been correct. Lying next to Ernie in the mud, the back of his head blown open in a bloody pulp, was Mr. Yun Guang-min, former owner of the Olympos Hotel and Casino.
“Wires,” Ernie said. “In knots. He kept pulling on them, tightening them around my wrists and ankles. Hurt like a mother. Untie them, will ya?”
“Okay, okay.”
I studied the knots as best I could in the dark, going mainly by feel, listening for any movement behind me. Finally, I twisted the tightly wrapped wire but, as Ernie groaned, I realized that I was twisting the wrong way. I reversed the torque and the wires popped free. Ernie reached across and unknotted his other hand.
“Untie my feet,” he said.
I did. Ernie ripped all the wires off of his torso and hopped upright. He strode toward the supine man in front of us, knelt, and lifted the back of his head.
The moon had risen higher. Borum, the Koreans call it. The full moon. It was only a third of the way above the horizon but with this temporary break in the fast moving clouds I had enough light to see clearly the unconscious face before us. Kong. The brother of the smiling woman. He was an Asian man, or an American, depending on your point of view. His nose was broad but slightly pointed, his eyes were Oriental, but deeply recessed in his skull, and his lips were full. The hair was brown, almost as dark as a Korean’s, but the tips of each strand curled.
“Half-Miguk,” Ernie said.
I thought of the photographs I’d seen of Miss Yun. He looked like her. She had been a beautiful woman, and he wasn’t a bad-looking man. He looked like the little boy he’d been in those photographs: frightened, worried, clinging to his mother’s skirts.
“Who else is up here?” I said.
“That’s it.” Ernie wheezed. “The sister left. Couldn’t stand the rain.”
Ernie grabbed a few strands of broken wire. Together, we rolled the brother over and tied his hands behind his back.
I was exhausted. Ready to crash right there. But I knew we had to transport this guy to the nearest Korean police station, turn him in, and then convince somebody to police up the dead body of Mr. Yun Guang-min. After that, we’d spend the next couple of hours giving our report. A long night but it had to be done. I had just started to twist wire around his wrists, when I heard the footsteps behind us.
Ernie and I both turned.
With the full moon framing her head, a blonde woman stood with her shoulders thrust back, pointing the barrel of a pistol at my nose.
She was smiling.
Ernie and I rose slowly to our feet, holding our hands out to the sides.
With her free hand, she motioned for me to pull the. 45 out of my coat pocket. I did as I was told, holding the weapon butt first.
She pointed at the ground in front of her, and I tossed the weapon down. She bent at the knees, careful to keep her pistol pointed at us, and picked up the. 45. She stuck in her belt, behind her back.
All the while she was doing this, she kept smiling gleefully, the madness in her eyes flaming.
“You know nothing,” she said, still smiling. “You don’t know how many times they beat up my brother. He come home from school, every night, bleeding, cut up, bruised. One time they break his arm. Another time they break his, how you say?” She pointed at her side.
“Ribs,” I said.
“Yes. Hurt every time he breathe. No can go doctor. No have money. Me? I’m okay. Kids make fun of me, other girls laugh at my hair, but nobody beat me. Just boys all time touch, pinch me, say my mother yang kalbo. You understand?”
“Foreigner’s whore.”
“Even teacher one time say why I don’t go back my own country. My father country. I no say anything. Too ashame. I don’t know my father. Where he go? Who he? What his name? I don’t know. I ask my mother, she slap me. Later, I ask my mother if my brother’s daddy same same my daddy. She slap me again. Then she cry. How I know who my father is? And then my mom get sick. Can’t work in nightclub no more. Can’t earn big money from GI. GIs who come to our house every night, sleep in bed with my mother, make a lot of noise.”
She inhaled and exhaled, heavily, as if asthmatic. Smiling all the while.
“And me and my brother, we lay on floor next to bed, hold each other, try to sleep but we no can sleep. Drunk GI wake up, tell my mother to do things she don’t want do. And then they fight and GI try take money back, but my mother won’t let GI have money, and they fight more, and finally my mother do what he want her do. And before finished, my brother, he already sleep. Me? I no can sleep. I listen my mother. After finish, after GI sleep, she cry. Once I go to her, touch her arm, ask she not cry. She slap me. Tell me go back to sleep. But Ai-ja… ” With her free hand, she pointed at her own nose. “Ai-ja no can sleep. Ai-ja never sleep. Ai-ja always watch out for GI. Watch out for woman who no help my mother. Woman who always take things my mother get from GI boyfriend, things out of PX, sell to this woman. Later, when money gone, does she help my mother? No way, Jose. Karra chogi, she say. Get lost. So we leave and my mother every day she more sick. Every day she catch GI, but sometimes they no pay her and what you gonna do? We stay in yoguan at first during winter time, sleep outside during summer. But next winter money all gone. Snow come, we sleep outside. Sometimes, my brother he get angry. Taaksan angry. He punch GI. But GI punch him back and brother fall down, no can get up. When he’s older, he get up, punch GI. Sometimes, he win and GI run away. Is my mother happy? No way. She slap my brother, tell him go away, she no can feed him no more. So he stay away all day, but at night he find us and he sleep with us on sidewalk.”
Her brother started to rouse himself.
“Pretty soon he wake up,” the smiling woman said. “He all the time wake up. Even big GI knock him down, my brother he tough. He all time wake up.”
The moon hovered behind her head, and her smile was as bright and broad as the red face of the lunar orb. But the storm clouds off the sea were on the move again. They rolled inland and started to blot out the moonlight. The darkness deepened, and more drops of rain splattered the mud.
“And then VD honcho come,” the smiling woman said. “What’s his name?”
“Fairbanks,” I said.
Ernie’s eyes darted, looking for escape, but even Ernie knew he couldn’t outrun a bullet.
“Yes, Fairbanks,” the smiling woman said. “He come. Say my mother have TB. She say ‘bullshit.’ We cry, we scream, we punch but they take her anyway. Where? We don’t know. Me and brother, we don’t know.”
Her smile was broader than ever now. So broad that I honestly believed the flesh on her face might rip open.
“So me and my brother,” she said, “we run away from, how you say? Koai-won?”
“Orphanage,” I said.
“Yeah. We live on streets of Seoul. My brother, he run fast. Sometimes he see old people with money, he grab money and run. Or he grab food and run away, but sometimes KNP catch, lock him up, but next day let him go. I wait outside, then we together again. Later,” she said, “I start make money again the way my mother’s boyfriend teach me.”
At her feet, her brother groaned. He raised his head from the mud, shook it, looked around, and sprang to his feet, flinging loose wire from his wrist. Without speaking, his sister gave him the pistol. He grabbed it and aimed it at me and then Ernie.
“Kei sikkya,” he spat. Born of dogs.
The smiling woman said something to him in rapid Korean. He backed up a step.
“Here,” she said, pointing at the burial mound. “Me and brother get money and we pay at temple for this place to put my mother.” That explained why she no longer had the white box wrapped in black ribbon. “Bald men come and say a lot of thing I no can understand and they light fire and wave, what you call?”
“Incense,” I said.
“Yes. Incense. And they do lot of pray and we put mother in ground.”
Then she stepped away and I could see what rested against the side of the burial mound. A photograph. I strained to make it out. The rain came down harder.
