by Martin Limon
So far, no alarm had sounded. We were starting to breath easier. Finally, I noticed the odor in the room. Thick. As if somebody’d left food out.
“Any refrigerator in there?” I asked.
“No. No sign of food.”
Maybe Pak Tong-i ordered out. Hot food delivery—both Chinese and Korean—is cheap in Korea and always readily available. But I didn’t see any sign of empty bowls or used chopsticks.
“You check the desk,” I told Ernie. “I’ll take the files.”
Both of us carried small, army-issue flashlights and Ernie kneeled down under the desk, determined to be meticulous and start his search from the ground up. I opened the top drawer of the first file cabinet.
It was a mess. There didn’t seem to be any particular order to the files, either in the English alphabet—a, b, c—or the Korean hangul alphabet—ka, na, da. Papers were shoved in willy-nilly. Contracts, payment vouchers, receipts—all of it in a huge hodgepodge stuffed into random folders. The Korean names on the folders, apparently the names of entertainers, did not correspond to the paperwork they contained. I worked quickly through the drawers, from file cabinet to file cabinet, trying to grasp the method of organization, quickly coming to the realization that there was none.
What I did notice was that there was no folder with the name Kim Yong-ai, the stripper who’d become Jill Matthewson’s friend. I went back and checked more carefully, even peeking beneath the rows of folders in case the file had slipped down. Finally, I was sure. There was no folder for Kim Yong-ai despite the fact that Pak Tong-i himself had told us that she had been one of his most productive clients. There was no sense delaying my conclusion any longer. Someone—almost certainly not Pak Tong-i—had gone through these files. The mystery person had searched everything, taken everything out, and then thrown the documents back into any old folder and stuffed the entire mess back into the cabinets, totally unconcerned about keeping the records straight for future use or, for that matter, hiding the fact that he’d been here.
Also, whoever had been here before us had stolen Kim Yong-ai’s file. Had they stolen anything else? Only Pak Tong-i would know.
Ernie stood up from behind Pak Tong-i’s desk. He had reached the same conclusion. “Somebody’s been here before us,” he said.
Shining both our flashlights in the open drawers, we found the usual accumulation of pencils, paperclips, pens. In the top drawer an accounting ledger. I pulled it out and set it on the blotter. Then we checked the side drawers. An address book. Since all the entries were written in hangul, Ernie handed it to me. I thumbed through it. Pages torn out. All Korean names, no American names that I could see. But the kiyok section—the Korean k sound—was missing. Therefore, no entry for Miss Kim Yong-ai. The accounting ledger held the names of what were probably nightclubs and other entertainment companies. Figures listed in Korean won, none in dollars. Again, no American names. The ledger was neat. Like something prepared for display—or for the tax collector.
The rest of the drawers held nothing of interest. A pair of rubber pullover boots, an expensive Korean straight razor with shaving gear, and a half-used bottle of American-made mouthwash.
Who had preceded us? The Korean National Police? The 2nd Division MPI? Some gangster trying to collect money? Or could it have been Corporal Jill Matthewson herself? She’d been a cop after all. Maybe she’d come to retrieve Kim Yong-ai’s files for some reason.
I didn’t have enough information. The logical thing to do—the only thing to do—was to keep gathering facts.
Ernie held the beam of his flashlight pointing upward beneath his chin. His eyes were dark hollows. “One place we haven’t searched,” he said.
“Where?”
The office was tiny. Only two rooms and a byonso. I thought we’d already covered everything. But Ernie shined his flashlight on the wall directly behind Pak Tong-i’s desk. In the darkness, I hadn’t noticed. A door made of some sort of gray synthetic material, not wood, was set flush into the wall.
“What is it?”
“A soundproof room,” Ernie answered. “For listening to music without bothering the neighbors.”
I stared at the door, at the almost invisible hinges.
Ernie placed his flashlight in my free hand and I aimed both beams at the door. Then he grabbed the metal handle.
“On the count of three,” Ernie said. “One, two, three.”
