The Door to Bitterness (6 page)

“Too skoshi,” Ernie replied. Too small. “Me taaksan.”

He spread his open palms apart, as if describing a huge fish.

Suk-ja laughed and covered her mouth with both hands.

“Every GI same same,” she said. “All time bullshit.”

“No bullshit,” Ernie replied.

Suk-ja rolled her eyes toward the varnished rafter beams.

While they bantered, I’d been looking through the window at the shadowy figures pacing the narrow alley. Men. Hands in their pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold, damp mist. Koreans? Greeks? Japanese? In the fog-filled gloom, I couldn’t tell.

Suk-ja wasn’t the only woman on display in this brightly lit room on this warm, vinyl-covered floor, wearing nothing but see-through undies. There were about a half-dozen girls seated near us, some of them listening absently to Ernie and Suk-ja’s conversation, others watching—like me—anxiously out the window. They for a customer. Me for a thief.

The other girls didn’t speak English as well as Suk-ja— she’d been here at the Yellow House for a few months already, she told us. When we’d first arrived at House Number 59, I’d asked the women in Korean, as casually as I could, if they’d seen an American, someone who looked like Ernie. They stared blankly, wishing they had, wishing they could earn some income to contribute to their ever-growing mountain of debt.

The mama-sans here charge them for everything: room and board, even the flimsy clothing on their backs. And once they amass a bill, which they inevitably do, the mama-sans charge interest on top of that.

Ernie didn’t flash his badge. We wanted to pretend that we were just two GIs on the town. Observe. See what we could find out. Gossip spreads fast in the Yellow House, and if the word was put out that two strangers were looking for a fugitive, chances are that the fugitive would disappear into the ocean mist.

The mama-san of House Number 59 wasn’t much help. She was suspicious of us from the start, what with our coats and white shirts and ties, and since we hadn’t spent any money yet she was doing everything she could to show us her displeasure: turning on a water faucet in the alley out back, clanging pots and pans loudly just as Ernie and Suk-ja started to talk, clearing her throat of what must’ve been huge wads of phlegm whenever she tottered through the room.

Soon she’d tell us to either choose a girl and cough up some dough or get lost.

I pulled on my earlobe and Ernie understood the signal: time for us to move on. There were, after all, over forty houses of prostitution registered in the Yellow House area, all of them numbered and inspected regularly by the Inchon Municipal Health Department. We had a lot of ground to cover before the midnight curfew.

We said our goodbyes and were halfway down the cement stairway to the front door, when Suk-ja, wooden sandals clomping, came running down after us. From the harsh yellow light streaming in from outside, her slim figure was outlined in perfect symmetry beneath her flimsy pink negligee. She grabbed Ernie’s elbow.

“You CID, right?”

So much for cover. Ernie was amused. “What makes you say that?”

“When you come in,” Suk-ja said, “you look at shoes.”

As in most Korean homes, one is obliged by custom to take off one’s shoes before entering. So at the entranceway to House Number 59, there was a large assortment of footwear. Each pair either brightly colored or spangled with glitter and sequins. There was only one pair of men’s shoes, not mass-produced like GI shoes, but handmade. About the right size for a Korean man. Maybe the mama-san’s husband or live-in boyfriend. But no evidence of Greek sailors. Or GIs.

“Yes,” Ernie said. “So what if we did?”

“You checky checky shoes,” Suk-ja replied, “because you wanna know who’s inside House Number 59. And then when you talk to me, this guy . . .” She pointed at me. “He don’t look at girls. He stare out window.” Suk-ja squinted, mimic-

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king my gaze. “Checky checky every man who walk by. Either he like boy or he CID. Gotta be.”

Ernie guffawed. “Maybe he likes boys.”

Suk-ja eyed me more carefully. “No.” She shook her head vehemently.

“Okay, Suk-ja,” Ernie said, placing his hands on his hips. “What of it? What if we are CID?”

