Hardboiled Crime Four-Pack

by Jack Bunker

  I slid him from the table to the gurney. It was easy—I don’t think he weighed more than 150 pounds. The commotion reached a crescendo in the waiting room and then silence. Manuel was most likely booking down the sidewalk toward the car he’d parked on the other side of the block.

  I didn’t have a second to waste. I wheeled Shin toward the back door—not too fast, not too slow. I’d shifted Shin’s face so he was turned away from the break room. I blocked it further with an outstretched arm as we rolled past, where Royal was still in deep, deep conversation with the female nurse.

  I got the gurney through the back door and to my car, where I hustled Shin’s body into the back seat.

  I took a quick look around. Cars were driving by, but there was no one walking past taking a curious look at a male nurse doing weird things with what looked to be a dead body.

  I got behind the wheel, slipped back into my rain poncho, and told myself to be calm as I fired up the engine.

  I pulled into traffic and glided down Western Avenue.

  Taking a quick glance back at Shin, I saw his eyes wide open, looking pissed as could be.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  It’s not easy steering a car with your left hand while holding a sawed-off shotgun with your right. Leaning back over the seat and pressing the barrel against the gut of a bony old man. Shin was still under the effect of the anesthesia, otherwise I’m sure he’d have used some arcane martial art to wrest the gun away and blow my head off.

  He still hadn’t said a word. Instead he glared at me, breathing hard.

  I felt silly wearing a cheap plastic rain poncho on a sunny day, but I didn’t want anyone to see me in burgundy scrubs.

  We only had a few blocks to go to get to Yun’s house when Shin said, “You’re a dead man.”

  I gave his belly a light jab with the shotgun. “Don’t fuck with a dead man.”

  That shut him up.

  I pulled into Yun’s driveway; I’d asked her to keep it clear for me. I saw her black Camry parked out front. I’d weighed having Manuel meet me here, to help me get Shin inside, but then had thought better of it. There was no sense bringing Manuel that far into my problems. I didn’t want Manuel to be looking over his shoulder, wondering when he’d get whacked by the Koreans. The way it stood now, 100 percent of the blame was on me. I was going to keep it that way.

  Glancing over at the living room window I saw the shade move.

  I turned off the engine and pocketed my keys. I felt more capable having my attention focused on only one thing—getting Shin inside.

  I locked on to Shin’s pale eyes. “You said it yourself, I’m a dead man. I’ve seen firsthand what happens to guys who marry Soo Jin. I’m jumpy as all hell. So, think hard. Do you want to fuck with a scared guy like me, when he has a shotgun in his hands?”

  Shin asked, “What is it you want me to do?”

  “For now, I want you to walk into that house in front of me.”

  “I’m not sure I can walk. The drugs…”

  “You can’t walk, I’ll drag you. One way or another we’re going into the house. Quick.”

  The side door of the house opened, and Yun appeared on the step, shading her eyes, peering at the car. She started walking toward us.

  I gestured with the gun at Shin and warned, “No bullshit.”

  I got out, and Yun gave me the once-over. “You look crazy.” Then she saw the gun in my hand and asked, alarmed, “What’s going on?”

  I opened the back seat door and gripped Shin by his wizened bicep. “Let’s go.”

  He was wobbly, but able to stand. I kept my hand on his arm as I marched him toward the house. Without his bodyguards and Lincoln Continental, Shin was nothing more than a skinny old Korean dude.

  Yun’s eyes were wide as she asked, “You took him?”

  “Then you know who he is?”

  “Of course.”

  “Get the plastic bag from the front seat.”

  Shin stared at Yun as she grabbed the plastic bag from the 99 Cents store. He said, “Tell this white fool to let me go.”

  “Hey,” I warned. “Leave the racist remarks outside on the street. I don’t want the kids hearing that kind of poison.”

