by Rhys Ford
She ran her crew like a troop of Spartans: fall on the battlefield and be eaten by predators. I wasn’t one of her kids, and she scared me to death.
“I needed to start stretching out the muscles. It’s healed enough for some bag work.” I protested the scoffing hiss Claudia threw at me. “What? Did you think I was going to let Bobby punch the shit out of me? I needed to loosen up, not take another trip to the hospital.”
The loosening up part wasn’t a lie. I’d debated calling Jae, after finding out he’d left before I woke up, just to see if he was okay, or pissed off about life. Rick had needed constant reassurance and interaction. Jae’s wariness and fierce independence still threw me. Working out the kinks in my muscles seemed a pleasant alternative to pacing a hole in the floor.
“You end up in the hospital again, I’m going to duct tape you to the bed until I decide you’re good to go.” Tapping the stack of messages, she said, “Your boy called. He said for you to call him back when you come in. He should be back from Long Beach by then. I think he was down at the docks for something or other.”
“What the hell is he doing in Long Beach?” I didn’t expect an answer. Jae often went on excursions into no-man’s lands for his artistic work. Weddings and portraits paid his bills, but they didn’t scratch that creative itch he had inside of him. Shuffling through the messages, I frowned when I saw Trey’s name. I held the slip up for Claudia to see. “Was he an asshole to you?”
“He said something about suing you for damage to his dick. I listened to him for a few minutes, and told him if he was stupid enough to stick it into a bottle, then he could make do without it. Dangerous enough now just having sex. If he wanted his dick chewed off, why didn’t he just go have sex with a shark?”
I thought back to what I’d seen in the emergency room as the doctors were picking out the glass shards. “Yep. That’s pretty much what it looked like too.”
She moved easily for a large woman, probably honed from years of chasing down recalcitrant children. It took her less than a few seconds to retrieve a package from her desk and bring it over to me. “Scarlet honey sent this over for you. She called here to make sure you got it. She told me about her friend. I can’t believe you’re taking money from her.”
“I didn’t want to,” I said absently. The seal on the plastic courier bag was a bitch, and I ended up using my teeth to try to tear it enough for me to pull it open. “She and Jae ganged up on me. Trust me; you don’t want to get into an argument with two Asians about money. You’ll lose every time. It’s like going against a Sicilian when death is on the line.”
“Give me that,” Claudia sighed, and held her hand out for the package. “I’ll cut it open. You go call him outside. I don’t want to hear the smoochie noises you make when you talk to him.”
I gave up on trying to chew through the plastic. Grabbing my coffee, I headed outside to the building’s front veranda. I’d not checked my phone since leaving the house earlier. I had four texts, one of them from Jae asking me to call him when I could. I dialed him back, and he answered before the second ring.
“Hey, agi.” His purr reached hot fingers into my gut and grabbed my balls. “Are you back at your office?”
“Yeah, planning on coming over?” I could entertain fantasies of my washing machine, but it was already late afternoon, and I had to catch up on the business, especially after wasting the morning sleeping.
“No, not for that.” He’d paused long enough to make me smile. Jae liked sex. He didn’t like getting touched in public, but close the door and things got interesting. “I have to ask you a favor.”
“Sure.” I took my first sip of coffee and gagged at its sweetness. The sugar cut through the bitter, but it took a moment to brace my throat for it. “Whatcha need?”
It sounded like we weren’t going to talk about the morning phone call, his meltdown and anger or my inability to fix his world. I was good with that. I still didn’t know how to fix his world, and even if I did, I wasn’t sure he would let me.
“Andrew’s sick. I need help tonight at the rehearsal dinner. Can I borrow you? It’s at eight.”
Andrew, Jae’s sometimes assistant, was as flaky as Claudia’s pie crusts. He was usually less sick, and more stoned to the gills, but he was cheap and at least knew what camera Jae asked him to fetch. I was already up to help at the reception, a risky thing for Jae since I could barely operate the point-and-shoot I used to take pictures of cheating spouses. He had to be desperate to ask me on such short notice.
