Ping-Pong Heart

– 24-

We were in the jeep now, following Miss Lee and Mr. Fancy Suit west out of Tongduchon into the rugged hills dividing the Eastern and Western Corridors. These roads were two-lane affairs with plenty of mud and gravel interspersed at inconvenient spots, just waiting to toss unwary motorists into a ditch. Every couple of miles or so, another small farm village with straw-thatched homes pressed right up against the edge of the road. Only occasionally did we see a streetlamp. Ernie wanted to turn his high-beams on, but didn’t dare because he didn’t want to be spotted by the couple in the Hyundai sedan ahead of us. So far, he was doing an excellent job, keeping their brake lights visible as they swerved around bends.

Ernie was the best driver I’d ever seen. He could wend his way through the manic Seoul traffic like a shark slicing through tuna, all the while seeming completely unconcerned; leaning back in his seat, fingers touching lightly on the bottom of the steering wheel, appearing for all the world to be a Zen monk in a trance. But when he put on speed he was fearless, absorbing road conditions and traffic like a UNIVAC computer processing data.

The brake lights ahead of us flashed red and then stopped. A turn indicator blinked. The guy veered left.

“Where the hell is he going?” Ernie asked.

“Off the beaten track,” I replied.

The road between the Eastern and Western Corridors was heavily traveled, but as far as I knew, there wasn’t much on either side except rice paddies and hills. I’d never noticed a cross street until now.

We turned left and followed for about a half-mile and the road narrowed, barely wide enough for two cars and no white dividing line down the middle. Ernie downshifted. “Slope,” he said. The engine growled as we rolled steeply downhill.

The forest around us was pitch black. Drooping branches of evergreen trees reached out to grab us. After a few minutes, Ernie said, “How long since we passed a village?”

“At least three miles,” I replied.

“We’re out in the boonies now.”

I couldn’t argue with that. Since leaving Camp Casey we’d climbed mostly uphill, winding through country roads. I figured we’d been traveling almost a half-hour and were about halfway to the Western Corridor. But now we were descending into some sort of valley. The road twisted and turned, leaving us blind to anything more than a few yards ahead. Ernie switched on his high beams. “I don’t give a shit,” he said.

He was right not to; it didn’t matter if they realized we were behind them now. Out here, there was no way to blend in with the traffic because there wasn’t any. Suddenly, just within visibility, a yellow sign loomed indicating a sharp turn in the road with a red arrow pointing to our right. Ernie slammed on the brakes, downshifted once again and, expertly maintaining traction, took the corner.

As we pulled out of the turn, he listened for a moment and said, “What’s that?”

To our left was the sound of water rushing over rocks.

“Whitewater,” I said. “It’s a river.”

“So if I hadn’t made that last turn, we would’ve crashed over an embankment.”

“Like they told us in driver’s ed classes, this ain’t the States.”

“Who needs the States?” Ernie said. “Boring.”

Now the road ran evenly along the edge of the river. Up ahead, through trees, I spotted lights. “We’re almost there,” I said.

Ernie slowed. A few yards on, we passed a sign. It was composed of a huge slice of tree trunk, varnished and carved with giant Chinese characters and smaller hangul lettering.

“What’s it say?” Ernie asked.

Only a dim bulb illuminated it.

“I can only make out the Chinese characters,” I said. “One says ‘chamber,’ and the other says ‘heaven.’”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Ernie rolled slowly into a half-acre gravel parking lot strewn with Korean-made sedans, almost all of them black. Beyond that, lit up like a Macy’s Christmas display, was a traditional Korean building with a large wooden entrance gate, stone stairway and tiled roof with shingles upturned at the edges.

“Freaking Disneyland,” Ernie said.

“Better than that,” I replied. “It’s a kisaeng house.” A place where businessmen could relax with beautiful, elegant hostesses to attend to their every need.

“Nice,” Ernie said. He switched off the jeep’s headlights and found a place to park away from the other vehicles. “Far enough from Seoul that the wife can’t find you, but close enough that you can drive up here in less than an hour.”

We climbed out of the jeep and stood in awe of the glimmering edifice.

“Must be expensive,” Ernie said. He patted the envelope with what was left of our expense account.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said. “We’d run through that before we sat down. Besides, a class joint like this doesn’t allow Miguks.” Americans.

