax official. Enraged that a wanted criminal had shoved his shoulder, Ma Seok-do immediately delivered a ringing slap to the man’s ear.
Smack—
Struck by the blow, the man fell over with a thud.
“Who said you could touch me, you bastard.”
Ma Seok-do dusted off the shoulder the man had touched. ‘Tap.’ ‘Tap.’
The man, who had fallen from the unexpected blow, staggered as if to regain his stance, then suddenly pulled out a knife hidden in his pants pocket. Bleeding from both nostrils and breathing heavily, he waved the knife at Ma Seok-do and me while backing away.
“Hey. You gonna stab me with that? You know too, right? You can’t kill someone with a knife that small. Don’t do that and just come here. Come here.”
As Ma Seok-do strode forward, the man screamed and thrust the knife.
“Bastard, I’ll kill you.”
In an instant, Ma Seok-do deftly dodged the knife and uppercut the man’s jaw with his right fist.
Crack—
Hit by Ma Seok-do’s punch, the man collapsed like a dead tree trunk and passed out.
‘Not bad. Detective Ma Seok-do.’
I watched him with interest. Ma Seok-do placed the knife into an evidence storage bag. He then frisked the man, found his wallet, and checked for his ID.
Watching him, I said, “Detective Ma.”
“Yeah?”
“That man there. Check if he’s dead.”
“Huh?”
Only then did Ma Seok-do realize the man was completely out, and he grabbed the man’s shoulder and shook him.
“Hey. Hey. Breathe. Breathe, damn it.”
***
A short while later, the tow truck and detectives from the police station arrived. An identity check revealed the man was a wanted criminal with six robbery convictions and seven assault convictions. After giving a brief witness statement, I organized the boot and other items into the official vehicle and prepared to leave the apartment complex. In the distance, I could see the Head of the Detective Division at Haedong Police Station and Ma Seok-do.
“So, Seok-do, you’re saying that city hall rookie over there recognized the phantom vehicle, chased the wanted criminal, put him at ease by saying he was a tax official, and then led the arrest?”
“Yes. It’s all true.”
“You idiot. Detectives have pride. Does it make sense that we were led around by a city hall employee, and a rookie at that? Reporters will be swarming soon. Tidy this up as the police leading the operation and the tax official just lending a hand. Got it?”
“But Mr. Lee Gang-han led it, and I only lent a hand… How can I…”
Seeing the division head trying to protect his own interests before any discussion of merits, a sigh escaped me.
“I’ll be going now; I have work.”
When I said I was leaving, the division head smiled brightly.
“You worked hard today, Mr. Lee Gang-han.”
As I greeted the two, Ma Seok-do waved with a bitter expression. I exited the apartment complex. And without returning directly to city hall, I continued confiscating license plates from delinquent vehicles around the Lota Mart and the garage area below Samgaksan Mountain.
6 PM.
Members of the Delinquent Vehicle License Plate Confiscation Team gathered one by one at the Haedong City Hall Finance Division.
“What are today’s confiscation numbers?”
The head of the Finance Division asked Chief Choi of Delinquency Team 2.
“Yes. So far, Confiscation Team 3 is in first place with 11 confiscations.”
“Eleven? What about the other teams?”
“They’re about the same.”
While receiving the report, the Finance Division head looked around.
“But why don’t I see Lee Gang-han?”
He asked Chief Shin.
“I just tried reaching him. He said he’s on his way.”
“How could you leave a new employee alone until this hour? You should have gone to get him yourself.”
While the Finance Division head was scolding Chief Shin and the staff, new employee Lee Gang-han of Delinquency Team 2 entered the Finance Division.
“I’m here.”
“If your field work is done, you should come back quickly. Why so late?”
Kang Hyo-sang of Delinquency Team 1 snapped.
“I was delayed by confiscating license plates from delinquent vehicles.”
I neatly placed the confiscated plates I had collected in front of the gathered Finance Division employees.
Clatter. Clank.
The license plates noisily piled up on the desk.
“What? Why so many?”
“How many are there?”
“Did Mr. Lee Gang-han confiscate all of those by himself?”
“Huh… amazing…”
The confiscation team members whispered amongst themselves.
“Quiet, quiet. Mr. Lee Gang-han. How many confiscated plates?”
The Finance Division head looked at me with an expectant face.