“I hear about girl get shot. Radio say. Good girl. Work at Olympos.”

This woman who called herself Suk-ja was no idiot. She’d not only figured out who we were, but why we had ventured into the Yellow House. I stepped back from the doorway and glanced up at the brightly lit window of House Number 59. Inside, the girls sat in various states of undress, heads hanging down or cocked to the side, staring listlessly at the parade of furtive men outside.

Suk-ja, however, missed nothing.

“I help,” she said.

“How can you help?” Ernie asked.

“I hear something today. All woman naked, they talk too much.”

“What do you mean ‘all women naked?’”

“At bathhouse, pyongsin-ah.” Retard. In mock-reproach, Suk-ja slapped Ernie on the forearm. “Woman take shower, woman talk. One woman, she work at House Number Seventeen. She complain taaksan about man come this afternoon. He no look for woman, he look for room.”

Ernie stared at her, waiting.

“He only want one room, this woman say. No like any other. Got to have window. Got to be high-up. Other things too, but she don’t know all. Mama-san ask him why he care about room so much but he get angry.”

“Is he an American?” I asked.

“Yeah. GI. But hair too long. Here and here.”

She pinched the back of her neck and her sideburns. The guy needed a trim. If he was a GI, he hadn’t stood inspection for a while.

“So why was this woman gossiping about him?” Ernie asked.

“Huh?”

“Talk. Why did she talk about him?”

“Oh. Because she get mad. He take her room, but then choose another girl to stay there with him. She no like. She want to get clean clothes take to bathhouse, but this man he busy all time with other girl. Too much boom boom. Mama-san say she no can go in, maybe he get taaksan angry.”

“Was this guy wearing a suit like us?” I asked.

“I don’t know. She no say.”

“What’s this woman’s name?”

“I don’t know. But she new. That’s why she got room top floor.” Suk-ja raised a hand above her head. “Away from customer.”

“Where’s House Number Seventeen?” Ernie asked.

“I show you.”

“No. Just tell us.”

Before Ernie could grab her, Suk-ja scurried away, back into House Number 59. She glanced over her shoulder and said, “Chom kan man.” Just a moment.

“Looks like she’s going with us,” Ernie said.

I nodded.

In a few minutes, Suk-ja emerged, wearing blue jeans and sneakers and a pullover wool sweater. Her hair was tied back in a tight ponytail. But what was most surprising was that she had slipped on a pair of black, horn-rimmed glasses that looked extremely attractive on the smooth oval of her unblemished face. Had she been carrying a book and a slide rule, I would’ve sworn she was a college girl.

“Bali,” she said. Hurry.

We trotted after her through a narrow, fog-filled alley. Ernie kept his hand on the hilt of his .45. I kept my eyes on shadows, suspicious, waiting for one to move.

* * *

Ernie held Suk-ja back.

We stood in the mouth of an alley gazing up at House Number 17. It was a ramshackle gray building made of rotted wood planks broken out in pustules of peeled paint. The fog hovered low to the damp, flagstone-covered lane. Behind the brightly lit plate glass window on the first floor a few women shuffled about. They seemed to be older, some slightly overweight. One wore pajamas.

“Kuji,” Suk-ja said.

I’d learned the word on the streets, not in my Korean language class. Some would translate it as “dirty,” but that wasn’t quite right. “Squalid” came closer. In brothels, as in everything else in human life, there are hierarchies of quality.

Ernie caught my attention and motioned with his eyes. Most of House Number 17 was dark. But on the third floor, a dim light shone.

Ernie and I’d discussed it on the way over here. This guy Suk-ja had heard about in the bathhouse could be a GI, but maybe not. He could’ve had something to do with today’s robbery, but maybe not. Either way we wanted to talk to him. Should we call in the KNPs? No. Too early for that. This could be nothing, a false alarm. Until we had solid information, we didn’t want to bother Lieutenant Won with unnecessary requests for assistance.

