by Martin Limon
Ernie and I hadn’t been asked a question, so we didn’t respond.
“Don’t you have anything to say for yourselves?” Colonel Brace asked.
“The KNPs are just playing games,” Ernie replied, “embarrassed that we’re digging up old, and not-so-old, skeletons in their closets. They’re using the murder of Two Bellies to badger us into dropping the investigation.”
This seemed to make Colonel Brace even angrier.
“I don’t give a damn about this Two Bellies. But I do give a damn about unidentified G.I. bones. You keep looking for them and to hell with the ROKs.” Now Colonel Brace jabbed his forefinger at us. “And by god you’d better find Jessica Tidwell and find her fast before something happens to her. You got that?”
What he was so angrily telling us to do was exactly what the chief of staff had just ordered him to do. Pretending you’re a tough guy while slavishly following orders is an excellent way to enhance your career in the United States Army.
Ernie and I nodded.
Once Colonel Brace dismissed us, we saluted and walked back through the CID Admin Office. Both Staff Sergeant Riley and Miss Kim sat at their desks, pretending to be engrossed in their work. Neither one of them looked up at us.
Out in the parking lot, Ernie said with exasperation in his voice, “Lifer bullshit.”
Huatu, Korean flower cards, is played with twelve suits that are identified by vegetation. The suits follow the seasonal progressions. The first suit is January and features the evergreen pine; the next suit is February and is symbolized by brightly splashed paintings of purple plum flowers. The suit representing March is festooned with red cherry blossoms opening in early spring. Colorful stuff. Idyllic. But in contrast, actually gambling with huatu is a ferocious exercise.
The friends of the late Two Bellies surrounded the tattered old army blanket and took turns slapping the tough little plastic cards atop a pile of bronze coins, all the while cursing, grabbing money, and surveying every move as the next player took her turn. If a player stuck her hand into the center at the wrong time, one of the flying cards would have sliced off a finger.
When Ernie and I stepped onto the creaking wooden floorboards outside the hooch, the group of women stopped their game and gazed up at us.
“We know nothing,” one of them said.
Each of the retired business girls—women who were so aggressive only seconds ago—now seemed frozen in fear.
“Who killed Two Bellies?” Ernie asked.
No answer.
“Was it the Seven Dragons?”
Still no answer.
Ernie stepped past the open sliding door, grabbed the edge of the army blanket, and in one deft movement swept it off the floor. Flower cards and coins and ashtrays and lit cigarettes flew everywhere. Strangely, none of the women screamed. They merely scooted back on the warm vinyl floor until their backs were protected. Some of them covered their knees with their arms and looked down. Others glared at us directly.
“She was your friend,” Ernie said.
Finally, a woman spoke. “She dead. She help you so she dead. You no protect her. You no help Two Bellies.”
What she said was true but it just made Ernie angry. He wadded up the army blanket and tossed it at them in disgust.
I crouched down so I was at eye level with the women. “The night she died, where did she go? Who was she going to see?” No answer. “Did somebody come here and meet her or did she go out on her own?”
Still no answer.
“I’m going to find the man who killed her,” I said. “Whoever that is, he will be punished. But I need your help.”
After a long silence, one of the huatu players said, “That night, Two Bellies go out, nobody know where go but she dress up like she got big business. You know, important business. She no tell us what kind business she got.”
“Do you know where she went?” I asked.
“Itaewon, somewhere. She no take handbag. If she gotta go long way, she take handbag.”
So that was something. The night of her death, Two Bellies was operating close to home. I had another question for them but I had to phrase it delicately.
“That night, when Two Bellies went out,” I said, “do you think she was going out to have fun? Or was she going out, somewhere, to make money?”
The talkative woman barked a sardonic laugh. “Two Bellies never go anywhere have fun. She only go out make money.”
“Did she go alone?” Ernie asked.
The women stared at him warily for a moment. Finally, one of them said, “She say somebody follow her all the time. She no like.”
“Who?” I asked.
The women shrugged. I studied the circle. Nothing but blank faces.
