“Sure. Why not?”
“Maybe. I got to go to byonso first.”
The girl took my hand and led me towards the back wall. I could smell it before I saw it. It was nestled in the darkness between the last hooch and the wall that separated this real estate from the buildings out front.
“Is this the Sloe-eyed Lady Club here?”
“Yeah,” the girl said. “I think so.”
“You don’t know?”
“All club same same. I don’t go small clubs.”
“You only go to the big clubs?”
“Yeah.”
“Which ones?”
“King Club. Lucky Seven.”
“Why don’t you go into the small clubs?”
“Papa-san say no can do.”
The small clubs already had their own hostesses, hand-picked girls, girls they could keep tabs on, and they didn’t want the hassles of having stray business girls hustling on the premises. The big clubs, on the other hand, had a Iot of floor space and a lot of seats to fill. Sometimes on paydays, when the clubs were packed with GIs, the owners made the business girls stand up along the walls to save the seats for paying customers, and to display the flowers better.
I braced my nostrils and walked into the foul-smelling latrine. It was nothing more than a rickety old closet made of rotted wood. The floor was cement with a rectangular hole in the center that led directly down into the cesspool below. I took a leak and came back out quickly.
There didn’t seem to be any way, other than climbing the fence, to get into the opening behind the Sloe-eyed Lady Club. I was going to ask the girl, when I heard a door open high above me and the creaking of metal as someone stepped out onto the decrepit stairwell. I stepped back into the latrine and closed the door. There was a small window in the wood and I could see out without being seen.
Lindbaugh was walking down the steps, his chubby face pinched with anxiety. Following slowly behind him was a swarthy Korean man, solidly built, with a square head, and my first impression of him was that he had a lot of hair for a Korean. It was hard to tell for sure, though, because of the dim light. Not that his hair was bristling out, it was short-cropped, but he was one of those guys whose beards and growth of hair are so thick that they make their complexions look darker than they actually are.
They reached the bottom floor and I popped out of the latrine, gratefully.
The little girl held onto my wrist and I almost had to drag her down between the hooches to the front gate.
“Where you go?” she said.
“Maybe I’ll see you some other time,” I said.
“When?”
“Soon.”
I shook her loose. She was cursing and I could hear the stomping of her small feet on the pavement as I went through the gate and sprinted back to the main road. Ernie trotted up the hill and slowed when he saw me.
“I think they’re waiting for a cab,” he said. “Keep an eye on them while I get the jeep.”
I crossed the main road of Itaewon and took a few steps into a dirt-floored alley that led off into the gradually deepening dark. A girl followed me and I talked to her, pretending to be interested, while I kept an eye on Lindbaugh and the Korean man with him.
They stood away from the main entrance of the Sloe-eyed Lady, but there was still enough light to confirm my first impression of the Korean. His black hair was short and brittle, almost kinky. His clothes were casual: a windbreaker, sports shirt, slacks. Expensive, the kind of stuff that was made in the Korean textile mills for export only. He was calm but his eyes surveyed the area carefully. They looked at me, then, seeing the girl, moved on.
Lindbaugh, on the other hand, seemed exceedingly nervous. His pinball eyes bounced everywhere, and he kept talking, and gesturing with his hands, but the Korean didn’t seem to hear.
A cab chugged up the hill, made a U, and stopped in front of them. A young Korean bounced out of the passenger seat and held the back door open as the two clambered into the back. Then they were off, the young man bowing.
Ernie squealed around the corner, spotted me in the alley, and screeched the jeep to a halt. I jumped into the passenger seat and the open-mouthed business girl didn’t have time to move before we were off in a cloud of shit.
“Orange cab,” I said. ‘The Kei In Company. It just hung a left at the MSR.”
The traffic on the big road was bumper to bumper but Ernie didn’t slow down. Breaks squealed, horns honked, and savage cursing marked Ernie’s plunge through the traffic. He swerved, downshifted, and cut around cars and pedestrians.
I spotted the cab. It hadn’t gone far because it was waiting to turn about a block further down the road. The cabbie found an opening and punched through the traffic. Another guy was waiting to make a left but Ernie swerved around his flank and edged out into the oncoming flow, making people stop. More screeching tires and curses, but we were through. Their taillights were at the top of the incline ahead. Ernie floored it and put some serious gas to the old jeep. It sputtered and responded and pretty soon we were doing about fifty. If I hadn’t been watching the sides of the road we would have missed them.
“Hold it! We passed them!”
Ernie slowed, pulled over to the curb, and this time waited for the traffic to clear before making a complete turn.
We cruised on by again. They were getting out of the cab in front of a big modern two-story house with a cement-block fence around it.
Greeting them and bowing were two beautiful Korean women in full-length traditional cbima-cbogori dresses. The entranceway was bathed in yellow light from the sign above the gateway.
“Chinese characters,” I said. “Ok Lim Gong. The Palace of the Jade Forest.”
“A gisaeng house?”
“Got to be.”
‘They’re giving old Lindbaugh first-class treatment.”
Ernie turned into a dirt alley and found a place to park. I toyed with the translation: The Palace Amidst an Orchard of Precious Gems. Any way you sliced it, it sounded like a fun place.
Ernie stayed in the jeep while I got out and walked to the mouth of the alley. The cab was gone but now there were two more vehicles, short black limousines, and businessmen types in dark blue suits were getting out. More girls appeared, also dressed like something out of the sixteenth century. They smiled, bowed, and escorted the men inside.
I went back to the jeep. “Looks like it’s going to be a big party. I’m going to try to get a better look.”
Ernie started the engine. “I’ll turn around.”
I went back out to the alley. The buildings lining the street were brick, two and three stories high. A teahouse was advertised on the second story of the building next to the gisaeng house and I figured that was my best shot. I climbed the narrow cement stairwell to the teahouse and pushed through the beaded curtain. A young woman in slacks and blouse bowed as I came in, her eyes wide with surprise. Not too many GIs came into these kinds of joints. She waited for me to do something. Korean men were scattered around the room in pairs, smoking, drinking coffee, and receiving attentive care from the hostesses seated next to them. I found an open table next to the windows facing the gisaeng house and sat down. My hostess stood at attention in front of the table, her hands clasped across her stomach, and her head cocked, waiting for my order.
She wasn’t a bad-looking girl but was too thin and had on too much makeup and anyway I really didn’t have the time. I asked her how much a cup of coffee was. She seemed relieved that I spoke Korean. Two hundred and fifty won. Fifty cents for a little porcelain thimbleful of espresso. I could buy a twelve-ounce bottle of OB for three hundred won. I asked her about ginseng tea. That was three hundred and fifty won. What the hell. At least it would