We’d check out the guy ourselves.

“That’s her,” Suk-ja said, pointing at one of the women sitting behind the front window. “The one I talk to in bathhouse. Paran seik.” Wearing blue.

I translated for Ernie

“I go checky checky,” Suk-ja said.

Once again, Ernie held her back. “We’ll go,” he said.

I studied the lit window on the third floor. No movement. A fire escape ladder attached to the outer wall ran up to the roof. As in most Korean apartment-type buildings, this one was flat, designed to allow extra space to store earthenware kimchee jars or to hang laundry. There was no movement up there, but it would be an easy jump to the roof of the next building. And from there to the next, and so on. Then down some interior stairs, and whoever had insisted on a room on the third floor of House Number 17 would be walking the streets alone, and safe.

Ernie saw it too. If the Korean National Police stormed House Number 17, the room at the top provided at least the hope of escape.

“Are you sure there was only one GI?” Ernie asked Suk-ja.

“That’s what she say.”

If this was the right guy, we had to be prepared for the fact that he would be armed. Probably with the pistol the thieves had stolen from the security guard at the Olympos Casino. Ernie pulled out his .45 and jacked back the charging handle. Suk-ja jumped away from the clang.

“Sorry,” Ernie said.

Someone shouted. I peeked around the corner of the alley.

Sailors. Merchant marines. Speaking some sort of gibberish. Not English. Not Spanish. Not Korean. They crowded around the front steps of another house of prostitution. Some smoking, some swigging from brown bottles of OB Beer. All were talking, playing grab-ass. One pulled out a pocket knife and waved it around. The others hooted.

Suk-ja’s hot breath warmed my elbow.

“Shila,” she said. Greek.

I looked down at her. “You understand?”

“Have to,” she replied.

“They all stay at one house?”

“Yes. Sometimes whole ship take one house. Mama-san give, how you say?”

She slashed her hand as if cutting something.

“Discount?”

“Yes. Discount. Maybe all women old and ugly. Then mama-san must give big discount.”

I studied the sailors again. They were just having fun. Still, it was a rough-looking bunch. Best to steer clear of them.

“I’ll take the front,” Ernie told me. “You enter there.” He pointed to the house on the other side of House Number 17, away from the Greek sailors. “Go up to the roof. Cut him off if he tries to escape.”

“No good. What if you run into trouble? It’ll take me too long to run back down the steps.”

Ernie sighed with exasperation. “Sueño, you aren’t armed. What the hell good are you if the guy starts shooting?”

He didn’t intend to be cutting, I knew that. Ernie was simply stating a fact.

“I go up on roof,” Suk-ja said, pointing at her nose. “If he come, I hit him with kimchee jar.”

Ernie and I looked at one another. It wasn’t a bad idea. If she could just slow the thief down, give him something to think about, we’d be across the roof and on him in no time.

“Okay,” Ernie said. “But stay low. If he has a gun, you just hide. You arra? You understand?” He swooshed his down-facing palm through the air, like a bird in flight. “You let him run away.”

Suk-ja nodded, and then, before we could change our minds, she trotted off across the alley to the building next to 17. She disappeared through the front door.

“Okay,” Ernie said. “Are those Greeks going to be any trouble?”

“I think they’re preoccupied.”

A woman’s laughter pealed through the night. As if it were a signal, Ernie and I crouched low and trotted across the fog-shrouded alleyway.

M
aybe it was the wood creaking beneath our feet. Maybe it was just nerves. Whatever it was, Ernie sensed something and halted, holding me back with his arm. Listening.

We were crouched in the third floor hallway of House 17, swatting at fleas, our feet squishing into damp carpet. The place reeked of urine and garlic and sex.

A grunt. A man’s voice. And then a high female squeal of pain.

