Ernie stood up from behind Pak Tong-i’s desk. He had reached the same conclusion. “Somebody’s been here before us,” he said.
Shining both our flashlights in the open drawers, we found the usual accumulation of pencils, paperclips, pens. In the top drawer an accounting ledger. I pulled it out and set it on the blotter. Then we checked the side drawers. An address book. Since all the entries were written in hangul, Ernie handed it to me. I thumbed through it. Pages torn out. All Korean names, no American names that I could see. But the kiyok section-the Korean k sound- was missing. Therefore, no entry for Miss Kim Yong-ai. The accounting ledger held the names of what were probably nightclubs and other entertainment companies. Figures listed in Korean won, none in dollars. Again, no American names. The ledger was neat. Like something prepared for display-or for the tax collector.
The rest of the drawers held nothing of interest. A pair of rubber pullover boots, an expensive Korean straight razor with shaving gear, and a half-used bottle of American-made mouthwash.
Who had preceded us? The Korean National Police? The 2nd Division MPI? Some gangster trying to collect money? Or could it have been Corporal Jill Matthewson herself? She’d been a cop after all. Maybe she’d come to retrieve Kim Yong-ai’s files for some reason.
I didn’t have enough information. The logical thing to do-the only thing to do-was to keep gathering facts.
Ernie held the beam of his flashlight pointing upward beneath his chin. His eyes were dark hollows. “One place we haven’t searched,” he said.
“Where?”
The office was tiny. Only two rooms and a byonso. I thought we’d already covered everything. But Ernie shined his flashlight on the wall directly behind Pak Tong-i’s desk. In the darkness, I hadn’t noticed. A door made of some sort of gray synthetic material, not wood, was set flush into the wall.
“What is it?”
“A soundproof room,” Ernie answered. “For listening to music without bothering the neighbors.”
I stared at the door, at the almost invisible hinges.
Ernie placed his flashlight in my free hand and I aimed both beams at the door. Then he grabbed the metal handle.
“On the count of three,” Ernie said. “One, two, three.”
He pulled. It wouldn’t budge. Then Ernie placed both hands on the handle, propped the bottom of his right shoe against the wall, leaned back, and tugged with all his might. The door groaned, held, and then popped open.
It was dark inside, a space not much bigger than a closet. Something moved and at the same time the odor of rotted meat hit my nostrils. As I recoiled, something heavy and flesh-filled plopped sickeningly, with a massive thud, onto the floor. I jumped back, wanting to scream, and gazed down at the thing that lay at my feet.
When I was growing up in East L.A., I knew all kinds of kids- Anglo, black, Mexican-but one thing I realized early on was that Mexican kids are brave. Ridiculously brave. Accepting any sort of ill-considered dare-either to fight someone bigger than them or climb the highest tree or swing by a rope from a power line-was a point of honor. Backing down in front of the other kids was unthinkable. They’d either complete their mission or die trying.
Only two things frightened the tough little vatos of East L.A.: la migra y las brujas. Immigration and witches. Immigration because, for the most part, their parents were in the United States illegally and they’d been taught to shy away from anyone wearing a uniform. And las brujas, the witches, because they represented the power of the ancient world. The world from which their families had fled.
The word witches is misleading. Actually, las brujas are female shamans, like the Korean mudang. Their power arose from the ancient religions of the Aztecs and the other tribes that populated the Valley of Mexico and its environs since before the beginning of time. Las brujas were experts at healing and herbal remedies and mystic spells, and they were rumored to be able to transport themselves into realms denied to normal mortals. And denied for good reason. For one glimpse of these parallel universes-and at the faces of the entities that live there-would drive most men mad.
Did the Mexican brujas and the Korean mudang evolve from the same traditions, hoary with age? From somewhere in Siberia or along the Bering Strait? No one knew. Probably no one would ever know. But I was aware that both groups of women held positions that were similar. Positions within society of awe and respect, positions of power.
