by Martin Limon
“I don’t like it,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Like what?”
“It really is like slavery. They’re not there by choice,” I said.
“At the Sea Dragon Club? They’re not slaves.”
“Close to it.”
Apparently, we’d agreed to disagree, because we were both silent for the rest of the trip.
When we arrived at the front gate of Hialeah Compound, it was my turn to pay the driver. At the pedestrian entrance, we showed a bored MP our military IDs. After winding through a narrow hallway, we exited the MP station and strode along a sidewalk toward the Hialeah Compound Enlisted Club. Using admirable restraint, we bypassed the enticing restaurant and bar operation and kept going about a quarter mile toward the Hialeah Compound Sports and Recreation Center, which was nothing more than two enormous Quonset huts hooked together. We checked out towels, sweatpants, and shirts, went to change, and stopped by the weight room to pump some iron. After the workout came a steam bath and a shower, and thus refreshed, we returned to the Enlisted Club. In the dining room, we ate a square meal accompanied by only ice water and hot coffee.
“This teetotal business sucks,” Ernie said.
“It’ll pay off tonight around midnight.”
Ernie checked his watch. “Three more hours. I don’t care what you say. At eleven, I’m having a drink.”
“You mean twenty-three hundred hours.”
“Yeah. I’ve synchronized my watch.”
By eleven p.m., one hour before the midnight-to-four curfew, Ernie and I stood in the shadows of the main drag of the strip right outside Hialeah Compound sipping on an open bottle of soju, the fiery rice liquor manufactured in Korea from time immemorial.
The twelve-to-four curfew had been established by the South Korean government shortly after the war. Everyone except authorized personnel had to be off the streets. The reason was supposedly that this made it easier for the ROK Army to apprehend North Korean intruders. The real reason, I believed, was for the Park Chung-hee dictatorship to flex its muscles with a constant reminder to its populace of who was boss. A citizen caught out after curfew was subject to a fine at best, and being shot on sight at worst. As a result, kimchi cabs were lined up in front of the bars and nightclubs, waiting to whisk last-minute customers home before the midnight bell tolled.
“What do you expect to find, Sueño?”
“I don’t know. I just know that Shirkey left the Heitei Lounge just before curfew hit. By himself, apparently. I want to see what the ville looks like at that time of night.”
“And maybe find a witness?”
“It’s worth a try.”
“One thing I know,” Ernie said, “is that the MPs who wrote that blotter report didn’t stay out here at night until all hours.”
“Probably not,” I admitted.
“But you’re thorough, huh, Sueño?”
I looked at him. “Drink some more soju.”
He did. Then he wiped the rim of the bottle and handed it to me. I popped back a glug, grimaced, and handed it back to him.
“You don’t like it?” he asked.
“It does the job.”
Ernie took a long swig. “Truer words were never spoken.”
An old woman pushed a cart down the sidewalk. Set on rubber wheels, it held a stove in the center with a flaming charcoal briquette heating up a pan of sizzling oil. The aroma of batter-fried sweet potatoes and fish wafted tantalizingly through the air.
“Let’s buy some mackerel,” I told Ernie.
He grabbed his stomach. “That stuff gives me the runs.”
“Come on.”
He followed me to the cart. An oil lamp illuminated not only the stove atop the cart, but the wrinkled face of its stout proprietor. She wore a scarf over her gray hair and enough layered wool sweaters to fight off the night’s chill.
“Olmayo?” I asked. How much?
She responded in English. “One dollar, big bag. You take barracks, anybody eat.” She waved her hands, indicating all my buddies.
While she was still hoping I’d spend some money, I discovered that her name was Suh Ajjima—Auntie Suh—and she was out here every night selling snacks to half-drunk GIs. I asked her about what she’d seen three nights ago. She stared at me blankly. I mentioned the name Shirkey. This time, in addition to the blank look, she shook her head slowly.
“He came out of the Heitei Lounge,” I told her, pointing at the Heitei’s neon sign. “From there we think he walked away from the compound. He was alone, still wearing his fatigue uniform. Did you see him?”
“I no see,” she said quickly. Too quickly. “You want small bag, hundred won.” About twenty cents.
“Small bag,” I said.
She grabbed a loose sheet of newspaper, plopped greasy slices of sweet potato and breaded fish flesh onto it, and folded it into a neat package. Grabbing another sheet of paper to help absorb the grease, she wrapped it again and handed it to me. I pulled a hundred-won coin out of my pocket and dropped it into her open palm.
“You were here that night,” I said.
She looked up at me, worried, but didn’t deny it. She grabbed a fresh sweet potato and began to slice it, though she already had more than enough bobbing in the hot grease. I placed my hand atop hers and held it steady. With my free hand, I reached inside my coat pocket and pulled out my badge. I showed it to her and switched to Korean. I told her I wanted her to tell us what she saw that night. When she hesitated, I told her that if Shirkey wasn’t found, the post commander would restrict all GIs to compound.
“For their safety,” I told her. “Too dangerous for them to come out here. You’ll lose business.”
Worried eyes crinkled even more tightly. Like so many people, her economic prosperity—even her ability to eat regularly—was probably measured day-by-day.
