“I thought I was going to meet Mr. Pak.”
“No, no. He sent me. I’m so glad I caught you.” He held out his hand and we shook. “Shall we go in?” he said, motioning toward the teahouse.
“It’s late,” I said.
He nodded. “Then we won’t waste time.” He raised his arm high over his head and out of nowhere a cab appeared. “Come,” he said. “I’ll take you to someone who maybe can help you find this man who is causing so much trouble.”
I hesitated, unsure if I should get in, but he looked harmless enough. “Ming isn’t a Korean name,” I said.
“No.” He smiled broadly. “I am Chinese. Born and bred in Korea though.” He motioned again for me to enter the cab. I did. The cab sped through downtown Seoul and kept traveling north.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Oh, you’re going to love this place. Full of lovely ladies.”
“Where?” I insisted.
“Mia-ri. You ever been there?”
“Briefly,” I said.
“Yes. American GIs don’t go often. Too expensive.”
“I’m not looking for a night on the town,” I said.
“No. Of course not. I just want you to meet someone.”
I asked him how he knew Mr. Pak at the Sam-Il Office, and he told me he was a field agent. He scoured the Korean countryside, from Pusan to Seoul and up north to the DMZ, looking for victims who might be eligible to file claims against 8th Army. He particularly made hay when he followed US armored battalions on field maneuvers. They had a tendency to cause much damage. So did the 101st Airborne or the US Marines when they were rotated in for war games. They caused almost as much damage as a division of tanks, some of it interpersonal rather than physicaclass="underline" pregnant girls, broken noses.
“Did you know Mr. Barretsford?” I asked.
He shook his head vehemently. “I’m only a small fish. He was a big banana.” Ming dragged the words out, pronouncing every syllable. “So sorry what happened to him.”
Ming’s English was the English you hear outside of base camps, laced with GI slang, the language of a hustler. I’d seen his type before, but never one who regularly wore a coat and tie. Probably to impress potential clients.
“Who is this person you’re taking me to?”
“A very intelligent lady, but somewhat of a pest. She’s been bothering Mr. Pak since he opened his office, but there was nothing he could do to help her.”
“And I need to talk to her why?”
“Because of her claims.”
“The ones Pak can’t help her with?”
“Yes, precisely.”
“You’re just trying to get me to take her off your hands.”
“No. It’s more than that. Listen to her. Hear what she has to say.” The cab stopped in front of a brightly lit road that sloped gently uphill. Chinese lanterns were strung across the entranceway, and neon flashed everywhere. I’d been here before on an investigation, but I’d seen the place in the daytime when it was drab and lifeless. I didn’t remember it like this.
The road was lined with single-story establishments all emblazoned with neon signs written in a combination of the indigenous hangul script and Chinese characters. Some of the characters I could read. Printed beneath these flashing red, blue, and gold signs in smaller script was an English translation like Blazing Star Nightclub or Flying Dragon Inn or, my favorite, The Long Life Scotch Corner. In front of these establishments, pouring out the doors, were beautiful young ladies, fully made up, waving and cooing and calling to any likely male. What made it all so stunning and so strange to the foreign eye was that the girls in each establishment all wore exactly the same type and color of evening gown. At one, the uniform was a floor-length, high collared dress with a slit up the side; at another, a mini skirt and a tight blouse displaying pushed-up decolletage. They were a team or, more accurately, a family.
Mia-ri is a playground for men, mostly Korean businessmen. Groups of men, usually executives from the same company or employees of the same government office, entered an establishment as a group and sat on the floor of the party room around a low table, each with a lovely hostess next to them. Food and drinks-and eventually entertainment-were brought to them. The hostesses encouraged the men to engage in drinking games and stuffed food in their mouths, all in an effort to run up the bill. Usually there was one woman in charge: an older woman, a “mama-san” in GI parlance. She and the leader of the group of men would negotiate in advance on a set price for a certain amount of food and drink-and time with the girls. During the frivolity, if that price was exceeded, which it often was, additional charges would be slapped on. This system usually worked, but not always. It was a common site to see a group of inebriated businessmen trying to leave a Mia-ri establishment late at night and the mama-san and the other girls hanging onto their coats arguing about additional charges.
I knew all this, and the only reason I knew was because Ernie and I had once followed an investigation here and witnessed how it all worked. As usual, Ernie’d flirted with the girls and over-promised, and after spending about half a month’s pay, we practically had to fight our way out of the Eternal Spring Whiskey Bar, an establishment that had been replaced now, I saw, by the Kiss Kiss Gentleman’s Club.
As field agent Ming and I walked up the center of the narrow road, some of the girls waved at us, but mostly half-heartedly. They could see by our shabby clothes and by our demeanor that we weren’t the advance guard of some group of up-and-coming executives. We looked odd, Ming and I, out of place, and the girls were puzzled.
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“Right around the corner,” he said, pointing. “The Inn of the Crying Rose.”
“ ‘The Crying Rose’? That’s a sad name for one of these establishments.”
“Yes. She’s a strange woman.”
Once we turned there was less neon. The joints were smaller, with only a single sign above the door, and most of them had only one or two women standing outside. The Inn of the Crying Rose had none. Ming pushed the door open and motioned for me to enter.
A tiled bar and the mirror behind it were illuminated by a dim light and a few upholstered booths ran along the wall. This was for smaller groups of two, three, or four men, groups who couldn’t afford the larger establishments along the main drag. Behind a sliding, oil-papered door there was one party room, dark now, which was large enough to hold a group of a half dozen. A smattering of cocktail tables filled the rest of the space. The music was some Korean lament sung by Patti Kim.
One booth in the corner was filled by three drunken men and hostesses but nobody looked up at us, which was a good sign. Ming hustled me toward a booth on the opposite wall. A waitress holding a silver tray followed, and after we took our seats she bowed and said, “Muol duhshi-geissoyo?” What can I get for you?
I ordered beer. Ming ordered tea.
After she left, two hostesses appeared, smiling and decked out in red evening gowns. Ming bowed and told them very politely in Korean that we were there on business, and we only wanted to talk to the proprietress. The girls continued to smile and bowed and hustled into the back room. The waitress brought our drinks. We waited. After five minutes, I said, “Where is she?”
Ming glanced at the booth on the far wall and for the first time I noticed that besides the hostesses another person sat with them. She was an older woman with a fuller figure, not one of the slender wraiths who floated silently through the dark environs of the Inn of the Crying Rose. She was smoking-which the younger women wouldn’t do in front of customers-talking to the businessmen and waving her cigarette, jabbing the burning ember like a tiny spear.
“That’s her,” Ming said. “Madame Hoh.”
One of the hostesses leaned over Madame Hoh’s shoulder and whispered something in her ear. They both turned and looked at us. Madame Hoh asked the young woman a couple of more questions and when the girl shrugged she was dismissed. Madame Hoh reached for her shot glass and tossed the brown fluid back in one deft movement before stubbing out her cigarette, rising, bowing to the three gentlemen at the table and taking her leave. She turned and walked toward us.