by Jack Bunker
Kwan said, “Give me a Cass and an order of kimchi jjigae.”
Min Jee put a beer in front of Kwan and walked off to the kitchen to place his order.
Kwan looked at the spot on the floor where the dead man had lain. “You wouldn’t know he was ever there.”
I asked, “Did you know the guy?”
“His name was Dae-Hyun. He drank at Radio Rose, on Olympic. I knew people who did business with him.”
“He looked like a successful guy.”
“What goes up must come down,” said Kwan. “He had the car and clothes from the good days, but I heard he was having some troubles.” Kwan glanced at Ms. Tam where she stood at the end of the bar. “That’s why he came here.”
I leaned in close to Kwan and spoke softly. “Ms. Tam gives loans?”
“No,” said Kwan. “Ms. Tam gives nothing away.”
I was confused, but that usually happened whenever I entered into a conversation in Saja. It was easier to just sing and drink.
Min Jee came back with a tray containing a bubbling stone crock of soup and a side order of rice. There was also a couple of tiny plates of pickled vegetables that reeked of garlic.
Kwan dug into his soup and then looked up at me. “Kimchi jjigae. This will put hair on your balls.”
“Yeah, well…”
Min Jee asked if I was going to sing.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Maybe. I still feel weird after last night.”
Min Jee said, “Why don’t you sing a song for the dead man, in his memory.”
“I didn’t know the guy.”
“That shouldn’t matter,” said Min Jee.
I thought it over and then said, “Bring me the book.”
Min Jee handed over a three-ring binder. It had an alphabetical listing of all the songs they had on their karaoke machine. Most of the songs were Korean, but they had a healthy selection of songs in English, going back to Sinatra and all the way up to bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and old-school rap like Ice Cube. I gravitated toward the ballads. I flipped through the binder and asked Min Jee to play 128997.
The first bars of my song began to play—“Help Me Make It Through the Night.” Usually I thought about Min Jee or some other woman when I sang this song. Tonight it was disturbing—I thought about my dad, especially when I came to the line about yesterday being dead and gone.
After my song was finished, I walked back to the bathroom to take a piss.
It felt weird singing for a dead man. I didn’t like the feeling. Most of the times I sang I thought of a young woman—a woman I’d never met. Her features were indistinct. All I knew was she was the woman who was waiting for me.
When I came out of the bathroom, Ms. Tam was standing by the door.
She said, “I have a proposition for you. But I don’t want to talk about it here.”
She handed me a piece of paper with a Koreatown address on it. “Meet me at three o’clock. After I close.”
I asked, “Three o’clock in the morning?”
“Yes.” Ms. Tam’s eyes held my own. “Will you come?”
SEVEN
I stood outside the address on Oxford Street, looking up at a concrete and steel apartment building, one of the newer builds on the block. The street was silent at this hour, three in the morning.
I wasn’t sure what Ms. Tam had in mind. She had that Dragon Lady quality that aged well. Ms. Tam had a good twenty years on me, but it had been a while since I’d been in bed with a woman. I’d taken a shower, shaved, and put on clean underwear just in case she decided to seduce me. I was enjoying the fantasy, but I knew this had a slim chance of happening. Ms. Tam had some business in mind, maybe even something to do with the killing last night.
I entered the vestibule and pressed the button over her nameplate. A buzzer sounded and I pushed the door open. Ms. Tam was on the third floor so I rode the elevator up instead of taking the stairs. When I knocked on her door there was a pause as she looked through the peephole. The door swung open, and Ms. Tam gestured me to come inside.
I followed her down a hallway toward her dining room. Ms. Tam wore what she’d been wearing in the Saja Room—a green sheath dress of shiny material with sheer sleeves. I was glad she hadn’t taken her wig off.
She motioned for me to take a seat. So far she hadn’t said a word.
I sat down and looked around. I don’t know what I’d expected to see in her apartment—probably something along the lines of ornate Oriental furnishings, decorated folding screens, brush paintings on rice paper. Instead the décor was sleek and modern—lots of glass, polished chrome, and black leather. A large painting of a roaring lion hung over the low-slung couch, and I remembered that Saja meant Lion in Korean.
