by Martin Limon
I crawled forward, sweeping in front of me with my free hand, searching for her.
I touched something. A foot I think. Someone screeched and then a fist hit me on the side of my head. It was a small fist and it didn’t hurt much. It told me where she was. I lunged forward, felt her arms, and then we were grappling with one another in the dark. I enveloped her in my arms. She struggled until she realized who I was. I lay atop her. Her arms found the back of my neck and hugged tightly.
She was safe. For the moment anyway.
17
A beam of light searched down the stairwell.
“Sueño? You down there?”
“Down here,” I said.
“We have to un-ass the area, immediately if not sooner.”
“Was it lightning?” I asked.
“Must be. Electricity’s out in the whole area. Those assholes are regrouping out there. I heard them use the word chung.” Gun.
Doc Yong would have a solid charge to file against Snake: false imprisonment, kidnapping, maybe worse. Snake couldn’t allow that to happen. And the perfect time to make sure that it didn’t happen was in the middle of the night while a Manchurian storm raged and the electricity was out in the entire village of Itaewon.
I listened for sirens. Nothing. No sign of Captain Kim and the Korean National Police. What with a power outage and a snowstorm, their hands were full. If Captain Kim came to check on Ernie and me, it would be too late.
Doc Yong was already moving toward the light. Ernie shifted the beam of the flashlight and we climbed the stairs to the first floor of Snake’s mansion. Outside, more flashlights cast harsh rays on window panes. Shadows moved stealthily, whispering instructions to one another.
“This way,” Ernie said.
We scurried through a kitchen. At the back door, Ernie paused, listened, and then unlatched the door and pushed it open. Someone shouted.
“Shit,” Ernie said and relocked the door.
“Come on,” I said. I had an idea.
The three of us hurried back into the house. I led Doc Yong and Ernie upstairs.
The house itself was two stories tall, with balconies, and on the east side of the building was a garage, the kind the Koreans build, a small cement-block enclosure, barely large enough to contain a car, with a metal pull-down grating in front that can be securely locked. No flimsy wooden outbuildings as found in the States. In Korea, cars are valuable commodities and their owners don’t want them either stolen or exposed to the elements.
Attached to the garage was a party wall shared with Snake’s neighbor. If we could make it there, unseen, we could escape. If we had to, Ernie and I could shoot it out with Snake and his boys. We were both armed but I hoped to avoid that type of bloodshed. There was no guarantee that Ernie and I would get the better of the exchange and I had Doc Yong’s safety to think about.
Sneaking away seemed to be the best policy.
I climbed out of a bedroom window and onto the roof of the garage. I stayed low and moved toward the back of the mansion. There, where the neighbor’s wall ended, was a ten-foot drop into a cul-de-sac surrounded by more granite walls. Snake and his boys would be cut off from us. I waved at Ernie to follow. He sent Doc Yong first. When she was halfway across the roof of the garage, Ernie climbed out after her. Then we heard a shot.
Ernie’s military training had stood him in good stead during two tours in Vietnam and it stood him in good stead now. He flattened himself and as he did so a second gunshot erupted from the front of Snake’s mansion. The round winged through the air just a few feet above Ernie’s head. He low-crawled across the roof.
I jumped down into the cul-de-sac first, then helped Doc Yong. Ernie followed. From the shouts in front of Snake’s mansion, his men had realized where we’d gone. In seconds they’d be scurrying through connecting pathways, trying to cut us off.
We ran.
Itaewon is a maze of pedestrian walkways. All the twists and turns and dead ends and curving paths doubling back on themselves would baffle an Apache tracker, especially on a dark night with snow falling. But Ernie had a general rule: head toward booze. That is, keep yourself oriented on the two- and three-story buildings that rise along the edge of the strip that is the beating heart of the nightclub district of Itaewon. The neon was not blinking because of the lateness of the hour—and the electricity outage. And the night sky with its overhanging snow clouds was pitch black. Only the occasional flicker from indoor candlelight or the flame of a charcoal stove illuminated a small portion of the world. Despite these handicaps, Ernie somehow kept us oriented. The pathways were covered with slippery snow as were the rooftops and the ledges and the windowsills and since it was past the midnight curfew not a soul was on the streets except us. Even the white mice seemed to have hunkered down in their barracks for the night. Occasionally, we stopped and listened. Muffled shouts. Footsteps tromping on ice. Snake and his gaggle of fledgling Dragons were still following.
