Tiger's Tail

by Gus Lee

  I offered my hand. He looked at it for a while. He dapped languidly. “Stubblefield. Manager.”

  “Jackson Kan, tourist.” I pulled out a photo of Jimmy and gave it to him, “He was with us.” I didn't add he was with the clerks and jerks, chowing Chinese food in Cholon, surfing on air-conditioning and sleeping in a dry, bedsheet cot every night.

  He was going to say no.

  “One question—he on the top floor?” The mudang s tip.

  He closed his mouth. He opened it. “Yeah, man, he is.”

  “You protecting him?”

  “Hey, chump, you said one question.”

  “That was the free one.” I extracted my TDY, travel money, and gave it to him. Maybe four hundred dollars. He nodded as the bills unraveled. Like BaBa, I was never good at keeping them folded. The women stood. “Jack. You one rich dude.”

  “He's a buddy.” I let that sit. “You paid to hold him down?”

  “Got no part a that. I jus’ guard the ladies.” “You're in charge and you let someone use your place like a jail, and you don't know who?”

  He frowned. “Hey, man, you talk like a lawyer.” “No need to get personal.”

  “Fu, don't mind-fuck me, man. You were in the Nam. Don't hassle me or be crappin’ on me like a damn honky cop.”

  “Why not take me to him?”

  He hesitated, thinking about business.

  “We short here?”

  He saw my ear. “Nah.” He took the cash. “Vet discount. Blue-light special, holiday shoppers. Lunar New Year an’ all that happy shit. Don't hammer me, I save you some bread.”

  I had a new friend. “Who's with him right now?”

  “Man, you one pushy motha.” Hands on hips, he looked down, then up, hard, ready to take a bite out of me. “Airborne Fu—you bein’ straight wif me? You just here to take him out and that's it?”

  “On my old, stinking ruck and my bad, smelly dogs.”

  He took a drag and exhaled through his nostrils. “Nam sure busted my damn feet. Your dude's hooked to the Queen a Scag. Ride them horses mos’ every night. Promise you, man, it ain't pretty.”

  “Where's the security? What do I run into up there?”

  He cocked his head. “Airborne Jack, I'm the security. Lissen, you a baby cherry here. You contain and be cool, Airborne, cuz there ain't gonna be no hurtin’ the Scag Queen, or no girls, nohow, no way.” A hard finger from a soft hand poked my chest. “Dig it?” He pulled on the smoke as if it were his last.

  I held up my hands. “Fm a peace-loving man. I got a partner.” I went to the door and pumped a fist. Magrip sprinted across, came in. Kids littered the street, afraid to come closer. The hookers pulled off caps and looked at Magrip hopefully.

  He sneered like Elvis. “Forget it.” No screams.

  “Magrip, Mr. Stubblefield, once of the Ninth Infantry. Mr. Stubblefield, Mr. Magrip, once of the Twenty-fifth Infantry.”

  “What's this, Kan, a blind date?” They shook. Stubblefield led us through the back door to an external iron stairway that went three flights in a building airspace.

  It smelled like a perfume factory, a noodle shop, and a truck stop. We stopped at the third floor. He hitched his head at the door and whispered, “That's it. Third door, left. Be cool.”

  “Only cuz you say so.” A three-part dap. He left.

  I pulled out the Browning and a mini-can of WD-40. I touched my jacket pockets for the extra magazines.

  Magrip pulled out the long-barreled.44 magnum and the competition Colt.45.

  “Sorry I couldn't get you bigger sidearms.”

  He shrugged. “I forgive you.”

  “I open, you look right, I look left. I go in left, you follow. Close the door. Keep your cannons out of sight.”

  The hinges looked good, but I sprayed WD-40. I opened the door; it parted silently. I looked left, he looked right. I stepped into the narrow wooden hallway, floorboards creaking. Empty. Down the hall came the music of a woman hollowly, eerily singing a soft Korean radio rock tune, “Chibee Chibee Chirum.”

  He clicked the hall door shut. The stairway behind was silent. Third door—locked, TV sounds. From somewhere, a woman laughed and another argued loudly. Someone was coming up the iron stairway behind us.

  I pocketed the Browning, pulled the knife and stuck the blade into the panel and leveraged, cracking wood, chunking out a spacer, and splitting the lock lip from its strike. I yanked the old iron mechanism out of its well, pulled the gun and brought it up as the door swung open and we went in, Magrip closing the shattered door, wood splinters every where.

