The Ville Rat

by Martin Limon

  I showed her my badge.

  “This,” I said, holding up one of the cans. “Where you get?”

  “Present-uh,” she said quickly. “Some GI present-uh to me.”

  “It was a gift?”

  She nodded quickly.

  “And where did the GI get it?” I asked.

  “PX,” she said. “He buy PX.”

  She was lying and I was about to call her on it when something heavy slammed onto the bar. A sledge hammer. That’s what I thought at first. But then I turned and looked. An angry black GI held a pool cue aloft, threatening to use it again.

  “You don’t mess with the Kit Kat Club. You arra? You don’t mess with Mama and you don’t mess with the brothers.”

  He was a burly-looking character with a broad face and angry eyes. The rest of the GIs in the bar were slowly approaching at his rear to back him up.

  I held up my hands in surrender, palms facing forward.

  “All right,” I said. “Just a health and welfare inspection.” I came out from behind the bar and Ernie joined me. We pushed our way through the small crowd, staying on the opposite side of the pool table from the guy with the pool cue, and were about halfway to the door when one of the GIs said, “Health and welfare inspection, my ass.”

  An eight ball slammed against the door in front of us.

  We hurried outside, but before we exited Ernie turned and waved and gave the patrons of the Kit Kat Club a slight bow.

  Out on the street, Ernie said, “Nice fellows.”

  “A little territorial,” I replied.

  The next bar was called the Aces High Club. It was smaller but had piped-in jazz and a longer bar with a few booths along the wall. Three or four older business girls sat in the booths, smoking and gossiping, but interrupted their talk long enough to gape at us as we walked in. The bartender was a young man wearing a white shirt, black bow tie, and black vest. Ernie ordered an OB. I surprised the bartender when I said, “Colt 45.”

  “No have,” he said.

  “Why not?” I asked. “I thought everybody have.”

  “Most tick have.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow we get, maybe.”

  The black market in Korea is so widespread that no one bothers to deny its existence.

  I settled for an OB and waited for one of the business girls to approach. Within five minutes, two of them did. Ernie horsed around with them, getting them laughing, and when they asked us to buy them drinks, I mentioned the lack of Colt 45. The girls looked concerned, anxious that I wasn’t pleased. For a moment they chatted between themselves in rapid Korean. I followed most of it and picked out the words “maeul ui jwi.”

  Then one of them turned to me and said, “Tomorrow have.”

  “What time?”

  That stumped her. “Tomorrow daytime, anybody bring Colt 45. Tomorrow night you come Aces High, have.”

  I decided not to press them, not right now. I didn’t want to spook whoever was bringing the Colt 45 tomorrow.

  Ernie and I finished our drinks, thanked the girls, and left them mumbling that we hadn’t bought them a drink. I told them we’d see them tomorrow. I don’t think either of them believed it. Of course, neither did I.

  ■ ■ ■

  Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, the US Army ignored segregation and prejudice within its ranks, pretending it didn’t exist. Now, because of mandates by Congress, Equal Employment Opportunity training had been established, but the effects of race riots only a few years ago and what the black GIs saw as the bias of the predominantly white officer corps meant that nerves were still rubbed raw. As such, most of the black GIs treasured their time off compound, where they could get on down with the Korean girls and commiserate with their brothers. And they weren’t real happy when white GIs burst through their porous little bubble and stepped into their world.

  Ernie and I tried three more clubs, keeping a low profile, not wanting to piss off the black GIs any more than we had to. At each club, I mentioned the name maeul ui jwi.

  “What’s it mean?” Ernie asked.

  “A rat of the village.”

  “The Ville Rat,” Ernie replied.

  “Right.”

  We managed to locate two bar owners, three waitresses, and two business girls who gave me a description of him: skinny, curly red puffed-out hair, a wispy mustache. His clothing was strictly nonregulation: slacks and leather boots and brightly colored shirts with starbursts and swirls.

  “Migun?” I asked. Is he an American soldier?

