Slicky Boys

18

Herbalist so sputtered and bellowed in rage, wiping the steaming broth from his eyes.

“Sikkya!” Born of a beast!

Shadows emerged from the far wall. Bodyguards. I expected that. Herbalist So wouldn’t be here with us alone, although he wanted to give that appearance.

Ernie kicked over a few of the bubbling vats, grabbed an earthen jar, and flung it at the approaching slicky boys. They jumped back from the boiling spray.

“Come on, you bastards!” Ernie yelled. “I’m ready for you.”

I grabbed him by the arm and pulled. He jerked away.

“Why not fight ‘em here? There’s no escape from this place.”

“There might be,” I said. “Come on.”

We burst through the beaded curtain and, instead of heading back to the chamber where we had encountered the Chinese woman, followed the drifting smoke toward the tunnel with the rusty railroad tracks.

Behind us there was much commotion and cursing. Apparently the bodyguards were helping Herbalist So to his feet, figuring they had plenty of time to deal with us.

Herbalist So, still enraged, hollered orders. All of which amounted to the Korean version of “After them!”

I slowed and grabbed one of the oil lamps. I motioned for Ernie to do the same.

I had a hunch about this particular tunnel. Smoke drifted into it and the smoke had to go somewhere. Apparently the tunnel hadn’t been used for a’ while; that might be a good sign. The slicky boys wouldn’t think about it as a possible escape route.

There had to be some way out of this dungeon. Whether we could find it before the slicky boys caught us, that was another question.

The old mining cart was enormous, made of cast iron. I would’ve liked to have examined it, see if it was smelted here in Korea or in Japan, but there wasn’t time.

The tunnel itself was pitch black and just big enough to accommodate the cart. Holding the lamp in front of me, I stepped up on the old tracks and stood forward.

Ernie didn’t. “I’m not going in there,” he said.

I turned. “We have no choice. You pissed them off now.” I motioned at the smoke wafting past us. “If there’s a way out of this joint, this is it.”

Footsteps clattered in the outer passageway. The slicky boys had already discovered that we hadn’t returned to the Chinese woman’s sitting room, but had foolishly delved deeper into the catacombs. Their voices grew louder.

Ernie asked, “Are there any rats in there?”

“No way,” I said.

He swallowed, then followed me into the darkness.

The lamps helped at first. The ceiling was so low that we had to bend at the waist to avoid clunking our heads into low-hanging clumps of granite. A trickle of water seeped from the rock walls. Darting through the air toward us, a bat veered off at the last second. Ernie covered his face with his forearm but kept moving forward.

Was I frightened? You’re damn right I was. But now that Ernie had insulted Herbalist So, and they had us down here in this dungeon, and nobody else in the world knew we were here, and we’d already proven that we were going to be the worst thorn in their side they’d ever experienced, their decision about what to do with Ernie and me would be easy. Do away with the troublemakers.

And if nobody ever found our bodies, what would the honchos at 8th Army think? That we’d deserted? That we’d finally given vent to our real desires and become part of the underground scene in Itaewon?

Probably. They’d believe whatever was convenient. Anything would be better than dealing with the embarrassing proposition that we might have been murdered by the slicky boys, whose existence they didn’t even acknowledge. And we were officially off the Whitcomb case. That would be the water they’d use to wash their hands of us.

The voices at the mouth of the tunnel grew nearer. They’d realized where we were. Probably from the flickering light of our oil lamps. A Korean word was bandied about. Hyuu-juh. Fuse.

The tunnel was dropping slightly downhill. This surprised me. I had expected it to rise, to reach the surface. How else had a draft been created that drew the smoke?

No sense worrying about it now. We kept moving.

Sweat dripped from my face. Although it was cold as hell in the tunnel, the exertion and the tension were causing me to overheat. Ernie was in good shape, I knew, but behind me he too breathed heavily.

Something rumbled. The cavern trembled.

At first I thought it was an earthquake. Metal creaked. The rumbling returned, steady now, like low rolling thunder. Then I realized what it was.

The mining cart.

Ernie stumbled and cursed. “Jesus H. Christ! They’re rolling the fucking cart down here.”

I searched the shadowy walls. No openings. There hadn’t been any since we entered this tunnel. The cart took up every inch of space. There’d be no way to avoid it when it reached us, which it would do in seconds. We’d be run over. Crushed. “Keep moving forward,” I told Ernie. “It’s our only chance.”

