by Alex Ryan
And there were the letters. She had a boyfriend. They talked about engagement. Towards the end, she told him that marrying him would be unfair, that the only reason for doing so would be to obtain citizenship.
Now what do you do? A trip to Korea right now was a little out of the question. He hadn’t gotten into it with Simon but the basic understanding they had was that when a mission was assigned, the mission prevailed, and there were almost always more missions available than people to fulfill them. The desk in the motel had a pen and a notepad. He could surely get an envelope from the lobby. Postage to South Korea? They told him to talk to the post office about that, but the post office wasn't that far away.
He didn't really know what kind of words to put down. He couldn't promise her the world, because he did not have a world he could possibly deliver. The best that he could hope for is that the letter would find her, before she went off and married someone that she did not want to marry.
Maybe there was nothing to come of it, he thought as he watched the white postal van drive off with the contents of the outgoing mail collection box. He didn't expect anything. But the one thing it did was shine a glimmer of hope in to his uncertain future.
He lived in a fantasy world, where anything was possible. Although being Simon's voluntary indentured servant was restrictive, it was still heads and tails better than being locked up in a military stockade, performing hard labor during the waking hours, and getting butt-raped in the shower at night, only to look forward to death via firing squad or however they fulfill the death penalty these days. Usually, death penalty recipients don't live long enough to receive their final sentence anyway, so it's almost a moot point.
Chapter 4 – Throw me some Sprinkles
Before leaving Ridgecrest to head south to San Diego to start digging, Rex consulted Roger. Whatever havoc was wreaked at the pizza restaurant and nearby businesses had apparently passed, and unlike the last time, Rex got to leave with half a box of pizza.
What he was searching for was a contact. Some kind of guide that could help him navigate through the netherworld of Tijuana and outlying areas. That would be the start of finding Ceasar Castillo, or 'El Rey.' He correctly guessed that Castillo was not the kind of person you just walk up to and start asking questions. The answer, ironically, came from within the pizza restaurant itself. It seemed as though a couple of the new staff had migrated upwards from San Diego, hearing that vacancies after the raid were desperately needed. The server, Montoya, knew exactly the man to talk to. It was, in fact, his own brother. The black sheep of the family. The one that decided to make his living running low-level petty crime rings in Tijuana. He stayed under the radar of the Mexican Federales and the US ATF agency, but the one thing he had going for him, is a deep, extensive knowledge of who's who, what they are doing, and whom they are dealing with. 'Chi Chi' Montoya was the one to talk to. Just throw is name out at any disreputable bar or strip club and you'll find him, particularly the ones with donkey shows.
All the good spy movies, plus that new television series about drug kingpins in Miami, had the heroes running around chasing people with guns. Getting caught with a gun after you cross the border is a great way to end up in a Mexican prison for months on end. Plus, if it came to gunplay, it was probably all over anyway. That said, you run into bad actors, and there is a need for personal protection.
No problem. The solution was simple. Rex had the foresight to bring the Sig Sauer P226 he relieved from the agent with him. He managed to locate an automotive maintenance club where one could pay a shop fee, and have access to all the tools and machines one would need to perform any level of vehicle overhaul. Filing the serial number off a frame isn't good enough. The stress imprints in the underlying metal can be rendered visible using special dyes. Five minutes with a milling machine, and a round milled slot three sixteenths of an inch deep through the serial number eliminated the possibility of future identification. The weapon was now neutral and usable. That one remains stashed in San Diego. Chi Chi would probably be able to help out with a weapon on the Mexican side. It would stay in Tijuana.
Mariachi music blared as men costumed in sombreros went through the tables replenishing stocks of bottled beer in ice buckets. Women in various states of undress performed stage routines as onlookers tossed bills in both dollar and peso denominations. The manager said to return to the establishment at eight o' clock the next day, and maybe Chi Chi Montoya might show. Or maybe he might not.