  I remembered my dad, with his half-drunk slurs. Sitting in front of the TV, spouting off about the niggers and the kikes and the wetbacks. I’d swallowed that stuff whole until I was twelve or so. I then began sorting things out on my own. Eventually I came to my own conclusion—that we were all human beings, capable of hitting the high notes or getting down into the mud. It all came down to individual will, and that had nothing to do with what color you were. No matter where you looked, in every race there was plenty of bad and a little good and a lot of in-between.

  I nudged Shin aside. “Yun, open the door.”

  Yun slipped past me and got the door open. I led Shin inside the house. Soo Jin was huddled with the kids on the far side of the dining room table. I still had the shotgun hidden from view under my poncho—I didn’t want the kids to see the gun if I could help it.

  I gestured toward Soo Jin and said, “Get the kids into their room.”

  Soo Jin didn’t take her eyes off Shin as she led the kids away and closed the door to their room. With the kids out of the way she stared at Shin with an expression that mingled fear and anger. I can’t say I blamed her. Shin was the architect behind her persecution—the blame was on his head.

  I sat Shin down on the couch and stepped back.

  “You are a fool,” said Shin.

  Trouble was, dressed the way I was, I felt like a fool.

  “Yun, do me a favor. Get me my T-shirt and jeans. They’re on the chair in the bedroom.”

  I stripped off the poncho and scrubs and stood in front of Shin in my white briefs, the shotgun in my hand.

  Shin looked me up and down. “You have no dignity.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “Maybe you have too much.”

  Yun handed me my clothes. I kept one eye on Shin as I dressed, feeling more capable out of my disguise and in my own clothes.

  “You should have told me,” said Yun.

  “Right now, everything is going my way,” I said. “If I’d told you, who knows what would have happened.”

  “But this is my house.”

  “Don’t pull that one on me,” I said, a pissed-off tone creeping into my voice. “You took me in. When you did, you took in my problems, too.” I pointed at Shin. “My biggest problem is right there.”

  “Are you going to kill him?” asked Soo Jin.

  “You know how to use a shotgun?”

  Soo Jin looked at me like I was crazy. “No.”

  I held the gun up. “Yun?”

  Yun took the shotgun from me, checked to see if the safety was off, and then aimed it at the wall above Shin’s head.

  “I guess so,” I said.

  I took the duct tape out of the bag and pointed at Shin. “Stand up.”

  I picked up a plastic Transformers toy from a McDonald’s Happy Meal and tossed it at Shin. He caught the toy in his right hand and then dropped it to the floor. So, he was right-handed.

  Pointing a finger at him I warned, “I’ll knock you out if you try anything stupid.”

  I wrapped the tape around his body and right arm, pinning it to his side. With a length of rope I made a hobble around his ankles, enough so he could take tiny steps.

  Stepping back, I surveyed my work. It would do for now, as long as someone kept an eye on him at all times.

  “You mess around with the tape, or try and fuck with me, I’m going to tape you solid,” I said. “With one hand free, you can feed yourself, pee, wipe your ass—all that stuff. I love this family too much to ask them to do that.”

  “What are you going to do to him?” asked Yun.

  “Give me the shotgun back.”

  The question in Yun’s eyes was obvious, and I said, “No, I’m not going to shoot him.”

  I took the shotgun and put it away in the bedroom. I didn’t want
the kids to see we had a gun in the house.

  Yun was standing by the doorway to the kids’ room when I came back out. “They can’t stay locked up in their room,” said Yun. “You leave a question in a kid’s mind and they’re gonna fill it up with their fears.”

  I opened the door and said, “Come on out, kids.”

  Mi-Cha marched out and Tae-Yong toddled after her.

  I pointed at Shin. “This man is going to be staying with us for a while. His name is Shin Doko.”

  “Why is he tied up?” asked Mi-Cha.

  “It’s a kind of game,” answered Yun.

  “Is he our grandfather?” asked Mi-Cha.

  “No, just a man,” said Yun.

  I asked Shin, “You want a glass of water?”

  He nodded.

  I got him a glass from the tap and handed it to his left hand. He drank it down in a series of refined gulps.

  “You taking medicine?” I asked.

  “In my pocket,” answered Shin.

  “Take it out.”

