The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

v.

"The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places."

― Raymond Carver, Where Water Comes Together with Other Water: Poems

--

The newspaper couldn't release the information. Or, they told Jooheon what they knew, which amounted to basically nothing.

"So what's our next step?" Hyunwoo asked with a frown. It had been three hours since they'd talked to Hendy and questioned the ad. He was frustrated by the fact that three whole hours had passed without making any real progress.

Jooheon looked equally frustrated. He'd slammed the phone several times in the past few hours while talking to person after person who was just as unhelpful as all the rest. "Let's assume, for a second, that it's real," he proposed. "What would our best course of action be to locate the kids?"

"Call the number," Hyunwoo said, and Jooheon nodded. He turned to look down at the newspaper ad, which was spread across his desk.

"Can't use this phone, though," he said, giving his desk phone a glare. "I don't want to risk them running the number."

"We can use my cell phone?" Hyunwoo suggested, and Jooheon started to nod before shaking his head.

"We can use it, but not here. They might be able to triangulate our position. If they ping your phone, we don't want the location to show as the police station." He got up abruptly, swinging his jacket off the back of the chair and slipping his arms in. "C'mon, let's drive around for a bit and park in a sketchy neighborhood."

"Thought you'd never ask."

--

Hyunwoo looked to Jooheon, who nodded, and Hyunwoo dialed the number.

"Hello, this is the missing child information line," recited a male of indeterminate age.

"Hi," Hyunwoo said instinctively because it was rude not to greet someone. Jooheon pantomimed slapping his forehead, and Hyunwoo threw a finger up to his lips before clearing his throat. "I, uh, saw your ad in the paper."

"Uh huh," the man said, not sounding particularly interested. Certainly not as interested as someone would be if they were actually looking for missing children. "And?"

"And, I..." Hyunwoo blanked for a moment. Of course they weren't going to ask him directly if he wanted to purchase an illicit service. "I heard about your service from a friend," he continued, shrugging at Jooheon since it was the best excuse he could come up with.

"What friend?" the voice asked, and Hyunwoo looked at Jooheon with wide eyes.

Jooheon waved his hands hurriedly as though to get Hyunwoo to hang up, but Hyunwoo just cleared his throat once more. "Hendy."

Jooheon looked up at the roof of the car as though considering whether that had been a good call, and after a moment, he shrugged.

"All right," the voice replied after a moment, and Hyunwoo had to pull the phone away from his mouth so he could exhale. "Which one did you want?"

The words were phrased so curtly, so carelessly. Hyunwoo pictured in his mind the small pictures of the boys in the newspaper. Fake front or not, he'd kept the clipping with him because it was all he had to document the boys' existence.

But the question was more painful than just that. He hadn't thought about it too much before, but he could really only name one boy. It would look suspicious if he asked for both, wouldn't it? He wasn't sure, but he couldn't afford to get caught, not until he'd found the boys.