Rex visually tracked a man resembling Carlos Santana, but an older, grizzled version that looked like he might have just finished a three day drinking binge with Merle Haggard. He was different. Everyone else was either the young American college age crowd or the local indigenous party crowd. He visualized the man in his mind, moved to the side of the wooden bench as to create a space for the man to sit down, and watched him toss a few pesos on a stage and walk out of the club.
He was startled by a voice. "Is your name Rex?" A voice asked from the other side of the table.
He looked at the clean-cut kid that looked even younger than he was. He was slim, with jet black hair and a pencil thin mustache. Although clearly Hispanic, you would have thought he was hanging out with the drunken frat boys sitting beside him.
"Chi Chi?" Rex asked.
"That's me. Let's go someplace where we can talk. Follow me." They walked outside the noisy, open air barn style nightclub and walked down the street to a dimly lit bar that you wouldn't even recognize was a bar. It wasn't marked. The locals came here. If they didn’t know you, they might not even serve you. "Dos Tecate, por favor." he requested to the man at the bar as he walked out to a booth. "Welcome to my office. What may I do for you?"
"Your brother, out in the California desert, suggested I talk to you. I need some help finding someone."
He smiled. "My brother. I don’t even know him anymore. We don't talk. He doesn't exactly, how do I say, approve of what I do to make a living. But that's okay. Who is it that you are trying to find?"
"Ceasar Castillo. El Rey."
Chi Chi's eyes went wide. "You don’t need my help to find him. He's in the phone book. He has a house in Baja California, just outside of Ensenada. That's where his ranch is."
"Well okay, perhaps, let me rephrase that. He's working with someone, an American, I believe, who is running some guns. That's who I need to find."
"Look, there are two things I don't mess with. I don't mess with the cartels, and I don't mess with El Rey. My advice for you is to do the same."
"Great. So do you happen to know anybody that can help me?"
"I do, but it would cost you some good money."
"Like what?"
"So you want somebody that can get you close to El Rey, is that it?"
"Yes. My Spanish isn't nearly good enough to do it myself."
"You should be prepared to spend on the order of ten thousand dollars."
"Okay." Rex downed his beer.
"Okay? You are actually prepared to spend that?"
"Yes, if I have to. Maybe you can help me with the negotiations."
"What business do you have with this man of which you speak?"
"He's costing American lives, and countless Contra lives in Nicaragua. I need to find him, and stop him. I don't really have any need to 'mess with', as you say, Castillo himself."
"Just because this man is running some guns down south, you are so passionate to stop him? Of the battles between good and evil on the list, that one seems to be not that high. There must be more to the story?"
"There is, but I don’t want to get in to it. Are you going to hook me up or not?"
"Tell me exactly it is that you want this person to do."
"I want someone to tell me where he is, and where he's going, for the next thirty days."
Chi Chi appeared to be deep in thought. You could tell he was trying to formulate a plan. Money has its own language, and the dialogue had already started in such. "Let me think about this, and poke around for a
little bit. Meet me here tomorrow, same time. Eight o'clock."
"I'm not going anyplace. I'll be here."
"And don't go mentioning his name to any more people. It is a good way to end up in the gutter with a knife sticking out of your back."
"I'll take that under advisement."
The two-story red brick apartment house in the Bulgwang-Dong district of Seoul was built in the urban development abutting the foothills of the Bukhansan National Park. The northeast facing windows have a lovely view of the mountains, which will likely disappear when the planned high rise condominium apartments are constructed. But by then all of the families will have moved out anyway, so why not plan on selling it and moving into the condominium? It will have a fantastic view of downtown, and the Han River, which splits Seoul, and nearly half of the South Korean peninsula, in two.
Gyeong’s family was delighted with the news that So-Young returned finally from the United States. She wished so much that her parents had just kept the news to themselves. The room she grew up in had been transformed into an office for her father. It was clear that they expected her to move out, one way or the other. But it was she that wanted to move out, more than anyone. There was still a bed made up in the room where her brothers slept.