“Yeah, of course.” I checked my watch. “I’ve just got to go through some stuff Scarlet sent over and return some calls, but after that, I’m all yours.”
“You were mine before I called.”
Yeah, he still had a good hold of my nuts. We cooed at each other as manfully as we could, then I hung up and went inside. Claudia’d mastered the package, neatly dissecting it like it was a formaldehyde-marinated frog in a biology class. I refilled my coffee cup, leaving off any sugar, and went back to my desk to dig through Dae-Hoon’s life.
A blushing, young Scarlet stared out at me from an old photograph. Beside her, an equally young Korean man with slight acne scars on his cheeks grinned as well, his arm around her. Bright honey highlights streaked their hair, thick swathes of blond through their natural black. Scarlet’s brilliant pink lipstick was nearly as eye-catching as the rubber bracelets around the man’s wrist, his hand dangling over Scarlet’s shoulder. The date on the back told me the photo was taken only a week before Dae-Hoon disappeared. From the looks on their faces, they had not a care in the world.
Apparently, the world didn’t care for them either.
Other photos captured moments of Dae-Hoon’s life, small snippets of time someone thought to snatch from the stream. I stopped at one showing Dae-Hoon with two young boys, his slender arms cradling David and his face lit up with a smile for his Shin-Cho.
Hard to believe the little boy Dae-Hoon was holding would be marrying his lover’s kid in a few days.
“Fucking creepy,” I muttered. Separating out an envelope from the photos and a file folder, I slit it open and shook out the paper inside. For every ounce of her femininity, Scarlet’s masculine side resonated in her writing. With a strong, slashing penmanship, she thanked me again, and I grimaced at the check attached to the note.
“That’s a lot of zeros.” Claudia peered over my shoulder. “Way too many zeros to go find a probably-dead man.”
“Yeah, it’s more than what we agreed to. She and I are going to have to have a talk,” I grumbled. The folder rattled, and then a key ring fell out, a flat plastic card marked with a building letter and numbers. “Bobby and I are going to go digging through a storage locker tomorrow.”
“She gave you a lot of money for that? I could have gotten one of my boys to do it for twenty bucks.”
“It’s been sitting for years. We’re hoping there’s something in there that can tell us if Dae-Hoon was in trouble,” I said, waving the key under Claudia’s nose. “Fire up the DeLorean, Claudia. Tomorrow morning, Bobby and I are going to make a trip back to the ’90s.”
“Huh, well… just don’t come back with any of those stupid Hammer pants,” Claudia said, taking another sip of her coffee. “You dress bad enough as it is.”
LIVING behind my office had its advantages, mainly cutting down on commute time, so I had time to kick back after we shut down for the day. One of the biggest disadvantages was I was easy enough to find, especially when I wanted that time to relax before heading back out. Still, it was a surprise to find a sullen looking Shin-Cho standing on my front porch. Even more of a surprise was the bright red splotch starting to bruise under his left eye.
In the light of day, and admittedly after I’d had sleep, I noticed Shin-Cho was fairly attractive. Stockier than Jae-Min, his handsome face was heart-shaped but lean, probably from his stint in the military. The short-sleeved T-shirt he wore showed off his muscular arms, and his jeans were artistically torn at the k
nee, letting peeks of tanned skin show through. If I had to guess, I’d say Shin-Cho dressed that morning to impress someone, and by the looks of the mark on his face, that person didn’t buy into it.
“Hey.” I jerked my chin up. “Looks like you need some ice for that. Come on inside.”
“No, no, I’m fine. Outside is okay.” Shin-Cho shook his head. “I needed to… talk to you.”
“If it’s about your Dad’s stuff, I just got the key.” I held it up for him to see. “I was going to hit up the storage place tomorrow.”
“It isn’t about that.” His shoes squeaked as he kicked at the stoop’s cement slab. He fidgeted and shoved his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders over.