Ms. Tam asked, “Would you like some tea?”
“Thanks. No milk, no sugar.”
I listened to the soft clatter of cups being moved around and tea being poured. Ms. Tam reappeared and handed me a white LA Lakers mug. She drank from a mug with the Playboy logo.
“Green tea,” she said.
We both sipped our tea. I kept silent. It was her call.
“I heard about Warsaw Wash.”
“What’d you hear?”
“That it was up for sale.”
Inside, my mind was churning. She was going to buy Warsaw Wash. I was going to be working for her. All my plans were circling the drain.
“I heard another rumor on the street,” said Ms. Tam. “Whispers. Everyone in Koreatown knows everybody else’s business. We pretend to be very private. I hate the Japanese for calling us monkeys, but sometimes we chatter like monkeys.”
I took a sip of tea and waited for her to say more.
Ms. Tam said, “I also heard that you want to buy Warsaw Wash.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“I see you come in every night. You walk to the bar. You buy one beer, maybe two. You wear jeans and a T-shirt. When I heard you wanted to buy Warsaw Wash, I thought, How does Wes have the money?”
“I guess I have a little Korean in me,” I said. “I save.”
Ms. Tam pressed her thin lips into an even more compressed line. “Say you have the money for the down payment. And I wonder if you do. But say you have it. Owning a business has many hidden costs. Have you ever owned a house?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“When you buy a house you find yourself with a new set of expenses. Plumber. Insurance. Taxes. All kinds of things. It’s the same with a business.”
“I hope I have a chance to find out about all these new expenses,” I said. “But to cut this short, I’m not looking for a partner.”
Ms. Tam smiled. “I don’t want to own a car wash.”
I reached out with my right hand and warmed my fingers on the mug. “I like you, Ms. Tam. But I’m beginning to feel like you’re jerking me around.”
“One moment,” Ms. Tam said, standing up.
I watched her disappear down a short hallway. I heard a door open. Moments later Ms. Tam reappeared, with Soo Jin right behind her.
I stood up, the way you do when a lady enters the room.
Ms. Tam said, “I don’t think you’ve been formally introduced. This is Soo Jin. Soo Jin, meet Wes.”
I nodded, not sure if I should shake hands. Soo Jin looked diaphanous in a pale-blue dress that hung from her slim shoulders.
Ms. Tam and Soo Jin sat down, and I took my seat again.
“Your finances are your business,” said Ms. Tam. “I’m not here to pry. I’m here to make you an offer.”
EIGHT
The day had gone by in a blur. I’d only managed an hour or two of sleep before I had to show up at the car wash. All day my workers looked at me funny. One moment I’d be riding high, laughing and cracking jokes; the next minute I’d be silent, off by myself, brooding. I knew I was acting weird. But I couldn’t help it. Life had taken a weird turn.
When we closed up at six I went straight back to my apartment. I took a hot shower and went to
my clothes closet. I only had one suit. I don’t think I’d worn it more than twice in two years. I took out a white shirt and a red tie with a paisley design. Dug around in the bottom of the closet for my dress shoes.
Only a few hours ago, at our predawn meeting, Ms. Tam had offered me $15,000 to marry Soo Jin. Combine Ms. Tam’s offer with the 9K I had saved, and I was within a thousand of Jules’s asking price for the down payment on the car wash. The offer put my mind into a spin. All of a sudden, the air in Ms. Tam’s living room felt too close, too hot. I had stood up and said, “Give me a few minutes—I’ll be right back with an answer.”
I’d walked around the block a half dozen times, wishing there was a coffee shop open. What did I know about being married? I had faint, faint thoughts of getting married someday—maybe. It was lonely out on the street in the darkness and at times my footfalls would echo against a building’s wall. Maybe that did it. Hearing those footsteps.
Ms. Tam buzzed me back in.
Ms. Tam stood in the center of the room. Soo Jin sat at the table.
“So?” asked Ms Tam.
I sensed desperation in Ms. Tam’s voice, and I told her I couldn’t do it for less than twenty. I was thinking of what she said about unexpected expenses—it would be nice to have a cushion. During the negotiations, Soo Jin had stared down at her folded hands on the table. She hadn’t said a word since coming out of the bedroom.