I waved my arm to indicate the entire block. “Not just you, everybody. No more GIs at the tailor shop. No more GIs at the brassware emporium. No more GIs at the Heitei Lounge.”
She glanced at the businesses around us. A few GIs emerged from one of the bars and, spotting her, headed straight for her cart. Ernie and I backed off and observed. The transaction didn’t take long. All the GIs seemed to know her, and within seconds, they had large, grease-stained parcels under their arms and were heading for the pedestrian entrance to Hialeah Compound. When they were gone, Ernie and I once again approached Auntie Suh.
Apparently, my argument had swayed her. Without looking up at me, she said, “She pretty lady.”
I had no idea who she was talking about, but as long as she was talking, I knew better than to interrupt. Ernie moved away. I stood in front of the cart, my hands in my pockets and my face impassive.
“She wear, how you say, something come out here.” She plucked at the upper front of her chest.
“Frills?” I said.
“Yes. Long time ago woman wear. Not now.”
“A blouse with frills,” I said. “What else?”
“Black coat.” She mimicked shrugging it on. “Skirt, down to shoes.”
“How long was the coat?”
“Here,” she said, slicing her hand along the broad expanse of her waistline.
“What about her hair? Face?”
“Hair stand up high.” She motioned at about six inches above the top of her skull. “Face pretty. Soft. Round eyes. But she not young.”
“How old?”
Auntie Suh pondered this, pursing her lips. “Maybe forty. Most tick.” Soon.
“What’d she do?”
“One GI, who I don’t know. He come out of Heitei Lounge.” She pronounced the word with an accent: loun-gee. “He taaksan stinko.” Very drunk. “He see woman stand there.” She pointed to the corner beneath one of the few streetlamps. “That night lot of, how you say, angei.”
&nb
sp; “Fog,” I said.
“Yes. Fog. No can see. But he see her. Go talk to her.”
“What happened then?”
“They talk, not too long. Then together they walk back that way.” She indicated the street that ran perpendicular to the strip. There were fewer lights back there.
“Did you see where they went?”
“No. After that, I no see. Many GI come out of Heitei Lounge. Come out of other clubs. Most tick curfew. They all hungry. Buy a lot of fish.”
I asked to see her Korean National Identity card, and when she hesitated, I reminded her again of how important it was that we find Shirkey. She pulled out her ID card and showed it to me. I jotted down her full name, address, and National Identity card serial number and handed the card back to her. I knew better than to ask for a phone number. Telephones were expensive in Korea; businesses had them, but only the rich could afford to keep one in their home.
I thanked her for her cooperation, and Ernie and I went to explore the cross street. When we rounded the corner, I handed the small parcel of deep-fried sweet potato and mackerel to him. He opened it, sniffed, and his face twisted in disgust. He tossed the parcel into the gutter.
“That’s wasteful,” I told him.
“The cats’ll find it.”
Only one neon sign glistened in the shadow of the side street: the Number One Inn. Beneath the English, in smaller hangul script, it read cheil yoguan, which meant exactly the same thing. It was a three-story building that stood about a hundred yards from the bar district.
“You think they went there?” Ernie asked.
“Maybe. Auntie Suh didn’t recognize the woman, which meant she was new in town. Maybe a streetwalker from nearby, looking to make a quick buck. Where else would they go?”
The other buildings were closed and shuttered businesses: a bicycle repair shop, a bulk grain storage. Behind that were residences for the working poor of the city of Pusan.
“They could’ve gone back in one of those alleys,” Ernie said. “Tried it standing up.”
“Yeah. But if they’d done that, Shirkey probably wouldn’t have disappeared. Or even if she’d killed him, she would’ve left the body there.”
Ernie didn’t reply. We reached the cement steps leading up to the double-doored entrance of the yoguan. I pushed through and heard a bell ring. A woman slid open an oil-papered door and scurried out of a side room. At the entranceway, more than a dozen pairs of shoes sat beneath a two-foot-high raised floor. The hallway was varnished a dark brown and immaculately clean.
“Anyonghaseiyo,” I said to the woman.
She stood with both hands in front of her waist and bowed slightly. She wore a long house dress and, like Auntie Suh, too many sweaters.
Just to make conversation, I started with, “Bang issoyo?” Do you have a room?
She nodded.
“Olmayo?”
She told me. Ten thousand won. Twenty bucks.
That seemed sort of steep, but I wasn’t here to bargain. I showed her my badge. Immediately, she frowned in worry.
We slipped off our shoes and stepped up onto the slick wooden flooring. We walked forward to look down the perpendicular hallway, and saw nothing but a long row of closed wooden doors. I figured that up the wooden staircase was more of the same.
I didn’t ask for a guest register, since these small mom-and-pop operations weren’t required to formally check in their customers. It was a cash-only business, and if Shirkey and the woman with the frilly blouse had stopped here, they easily could’ve gotten a room anonymously. But I also knew that a woman who ran a place like this could be counted on to have an excellent memory. Her welfare and that of her family depended on running a tight ship and making a profit, so she wouldn’t miss a trick. I considered backing off and waiting for the KNPs to question her. The pressure they could put on a local business owner was enormous, but I hoped she might be more open to an informal approach, as was Auntie Suh at the fried food cart.