  He handed me a bottle of prednisone, and I placed it on the mantel. I said, “You let me know when you need a dose.”

  “Let me go now,” said Shin. “And I’ll give you a day to run away. We can pretend this never happened. You can divorce Soo Jin and run.”

  I had to hand it to Shin. Here he was, bound hand and foot, and he’s talking about giving me a head start. “This is your problem, Shin. You and your family climbed up on your high horse centuries ago. It’s time you climbed down and lived in the modern world. As stupid and primitive as your point was, you made it. The Nang family is decimated.”

  “You act like two and two equals five,” responded Shin.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “There is only one solution,” said Shin. “The blood feud is over when every Nang is dead.”

  “Maybe you’re the solution,” I said. “Maybe this is over when you’re dead. Maybe the rest of the Doko clan doesn’t have the stomach for seeing their own family members killed off one by one.”

  Shin stuck his chin out at me. “Two and two is four.”

  “You ever play chess, Shin?” I asked. “It’s over when you checkmate the king.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  I thought Yun would be embarrassed when I asked her to run the errand for me. Instead she laughed—the first laugh or smile I’d gotten out of her since I’d shown up with Shin.

  I opened my wallet and handed her a fifty. “That ought to cover it.”

  “I wish you were going with me,” she said. “We might get some good ideas.”

  She drove off, heading toward the Pleasure Chest on Santa Monica, where she would pick up a pair of bondage handcuffs. We were going to have to sleep sometime. I figured I’d handcuff Shin to the pipe under the kitchen sink. He wouldn’t be comfortable, but with a pillow and blankets it wouldn’t be torture, either.

  I’d never played a musical instrument, but the feeling I was having was probably similar to what a jazz musician feels when he leaps into a long solo. He doesn’t know where it’s going to end—at most it’s a burst of notes at a time, one burst following another. I was a musician in the middle of a solo. I had Shin Doko—it was going my way—but I was unsure of my next burst of notes. I figured right about now every last member of the Doko clan was scouring Koreatown for their patriarch.

  I’d shifted Shin over to the easy chair in the living room so the family could use the sofa to watch TV. He sat there, the corners of his mouth drooping in a permanent frown. His thinning hair had got messed up, and a few oiled strands stuck up.

  My cell buzzed. Manuel.

  Manuel said, “I tried calling before, but you didn’t pick up.”

  “I had my hands full.” I walked into the kitchen, keeping one eye on Shin. “I saw you through the window to the waiting room. You were very convincing.”

  “Homes, they were so scared of me. I was like something out of a scary movie. I had the blood all down my front. The pig fat hitting the floor. Man, it looked ugly.”

  “Let’s make it official. You’re my number two. My manager. You stepped up big time. I owe you.”

  “Thanks. I won’t let you down. You get the old dude to your house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you gonna do now?”

  “You got any ideas?”

  “No, you’re in outer space now, homes. You’re on your own.”

  I hung up and sat on the couch.

  Soo Jin peeked from the doorway of the kids’ room and then came out with Mi-Cha and Tae-Yong. They climbed up on the sofa with me as Soo Jin got together a bowl of green grapes from the kitchen. It was quiet in the house, the way a house can be quiet in the late afternoon. Soo Jin handed the bowl of grapes to Mi-Cha and picked up the remote.

  Jamjari barked from the backyard, a signal he was lonely and wanted to come in. I opened the back door, and Jamjari licked my hand in gratitude. Shin’s eyes went wide when he saw the mastiff.

  I pointed at Jamjari and said to Shin, “Don’t do anything to piss us off.”

  I sat back down on the couch. Soo Jin was a genius with the remote. We watched Dog Whisperer. Something even Jamjari would like.

  * * *

  Dinner was strange. I served Shin first. A knife and fork would have been difficult, but it was easy for him to handle chopsticks with one hand. He’d asked for a beer, and Yun had gone out for a six of Hite. She popped the tab for him, something Shin had trouble doing with his left hand.