And although I was bending at the knees, hobbling like Quasimodo tending his bells, I started to run. I felt Ernie’s hot breath on my neck.

My right foot slammed into something. Pain shot up my leg. I stumbled forward, arms out, dropping the lamp, and splashed face-first into slime. My lamp sizzled, then sputtered out.

Ernie tripped over my feet and crashed down on top of me. Wriggling free of him, I raised my head out of the scum-filled water, gasping for breath. At first I thought my eyes were covered with mud, but when I reached up and rubbed them I found that my face was clear. Now that both lamps had been snuffed out, we were in almost total darkness.

I stared back down toward the mouth of the tunnel. Nothing. Only the huge silhouette of the ancient mining cart, rumbling relentlessly toward us.

Flesh thudded into flesh. I reached for Ernie, felt his hands flailing wildly. He was slapping himself.-

“Rats!” he yelled. “Fucking rats!”

“They won’t hurt you.” I stood and pulled him. forward. “Come on. We have to move! The cart.”

He came to his senses and followed me forward.

The tunnel was rising now. The pool of scum had been its low point, moisture and filth accumulated from decades of stagnation.

The darkness was maddening. Since I couldn’t see the overhanging rocks, I leaned forward as I ran, grasping the track rails with my slimy hands, pulling myself ever onward.

But no matter how fast we moved the rumbling of the mining cart kept growing nearer. And faster.

A blade slashed into my eyes. I dropped to the ground and rolled, covering my face with my arms, trying to escape the pain.

Within seconds I was moving forward again. So was Ernie. And when I uncovered my eyes I realized what had happened.

Somebody’d found the fuse box they were talking about and a long string of lightbulbs, stretching in front of and behind us, had been switched on.

Ahead about twenty yards, loomed a wall of stone. Dead end.

I willed my eyes to focus, searching for a means of escape. Two-by-fours were bolted up against the end of the tunnel. Bumpers:

I figured it out. The mining cart had been designed to be rolled down the tunnel and carried by its own momentum up the incline, where it slammed into the splintered lumber.

Not good.

The mining cart was moving so fast now that even the rising tracks wouldn’t slow it down. There were no hollowed spaces in the wall, no escape hatches.

Ernie and I were about to be crushed by two tons of rolling metal.

When we were about ten yards from the end of the tunnel, the cart splashed into the pond of scum behind us. By now, my eyes had adjusted to the harsh light and I was able to make out the outlines of a ladder against the far wall. Maybe there was some hope after all.

Reaching for the ladder, I scrambled up and saw the square outlines of a trapdoor in the roof. I shoved upward. The door groaned but wouldn’t budge.

Ernie was right below me, glancing back at the rapidly approaching cart. “Push it open!”

“Too heavy!” I yelled.

“Here,” he said. “Brace your feet on that rock.”

I did as I was told, lifting myself off the ladder. Bolted into the stone wall, it was old and rusted. Using his legs for leverage, Ernie gripped the ladder and pulled. The ancient bolts groaned but didn’t budge.

The cart was only yards away now. It was all over.

Then, without warning, the bolts gave and the metal ladder popped free. Ernie shoved it up to me and stabbed his finger at an outcropping of granite.

“Use that as a lever.”

I did. With one end of the ladder braced against the trapdoor, the stone as a fulcrum, and Ernie pulling down on the other end of the ladder with all his weight, the trapdoor started to creak open.

Ernie hung from the far end of the ladder like a monkey after coconuts.

“Push, goddamn it!” he yelled. “Push!”

I shoved up on the trapdoor with all my strength. Lumber scraped on lumber, filth fell into my eyes and mouth, and suddenly the trapdoor popped free.

The cart was a moving shadow now, only yards away from us.

I scrambled up, reached back in, grabbed Ernie’s outstretched hands, and tugged.

The rumbling was like the approach of death itself. I jerked backward with all my strength, and Ernie’s head popped through the opening. His butt and his feet cleared the ground seconds before we were both knocked back by a tremendous crash.

We lay on a dirty wood floor, dazed and winded, peering down into the darkness and the billowing dust. Beneath us, as if its lethal mission had been accomplished, the big cart started to roll back the way it came.

Apparently, someone had been inside it, because four dark figures hopped out onto the tracks.

