outside.
'She's the daughter of the pharmacist on the corner,' Herman explained to Ernie and me. 'That's where the phone is.'
A red telephone was hooked onto a pole beneath the awning in front of a wooden shack with a big red sign in front that said 'Yak.' Medicine. The receiver was off the hook. It dangled on its metal cord.
Slicky Girl Nam held her fists to her mouth, staring at the phone as if it were about to explode. Herman's face was a round mask of worry.
'You'd better answer it,' I told him.
Ernie strode toward the plate glass window and began studying the rows of medications. Even though he'd kicked the heroin habit, he couldn't give up his hobby-pharmaceuticals — altogether.
Herman snatched up the dangling receiver. 'Hello?'
He held the phone away from his ear. A shrill wail erupted from the mouthpiece. A little girl's voice, screeching in pain.
Slicky Girl Nam backed up as if she'd heard a demon from hell. Herman stiffened his arm, holding an asp by the neck. Ernie stopped studying the medications and squinted at the phone, probably trying to decide whether or not to punch it into submission.
I grabbed the receiver from Herman's hand.
'Hello?' I said in English. 'Hello?'
The voice that answered sounded as if it were ground out by metal gears.
'I will give you five minutes…' it said. The English was clear but thickly accented. But an accent I couldn't place. '… to climb to the top of Hooker Hill. Someone has been paid to give you a message. Do not bother her. She knows nothing. If policemen are following you, the fat man's daughter will be killed.'
As I listened, a blade of ice slid along my spine. The words were pronounced precisely, like a mortician expressing condolences to a bereaved family. The accent seemed Asian but didn't sound like anything I had ever heard. Not in East L.A., anyway. And not in Seoul.
I shouted into the receiver. 'We can work something out. I know you want the jade skull, but-'
The line clicked and went dead.
Herman and Ernie stared at me.
'What'd he say?' Ernie asked.
'We have five minutes to get to the top of Hooker Hill.'
7
Hooker Hill is the name GIs have given to the narrow lane that stretches about forty yards, from the Lucky 7 Club on the main drag of Itaewon up to the Roundup Club on a rise overlooking the entire village. The pathway is lined with chophouses and hole-in-the-wall bars and wooden gates behind which lurk hooches jam-packed with Korean business girls. At night the women flood onto the street. Trap-door spiders searching for prey.
When business is slow, a GI with a pocketful of money is lucky to take two steps before one of the denizens of Hooker Hill latches onto him. Wrapped in a web of sensuality, most of the hapless GIs are quickly rugged back into the business girl's lair, there to be devoured at the spider lady's leisure.
Ernie and I didn't want to have anything to do with the women of Hooker Hill. Not now. Not when we were in a hurry. The problem was that it was a week before military payday, and although the rain had slowed somewhat, a steady drizzle was still keeping most GIs inside the cozy diyness of the nightclubs lining the main drag. As a result, Hooker Hill was so crowded with desperate business girls that a eunuch with an empty wallet would've had trouble wriggling past them.
Normally, Ernie enjoyed himself on this street, playing grab-ass with the girls, giving them eighteen reasons why he was broke and wouldn't be able to accommodate them. Tonight was different.
'Get your hands off me!' he bellowed.
The pack of girls just giggled.
'Ernie, why you go fast? You no want catch me?'
'No time,' Ernie told them. 'I have business to attend to.'
Flesh slapped on flesh. 'That's my crotch…'- Ernie's voice-'.. and I'll use it the way I want to.'
I was making better progress: Keeping my face somber, my eyes focused on my destination, and straight- arming every overly made-up business girl who had the courage to approach me.
Herman had fallen behind in the alleys but now, here on Hooker Hill, he was making up for lost time. The girls backed out of his way, moving so quickly that it was like Moses parting the Red Sea.
All he needed was a long beard and a staff.
I had almost made it to the top of the hill when a business girl wearing tight blue jeans and a brightly striped knit sweater sprinted out of the crowd. I recognized her immediately. Sooki. She had changed clothes. Not an unusual thing for a busy business girl to do.
She bumped into me, twirled, and jammed a wad of stiff paper into my hand. I tried to grab her but missed and watched her escape down Hooker Hill.
Business girls hung on Ernie like fronds on a palm tree. Still, when I whistled he caught the signal and lunged for the darting Sooki. He grabbed her arm. She tried to wriggle free, but with Herman's help Ernie kept his grip on her and dragged her over and stood her in front of me.
I held the note under her nose.
'Who told you to deliver this to me?'
Sooki pouted. She scanned the heavily lined eyes in the crowd, apparently finding nothing there to be afraid of.
'Some guy,' she told me. 'A foreigner.'
'From which country?'
'I don't know.'
'Asia?'
'Yeah. Maybe. He look like a Korean.'
I twirled my forefinger around my head. 'Did he wear a turban?'
Her eyes widened. 'How you know?'
'Did this guy also pay you to tell me and Ernie about the Buddhist nun?'
She shrugged. 'Maybe.'
Herman lunged forward. Ernie held him back. Sooki studied Herman's protruding lower lip and his clenched fists.
'Same guy,' she told me.
'Where can I find him?'
'I don't know. He stop me in alley, told me to tell you about the little nun. Pay me five dollars GI money.'
'And the second time?'
'Same.' Sooki straightened her shoulders, glancing proudly at the curious business girls clustered around us. 'But this time he pay me ten.'
A sigh of appreciation arose from the women.
I kept interrogating Sooki, but it quickly became apparent that she knew nothing else. I pointed my finger at her nose. 'If you're lying to me, I'll find you.'
She slapped her painted nails on her hip. 'No sweat, GI. Anytime you want to catch Sooki, can do easy. Only need this one.'
She nibbed her thumb and forefinger together.
Sooki had been hired twice in the same night to carry a message to us. Maybe by sending us after the mugger of the little nun, this foreign man had been trying to get me and Ernie-the only two CID agents in Itaewon- out of the way. To divert our attention from Mi-ja's kidnapping. But he'd been fooled. Even though there'd been a riot outside the Itaewon Police Station, Herman the German had managed to break through to us.