It was tense. Money wasn’t necessarily an issue, but still, they invested a lot of money in bringing So-Young with them to the States, and financing her American education. They understood that the whole visa issue wasn’t her fault. Still, either make it over there, or, well, there was Gyeong. He was a bright boy. The family is from a good class. He has a real future ahead him, with a guaranteed job at the Hyundai shipyard in Ulsan as an engineer. That would be a very different environment. Seoul is a big city with tall buildings and the river, but Ulsan is on the east coast of the peninsula near Busan.
The problem with Gyeong was that there simply was no chemistry. He wasn’t a bad looking kid, he was just unexciting, and he acted like more of a father than a potential mate and lover, and that just seemed weird. But it seems like too many Korean families have lost their daughters to Americans, threatening their culture and identity, although you wouldn’t know it by being in Korea, at least living among the population, and not near one of the major US military installations. So-Young was expected to maintain culture and tradition, otherwise, she was expected to be on her own.
One particular letter caught her attention. Her mother almost threw it in the trash. It was handwritten. In English. She didn’t understand the name Muse, but certainly could recognize the English spelling of So-Young Tang. Muse could be anyone. Was it a family name? Given name? The author clearly sought to avoid gender name assignment for fear of a possible deep-six by the family receiving it.
She opened it and read it. It became very clear who Brian “Rex” Muse was. That was the signature at the bottom. But she remembered his name. It was Alex, not Brian. It didn’t matter. It was him. He had her things. Personal things. Intimate things. The horses. The paperwork. The letters. Those essays.
It occurred to her that Rex Muse had been closer to her than any other man. She slept next to his warmth, in his strong, reassuring arms. He has seen her underwear. He had her underwear. He drew a close, personal connection that Gyeong could never even imagine in his wildest dreams.
And that was the problem. Gyeong probably didn’t actually imagine that in his wildest dreams. Being with him at functions was like going through the motions. Almost like he didn’t want to be there. He was physical. He was touchy feely. He liked to grab things he wasn’t supposed to, at least, yet, but just wasn’t the same. And there was that whole thing about his college buddies visiting Miari, in Northern Seoul to visit the prostitutes. He downplayed it, but the rumors never stopped.
The whole scene is depressing. It’s everywhere. Korean girls have this romantic notion that live in the United States with a westerner would be safe and fulfilling; a notion that is, with the advent of human trafficking, more the exception rather than the rule.
Rex, as he is calling himself now, is a GI. There are lots of GIs in Korea. Many of them leave with Korean wives. Rex is different. So-Young has made it a point to distance herself from the American military culture, yet here she is, full circle, reading this letter from a GI she met, accidentally, in one of the oddest places in the United States, at least from her limited perspective.
But what did this all mean? He really didn’t say anything definitive. He didn’t say he was coming here. She knew he was in some sort of deep, grave trouble, but whomever he visited in Los Angeles must have managed to help him find a way out of it. After all, the note got to him. He mentioned that. The one promise he did give was that he would hold her things safe for her, so she could get them at some point in the future.
That was the problem. At some point in the future. She hardly knew him; they were together for only for about a fifteen hour period. It seemed like much longer, and yet shorter at the same time.
At least they didn’t toss her comfy stuffed Hello Kitty that she used to fall asleep with during her childhood, although it did start to reek of cooking oil and chili spices. She fell asleep on top of it, letter still in hand when a voice jarred her awake.
Her mother spoke to her in Korean. “Gyeong is on the telephone. He wants to ask you if you would like to go on a driving trip to the mountains on Sunday for a picnic.”
This was going to be the ultimatum. Gyeong had told her that he would officially ask for her hand in marriage on some sort of trip. It was ironic, but although the road trip had not yet happened, she knew she was already at the fork in the road. She knew that she had until Sunday to make a decision, but not really. Acceptance of the invite in itself was an acceptance of a marriage proposal, lest she cause him to lose face by rejection. No, she had to make up her mind then and there. “Tell him I am feeling sick with a cold, and that I am not up to it.”
