I would’ve preferred to talk to Horsehead but I had no idea where to find him. We settled for another charter member of the Seven Dragons. Jimmy Pak was the long time owner of the UN Club, probably the classiest club in Itaewon. It sat right on the corner of the Itaewon main drag and the MSR and was always busy, filled with some of the most gorgeous women Itaewon had to offer. Civilian tourists, diplomats, and foreign businessmen who occasionally found their way to Itaewon, usually ended up partying in the UN Club.
Neon glittered brightly in the dark night. Korean business girls and American G.I. s jostled one another in the busy pedestrian thoroughfare. The wind had picked up and flakes of snow swirled haphazardly through the crowds, landing on brick walls and cement steps and cobbled lanes and beginning to stick, to form drifts in the midwinter cold. If the Armed Forces Korea Network weather report was accurate, we could expect more precipitation moving south down the peninsula, out of Manchuria, closing in on Seoul.
As we shoved through the double doors of the UN Club, a boy in black slacks, white shirt, and bow tie bowed to us and said, “Oso-oseiyo.” Please come in.
The place was packed and there were no empty tables but we didn’t muscle our way to the bar as we usually did. Instead, we walked up narrow varnished steps that led to a chophouse upstairs. The joint served hamburgers with oddly flavored meat patties and fat french fries and sliced cucumbers instead of pickles. The menu also featured other delicacies such as ohmu rice-steamed rice wrapped in an omelet-which the G.I. s considered to be Korean food but which was actually viewed by the Koreans as a form of yang sik, foreign food.
Western influence, Japanese influence, Chinese influence and the Korean ability to adapt in order to survive; all these factors made it difficult for me to look back in time and discern which parts of the culture that swirled around me were authentic Korean and which parts had been tacked on recently. I worked at it, constantly. But the Koreans were a puzzle to me. Who they were. What they wanted. And although I discovered and snapped into place a new piece of the puzzle every day, I felt sometimes that the picture was becoming more blurry. Maybe I was doomed to be confused. Maybe a foreigner can never understand Asia or the Asian mind. But I’d keep trying. Especially now. For Moretti’s sake, so we could find his bones and return them to his family. And for Ernie’s sake and my own sake. So we’d have a shot at not having to return to a Korean jail. Which would be good.
Ernie and I didn’t enter the chophouse. Instead, we turned left and walked down a short hallway that led to a door marked sammusil. Office. I started to knock but Ernie stepped past me, twisted the handle, and shoved.
It was locked.
There was a lot of banging behind the door to Jimmy Pak’s office. It sounded like furniture being moved around and there was whispering, of the urgent type. Finally, the handle of the door turned and the door began to open. A beautiful pagoda of black hair peeked out.
I recognized her right away. Miss Liu, a waitress here at the UN Club. She had long legs and a gorgeous smile and beautiful black hair that she piled atop her head into a structure like a temple from a Chinese fairy tale. She peered out at us from behind the door, smiled and bowed and then, holding her silver cocktail tray under her arm, minced her way out into the hallway. She was wearing the high-heeled shoes she usually wore and her legs were smooth and unsheathed. Something about her short blue dress seemed slightly askew, as if it had been twisted over her torso too quickly. Miss Liu kept her head down as she left the office and slouched past us. Ernie and I both watched as she sashayed down the hallway and tiptoed down the steps.
Inside the office, a green fluorescent light flickered to life.
Behind his desk, Jimmy Pak was on his feet, smiling, slipping on his neatly pressed white shirt, tucking the starched tails into his trousers.
“Agent Ernie,” he said. “And Geogi. Welcome. Come in. Have a seat.”
He motioned with his open palm to the chairs on the far side of his desk. Then he lifted his telephone. “Would either of you gentlemen care for a drink?”
I shook my head.
Ernie said, “I’ll take a scotch and soda.”
When someone answered, Jimmy said in English, “Two scotch and sodas for my important friends. Allaso, Mr. Jin?” Do you understand, Mr. Jin?
The response must have been positive because Jimmy Pak smiled more broadly and hung up the phone.
“Sit, sit,” he said. Then he retied his tie and slipped on his jacket and placed himself behind his desk in his comfortable leather swivel chair. He folded his pudgy hands on the blotter in front of him and said, “Now, gentlemen, how can I help you?”
Before we could answer, someone knocked discreetly on the office door.
“Entrez-vous,” Jimmy shouted.
Another waitress, this one less statuesque than Miss Liu, entered with two drinks on her tray and plopped one each in front of Ernie and me. She asked if Jimmy wanted anything but he waved her away. After she left, he reached inside his desk drawer, pulled out a crystal tumbler and a small bottle of ginseng liqueur. He poured himself a thimbleful and said, “For my tummy.” He patted his ample paunch. Then he raised the glass, and said, “Bottoms up!”
We all drank. Ernie downed his entire drink. I sipped mine.
“Now,” Jimmy said. “To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?”
“That Miss Liu,” Ernie said, “she’s not bad.”
“No. Not bad at all,” Jimmy replied. Gold lined the edge of one of his front teeth but on him it looked good, accentuating his constant smile.
Ernie rattled the ice in his glass. “How long have you owned this club, Jimmy?”
“Oh. Many, many years. Why do you ask?”
“You’re the coolest owner. The only bar owner in Itaewon who speaks English really well and who mingles with the G.I. s. Why? Why don’t you pull away from the day-to-day operations like the other owners?”
Jimmy spread his arms. “Because I love people. Especially my American friends.”
He was smiling as broadly as an evangelist in a pulpit, welcoming new souls into the kingdom of heaven.
“You love people,” Ernie said, “but you’re also one of the gangsters who used to be called the Seven Dragons.”
Jimmy looked surprised. “The who?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. You were here in Itaewon right after the war. You helped build this place and the entire village of Itaewon.”
Jimmy kept smiling. “You flatter me.”
“And you did it,” Ernie continued, “by stealing money from the poor refugees who flooded down here from North Korea.”
“Steal? Me?” Jimmy Pak’s face was suffused with mirth. “My friend, you have such a vivid imagination. These ‘Seven Dragons’ as you call them. Such an exotic name. No doubt some mysterious Oriental organization designed to do evil in the world. But don’t you see, I’m nothing but a harmless businessman.”
“Not so harmless,” Ernie said. “At least Two Bellies doesn’t think so.”
The smile disappeared from Jimmy Pak’s face. “Such a terrible thing.”
Ernie’s fist tightened around his empty glass. I was worried he might throw it at Jimmy. I spoke up.
“Don’t give us your shit, Jimmy,” I told him. “Just listen to the facts. We know what you did to Mori Di, Sergeant Flo Moretti, and we know where you hid his body. And we know that you stole a lot of money from people and sent a passel of Buddhist nuns and orphans out into the snow to die. But they didn’t die. They lived, most of them, and reached a nunnery and most of those kids are alive now and well, although probably not living in Korea. So you’re a legitimate businessman these days. You don’t want people poking into your past. And when Ernie and I went looking for Moretti’s remains, you removed the remains from their resting place and replaced them with the corpse of Two Bellies, to warn off anybody else who tries to help us.”
“Me?” Jimmy asked.
“Yes, you,” Ernie growled. “Maybe you didn’t do the dirty work yourself, you didn’t actually slice Two Bellies’s throat, but you know who did because you’re the one who paid for the job.”
Jimmy Pak smiled indulgently.
“So I’m willing to make a deal,” I said. “I want the remains of Moretti. Somebody’s got to return those remains to his family in the States. They’ve been waiting over twenty years. You give us that- his dog tags, his uniform, his bones, everything-and then we lay off. No more prying into the people who were hurt in the past or the