I’d just agreed to marry her, and she still hadn’t looked me in the eye.
Ms. Tam wasn’t fazed by my demand for 20K. She said, “We can do twenty.”
She got up and walked over to a cabinet and returned with three small glasses and a bottle of soju, a fiery Korean liquor distilled from rice.
“I think we should celebrate,” said Ms. Tam, pouring soju into all three glasses.
We lifted our glasses. I drank it down in one shot and noticed Soo Jin only took a tiny sip. Good thing. Downing the whole thing might have knocked her out.
“I’ve heard about these arranged marriages,” I said. “I’m going to have to know a lot of details about Soo Jin’s life. Immigration is going to ask us a lot of questions. Intimate stuff, like what side of the bed she sleeps on, what kind of shampoo she uses. They’re going to try to trick us. We’re also going to need photos of us going to the beach, traveling, family events—all kinds of stuff.”
Ms. Tam shook her head. “You won’t need any of those things.”
“Why?”
“Because Soo Jin is an American citizen. She was born here.”
This wasn’t making sense. “If she’s a citizen, why are you paying me to marry her?”
“Because you are white,” said Ms. Tam. “Maybe they will be afraid to kill you.”
* * *
The whole story had come out slowly. The man who had been shotgunned the night before had been Soo Jin’s suitor. He didn’t make it past the introduction.
I listened as Ms. Tam told me the tale of a blood feud between the Nang and Doko families. It had begun in the homeland, in Busan and had emigrated to LA’s Koreatown. It had been going on for generation after generation. The Doko family had vowed to keep all of the women of the Nang family childless. It was a war of attrition, and one would-be husband after another had been scared off, paid off, or cut down. Soo Jin was the only Nang woman left of childbearing age. It had taken a brave man—maybe a desperate man—to agree to marry Soo Jin, and he’d had his head blown off after setting eyes on her for the first time. When I asked Ms. Tam if these people are so ruthless, why don’t they cut things off at the source and kill the women, she explained that there was an unwritten law of the feud, that the women of the family cannot be killed.
Ms. Tam had said, “Soo Jin is a ghost. No Korean man will marry her now.”
I looked at Soo Jin. If she was the last woman left capable of bearing a child, I didn’t hold out much hope for the Nang family. She looked too frail and pale to conceive, let only carry a child full term.
I thought about my dad telling me I was a loser, about my brother turning his back on my plea. I was on my own.
I was white. The Koreans weren’t going to fuck with me.
I reached over and drank what was left in Soo Jin’s glass. I set the glass down on the table with a knock and said, “Give me twenty-five thousand and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
NINE
I stood in Ms. Tam’s living room, wearing my suit and tie. Soo Jin was by my side, dressed in a pale-yellow shift and white high heels. I was wondering if anything less than pure white signified the same thing in her culture as it did in ours. If I had to put money on it, I’d have to bet she was a virgin. I also wondered if she was anemic. It was hard to imagine her sitting down to a grilled steak and a baked potato; Soo Jin looked more the type to dine on consommé and a mixed greens salad.
We still hadn’t said more than two words to each other. A few days ago it would have blown my mind, my taking part in an arranged marriage. Now it just seemed expedient. The quickest path from A to B, with B being me owning Warsaw Wash.
Ms. Tam sat on the sofa next to Kwan, who for a fee had agreed to be the witness. Ms. Tam had assured Kwan he wouldn’t be in danger acting as witness to the wedding, but he still demanded $200 and a week’s worth of free dinners at the Saja Room.
In front of us stood a Korean justice of the peace. As he droned on in Korean my mind began to wander. I wondered what my father would think when he heard I was the sole owner of the car wash, that I had managed to ace the deal on my own. I almost wished Warsaw Wash was in Pittsburgh on a busy avenue, so my father would have to drive by every once in a while. It still stung inside—not so much that he had unloaded my Nova, but the glee he took in putting me down.
“Wes…Wes,” said Ms. Tam. “Now you say, ‘I take Soo Jin as my lawfully wedded wife.’”
