The Door to Bitterness

by Martin Limon

  Lieutenant Won nodded.

  “To the casino manager?”

  He nodded again.

  I paused, thinking it over. Until now, I had assumed—I think correctly—that the smiling woman was working with confederates. That she led me into that alley where a man— or two men—were waiting, and they had been the ones who’d knocked me out and stolen my weapon and my badge. Were these the same two guys who’d robbed the Olympos Casino? Or had the smiling woman sold the badge and the .45 to a different set of thieves who’d used them here in Inchon? Somehow I doubted that the badge and the .45 had been sold. Why? Because illegal arms trafficking in Korea is a dangerous proposition. The Korean government believe such a trade is a threat to their national security and, as such, the punishment is death. More likely that the smiling woman and her confederates planned from the beginning to use the .45 and the badge on their own. They were after a big score—a much bigger score than they’d ever find in Itaewon. My badge and my .45 were just a means.

  Could I prove any of this? No. Not yet. But it was the theory I was working with for now.

  Then I remembered something.

  “My photograph,” I said. “It’s on the badge. Was it switched?”

  Lieutenant Won shook his head. “No. Casino manager checked. Not switched.”

  “If my photograph was on the badge, then how was the casino manager fooled?”

  “Man who rob casino,” Lieutenant Won said, “he look like you.”

  Ernie clicked more loudly on his ginseng gum.

  “He was an American?” I asked. Or maybe I should’ve said Chicano. But the distinction between Anglos and people of Latin American descent is not one that Koreans usually draw. To them we’re all wei guk in. Outside people.

  “Maybe American,” Lieutenant Won answered. “Seems like. But he wore . . . what you call?”

  Lieutenant Won ran pinched fingers across his eyes.

  “Sunglasses,” I said.

  “Yes. Sunglasses.” Lieutenant Won turned to Ernie. He flashed a grim smile. “And the man who come with him, he look like you.”

  Ernie and I gazed around the large room. The casino employees still huddled in small groups, looking for all the world like frightened deer in the middle of a forest.

  I turned back to Lieutenant Won. “The casino manager allowed these two men to enter the cashier’s cage?”

  Captain Won nodded.

  “Why?” Ernie asked. “The cashier’s cage would’ve been locked, and there must be an alarm system of some sort. Normally, the cashiers would keep the door locked, sound the alarm, and wait for the police.”

  Captain Won held up his hands. “Wait. I bring manager. You talk to him.”

  A thin, nervous Korean man with thick glasses and a toadying manner was introduced to us as Mr. Bok, the manager of the Olympos. He stood while we questioned him, speaking English and, when his nervousness overtook him, falling back to Korean. He was the type of man who had risen to his current position by ingratiating himself to customers. Never contradicting them, always submissive. A good policy when you’re in the process of cleansing people of all their money. Slowly, painfully, Mr. Bok stammered the story of what happened.

  While we talked, one of the female employees brought a metal tray with four steaming cups of tea. Mr. Bok didn’t drink, Captain Won already had a full cup, but Ernie and I both accepted. The young woman kept her head bowed as she served us, her black hair hanging straight down, hiding her face. She never looked at us. Then she backed away, obviously relieved to be leaving the presence of two foreign louts.

  In Korea, serving foreigners is never a savory task. But under these conditions, with the hatred of Americans palpable in the room, it would be particularly objectionable. What sin had this young woman committed to make such an onerous duty fall on her? Probably, she was the newest on the payroll. Sin enough.

  When Mr. Bok finished relating his tale, and Ernie and I ran out of questions, we examined the interior of the casino cage. Three frail Korean women, wearing the same uniforms as the dealers, sat quietly on wooden stools in front of empty cash boxes. The two thieves had grabbed the bundles of Japanese yen, Korean won, and U.S. greenbacks and stuffed them into a single canvas bag before fleeing. The women’s hands were still shaking, but Ernie snapped his questions at them anyway. They understood English well enough and answered, glancing at Lieutenant Won occasionally, as if for approval.

  There was a back door to the cashier’s cage. I twisted the knob and found it open. While Lieutenant Won and Ernie and the three cashiers conversed, I slipped through the doorway.

