“Every GI same same,” she said. “All time bullshit.”
“No bullshit,” Ernie replied.
Suk-ja rolled her eyes toward the varnished rafter beams.
While they bantered, I’d been looking through the window at the shadowy figures pacing the narrow alley. Men. Hands in their pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold, damp mist. Koreans? Greeks? Japanese? In the fog-filled gloom, I couldn’t tell.
Suk-ja wasn’t the only woman on display in this brightly lit room on this warm, vinyl-covered floor, wearing nothing but see-through undies. There were about a half-dozen girls seated near us, some of them listening absently to Ernie and Suk-ja’s conversation, others watching-like me-anxiously out the window. They for a customer. Me for a thief.
The other girls didn’t speak English as well as Suk-ja- she’d been here at the Yellow House for a few months already, she told us. When we’d first arrived at House Number 59, I’d asked the women in Korean, as casually as I could, if they’d seen an American, someone who looked like Ernie. They stared blankly, wishing they had, wishing they could earn some income to contribute to their ever-growing mountain of debt.
The mama-sans here charge them for everything: room and board, even the flimsy clothing on their backs. And once they amass a bill, which they inevitably do, the mama-sans charge interest on top of that.
Ernie didn’t flash his badge. We wanted to pretend that we were just two GIs on the town. Observe. See what we could find out. Gossip spreads fast in the Yellow House, and if the word was put out that two strangers were looking for a fugitive, chances are that the fugitive would disappear into the ocean mist.
The mama-san of House Number 59 wasn’t much help. She was suspicious of us from the start, what with our coats and white shirts and ties, and since we hadn’t spent any money yet she was doing everything she could to show us her displeasure: turning on a water faucet in the alley out back, clanging pots and pans loudly just as Ernie and Suk-ja started to talk, clearing her throat of what must’ve been huge wads of phlegm whenever she tottered through the room.
Soon she’d tell us to either choose a girl and cough up some dough or get lost.
I pulled on my earlobe and Ernie understood the signal: time for us to move on. There were, after all, over forty houses of prostitution registered in the Yellow House area, all of them numbered and inspected regularly by the Inchon Municipal Health Department. We had a lot of ground to cover before the midnight curfew.
We said our goodbyes and were halfway down the cement stairway to the front door, when Suk-ja, wooden sandals clomping, came running down after us. From the harsh yellow light streaming in from outside, her slim figure was outlined in perfect symmetry beneath her flimsy pink negligee. She grabbed Ernie’s elbow.
“You CID, right?”
So much for cover. Ernie was amused. “What makes you say that?”
“When you come in,” Suk-ja said, “you look at shoes.”
As in most Korean homes, one is obliged by custom to take off one’s shoes before entering. So at the entranceway to House Number 59, there was a large assortment of footwear. Each pair either brightly colored or spangled with glitter and sequins. There was only one pair of men’s shoes, not mass-produced like GI shoes, but handmade. About the right size for a Korean man. Maybe the mama-san’s husband or live-in boyfriend. But no evidence of Greek sailors. Or GIs.
“Yes,” Ernie said. “So what if we did?”
“You checky checky shoes,” Suk-ja replied, “because you wanna know who’s inside House Number 59. And then when you talk to me, this guy..” She pointed at me. “He don’t look at girls. He stare out window.” Suk-ja squinted, mimicking my gaze. “Checky checky every man who walk by. Either he like boy or he CID. Gotta be.”
5
Ernie guffawed. “Maybe he likes boys.”
Suk-ja eyed me more carefully. “No.” She shook her head vehemently.
“Okay, Suk-ja,” Ernie said, placing his hands on his hips. “What of it? What if we are CID?”
“I hear about girl get shot. Radio say. Good girl. Work at Olympos.”
This woman who called herself Suk-ja was no idiot. She’d not only figured out who we were, but why we had ventured into the Yellow House. I stepped back from the doorway and glanced up at the brightly lit window of House Number 59. Inside, the girls sat in various states of undress, heads hanging down or cocked to the side, staring listlessly at the parade of furtive men outside.
Suk-ja, however, missed nothing.
“I help,” she said.
“How can you help?” Ernie asked.
“I hear something today. All woman naked, they talk too much.”
“What do you mean ‘all women naked?’”
“At bathhouse, pyongsin-ah.” Retard. In mock-reproach, Suk-ja slapped Ernie on the forearm. “Woman take shower, woman talk. One woman, she work at House Number Seventeen. She complain taaksan about man come this afternoon. He no look for woman, he look for room.”
Ernie stared at her, waiting.
“He only want one room, this woman say. No like any other. Got to have window. Got to be high-up. Other things too, but she don’t know all. Mama-san ask him why he care about room so much but he get angry.”
“Is he an American?” I asked.
“Yeah. GI. But hair too long. Here and here.”
She pinched the back of her neck and her sideburns. The guy needed a trim. If he was a GI, he hadn’t stood inspection for a while.
“So why was this woman gossiping about him?” Ernie asked.
“Huh?”
“Talk. Why did she talk about him?”
“Oh. Because she get mad. He take her room, but then choose another girl to stay there with him. She no like. She want to get clean clothes take to bathhouse, but this man he busy all time with other girl. Too much boom boom. Mama-san say she no can go in, maybe he get taaksan angry.”
“Was this guy wearing a suit like us?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She no say.”
“What’s this woman’s name?”
“I don’t know. But she new. That’s why she got room top floor.” Suk-ja raised a hand above her head. “Away from customer.”
“Where’s House Number Seventeen?” Ernie asked.
“I show you.”
“No. Just tell us.”
Before Ernie could grab her, Suk-ja scurried away, back into House Number 59. She glanced over her shoulder and said, “Chom kan man.” Just a moment.
“Looks like she’s going with us,” Ernie said.
I nodded.
In a few minutes, Suk-ja emerged, wearing blue jeans and sneakers and a pullover wool sweater. Her hair was tied back in a tight ponytail. But what was most surprising was that she had slipped on a pair of black, horn- rimmed glasses that looked extremely attractive on the smooth oval of her unblemished face. Had she been carrying a book and a slide rule, I would’ve sworn she was a college girl.
“Bali,” she said. Hurry.
We trotted after her through a narrow, fog-filled alley. Ernie kept his hand on the hilt of his. 45. I kept my eyes on shadows, suspicious, waiting for one to move.
Ernie held Suk-ja back.
We stood in the mouth of an alley gazing up at House Number 17. It was a ramshackle gray building made of