“Good,” Ernie replied. “I’m glad they maintain high standards.”

We walked through the parking lot, hoping we could spot the sedan that belonged to Mr. Fancy Suit. But we hadn’t been able to make out his license number, and all the vehicles looked alike. Ernie placed his palm on the hoods of a few of the cars. Most of them were cold. Finally he found one that was still warm.

“This must be it,” he said.

I pulled out my notebook and jotted down the license plate number.

Then we looked at the entranceway. Inside, gorgeous women in traditional Korean gowns, chima-jeogori, flitted back and forth on seemingly urgent errands.

“You think they’ll like us?” Ernie asked.

“I’m sure they’ll be charmed,” I replied.

We trotted up the stone steps.

When we entered, a woman in a beautifully embroidered white silk dress almost dropped the silver tray she was carrying, which would’ve been a shame, because balanced atop it was a bottle of Johnny Walker Black scotch, a bowl of ice with tongs, and four crystalline shot glasses.

“Andei,” she said, her mouth falling open. Not permissible.

I smiled at her and waved, and we were just about to search the private rooms that stretched down the hallway when Mr. Fancy suit, accompanied by three other Korean men in suits, stepped out of what looked like an administrative office. They walked right past us, as if we weren’t there, and Ernie and I watched them go. The four of them trotted down the steps and Mr. Fancy Suit turned to the other three, bowed, and said some words of farewell. Then he hurried across the gravel lot and climbed into the still-warm sedan that we’d surmised was his. He started the engine, backed out a few yards, and sped off into the night. The other men walked back into the kisaeng house.

“Excuse me,” I said to them in English.

They were grim-faced and businesslike. A couple had huge calluses on their knuckles, as if they’d spent years practicing martial arts.

I continued to speak in English. “The woman who came with that man. Miss Lee. I’d like to speak with her.”

No hint of understanding on their blank faces. I started to repeat myself in Korean, but one of them put out his hand, the palm flat toward me, to indicate that I shouldn’t speak. Then he moved away, but as he did so, he crooked his finger for me to follow. In Korean custom, it’s an insult to do that to an adult. An adult should be beckoned by waving your hand palm downward. Still, I overlooked it and followed the three men down the hallway. Ernie followed a few yards behind, and I motioned for him to wait here.

We passed the office the men had emerged from and turned right down another hallway, this one much shorter than the first. We passed a busy kitchen on the left, then pushed through a swinging door into what appeared to be a community dressing room. On raised platforms, oil-papered floors were festooned with flat cushions. On a few of them sat young women in front of huge mirrors. None seemed surprised by our entrance. Apparently, there was plenty of traffic in and out of this dressing room. One of the women I recognized: Miss Lee Suk-myong.

The man who had crooked his finger at me said, “Miss Lee!”

Then he held out his open palm face-up, as if leaving me to her. The three men turned and stalked out of the dressing room. The woman put down a thin brush and turned to look at me, eyes wide.

“Miss Lee Suk-myong?” I asked.

She nodded silently.

“May I talk to you?”

She nodded again. Then she rose from the cushion, walked to the edge of the raised floor and sat down, spreading her silk skirt in front of her like a huge flower. It was an elegant move, practiced. She gazed at me expectantly.

“Hector Arenas,” I said.

She winced.

“You knew him?”

She nodded. So far, I’d spoken nothing but English.

“You were his yobo.”

She sighed and then said, “For a little while.”

“How long?” I asked.

She thought about it and then said, “Maybe four months.”

“You speak English well,” I said.

“Before, I worked in bar in TDC. Montana Club.”

“Difficult work,” I said.

She nodded. “Very noisy.”

I pictured the Montana Club, country western music cranked up to the highest volume humanly possible.

“Do you work here now?”

“Yes. Now I start. No more Cherry Girl Club.”

“Why not?”

She scrunched her shoulders together. “I don’t like.”

“You don’t like Americans?” I asked.

“They okay. But too much trouble.”

“Trouble like me and my partner showing up today?”

“Yes.” She waved her hand. “I want forget.”

“Forget what happened to Arenas?”

“Yes.”

And forget the time she spent in a Korean jail. But I didn’t mention that.

“So the man who drove you here, the man in the nice suit, is he your boyfriend?”