  I sat at the far end of the table as Shin picked at his meal. Neither one of us said anything. Shin ate slowly, with consideration, but the look in his eyes told me it was a cinch his belly would be hurting later on. He was looking at me with such hate that I could imagine his stomach churning with acid as he digested his dinner.

  After he was finished eating, Yun put together a makeshift bed on the kitchen floor, and I handcuffed Shin to the pipe under the kitchen sink. I considered releasing him from the loops of duct tape securing his right hand against his body and then thought better of it. With his right hand free, too many things could go wrong.

  Later, when I was standing in the living room I had a clear sight line into the kitchen. I was surprised to see Yun bend down and hold a glass of water to Shin’s lips. For a second there was almost a feeling of tenderness between them. It was amazing the hold these old Korean dudes had over those younger than them. I wondered if they earned that kind of respect and consideration, or if it was something handed to them with no strings attached, just by virtue of being an elder. With Shin in the house, thoughts of my own father kept popping into my head. I tried to imagine doing something nice for him, like Yun had just done for Shin, and my brain stalled out. I couldn’t see myself being sweet with my dad. It made me wonder if some of the fault lay with me. Maybe I could have been a better son.

  I grabbed one of the Hites from the fridge and slipped out to the backyard. It was a moonless night, and the extra layer of dark made me feel safe and concealed. I sat down at Yun’s battered patio table and pulled up a white plastic chair. The night was quiet enough. I could hear some traffic noise and faint music from a neighboring house, a song I recognized as “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes.

  I dug my phone out of my pocket and placed it on the table. It sat there for a few minutes until I picked it up and punched some numbers. He answered on the second ring, and I said, “Hi, Dad.”

  “Wes?”

  “Is it too late to call?”

  “No, I’m up. But don’t make a habit of calling me this late.”

  When I imagined Shin Doko in his home, I always imagined him wearing a suit and tie, sitting in a severe and ordered living room, watching a business program on cable. With my dad, it was too easy to see him on a stained couch in the dark, lit only by the light from the TV tube, drinking beer and eating pickles from the jar. Him and his pickles. He said they provided alkalinity to the acidity of the beer. By the end of the night, his white T-shirt would be d
ecorated with yellow-green streaks of pickle juice.

  Months would usually go by between my calls. My dad must have wondered why I was calling so soon—it had only been a couple of weeks since our fucked-up conversation about my Chevy Nova.

  I said, “I thought I’d catch you up with a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Remember I told you I wanted to buy that car wash? I was able to pull it together. I have my own business now.”

  There was a pause on the line. Then, “Really?”

  “Yeah, Warsaw Wash. I’m keeping the old name.”

  “Koreatown, right?”

  “Yeah, but this place was around a long time before the neighborhood went Korean.”

  “Twenty-five and you got your own business? That’s fuckin’ amazing.”

  I thought about telling him about my new bride, but then I felt I’d have to tell him about Yun, too. And Mi-Cha and Tae-Yong. The fact that all of them were Korean. I figured I’d leave that ball of wax for another day.

  “So you’ve got employees?”

  “Yeah. Six of them. All of them are Mexicans.”

  “Mexicans are hard workers.”

  “Yeah. The guys I grew up with? Most of them wouldn’t last a day washing cars by hand.”

  My dad said, “Your generation is soft. They got extra-strong thumbs from playing video games and that’s about it. The Chinese ever invade us, it’s gonna be the blacks and the Mexicans turning them back.”

  “I think those days are over, Dad. It’s all drones and smart bombs now.”

  “Technology can only take you so far. You got Chinese running through your yard, you’re gonna want a tough son of a bee watchin’ your back.”

  I wondered how many beers my dad had downed. Even so, it was the first conversation we’d shared in a long while. Usually it was an exchange of info, then over and out.

  “I think I can take care of my backyard,” I said. “I bought myself a sawed-off a few days ago.”

  “What kind?”

  “A Remington 870.”

  “That’s a good gun.” I could hear the approval in his voice. “You’re growing up, son. Next thing you’re gonna tell me you found a broad to settle down with.”