about?”
“Them finding me.”
“And if you were as smart as Jill Matthewson…”
“What do you mean ‘if’?”
“I mean since you are as smart as Jill Matthewson, you’d want a backup plan in case they found you.”
“Right.”
“You’d want to still have a chance of getting away if they stumbled onto your location.”
“Right.”
“So you’d have to plan a second escape.”
Ernie studied the map I’d drawn. Then he saw it. “You’d want to be close to Seoul. If you had to run, you’d have a better chance of disappearing if you could get lost in the crowd in a city of eight million people.”
“Right. You wouldn’t want to be stuck up north in Munsan, near the DMZ. There’d be nowhere to go.”
That was an exaggeration. There’d be some places to go but the options for escape into the teeming metropolis of Seoul would be better if you could locate yourself at the southern edge of the Western Corridor.
Ernie glanced again at the map, at the southernmost city within the 2nd Division area of operations.
“Byokjie,” he said.
Because of its nearness to Seoul, it had a plethora of kisaeng houses. In the two years since Tongil-lo had been completed, making the drive from Seoul to the countryside more convenient, they’d sprung up like sunflowers after a summer rain.
“Byokjie,” Ernie said, almost reverentially. Then he brightened. “We ain’t there yet?”
Byokjie was nothing more than a good-sized intersection. Reunification Road, all four lanes of it, ran north and south along the edge of miles of fallow rice paddies. Bright headlights zoomed by in the darkness. Another road, this one two lanes, stretched from Uijongbu in the east and ran west until it smacked right up against Tongil- lo, forming a T-shaped intersection. The little village of Byokjie, sitting along the stem of the T, was lit up by floodlights. The small collection of buildings was what you’d expect: a sokyu sign for the gas station, a tire warehouse, a mechanic’s workshop, and then a few noodle stands. All of the establishments were still open, hoping for late-night business. A well-lit sign next to a large bus stop listed the connecting runs between here and numerous farming villages, all of them home to some people, adults or students, who commuted into Seoul every day.
The cab driver who’d driven us from Bopwon-ni asked us where to stop.
“Kisaeng,” Ernie said.
The driver laughed and waved his hand. “I kuncho manundei,” he said. In this area there are a lot of them.
And there were. We had him cruise slowly east from Byokjie, along the road that headed toward Uijongbu. Every few meters, hand-carved wooden signs and even a few signposts made of marble were engraved with the names of exclusive entertainment establishments. Each had its own gravel-topped driveway that led off the main road and up into the tree-covered hills. Occasionally, a dark sedan drove up one of the gravel roads.
“Take your pick,” Ernie said.
After I spotted more than two dozen signs I said, “We need your jeep.”
“That we do.”
I ordered the driver to continue eastward toward Uijongbu, promising once again that because he had to leave his authorized area of operations in Bopwon-ni, we’d pay him double meter.
An hour and a half before midnight we returned to Byokjie, this time in Ernie’s jeep. Methodical as usual, we cruised down the road, Ernie pulling over each time he saw a signpost. In this manner I jotted down the names of the various kisaeng houses and located the turnoffs on our map. After a few of these stops, Ernie said, “This is going to take forever.”
“You’re right. But one of those kisaeng houses back there, the Koryo Forest Inn, seemed to have more business than anybody else.”
“And?”
“So we reconnoiter.”
“How? They’ll spot our jeep as soon as we drive up.”
“So we park in Byokjie, at the gas station, and hoof it back there.”
Ernie sighed. “You really are nuts, you know that Sueno?”
I didn’t answer.
Ernie pulled the jeep into the enormous gas station and parked at the edge of the gravel lot. I talked to the attendant, flashed my CID badge, and told him we would be back for the vehicle in an hour. He didn’t argue and I purposely didn’t give him a tip. As long as he thought I was here on official business, he wouldn’t dare complain. A nice thing about living in a police state is that people support local law enforcement. Whether they want to or not.
“It’s cold up here,” Ernie said.
“Hush.”
We huddled in the tree line on the edge of the forest, gazing across a parking lot filled with compact black sedans. Most of them were Hyundais, made in Korea, but a few were imported Volvos and BMWs. Rich crowd. White-gloved chauffeurs, slim young Korean men all, stood in clumps, bundled up against the cold, smoking and joking.
The front of the Koryo Forest Inn looked like an ancient palace. A gate painted in red lacquer and carved with the faces of fierce, green-eyed dragons. Beyond the gate, water trickled over rocks in a lush garden and beyond that loomed the raised, varnished floor of the inner sanctum of the Koryo Forest Inn.
“Nice place they got here,” Ernie said. “But expensive.”
We were used to paying a hundred and fifty won, about thirty cents, for a bottle of OB beer in the dives we frequented. Here, in the Koryo Forest Inn, they probably wouldn’t stoop so low as to tell you how much they were charging for booze. And no self-respecting businessman would lower himself to ask. The bill was presented, it was paid out of the company expense account, and that was it. Guys like me and Ernie, who wanted to see a price list before ordering, were not welcome.
“So what’s your plan?” Ernie asked.
“The usual,” I answered. “We go in. We ask questions.”
For once, Ernie Bascom was intimidated. “What if they charge us?”
“For what?”
“For talking to a hostess. I heard they slap a ten thousand won charge on you the minute she sits down.”
“So we won’t sit down. Come on.”
I pushed through the underbrush and walked between two parked cars. By the time the chauffeurs noticed me, I was already underneath the hand-carved wooden portal of the Koryo Forest Inn, Ernie right behind me.
Stunted trees, raked gravel, koi luxuriating in ponds, all lit by hanging Chinese lanterns. We followed the flagstone steps to the elevated porch and as I was about to slip off my shoes, two beautiful young Korean women, decked out in full regalia-jade hairpins, silk-embroidered chima-chogori-stepped forward and bowed.
In unison, they said in lilting, singsong voices, “Oso-oseiyo.” Please come in.
When they rose from their bows their heavily made-up eyes widened.
“Ohmaya,” one of them said, raising her cupped fingers to her mouth. Dear mother. An expression of shock.
The other hostess had more presence of mind and scurried off into a side hallway. I stood on the lacquered wooden floor in my stocking feet, speaking to the remaining hostess.
“Yogi ei Miguk yoja ilheissoyo?” I asked. Has an American woman been working here?
She stared at me without comprehension, still in shock at seeing a long-nosed foreigner plopped down right here in the midst of the opulent Koryo Forest Inn.
Ernie had reached the landing now.
“So they haven’t seen a big nose before,” he said. “Who gives a damn.”
He stepped forward into the main hallway.
The surprised woman found her courage. She scooted in front of Ernie, blocking his path, and bowed.
