The Door to Bitterness

by Martin Limon

  Young women, also dressed in elaborate chima-chogori, scurried back and forth to the kitchen, replacing dishware laden with mint leaves marinated in soya, boiled quail eggs, and pulverized seaweed flattened into paper-thin sheets, salted and toasted in sesame oil.

  Other young women—with even more elaborate make-up, hairdos, and dresses of silk—sat amongst the men, pouring heated rice liquor into tiny cups from celadon jugs.

  “Sort of like the Eighth Army chow hall,” Ernie told me.

  “Right.” I slipped my shoes off and stepped up onto the raised wooden floor covered with tatami. “Watch him,” I said, indicating the red-faced bodyguard, “and watch my back.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Parley,” I said.

  I ambled over. The serving girls stopped what they were doing and gawked. The men gradually ceased their chatter. The player of the kayagum stopped plucking on her zither and slid unobtrusively back, until she was out of the way.

  Yun Guang-min and his white-haired Japanese guest were deep in conversation. I stood at the center of the U-shaped array of tables, and waited.

  Finally, they stopped talking and turned to look at me.

  The white-haired businessman seemed amazed to see a foreigner so close. He frowned, but regained his composure and stared impassively. Clearly, it was up to his host, Yun Guang-min, to handle the situation.

  Yun was a small man, neatly contained in an expensive wool suit, immaculately tailored. Gold-rimmed spectacles sat across the bridge of his flat nose and what with his high cheekbones and stern facial features, his expression was about as readable as a carving on the side of a mountain. At the moment, I was angry enough not to be too concerned about what he was thinking. I pulled the photograph Jimmy had given me out of my coat pocket and tossed it on the table in front of Yun.

  “Your little sister,” I said. “And her daughter and her son when they were kids.”

  He stared at the photo, but didn’t reach for it.

  “When they needed your help, why did you refuse?”

  Short, manicured fingers crawled toward the photo, but stopped an inch away. Yun studied the photo for a moment longer, his expression as blank as it had been when I walked in, but the blood rushed up his neck and into his face, and even years of training in Confucian self-control couldn’t stop it. Finally, Yun tipped his head back and stared into my eyes.

  In English, he said, “What do you want?” His voice was like a lizard zapping a fly.

  A chill radiated up my spine. Owning a casino on the edge of the Yellow Sea doesn’t require just money, but nerve, ruthlessness, connections—with politicians, gangsters, those who tap into power. If he really wanted to, Yun Guang-min could snap Ernie and me. Still, I knew Ernie and I were probably safe. Too much heat would come if they started killing Americans. We weren’t worth the expense, losses due to interruptions in business. Money talks. Big fat piles of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Yun Guang-min wouldn’t touch us. We were safe, unless I pushed him too hard.

  At the moment, with people dead from my .45, I didn’t mind pushing him.

  “What I want,” I said, “is information on the whereabouts of the boy—now a man—in that photograph.”

  I pointed to the photo, the boy clinging to his mother’s skirts.

  “Your nephew,” I said.

  Yun Guang-min didn’t look down.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because he’s the one,” I said, “who robbed your casino and shot Han Ok-hi.”

  Yun shook his head slowly. “He’s not my nephew.”

  “He is,” I said.

  Yun shook his head. “No! He’s nothing to me.”

  “Maybe that’s what you want these customers of yours to believe,” I said. “But you know the truth and so do I.”

  “You know nothing of the truth!” Yun’s fists were clenched in rage. He paid no attention to the Japanese men who gawked nervously, not understanding the Korean. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he said, “to have a sister who turns to foreigners. Who has the village whisper behind our backs, as if we’re unclean. My children were ashamed to go to school, ashamed to stand in front of their own teachers!”

  Yun stood, quivering, glaring at me as if he wished me dead. Yun Guang-min, the most powerful man in Inchon, for that moment could do nothing.

  “Only one of your bodyguards is here,” I said. “Where are the rest? Out looking for your nephew?”

  “You’re talking nonsense.”

  “Where’s your nephew, Yun?”