He pulled. It wouldn’t budge. Then Ernie placed both hands on the handle, propped the bottom of his right shoe against the wall, leaned back, and tugged with all his might. The door groaned, held, and then popped open.
It was dark inside, a space not much bigger than a closet. Something moved and at the same time the odor of rotted meat hit my nostrils. As I recoiled, something heavy and flesh-filled plopped sickeningly, with a massive thud, onto the floor. I jumped back, wanting to scream, and gazed down at the thing that lay at my feet.
When I was growing up in East L.A., I knew all kinds of kids— Anglo, black, Mexican—but one thing I realized early on was that Mexican kids are brave. Ridiculously brave. Accepting any sort of ill-considered dare—either to fight someone bigger than them or climb the highest tree or swing by a rope from a power line—was a point of honor. Backing down in front of the other kids was unthinkable. They’d either complete their mission or die trying.
Only two things frightened the tough little vatos of East L.A.: la migra y las brujas. Immigration and witches. Immigration because, for the most part, their parents were in the United States illegally and they’d been taught to shy away from anyone wearing a uniform. And las brujas, the witches, because they represented the power of the ancient world. The world from which their families had fled.
The word witches is misleading. Actually, las brujas are female shamans, like the Korean mudang. Their power arose from the ancient religions of the Aztecs and the other tribes that populated the Valley of Mexico and its environs since before the beginning of time. Las brujas were experts at healing and herbal remedies and mystic spells, and they were rumored to be able to transport themselves into realms denied to normal mortals. And denied for good reason. For one glimpse of these parallel universes—and at the faces of the entities that live there—would drive most men mad.
Did the Mexican brujas and the Korean mudang evolve from the same traditions, hoary with age? From somewhere in Siberia or along the Bering Strait? No one knew. Probably no one would ever know. But I was aware that both groups of women held positions that were similar. Positions within society of awe and respect, positions of power.
So when Madame Chon told me that her daughter’s spirit was hungry and wandering and needed a ritual performed to help it find its way home, that made sense to me. I’d heard such things before. The Catholic Church performs exorcisms to cast out demons but the rites performed by las brujas are designed to communicate with the dead, to find out what they want, to share jokes with them, even to make deals with them. I knew how profoundly people believed in such things. So I had no doubt that Madame Chon would never rest until—as the mudang ordered—Jill Matthewson was brought to her to participate in a ceremony to communicate with the dead.
Even if I didn’t believe that Chon Un-suk’s spirit was hungry— and I didn’t—I knew that her mother’s spirit was. Hungry for rest. Hungry for reassurance that her daughter was well taken care of. And I understood that hunger. Since the day my mother died and left me alone, I’d been hungry myself. Hungry for someone who would love me without reservation. Hungry for someone I could love in the same way.
I saw her from the back bedroom, down the hallway, sitting on the couch in the front room, dressed in a beautiful black silk dress, her hair covered with a black lace mantilla. At that moment, as always, I was hungry for her embrace. Hungry for her kiss. Of course, she’d already been dead for five years. I was growing up, tall for my age, about to start middle school. My foster parents told me it was a dream, that I’d been taking a nap and I’d been disoriented. Others
said it must’ve been someone else, not my mother. Maybe one of the older girls who was staying with the same foster parents. But none of those orphan girls owned black silk dresses or anything as old-fashioned as a lace mantilla.
A priest was summoned to the house. He started to perform an exorcism but I screamed so loudly that he had to stop. The neighborhood women tried to calm me, to explain to me that this ceremony was for the best and that I should listen to the wise words of the priest. I would have none of it. Every time the priest sprinkled holy water around the room, I started to scream again. Finally, he lost patience, picked up his vestments and his chalice, and left. I didn’t want him to chase my mother away. She’d come back, for the first time since she’d died, and I didn’t want anyone to force her to leave.
Later, the bruja arrived. She burnt some bones of a crow and added smelly herbs to the small fire but this time I didn’t complain. She promised not to chase my mother away but just to talk to her. The trance lasted hours and I fell asleep. But when the old crone shook me awake, she grabbed my hand in her cold fist and told me that my mother would always be with me.
