Very little of last night’s snow had stuck but a few drifts still clung to roofs and the tops of walls. The temperature had dropped noticeably. It was as if a new, cleaner brand of air had invaded Itaewon, air that was filtered by acres of mountainous pines and cedars. Air that was indifferent to the suffering of mere mortals.
The Sexy Lady Club was open. Ernie and I pushed through a beaded curtain. The joint was dark, only the red and green lights of the jukebox twinkled. The air in here reeked of ammonia and sliced lemon. Behind the bar a gal with long straight black hair came toward us. We stared at her a while, blankly, and then ordered two straight shots of brandy. Doubles. Chased by beer.
She plunked them down on the bar, took our money, and stared at us impassively. Her complexion was smooth, soft, sweet looking.
“You see Horsehead?” she asked.
We nodded.
She shrugged her narrow shoulders, turned, and sashayed her cute little butt back to the cash register.
Night had fallen. In the Sexy Lady Club, Ernie and I had talked and a mutual resolve had started to take hold. We were through pussyfooting around with the Seven Dragons. Two Bellies had told us that Snake was their head honcho. We’d already talked to Jimmy Pak and gotten nowhere. Horsehead was dead. Now it was time to talk to the head man himself: the man called Snake. If Jessica wanted to hide she’d stay hidden. We decided to bust things wide open.
Ernie sprinted up the stairwell that led to the Seven Club, taking the steps three at a time. He didn’t pause at the second-story landing that led into the nightclub but kept going up to the third floor. That’s where Snake’s offices were.
Snake’s real name was Lim, his family name, and Americans referred to him as Mr. Lim. I’d met him a few times, mostly when he was hobnobbing with 8th Army officers-either invited to a formal function or hosting a retirement party for one of them at the 8th Army golf club. The honchos at 8th Army loved him. Snake was always smiling and he laughed at their jokes and his English was impeccable. Not to mention that he had connections with the big-money corporations that were lining up for the neverending flow of multimillion dollar U.S. military construction projects. Gifts, parties, social events, award ceremonies, these were the places where Mr. Lim could be found. Shaking hands, bowing, being a good chum to American officers who saw him as the perfect example of the modern Korean entrepreneur. And the perfect avatar of the republic’s bright future.
He was a slender man, almost willowy, and his smile had a certain reptilian cast. But maybe I saw him differently than the officers at 8th Army saw him. Snake didn’t do any favors for me. I only knew him from the people who worked in his various operations: his nightclubs, his bars, and his apartment buildings, which were nothing more than brothels. I knew how the country girls suffered. Sometimes physically but if not physically always through shame.
But once you have money, no matter how it is come by, you are seen by everyone-or at least by everyone who matters-as a wonderful guy. That was Snake. A wonderful, generous guy.
The door to his office was locked. Ernie pounded on it. No answer. He pounded again and when it still didn’t open, he backed down the hallway, took a running start and plowed into the door shoulder first. It burst inward.
Nobody home. But we both took an involuntary gasp at the opulence of the furnishings. Even a couple of lowlifes like us could tell that everything from the leather upholstered chairs to the mahogany desk to the handcrafted porcelain was expensive.
A bronze effigy of a youthful, narrow-waisted Buddha sat in its own shrine in the corner. The smiling god held one palm facing to the sky and the fingers of his other hand formed a circle near his ear. I turned my flashlight on the statuette and studied it. What surprised me was that this was the same Buddha embossed onto the surface of the bronze bell in the temple on the hill overlooking Itaewon.
Footsteps clattered up the stairwell. High heels. We turned and a statuesque woman entered the room. She wore a tight-fitting black cocktail dress, low cut to accentuate her decolletage and it seemed that her legs were longer and straighter than those of any Korean woman I’d ever seen. She was a gorgeous woman, like a fashion model, with a curly shag hairdo and more makeup than a dozen circus clowns.
“Weikurei nonun?” What is it with you? And not spoken politely, either.
I flashed my badge at her. “Where’s Snake?”
“Who?”
“Mr. Lim.”
“He’s out.” She waved her left arm at the broken door. “What are you doing?”
“Who the hell are you?” Ernie asked.
“Jibei-in,” she said in Korean. And then remembered to speak English. “I’m the manager.”
“Then you can open the safe,” Ernie said, pointing at the squat black iron block behind Snake’s mahogany desk.
“No,” she said, shaking her elegant head. “Only Snake… I mean Mr. Lim can open the safe.”
“What’s in there?” Ernie asked.
The woman’s eyes widened. “How I know?”
“Snake must have you up here when he counts his money. You’re the manager, aren’t you?”
She laughed. “He no keep money there.”
“Then what does he keep there? Antiques?” Ernie pointed again at the safe.
“I don’t know.” The woman thrust back her shoulders. “He no tell me.” Then she pointed toward the door. “Get out. You two must get out. Not your office.”
We took our time, gazing at the antiques and the art objects, wondering if any of them had been amongst the stash that Technical Sergeant Flo Moretti had stored for the refugees that flooded into Itaewon at the end of the Korean War.
“Out,” the woman said. “I call KNPs.”
“No you won’t,” Ernie replied. He walked up close to her.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because if you do, after I bust Snake, I’m coming after you.”
This seemed to unnerve the woman. She’d seen my badge and in Korea, law enforcement personnel have tremendous power, often much more power than they’re granted by law. Still, she held her ground.
“Out,” she said.
I discovered later that her name was Miss Park. She’d been the manager here at the Seven Club for over a month. I admired her spunk. We did what she said: we left Snake’s office. And she didn’t call the KNPs.
We stopped at the bar inside the main ballroom of the Seven Club, just to make sure that Snake wasn’t on the premises. Ernie ordered a beer but before it arrived, something in the crowded room caught his attention.
“Look,” he said.
American G.I. s and Korean business girls sat at every table, many of them lazing about in the aisles, and dozens of them jammed onto the dance floor. The Korean band was playing some schmaltzy ballad and the big G.I. s were hunched over the small Asian women, their eyes closed, lost in erotic ecstasy. Most of the Korean women, however, kept their eyes open, studying the crowd, blase expressions on their round faces, jaws chomping on chewing gum.
I followed Ernie’s nose and spotted the couple he was staring at.
Sergeant First Class Quinton “Q” Hilliard was grinding away in time with the music with the full-cheeked little Miss Kwon enveloped in his bearlike embrace.
The power cables that radiated from the side of the King Club had saved Miss Kwon during her fall. After she leaped from the roof, she plowed into a heavy cable which snapped beneath her weight but slowed her enough that she landed atop the neon sign with a jarring thud that was enough to knock the wind out of her but not enough to snap her spine. From there, instinct took over and she’d grabbed onto the sparking neon tubes and although she’d suffered burned fingers and a huge lump on the back of her head and her ankle was viciously sprained, she was fundamentally in good shape. Doc Yong attributed her good fortune to her youth and her roundness. She landed, bounced, and survived. A plastic cast was clipped around Miss Kwon’s left ankle, a white patch had been taped over her left eye, and three of the fingers of her right hand were tightly bandaged. Still, she was back at work, dancing with the man who’d been her tormentor, Sergeant First Class Quinton Hilliard.