by Martin Limon
Snake’s real name was Lim, his family name, and Americans referred to him as Mr. Lim. I’d met him a few times, mostly when he was hobnobbing with 8th Army officers-either invited to a formal function or hosting a retirement party for one of them at the 8th Army golf club. The honchos at 8th Army loved him. Snake was always smiling and he laughed at their jokes and his English was impeccable. Not to mention that he had connections with the big-money corporations that were lining up for the neverending flow of multimillion dollar U.S. military construction projects. Gifts, parties, social events, award ceremonies, these were the places where Mr. Lim could be found. Shaking hands, bowing, being a good chum to American officers who saw him as the perfect example of the modern Korean entrepreneur. And the perfect avatar of the republic’s bright future.
He was a slender man, almost willowy, and his smile had a certain reptilian cast. But maybe I saw him differently than the officers at 8th Army saw him. Snake didn’t do any favors for me. I only knew him from the people who worked in his various operations: his nightclubs, his bars, and his apartment buildings, which were nothing more than brothels. I knew how the country girls suffered. Sometimes physically but if not physically always through shame.
But once you have money, no matter how it is come by, you are seen by everyone-or at least by everyone who matters-as a wonderful guy. That was Snake. A wonderful, generous guy.
The door to his office was locked. Ernie pounded on it. No answer. He pounded again and when it still didn’t open, he backed down the hallway, took a running start and plowed into the door shoulder first. It burst inward.
Nobody home. But we both took an involuntary gasp at the opulence of the furnishings. Even a couple of lowlifes like us could tell that everything from the leather upholstered chairs to the mahogany desk to the handcrafted porcelain was expensive.
A bronze effigy of a youthful, narrow-waisted Buddha sat in its own shrine in the corner. The smiling god held one palm facing to the sky and the fingers of his other hand formed a circle near his ear. I turned my flashlight on the statuette and studied it. What surprised me was that this was the same Buddha embossed onto the surface of the bronze bell in the temple on the hill overlooking Itaewon.
Footsteps clattered up the stairwell. High heels. We turned and a statuesque woman entered the room. She wore a tight-fitting black cocktail dress, low cut to accentuate her decolletage and it seemed that her legs were longer and straighter than those of any Korean woman I’d ever seen. She was a gorgeous woman, like a fashion model, with a curly shag hairdo and more makeup than a dozen circus clowns.
“Weikurei nonun?” What is it with you? And not spoken politely, either.
I flashed my badge at her. “Where’s Snake?”
“Who?”
“Mr. Lim.”
“He’s out.” She waved her left arm at the broken door. “What are you doing?”
“Who the hell are you?” Ernie asked.
“Jibei-in,” she said in Korean. And then remembered to speak English. “I’m the manager.”
“Then you can open the safe,” Ernie said, pointing at the squat black iron block behind Snake’s mahogany desk.
“No,” she said, shaking her elegant head. “Only Snake… I mean Mr. Lim can open the safe.”
“What’s in there?” Ernie asked.
The woman’s eyes widened. “How I know?”
“Snake must have you up here when he counts his money. You’re the manager, aren’t you?”
She laughed. “He no keep money there.”
“Then what does he keep there? Antiques?” Ernie pointed again at the safe.
“I don’t know.” The woman thrust back her shoulders. “He no tell me.” Then she pointed toward the door. “Get out. You two must get out. Not your office.”
We took our time, gazing at the antiques and the art objects, wondering if any of them had been amongst the stash that Technical Sergeant Flo Moretti had stored for the refugees that flooded into Itaewon at the end of the Korean War.
“Out,” the woman said. “I call KNPs.”
“No you won’t,” Ernie replied. He walked up close to her.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because if you do, after I bust Snake, I’m coming after you.”
This seemed to unnerve the woman. She’d seen my badge and in Korea, law enforcement personnel have tremendous power, often much more power than they’re granted by law. Still, she held her ground.
“Out,” she said.
I discovered later that her name was Miss Park. She’d been the manager here at the Seven Club for over a month. I admired her spunk. We did what she said: we left Snake’s office. And she didn’t call the KNPs.