  “Smooth technique, Godzilla,” said Magrip.

  I dropped the lock. Sour debris, human waste, stale cigarettes. A black-and-white TV flickered, horizontal control rolling. Magrip stood ready.

  I scanned the room and my heart fell.

  They had moved him. The arguing woman's voice was louder, more discordant through the wall. Voices in the hall. I glanced at Magrip; he shook his head: no sweat; they had passed our busted door.

  Two beds were pushed together, covered with empty food cartons, cardboard boxes, Korean and Japanese beauty magazines, and weeks of old newspapers. Something was under them. Weapon up, I cleared them and found a body wrapped in a comforter.

  I lifted the bedding, rolling the body. A slack-mouthed, tongue-floating woman, age indecipherable, comatose, face freshly bruised, arms tattooed with black injection sites, her body showing signs of all manner of earthly abuse. The Scag Queen.

  “And, if she talks,” said Magrip, “it'll be Korean.”

  I looked under the bed, clearing garbage. Nothing. A foul toilet closet. Empty. Magrip found a closet behind a tall cardboard carton. It was locked, so he tore the handle from the door and it swung open.

  Inside the closet, a man was hanging from the ceiling, dangling from leather straps that held him in some sort of arcane bondage harness, not unlike a parachute rig. The man was Anglo and thin.

  I lifted the chin—no mortis. It was Jimmy.

  28

  AN ANSWER TO PRAYER

  I safetied and pocketed the Browning, cut the straps and carried him to the cots as Magrip rapidly burrowed space.

  His chest was stone. I put fingertips to the heart. Nothing. Then a tremor like an uncertain soup under a weak fire. He was alive, the old spark protected somewhere within. I touched him, coaching him into breath, feeling blessed life in a faint pulse. His color was that of an old, forgotten porcelain doll, his arms blue.

  “Bee,” I said, compressing his chest. He had a beard and smelled like a dead goat. He was jaundiced, bruised and stirred into a ragged breath. He wore soiled thermal underwear, the arms cut off to allow easy injections. I took his pulse—42.

  His forearms looked like beetle food. On the bed stand was a cop's dream sheet of paraphernalia: needles, bottles, spoons, coke dirt, grime and criminal abuse. I slapped him hard.

  “Bee, you're in deep granola—you're grounded for a week.” I massaged his heart. “Keep pumping.”

  I thought Naktong and its firing squads would be ample deterrent to drugs. I had underestimated the power of bad habits.

  Magrip looked at Jimmy, one eye scrunched, jaw clenched, more somber than I had ever seen him. He was standing guard.

  “Jimmy the Bee, you're beautiful. And you smell terrific. Jackson's here to take you home. Let's go get some Cholon Chinese food and convict some scag dealers, what do you say? Talk to me, Jimmy. Wake up. Reveille.” I whistled it.

  He moaned, trembling. He tried to lick his lips, white with salt. The local water was unpotable. I gave him Song Sae's bottle of Bacchus-B ginseng concentrate from Second Market. I helped Jimmy suck it down, almost gagging him.

  Magrip crinkled his nose, “What the hell is that?”

  “Ginseng. Improves your sex life.”

  A flat face. “Yeah, that's important right now.”

  “Jimmy, we gotta go.”

  He garbled something, trying. More Bacchus-B. I lifted him off the
bed, testing his legs. Rubber. He mumbled, “Am I goin’ through changes?” The voice faint, a memory of him, the weakness, the confusion.

  The TV played Wanted—Dead or Alive. Steve McQueen spoke Korean without a hope of lip synch. I put Jimmy down and found socks and a pair of running shoes. Magrip came upon his fatigues and boots.

  “Jimmy, who did this?” I repeated the question. Nothing. I shook him and tried again. “Who, Jimmy?” I hissed. Magrip put on the blouse; I did trousers and socks. I repeated myself, I squeezed his cheeks as if I were a Chinese mother with her first baby.

  “Talk to me. Name the bad guys. For Carlos.” I cross-hatched his boot laces. “James, do it for the Tarheels.”

  That got him. He mumbled parts, then put it all together.

  “Wizard… Dogface. Dogface Nagol… bad boys, Jackson. Police ‘em up…. Get ‘em, Jackson….” Moaning, “Sic ‘em, boy.”

  I recorded it.

  “I thought a guy named James Thurber would talk a little different.”