  The response was unanimous: He was, but he’s not now. Bit by bit I gathered that the Ville Rat made his money by selling malt liquor and imported cognac to the bars in Samgakji and elsewhere. He traveled from GI village to GI village, selling his wares, showing up on a set schedule to replenish supplies. He was white but he sold to the bars that catered to black GIs. Most of the bars charged 1,500 won for a can of Colt 45, three bucks, which was a hell of a lot. So not many GIs bought it. But there were a few who did. Maybe because it reminded them of home. Maybe because they wanted a little more kick than beer offered without having to drink so much that they’d put on weight.

  I tried to find out what the bar owners paid the Ville Rat for each can, but they were evasive. Black marketeering was widespread but still a crime. I figured they probably paid a thousand for it. The Ville Rat would want twice what he paid for it, standard remuneration on the black market. So maybe he paid a dollar for it, sold it to the bar owner for two and they in turn sold it to their customer for the equivalent of three US dollars, or 1,500 won.

  I wasn’t sure of any of this, but the economics made sense. Nobody sold what they purchased out of the military PXs or commissaries without receiving at least twice what they paid for it, and sometimes more. The catch was that the Ville Rat wasn’t buying the Colt 45 out of the PX or the Class VI store because 8th Army’s Central Locker Fund didn’t carry it.

  Ernie and I strolled down the main drag of Samgakji. Groups of GIs standing near the front of nightclubs stopped talking as we approached and glared at us. Clicking loudly on his ginseng gum, Ernie raised a hand in greeting, as if they were old friends. No one returned the gesture.

  “So where does the Ville Rat buy the Colt 45 and the cognac?” Ernie asked.

  “If he’s not in the army anymore,” I said, “he doesn’t have a ration card, so he can’t buy the cognac out of the Class Six.”

  “And the Colt 45?”

  “He can’t buy that anywhere,” I said. “There’s no demand for it amongst Koreans, so no one imports it.”

  “Do we know that for sure?”

  “Okay,” I admitted. “Maybe we don’t. But we do know about the customs duties and the transportation costs. You buy a can of Colt 45 from a wholesaler in the States, you pay maybe fifty cents for it. Then you have it shipped overseas and then you pay the customs duties.”

  Ernie whistled.

  “Right. By then it costs you at least two bucks. Maybe more.”

  “And two bucks, a thousand won, is what he’s selling the Colt 45 to the bar owners for.”

  “Right. He’d lose money on the deal.”

  Ernie thought about that. “So maybe he’s like Johnny Appleseed, just spreading joy around the world.”

  A brown bottle hurtled out of the sky, missed my head by a few inches, and crashed to the pavement. I ducked. Ernie turned and ran toward the dark alley where it had come from. He halted when he looked down the narrow pedestrian lane and saw no one there. Across the street, a pack of black GIs stood in front of a juke joint. Music blared out of the bar in a sinuous, thumping rhythm. A single bulb illuminated their faces—all of them sweaty, flushed, lined with glee, greatly enjoying our anxiety.

  Fists clenched, Ernie glared back at them.

  I grabbed his elbow and pulled him away.r />
  “Shit heads,” he said. That seemed to make him feel better.

  When we hit the road that led back to the compound, a blue KNP sedan blocked our way. A dapper Korean man in an overcoat stood next to the vehicle. The dim yellow bulb of the street lamp illuminated his face: Mr. Kill.

  He motioned for us to get in. We did. He sat up front, next to his driver and full-time assistant, Officer Oh. As usual she wore the official KNP female uniform: low-cut black oxfords, navy blue skirt, neatly pressed baby-blue blouse, and a pillbox cap with an upturned brim pinned to her braided hair.

  “How’d you find us?” Ernie asked.

  Inspector Gil Kwon-up, chief homicide inspector of the Korean National Police, shrugged.

  “We have our ways.”

  Ways like police stations strategically placed throughout the entire metropolis of Seoul and foot patrols branching out from there.

  “Why’d you find us?” I asked.