I repeated what Ms. Tam asked, and repeated a few more phrases. Then the justice of the peace said in his first and only words in English, “You may now kiss the bride.”
I looked into Soo Jin’s eyes—she didn’t seem scared. I was not movie-star material, but my face didn’t frighten small children, either. The one attribute I had that I knew scored positive was my blue eyes. The Mexican women I encountered and the random Korean in the Saja Room enjoyed pointing them out, usually with a comment that I’d father cute blue-eyed babies. I took my blue eyes for granted, but I knew they were currency in some ethnicities.
I leaned in and gave Soo Jin a chaste kiss. You would have needed a seismograph to measure the delicacy of her response. No chance of earthquakes there.
I placed a gold band on Soo Jin’s finger, supplied by Ms. Tam. Soo Jin did the same for me. The justice of the peace didn’t waste any time and was out the door before Ms. Tam was done fiddling with an iPod in a docking station. She got some music playing—something Korean and lighthearted.
Ms. Tam pointed at Soo Jin and said to me, “You have to dance with the bride. It’s your tradition. Soo Jin will have to learn your ways, the same you’ll learn hers.”
“Yeah, Wes,” said Kwan. “She’s your wife now. Hold on tight and have some fun.”
I took Soo Jin by the hand and put my right hand on her slender waist. As we shuffled around the room I could feel the bones of her rib cage under her flesh—it made me think of the frame work of a house. When I looked down I saw her eyes averted. My foot knocked against hers, and she stumbled a bit. I tightened my hold and kept her from looking too clumsy. She smiled at me—the first time she smiled in my presence. Her teeth were tiny, her tongue a bright pink.
The song ended and I let her go.
Soo Jin drifted back to stand next to Ms. Tam. It was an awkward moment, broken by Kwan popping the cork on a bottle of champagne. He poured four glasses and passed them around.
Ms. Tam said, “You make the toast, Kwan. You’re the one who loves to talk.”
We held our glasses high as Kwan said, “May you survive. May you live. May you be safe. May the shotguns never find you.
”
TEN
I took a right turn onto Western Avenue. Soo Jin was by my side. It felt strange wearing a suit and tie as I drove my old Dodge Dart. I felt like a down-on-his-luck salesman selling something nobody wanted.
When I took the turn I looked in my rearview mirror and saw an orange Jeep Rubicon pull into traffic right behind me. Maybe I was paranoid, but the Jeep had been behind me ever since Soo Jin and I left Ms. Tam’s place on Oxford. It had to be paranoia on my part—who would tail someone in an orange Jeep Rubicon? It didn’t make sense. It was the money. The money was making me nervous.
I hung a left on Olympic and drove into the huge Bank of America parking lot. I chose a space as close as I could to the bank of ATMs.
I patted Soo Jin on the knee. “I’ll be a minute.”
I got out and walked over to the deserted row of ATM machines. I looked around for the orange Jeep and didn’t see it. I was jumpy. I had a right to be.
I fed my card into the ATM and punched deposit. I took a thick envelope out of my jacket pocket and began to feed hundreds into the machine—it was going to take me seven deposits to securely deposit the 25K into my account. Ms. Tam had given me the option of coming back the next day and picking up my payment during daylight hours, but I was too jacked to wait. I wanted to see that deposit slip with the big numbers. I’d have coffee with Jules tomorrow and make the deal—write him a check, give him a money order, hand over the cash—whatever made him happy.
I got back behind the wheel and pulled into traffic. I glanced over at Soo Jin and said, “This is a strange thing to ask, since we just got married—but do you speak English?”
Soo Jin said in a soft voice, “Yes.”
“I’m not a big talker myself,” I said. “Do you think they’re going to try and kill me?”
“I don’t know,” said Soo Jin, staring straight ahead. “In my family, we were all Korean. No one ever married outside the race.”
I braked at a red light. “Tough times, tough decisions.”
I’d been so preoccupied with getting the down payment for the car wash and getting my tie on straight I’d glossed over an important detail: the Nang family wasn’t paying me to marry Soo Jin; they were paying me to give her a child. The make-pretend marriage was no big deal to me. But how do you deal with a make-pretend fatherhood? No kid deserves that.