So when Madame Chon told me that her daughter’s spirit was hungry and wandering and needed a ritual performed to help it find its way home, that made sense to me. I’d heard such things before. The Catholic Church performs exorcisms to cast out demons but the rites performed by las brujas are designed to communicate with the dead, to find out what they want, to share jokes with them, even to make deals with them. I knew how profoundly people believed in such things. So I had no doubt that Madame Chon would never rest until-as the mudang ordered-Jill Matthewson was brought to her to participate in a ceremony to communicate with the dead.
Even if I didn’t believe that Chon Un-suk’s spirit was hungry- and I didn’t-I knew that her mother’s spirit was. Hungry for rest. Hungry for reassurance that her daughter was well taken care of. And I understood that hunger. Since the day my mother died and left me alone, I’d been hungry myself. Hungry for someone who would love me without reservation. Hungry for someone I could love in the same way.
I saw her from the back bedroom, down the hallway, sitting on the couch in the front room, dressed in a beautiful black silk dress, her hair covered with a black lace mantilla. At that moment, as always, I was hungry for her embrace. Hungry for her kiss. Of course, she’d already been dead for five years. I was growing up, tall for my age, about to start middle school. My foster parents told me it was a dream, that I’d been taking a nap and I’d been disoriented. Others said it must’ve been someone else, not my mother. Maybe one of the older girls who was staying with the same foster parents. But none of those orphan girls owned black silk dresses or anything as old- fashioned as a lace mantilla.
A priest was summoned to the house. He started to perform an exorcism but I screamed so loudly that he had to stop. The neighborhood women tried to calm me, to explain to me that this ceremony was for the best and that I should listen to the wise words of the priest. I would have none of it. Every time the priest sprinkled holy water around the room, I started to scream again. Finally, he lost patience, picked up his vestments and his chalice, and left. I didn’t want him to chase my mother away. She’d come back, for the first time since she’d died, and I didn’t want anyone to force her to leave.
Later, the bruja arrived. She burnt some bones of a crow and added smelly herbs to the small fire but this time I didn’t complain. She promised not to chase my mother away but just to talk to her. The trance lasted hours and I fell asleep. But when the old crone shook me awake, she grabbed my hand in her cold fist and told me that my mother would always be with me.
Ever since then, she has.
As the corpse rolled toward his feet, Ernie leaped backwards.
“What the-” After the body stopped rolling and Ernie managed to gather his courage, I handed his flashlight back to him and he kneeled and studied the pile of clothing beneath us. I held the beam of my flashlight on a face mostly covered by a broad-brimmed hat. Then I leaned forward and touched my fingers to a fleshy neck. No pulse. I pushed deeper. Was I sensing warmth? No. None. How long had this man been dead? Hours, I thought. Involuntarily, my hand recoiled. Ernie slipped the hat back to reveal a face.
Pak Tong-i. Fat tongue hanging lewdly to the side of purple lips. Face flushed red. Not red like a beet but a red so bright that it looked like a clot of blood held together by a transparent membrane of flesh.
We stood silent, trying to gather our wits. Trying to be professional. But in the middle of the night in this cold, cement office building with only the soft green glow of a lamp to comfort us, it wasn’t easy. Death never is.
Taking a deep breath, I checked for wounds. I took my time about it, loosening his clothes, making sure I didn’t miss anything. No physical trauma, not even bruises, except for chafing around his wrists. He’d been bound. And there were burns around his neck. Rope burns. The lines ran up his pudgy neck in a steady progression.
“They interrogated him,” Ernie said finally. “Tightening the rope each time he refused to answer.”
I checked the bone beneath the flesh of the neck. It didn’t seem to be damaged and his air passage seemed clear. The rope burns on his neck were superficial. Strangulation was not the cause of death. The vermilion hue of his face told its own story.
“Heart attack,” I said. “While he was being questioned and systematically strangled, he popped a valve.”