  A long hallway. Not carpeted, but tiled with brown parquet. I turned left and walked about ten yards to the end of the hallway and opened the door. Another walkway, empty, apparently leading back toward the main building of the Olympos Hotel. In the distance I heard the clanging of pots and the gruff shouts of men toiling in a kitchen. I turned and walked back about twenty yards, passing the door that led to the cashier’s cage. At the opposite end of the hallway a narrow passage led up a steep flight of wooden steps. A sign above the entrance said CHULIP KUMJI. Do Not Enter.

  So I entered.

  Ancient steps creaked.

  The walls and the ceiling were made of varnished wood— I’d left the main cement structure of the hotel behind. Puffs of incense wafted past. Jasmine. Pungent, like something from a temple.

  At the top of the stairwell, wood slat flooring spread twenty feet toward the open door of what must’ve been an executive suite. The room was open and spacious. Windows peered out onto the gray clouds hovering above the green of the Yellow Sea.

  The incense came from an alcove with a wooden shelf illuminated by a yellow electric bulb. A large photograph had once sat on the shelf, framed in intricately carved wood and backed by black silk. But the glass covering of the photograph lay smashed, the frame broken in two, and the photograph itself had been torn into pieces. Someone, however, had picked up the pieces and arranged them in a neat pile on the shattered glass. Whoever had piled up the shredded pieces had also taken the time to slide two new sticks of incense into a bronze burner. The wicks glowed red near the top: they’d been lit a half hour ago.

  I knelt and began to sort the torn photograph. Bits of an eye, a nose, an ear. A neatly cinched tie beneath a starched white collar. A woman’s face. Arms covered with intricately embroidered silk. As I shuffled through, I realized that she was an elderly woman with white hair, wearing an expensive chima-chogori, the traditional skirt and blouse of Korea. The man, also elderly, wore an ill-fitting Western suit.

  Ancestors. Someone’s parents or grandparents or great-grandparents.

  I set the bits of photograph down and walked into the suite’s office.

  The view startled me. A vast panorama of Inchon Harbor, suffused with the glow of sunlight. To the south, a row of half-a-dozen merchant vessels, flying the flags of various countries: Greece, Panama, the Philippines. Directly in front, five hundred yards straight out, between the Olympos Hotel and the Yellow Sea, the twelve-foot-high breakwater made of thick wooden pillars and jumbled stone. To the north, a small island surrounded by tiny fishing vessels, most without outboard motors: only bamboo masts and sails hammered from beaten straw, made for plying an ancient way of life. And beyond the island, the churning waters of the Yellow Sea. Above it all, like jealous dragons examining their domain, great storm clouds squatted on thick haunches. A few splats of rain spattered the window pane.

  I examined the office.

  Couches made of hand-carved mahogany padded with embroidered cushions. Lining the walls, blue-green celadon vases, a porcelain statuette of a fat Buddha, and red plaques slashed with aphorisms written in gold Chinese characters. Sitting in the center of the room, a flat desk made of varnished teak and an expensive-looking leather swivel chair. In front of the desk, a glass-topped coffee table with crystal ashtrays and a mother-of-pearl inlaid serving tray. This had to be the owner’s office. Couldn’t be otherwise. And th
ose ancestors in the hallway were probably his.

  Nothing in the office seemed to be disturbed. Unlike the alcove out front.

  Behind the desk, I stepped into blood. I gawked at the puddle of red spreading to the back wall. In spots, the blood was pooled so thickly it looked like jelly on a birthday cake. Deep purple.

  I inhaled deeply, trying to fight the dizziness that suddenly overcame me. But the sweet cloying scent of blood made it worse. I held onto the edge of the desk, taking quick shallow breaths until the feeling passed. Then I stood upright.

  There was more moisture: a puddle of clear liquid pushed up against the thicker blood. I knelt and dipped my finger in and lifted it to my nose. No odor. Water. Not seawater then, probably regular drinking water. Then a gust of wind blew more splats of rain against the window behind me.

  Maybe rainwater. How had it gotten in here? No leaks in the roof. Barely noticeable was a small doorway seated neatly into the wall. Not hidden, but unobtrusive. I grabbed the varnished wooden handle of the short door and pulled. The smell of the sea rushed in, along with rainwater and gusts of wind. Kneeling, I peered outside.