  I wrapped his field cap around his head and put him over my shoulder. He felt like a long blanket roll. His lack of weight made me ache. I held the Browning in my left.

  Magrip entered the hallway and nodded. I led down the stairs into the tahang. Stubblefield was gone.

  Magrip cursed and something hard bashed the auto-matic from my hand, leaving it numb. Our guns clattered to the floor. Two men in brown leather jackets crouched, backing away, eyes wild with fear. They had clubbed our hands with heavy steel rebars.

  I should have put Magrip at point; he had no body occluding his vision. But I was team leader and the firstborn.

  A dozen armed pimps and users, backed up by angry comfort girls, faced us. The crowd held several versions of police revolvers, two rusted service.45s, scarred, ancient fighting staffs, brooms and a baseball bat in jumpy, quivering hands. Two of them, after several tries, picked up our guns.

  I lay Jimmy on the floor, stepping away from him.

  Stubblefield appeared. “Sorry, man. Turns out, these dudes an’ dudettes get premium pay for feedin’ scag to your man. Man, I didn't know. But they scared an’ they like their cash.”

  “We'll pay them,” I said. With Magrip's TDY advance.

  “Told ‘em you had a purse. But they afraid of some-thin’. You gonna hafta give your man back, Jack, and I ain't sure what happens after. They be on some bad high-octane Turkish shit.”

  Someone cocked a hammer, encouraging the same action in others. We were primed for a mass accidental shooting.

  “Aniyo, ” no, I said. One of the walking dead aimed his revolver at me and the hammer fell with a loud click. No explosion. He cursed and threw the gun. I ducked. It crashed into the only mirror in the shop as Magrip and I picked up tables to throw.

  “ANIYO! STOP!” Song Sae Moon glared from the door, facing the mob. Their gazes, pop-eyed for the violence we offered and expanded by the wonders of drugs, enlarged. Muzzles and bats quivered, then lowered. I put down the table, adrenaline banging. Magrip, less trusting, remained in throwing position.

  Song Sae approached. She spoke harshly, then softly. She lifted a big steel cooking pot and threw it on the floor, where it clattered loudly, right side up.

  I winced as the Browning was dropped into it, followed by all the handguns. Incredibly, none went off. I wondered if any were loaded. Song Sae seemed to bless each donor, smiling at one, touching others. After each benediction, the penitent left.

  The whorehouse militia was gone. Magrip dropped the table, picked up the pot, and retrieved ours and the one that had hit the mirror. He gave me the Browning. I safetied it, fingers unresponsive.

  I put Jimmy over my shoulder. “Hello, Song Sae. Mani kamsamneeda.”

  She bowed, smiling graciously. “I was happy to help. Dae-wi, can you not see that you are a believer? Did you not pray for help?” She looked at me expectantly, hopefully.

  There had been no prayer. I had cursed my stupidity for taking point, had almost been shot, and had picked up a table. Her faith had small play in my reality. “Yes, of course.”

  “Song Sae, Magrip. Song Sae Moon. She runs a bui doi Amerasian orphanage. She helps the shaman. And saves lives.”

  She bowed. Magrip, intrigued, half-bowed.

  Song Sae smiled, then saw Jimmy's inverted face. “Your chingu, your poor friend, is very ill. Please take him to Western doctor. Mudang cannot help this illness of drugs.”

  “I agree. Are you safe here? You said girls who come Southside do not come back.”

  “Dae-wi, I am not a girl. I am kidae. I felt your prayer, dae-wi. It is what brought me to this tabang. If I am true to in-sam, to harmony, and my karma, I have nothing to fear.”

  I nodded. “You take care,” I said to Stubblefield.

  “Back at you, man,” he said. We went through the door, walking faster across the broad, open street in the moments before true dusk. We were surrounded immediately by kids. I put the Browning in a pocket. Magrip fol-lowed suit. Clouds were forming to the north.

  I took a deep breath. Jimmy to a doc, Magrip to baby-sit him, and I to Naktong for Patrick McCrail and Levine.

  Jimmy the Bee groaned. He sounded like a little boy.

  “You made it out, buddy,” I said.

  “Gonna be sick,” he moaned. I felt his abdomen spasm.

  “Oh, man, Jimmy, not on my new coat. It cost me fifty cents.”

  Movement in the shadows caught my eye.

  Acne Man, the busted-nosed thug from the Vegas, stepped into our path. Fleeg. He had an AK-47, the muzzle on us. Even without Jimmy on my shoulder and with a following wind, he was beyond the range of my best kick.

