Martin Limon - The Door to Bitterness

Ernie guffawed. “Maybe he likes boys.”

Suk-ja eyed me more carefully. “No.” She shook her head vehemently.

“Okay, Suk-ja,” Ernie said, placing his hands on his hips. “What of it? What if we are CID?”

“I hear about girl get shot. Radio say. Good girl. Work at Olympos.”

This woman who called herself Suk-ja was no idiot. She’d not only figured out who we were, but why we had ventured into the Yellow House. I stepped back from the doorway and glanced up at the brightly lit window of House Number 59. Inside, the girls sat in various states of undress, heads hanging down or cocked to the side, staring listlessly at the parade of furtive men outside.

Suk-ja, however, missed nothing.

“I help,” she said.

“How can you help?” Ernie asked.

“I hear something today. All woman naked, they talk too much.”

“What do you mean ‘all women naked?’”

“At bathhouse, pyongsin-ah.” Retard. In mock-reproach, Suk-ja slapped Ernie on the forearm. “Woman take shower, woman talk. One woman, she work at House Number Seventeen. She complain taaksan about man come this afternoon. He no look for woman, he look for room.”

Ernie stared at her, waiting.

“He only want one room, this woman say. No like any other. Got to have window. Got to be high-up. Other things too, but she don’t know all. Mama-san ask him why he care about room so much but he get angry.”

“Is he an American?” I asked.

“Yeah. GI. But hair too long. Here and here.”

She pinched the back of her neck and her sideburns. The guy needed a trim. If he was a GI, he hadn’t stood inspection for a while.

“So why was this woman gossiping about him?” Ernie asked.

“Huh?”

“Talk. Why did she talk about him?”

“Oh. Because she get mad. He take her room, but then choose another girl to stay there with him. She no like. She want to get clean clothes take to bathhouse, but this man he busy all time with other girl. Too much boom boom. Mama-san say she no can go in, maybe he get taaksan angry.”

“Was this guy wearing a suit like us?” I asked.

“I don’t know. She no say.”

“What’s this woman’s name?”

“I don’t know. But she new. That’s why she got room top floor.” Suk-ja raised a hand above her head. “Away from customer.”

“Where’s House Number Seventeen?” Ernie asked.

“I show you.”

“No. Just tell us.”

Before Ernie could grab her, Suk-ja scurried away, back into House Number 59. She glanced over her shoulder and said, “Chom kan man.” Just a moment.

“Looks like she’s going with us,” Ernie said.

I nodded.

In a few minutes, Suk-ja emerged, wearing blue jeans and sneakers and a pullover wool sweater. Her hair was tied back in a tight ponytail. But what was most surprising was that she had slipped on a pair of black, horn-rimmed glasses that looked extremely attractive on the smooth oval of her unblemished face. Had she been carrying a book and a slide rule, I would’ve sworn she was a college girl.

“Bali,” she said. Hurry.

We trotted after her through a narrow, fog-filled alley. Ernie kept his hand on the hilt of his. 45. I kept my eyes on shadows, suspicious, waiting for one to move.

Ernie held Suk-ja back.

We stood in the mouth of an alley gazing up at House Number 17. It was a ramshackle gray building made of rotted wood planks broken out in pustules of peeled paint. The fog hovered low to the damp, flagstone-covered lane. Behind the brightly lit plate glass window on the first floor a few women shuffled about. They seemed to be older, some slightly overweight. One wore pajamas.

“Kuji,” Suk-ja said.

I’d learned the word on the streets, not in my Korean language class. Some would translate it as “dirty,” but that wasn’t quite right. “Squalid” came closer. In brothels, as in everything else in human life, there are hierarchies of quality.

Ernie caught my attention and motioned with his eyes. Most of House Number 17 was dark. But on the third floor, a dim light shone.

Ernie and I’d discussed it on the way over here. This guy Suk-ja had heard about in the bathhouse could be a GI, but maybe not. He could’ve had something to do with today’s robbery, but maybe not. Either way we wanted to talk to him. Should we call in the KNPs? No. Too early for that. This could be nothing, a false alarm. Until we had solid information, we didn’t want to bother Lieutenant Won with unnecessary requests for assistance.

We’d check out the guy ourselves.

“That’s her,” Suk-ja said, pointing at one of the women sitting behind the front window. “The one I talk to in bathhouse. Paran seik.” Wearing blue.

I translated for Ernie

“I go checky checky,” Suk-ja said.

Once again, Ernie held her back. “We’ll go,” he said.

I studied the lit window on the third floor. No movement. A fire escape ladder attached to the outer wall ran up to the roof. As in most Korean apartment-type buildings, this one was flat, designed to allow extra space to store earthenware kimchee jars or to hang laundry. There was no movement up there, but it would be an easy jump to the roof of the next building. And from there to the next, and so on. Then down some interior stairs, and whoever had insisted on a room on the third floor of House Number 17 would be walking the streets alone, and safe.

Ernie saw it too. If the Korean National Police stormed House Number 17, the room at the top provided at least the hope of escape.

“Are you sure there was only one GI?” Ernie asked Suk-ja.

“That’s what she say.”

If this was the right guy, we had to be prepared for the fact that he would be armed. Probably with the pistol the thieves had stolen from the security guard at the Olympos Casino. Ernie pulled out his. 45 and jacked back the charging handle. Suk-ja jumped away from the clang.

“Sorry,” Ernie said.

Someone shouted. I peeked around the corner of the alley.

Sailors. Merchant marines. Speaking some sort of gibberish. Not English. Not Spanish. Not Korean. They crowded around the front steps of another house of prostitution. Some smoking, some swigging from brown bottles of OB Beer. All were talking, playing grab-ass. One pulled out a pocket knife and waved it around. The others hooted.

Suk-ja’s hot breath warmed my elbow.

“Shila,” she said. Greek.

I looked down at her. “You understand?”

“Have to,” she replied.

“They all stay at one house?”

“Yes. Sometimes whole ship take one house. Mama-san give, how you say?”

She slashed her hand as if cutting something.

“Discount?”

“Yes. Discount. Maybe all women old and ugly. Then mama-san must give big discount.”

I studied the sailors again. They were just having fun. Still, it was a rough-looking bunch. Best to steer clear of them.

“I’ll take the front,” Ernie told me. “You enter there.” He pointed to the house on the other side of House Number 17, away from the Greek sailors. “Go up to the roof. Cut him off if he tries to escape.”

“No good. What if you run into trouble? It’ll take me too long to run back down the steps.”

Ernie sighed with exasperation. “Sueno, you aren’t armed. What the hell good are you if the guy starts shooting?”

He didn’t intend to be cutting, I knew that. Ernie was simply stating a fact.

“I go up on roof,” Suk-ja said, pointing at her nose. “If he come, I hit him with kimchee jar.”

Ernie and I looked at one another. It wasn’t a bad idea. If she could just slow the thief down, give him something to think about, we’d be across the roof and on him in no time.

“Okay,” Ernie said. “But stay low. If he has a gun, you just hide. You arra? You understand?” He swooshed his down-facing palm through the air, like a bird in flight. “You let him run away.”