We stopped at the bar inside the main ballroom of the Seven Club, just to make sure that Snake wasn’t on the premises. Ernie ordered a beer but before it arrived, something in the crowded room caught his attention.
“Look,” he said.
American G.I. s and Korean business girls sat at every table, many of them lazing about in the aisles, and dozens of them jammed onto the dance floor. The Korean band was playing some schmaltzy ballad and the big G.I. s were hunched over the small Asian women, their eyes closed, lost in erotic ecstasy. Most of the Korean women, however, kept their eyes open, studying the crowd, blase expressions on their round faces, jaws chomping on chewing gum.
I followed Ernie’s nose and spotted the couple he was staring at.
Sergeant First Class Quinton “Q” Hilliard was grinding away in time with the music with the full-cheeked little Miss Kwon enveloped in his bearlike embrace.
The power cables that radiated from the side of the King Club had saved Miss Kwon during her fall. After she leaped from the roof, she plowed into a heavy cable which snapped beneath her weight but slowed her enough that she landed atop the neon sign with a jarring thud that was enough to knock the wind out of her but not enough to snap her spine. From there, instinct took over and she’d grabbed onto the sparking neon tubes and although she’d suffered burned fingers and a huge lump on the back of her head and her ankle was viciously sprained, she was fundamentally in good shape. Doc Yong attributed her good fortune to her youth and her roundness. She landed, bounced, and survived. A plastic cast was clipped around Miss Kwon’s left ankle, a white patch had been taped over her left eye, and three of the fingers of her right hand were tightly bandaged. Still, she was back at work, dancing with the man who’d been her tormentor, Sergeant First Class Quinton Hilliard.
Maybe they were at the Seven Club because her main employer, Mrs. Bei at the King Club, would’ve nagged her to go home and recuperate rather than immediately return to the money-making grind. Hilliard had her waist pulled in tightly and her legs spread so he could shove his knee up into her. He was almost lifting her off the ground. Control. That’s what this was all about. So Hilliard could show anyone who cared to watch that Miss Kwon, bandages and all, was his and he could do anything he wanted to do with her. For her part, Miss Kwon’s uncovered eye was closed tight, her teeth clenched. I couldn’t be sure from this distance but my guess was that tears were seeping out of her eyes. She was suffering pain, from Hilliard’s grinding knee, and humiliation, from being manhandled like this in public. But she kept her eyes shut and did her best to bear this, the fate that poverty had thrust upon her.
“That son of a bitch,” Ernie said.
At that moment I knew Ernie was gone. There was no stopping him.
Before I could reach out and make the attempt to reason with him, he was shoving his way through the crowd, ignoring the outraged rebukes of G.I. s and business girls alike. Within seconds, he’d grabbed Hilliard by the shoulders and spun him around. Hilliard let go of Miss Kwon and Miss Kwon’s good eye popped open in surprise. And then the left jab shot out and the right and Hilliard staggered back, falling against cocktail tables, flailing wildly with his arms, knocking over glassware and beer bottles and magnums of cheap sparkling wine. Women screamed. G.I. s cursed.
Hilliard was back on his feet now, pointing at Ernie, shouting “Racist attack!”
Like a leopard, Ernie pounced on him and began pummeling away and Hilliard did his best to cover himself. By the time I fought my way through the screaming crowd, a few of Hilliard’s soul brothers had joined the fray. One of them punched Ernie in the back. I pulled the guy away and, keeping his body’s momentum going, twirled him into a fallen cocktail table. While I did this, another friend of Hilliard’s punched me in the side of the head. I crouched, swiveled, and caught him with a left cross as he came in. Breath erupted out of his mouth, he curled over, and I slammed him with a right to the head. He went down.
The place was madness now; everyone was punching everyone else. Even some of the business girls were duking it out with G.I. s, releasing frustrations that had been pent up for years. I found Ernie and pulled him toward the door.
On our way out, Miss Park pointed her finger at me and screamed. What she was saying, I couldn’t hear but it had something to do with “Snake.”