  An escape hatch. A fire escape, actually. The outer edge of the stone wall fell straight down, forty feet, to piled boulders lashed by angry surf. Along the wall ran a pathway just wide enough for one man to walk. It was damp and slippery, but in case of fire it would be a means of escape. Where the pathway led I couldn’t be sure. Beyond the corner of the hotel, it wound off out of sight. I considered climbing out there to see where it went but thought better of it. What for? Besides, the footing looked treacherous.

  Boots stomped angrily up wooden steps.

  Quickly, I closed the door, and when I turned, I noticed something under the desk. A strip of embroidered silk tasseled with lengths of string. Without thinking, I grabbed it and stuffed it into my jacket pocket. The footsteps grew louder. When they entered the room, I stood and stared into the eyes of Lieutenant Won.

  He was outraged. In angry Korean he asked what I was doing here. I didn’t bother to answer. What good would it do? I was investigating a crime, he knew that. Instead, I asked him why he was so angry.

  “This is the office of the owner,” he told me in Korean, as if it were obvious why that would make him angry.

  “Mr. Bok?” I asked.

  “No,” Won answered, incredulous. “He’s only the manager.”

  “Who’s the owner?”

  “Not your business.”

  I was used to this. Korean cops protecting higher-ups— from the indignity of having to be interviewed by a foreign cop, from the indignity of being associated in any way with crime. The way the KNPs figure d it, two Americans had committed the robbery and the shooting, and since they appeared to be GIs, it was the job of Ernie and me to help catch those GIs. It wasn’t our job to talk to Korean big shots. And any suggestion otherwise, I knew from previous experience, would be taken by Lieutenant Won as an insult to his competency. We were being spoon fed the little the KNPs wanted us to know, and that’s all we would get.

  But this case was different.

  Sure, it was their country, and according to all law and international treaties, the Korean National Police, and only the Korean National Police, had jurisdiction over this case. Ernie and I were here as invited guests, presumably to help shed some light on the GI angle, and the Korean cops could show us as much as they wanted—or as little as they wanted. But all that was just law. The moment I’d stepped into this puddle of blood, law no longer meant anything to me. It was my weapon that had been stolen, my badge. And it was those two items that had been used in the commission of these crimes. Without my stupidity, without me allowing some smiling blonde tart to drug me and drag me into an alley, this casino would’ve never been robbed and, more importantly, this puddle of blood wouldn’t be on this floor.

  I pointed at the blood.

  Lieutenant Won and Ernie walked around the desk.

  Lieutenant Won’s arms were crossed, and his nose was scrunched. He’d known the blood was here, but for some reason he hadn’t wanted us to see it.

  “Woman shot here,” he said, pointing at the ground.

  Mr. Bok told us earlier about the young female dealer who had been shot, but he hadn’t been specific as to the location of the shooting. Now we knew.

  Lieutenant Won pulled a brown pulp envelope out of his pocket. He opened it and let Ernie and me peer inside. It was a bullet from a .45, with its nose scrunched up as if it had hit metal. Then he pointed at a brass hinge attached to the escape hatch. A fresh dent. More than a dent really, an angry scratch.

  As if from the claw of a dragon.

  “This one, he missed,” Lieutenant Won said. “Other one,” he turned back to the blood on the floor, “is still in her body.”

  “And where is she now?” I asked.

  “Ambulance take hospital,” Lieutenant Won said.

  Back in the casino, the three nervous cashiers remained in their cage, perched on wooden stools like exotic birds with fluttering blue wings. The four of us—me, Ernie, the angry Lieutenant Won, and the obsequious Mr. Bok—walked past the cashiers and crossed the carpeted casino floor toward the front entrance.

  We had almost reached it when the backdoor of the cashier’s cage clanged open. The four of us stopped, turned, and stared back at the cage.