Ever since then, she has.
As the corpse rolled toward his feet, Ernie leaped backwards.
“What the—” After the body stopped rolling and Ernie managed to gather his courage, I handed his flashlight back to him and he kneeled and studied the pile of clothing beneath us. I held the beam of my flashlight on a face mostly covered by a broad-brimmed hat. Then I leaned forward and touched my fingers to a fleshy neck. No pulse. I pushed deeper. Was I sensing warmth? No. None. How long had this man been dead? Hours, I thought. Involuntarily, my hand recoiled. Ernie slipped the hat back to reveal a face.
Pak Tong-i. Fat tongue hanging lewdly to the side of purple lips. Face flushed red. Not red like a beet but a red so bright that it looked like a clot of blood held together by a transparent membrane of flesh.
We stood silent, trying to gather our wits. Trying to be professional. But in the middle of the night in this cold, cement office building with only the soft green glow of a lamp to comfort us, it wasn’t easy. Death never is.
Taking a deep breath, I checked for wounds. I took my time about it, loosening his clothes, making sure I didn’t miss anything. No physical trauma, not even bruises, except for chafing around his wrists. He’d been bound. And there were burns around his neck. Rope burns. The lines ran up his pudgy neck in a steady progression.
“They interrogated him,” Ernie said finally. “Tightening the rope each time he refused to answer.”
I checked the bone beneath the flesh of the neck. It didn’t seem to be damaged and his air passage seemed clear. The rope burns on his neck were superficial. Strangulation was not the cause of death. The vermilion hue of his face told its own story.
“Heart attack,” I said. “While he was being questioned and systematically strangled, he popped a valve.”
“Heart attack, strangulation, either way it’s murder,” Ernie said.
We searched Pak’s pockets and his wallet. Keys, coins, a few wrinkled won notes. Ernie was the one who noticed it first. A bracelet tied above his elbow, hidden by the long sleeves of his shirt and jacket.
“Look at this,” Ernie said, holding it up in the dim light.
I took the item from his hand and shined my flashlight on shimmering silver. An amulet. Silver chain, silver heart-shaped setting. Inside, a tiny color photograph of a woman. Overly made-up, bright smile, cheekbones carved from granite, dark curly hair. Korean. On the back of the amulet an engraving in hanmun, Chinese characters: JINAIJOK YONG-AI. My darling Yong-ai.
“At least we know what she looks like,” I said.
“Who?”
“Kim Yong-ai. This is her.”
“So Pak Tong-i,” Ernie said, “was getting it on with Kim Yong-ai who was the stripper who was the friend of Corporal Jill Matthewson.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“And Pak didn’t tell us anything because he was covering up for his girlfriend and Corporal Jill.”
“Sounds likely.”
“But covering up what?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe they never owed two thousand dollars. Maybe they still owe two thousand dollars. Maybe Pak paid it for them. Maybe not.”
“What you’re saying,” Ernie said, “is we still don’t know squat.”
“That’s about it. Except we do know that they ran away and someone is still after them. Someone who is willing to kill.”
“And that someone has Kim Yong-ai’s file and a big head start on us.”
Downstairs a door slammed.
We froze. Then Ernie tiptoed to the office door, opened it slightly, and listened. Footsteps tromped up cement stairs. A pack of them. KNPs? Most likely.
If we stayed we could tell them the truth: We are two 8th Army Criminal Investigation Division agents investigating a case. Except we’d have to explain to the KNPs why we’d broken into Pak Tong-i’s office illegally. And we’d have to explain that we had nothing to do with his death. Korean forensic techniques are not the best. Neither are the 2nd Division MPI’s. Still, once the time of death was established, they’d see that Pak must’ve died before we arrived on the scene. That is presupposing that we’d be able to prove that we arrived on the scene only a few minutes ago. The assumption of both the Korean National Police and the 2nd Infantry Division would be that we were guilty until proven innocent. Ernie and I would be stuck in a jail cell for days, hoping to prove our innocence, while whoever actually committed the crime stalked Kim Yong-ai and Jill Matthewson at leisure.