  “There’s something I want to show you,” he said

  Officer Oh drove toward the main drag that headed from Samgakji circle toward the Seoul Train Station, stepped on the gas, and plowed into heavy nighttime traffic.

  Ernie leaned forward, gazing avidly past her left ear, excited by something. Maybe the traffic. Maybe the chase. More likely, her. There’s nothing he likes better, he once told me, than a woman who’s a fascist.

  A kisaeng house is an institution in Seoul that virtually all men of any means participated in, at least occasionally. Of course the kisaeng houses for the rich and famous are elaborate edifices behind stone walls with accoutrements so luxurious that people like me and Ernie can only imagine what they might be like. But there are lower-level kisaeng houses, more like converted homes, where women in traditional Korean gowns, the chima-jeogori, dance and sing and pluck tunes on the kayagum zither. Where kimchi and soju and marinated beef and various delights from the sea are served and hardworking businessmen take off their jackets and loosen their ties and sit cross-legged on cushions on a warm floor and allow the gorgeous female kisaeng to rub their brows with warm towels and massage their backs and giggle musically every time they tell a weak joke.

  That was the type of place Ernie and I had been to a couple of times, and it was the type of place Mr. Kill took us to this time. Stoically, Officer Oh waited outside in the sedan. Bright red Chinese characters shone from a white background on the neon sign. Mr. Kill glanced at me, raising one eyebrow. I read it.

  “Myong Un,” I said. “Bright Cloud.”

  Kill cracked a begrudging smile. “Very good,” he said.

  At the entranceway, at least a dozen pairs of men’s shoes sat beneath the raised wooden floor. A heavily made-up middle-aged woman in an embroidered silk gown bowed to us and spoke in rapid Korean to Mr. Kill. We slipped off our shoes, stepped up on the polished surface, and followed her as she floated down the long hallway. She turned right, then left, and finally stopped and slid open an oil-papered door, motioning us in and bowing as she did so.

  Ernie and I followed Mr. Kill into the room. He slipped off his overcoat and hung it on a coatrack. We did the same with our nylon jackets. Ernie arranged his so the fire-breathing dragon snarled at anyone who might approach. Then we sat on flat cushions on the floor around a low rectangular table. Mother-of-pearl white cranes flapped their wings against a black background, attempting to lift themselves into a beckoning sky.

  “So what the hell are we here for?” Ernie asked.

  “To talk to a girl,” Mr. Kill said.

  Ernie’s eyes widened. “That’s what everybody comes here for.”

  The oil-papered door slid open. The middle-aged woman entered again, this time carrying a wooden tray with three steaming cups of barley tea and a small porcelain pot for refills. She poured the cups, offered them to us with two hands, and bowed once again before backing out of the room.

  I sipped on my tea. So did Ernie, gathering by Mr. Kill’s silence that more answers wouldn’t be forthcoming. Not, at least, until he was good and ready.

  Footsteps pattered down the hallway. Tentative, light. The footsteps of a small person, almost childlike except for the deliberateness of the step. They paused in front of the door, as if they had to take a deep breath to summon courage. There was a moment of silence, and then the door slid abruptly open. A small young woman bowed very low and shuffled into the room.

  Mr. Kill motioned with his open palm. “Anjo.” Sit down.

  She did.

  Her face was full cheeked but not fat, and heavily made up. The chima-jeogori she wore was made of cotton, not the fine silk of the older woman’s, and had a broad print pattern of red, green, and blue stripes, not elaborate hand embroidery. She stared at the tabletop, fingers interlaced in front of her waist. What she looked like was a rice-powdered chipmunk waiting for a falcon to swoop down and snatch her into the sky.

  “Miss Kwon,” Inspector Gil said gently, speaking in Korean, “do not be afraid of these two men. They are here to listen, not to hurt you.”

  She nodded very slightly to indicate that she had heard. In a halting voice she told her story.