  Like leopards, three men glided out. Two were young Koreans, tall, muscular, wearing suits and ties, their black hair slicked back. Between them stood an older man, his gray hair streaked with white. His face was pasty, as if he spent a lot of time indoors, and his cheeks sagged. The three-piece suit he wore was made of finely tailored wool. The way he stood, motionless, made me think that he was a mortician, come to escort a body to the nether realms. He stared at me. Not at Ernie, not at Lieutenant Won, not at Mr. Bok, but at me. For what seemed a long moment, his craggy face remained impassive. Something ugly passed between us. Then, as quickly as the mortician and his entourage had appeared, they turned and slipped back through the doorway.

  “Who was that?” Ernie asked.

  “The owner.”

  “Of the entire casino?”

  Lieutenant Won nodded.

  “We need to talk to him,” Ernie said.

  “Not possible,” Lieutenant Won answered.

  I started to protest, but Lieutenant Won held up his open palm to silence me.

  “Finish,” he said.

  Four Korean cops converged on Ernie and me and motioned toward the door. One put his hand on Ernie’s elbow, and Ernie shoved him away. Immediately, the three other cops went for their nightsticks, but before they could move, Lieutenant Won shouted an order. They stopped, glaring at us. Ernie and I glared back.

  The small pack of Korean cops watched warily while Ernie straightened his coat. Then he turned and the two of us walked out of the casino and trotted down the steps. Under our own power.

  “Shangnom-ah!” Ernie shouted.

  Another kimchee cab swerved in front of us, horn blaring, and Ernie slammed on his brakes and cursed again. We were winding our way through the heavy midday downtown Inchon traffic, heading for the Huang Hei Medical Center, the hospital where the young female blackjack dealer had been taken. The one who’d been shot.

  Korean curse words Ernie had down pat. “Common lout” is what shangnom means. Rough talk in the Korean lexicon. He turned to me.

  “Why the hell do you want to go to the hospital anyway?”

  “I want to see,” I said.

  “See what? She’s a dealer in a casino. Young, female, twenty-two years old. Her name is Han Ok-hi. She was shot with a bullet that appears to be .45 caliber, from a gun that is probably yours. What else do you want to know?”

  For a moment I thought I’d punch him. For the first time since I’d met Ernie Bascom, in all the months we’d worked together and arrested bad guys together and run the ville together, I had an overwhelming urge to lean across the gear shift and punch him flush upside his Anglo-Saxon head.
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  But I didn’t. Instead, I held onto my knees and stared straight ahead. It’s a trait, part of Mexican-American culture, I’m told, to become very quiet when confronted or angry. To do nothing but think—or better yet, to let your body decide whether to strike or wait and let it pass.

  Ernie glanced at me and then glanced again, quickly returning his attention to the swirling traffic, maybe seeing something in me that he hadn’t seen before.

  For the rest of the ride, he kept his mouth shut.

  The nurse at the reception desk, with her straight black bangs and her immaculately white uniform, was surprised that I could speak Korean. But when Ernie flashed his badge and I told her what we wanted, she gave us directions to the room of Han Ok-hi. On the first floor, she said, toward the rear of the hospital. Chonghuanja Sil, she said. Critical Care Unit.

  We received even more stares as we strode down the long cement corridors of the Huang Hei Medical Center. Nurses and patients swiveled to see; even the doctors looked up from their work. GIs are seldom seen in the City of Inchon. With a total population of about 500,000, only a tiny fraction—maybe two dozen—are GIs assigned to the transportation security unit at the Port of Inchon. Other foreigners, for example the merchant marines who visit the city by the thousands every year, stay mostly near the strip of bars and brothels outside the main gates of the Port of Inchon. Tourists are almost non-existent; except for the Hong Kong

  3

  and Japanese high-rollers who visit the big Olympos Hotel and Casino overlooking the entrance to the bay.

  Two sad-faced Koreans, a man and a woman, sat in a reception area in front of the double-doored entrance to the Critical Care Unit. The nurse at the front desk had already told me they were here: the parents of Han Ok-hi. I was afraid to pause and talk to them. After all, what would I say? I’m the guy who allowed some crazy woman to steal his pistol so your daughter could be shot? Pity welled up in me for this middle-aged couple, but for the moment, I prayed they didn’t know who I was or what I had done. Cowardly, yes. But if they dragged me down into their anguish, I might drown before I finished the job I knew I had to do.