“So someone had been following her,” I said. “A man or a woman?”
They all laughed. I wasn’t sure what I’d said that was so funny. Finally, the talkative one spoke up again. “If it man,” she said, “then Two Bellies no mind. She likey.”
The women cackled with glee. I figured it was best to leave them laughing. At least we’d learned something. Not much, but something.
We retreated back across the courtyard and ducked through the small gate out into the Itaewon street.
Doc Yong helped me research the Golden Dragon Travel Agency. From her clinic she made a few phone calls for me, received a few evasive answers, and eventually we formed the same working hypothesis: The Golden Dragon Travel Agency was owned, or at least controlled, by the Seven Dragons. A few of the women who’d been treated in her clinic freelanced part time for Japanese sex tours.
She gave me their names and addresses and Ernie and I wandered around the village searching for them.
The day was overcast, the wind growing colder by the minute but still, in this late afternoon, dozens of young women were parading back and forth to the bathhouses in the Itaewon area: cleanliness was a virtue close to the Korean heart. Their straight black hair was tied up over their heads with brightly colored yarn or metal clasps and against their hips they held plastic pans filled with soap and scrubbing implements and skin lotion and shampoo. Most of them wore only shorts and T-shirts and their goose-pimpled flesh and shapely figures were on display.
The girl we finally found was called Ahn Un-ja. She was slender, probably weighing in at less than ninety-five pounds, and she was frank with us, saying that many of the Japanese businessmen liked diminutive girls like herself. We asked her about the Golden Dragon Travel Agency and she admitted that she sometimes worked for them but she was afraid to say more. Ernie kept wheedling for more information and finally she told us why she was so frightened.
“Horsehead get angry,” she said.
We thanked her, promised we wouldn’t mention her name to anyone, and left.
Sergeant First Class Quinton Hilliard, the man who liked to call himself Q, was holding court at the King Club. This time he was complaining to a few of the cocktail waitresses, who were hovering around him, that the band never played any soul music. The band was a group of teenage Korean rock musicians who probably knew five chords and six songs between them but that didn’t seem to matter to Hilliard. If they weren’t up on the latest James Brown or Marvin Gaye, he considered their lack of knowledge to be a personal affront.
We were leaning against the bar. Ernie hadn’t taken his eyes off Hilliard since we walked in.
The young cocktail waitresses were all smiling and cooing around Hilliard. For his part, he sat at his table like the godfather of Itaewon, lapping up the phony adulation.
“Ignore him,” I said. “We have more important things to do.”
Ernie grunted before saying, “How’s Miss Kwon doing?”
“Doc Yong says better.”
“That son of a bitch likes to throw his weight around.” Ernie glared at Hilliard. “Everybody knows the club owners have to kiss his ass. Otherwise he’ll sic Eighth Army EEO on them. That’s why the waitresses are treating him like that. If he accepts one free drink,” Ernie
said, “I’m busting him.”
Accepting gratuities for performing—or not performing—your military duties is against the Uniform Code of Military Justice. However, it’s a difficult charge to prove. If I could prove it, I’d be able to bring half the honchos at 8th Army up on charges.
“Forget it, Ernie.” I dragged him out of the King Club.
Once we were out on the street, Ernie said, “All right,” and shrugged my grip off his elbow. “Where to now?”
“Mrs. Bei told me that Jimmy Pak was in his office tonight.” Mrs. Bei was the manager behind the bar at the King Club and was tuned into the scuttlebutt that pulsed through Itaewon. Also, she was grateful to Ernie and me for having tried to save Miss Kwon. The attempted suicide had caused the local KNPs to blame Mrs. Bei for Miss Kwon’s ill-considered act; they were threatening her with charges and fines for not properly counseling the “hostesses” who plied their trade in the King Club. So far, Mrs. Bei confided in me, she’d had to shell out over 30,000 won, more than sixty bucks. If the girl had died, the King Club would’ve been closed by the Korean authorities and it would’ve cost her ten times that much to re-open.