  She was from the province of Kyongsan-namdo and her parents had been very poor; itinerant laborers moving from farm to farm. She hadn’t acquired even the nationally mandated six years of schooling, and when she reached her teens her parents were approached by a recruiter looking for young women to purchase for work in Seoul.

  “Purchase?” I asked, using the Korean word.

  Mr. Kill motioned for me to be quiet. “Once you started work,” he said in Korean, “your employer promised to send money directly to your parents?”

  She nodded.

  “Did he?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What happened then?”

  “They took me to a kisaeng house in Mapo. There I was trained in how to serve men.” Her face reddened as she said this. “Later, when they thought I was presentable enough, I was driven along with three other girls to Seoul.”

  “And one of these girls was the woman you knew as Miss Hwang?”

  “Yes. That’s what she called herself.”

  None of them, I figured, would be using their real names. In fact, Mr. Kill hadn’t even used this young woman’s name. Remaining anonymous made it easier for her to confess.

  “And they took you where?” Kill asked.

  “To a dormitory, somewhere out near Guri.” Just east of Seoul. “I thought it was strange. I mean, strange that we didn’t have to entertain men at night. And then I found out why.”

  She paused, looking down. We waited while she composed herself. I was beginning to realize what a brave little woman this was. She took a deep breath and started again.

  “They had a van, and a driver. They would take us to various places. Office buildings after they were closed, hotel basements, even picnic areas outside the city.”

  “What would you do there?” Mr. Kill asked.

  “We would serve the men,” she said simply.

  “In what way?”

  For the first time, she looked up at him. “In every way.”

  “And Miss Hwang always went with you?”

  “She was one of us.”

  “How well did you get to know her?”

  “Not very. They kept us separated during the day. They had work for us to do. Mending old dresses. Washing. Ironing. Trying to make old rags look like new.” She shook her head at the memory. “We tried to look like kisaeng, but we weren’t kisaeng. We were the lowest of the low. Shuttled around from one place to another. I read about it in a movie magazine once. We’re what the Americans call ‘party girls.’”

  She pronounced it in the Korean way: pa-ti gu-ruhl.

  “How long did this go on?”

  “Months. Until I escaped.”

  “How did you escape?”

  �
��The van driver was lax. And the man who was supposed to accompany him was sick. We were stuck in traffic, late in the afternoon, all dressed up and on our way to another party. Right in the middle of the road, I slid open the door, jumped out, and ran.”

  “In your chima-jeogori?”

  “Yes. And my rubber sandals. The driver wasn’t able to leave the van, and the traffic was so heavy that he couldn’t turn around. Not in time, at least.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I don’t know. I just ran. When night fell and I realized that I was safe, I started to beg. No one would help me, but one kind woman gave me some money. With that, I caught a bus and came here, to Mukyo-dong.”

  “Why Mukyo-dong?”

  “Because I knew there were real kisaeng houses here. Where the girls just served the men in the traditional way, not that other way. I thought maybe I could get a job.”

  “And you did?”

  “Yes. I found the Bright Cloud and knocked on the door, and by that time I looked horrible, but the woman who owns this place is kind. She took me in. She fed me. She took care of me.”

  Tears came to her eyes.

  “And you’ve worked here ever since?”

  “Yes.”

  “You took a big risk by trying to escape.”

  “Yes.”

  “What would they have done to you if they caught you?”

  She hugged herself and shuddered. “I’m not sure.”

  “The same thing they did to Miss Hwang?”

  She stared at the far wall. “Yes, maybe.”

  Inspector Gil Kwon-up, the man known as Mr. Kill, leaned closer. “What exactly did they do to Miss Hwang?”

  -8-

  The elderly woman knocked and breezed into the room. Briskly, she replaced the cold pot of tea with a new one, dumped the cold tea in our cups into the old pot, and poured us steaming cups of fresh tea. I figured this was her way of letting us know that we’d been here too long. Already, male voices talked and laughed down the hall. After a few drinks, they’d be clapping their hands in rhythm and singing ancient Korean songs and, eventually, after even more cups of soju, they’d be dancing, with the girls or with each other.