“Let me just open the door to air out the front room.” Using my shoulder to hold the screen door open, I fit my key into the lock. Undoing the dead bolt, I turned the knob and swung the heavy wood door back. I let go of the screen door, letting it bounce back onto the latch so the cat couldn’t get out. “Okay, what’s up?”
“There’s something I didn’t tell you… something I don’t want nuna to find out.” Despite the cold nip in the air, Shin-Cho looked like he was sweating up a storm. “It’s about Kwon Sang-Min.”
“What about him?” I leaned against the porch post, kicking lightly at the door when Neko came to investigate it.
“My father isn’t the only one who slept with Kwon Sang-Min,” he said, swallowing. “I have too. Quite a lot.”
“Fuck me,” I swore. Opening the screen door, I shooed the cat away. Jerking my head toward the house, I growled at Shin-Cho and said, “Get the fuck inside. You and I are going to have a little talk.”
Chapter Five
I NEEDED a beer. Badly. Problem was, Jae would be at my house in a couple of hours to pick me up, and my thirst for beer was really just my body distracting me so I didn’t choke the shit out of Shin-Cho.
The same Shin-Cho that was perched on my couch and picking at the ruffled edge of a throw pillow Maddy thought I needed.
I left the beer in the fridge and came back with a couple of Cokes. Shoving one at Shin-Cho, I popped the other open and took a big gulp. He looked at me through his lashes like a little kid who’d been caught shaving the dog or eating the last chocolate chip cookie. Exhaling hard, I shook my head at the complicity of subterfuge by the men around me.
“Wait a minute. Don’t you have to be at a wedding rehearsal?” I frowned at him. “The dinner’s tonight, right?”
“The rehearsal was an hour ago. They’re having the dinner later.” Shin-Cho looked at me oddly. “I came here so I could talk to you before the party.”
“Okay, start from….” I sighed. Who the hell didn’t sleep with Kwon? “Actually, I have no damned clue where you should start from. Just start some place, and I’ll catch up.”
“Please don’t tell nuna,” Shin-Cho pleaded. The guy looked desperate, and from the puffy redness around his eyes that matched the welt on his face, I’d guessed he’d gotten very little sleep the night before.
“How’d you get here?” I asked.
“I drove.”
That he drove himself was good. It meant there wouldn’t be any sunglass-wearing, straight-faced security drones to rat out his visit to my place. Still, keeping secrets from Scarlet didn’t sit right with me. The truth had a way of seeping out, usually in a frothy pile of crap aimed directly for the closest fan blade.
“Okay, we’re going to talk. Then you’re going to go home and tell Scarlet everything you’ve told me.” I held up my hand when he opened his mouth to object. “Ah! Nope. Not hearing anything other than yes from you, because the next time I see her, I’m going to ask her straight up if you’ve told her. If you haven’t, then it’s your shit to deal with. Not mine. Got it?”
The yes took a long time in coming, but eventually he nodded. “Okay. Yes.”
“Good, ’cause I’m not getting on her bad side,” I said firmly. “She’s the closest thing to real family Jae’s got. I’m sure as hell not going to let you fuck that up. I screw up enough without anyone’s help. How about if you start with how you hooked up with Kwon? And if that pop on your face has anything to do with him.”
His hand flew up to cover up the spot on his cheek, and Shin-Cho’s eyes slid away from my face.
“Yeah, okay,” I hissed between my teeth. “Start talking, Shin-Cho.”
Shin-Cho rolled his unopened Coke can between his hands, leeching the moisture off the aluminum. “Um… I was… nineteen? Twenty? I can’t remember when. It was at Christmastime, near my birthday.”
“Wait, American nineteen or Korean nineteen?” Koreans counted their ages from birth, rather than turning one after a year. It screwed me up when talking to Jae-Min and some of his friends. Some of them counted the Korean way, adding a year to their elapsed age. If I owned a bar in Koreatown, I’d have given up carding drivers’ licenses after about a week.
“Ah, man-nai… full age. Western age, nineteen,” Shin-Cho translated. “He came to our house in Gangnam. My mother was throwing a Christmas party. A lot of our family’s friends were there.”
