Free Violent Spring by Gary Phillips Page B

that elapsed while Monk stared at her. “You sure this didn’t have something to do with Conrad James?”
    She looked at the ceiling and then at Monk. “Well, I guess you know Conrad James also worked there. I was kind’a curious as to what had happened to Conrad.”
    â€œWhen did Conrad go missing?”
    â€œAround October of last year.”
    â€œHe and Suh hung out?”
    â€œThe two of them got on well.”
    â€œDid you and Conrad get on well?”
    â€œWe went out a couple’a times. He was nice, and not like a lot of other guys. He could keep his hands in his own lap.”
    There was a smart comeback there, but Monk wasn’t going for it. “What kind of guy was Suh?”
    Her eyebrows went up a notch. “I don’t know, really. Except I think he was kind’a aware, you know?”
    â€œWhat led you to say that?”
    â€œMr. Suh was a pretty bright cat. I saw him once reading a copy of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth . And another time he came up to me to ask me about some words he’d read in John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle .”
    Monk wrote in his notepad. “Did he talk about politics, or the local scene? Black, Korean stuff in Los Angeles.”
    She digested the question and pondered it for a few moments. “Actually Conrad would be the one to ask about that.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYes. He and Conrad got along, as I said. Conrad even took Mr. Suh to a Raider game since he hadn’t seen American football in person.”
    â€œSo he and Conrad saw each other socially?”
    â€œThey weren’t ace boon coon, but yeah, you could say they socialized to an extent. I remember after the Du thing they’d get into discussions about the incident at work.”
    â€œArguing?”
    She paused, searching for the right words. “They didn’t shout at one another, but it was more like two peers who had different points of view on the same subject.”
    â€œInteresting. Suh ever talk about his life in South Korea?”
    â€œMr. Suh mentioned he’d been married once.”
    â€œAnd.”
    â€œAll he said was his wife had died back in South Korea.” Her brows knitted. “It was a sad thing for him to bring up and he didn’t again.”
    â€œYou remember anything else he said about his life then?”
    The handsome head moved from side to side then stopped. “I remember something about Yushi, no, Yushin, I think he said. Mr. Suh was on the phone talking to someone and they got into an argument in Korean.
    â€œI remember the word because he said his wife’s name, Jai Choo I believe, and then some more words, then Yushin repeated several times.” She spread her hands before her. “He slammed the receiver down, then covered his face and cried.” Her face clouded at the memory of another person’s pain. “He was a nice man,” she said in elegy for Suh.
    Monk asked some more questions and got three other names of people who had worked at various times at the Hi-Life liquor store.
    â€œDid you think Suh read or talked about black folks just for show, you know, have his employees think he was down and all?”
    â€œNo, no. I think he was quite sincere about that. I mean I think he had a real interest in learning about his environment. He didn’t ask a lot of goofy questions but he was always observing and reading the local news, you know. Not just the Times , but The Sentinel too.”
    Monk continued to write in his little notepad. The Sentinel was the weekly black newspaper of Los Angeles. “What about his private life?”
    She leaned forward. “Are you saying did he ask me out?”
    â€œI didn’t mean it like that. Did he ever say anything about what he did away from work?”
    She spread her hands in the air. “I wouldn’t know.”
    â€œBut you and Conrad were still going out after Suh stopped running