down the alley as possible.
Shops lined the narrow lane: a bicycle repair shop, a small fish market, a florist. Down the road a few yards a huge red banner waved in front of a small restaurant. The banner said PO SHIN TANG, “Body Protection Soup.”. A nice way of saying dog meat.
Lindbaugh’s car was parked a few yards down from the restaurant but he was gone. I pretended to look at some of the flowers at the open-air florist. An old man, in rolled-up gray slacks and sleeveless T-shirt, shuffled over towards me. I smiled and waved him off. He seemed convinced that I was harmless and returned to his chores.
I walked a little farther down the street, until I could see through the window of the restaurant. It was dark but I could make out the big girth of Lindbaugh and the outlines of two Korean men sitting across from him at a table. I went back to the florist and waited.
Apparently, they were having lunch. I wondered if Lindbaugh could read Korean-I doubted it-and whether or not he knew what the specialty of the house was. Lunch was mercifully quick.
Lindbaugh broke through the beaded curtain and looked both ways. I faded deeper into the stall of orchids. He walked down to his car alone and got in. After he drove past, I waited until the two Koreans came out. They paused in the alleyway, as if to make sure he was gone. Then they went back inside. Maybe they had a big weekend lined up and needed some more body protection soup, since it was believed to be an aphrodisiac.
Ernie drove us back to the KPA compound. Lindbaugh’s sedan was there.
I told Ernie about the dog-meat restaurant and the two Korean men sitting with Lindbaugh while he slurped his soup. Ernie nodded, bored. Just another clerk taking bribes. He didn’t show any interest until I told him the two men were the same two guys who had jumped Kimiko in Itaewon.
We had four more hours until Lindbaugh got off work so, on the way to the CID Detachment, I had Ernie drop me off at the base library. They’ve got a few shelves there dedicated to Korean culture and history and language. I scrounged around until I found the fat Korean-English dictionary and sat down to look up Miss Pak Ok-suk’s name.
The family name, Pak, was a clan name and literally millions out of the country’s forty million were named that, the three major clans in Korea being Kim, Lee, and Pak. The Koreans say that if you climb to the top of a tall building in Seoul and throw a pebble off, chances are that it will land on the head of a Pak, Kim, or Lee.
At one time people with the same family name were not allowed to marry but that was done away with: It just wasn’t practical. There are too many unrelated people with the same last names.
Her given name was more interesting. As I had thought, ok meant jade. In the Orient, jade is the most highly prized of all precious stones, and up until only a few decades earlier it had been considered more valuable than gold. Women often wore it in rings to signify that they were married.
Ironically, the second half of her name, suk meant virtue. Feminine virtue. Purity.
I made notes on the case and tried reading the Seoul papers. After a while, I put the dictionary back on the shelf, crumpled my notes, and threw them away.
When we got to Lindbaugh’s quarters, his sedan was parked in front. After twenty minutes he appeared, nattily dressed in dark slacks, sports shirt, gray sweater, and a black windbreaker with ITCHEY FOOT BAR AND GRILL, TOLEDO, OHIO on the back. Two big fluorescent footprints framed the bar’s name and seemed to step forward rhythmically as Lindbaugh waddled to his sedan. We were out of our suits and ties, too, the things that advertised us as CID agents. I wore sneakers, blue jeans, and a nylon jacket with dragons embroidered on the back-just your typical GI.
We followed him over to the Officers’ Club, where he parked the Army sedan out of the way, up against the tree line. He walked to the entranceway to wait for a cab. He got one in less than ten minutes and went directly to Itaewon.
Ernie dropped me about twenty yards behind where Lindbaugh was paying the driver. I leaned back against a door across the street from the UN Club, hands in my pockets, trying to look bored, as if I were waiting for someone. Lindbaugh glanced around but not very carefully. He didn’t seem to notice me. I followed his waddle up the hill.
He headed towards the King Club and for a moment I thought he was going to go in, but instead he passed the big wide steps of the entranceway and continued up the hill. Little hole-in-the-wall hostess bars lined the way. Music blared. The girls were out like they always were, in front of their respective alleys. Like trapdoor spiders, they would drag you back to their hooches, for a price. Lindbaugh got propositioned a couple of times but showed admirable restraint. At the Sloe-eyed Lady Club he went in.
Great name. They’d probably looked it up in the Korean-English dictionary not realizing that most GIs would understand slant-eyed but sloe-eyed would sort of throw them. They had a good sound system, I could hear it from ten yards out, also a lot of bright neon, and some snappy-looking ladies milling around. So who cared what the name meant?
I stopped and talked to one of the girls who had propositioned me and she dropped down to five dollars real quick since it was still early and there wasn’t much traffic yet. I thanked her anyway and walked in front of the Sloe-eyed Lady Club so I could get a good look at Lindbaugh through the plate-glass windows.
He was gone.
I tried to act unconcerned, walked up a few yards, talked briefly to another girl-this one started at five dollars-and then crossed the road to get another angle on the windows of the Sloe-eyed Lady Club. The joint was empty, except for the girls. No customers. Lindbaugh must have snuck out the back.
Maybe he had someone to meet out back-a girl?-or maybe he had spotted his escorts and decided to ditch us.
I followed the road as it swerved around Itaewon. Ernie was walking down the hill towards me.
“Watch the front of the Sloe-eyed Lady Club. Lindbaugh must have slipped out the back.” I pointed to the narrow alley running off through the high cement-block walls. “I’m going to check back here. If we get separated, meet me at the King Club at”-1 checked my watch-“ eight.”
Ernie nodded and sauntered down the road. I crept into the narrow alley.
The stone and cement-block walls were so high that they blocked most of the light. I had to stop a moment and let my eyes adjust. There were wooden gates set into the stone walls but most of them were shut tight.
I walked down to about where I figured the back of the Sloe-eyed Lady would be. The gate was open. Light shone out and I heard voices, feminine voices. I peeked in. There was a small open area, mostly cement spotted with a few wilted plants. Two rows of wooden hooches extended to the two- and three-story buildings that fronted the main road of Itaewon. There was plenty of light coming from the hooches, illuminating a central path, and a few girls shuffled back and forth, shouting to their friends and busily getting ready for the night’s work.
I ducked through. One of the girls noticed me, stopped in the center of the walkway, and shouted, “Sonnim wa!” A guest.
A couple of girls slid back their wood slat doors as I walked into the center of the hooches. Some squatted on raised vinyl platforms in front of makeup mirrors, meticulously stroking and rouging and brushing. Others, still half undressed, casually put on clothes as I watched.
I could see clearly the back of the building that housed the club. It was two stories. An old rusted stairwell rose to the second floor. Light shone in the window on the second floor and I thought I saw shadows passing across it.
Buildings in Itaewon had a club on the first floor and either apartments or professional offices on the second and third floors. The village had dentists, OB-GYN clinics, passport and visa offices, and even a travel agency-all the things the girls might need for a toothache, a pregnancy, and for when they found a Gl who wanted to marry them and take them home.
I couldn’t figure what function the second floor above the Sloeeyed Lady Club served. I hadn’t noticed any signs.
“You come early, GI.”
“Yeah, I’m early.” She was short and cute, and a few years ago, I would have said that she was too young for this business.
“You want nice girl? I have many beautiful sisters.” The girl slowly waved her arm towards the entire colony of hooches.
“How about you?” I said.