It was a familiar story, an older man approaching a younger one with a bit of alcohol and a practiced song and dance. When I was younger, I’d bitten at that fish myself, but unlike Shin-Cho, I hadn’t planned on making a meal of it. Their torrid love affair lasted almost two years, exploding in a spectacular confrontation when Shin-Cho discovered his then-lover making out with another man at a Seoul dance club.
“I thought he was here, in Los Angeles.” Shin-Cho bit back his anger, but it fueled his words. “Sang-Min told me it was my fault, because I spent too much time at school so he needed to look elsewhere. Then I find out he’d told that man the same thing. He was doing us both. Maybe even others. I never saw him again. I didn’t answer his calls. Then David tells me he’s marrying Sang-Min’s daughter, and I thought: God, can it get any worse?”
“Shit,” I swore under my breath.
“Yes, shit.” Shin-Cho slurred the word, making it last on his tongue. “Now I find out about my father? How am I supposed to feel? What am I supposed to do?”
It was getting harder to understand him as his frustration grew. Korean began to drop into his English, and after a few words, he pressed the cold can to his forehead and closed his eyes. I let him have a moment, then tapped his leg.
“Hey, if I’m going to help out, I need you to focus, okay?” He opened his eyes and stared at me without comprehension. “I need you to stick to English so I can understand you. Can you do that?”
“Yes.” He struggled with the word, then swallowed. “Yes, I can.”
“Good.” I reassured him as best I could with a smile. “What happened today? Did Kwon hit you?”
“After the rehearsal,” Shin-Cho said. “I thought I’d be fine when I saw him, but….”
“Yeah, sometimes actually seeing your ex can punch you in the gut,” I sympathized. “You were at St. Brendan’s, right?”
“It’s pretty,” he murmured. “Myung-Hee… Helena… wanted to get married there. David thought it was cool.”
“So what happened between you and Kwon?”
“Nuna lent me her car so I could drive myself. The parking lot was full, and I came later, so I parked at the far side. I told David I would see him at the party and went to the car. Sang-Min followed me.” Shin-Cho finally opened the soda can, and I half expected it to foam over, considering how he’d abused it. “He was smiling and hugged me. I told him to let me go, and he told me it didn’t matter anymore, because we were going to be family. No one would think anything if he hugged me.
“He knows why the family sent me here. He said he was sorry I couldn’t be more… careful, but now that I was in LA, we could go back to how things were.” Shin-Cho hissed. “He told me I looked good. Better than I did before. And he touched me… like he had the right to. I pushed him away and told him I wasn’t my father. I won’t go crawling back to him every time he throws me away.”
“Fuck,” I swore. “So now he knows you know about him and your dad. Guess it was just a matter of time. I’d have to try to talk to him at some point. He might as well know that’s come back up.”
“He hit me with the back of his hand. He wears a ring. It’s very big. It scraped me. I think that’s what made the mark.” He gulped at the soda, making a face at its taste. “He said my father was a whore, someone who would go to any man, and that he wasn’t the only one who slept with him. That’s when he told me I would be no better than my father. Because I had no wife… no family… I would be passed around from man to man until I got too old and they were tired of me. Then he walked away.”
“He’s full of shit.” The look Shin-Cho gave me told me he thought I was crazy. “Just because you love guys doesn’t mean you can’t have a good life with one. Look at Scarlet and Seong.”
“You… you don’t understand, do you?” Shin-Cho murmured sadly. “If Uncle dies before she does, she will have nothing left of him. His family will not take her in. His sons will not take care of her. There will be nothing for her. If she dies first, she leaves nothing behind. No children, no family to remember her. No matter what happens, she’ll be nothing after she dies. There’s no future for her to live for. Nuna has nothing… will be nothing.
“I don’t want that. I don’t want to die alone with no one remembering me,” he growled. “I want a son, someone to make sure I’m taken care of when I’m old. I want my mother to be proud enough to brag about me. I don’t want to be my father. I can’t be my father, because no one cares that he lived. Just me.”