Finally, an alley we were traversing emerged onto the main drag just north of the King Club. Ernie peered around the corner. Then he leaned back toward me and whispered, “Looks like it’s all clear.”
“Let’s hope,” I said.
“Where to now?” Ernie asked.
The only place of safety I could think of was the Itaewon Police Station.
Ernie nodded. “It’s a long straight run. They might’ve stationed some of their boys in the alleys off to the side, figuring we’d come this way.”
“We’ll have to chance it,” I said.
Doc Yong tugged at my sleeve. I turned to look at her and in the darkness I could barely make out the smooth features of her face. I leaned closer until our noses touched.
“Across the street,” she said. “Someone’s waving.”
I turned and studied the area she’d indicated. Rotating my head, using my peripheral vision, I finally saw it. Movement. And then I realized it was someone’s hand, waving back and forth, trying to catch our attention while being careful to stay out of sight from the main street.
Ernie followed my gaze. “Who is it?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know.
Doc Yong stepped between us and said, “Miss Kwon. She’s trying to lead us to safety.”
“Her?” I asked. “What’s she doing out so late?”
“People must’ve seen your jeep entering Itaewon,” Doc Yong said. “Word spread. Someone told her you were back. She knew you were probably looking for me so she’s been standing here, waiting to help.”
True dedication to Doc Yong. No time to discuss that now.
“I’ll go first,” Ernie said. “You two follow, if I don’t get shot.”
“No,” I said. “I’ll go first.”
“Not a chance.” Ernie dropped to the ground and low-crawled into the street. He moved amazingly fast, like a serpent slithering across tile. Seconds later, he was standing next to Miss Kwon, beckoning for us to follow.
I told Doc Yong that speed was more important than keeping a low profile so, instead of trying to crawl like Ernie, she darted across the ice-covered main drag of Itaewon in a crouch. I held my .45, ready to return fire if anyone took a potshot at her. No one did.
I was next and I sprinted at top speed across the road figuring that quickness and the element of surprise would keep me safe.
With her single crutch propped beneath her arm, Miss Kwon bowed to Doc Yong. Then, without a word, she turned and hobbled off into the dark maze, leading the way.
* * *
Ernie sensed it before I did. Footsteps behind us. Miss Kwon was moving faster now—one step and a thump, one step and a thump. We were still following a long, seemingly endless footpath.
Behind us, urgent speaking. Men’s voices. Then footsteps, picking up speed.
“Bali,” Miss Kwon said. She broke into a more rapid step, thump, step, thump.
We trotted forward, moving as fast as we could but our progress was impeded by Miss Kwon. Doc Yong stayed beside her, holding her arm, letting me know t
hat there was no way we were going to leave Miss Kwon behind.
The footsteps were gaining.
Ernie turned, pulled his .45 and said, “You go on ahead. I’ll hold them off.”
“No. Come on. We’ll make a turn up here and lose them,” I said.
“There,” Ernie said, pointing to an overturned handcart. It blocked most of the open space at an intersection of two narrow pedestrian pathways. Ernie crouched behind it. Looking back, he had an unimpeded line of sight of about ten yards. In the middle of the ten yards another extremely narrow alley—just a fissure between buildings—ran off on one side of the pathway. It was unlikely that Snake’s boys would find cover there.
“When they round the corner,” Ernie said, “I’ll fire over their heads. That’ll give you guys time to get away. Then while they’re hiding and trying to figure out what to do, I’ll sneak off after you.”
“OK,” I said, “but remember, only fire over their heads.”
“Don’t sweat the small stuff, Sueño. Where will I meet you?”
