Finally, I admitted to myself that I had no idea who had murdered Pak Tong-i. I didn’t have enough information. Maybe I’d never have enough information. Our goal up here was still to find Corporal Jill Matthewson, not to solve a Korean civilian’s murder. But something told me that before we found her we’d have to solve not only the murder of Pak Tong-i but also resolve the mysterious death of Private Marvin Z. Druwood. And, incidentally, we’d have to put to rest the wanderings of Miss Chon Un-suk’s hungry ghost.
The little cab bounced over a hill and then, spread out before us like a sudden gift from the gods, lay the neon-spangled city known as Tongduchon.
The main reason Ernie and I had decided to risk coming back was to find Corporal Jill Matthewson. The second reason was because of what Brandy had promised us: a rendezvous. With a man who knew Pak Tong-i and claimed to have information on the whereabouts of Jill Matthewson and Miss Kim Yong-ai. He’d contacted her early last night, while she was tending bar at the Black Cat Club. Of course he hadn’t come in himself, no self-respecting Korean man would enter a GI nightclub. Instead, a boy came in, a raggedy street urchin, and he’d asked for her by name, Bu-ran-dee. When Brandy acknowledged who she was, the boy handed her a note and waited hopefully for a gift of food or money. When Brandy had read the note she asked him who had sent it but, frightened, he scurried back into the street.
While we’d sat at that cocktail table in the Papa-san Club in Uijongbu, Brandy showed us the note. Scribbled hangul script. I had to read it two or three times to make it out. The writer wanted to meet with the two American cops from Seoul. Tomorrow night- which would be tonight-at eleven p.m. in the Tongduchon City Market at Mulkogi Chonkuk. Fish heaven. They must come alone, the note emphasized, they must bring money, and they would be provided with information on the whereabouts of Kim Yong-ai and- then the script switched to English-MP WOMAN
I’d kept the note and now, sitting in the front seat of the cab entering Tongduchon, I pulled it out of my shirt pocket and read it again by the dim glow of the instrument panel. It didn’t say how much money to bring. Apparently, the guy was willing to bargain. Was the information worth anything? It could be a hoax set up by someone trying to make a quick buck. How many people in TDC knew that we were looking for the MP woman? In the bar district, at least half the population.
We had three hours until eleven p.m. Brandy knew of a yoguan, a Korean inn, where we could wait-and hide from the 2nd Division MPs. As we entered the environs of Tongduchon proper, she instructed the cab driver as to what road to take. After a few minutes, she had him pull over and we climbed out. The weather was cold and it threatened to rain. I paid the driver the agreed-upon fare.
We stood in a narrow road on the southern edge of Tongduchon, not too far from the open-air Tongduchon City Market. But what the hell was mulkogi chonguk? Fish heaven? A few splats of drizzle hit my face.
“Where’s the yoguan?” Ernie asked.
“I don’t want driver to see,” Brandy said. She waited until his red brake lights disappeared around a corner and then said, “Come on.” She led us down a block and turned right until we found the yoguan in a narrow alley. Brandy was catching on to this fugitive stuff real quick.
Maybe too quick.
It’s not like I wasn’t used to Ernie chasing skirts. He never tried to hide his nocturnal activities and he certainly wasn’t bashful. But what bothered me was the lack of consideration Ernie and Brandy showed me.
The yoguan was a wooden-floored, traditional place, with sliding oil-papered doors and warm ondol floors. Small rooms featured cotton-filled mats to roll out on the floor as mattresses and thick silk-covered comforters instead of blankets. Immaculately clean and quite comfortable. But after the three of us settled in and ordered Chinese chop from a restaurant in the neighborhood, Brandy and Ernie immediately started playing grab-ass. It was as if they’d been denied one another for so long-about three hours-that they could no longer restrain the heat of their mutual passion.
Luckily, the food arrived before they’d ripped one another’s clothes off and since we were all famished, we ate heartily. But then, once Brandy set the tray and the bowls and the chopsticks out in the hall, instead of becoming sleepy and catching some shut-eye before our eleven o’clock rendezvous, Brandy and Ernie started necking. They didn’t even bother to turn the light off. Of course, I could’ve sat there and watched. Neither one of them would’ve minded. Brandy was proud of her voluptuous body and her smooth golden flesh. I couldn’t blame her for that, but I didn’t feel comfortable in the presence of all that heavy breathing.
I slid open the door and stepped into the hallway. Neither one of them acknowledged my good-bye.
When I reached the front landing, a soft rain had started to fall. In Korea there are many names for rain, probably because rain is important to Koreans. Without rain, rice doesn’t grow and without rice, people starve. Some of the names for rain actually sound like rain. For example, bosulbi means a light drizzle. Busulbi, with a soft bu as the first syllable, means a slightly lighter drizzle. But the name I always remember, the one that seems most poetic to me, is danbi. Sweet rain. The ajjima who owned the yoguan loaned me an umbrella.
I staggered into the narrow flagstone lane. Not from drunkenness but from exhaustion. Last night, I’d spent the evening in a Korean National Police interrogation room. Not the best place to sleep. Now, I had to stay up until eleven to meet someone who might or might not have useful information. A light shined from within a noodle shop. The glass windows were painted over with red lettering advertising neingmyon, cold noodles, and solnong-tang, beef soup. The small panes were heavily fogged and squeals of laughter erupted from the crowd inside. I thought of entering. It would be a cozy place to sit, indoors, out of the rain. But I knew that as soon as I slid back the wooden door and ducked inside, every pair of eyes in the joint would be on me. And then, after the few seconds of shock at seeing a GI in a place where he doesn’t belong, the crowd would turn back to their own business, studiously ignoring me. I wouldn’t be able to find a seat. I’d stand there awkwardly until finally the female owner would acknowledge me and maybe ask someone to share a table with me. And then things would start to relax. I’d order food, maybe a glass of soju, and eventually someone would speak to me in English. But the awkward period from first walking in the door until first making friends was too much to endure.
I walked past the noodle shop, through the sweet rain, through the cold night air of the city of Tongduchon.
When I was a youngster, East L. A had been a wonderland to me. Full of vitality, I rode my first bike through town, running errands for the foster family I was currently living with. Picking up milk at an Anglo market-and speaking English. Buying pan dulce, sweet bread, at a tortilleria-and speaking Spanish. Sometimes I was tasked with stopping at the local Japanese market to buy fruit or vegetables, although the owner spoke to me in gruff English, never Japanese. I enjoyed running errands. I enjoyed the freedom of speeding around town on my bicycle. And mostly I enjoyed evading, for at least a while, the hard stares of the foster father who seemed constantly surprised that I wanted to eat meals at the same time as his natural kids.
I was an errand boy par excellence. That is until the cholos caught me. It was bad enough that they stole my bike-and the few dollars in my pocket my foster mother had provided for shopping-but then they stole, or attempted to steal, what they really wanted. My dignity.
They shoved me to the ground and spit on me. And when I tried to rise, one of them kicked me and then another joined in. I lay still. They laughed. When they started to argue about how to divide the money they had stolen, I leaped up and punched the leader in the left kidney.