  “I don’t know where he is.” His face again flushed, his cheeks as red as the snarling dragons carved into the ceiling.

  Were they in this together? Could Yun Guang-min have commissioned his nephew to commit the robbery of his own casino so they could split the profits? Maybe he had partners he was trying to steal money from. Was it possible? I didn’t think so. The amount stolen, one or two days’ take, was a drop in the ocean compared to the amount they took from the high-rollers from Japan and Hong Kong. Those guys bet fortunes, sometimes wiping out the entire accumulated wealth of themselves and their families and their corporations. The Olympos was pulling down more money per gambler than any Las Vegas casino could ever hope for. That’s why GIs weren’t welcome. We upset the high-rollers, and the money soldiers could lose was a pittance compared to what most of the Asians dropped before they even started tapping their lines of credit.

  No, it wasn’t an inside job. Everything I’d learned so far pointed to the smiling woman and her brother setting out on a quest for revenge against the world. Starting at the logical place. With the uncle who had left their mother to die on the streets.

  I was about to ask another question when Ernie lost his temper.

  He fired a round into the ceiling.

  All of us jumped and plaster, and bits of paint rained down onto Yun’s table.

  Now he’d done it. Up until this point, all our rude behavior could be explained by saying that we were gathering information for a murder investigation. Ernie’s unauthorized use of a firearm changed that. He’d taken us over the line.

  Yun’s exalted Japanese guest, Turtle Mountain, jumped back in alarm. The bodyguard started to make a move, but Ernie pointed the .45 at him and shoved the young man back down and forced him face down onto the tatami on the floor.

  The Japanese looked bewildered and pale. Concerned. Were they being robbed? A few rose to their feet. Ernie boomed another round into the ceiling.

  “Don’t move!” he shouted.

  Everyone understood that.

  His face twisted in anger, Erin pointed his .45 at Yun Guang-min. “You let your sister cough her guts up on the

  20

  streets of Seoul. You don’t lift a finger to help her son or daughter. And now you go dumb on us when your own nephew robs your casino and kills your employee. What kind of shithead are you?”

  I’m not sure if Yun Guang-min understood all of what Ernie was spouting, but he must’ve gotten the idea. Yun was a tough guy. He stared right at Ernie, giving him the evil eye, daring him to squeeze the trigger and pop a cap through his forehead.

  From the look on his face, I thought Ernie was going to do it. I sidled toward him, hoping to get close enough to deflect his aim if need be. I continued firing questions at Yun Guang-min. The casino owner answered angrily, telling me nothing, claiming he had no knowledge of why this man we called his nephew had robbed him. He had no idea where that man might be now.

  In disgust, I backed off. No telling when reinforcements might arrive. Ernie sensed it too. He swiveled his head, and I knew he was anxious to un-ass the area. Yun Guang-min, however, called me over.

  I returned to the table, expecting him to relay something useful, finally. Instead, he glanced down at the photo of his late sister and her two children.

  “You forgot your photograph,” he said.

  I snatched it up. The son of a bitch had pointedly not touched it. His cold eyes seethed with humili
ation. He’d pay us back, I thought. The free pass Americans received in Korea had just been revoked.

  We took off.

  As Ernie and I emerged from under the red arch at the entrance of the Silla Cho Siktang, a group of young men hurried up the main driveway. I recognized two. Young men in dark suits, straight hair slicked back. Yun Guang-min’s bodyguards.

  When they saw us, one pointed and shouted: “Yah!”

  Ernie reached for his weapon.

  I grabbed his arm. “No good, pal. We’re outnumbered.” Three of the bodyguards had already pulled out pistols. “Come on! Let’s go!”

  For once, Ernie saw the wisdom of what I was saying. He followed as I ran toward the lobby and the front entrance. Uniformed bell hops stepped backward. We shoved past and raced into the hotel lobby. Ahead, carpeted steps led to the casino. Elevator doors sat open. Clattering plates and flatware in the Olympos Hotel Restaurant and Coffee Shop raised a din.