When we’d entered downstairs, through the front door of House Number 17, several overly made up women accosted us, clawing at our sleeves, cooing, promising us various sorts of sexual delights. Ernie tried to shush them as best he could, and while he was busy, I pulled the mama-san aside and spoke to her in Korean. We were here to see our chin-gu. An American man. I described him, then told her that we thought he was staying up on the third floor.

“Isang han saram,” she said. A strange guy.

“How so?” I asked.

“He stay in room all day long,” she told me. “No come out. Order food from Chinese restaurant, make boy leave noodles outside door. My girl, he won’t let her come out. I think she taaksan tired.”

Robbing casinos must be good for the libido.

After a few more questions, I determined that the guy had checked in alone. He’d had no visitors, and he’d arrived on foot at about noon. Since carefully choosing room 33 on the third floor, and choosing a girl to accompany him, he hadn’t emerged. There was no phone in the room—the Yellow House doesn’t go in much for phones—and no one else had visited.

I handed the mama-san a red Military Payment Certificate note. That’s what the U.S. Army uses as currency overseas rather than greenbacks. She stuck the crisp five dollar bill into her withered décolletage. Then she winked at me and waved Ernie and me up the stairs. What was she thinking? That we were here to bust her customer? If so, she didn’t much give a damn.

In the hallway outside of room number 33, Ernie waited a few more seconds. Listening. Then we heard another squeal. Louder this time. More desperate. Whoever the girl was, and whoever this guy was, he was hurting her. I didn’t like it. Neither did Ernie.

Without warning, Ernie took three steps forward and kicked in the flimsy wooden door.

I charged in past him, unarmed, but ready to dive head first into whoever was there. Ernie crouched in the doorway, pointing his .45 straight ahead and shouting, “Freeze!”

A blast sounded, and I dove toward the foot of the bed. The blankets were wrinkled and damp but there was nobody on the mattress.

Then I heard Ernie’s .45 behind me. It barked once, twice.

When I raised my head, I saw that the window was open. A naked Korean woman cowered in front of it, her arms crossed over her chest, tears streaming from tightly clenched eyes. To her left, a shoe-clad foot stepped rapidly up the ladder attached to the outside wall.

Ernie fired above the girl, but his bullet hit cement, sending a cloud of dust billowing into the air. She screamed and collapsed to the floor, covering her head, kicking in panic with naked feet.

I pulled myself toward the window sill, stuck my head out, and looked up.

Again, the same shoe. A black oxford, Army-issue. It disappeared over the roof’s edge. I stretched out toward the ladder, swung around, and started to climb. Up on the roof, shoe leather pounded cement.

Somehow, the guy had known we were coming. He had been dressed and ready, and he’d waited until the last moment, until we were too close to cut him off outside, to make good his escape. Had somebody warned him?

I climbed. And when I reached the edge of the roof, I peeked over, then pulled my head back down, remembering what I had just seen. An empty roof, dark, lined with earthenware kimchee jars.

He must’ve already jumped over to the neighboring roof. Would Suk-ja be able to slow him down, or would she just get herself hurt? Suddenly, I regretted having allowed her to help. This was our job, not hers.

Ernie was scrambling up the ladder behind me.

I clambered up onto the roof, helped pull Ernie up, and then we were running toward the far wall. Just as I was about to leap off the edge, onto the neighboring roof, Ernie grabbed me.

“Hold it.” He pointed at a glimmer of light peeking around a brick chimney behind us. I shrugged him off and prepared to jump. I didn’t want to leave Suk-ja over there alone, without help.

“No,” Ernie said. “Look. He’s not there.”

I glanced across the next roof and then at the roof beyond that. No one. Not even Suk-ja.

“He’s hiding,” I said.

“He wouldn’t,” Ernie replied. “He’d keep running. Come on.”

He dragged me back over to the brick chimney. On the other side was an open wooden hatchway. I looked down. Another metal ladder led down into the hallway of the third floor.

“He probably already reconnoitered,” Ernie said. “Knew that we’d expect him to hop from roof to roof, but instead he doubled back. Come on.”