Outside, snow swirled through the air. Ernie and I ran on the slick surface through an alley that led toward the Itaewon Market. The open wooden stalls were deserted. In the morning, farmers would arrive with cabbages and oversized turnips and fist-sized scallions and before dawn the market would be bustling with buyers and sellers. But two hours before the midnight curfew, we stood under a flapping canvas roof, listening to MP sirens howl and the pounding footsteps of squads of KNPs as they made their way toward the melee at the Seven Club.
“What in the hell’s the matter with you?” I said.
“He deserved it,” Ernie replied. “That little girl was just out of the hospital and Hilliard forces her, immediately, to become his sex slave.”
“How do you know she’s his sex slave?”
“Did you see the way he was grinding on her? The way he had his hands on her butt?”
“Hey, Ernie,” I said, “take a deep breath.”
He did. Then he let his shoulders slump.
“You can’t save the world,” I said.
“Maybe not.” Ernie rubbed his knuckles. “But I can pop one son of a bitch upside the head.”
“You did that,” I said. “Royally. But we’re in trouble again,” I continued. “Hilliard’s certain to lodge an EEO complaint.”
“Let him. No jury in the world would convict me.”
I wasn’t so sure about that but, at the moment, we had other things to worry about, like how to find out who murdered Two Bellies, and Horsehead, and where to find Jessica Tidwell. And Snake.
Down the alleyway, a stick tapped and then something thumped. Ernie and I stepped back into the shadows. Behind the turnip stall was another, larger canvas lean-to. This one contained bamboo animal pens. Dark splotches stained the ground and the odor of raw pig flesh suffused my sinuses. The sound grew louder: a rhythmic series of one tap and then one thump. Whoever was coming down the alleyway was making slow progress.
Flickering neon from the main drag illuminated the alleyway. When her silhouette came into view I realized that whoever was approaching was somewhat shorter than your average Korean woman. She couldn’t see us but I could see her. Perspiration streamed off her face and her eyes darted around as if looking for something. She was balancing herself with one crutch, her left foot encumbered by a white cast. Miss Kwon.
She stopped and peered into the canvas-covered darkness, looking right at us as if she could see us but she couldn’t. I was sure of that. It was too dark back here. But somehow, she’d known where we’d hide.
Ernie and I stepped out of the shadows.
After an involuntary intake of breath, Miss Kwon said, “Geogi, I look for you.”
Her English was improving.
I nodded. Ernie offered her a stick of ginseng gum. She declined.
“Yong Uisa kidariyo,” she said. Doctor Yong is waiting for you.
“Why?” I asked.
Miss Kwon shrugged her shoulders. “Come,” she said. “I show.”
With grim determination, Miss Kwon turned around on her crutches and then started her slow progress back up the alley. I followed, Ernie right behind me, but Miss Kwon stopped and said. “Him, no.”
“Doc Yong doesn’t want to talk to Ernie?”
“No.” Miss Kwon shook her head vehemently. “You.” She pointed at me.
“Must be something personal,” Ernie said. I glared at him. He shrugged and said, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
I nodded and followed Miss Kwon as she struggled through the darkness.
Doc Yong was waiting for us outside her clinic. A white light from inside lit the narrow alleyway. She was dressed for an outing in blue jeans, a warm sweater, and a bright red cap pulled down over her black hair. Her round nose was flushed from the cold and her glasses were fogged and I thought she was just about the cutest pixie I’d ever seen. She thanked Miss Kwon for bringing me. Miss Kwon paused for a second, facing Doc Yong. Then, as best she could while still holding on to her crutch, she bowed at the waist. Then she turned and hobbled her way back toward the sparkling lights of Itaewon.
When she was gone, I turned to Doc Yong and said, “What is it?”
Doc Yong shook her head. “Not good.”
“What’s not good?”
“No talk now. Come.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, hunched her shoulders slightly, and marched off into the darkness of Itaewon. I followed.
