“I spoke to the captain of the Myongdong Police Station. He said that the woman who ran the pochang ma-cha in the area you describe has indeed disappeared, and her cart along with her. But there’s no reason to believe that she was murdered. If she had an unwanted nephew on her hands, maybe she decided that just packing up and leaving would be the best of all concerned. After all, he did end up in an orphanage.”
“But the boy says she was murdered.”
“We have no reports of any killings in the Myongdong area in many months. The captain was insistent on that.”
We thanked him and walked out of his office. Ernie surprised me by bringing up the subject first.
“We haven’t been to Myongdong in a while. Wouldn’t hurt to stop by the OB Beer Hall tonight and have a few wet ones.”
I looked at him. “You’re right about that. It couldn’t hurt nothing. Nothing but our livers.”
The OB Beer Hall hummed with customers, most of them Korean businessmen just off work, standing at the counters chatting with friends. Blue-suited girls with jet black hair tied snugly under white bandanas ran back and forth to the tap, refilling huge mugs of beer. The hefty young woman behind the stick wore a red and white nameplate with the OB Beer logo pinned above her breasts.
After our second refill I spoke to her in Korean.
“Miss Kim, do you ever get a customer in here known as Cruncher Chong?”
“Cruncher? Oh, yes. He comes in here often.”
“Is he here now?”
The young lady scanned the room. “No. I haven’t seen him. You know him?”
“No. Not yet. But we’re looking for him on behalf of a boy named Yun Chil-bok.”
The girls looked at us blankly. “Well, if Cruncher Chong is not here, he is usually at the Black Dragon nightclub.”
“Where’s that?”
She pointed. “Two blocks down and turn right past the Teahouse of the Seven Virgins.”
Two more uniformed young women popped through swinging doors carrying freshly washed mugs and more snacks to put on display. Ernie stared at them, and for a moment I thought he was going to drool. Over the mugs or the girls, I wasn’t sure which. I said thank you to Miss Kim and pulled Ernie out of there.
The Black Dragon nightclub had a long bar with upholstered bar stools and cocktail tables peeking out from behind planters and aquariums full of tropical fish. When our eyes adjusted, I saw that the joint was only about half full. The crowd was younger than at the OB Beer Hall. And full of hustle.
A tall, slender man with a heavily greased pompadour stood at the bar. He was talking, and the bow-tied bartender kept smiling and nodding. He stared at us when we walked in, as most of the people in the place did, and then he reached in his pocket and pulled out something long and gnarled. He stuck the tip of it into his mouth. At first I thought it was a carrot, but as my eyes refocused I realized it was a piece of ginseng root.
They say that true ginseng grows only in the soil of the Korean peninsula. It has been known since ancient time for its medicinal powers, but most men saw it as an aphrodisiac.
As I passed him, I could almost see my reflection in his big white teeth. I fought off the urge to say, “What’s up, doc?”
Only Ernie would have gotten away with it.
We took a seat at a table, and after a while a heavily made-up waitress in a tightly wrapped dress came over to serve us. We ordered two beers and a plate of dried cuttlefish. When she delivered the wets, Ernie smiled and made her promise to come back and talk after taking care of a few more orders.
The tall man at the bar continued to drink, but I didn’t see him forking over any money. Four more sleazy types paraded into the Black Dragon and joined him. They laughed at his jokes and backed off when he playfully poked them with his ginseng root.
When the waitress came back, we discovered that her name was Miss Min and that she had been working there for six months. When we asked her if she had a boyfriend, she laughed.
“Do you know Cruncher Chong?” I asked.
Her head turned involuntarily toward the bar. “Oh, yes. Everyone knows him.”
“Is he a gangster?”
She dropped her head slightly and shook it so her short, curly black hair bounced and shimmered. “I don’t know.”
“Did you know Ahn Chong-ai, the woman who owned the pochang ma-cha on the street here?”
“No. I don’t know her.” Her smile had disappeared. She picked up her cocktail tray. “I must go now.”
Ernie grabbed her by the wrist. “Don’t speak to anyone about our conversation,” he said. I translated what he said to Korean. She glared at us and left.
I took a sip of my beer. “We’re not making many friends.”
“Not yet,” Ernie said.
We ate the dried cuttlefish and nursed our beers until they were just suds. Cruncher Chong and his cronies, waving and making much noise, said their goodbyes and paraded out the door.
We paid our bill. It was about twice as expensive as in Itaewon.
The tail was easy. They weren’t expecting to be followed, especially by a couple of foreigners.
Seven or eight customers sat around the cart on wooden stools. Steam billowed from a vat of soup, and the reddened faces of the revelers glistened in the glare of the naked bulb overhead.
Cruncher Chong and his buddies monopolized the attention of both the customers and the rotund woman who poured shots of soju into small cups. The men toasted the company and drank heartily of the potent rice liquor.
The crowds of Myongdong streamed past the little pochang ma-cha. Blue and white canvas flaps were draped over iron ribs, protecting the customers from the elements and the curious stares of passersby.
“If this is the cart that belonged to the boy’s aunt,” Ernie said, “they only moved it about ten blocks.”
“Enough to confuse an eight-year-old who’d never been in the city before.”
We waited around the corner until Cruncher Chong and his buddies got up and left. Then we joined the revelers at the open-air cart. There were three Korean men and two women, all middle-aged working-class people who were surprised to see us. We ordered a couple of shots of soju, and the proprietress threw in some unhusked peanuts, gratis, in honor of our being the first foreigners to be seen in these parts.
On the pole next to me I noticed a red document. A license of some sort, or a health inspection certificate. I stood up halfway to take a better look. I couldn’t read all the officialese, but I could make out that the current owner’s last name was Chong. The beginning date of the certificate was two weeks ago. The certificate was in a plastic holder, and there was something else behind it. I flipped it forward and saw the name Ahn Chong-ai.
The revelers called to me. Everyone had raised their cups. To friendship between Korea and America. I joined in.
A thick-bladed hatchet sat on the cutting board next to the kettle of soup. I asked the round smiling woman if I could take a good look at her cart, since I was an Amerian and we didn’t have such things where I came from. Her face crinkled into a huge round smile, and she nodded. Behind where she stood was a double panel in the side of the cart. The interior was hollow for carrying the big kettle and the cooking utensils and the canvas cover when the cart was wheeled away on its oversized bicycle wheels. I rubbed the bottom of the wood. It was splintery, not smooth, and a reddish-brown stain spread across more than half of the flat board.
I figured I could climb inside the cart and no one would know I was there.
I stood up and flamboyantly told the crowd how cleverly the cart was arranged and how resourceful were the Korean people. They cheered, and we all drank a little more soju.