“Yes,” I said.
“I know slicky boy,” she said. “He retired now. Old man. Very famous in Itaewon. Everybody say before he number hana slicky boy.”
Number one. The best. She pointed her thumb to the sky.
“He’s retired?” Ernie said.
“Yes. Sometimes can do.”
Ernie and I glanced at one another.
I leaned forward. “We want to see him.”
“I show you then.” The Nurse rose and slipped on a heavy coat and a muffler.
I downed the last of my beer, grabbed my jacket, and stepped out into the cold winter night. Ernie followed, but stopped at the outside byonso before we left.
The Nurse led us past the Statue Lounge and Kim’s Tailor Shop and down a narrow lane that led into a valley filled with a maze of hovels.
We passed a white sign: OFF LIMITS TO U.S. FORCES PERSONNEL. Being caught in an off-limits area was the least of our worries.
After a few minutes, we arrived at a dilapidated wooden building. The Nurse bounced down a short flight of stone steps, stopped at what must’ve been the basement level, and pounded on a wooden door the color of soot.
In less than a minute a man opened it.
I guessed his age to be in the late forties or early fifties. The short-cropped hair above his square face was flecked with gray. He was a sturdy man, broad-shouldered but very short.
“Kuang-sok Apa,” the Nurse said. Father of Kuang-sok. “These men wish to talk to you.”
He looked slightly surprised.
“They are good men,” the Nurse said. “The tall one speaks Korean. They only want to learn about your illustrious career.”
The man bowed slightly, then motioned us inside.
The Nurse smiled and waved at us and trotted off through the snow. Ernie ignored her. I don’t know why he didn’t treat her better. But it wasn’t my business. Not at the time, anyway.
We followed the old man inside. He closed the door.
I wondered why the Nurse had called him “Father of Kuang-sok,” and noticed that he walked with a slight limp.
He was dressed in baggy black trousers and a soiled, heavy-knit sweater of gray and bright red. We took a couple of steps down to a cement-floored room illuminated by a naked bulb hanging from a bare rafter. When I exhaled, my breath billowed in the cold air. There was equipment here- wrenches, hammers, nails, old pipes-and I realized that this man must be the custodian for the building.
He slipped off his shoes, stepped up on a narrow varnished wooden platform, and waved for us to follow. Behind the platform, light shone through a paper-paneled latticework door. A shadow stood, rising only halfway up the door. The panel shuddered and slid back.
“Abboji. Nugu seiyo?” Father. Who is it?
It was a boy.
Kuang-sok, I thought. The boy had a narrow face, not square and sturdy like his father’s, and eyes that were heavily lidded, just slits in a smooth complexion.
“Sonnim woyo,” the man said. “We have guests.”
The man entered the room and Ernie and I slipped off our shoes and followed.
The room we were in was not much bigger than the toolshed out front, but it was a lot more comfortable. The floor was covered with a soft vinyl padding and I felt warmth beneath my feet. The floor was heated by subterranean ducts flooded with charcoal gas. A six-foot-wide varnished wood armoire covered one of the walls and open cabinets took up most of the rest, stuffed with books and clothes and blankets and a few eating utensils. Cooking was conducted outside, on the cement charcoal pit I had seen on the way in. A tiny TV, imported from Japan, flickered in a corner, beaming out the songs of some Korean variety extravaganza filmed at one of the studios on the side of Namsan Mountain.
The boy had the volume down low. More disciplined than most kids I knew.
The man looked at us with his tired brown eyes and stuck out his hand.
“I am Mr. Ma,” he said in English.
We shook. The palms of his hands were as rough as the cement walls of his basement.
Ernie and I sat down cross-legged on the floor. Mr. Ma poured us each a glass of barley tea. The boy sat next to us, his back to the TV, studying us intently. Ernie offered him a stick of gum. The boy glanced at his father, who nodded, and he grabbed the gum with his small fingers.
Mr. Ma waited. I figured it was time to get to the point.
“I’m looking for So Boncho-ga, the King of the Slicky Boys.”
I said it in English but there was no comprehension in Mr. Ma’s eyes. I repeated it in Korean. He blinked and nodded.
“Why?” was all he said.
“There was a man killed. A soldier from England. I think the slicky boys who work Yongsan Compound will know something about it.”
Mr. Ma looked at his son. “Go outside and fetch me a newspaper.”
The boy rose to his feet and bowed. “Yes, Father.”
After Kuang-sok scurried out of the room, Mr. Ma shook his head and sipped on his tea. He spoke once again in Korean.
“If the slicky boys do know something about this man’s death, why should they tell you?”
“Because this murder could cause much trouble on the compound. Much anger amongst the generals who are in charge. Now they sleep. If I give them reason to wake up, they will wake up very angry.”
“And the business of the slicky boys will suffer?”
“Exactly.”
Mr. Ma nodded. “First, I must tell you that I am not a slicky boy. That was long ago, before God gave me Kuang-sok.”
“God gave him to you?”
“Yes. I used to be a slicky boy, on your compound, the Eighth American Army. I was a good slicky boy when I was young. The very best.”
Mr. Ma gazed past the TV screen, seeing an image much more vivid than the black-and-white electronic flickering-
“It was winter. Cold, much colder than tonight, with a blizzard screaming through the streets of the city. The perfect night for me. The perfect night for any slicky boy. The guards who patrol the compound would be less vigilant on their rounds, more anxious to return to the warmth of their guard shacks. An hour after curfew, I left my hooch.”
He waved his hand.
“I had a much bigger room than this one. I was rich in those days. When I reached the remotest part of the Wall, I waited in hiding until the sentry had passed and then I made my run on the wall. Before I got there, I noticed something small, something in a box, and it moved. I knelt down and saw that it was bundled up. I brushed away the snow from the box, unwrapped the covers, and when the cold hit the soft flesh, the child began to wail.”
Mr. Ma smiled at the fond memory.
“Of course, my night’s work was foremost on my mind. In the howling wind the guard would not have heard the child’s cry. I could be over the fence in a few moments, steal what I needed, and be gone. But when I was halfway up the fence, the child began to wail again. It was a forlorn wail. The wail of the lost. The cry of those who will never be found.
“It was up there, while the jagged wire dug into my fingers, that I suddenly knew what I had to do. It didn’t take long to think about it. It flooded my mind like a ray of light. I knew I had to stop being a slicky boy and start taking care of the child lying below me.
