Ji-na busied herself with offering a bowl of nurungji, crisp flakes peeled from the edge of an earthenware pot. Kimiko picked out one of the stiff shards of burnt rice and nibbled on the tasteless wafer, staring all the while at Ji-na’s mangled fingernails.
“And why, young Ji-na,” Kimiko asked, “did you call me?”
Ji-na bowed once again.
“Because you have vast experience,” she answered. “With the Americans and with all sorts of foreigners.”
This was true. When she turned fourteen, Kimiko had been expelled by her poor farm family who could no longer afford to feed her. She caught the train to Seoul, arriving only a few months before the forces of the Imperial Japanese Army surrendered to the Americans on V-J day. Since then, she’d lived here in Seoul in the district of Itaewon, making a living as best she could. She knew foreigners. She knew them very well.
“And what would you have me do?” Kimiko asked.
“Find him for me,” Ji-na answered.
“To what purpose?”
“To retrieve my money.”
Kimiko knew why Ji-na didn’t go to the police. First, it was unlikely that the Korean National Police would ever be able to retrieve Ji-na’s money. On their fortified compounds, the Americans were a government unto themselves. If the KNPs asked to talk to Greene, they’d be laughed at. Second, even if by some miracle the Korean police did manage to retrieve Ji-na’s money, they would keep it for themselves. They certainly wouldn’t turn hard cash over to a lowly “business girl.”
Kimiko sighed and set down her cup. She was used to this. Many of the naive young country girls who flooded into Itaewon came to Kimiko for help. They had no idea how to deal with Americans or what thoughts ran through their strange foreign minds.
“What’s in it for me?” Kimiko asked.
“Ten percent of what you recover,” Ji-na answered immediately.
Ten percent of nothing, Kimiko thought, but she held out for twenty. Ji-na quickly agreed.
The first stop was the bars.
Shadows flooded the alleys of Itaewon and neon flashed bravely, chasing the spirits of the dead that swirled through the night. Kimiko wore a yellow dress with a high hemline to show off her legs and a low-cut neckline to show off her decolletage. After all these years, her body was what kept her in business. This despite the fact that she was almost twice the age of many of the young GIs who filled the nightclubs that lined the main drag of Itaewon, the most notorious red light district in Seoul.
Ji-na tagged along, wearing a long woolen skirt and a cotton scarf draped over her head, as if she were a widow in mourning. Such drama these young girls portrayed when they lost their first GI. In time, Kimiko knew, they’d become used to it.
The two women pushed through the double doors of the well-lit entrance of the King Club. Cacophonous rock music assaulted their ears and a thick cloud of cigarette smoke assaulted their nostrils. Kimiko stood at the entranceway for a moment while Ji-na studied the crowd. Finally, she pointed toward the bar.
“There,” she said. “Two GIs. They are from the same compound as Greene. I saw them many times.”
One was a short black man and the other a thin white man. They sat swiveled around on their bar stools, backs against the railing, studying the small sea of business girls through bleary eyes.
Kimiko charged forward. She grabbed the black GI by the elbow and twirled him on his stool until he faced her.
“Where he go, Greene?” she demanded.
The man’s mouth fell open. Kimiko glared at him for a moment and when he didn’t say anything she spit on the floor and swiveled on the other GI.
“Where he go, Greene?” she shouted.
“Compound,” the thin white GI said.
“Why he no come Itaewon?”
The young GI sputtered, glancing around to see if anyone was watching him. The pale flesh of his face flushed red.
“I don’t know,” he answered finally. “Maybe he’s afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” Kimiko demanded.
The GI glanced at Ji-na. “Maybe her.”
Kimiko spit on the floor again and then looked back at the black GI. “What compound Greene work?”
“Yongsan South.”
“What company?”
“Twenty-one T Car.”
Kimiko waggled her finger at the white GI’s nose and then the black GI’s nose.
“You see Greene,” she said. “You say Kimiko find him most tick. Most tick Kimiko knuckle sandwich with him.” She clenched her slender fist and held it up to the light. “You arra?” You understand?
Both GIs nodded.
Kimiko turned and, pulling Kim Ji-na behind her, exited the hot and noisy world of the GI bar known as the King Club. Out on the neon-spangled street, Ji-na struggled to keep up with the long-striding Kimiko.
The big archway above the guard shack said “Twenty-first Transportation Company (Car).” Twenty-one T Car.
Listless Korean security guards stood behind the large windowpanes of the shack, keeping a wary eye on Kimiko and Kim Ji-na. They’d already told Kimiko that Korean civilians couldn’t enter the U.S. military compound, and when she protested they backed up the prohibition with a threat of violence. Wisely, Kimiko backed down.
“Koreans are not dumb like Americans,” Kimiko told Ji-na.
Ji-na didn’t quite understand why Americans were dumber since Americans were richer than Koreans, but she knew better than to contradict the older woman. It was almost midnight now, and Kimiko hadn’t bothered to wear a coat. The creamy flesh of her legs and her bosom and her upper chest and shoulders were dotted with aggressive mounds of gooseflesh. Ji-na wasn’t quite sure what they were waiting for but when an American army jeep with a lone driver pulled up to the gate, she found out.
Ignoring the Korean security guards, Kimiko stepped forward, leaned into the passenger side of the jeep, smiling, and cooed some strange foreign words to the driver. He was an older American man, maybe forty, with a long row of yellow stripes on his arm. Within seconds, Kimiko turned and was waving for Ji-na to join her. With the deft movements of long experience, Kimiko pulled the front seat of the jeep forward and Ji-na climbed into the back. Then Kimiko sat in the passenger seat and the American sergeant barked something to the Korean gate guards. Reluctantly, they pulled back the chain link fence that blocked the roadway and the GI, Kimiko, and Ji-na drove under the arch into the big open parking area of Twenty-one T Car.
Kimiko didn’t glance at the sullen gate guards and didn’t savor her victory by flashing them a satisfied smirk. That’s when Ji-na decided that Kimiko was even wiser than she had originally thought.
Within minutes, the GI sergeant was pounding on one of the doors in the big GI barracks.
“Greene!” he shouted.
The door creaked open and a bleary-eyed young American, naked except for a flimsy pair of jockey shorts, stood rubbing his eyes.
“Where’s Greene?” the sergeant barked.
“Out,” the GI answered. “Ain’t seen him all night.”
“Curfew’s in ten minutes.”
The young man shrugged. “Apparently he ain’t coming back.”
The sergeant pushed past the GI and searched the room. A second bunk lay empty and unused. The sergeant told the GI to go back to sleep, and he and Kimiko and Ji-na stood outside the door in the hallway, waiting until the midnight curfew had come and gone.
“Greene ain’t coming,” the sergeant said.
Then he took Kimiko and led her outside and across the parking lot to another barracks. Ji-na followed. Kimiko and the sergeant went inside for almost an hour. Out in the parking lot, Ji-na waited. Finally, Kimiko emerged, looking none the worse for wear. Together, Kimiko and Ji-na returned to the main gate and walked the half mile back to Itaewon, slinking through unlit alleys.