I would’ve preferred to talk to Horsehead but I had no idea where to find him. We settled for another charter member of the Seven Dragons. Jimmy Pak was the long time owner of the UN Club, probably the classiest club in Itaewon. It sat right on the corner of the Itaewon main drag and the MSR and was always busy, filled with some of the most gorgeous women Itaewon had to offer. Civilian tourists, diplomats, and foreign businessmen who occasionally found their way to Itaewon, usually ended up partying in the UN Club.
Neon glittered brightly in the dark night. Korean business girls and American G.I.s jostled one another in the busy pedestrian thoroughfare. The wind had picked up and flakes of snow swirled haphazardly through the crowds, landing on brick walls and cement steps and cobbled lanes and beginning to stick, to form drifts in the midwinter cold. If the Armed Forces Korea Network weather report was accurate, we could expect more precipitation moving south down the peninsula, out of Manchuria, closing in on Seoul.
As we shoved through the double doors of the UN Club, a boy in black slacks, white shirt, and bow tie bowed to us and said, “Oso-oseiyo.” Please come in.
The place was packed and there were no empty tables but we didn’t muscle our way to the bar as we usually did. Instead, we walked up narrow varnished steps that led to a chophouse upstairs. The joint served hamburgers with oddly flavored meat patties and fat french fries and sliced cucumbers instead of pickles. The menu also featured other delicacies such as ohmu rice—steamed rice wrapped in an omelet—which the G.I.s considered to be Korean food but which was actually viewed by the Koreans as a form of yang sik, foreign food.
Western influence, Japanese influence, Chinese influence and the Korean ability to adapt in order to survive; all these factors made it difficult for me to look back in time and discern which parts of the culture that swirled around me were authentic Korean and which parts had been tacked on recently. I worked at it, constantly. But the Koreans were a puzzle to me. Who they were. What they wanted. And although I discovered and snapped into place a new piece of the puzzle every day, I felt sometimes that the picture was becoming more blurry. Maybe I was doomed to be confused. Maybe a foreigner can never understand Asia or the Asian mind. But I’d keep trying. Especially now. For Moretti’s sake, so we could find his bones and return them to his family. And for Ernie’s sake and my own sake. So we’d have a shot at not having to return to a Korean jail. Which would be good.
Ernie and I didn’t enter the chophouse. Instead, we turned left and walked down a short hallway that led to a door marked sammusil. Office. I started to knock but Ernie stepped past me, twisted the handle, and shoved.
It was locked.
There was a lot of banging behind the door to Jimmy Pak’s office. It sounded like furniture being moved around and there was whispering, of the urgent type. Finally, the handle of the door turned and the door began to open. A beautiful pagoda of black hair peeked out.
I recognized her right away. Miss Liu, a waitress here at the UN Club. She had long legs and a gorgeous smile and beautiful black hair that she piled atop her head into a structure like a temple from a Chinese fairy tale. She peered out at us from behind the door, smiled and bowed and then, holding her silver cocktail tray under her arm, minced her way out into the hallway. She was wearing the high-heeled shoes she usually wore and her legs were smooth and unsheathed. Something about her short blue dress seemed slightly askew, as if it had been twisted over her torso too quickly. Miss Liu kept her head down as she left the office and slouched past us. Ernie and I both watched as she sashayed down the hallway and tiptoed down the steps.
Inside the office, a green fluorescent light flickered to life.
Behind his desk, Jimmy Pak was on his feet, smiling, slipping on his neatly pressed white shirt, tucking the starched tails into his trousers.
“Agent Ernie,” he said. “And Geogi. Welcome. Come in. Have a seat.”
He motioned with his open palm to the chairs on the far side of his desk. Then he lifted his telephone. “Would either of you gentlemen care for a drink?”
I shook my head.
Ernie said, “I’ll take a scotch and soda.”
When someone answered, Jimmy said in English, “Two scotch and sodas for my important friends. Allaso, Mr. Jin?” Do you understand, Mr. Jin?
The response must have been positive because Jimmy Pak smiled more broadly and hung up the phone.