He’ll probably ask again in a week. He’ll get the same answer. Certainly by the third time, if he dares to try, he will get the message.
Chi Chi Montoya was already waiting in his booth when Rex arrived. Rex took a seat across the booth and looked him in the eyes. “So, what can you do for me?” Rex asked.
“All right. I thought about it, and I think I have a way to do what you ask. You have to understand though, that there is risk involved for me. If the Federales find out I’m poking around in El Rey’s affairs, I could find my way into prison. If El Rey finds out I’m poking around in his affairs, I could find my way in to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.”
“Understood.”
“Okay, El Rey has two weaknesses: cigars and women. I can get the right cigar, and I can get the right woman. The right cigar will come from Cuba. But it’s a very special type and one very hard to find. The woman is a working girl. One that is twenty two, but that does not look one day older than eighteen.”
“Likes under aged, huh.”
“Not under aged, let’s just say, first harvest, ripe off the tree.”
“I get it. How much?”
“Two thousand, five hundred United States dollars per week.”
“That’s ten thousand dollars per month.”
“Your math is good.”
“How much does she get?”
“Obviously enough so that she remains interested.”
Rex performed some mental calculations. The money wasn’t out of question, but he would have to do some explaining and justification to Simon. It’s not the kind of thing you can just call up over the telephone and just discuss. Simon actually had three sets of Navajo 1 secure telephones. They were developed by the NSA for use by senior government officials while traveling, and were housed in a briefcase. Rex did not have the benefit of one. Regardless, independent judgment rules. Ten thousand was about the limit at which Rex could spend without specific authorization. And obviously, Chi Chi read him well. “Okay. Tell you what, I’ll up the ante. Let’s make it simple. You find this man I’m looking for, I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars.
You have up to a month to find him.”
“What if we don’t find him?”
“Then my ten thousand would have been a waste, don’t you think?”
The small, thin Brazilian girl with flowing blondish hair entered the exclusive member’s only gentlemen’s nightclub where El Rey would come to drink expensive single malt whiskeys and world class tequilas. And you could get cigars. Cohibas. You couldn’t get Havana Cohibas in the States, but you could here. The distinctive yellow and black print boxes were available in the humidor. At fifty dollars apiece, it was an indulgence of the wealthy.
There was only one way that Isadora was going to be able to walk in the place to pander non-club cigars to the members. That transaction occurred in his office. ‘You want my members to smoke your cigars? You come back dressed in a tight, black, clingy but stylish evening gown that doesn’t scream whore, and you smoke my cigar in the office until smoke stops coming out.’ He was mildly worried that having a girl run around with a cigar box might make El Rey and a couple of the others feel that the establishment was cheapening, but why not. She looked young and fresh. And ay caramba, could she smoke a mean cigar.
They say that, in 1962, just before John F. Kennedy signed the Cuban embargo, he had his press secretary buy up all of the Cuban H. Upmann Havana cigars in the Washington D.C. area. Although they do not have the prestige and reputation as Cohibas, those that smoke them report they are best aged somewhere between ten and fifteen years for the cleanest, strongest taste. Only the truest, most studied, and experienced connoisseurs of Cuban cigars would recognize them for what they are.
El Rey thumbed his salt and pepper mustache and goatee as he eyed the girl from across the room. She looked young. She didn’t look Mexican. She looked Brazilian possibly, maybe Argentinian. What was she doing here? He sipped the large shot glass of a local tequila that was so smooth, it almost tasted like butter. Perhaps a nice cigar would go well with the next shot. Perhaps it was time to rummage through Don’s humidor. But El Rey was mildly curious about the box of cigars the girl was carrying. A couple of the members looked at them, shook their heads, and sent her on her way.