  Fleeg, courtesy of our dance at the Vegas, had two blackened eyes, a busted cheek, a rebroken nose and a bright white bandage on the swollen bridge.

  “Well, screw me to tears in the Navy,” said Magrip. “What'd you do, Happy Face, shave with a rake?”

  “You fucker,” said Fleeg in a high nasal voice.

  “We both go,” whispered Magrip. I took a deep breath.

  “I wouldn't.” Willoughby came from behind, standing so his AK-47 held both of us within an inch of sweep. I looked at him. He stopped, then backed up. I felt Magrip try to close the distance, and Willoughby aimed his rifle at Song Sae.

  “Keep coming and I blow her away.”

  Magrip stopped. We were in the kill zone, tin ducks in the arcade gallery. I stared, waiting for the clacks of Claymores, the crump of grenades, the high wheeze of automatic weapons. Sun Tzu said: Strike like the shuai jan, the snake.

  I had been the tortoise. No Napoleon today.

  I licked my lips. “Gee, guys, what kept you?”

  “Screw you, jerkface,” Fleeg hissed.

  “Okay,” I said, “have it your way. You're under arrest.”

  “Well, excuse the hell outa me, but you're dead meat,” he growled, counting witnesses. The children began to melt away. He aimed the rifle at them. “Kneel or I blow them away. Now!”

  We hesitated and he fired two rounds at the kids, kicking dirt and missing them, the 7.62mm rounds whining down the alley and breaking glass in the distance. Orphans scattered, the sound of panicked children making me want to cry.

  We knelt. The kids were gone. Jimmy was my best weapon. I leaned forward.

  “I can see you're stupid,” offered Magrip. “But even you aren't dumb enough to murder three IGs and all those kids.”

  He had made Willoughby pause. He grinned. “I don't think so, Luke. Don't like me calling you ‘Luke’? Luke, babes, we just caught two kidnappers with a GI. And those gook kids don't know anything. Hey, Luke, you're not so tall now, are you?”

  “Jesus, Willow,” said Fleeg with wonder, “it's the Ice Queen.” He admired her while trying to keep his eyes on me.

  Willoughby wasn't ready to kill a woman he hadn't dated. He wanted to woo her with moonlight sonatas, long-stemmed red roses and a low purchase price.

  I edged forward as he did the math of courtship, tryin
g to squeeze in a date with the demands of multiple murder.

  “Willow,” said Fleeg, regretting his comment. “Plenty where that came from.” He was nervous. “Do her first.”

  “Who?” I said. My best answer. I edged closer.

  Willoughby wanted Song Sae alive, in round heels and a short skirt. He gathered himself, grimacing, and backed up. We didn't have a chance. Time to drop Jimmy and cover him.

  A small black object bounced off Fleeg's leg. He looked at it stupidly and I went down, covering Jimmy as it exploded with a blast that erupted in my skull, fluttered cheeks, whipped my body with debris and began a shrill metallic ringing in my brain. Jimmy twitched. A great pocket of cosmic, heated space filled the world. I was stunned and there was no shrapnel.

  Concussion grenade. I struggled up, head bursting, staggering, clawing the Browning from my jacket.

  Fleeg was down, blood trickling from an ear. Willoughby twitched, and Magrip was struggling up, drawing the cannon. Willoughby managed to get up on all fours, slowly shaking his head, fingers feeling, reaching for the AK.

  Magrip planted himself, then punted Willoughby in the head with his boot, knocking him into a backflip and making the kind of sound that makes the faint ill. I already felt ill. Magrip spat, then collapsed. My ears rang and I felt a tremendous urge to throw up, so I did.

  I looked up. A woman officer in dress green slacks turned in a circle, a snub-nosed revolver at the end of both extended arms, her mouth and eyes wide open, exhaling condensed air as she looked for more renegade JAGCs. She wore marksmanship-competition ear covers.

  It was Levine, thrower of concussion grenades.

  Her lips were moving at me, but I couldn't hear. I shrugged. She made a face and shook her head and recovered the AK-47s, slinging them over her shoulder. For some reason, I couldn't stop staring at the creases caused by the straps.

  She helped a dazed and trembling Song Sae stand. My ears rang like the bells of Notre Dame. With ferocious concentration, I was able to get Dentyne in my mouth. Chewing was harder.