All this ran through my mind in less than a second.
Ernie, apparently, had already made his decision. “Come on!”
I slipped the silver amulet in my pocket, stepped away from the body of Pak Tong-i, and followed Ernie into the hallway. We climbed the staircase swiftly and silently.
Footsteps pounded after us, then someone shouted.
The muscles on my back knotted, anticipating the searing impact of a bullet. We kept climbing. Then we ran, flat out. Panicked.
Kimchee jars were arrayed along a short cement wall that lined the edge of the building’s roof. Ernie didn’t slow down. He charged the precipice and when he hit the short cement wall he leaped into the air. I expected him to plummet to the dark depths below but he cleared the ten-foot span and landed safely on the roof of the opposite building.
I hesitated and looked down.
KNPs. Swarms of them. Shouting and pointing but no one looking up.
“Move it!” Ernie hollered.
Footsteps clattered behind me and two KNPs emerged from the door at the top of the stairwell. I turned back to Ernie. Across the divide, he was motioning for me to jump. I looked back at the cops. One of them reached for his pistol. That made up my mind for me. From a standing start, I jumped. It seemed as if I hovered over the dark void forever. Finally, my front foot hit cement. Ernie grabbed my waist and pulled me over the ledge onto the roof.
The two KNPs charged straight at us. When they reached the low cement wall, they hesitated. I can’t blame them. Ernie had made the leap look easy but he was over a half a foot taller than either one of these policemen, his legs were longer and, more importantly, Ernie was crazy. I could almost hear the question in their minds: “Are we paid enough to do this?”
The answer, apparently, was no.
Instead the two men pulled their pistols, aimed them at us, and shouted, “Chongji!” Halt!
Ernie and I crouched and low-crawled until we found cover behind metal vents.
“What now?” I asked.
“Easy,” Ernie replied. “We hop to the next building.”
“They’ll shoot us.”
“From that distance? Come on.”
Without further discussion, Ernie was on his feet and charging toward the far edge of the roof. When he leaped, a couple of rounds were fired but they missed him by a mile. I knelt like a runner at the starting blocks, taking deep breaths,
trying to encourage myself, when from deep in the bowels of the building, boots pounded on cement. A herd of them. That was all the encouragement I needed.
I dashed toward the wall and this time I cleared the gap easily, landed on my feet, rolled, and kept moving. Ernie had already reached the next roof but from the light of the half moon I could tell there was no building after that. Not one, anyway, that was three stories tall.
When I arrived on the roof of the fourth building, Ernie was kicking at a door. He looked at me, his face lathered in sweat, exasperated.
“Can you kick this thing in?”
“Stand back,” I said.
I stood with my side facing the wooden door, flexing my knees and half squatting, feeling the spring in my thighs. Since arriving in Korea I’d been training in the Korean art of Taekwondo, which literally means “the path of kicking and punching.” At six foot four, with long legs, I believed that my side kick was one of the best in the business. I inhaled and let the air out slowly. From below, the shouts of Korean National Policemen wafted on the cold night air.
“Would you kick the goddamn thing in, for chrissakes!” Ernie shouted.
I ignored him, fully in a trance now. The air drifted effortlessly from my lungs and, without thinking, I hopped forward and my foot slammed into lumber.
The door burst inward.
Ernie ran past me and his footsteps pounded on squeaking wood. I followed him down a dark staircase. It was narrow and wound back on itself. Finally, when I figured we had descended to the second floor, Ernie turned off the stairwell and down a narrow hallway. Moonlight shined through a far window. Shoes and slippers and an occasional metal pee pot sat in front of closed wooden doors. The ceiling was so low that I had to duck. Ernie reached the end of the hallway and zipped to his right. When I rounded the corner he had opened a window and was climbing out.
Ernie lowered himself and then he let go. I heard a thud, looked out, and saw Ernie dusting himself off in a brick alleyway just wide enough for one person. I climbed through the window. Ernie braced me when I hit so I didn’t fall backward. Then he pulled me toward the alley that ran behind the building. He squatted, peeked around the corner, and abruptly jerked his head back.