Water Doggy’s office didn’t tell us much. There didn’t seem to be anything missing. A cashbox in the bottom drawer of his desk was unmolested. The furnishings in his office weren’t nearly as elaborate as in the office of Snake, or even Jimmy Pak. What Water Doggy had that his fellow Seven Dragons did not have was a long leather couch across from his desk. Plenty long enough for the diminutive Water Doggy to lie down on and still have enough room for one of the leggy cocktail waitresses to join him. Or at least that’s what I imagined but that’s the way my thoughts were going since I’d spent the night with Doctor Yong In-ja.
The effect of Water Doggy’s demise on the waitresses and bartenders and the cashier of the Lucky Lady Club was devastating. They stopped working and huddled in front of the bar, hugging one another, whispering and staring at the cops and medical personnel entering and exiting Water Doggy’s office. The band packed up its instruments and left. The G.I. customers hung around for a while until the novelty of being near a crime scene wore off. And then the word of Water Doggy’s brutal murder began to spread throughout Itaewon.
When I walked outside, I paused on the cement porch of the Lucky Lady Club and surveyed the street. The snow had stopped falling but still lay in drifts against brick walls topped with rusty barbed wire. Neon still flashed up the strip but in the dark environs of Hooker Hill the women stood in front of their little wooden gates, concerned faces lit by dim streetlamps. In front of the nightclubs, G.I. s and business girls huddled in groups, talking and occasionally glancing in the direction of the Lucky Lady Club. Beneath the floodlamps at the entrances to the Seven Club and the King Club, groups of uniformed waitresses, canting round cocktail trays against their hips, gossiped and nodded their heads and twitched their necks spasmodically in the direction of the Lucky Lady Club.
When I stepped off the porch and started walking forward, people backed away as if I were contaminated with some hideous communicable disease.
“Water Doggy,” they whispered. Or “Horsehead” or “Two Bellies.” And now, finally, I was hearing them whisper the name “Auntie Mee.” Some of them cried, their eyes riveted on me as if searching for an answer. I didn’t have one. The only thing I knew for sure was that the village of Itaewon was cursed. Not by the supernatural, as the late Auntie Mee had claimed, but by people who were filled with a murderous rage. And by gauging the looks of the business girls and G.I. s and cocktail waitresses all around me, the village of Itaewon was about to reach the stage of full-fledged panic.
I stood at a wooden counter alone, slurping down a cold mug of beer at a new joint on the edge of Itaewon called the OB Stand Bar. I wanted to be alone, away from G.I. s, away for a while even from the English language. I wanted time to think. The OB Stand Bar stood near a major bus terminal and, as such, commuters came in here for a quick drink. There were no chairs, just tall tables for standing and a long counter that ran around the edge of the rectangular shaped room. Most of the customers were either reading Korean newspapers or staring into space. A few talked quietly with friends but there were no Americans here. Only Koreans. And as I was the only American, I was left alone. Nobody interrupted me and I had, at last, some time to ponder the madness I‘d seen in the last few days.
I wanted to think about the evidence I’d seen, about the crime scenes, about who would have the motive to murder four people. Instead, what I thought about was Doc Yong. About the night we’d spent together. About the subtle, soft curves of her body. About her smooth fresh skin. About the moonlight illuminating her face as she leaned back, eyes closed, concentrating on ecstasy. I had to get her out of my mind, at least long enough to think about what was going on here in Itaewon.
With an effort of will, I did.
Four murders. All of them had started when Ernie and I uncovered the bones of Technical Sergeant Flo Moretti. It was as if by pulling out those bricks and making a hole in that wall, I’d not only unleashed twenty-year-old air, I’d also unleashed the spirit of Mori Di himself. A spirit that was insisting on revenge. Of course that was silly but the fact was undeniable that exposing the bones of Moretti to this new era had set off a chain of events that resulted in multiple deaths: Two Bellies, Horsehead, Auntie Mee, Water Doggy. And a trio of hooded women assisted by two men had committed at least two of the murders. Were both murders committed by the same two men and the same three women? I had to assume so. The method of operation in both instances was the same: brutal, efficient, and full of rage. The two men, Horsehead and Water Doggy, had been hacked to death and if their bodies had been chopped up any more they would’ve fallen apart like so many chunks of pulverized meat. But what of Two Bellies? No chopping there, just a single slice through the throat and gradual exsanguination as the victim gasped unsuccessfully for air. An ugly way to go. Maybe worse than being hacked to death. The victim is aware, probably, that there’s no hope but can look around, wishing that he could breathe, wishing that there wasn’t a huge gash in his neck. Staring, probably, at the person who’d just slashed him. It was those few seconds while he was still alive that frightened me.
Two Bellies didn’t struggle with her executioner. Or at least there was no evidence that she had. And neither had Auntie Mee, although she’d been slowly strangled. Both women had accepted their fates. There was no escape. And since both of the women lived their lives at the bottom, or very near the bottom, of a strict Confucian hierarchy, they allowed the sentence of death to be carried out.
Two types of killing, two types of victims. Unlike Auntie Mee and Two Bellies, the other two victims were men who’d grabbed life by the throat, shaken it, and demanded money, power, and prestige. Neither Horsehead nor Water Doggy had acquiesced in their deaths. Horsehead had been either drugged or extremely drunk-or both-and he’d been tied up. Water Doggy was a small man and had shouted and fought, but had been overwhelmed by the two men and three women crowded into his office.
Men like Horsehead and Water Doggy had made many enemies in their lives. Was it a coincidence that these two men and three women were seeking revenge at the same time that Ernie and I had uncovered the bones of Technical Sergeant Flo Moretti?
Something about all this bothered me but I hadn’t quite put my finger on what it was when I realized that someone was tugging on my sleeve. I set my beer mug down and turned around.
Miss Kwon stared up at me.
She still had the crutch beneath her left arm and her ankle was still enveloped by a plastic brace and a gauze patch still covered her left eye. But she seemed alert and concerned and busy.
“You come,” she said.
“How’d you find me?” I asked.
She waved her right hand in the air and twirled it slightly. “This Itaewon. Everybody see everybody. Bali bali you come.” Come quickly.
“Why?”
“Jimmy Pak. He want talk to you.”
I sipped on my beer. “Are you working for Jimmy Pak these days?”
“Yes.” Miss Kwon pulled a wadded bill out of the pocket of her skirt. Five thousand won, about ten bucks. “He pay me taaksan money find you. Now you come.”
“Maybe I don’t want to see him.”
“You have to,” she said, staring at me with her moist brown eyes as if I were an idiot to whom everything had to be carefully explained. “He know about bones.”
I sat up straighter on my stool. “He told you that?”
She nodded vehemently.
“Where are they?” I asked.
She looked disappointed. “I don’t know. You talk Jimmy Pak. He tell.”