They were quick and we were exhausted and not thinking fast enough. By the time I pulled myself together they were climbing up the wall.

I shoved the trapdoor. It clapped shut, but that wouldn’t be enough to keep them away. Frantically, I searched the space we were in.

Dust, crates, grimy windows. We were inside a warehouse.

Against one wall sat an enormous crate. I forced myself to my feet and stumbled toward it. Stenciling. In English. Pittsburgh, PA. Some sort of machinery. A lathe, I think.

“Ernie! Help me with this.”

Together we tried to shove the crate atop the trapdoor. It wouldn’t budge. I wedged myself between the crate and the wall, set my sneakers against a wooden beam, my back against the box, and pushed. Ernie and I strained with all our might. The crate started to slide.

I heard the trapdoor creak open.

Ernie told me later that fingers crept over the edges of the opening like tarantulas crawling out of a hole.

The crate scraped forward, slid over the top of the trapdoor, and slammed it shut.

When we staggered back to the Nurse’s hooch, she slid back the paper-paneled door, opened her mouth when she saw us, and screamed.

We both crashed face-first onto the warm vinyl floor. Ernie waved his paw, like a canine begging for mercy.

“We’re okay,” he said. “We’re okay.”

Ajjima from next door rushed over, and soon she and the Nurse had us out of our filthy clothes. They washed our faces with hand towels and poured barley tea down our throats.

Gradually, the warmth and the hot water and the soap brought us back to our senses.

“What happened?” the Nurse asked.

“The slicky boys,” I said. “They kidnapped us.”

The Nurse’s face shifted from worry to panic.

“They were going to ask for a ransom,” Ernie said, “but it finally dawned on them that nobody was going to pay.”

For some reason we both found that uproariously funny and we howled with laughter.

Our hysteria seemed to make ajjima nervous. She loaded up a metal pan with the towels and the barley tea she had brought over. The Nurse escorted her out and bowed politely, thanking her for her help. Ajjima returned to her hooch on the other side of the courtyard.

The Nurse rummaged through her cabinet, pulled out a crystalline bottle of soju, and poured us each a shot in small cups. We tossed them down.

After we had calmed down a little, I started to explain.

I told the Nurse about the twelve guys who had jumped us and being wrapped in canvas and the beautiful Chinese woman and Herbalist So and the escape through the tunnel and the trapdoor in the warehouse on the 8th Army compound.

She was astonished. “On the compound?”

“Yes. An old warehouse. GI’s never go in there. Koreans do all the manual labor on the compound. Besides, it’s very well hidden. Nobody ever would’ve found it unless they were looking for it. And the slicky boys haven’t used it for years. Probably figured it was too risky.”

The warehouse was on Yongsan’s south post, in an old storage area of brick buildings built by the Japanese Imperial Army. When we left it and walked up behind one of the security guards, we damn near gave him a heart attack. Once he regained control of himself, however, he knew better than to ask questions.

The Nurse was curious about Herbalist So. She’d heard rumors about him, but no one in Itaewon was sure if he really existed. I told her what I had observed and then told her about the calluses he had mentioned on Miss Ku’s hands.

The Nurse rubbed the tips of her fingers. “The kayagum,” she said, nodding. “Very bad for woman’s hands.”

“We have to talk to Miss Ku,” I said. “She could be the key to this entire investigation. And at least now we know how to find her.”

“How?”

“There must be places where women study the kayagum, where they play it for fun, or to make money entertaining.”

The Nurse nodded gravely. “Yes. Many places.”

I raised my palms in the air, resting my case. “Then all we’ve got to do is hit a few spots in Seoul, places where kayagum players hang out, and we’ll find Miss Ku.”

“You must be out of your gourd,” Ernie said. “There’s probably a jillion joints like that.”

“We can do it.”

The Nurse nodded agreement. “I can help.”

“See?” I told Ernie. “We even have our own native guide.”

Ernie groaned and poured himself another shot of soju.

The Nurse squeezed my hand and smiled. I knew why. She was thanking me for including her in our investigation. She’d be happy to spend more time with Ernie, no matter what the reason.

Still, I was worried about including her. The slicky boys had a serious grudge against us. We had not only disrupted their operations, but we now knew the general whereabouts of their king and their headquarters. Maybe I should’ve kept her out of it.

She smiled again and her face took on a deep, satisfied glow.

I sighed. Too late now.