  Yun’s armed bodyguards were only a few yards behind.

  “Smooth move,” Ernie said, clanging back the charging handle of his .45. “Now we’re trapped.”

  “No. Not trapped,” I said. “Come on.”

  I sprinted into the coffee shop, Ernie right behind me. Fashionably dressed Korean men and women gawked as we darted through the small sea of tables. I bumped into a waitress carrying a tray full of snacks and beverages but Ernie, right behind me, caught the tray in time and handed it back to the surprised woman.

  Yun’s bodyguards burst into the restaurant, guns drawn, shouting.

  I darted through the swinging doors of the kitchen, sprinted toward the back, and halted at a tiled wall. Ernie bumped into me.

  “So now we’re trapped in here,” he said, “rather than out there.”

  He crouched behind a big iron stove and aimed at the double doors. Outside men shouted, and a woman screamed.

  “There’s a way out ,” I said. “I found it when we were here before, when I went to that office.”

  “But that was upstairs, on the other side of the casino,”

  Ernie said.

  “I heard pots and pans clanging,” I said.

  A cook emerged from a large storeroom, carrying a huge glass jar with something slimy inside.

  “There,” I said.

  We dashed into the storeroom. Behind us, the bodyguards crashed through the kitchen doors, shouting, shoving a couple of cooks out of the way.

  Wooden shelving lined the storeroom’s four walls.

  “Shit,” Ernie said. He turned and said, “Take cover. I’ll blast them when they come in.”

  I tugged on his arm. “Over here.”

  Hidden behind the last shelf was a door. Before I had a chance to turn the knob, the cook, who had been carrying the big jar, crashed back through the doors of the storeroom. He reeled backward, still clutching the jar, lost his footing, twisted, and fell to the tile floor a few feet in front of us. Bodyguards crashed in after him. The glass jar smashed, and oil and tentacles and squid flesh splashed along the slippery floor. The bodyguards hit the slime and slid, waving arms like pinwheels. Then they crashed onto the floor atop the supine cook. More bodyguards plowed in after, grabbing wooden shelving to maintain their footing, tipping over neat rows of tin cans and glassware.

  I pulled open the door, grabbed Ernie by the back of his jacket, and pulled him through, out into a narrow hallway.

  “Come on!”

  We turned and ran up a stairway, into a parquet-floored hall that was familiar. We were behind the cashier’s cage of the casino. I sprinted up the wooden stairwell leading to Yun Guang-min’s office. Ernie was right behind. As we climbed to the top of the steps, we heard shouting. The bodyguards were in the hallway now.

  Would they shoot us on sight? It was dangerous to murder U.S. Army CID agents. But only if someone knew. If you controlled the local police, and if the bodies of the two Americans disappeared into the Yellow Sea—well, how much risk was there in that?

  I ran faster.

  We crashed into Yun Guang-min’s office, ran behind his teak desk. I knelt and pulled open the fire-escape door, and was hit in the face with a blast of wind and salt spray from the Yellow Sea.

  Ernie leaned next to me and poked his head outside, gazing at the narrow rock ledge that wound around the corner of the building.

  “We’re going out there?”

  “Watch your footing,” I said. “And hang onto the rocks along the wall.”

  We heard voices and the pounding of footsteps behind us. Ernie glanced down at his .45, and then out at the ledge again. “Okay,” he said. “You go first. I want a clear shot at those bastards if they come after us.”

  “Right.”

  I stepped through. The ledge was about two feet wide but seemed narrower once I was on it. Below, wild surf crashed into jagged rock, launching leaps of white foam that slapped onto my trousers and kept the ledge moist and slippery. Along the cliff wall, jagged outcroppings of rock were also slippery, but they provided reassuring handholds. I stepped along gingerly until there was enough space for Ernie to emerge from the door and close it behind him. Together, we sidled along the wall. The corner of the building was about twenty yards away. We were halfway there, when the door behind us popped open.

