Huatu, Korean flower cards, is played with twelve suits that are identified by vegetation. The suits follow the seasonal progressions. The first suit is January and features the evergreen pine; the next suit is February and is symbolized by brightly splashed paintings of purple plum flowers. The suit representing March is festooned with red cherry blossoms opening in early spring. Colorful stuff. Idyllic. But in contrast, actually gambling with huatu is a ferocious exercise.
The friends of the late Two Bellies surrounded the tattered old army blanket and took turns slapping the tough little plastic cards atop a pile of bronze coins, all the while cursing, grabbing money, and surveying every move as the next player took her turn. If a player stuck her hand into the center at the wrong time, one of the flying cards would have sliced off a finger.
When Ernie and I stepped onto the creaking wooden floorboards outside the hooch, the group of women stopped their game and gazed up at us.
“We know nothing,” one of them said.
Each of the retired business girls-women who were so aggressive only seconds ago-now seemed frozen in fear.
“Who killed Two Bellies?” Ernie asked.
No answer.
“Was it the Seven Dragons?”
Still no answer.
Ernie stepped past the open sliding door, grabbed the edge of the army blanket, and in one deft movement swept it off the floor. Flower cards and coins and ashtrays and lit cigarettes flew everywhere. Strangely, none of the women screamed. They merely scooted back on the warm vinyl floor until their backs were protected. Some of them covered their knees with their arms and looked down. Others glared at us directly.
“She was your friend,” Ernie said.
Finally, a woman spoke. “She dead. She help you so she dead. You no protect her. You no help Two Bellies.”
What she said was true but it just made Ernie angry. He wadded up the army blanket and tossed it at them in disgust.
I crouched down so I was at eye level with the women. “The night she died, where did she go? Who was she going to see?” No answer. “Did somebody come here and meet her or did she go out on her own?”
Still no answer.
“I’m going to find the man who killed her,” I said. “Whoever that is, he will be punished. But I need your help.”
After a long silence, one of the huatu players said, “That night, Two Bellies go out, nobody know where go but she dress up like she got big business. You know, important business. She no tell us what kind business she got.”
“Do you know where she went?” I asked.
“Itaewon, somewhere. She no take handbag. If she gotta go long way, she take handbag.”
So that was something. The night of her death, Two Bellies was operating close to home. I had another question for them but I had to phrase it delicately.
“That night, when Two Bellies went out,” I said, “do you think she was going out to have fun? Or was she going out, somewhere, to make money?”
The talkative woman barked a sardonic laugh. “Two Bellies never go anywhere have fun. She only go out make money.”
“Did she go alone?” Ernie asked.
The women stared at him warily for a moment. Finally, one of them said, “She say somebody follow her all the time. She no like.”
“Who?” I asked.
The women shrugged. I studied the circle. Nothing but blank faces.
“So someone had been following her,” I said. “A man or a woman?”
They all laughed. I wasn’t sure what I’d said that was so funny. Finally, the talkative one spoke up again. “If it man,” she said, “then Two Bellies no mind. She likey.”
The women cackled with glee. I figured it was best to leave them laughing. At least we’d learned something. Not much, but something.
We retreated back across the courtyard and ducked through the small gate out into the Itaewon street.
Doc Yong helped me research the Golden Dragon Travel Agency. From her clinic she made a few phone calls for me, received a few evasive answers, and eventually we formed the same working hypothesis: The Golden Dragon Travel Agency was owned, or at least controlled, by the Seven Dragons. A few of the women who’d been treated in her clinic freelanced part time for Japanese sex tours.
She gave me their names and addresses and Ernie and I wandered around the village searching for them.
The day was overcast, the wind growing colder by the minute but still, in this late afternoon, dozens of young women were parading back and forth to the bathhouses in the Itaewon area: cleanliness was a virtue close to the Korean heart. Their straight black hair was tied up over their heads with brightly colored yarn or metal clasps and against their hips they held plastic pans filled with soap and scrubbing implements and skin lotion and shampoo. Most of them wore only shorts and T-shirts and their goose-pimpled flesh and shapely figures were on display.
The girl we finally found was called Ahn Un-ja. She was slender, probably weighing in at less than ninety-five pounds, and she was frank with us, saying that many of the Japanese businessmen liked diminutive girls like herself. We asked her about the Golden Dragon Travel Agency and she admitted that she sometimes worked for them but she was afraid to say more. Ernie kept wheedling for more information and finally she told us why she was so frightened.
“Horsehead get angry,” she said.
We thanked her, promised we wouldn’t mention her name to anyone, and left.
Sergeant First Class Quinton Hilliard, the man who liked to call himself Q, was holding court at the King Club. This time he was complaining to a few of the cocktail waitresses, who were hovering around him, that the band never played any soul music. The band was a group of teenage Korean rock musicians who probably knew five chords and six songs between them but that didn’t seem to matter to Hilliard. If they weren’t up on the latest James Brown or Marvin Gaye, he considered their lack of knowledge to be a personal affront.
We were leaning against the bar. Ernie hadn’t taken his eyes off Hilliard since we walked in.
The young cocktail waitresses were all smiling and cooing around Hilliard. For his part, he sat at his table like the godfather of Itaewon, lapping up the phony adulation.
“Ignore him,” I said. “We have more important things to do.”
Ernie grunted before saying, “How’s Miss Kwon doing?”
“Doc Yong says better.”
“That son of a bitch likes to throw his weight around.” Ernie glared at Hilliard. “Everybody knows the club owners have to kiss his ass. Otherwise he’ll sic Eighth Army EEO on them. That’s why the waitresses are treating him like that. If he accepts one free drink,” Ernie said, “I’m busting him.”
Accepting gratuities for performing-or not performing-your military duties is against the Uniform Code of Military Justice. However, it’s a difficult charge to prove. If I could prove it, I’d be able to bring half the honchos at 8th Army up on charges.
“Forget it, Ernie.” I dragged him out of the King Club.
Once we were out on the street, Ernie said, “All right,” and shrugged my grip off his elbow. “Where to now?”
“Mrs. Bei told me that Jimmy Pak was in his office tonight.” Mrs. Bei was the manager behind the bar at the King Club and was tuned into the scuttlebutt that pulsed through Itaewon. Also, she was grateful to Ernie and me for having tried to save Miss Kwon. The attempted suicide had caused the local KNPs to blame Mrs. Bei for Miss Kwon’s ill-considered act; they were threatening her with charges and fines for not properly counseling the “hostesses” who plied their trade in the King Club. So far, Mrs. Bei confided in me, she’d had to shell out over 30,000 won, more than sixty bucks. If the girl had died, the King Club would’ve been closed by the Korean authorities and it would’ve cost her ten times that much to re-open.
