to be too concerned about what he was thinking. I pulled the photograph Jimmy had given me out of my coat pocket and tossed it on the table in front of Yun.
“Your little sister,” I said. “And her daughter and her son when they were kids.”
He stared at the photo, but didn’t reach for it.
“When they needed your help, why did you refuse?”
Short, manicured fingers crawled toward the photo, but stopped an inch away. Yun studied the photo for a moment longer, his expression as blank as it had been when I walked in, but the blood rushed up his neck and into his face, and even years of training in Confucian self-control couldn’t stop it. Finally, Yun tipped his head back and stared into my eyes.
In English, he said, “What do you want?” His voice was like a lizard zapping a fly.
A chill radiated up my spine. Owning a casino on the edge of the Yellow Sea doesn’t require just money, but nerve, ruthlessness, connections-with politicians, gangsters, those who tap into power. If he really wanted to, Yun Guang-min could snap Ernie and me. Still, I knew Ernie and I were probably safe. Too much heat would come if they started killing Americans. We weren’t worth the expense, losses due to interruptions in business. Money talks. Big fat piles of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Yun Guang-min wouldn’t touch us. We were safe, unless I pushed him too hard.
At the moment, with people dead from my. 45, I didn’t mind pushing him.
“What I want,” I said, “is information on the whereabouts of the boy-now a man-in that photograph.”
I pointed to the photo, the boy clinging to his mother’s skirts.
“Your nephew,” I said.
Yun Guang-min didn’t look down.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because he’s the one,” I said, “who robbed your casino and shot Han Ok-hi.”
Yun shook his head slowly. “He’s not my nephew.”
“He is,” I said.
Yun shook his head. “No! He’s nothing to me.”
“Maybe that’s what you want these customers of yours to believe,” I said. “But you know the truth and so do I.”
“You know nothing of the truth!” Yun’s fists were clenched in rage. He paid no attention to the Japanese men who gawked nervously, not understanding the Korean. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he said, “to have a sister who turns to foreigners. Who has the village whisper behind our backs, as if we’re unclean. My children were ashamed to go to school, ashamed to stand in front of their own teachers!”
Yun stood, quivering, glaring at me as if he wished me dead. Yun Guang-min, the most powerful man in Inchon, for that moment could do nothing.
“Only one of your bodyguards is here,” I said. “Where are the rest? Out looking for your nephew?”
“You’re talking nonsense.”
“Where’s your nephew, Yun?”
“I don’t know where he is.” His face again flushed, his cheeks as red as the snarling dragons carved into the ceiling.
Were they in this together? Could Yun Guang-min have commissioned his nephew to commit the robbery of his own casino so they could split the profits? Maybe he had partners he was trying to steal money from. Was it possible? I didn’t think so. The amount stolen, one or two days’ take, was a drop in the ocean compared to the amount they took from the high-rollers from Japan and Hong Kong. Those guys bet fortunes, sometimes wiping out the entire accumulated wealth of themselves and their families and their corporations. The Olympos was pulling down more money per gambler than any Las Vegas casino could ever hope for. That’s why GIs weren’t welcome. We upset the high-rollers, and the money soldiers could lose was a pittance compared to what most of the Asians dropped before they even started tapping their lines of credit.
No, it wasn’t an inside job. Everything I’d learned so far pointed to the smiling woman and her brother setting out on a quest for revenge against the world. Starting at the logical place. With the uncle who had left their mother to die on the streets.
I was about to ask another question when Ernie lost his temper.
He fired a round into the ceiling.
All of us jumped and plaster, and bits of paint rained down onto Yun’s table.
Now he’d done it. Up until this point, all our rude behavior could be explained by saying that we were gathering information for a murder investigation. Ernie’s unauthorized use of a firearm changed that. He’d taken us over the line.
Yun’s exalted Japanese guest, Turtle Mountain, jumped back in alarm. The bodyguard started to make a move, but Ernie pointed the. 45 at him and shoved the young man back down and forced him face down onto the tatami on the floor.
The Japanese looked bewildered and pale. Concerned. Were they being robbed? A few rose to their feet. Ernie boomed another round into the ceiling.
“Don’t move!” he shouted.
Everyone understood that.
His face twisted in anger, Erin pointed his. 45 at Yun Guang-min. “You let your sister cough her guts up on the
20
streets of Seoul. You don’t lift a finger to help her son or daughter. And now you go dumb on us when your own nephew robs your casino and kills your employee. What kind of shithead are you?”
I’m not sure if Yun Guang-min understood all of what Ernie was spouting, but he must’ve gotten the idea. Yun was a tough guy. He stared right at Ernie, giving him the evil eye, daring him to squeeze the trigger and pop a cap through his forehead.
From the look on his face, I thought Ernie was going to do it. I sidled toward him, hoping to get close enough to deflect his aim if need be. I continued firing questions at Yun Guang-min. The casino owner answered angrily, telling me nothing, claiming he had no knowledge of why this man we called his nephew had robbed him. He had no idea where that man might be now.
In disgust, I backed off. No telling when reinforcements might arrive. Ernie sensed it too. He swiveled his head, and I knew he was anxious to un-ass the area. Yun Guang-min, however, called me over.
I returned to the table, expecting him to relay something useful, finally. Instead, he glanced down at the photo of his late sister and her two children.
“You forgot your photograph,” he said.
I snatched it up. The son of a bitch had pointedly not touched it. His cold eyes seethed with humiliation. He’d pay us back, I thought. The free pass Americans received in Korea had just been revoked.
We took off.
As Ernie and I emerged from under the red arch at the entrance of the Silla Cho Siktang, a group of young men hurried up the main driveway. I recognized two. Young men in dark suits, straight hair slicked back. Yun Guang-min’s bodyguards.
When they saw us, one pointed and shouted: “Yah!”
Ernie reached for his weapon.
I grabbed his arm. “No good, pal. We’re outnumbered.” Three of the bodyguards had already pulled out pistols. “Come on! Let’s go!”
For once, Ernie saw the wisdom of what I was saying. He followed as I ran toward the lobby and the front entrance. Uniformed bell hops stepped backward. We shoved past and raced into the hotel lobby. Ahead, carpeted steps led to the casino. Elevator doors sat open. Clattering plates and flatware in the Olympos Hotel Restaurant and Coffee Shop raised a din.
Yun’s armed bodyguards were only a few yards behind.
