bounce up and down on its hinges, as if laughing at her. Within seconds, those doors too would be on fire and we’d be trapped. The roof above us was burning now and if it fell we’d never live long enough to see the exit door burn.
“Stand back!” I shouted.
I grabbed the women and roughly shoved them out of the way.
I stepped back a few feet and slammed my heel into the padlock. It shuddered but held. Doc Yong’s eyes grew wider. More smoke enveloped us; the roof sizzled. I figured I had one more try.
I backed up a few more feet and tried to remember what I’d been taught in marital arts class. Think through the problem, envision only the solution. I stood with my side facing the padlock. A sidekick is the most powerful kick in the tae kwon do arsenal and I was good at it. Trying to make my mind blank, I hopped toward the door, bringing my foot up and using the momentum of my body and the strength of my muscles to slam into the padlock. The rusty hasp screeched in complaint and then the door burst outwards.
Doc Yong plowed into my back, and she and Miss Kwon and I stumbled into air that was cool and fresh and clean. Then we were on the ground, crawling forward, rolling on the cold frosty earth, laughing, hugging one another, wiping soot and perspiration from one another’s faces.
Doc Yong kissed me. I kissed her back.
But my joy was short-lived. Behind us, about twenty yards away in the center of the Itaewon Market, a gun fired.
“Hide!” I told Doc Yong and Miss Kwon. “I’ll be back.”
Doc Yong tried to hold me but I wrenched myself loose and ran toward the sound of the gunfire.
Ernie fired. And then fired again. He was squatting behind the rim of the old brick well that marked the center of the Itaewon Market. One or two rounds whizzed past us but the light was moving crazily now.
We kept up a steady fusillade of bullets at Snake’s men. The fire behind us raged, all the dried canvas and rotted wood that composed the Itaewon Market had gone up faster than even Snake could have imagined. That’s what saved us. The abundance of fuel for the flames and therefore the intensity of the heat. Snake’s thugs had been forced to retreat in order to save themselves.
I reloaded my. 45 and kept firing. I knew Ernie was still on the other side of the well because I heard the steady bark of his pistol as he took aim and popped off rounds. I didn’t know where Doc Yong, Miss Kwon, or Cort were. I could only hope they’d sought safety.
Ernie and I dragged ourselves farther from the flames. Sirens wailed in the distance. Strange voices were shouting-people who lived in the area. Then we heard the voices of Korean cops trying to take charge of the situation.
I crawled over to Ernie. His face was black with soot. I grabbed his right arm and held his pistol down.
“Enough,” I said. “They’re gone.”
Ernie glanced around. “What about the others?”
“Not in the fire. Doc Yong and Miss Kwon escaped. They crawled out right behind me. How about Cort?”
“I’m not sure.”
As the firemen started dousing the flames and the policemen held back the gathering crowd of neighbors, Ernie and I rose to our feet. I trotted out back behind the burning remains of the butcher shop. I searched for a few minutes but found no sign of Cort. I returned to the well. Ernie was waiting for me.
“They’re gone,” I said. “Miss Kwon, Doc Yong, Cort. I can’t find them.”
Ernie spit on the ground. “They have a reason to run.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Sueno. Come off it. You’re not so blind with love for Doctor Yong In-ja that you can’t see what’s right in front of you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the reason she took you to see that fortune teller. The reason she convinced you to look for Mori Di’s bones. The reason she sicced Miss Kwon on us through every minute of this investigation.”
I was becoming angry and I stepped toward him, my. 45 still hanging at my side.
“Spit it out, Bascom. What the hell are you talking about?”
“She used you. To get at Snake. Don’t you see? Miss Kwon’s one of the orphans of the Itaewon Massacre. So are the people who hacked Horsehead and Water Doggy to death. And so is Doc Yong!”
I hit him.
It was a straight left, right to the nose and Criminal Investigation Division Agent Ernie Bascom reeled backwards like a man being pulled by a rope. He collapsed against a pile of smoldering lumber. When I smelt burning, I leaned down and rolled him away. One of the firemen doused him with water. Sputtering, Ernie rose to his knees, shook his head for a moment, took a weak swing at me, and then collapsed back to the ground.
I used a thin screwdriver to pop the front lock to Doc Yong’s medical clinic. My search was systematic, thorough, in accordance with my police training. It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for.
On a previous visit, I’d seen Korean workmen in the clinic. They had broken through one of the walls to install the new wiring for Doc Yong’s electrocardiogram equipment. At the time, I wondered why she’d needed such expensive equipment when most of her clients were young business girls whose hearts might be broken but were still beating. The older clients, like the friends of Two Bellies, could take a bus down to the Main Yongsan Clinic. Doc Yong had possessed an ulterior motive. She wanted the space opened so she could inter something valuable to her.
I kicked the flimsy wall in. Then, using the screwdriver, I scraped away plaster until the opening was large enough and I leaned in. I saw a square white box, wrapped in black ribbon, the type used in Korea to transport honored remains.
I lifted the box, placed it on Doc Yong’s desk and opened the top. After a quick survey, I closed it again. Then I left the clinic, stepped carefully down the creaking metal stairs, and marched through the early morning dawn to the Itaewon Police Station. Because of the fire at the Itaewon Market and the reports of gunfire, Captain Kim was already there. He wore his khaki uniform, neatly pressed, and his big square chin had been recently shaved. The pungent tang of aftershave battled with the fragrant remains of morning kimchee.
He stood as I walked into his office. I must’ve looked a sight: dirty, muddy, covered with soot and pig’s blood. I plopped the white box down on the center of his desk.
“Here,” I said
Captain Kim stared at the box suspiciously. “What is it?”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The bones of Mori Di.”
His face contorted and his lips twisted in disgust. He didn’t want this box. It represented trouble. But now he had no choice. The remains of Technical Sergeant Flo Moretti had been presented to him by a representative of the United States Government.
Finally, after twenty years, Mori Di could no longer be ignored.
18
Bureaucratically, 8th Army had a spaz attack.
Back at CID headquarters, I made a complete report. Well, not exactly complete, I left out a few details. For example, I didn’t mention the kidnapping of Doctor Yong In-ja. I didn’t want to bring her into all this. I wasn’t sure exactly how deeply she was involved in the murders of Horsehead and Water Doggy but I figured Ernie was right. She must have been implicated.
What I said in my report was that Ernie and I were reconnoitering last night in Itaewon, searching for the remains of our late 8th Army comrade, Tech Sergeant Moretti, when we were accosted by person or persons unknown. That led us to take refuge in the Itaewon Market where someone committed arson and as we tried to escape the blaze we’d been fired upon, once again, by person or persons unknown. Of course, we returned fire.
According to the KNPs, we were all lousy shots because no one was reported to have been wounded.
Afterward, my report continued, I decided to search the Itaewon branch of the Yongsan District Public Health
