An emaciated waitress in a blue smock shuffled toward us.
“You too early,” she said. “We no open until ten.”
“We’re not here for a drink,” I said. “Where’s Eun-hi?”
Emie sauntered over to the bar. The waitress’s tired eyes followed him. She turned back to me.
“Eun-hi?”
“Shit.” The tears at the teahouse had made me impatient. I pulled out my identification and shoved it in front of her face. “Where’s your VD card?”
All women who work in Itaewon bars are required by the government to have monthly medical checkups for venereal disease.
The girl stepped back and for the first time her face showed a trace of doubt. “Who are you?”
“CID. If you don’t show me your VD card, I’ll turn you over to the Korean National Police.”
“I don’t need a VD card,” she said. “I’m a waitress.”
“Bullshit! Every woman who works here needs a VD card.”
A sullen-faced Korean man emerged from the back and stood behind the bar. I recognized him. He was Lee, the guy who poured our double shots of brandy. I walked over to him, hands outstretched.
“She doesn’t have a VD card, Lee. Am I going to have to take her in?”
Ernie had plopped atop a bar stool as if he were about to order a wet one.
“No sweat,” Lee said. “She newbie. Most tick we get her VD card.”
“Better be most rickety tick,” I said. “Let me see your VD card register.”
Lee smirked, used to GI’s trying to throw their weight around, figuring he’d smooth over the whole thing with a free round of drinks.
Ernie lounged against the bar, scanning the room, keeping alert for trouble.
Lee plopped the big leather-bound ledger on the bar. The pages were of thick construction paper. Stapled to each page were black-and-white photographs of the girls who worked here. Next to each picture, handwritten in a neat Korean script, was the name and address, date of birth, home of origin, and Korean National Identity card number. Korea is a highly organized society. Even for bar girls.
Lee stared at me with heavily lidded eyes, trying to pretend that he was extremely bored. “Why you fucking with me, Geogie?”
Ernie shot him a warning look. Lee ignored it. Some of these bar owners in Itaewon were hard-ass little brutes. I’d seen them jump into brawls with GI’s twice their size, get knocked down, and bounce back up and slug somebody else. We weren’t going to intimidate Lee. He had gone along so far only because he didn’t want us to actually sic the Korean National Police on him. That would cost him money.
I thumbed through the ledger but didn’t find it right away.
“Where’s Eun-hi?” I said.
His face didn’t move much but a veneer of knowing condescension passed over it, like a shadow crossing the moon, then disappeared. He thought I was just another horny GI trying to hit on Eun-hi. He wasn’t far from wrong so I didn’t bother to set him straight.
He riffled through the ledger, found the proper entry, and shoved it toward me.
“Here,” he said.
Ernie leaned forward and looked at the photo with me. It wasn’t very flattering. Eun-hi’s face looked puffed and plain, not at all like the knockout we saw parading around the U.N. Club every night. I breathed deeply, wincing once again at the foul stench of the U.N. Club. If I hadn’t noticed that before, maybe I’d never noticed that Eun-hi wasn’t all that attractive either. It didn’t matter. I was sober now. I’d find out for sure this morning.
“Is this address correct?”
Lee glanced at it. “Yeah. Maybe. Unless she move.”
I committed it to memory.
“All right, Lee.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “Make sure that girl gets her card right away.”
His face didn’t move. “You guys want a drink?”
Ernie and I looked at each other. Lee knew we were CID agents and he was a smart businessman. Keeping the police happy was part of his job. At night, with a lot of other GI’s watching us, we never accepted gratuities. Ernie didn’t wait for me to answer.
“Yeah. Double bourbon. And one for my pal here.”
Lee deftly poured the drinks, set them in front of us, and folded up the ledger and put it away. Ernie and I lifted our shot glasses and tossed them back.
On the way out, we saw the skinny waitress sitting in a rickety chair, hugging herself, bare legs crossed, glaring at us.
“Looks like you made another friend,” Ernie said.
We pushed through the door and stepped into a slap of cold air.
“Yeah,” I said. “So far this morning we’re on a roll.”
We turned up the hill and trudged past a quiet row of shuttered nightclubs. Behind them lurked a jumbled sea of upturned shingled rooftops. Hundreds of business girls and pimps and hustlers lived back there, in the maze of narrow alleys and shadowed courtyards that is the heart of the bar district known as Itaewon.
Eun-hi was in there somewhere. She knew something. Whatever it was, we’d find out.
6
Eun-hi’s Hooch was in a narrow alley in the catacombs behind the Itaewon main bar district. We ducked through a doorway cut into a big wooden gate and entered a slender courtyard lined with sliding, paper-covered doors. Upstairs, a balcony with more rooms and hallways wound off out of sight.
Young women squatted on the raised walkway near the kitchen. Steam billowed from the concrete room and the scent of boiling onions filled the air. Pots and pans clanged.
When the girls saw us they let out gasps of surprise and covered their naked faces with splayed fingers.
“Ajjima!” one of them said. “Sonnim wasso!” Aunt. We have guests.
An elderly woman waddled out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron strapped around her waist. She gawked at us. They weren’t used to seeing GI’s at this time of morning. Not on a workday.
“Ajjima,” I said. “I spent the night with Eun-hi but I left something in her room. I came to pick it up.”
She squinted. “You spent the night with Eun-hi?”
“Part of it.”
“What did you leave?”
I did my best to act embarrassed. “Underpants.”
The girls laughed.
‘Yes, yes. Go ahead.” The elderly woman waved her hand toward the stairway behind us. I thanked her and we turned and climbed up the steps.
The splintered wood slat floors creaked beneath our shoes. As we turned the corner we ran into the cement block outer wall on one side and a long line of doorways on the other. We walked forward slowly. Each room was quiet. Not a sound.
“They’re all getting their beauty rest,” Ernie said.
“But which one belongs to Eun-hi?”
“Take your pick.”
Ernie stopped and pounded on a door. When there was no answer he pounded on another. A little farther down the hall a door creaked open.
“Nugu-seiyo?” Who is it?
A sleepy-faced girl, wrapped in a flowered robe, gazed with half-closed eyes into the hallway. I walked down to her quickly.
“I’m looking for Eun-hi.”
Clutching her robe across her chest, she waved impatiently.
“That door.”