She seemed to know exactly where she was going but after five minutes, I was totally lost. Korean society isn’t built around the car. Many pathways are only wide enough for pedestrians to pass, maybe two abreast, sometimes only single file. And people are used to walking long distances, carrying heavy loads, climbing up steep and slippery inclines, or gingerly stepping down precipitous slopes.
Dark ice patches covered many surfaces so we had to watch our step over the haphazardly cobbled pathways. A light snow continued to fall. I pulled my jacket tighter around my chest and wished I’d brought the long heavy overcoat the army issues. The lanes became gradually narrower and there was less sound in the hooches behind the high brick walls. I started to realize where we were going. Approaching from this direction I hadn’t been sure at first but now I was. Within ten minutes, we stood in front of the rotted wooden gate that led into the home of Auntie Mee, the fortune teller.
Everything was quiet except for the tiny bells tinkling and the red spirit flags flapping in the late-night breeze. Doc Yong didn’t bother to knock. She pushed open the wooden doorway in the gate and the rusted hinges groaned, like a ghost being called from the dead.
I hesitated for a second, knowing from Doc Yong’s grim expression and from the silence that surrounded us like a shroud, that something was desperately wrong. I crouched, stepped through the little gate, and entered the darkness of the quiet courtyard.
My mother died before I even started school. My father, the coward that he was, shrugged off his responsibility toward me and took off back to Mexico. That left me, U.S. citizen George Sueno, alone in the world. Growing up as a foster child in East L.A. was difficult but what kept me going through all of it was what my mother had told me before she died. “Be good, Jorge mio,” she said. “Never betray those you love.”
The problem was that, so far, I’d never found anyone to love. I wasn’t even sure, exactly, what the word meant. Were they talking about the feelings I had toward my mom? Or where they talking about new feelings I would develop some day as I matured, feelings that I would have toward a young woman closer to my own age?
I knew about lust. That feeling was quite familiar to me. In fact, lust was an enemy that never let me rest. Visions of sex exploded in my brain night and day and from what I could tell of other young G.I. s, I wasn’t alone. But love, I suspected, was something else entirely.
I watched Doc Yong walking in front of me, arms crossed on her chest, her head down, straight black hair sticking out beneath the edge of her red cap. What was most a
stonishing about her was her relentless desire to help the business girls of Itaewon. To offer them a hand. To pull them out of the mire in which they were so securely stuck. Doc Yong was almost thirty so she was older than me. I didn’t believe the age difference mattered and so far she had treated me strictly as a colleague. Sort of her own personal U.S. Army liaison officer. A job she needed done because the Korean business girls who swamped her clinic had so many interactions, most of them unpleasant, with 8th Army G.I. s and there always seemed to be something that needed to be worked out with military officialdom. I was happy to perform the role and the closer I was to her the better I felt.
Tonight, I sensed, was a turning point for us. She was taking me somewhere, preparing to show me something that would take us beyond our workday acquaintance stage. Something told me that what I was about to see would be horrible beyond belief. And I believed that this horrible event, whatever it was, would either bring Doc Yong and me closer together or it would split us apart forever. I didn’t know which.
So I was braced not just for blood but for heartache. Either or both, would not be new to me. I could handle anything, or at least that’s what I thought at the time.
Auntie Mee’s hooch was silent and completely dark. I took a few tentative steps across the varnished wooden floor. Silvery moonlight filtered through a back window. A shadow moved through the moonbeams. Doc Yong. She had crouched in front of a wooden cabinet and was fumbling around, looking for something. Finally, she found it. Cardboard scratched on cardboard and then a match scraped and hissed. A tiny fire erupted and I turned my head away from the sudden glow. Deft hands lit two candles. Doc Yong handed one to me.
“Come,” she said.
We walked toward the moonglow. Wind rustled silk curtains. In the distance a dog howled. There weren’t many howling dogs in Korea. People lived too close together and they worked too hard to allow their sleep to be disrupted by some canine barking at the moon. So a noisy pooch was seldom tolerated. But for some reason, tonight, a dog howled. Maybe it wasn’t a dog. Maybe it was something else. I pushed such superstitious thoughts out of my mind. Instead, I searched the shadows.