It would be impossible to reach the Itaewon Police Station. They expected us to head there and they’d have plenty of men, and firepower, waiting for us. I was still thinking this over when Miss Kwon piped up.
“Itaewon Market,” she said. “I know good place.”
“Where?” Ernie asked.
“No sweat. We hide. Warm place. Wait till sun come out.”
Footsteps crunched on ice. We turned. Doc Yong dragged Miss Kwon off into the shadows. Two shadows emerged from around the corner ten yards away as Ernie and I crouched behind the handcart. More shadows joined the lead two and, like a phalanx of ancient warriors, the men marched down the narrow pathway.
Ernie leveled his .45 at them.
“Higher,” I said.
The barrel didn’t move. The men continued down the pathway. Ernie’s fist tightened. Just as the gang of thugs reached the halfway mark, another shadow emerged from the fissure between the buildings on the other side of the road. It was huge, like a tall stick figure, and something long and dark swung in a wicked arc. The thump was so loud I felt it rather than heard it. The first two shadows at the head of the formation crumpled to the ground. Then the stick swung again and another thump ensued, and then another.
The formation backed up around the corner, away from us. The stick figure ran toward us, rod upraised, like a gangly avenging angel. Ernie pointed the barrel of his .45 right at him. When he was a few feet away I recognized him from the thin, angular shape of his body.
“Cort,” I said and Ernie lowered the barrel of his .45.
“How’d you find Miss Kwon?” I asked.
“I’ve known her a long time,” Cort answered.
We sat in a wooden enclosure about ten feet by ten feet and only four feet high. The floor was stained with purple dye and the entire enclosure reeked of lard.
“Pigs’ house,” is what Miss Kwon called it as she’d led us into the Itaewon Market. We moved through abandoned stalls laden with freshly fallen snow and then beneath canvas overhangs to a tightly packed grouping of wooden counters. We crawled beneath the counters and then through a low wooden door and entered a manmade tunnel that twisted twice before ending in this vile enclosure. The place reeked of flesh and a sheen of ice covered the cement, as if it had been thoroughly washed as the freeze set in.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this is where the butchers kept their hogs. Outside was a contraption hanging on a crossed wooden peg that looked like a medieval torture device but I knew what it was used for. To hang the hogs by their hind legs while the butcher slit their throats and allowed the blood to drain into a cement sump. I’d walked past here early in the morning on more than one occasion and heard the screams. At first I’d thought the sound was human. And then I realized that it was the last anguished cries of a pig being slaughtered.
Five minutes after our arrival, footsteps approached in our wake. Snow had been falling steadily so it was unlikely that whoever was outside had seen any traces of our arrival. We sat motionless, breathing as little as possible.
The footsteps searched through the market area, paused for a moment, and then two men started chatting in low tones. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Someone lit a cigarette. Then more footsteps as they moved on. We sat for another half hour in the cold, dank slaughterhouse.
No one approached.
Miss Kwon had somehow come up with a single short candle which she lit and stuck in the middle of the floor of this porcine abattoir. Even that tiny amount of heat brought to life the stale odor of pork flesh. It hovered around us, poking fat fingers into twitching nostrils, causing us to cough and wave our hands, as if chasing away the last vestiges of an evil cloud. Then she and Doc Yong left the enclosure.
“Miss Kwon,” Cort said, “was one of the orphans. She was brought from Itaewon by the nuns while she was still an infant. On the trip she developed a fever and they thought she would die. Somehow, she pulled through. We’ve always been proud of her for that. We always knew she was a survivor.”
“‘We?’” I asked.
“I joined the temple a few months after the Itaewon Massacre. I sometimes helped take care of the kids and grew to love them.”
“I thought Buddhist’s weren’t supposed to love people,” I said.
“It’s difficult,” Cort replied. “Love ties us to this world, making it harder for us to eliminate desire. But it’s a powerful force. We try to understand it and thereby, ultimately, conquer it.”
The two women reentered the pen. They’d been to find a place to pee.
