The Uichon mama-san scratched a wooden match on a dirty brick and lit up another Turtle Boat cigarette.
The smiling woman’s name was Yun Ai-ja, she said. Love Child Yun.
It was the name she’d used at the King Club. So it hadn’t been phony, but it wasn’t officially registered either. I didn’t interrupt; I let the old woman tell it her way.
The family name was Yun. After her mother gave birth to Ai-ja, her firstborn, she asked her older brother to include the child on the Yun family register. Koreans don’t have individual birth certificates as we do in the States. Every live birth is instead recorded on a family register, along with all other members of the clan. And, without the permission of the senior male of the clan, no new name can be recorded. If the smiling woman’s mother had married a Korean man, both she and her new baby would’ve been recorded on her new husband’s family register. As it was, she had to beg her brother to grant her the honor of having her baby’s birth recorded with the family Yun.
“He say no.”
The Uichon mama-san shook her head sadly.
“Miss Yun, everybody call her.” The Uichon mama-san was referring, once again, to the mother of the smiling woman. “She very famous in Itaewon. Everybody know her. Best looking woman.” She dragged out the word “best,” as the Koreans do when emphasizing a point. “Me,” the Uichon mama-san said, pointing to her nose, “I was her jinhan chin-gu.” Best friend. “Everybody call me Nam. Miss Yun and Miss Nam. All big shots call us anytime big party.”
The Yun and Nam Show. They must’ve been something. The mama-san waved and shouted at one of her girls. “Sajin boja.” Show us the photos.
The girl crouched in front of the small cardboard box that had been tied in pink ribbon, pulled out a handful of photos, and handed them to the Uichon mama-san. The old woman studied each photo judiciously, tossing some aside, handing those approved to me.
The first was a black-and-white snapshot of two young Korean women wearing matching evening gowns. Even my untrained eye could tell that the gowns were cheap, but the women were knockouts. They stood in front of a wooden stage in what must’ve been some bar or small nightclub. Both women were too thin, gaunt around the cheeks, but good-looking nevertheless. I studied the shorter one, then looked at the Uichon mama-san squatting next to me. Smoke filtered through her flared nostrils, and the wrinkles around her eyes tightened. She seemed amused, watching me work it out. It dawned on me slowly. One of these good looking women, the shorter one, was her.
“Onjie?” I said. When?
“War almost finish. Some GI buy what you call… cloth… out of PX.”
“Material,” I said.
“Yes. Material. We makey.”
So the evening gowns were homemade, as I had guessed.
I held the photo out and pointed at the taller woman.
“Ai-ja ohma,” she said. Ai-ja’s mother. The mother of the smiling woman.
Where the Uichon mama-san had been cute in her youth, in a hard sort of way, this woman was truly beautiful. Her face was smooth and unblemished, oval-shaped, and her black hair hung like silk to her shoulders, framing doe-like eyes that stared at the camera lens with a mournful challenge.
“That time,” the mama-san told me, “she already pregnant.”
“With her daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she give the baby up for adoption?”
“No can do.”
“Why not?”
“Some woman,” the Uichon mama-san said, “no can do.”
I thought of the smiling woman’s mad expression. “It would’ve been better for her daughter, don’t you think, if Miss Yun would’ve turned Ai-ja over for adoption? She could’ve grown up in the States or in Europe. She wouldn’t have ended up here, working for GIs.”
Still squatting, the Uichon mama-san puffed on her cigarette for a long time. Finally, she said, “Better, yes.” Then she pounded her fist on her chest. “But inside, never better.”
“What happened to your friend, Ai-ja’s mother?” I asked.
Without looking at me, the Uichon mama-san slid a skinny finger across her throat.
“Killed?”
“Die.”
“What happened?”
She told me, and I took notes, but not many. I kept thinking about Ernie stalling Lieutenant Cheon, and about Private Rodney K. Boltworks out there somewhere still on the loose. The story was upsetting, but it was all a long time ago. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with our current investigation, so finally I interrupted.
“The daughter of Miss Yun, this young woman named Yun Ai-ja, where is she now?”
The Uichon mama-san shrugged. “She go. GI beat her up, then her brother come.”
I stopped her right there. “Her brother?”
“Yes. Dong seing.” Younger brother.
“What does he look like?”
She described him. I took notes, trying not to let my excitement show. I pulled out the sketch of the man in sunglasses that Ernie and I had been calling “the dark GI.”
“Is that him?” I asked.
“Yes.”
So that was it. All three of the people involved in the robbery of the Olympos Casino and the murder of the blackjack dealer Han Ok-hi were identified. At last. Now we just had to catch them.
“What happened after her brother arrived?” I asked.
“He taaksan kullasso.” She raised two forefingers on either side of her head, indicating that he was angry.
“Why?”
“Ai-ja, she all hurt. Here, here, here.”
She pointed at her face and shoulders and back.
“Bruised,” I said.
“Yes. GI punch many times.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Ai-ja no do nothing. Never make GI angry. She out in grass with crazy GI. He move far away from us. Nighttime, so my other girls plenty busy. First, I don’t hear nothing, then I hear fighting.”
“She fought back?”
“You better believe-uh.”
“But she didn’t scream?”
“Ai-ja never scream. Never ask for help. I run over there, try to stop him. He no stop. Finally, GI tired of punching Ai-ja. He stand up, very happy on face. He give extra money, maybe ten MPC.” Ten dollars in Military Payment Certificates. “Then he go back to Charley Battery. Say he no want any other man touch Ai-ja that night. But he don’t have to say because she manhi apo.” Hurt very much.
“Did you take her to the hospital?”
The mama-san shrugged. I took that as a no.
“And then her brother showed up?” I asked.
“Yes. Maybe two days later. He tough man. Very tough.
Half-GI baby gotta be tough. He so angry, he come back next time Charley Battery come to Nightmare Range.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Maybe one month.”
“What did he do?”
“He tell Ai-ja wait for mean GI. She do. Together with mean GI, she go in bushes. Maybe mean GI he want to beat up Ai-ja again. But when he start, her brother jump on him.” Her eyes gleamed at the memory. “Like tiger from mountain.”
“They fought?”
“They fight. GI bigger, stronger, but Ai-ja brother, he tough. Very tough. He taaksan beat the shit outta GI. GI bloody, all beat up, but then something funny happen.”
“What?”
“He laugh.”
“The GI laughed?”
“Yes. He happy. He get beat up, he like. So Ai-ja brother, he do again.”
“He kept beating on him?”
She nodded her head. “Until GI go back to Charley Battery. He have guard duty that night.”
So much for military security.
“Later that night,” she said, “Charley Battery have alert. Move to other side of Nightmare Range. We follow. Again they fight, all three. Ai-ja and her brother knuckle sandwich with GI.”
“Ai-ja was fighting him too?”
The mama-san nodded.
“Next day, morning time, Ai-ja go.”
“Where did she go?”
“Itaewon,” she said. “That’s where she grow up. That’s where her brother grow up. They want to live there.”
“They grew up in Itaewon?”
“Yes.” She proceeded to tell me more stories about that, but I was impatient and interrupted.