She shrugged. “No.” But she said it tentatively, as if she wasn’t sure.

“But he got you this job here?”

“Yes.”

“So he has a lot of money?”

She didn’t answer.

“Is his name Nam?”

Again she didn’t answer.

“He’s the man who used to take Arenas out to places like this, to kisaeng houses. He’s the one who they say introduced him to somebody from North Korea.”

Her eyes were tightly shut now.

“Am I right?” I asked.

After a long pause, her eyes popped open and she stared up at me.

“You dummy,” she said. “Everything dummy.” She raised her hand to indicate the vast world around us. “You go now. You know nothing.”

I leaned toward her. “Miss Lee, when Arenas was on trial, did they tell you to say that he had sold things to a North Korean?”

“You know nothing,” she repeated. “Everything they say, not me.”

“They?”

“American soldier, he say.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t remember.”

“What did he look like?”

“Big man, like you. But how you say . . .” She curled her arms in front of her chest like a bodybuilder flexing.

“Stronger,” I said.

“Yes. Big.”

“He told you what to say?”

“Yes. If I no say, no get out of jail.”

“And Arenas, he never sold anything to a North Korean?”

“No.” She searched for a word, her English reaching the limits of her vocabulary.

“Say it in Korean,” I prompted.

“Bandei,” she said.

“Opposite.”

“Yes, opposite. Arenas see that somebody else talk to North Koreans.”

“Who?”

She looked at me as if I were stupid. “Who you think?”

“Nam?”

“No, not Nam. He just businessman. Make money.”

“Then who?”

She twisted her lips, staring at me in exasperation. And then I knew who she was talking about. “The big American?” I asked. “The man with the muscles?”

She nodded, as if relieved.

I stopped and absorbed that for a while. She’d just accused Captain Lance Blood, a commissioned officer in the United States Army, of accepting money from a North Korean agent in exchange for information. This was an entirely new level of shit hitting the fan. If Miss Lee was telling the truth, Lance Blood and his boys from the 501st were not only railroading GIs into Leavenworth, but they were doing so to cover their own espionage. Their own betrayal of their oath of enlistment and their own acts of treason.

For a moment I wavered, feeling the knot in my head; less painful now, but still throbbing.

I considered arresting Miss Lee, or at least taking her in for questioning. But then I remembered I had no jurisdiction. She was a Korean civilian, not a GI. Taking her into custody would be illegal, and might taint any future prosecutions. I decided to contact Mr. Kill. He’d know what to do. Still, for all the effort Ernie and I had put in, I wanted something tangible.

“Will you write that down for me?” I asked. “What you just said.”

She shook her head negatively and hugged herself as if she were suddenly cold.

“We’ll protect you,” I told her.

Once again she looked at me as if I were an idiot.

“If you’re worried about someone hurting you,” I said, “then why are you telling us this?”

“No matter,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter?”

“No more,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

I was confused. “What exactly doesn’t matter?”

She spent a few seconds planning her English sentence and then she said, “It doesn’t matter if you know. Doesn’t matter. No more.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant. Maybe she meant she’d just broken up with Nam and nothing mattered to her anymore, so she’d sold him and the entire operation out. Or maybe she meant that the people involved were beyond prosecution.

I was about to press her further, but apparently the thugs who’d allowed me back here had decided I’d had enough time with Miss Lee. They came up behind me and said it was time to leave. She scurried off. I could’ve resisted and had Ernie back me up, but what was the point? For whatever reason, they’d allowed me to talk to Miss Lee, and she’d dropped a bombshell. Were these guys involved? Maybe not, but they weren’t about to let me spend more time with a girl who made money for them by the hour. Fisticuffs weren’t likely to change that, and they might even make things worse.

The smart move was to notify Mr. Kill. He had jurisdictional authority-and plenty of it.

I tipped an imaginary hat to the three dour-faced gentlemen and found Ernie waiting in the hallway. We trotted down stone steps to the parking lot.

“You find her?” Ernie asked.

“Yeah.”

“What’d she say?”

“First,” I said, “let’s get the hell out of here.”

Ernie could tell that whatever she’d told me had freaked me out. He didn’t ask more questions. We jumped in the jeep; he started it up and drove us away, gravel spitting out from behind our wheels.