“How’d you find this hiding place?” I asked Miss Kwon.
She lay down her crutch and squatted awkwardly, keeping her injured leg straight out in front of her.
“Find up,” she replied. “Before I work this kind work.”
I glanced at Cort.
“During the years after the war,” he said, “the nuns were short of money, like everybody. They sent some of the kids to live with foster families. Temporarily for most of them but some of them stayed, especially if the family needed them to work. From the time she was a little girl Miss Kwon was a hard worker. She stayed with a family of butchers. Over time, they became her real family at least emotionally.”
These were the people who’d recently told Miss Kwon that they couldn’t take her back because they couldn’t afford to support her, that she must return to Itaewon and continue to earn money as a hostess in the King Club.
“They aren’t Buddhists, right?” I asked “Because they’re butchers.”
Cort shrugged. “Maybe they are. Probably they are. Not everybody can follow the teachings exactly. People have to live.”
Ernie was restless. He crawled outside through the tunnel and returned when he heard noises.
“They already searched the market,” he said, “but not thoroughly. They’ll be back.”
“Not for hours,” Cort said. “By then the sun will be up.”
We slept as best as we could, on the cold bloody slab.
Maybe an hour later, I awoke with the hot gritty odor of smoke shoving up my nostrils. I was dreaming of a barbecue in East L.A., after someone had slaughtered a goat. But then I realized that the smoke was real and it was all around me.
“Fire!” I shouted, reaching in the darkness for Doc Yong. At first my open palms slapped only flat cement. But then I hit a shoe and then a shoulder.
Doc Yong sat up.
“Fire. We have to get out of here.”
She grabbed Miss Kwon. The three of us started crawling. I wasn’t quite sure where Ernie and Cort were. A wall of smoke floated between us and the other side of the abattoir. The tunnel heading toward the back of the butcher shop, away from the counter facing the center of the Itaewon Market, was closer. On all fours, I led the way. Light was no longer a problem. Off to our left, the wooden stand next to the butcher shop was fully ablaze, casting rays of quivering brightness through cracks in the woodwork. I had
almost reached the end of the tunnel when a wall of fire, like a flaming blanket, stopped us. I recoiled from the heat. Doc Yong bumped into me.
“What is it, Geogi?” she asked.
“Canvas,” I said. “It fell from the roof and it’s about to set these wooden walls on fire.”
I crawled forward as fast as I could, doing my best to ignore the heat. When I was as close to the burning canvas as I could stand, I turned over, flopped on my butt, and crawled forward feet first, kicking at the burning material. The wooden walls of the tunnel were beginning to smoke now.
“Hurry!” Doc Yong said.
I kicked at the canvas, it bounced away from the soles of my shoes, but then flopped back into place, still blocking our way. I had to have something with which to push it out of our way.
I studied the smoking walls surrounding me. One of the support struts was made of dried wood with a few rusty nails holding it loosely in place. I grabbed it and yanked. It didn’t budge. Doc Yong tried to pull at the top of the strip of wood while I worked at the center. Still it didn’t move. Miss Kwon cowered, her eyes wide. I saw no other likely loose struts of wood.
Her face streaming with perspiration, Doc Yong reached past me and frantically pulled the strut toward her. I pushed her out of the way. This time I pulled steadily, applying pressure with my foot as I heaved and then ancient metal nails groaned, started to slip, and then released violently.
I wrenched the strut away from the last nail holding it and turning my face away from the heat, I poked the canvas up from the ground a couple of feet,
“Crawl through,” I shouted.
The world around us was not only growing brighter with flame but hotter. Breathing was increasingly difficult as clouds of smoke enveloped us. They both crawled forward, Doc Yong first. Laying flat on her face, she wriggled beneath the burning canvas and beyond it and then Miss Kwon, still holding on to her crutch with her right hand, crawled about halfway through. She paused, exhausted, and just as I was about to reach for her, from the other side of the flames, someone pulled and Miss Kwon’s good foot kicked forward and then she was out.