“Sit, sit,” he said. Then he retied his tie and slipped on his jacket and placed himself behind his desk in his comfortable leather swivel chair. He folded his pudgy hands on the blotter in front of him and said, “Now, gentlemen, how can I help you?”
Before we could answer, someone knocked discreetly on the office door.
“Entrez-vous,” Jimmy shouted.
Another waitress, this one less statuesque than Miss Liu, entered with two drinks on her tray and plopped one each in front of Ernie and me. She asked if Jimmy wanted anything but he waved her away. After she left, he reached inside his desk drawer, pulled out a crystal tumbler and a small bottle of ginseng liqueur. He poured himself a thimbleful and said, “For my tummy.” He patted his ample paunch. Then he raised the glass, and said, “Bottoms up!”
We all drank. Ernie downed his entire drink. I sipped mine.
“Now,” Jimmy said. “To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?”
“That Miss Liu,” Ernie said, “she’s not bad.”
“No. Not bad at all,” Jimmy replied. Gold lined the edge of one of his front teeth but on him it looked good, accentuating his constant smile.
Ernie rattled the ice in his glass. “How long have you owned this club, Jimmy?”
“Oh. Many, many years. Why do you ask?”
“You’re the coolest owner. The only bar owner in Itaewon who speaks English really well and who mingles with the G.I.s. Why? Why don’t you pull away from the day-to-day operations like the other owners?”
Jimmy spread his arms. “Because I love people. Especially my American friends.”
He was smiling as broadly as an evangelist in a pulpit, welcoming new souls into the kingdom of heaven.
“You love people,” Ernie said, “but you’re also one of the gangsters who used to be called the Seven Dragons.”
Jimmy looked surprised. “The who?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. You were here in Itaewon right after the war. You helped build this place and the entire village of Itaewon.”
Jimmy kept smiling. “You flatter me.”
“And you did it,” Ernie continued, “by stealing money from the poor refugees who flooded down here from North Korea.”
“Steal? Me?” Jimmy Pak’s face was suffused with mirth. “My friend, you have such a vivid imagination. These ‘Seven Dragons’ as you call them. Such an exotic name. No doubt some mysterious Oriental organization designed to do evil
in the world. But don’t you see, I’m nothing but a harmless businessman.”
“Not so harmless,” Ernie said. “At least Two Bellies doesn’t think so.”
The smile disappeared from Jimmy Pak’s face. “Such a terrible thing.”
Ernie’s fist tightened around his empty glass. I was worried he might throw it at Jimmy. I spoke up.
“Don’t give us your shit, Jimmy,” I told him. “Just listen to the facts. We know what you did to Mori Di, Sergeant Flo Moretti, and we know where you hid his body. And we know that you stole a lot of money from people and sent a passel of Buddhist nuns and orphans out into the snow to die. But they didn’t die. They lived, most of them, and reached a nunnery and most of those kids are alive now and well, although probably not living in Korea. So you’re a legitimate businessman these days. You don’t want people poking into your past. And when Ernie and I went looking for Moretti’s remains, you removed the remains from their resting place and replaced them with the corpse of Two Bellies, to warn off anybody else who tries to help us.”
“Me?” Jimmy asked.
“Yes, you,” Ernie growled. “Maybe you didn’t do the dirty work yourself, you didn’t actually slice Two Bellies’s throat, but you know who did because you’re the one who paid for the job.”
Jimmy Pak smiled indulgently.
“So I’m willing to make a deal,” I said. “I want the remains of Moretti. Somebody’s got to return those remains to his family in the States. They’ve been waiting over twenty years. You give us that— his dog tags, his uniform, his bones, everything—and then we lay off. No more prying into the people who were hurt in the past or the antiques and family heirlooms and the gold bullion that was stolen.”
Jimmy looked suddenly serious. “And Two Bellies?” he asked.
Ernie and I glanced at one another. I spoke. “The Korean cops are responsible for her.”
Jimmy leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled in front of him. “You want another drink?” he asked.