“My friend,” I said in Korean, “a GI named Shirkey, he came in here two nights ago with an older Korean woman.” I mimicked frills on the chest. “She was wearing a nice blouse, a black vest, and a long skirt. Do you remember them?”
The woman eyed me warily.
I tried the restricted-to-compound routine. I told her that if we didn’t locate Shirkey, GIs wouldn’t be allowed off Hialeah Compound and her business would suffer. Still, she was unmoved, and told me that if I didn’t want a room, I should leave. I considered calling the KNPs to ask for their help, but I didn’t like the thought of how long that might take.
Ernie sauntered toward a closet door, pulled it open, and fumbled through shelving stacked with wooden trays and small plastic thermoses. At a Korean inn, it was traditional to provide guests with barley tea and warm hand towels to wipe their faces. Without looking back, Ernie took one of the thermoses and tossed it over his shoulder. Barley tea flew everywhere.
Startled, the woman turned and rushed toward him.
Ernie tossed another thermos.
The woman reached him in time to pull a third thermos out of his hand. She clutched it to her bosom and backed away from him as if he were mad. He held her gaze and nodded toward me. A middle-aged Korean man, wearing only pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, appeared out of the same door she’d emerged from. His eyes were wide, and he held a short cudgel in his hands.
“Yobo,” he said, addressing her. “I nomu sikki weikurei?” Wife, what are these SOBs doing?
“Kyongchal,” I said—police—waving my badge toward him. He continued to clutch his cudgel like Hank Aaron waiting for a pitch. I turned back to the woman and repeated the question. “Do you remember them?”
“Yes,” she said, keeping her eyes on Ernie and clutching the plastic thermos as if it were a precious thirteenth-century celadon vase. Her husband started to move toward us, but she motioned for him to stop. He did, his face red, but it didn’t seem like he had much patience left. The woman’s thoughts seemed to catch up with her, and she said, “He brought her in.”
“The GI,” I repeated, “he brought the older woman in?”
“Yes. She didn’t want to come inside, but he was drunk, almost dragging her. She fought back, and they were both screaming and upsetting the other customers. I told them to leave. She managed to pull him outside, and I locked them out.”
“So they didn’t get a room?”
“No. I don’t want their kind in here.”
“Their kind?” I asked. “But you must get plenty of GIs and business girls.”
“Yes. But she wasn’t a business girl.”
“What was she?”
The woman’s forehead crinkled. “There was something strange about her,” she said. “Too old for him. And more than that. Too proper.”
“Proper?” I repeated.
“Yes. It made no sense.” Now she ignored Ernie and stared straight at me. “She shouldn’t have been with an American. She was a respectable woman.”
Merely being seen with an American was enough to throw an honest Korean woman’s name into disrepute.
“What happened after you locked them out?”
“They left,” she said simply.
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Toward the compound or away from it?”
“Away from it. That way.” She pointed down the street.
“What’s down there?”
“Nothing. Just more houses.”
“No bars, restaurants, hotels?”
“No. For that, you have to go downtown.”
“And they were walking?”
“Yes. I didn’t hear a car.”
I asked for her Korean national identity card. Her husband protested, telling her not to show it to me. I turned to him and raised the specter of the KNPs. Afte
r discussing it with him, she finally complied. I quickly jotted down her information and returned her card to her, keeping a wary eye on her husband and his cudgel.
Before we left, I bowed and thanked them.
As the front door swung shut, I looked back and saw her husband, still glaring at me with weapon in hand. She had already grabbed a large rag and was kneeling on the floor, wiping up puddles of barley tea.
Outside, I turned to Ernie. “Did you have to be so rude?”
“We don’t have all freaking night. For all we know, Shirkey’s life is in danger. We’re supposed to be solving a crime, not spreading joy and laughter.” Ernie checked his watch. “Besides, there’s only twenty minutes left until curfew.”
“That guy was about to bash my head in.”
“Not to worry. I have these.” Ernie showed me the set of brass knuckles he usually kept in his back pocket.
“I’m sure that would’ve eased the pain of my split skull.”
“Always glad to help,” Ernie said.
We walked along the dark street, away from the Number One Inn and Hialeah Compound. Ahead stretched nothing but a narrow two-lane road lined with walls of brick and stone.
“There’s nothing down this way,” Ernie said.
“But this is where they went.”
“Somebody must’ve been waiting for them. Somebody in a vehicle.”
“Maybe a taxi.”
“Probably not. Not just before curfew. Cab drivers go where the people are. Like back there in the bar district.”
It didn’t make sense. Shirkey had tried to drag some decent woman into a hot bed operation, she’d refused, and then they’d walked out into the night on a road to nowhere. Then I spotted something about twenty yards ahead. An indentation in the unbroken line of walls.
Ernie spotted it, too. We hurried forward.
In seconds, we stood in front of what appeared to be a collection spot for residential trash. There was a large wooden bin and several of the two-wheeled carts used by city-contracted trash collectors.
“You could park a car here,” I said.
“Yeah,” Ernie agreed. “But why?”