  A man stuck his head out. One of the bodyguards. Ernie popped a round off at him, and started to teeter away from the cliff face. Holding onto a slippery chunk of granite, I grabbed the back of Ernie’s coat. He regained his balance and leaned against the rock wall.

  The bodyguard peered cautiously at us.

  “Move it!” Ernie shouted.

  I did, stepping as quickly as I dared toward the corner which would shield us. We were nearly there when I heard grunting ahead.

  I froze.

  “What’s wrong, dammit?” Ernie yelled.

  He looked past me and saw what I saw—another bodyguard. This one held a pistol pointed at us.

  I crouched.

  Ernie leaned around me and popped off a round at the man’s hand. He missed. The gunman pulled back behind the cover of the rock ledge.

  Behind us, another thug stuck his head out of the fire escape door. Ernie leveled his pistol at him, and the man ducked back.

  “We’re screwed,” Ernie said. “We can’t go forward, we can’t go back.”

  “Yeah. You might be right.

  “Does anybody know we’re here?” Ernie said.

  “I didn’t call Riley. You?”

  “No,” Ernie said. “So there probably won’t even be an investigation.”

  “Probably not. They’ll just figure we deserted.”

  “Maybe we should have. It would’ve been a lot more fun.”

  I glanced down at the churning sea. When the waves rolled in, the water rose. It covered the jagged rocks. Ten yards out, the water was fairly deep.

  “There’s one way,” I said.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I’m not.”

  The arm with the pistol stuck out around the edge of the building again. I leaned back and Ernie fired across my chest. The hand retreated hastily.

  “How many more rounds?” I said.

  “Six,” Ernie panted.

  “Save ‘em.”

  “What for?”

  “For later.”

  With that, I took a deep breath, waited for a wave to crash into the rocks, and leapt off the edge of the Olympos Hotel and Casino into the waters of the Yellow Sea.

  21

  Ernie splashed in behind me. When I’d recovered from the initial shock of the cold, I swam straight out to sea. Past the surf, in waters that were relatively calm, we floated for what seemed like an hour but might’ve been only ten or fifteen minutes. On the ledge above, Yun Guang-min’s hoods shouted and pointed, but none of them had the nerve to dive in after us.

  Fog rolled in, cutting off all sight of land. Ernie and I stuck together, but after a while, we thought we weren’t going to make it. Our body temperatures were lowering rapidly,
and we were no longer sure of the way to shore. When a dark shape appeared out of the mist, we swam toward it, shouting.

  A grizzled old Korean fisherman stood with his son in the stern of their small wooden craft. Handling a single oar, they pulled us aboard. After resting a few minutes and offering the old fisherman much thanks, he obligingly freighted us north, a mile beyond the sparkling lights of the City of Inchon. Still past the breakers, we thanked the fisherman and his son once again. Then we tied our soggy shoes around our necks and swam in. We waded onto a gravelly beach behind a line of warehouses and sloshed our way to a city street, where we waved down a cab driver who proved willing to accept extra money to take us to Seoul.

  Still wet but glad to be back in Itaewon’s precincts, we went straight to the police station. I was anxious to relay my newfound information to Captain Kim. Inside the station, we were ushered quickly into his office.

  The place reeked of fermented kimchee and stale cigarette smoke. Korean cigarettes have a peculiar odor, pungent and disagreeable, as if someone had let the tobacco leaves rot before bothering to pulverize them. Still, the odor cleansed my nostrils of crusted salt.

  Wearing an immaculately pressed khaki uniform, the Commander of the Itaewon station first insisted that we take off all our clothes and ordered towels brought in. We dried and covered ourselves with the towels. Captain Kim further ordered our clothing taken to a nearby laundry to be dried and pressed. Meanwhile, Ernie and I sat on folding metal chairs, teeth chattering, trying to warm up.

  I began to talk.

  Kim listened patiently as I told him that the owner of the Olympos Casino had tried to have us killed. We had no jurisdiction in a Korean casino—we knew that. But when Captain Kim discovered that we’d been trespassing, and that no grievous harm had been done, he discounted the whole affair.

  “Next time, tell me first,” he said.