for the 8th Army. He wielded the power of life and death over some of these poor hookers. If he turned them in to the Korean health authorities, they couldn’t work any longer.”
Ernie sipped his tea. Suk-ja stirred her coffee.
“Makes sense,” Ernie said. “But the big question is, who’s next?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But Haggler Lee seems awfully nervous.”
“Maybe for good reason. Maybe he hasn’t told us everything.”
“Maybe. You finished with your tea yet?”
“Almost. Why?”
“Let’s go check out a few bokdok-bangs.” Real estate offices. “See if we can scare up somebody who remembers Miss Yun and her two kids. They lived here in Itaewon for years.”
“Probably hopping from hooch to hooch,” Ernie said.
“That’s a needle in the haystack, Sueno.”
“We’ve got to try something.”
“Good. You do that. Me, I’m taking the jeep in for maintenance.”
“You can do that anytime.”
“What else do you want me to do? Stand around while you speak Korean to a bunch of realtors? Xin loy. You do what you got to do, I’ll do what I got to do.”
Suk-ja stared into her coffee, embarrassed by the disagreement.
Ernie was burning out on this case, that much was clear. We’d made progress. Plenty of it. We knew who had perpetrated the murders, and we even had a pretty good theory as to why. The problem was that we didn’t know where the woman or her brother were hiding and, even more importantly, we had no idea who in the hell they might choose as their next victim. The thought that they’d stop killing now, when they’d gone this far, seemed unlikely. Ernie was frustrated, so was I, and going back to talk to realtors sounded too much like starting from scratch. He couldn’t deal with it. I was having trouble myself, but I was determined to drive on. If he didn’t want to help, that was his problem.
“Okay,” I replied. “Take care of the maintenance. But be back here in two hours.”
Ernie stood up, buttoned his coat, and stalked out of the Hamilton Hotel Coffee Shop.
With the tips of her soft fingers, Suk-ja caressed my knuckles. I pulled my hand away, told her I’d see her tonight, and found my way out of the warm coffee shop. Alone, I walked the cold streets of the Korean red light district.
A sharp wind picked up beneath an overcast sky.
The torn shreds of a dried noodle wrapper tumbled past my feet. A few of the front doors of the nightclubs were open, and an occasional drunken GI stumbled in. All in all though, Itaewon was mostly deserted.
A little brown-faced girl with a Prince Valiant haircut appeared at my elbow.
“You buy gum?”
She held out a cardboard box crammed with an assortment of American and Korean brands.
“No gum,” I said, sticking my hands in my jacket pockets. If I remembered correctly, there were real estate offices up the hill, beyond the nightclub district. In Korea, the bok-dok-bangs are not just for buying homes. In fact, they’re more often used as brokers for people trying to rent. Even one-room hovels were rented through a bokdok- bang. Ernie was right though, they changed personnel a lot. What was the likelihood that I’d run into an agent who had been working the Itaewon area four years ago and remembered one business girl out of how many?
But when I thought of Han Ok-hi and Jo Kyong-ah and Arthur Q. Fairbanks, and the weapon that had killed them, I knew I had to keep trying.
The girl selling the gum pressed my elbow.
I turned and said, “I told you, no gum!”
“Solip,” she said.
“What?”
“Solip.”
Then I understood what she was saying. The Korean word I had learned not too long ago. Solip. Pine needles.
“What are you talking about?” I asked the girl.
She pointed with a grimy finger.
“She want talk to you.”
“Who wants to talk to me?”
“I show you.”
Without warning, she scampered off. Into the mouth of a dark alley leading uphill into the jumbled hooches. When I didn’t immediately follow, she paused and waited.
Pines needles. Who would know about the pine needles that had been left on the stove to burn in the home of Jo Kyong-ah? Only the people who had murdered her. Should I stop and call Ernie?
Not only would it be tough to get in touch with him, but the little girl could run away at the slightest provocation. Was I armed? I hadn’t been since the smiling woman led me into that dark alley. And now I was being led into a dark alley again, perhaps by the same person.
What choice did I have?
I shoved my fists deeper into my pockets and trudged on, following the girl into the dark heart of Itaewon.
The alleys of Itaewon cannot be plotted on a grid. They wind around and back, uphill and down, like the tentacles of a squid. I realized the girl had disappeared. I stood alone, behind a row of ramshackle wooden hooches, alongside a stone-lined drainage ditch fenced off by rusty, netted wire topped by coiled concertina. The ditch was six feet wide and just as deep. Filth flowed sluggishly through its channel. There were no lights, and although the sun had not gone down, the thick shroud of overhead clouds kept the world under a blanket of gloom.
I stood with my back against a dirty brick wall, facing the ditch. Nothing moved on either side. Most of Itaewon teems with life, but back here the world was holding its breath.
On my own, I never would’ve found this spot. Why come back here? Most GIs never wander far from the bar district. And when they did, they were escorted by a business girl directly to her hooch.
A glimmer of light appeared in the corner of my eye. Like a cartoon character, I swiveled my head in an exaggerated double-take.
She stood alone, on the opposite side of the drainage ditch, the ten-foot-high chain-link fence between us. She wore a plain beige overcoat that looked fashionable, with the collar turned up and the belt cinched at the waist. Her light brown hair fell to her shoulders, cascading in gentle waves. She stood so still that I blinked, wondering if she was imaginary. Her smooth unblemished skin set off the startling blue sparkle in her otherwise Asian eyes, and then I saw the smile. Broad. Too broad. As if the muscles of her face were incapable of assuming any other configuration.
Could I grab her?
No way. By the time I climbed the fence and hopped the ditch, she’d be long gone. Instead, I slowly moved a few feet, until I stood exactly opposite her. She didn’t move, and she didn’t stop smiling.
I stared into her eyes, she stared into mine.
“Why have you and your brother murdered those people?” I asked.
“Fanny likes you,” she said.
I was startled. She meant the crippled woman at the Half Half Club in Songsan-dong.
“I like Fanny too,” I said.
“You gave her money.”
I shrugged. “She needed it.”
The smiling woman stared at me in silence.
Finally, she said, “I have job for you. You don’t want to do anything for me. I know that. No GI wants do anything for me. But this time you must do.”
“Do what?”
She seemed pleased that I’d responded.
“You don’t know. But when time to do job, you will do.”
