The Ville Rat

– 7-

“Had any strange lately?”

We were at the 8th Army snack bar. Men and women in uniform jostled with Department of the Army Civilians and balanced trays of food from the serving line, wedging themselves into booths and tables that filled the massive Quonset hut. I’d bought myself a mug of coffee, Ernie was having tea, and the man we knew as Strange, a sergeant first class in the US Army, sipped on a straw that stuck out of a plastic cup.

“Before we get to that, Strange,” Ernie said, “what’ve you got for us?”

“The name’s Harvey.”

“Right, Harvey. I forgot.”

Strange was a pervert. Ernie and I weren’t. At least, we didn’t think we were. And the only reason we associated with Strange was because he was the NCO in charge of the Classified Documents section at 8th Army Headquarters. A pervert who had access to the most sensitive military secrets. In addition to that, he was a gossip. He thrived on other people’s stories; he knew almost everyone at the 8th Army head shed and he eavesdropped on every conversation he could. And he was discreet. Most of the time people hardly knew he was there. Like the proverbial fly on the wall. As a result, he was an invaluable source of information for Ernie and me. The catch was that in exchange for his secrets, Ernie had to tell him about the strange he’d gotten recently. That is, new sexual conquests. I doubted that Strange had ever had a sexual conquest in his life, but he sure liked hearing about them.

Strange looked sharp. His thinning brown hair was combed straight back and he wore sunglasses even though the only light in the snack bar was from the overhead fluorescent bulbs. A plastic cigarette holder dangled from his lips, with no cigarette in it.

“I’m trying to quit,” he’d tell anyone who asked, although I don’t think anyone had ever actually seen him smoke. Oddly, he swiped imaginary ashes from the neatly pressed sleeves of his starched khakis. Strange glanced around the room, making sure we weren’t being watched. Then he leaned forward. “The Gunslinger,” he whispered.

“The what?” Ernie asked.

“Not so loud. The Gunslinger. That’s what this is all about.”

“What’s all about?” Ernie asked.

“This case you’re working on.”

“Which one?”

Strange seemed exasperated. He blew air into his straw, making the soda at the bottom bubble. “The one about the dolly up north. The one you found in the river.”

“Who’s the Gunslinger?” Ernie asked.

Strange grimaced. “Don’t you know nothing?” He glanced around the room again. “The Gunslinger is the two-star general who runs the Second freaking Infantry Division. Real name’s Kokol. Army Digest even ran an article on him. Changing the whole culture of the Division. Gung-ho rallies, karate classes, the whole works.”

“Yeah,” Ernie said. “So?”

“You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“Eighth Army’s got a case of the big ass. Division is getting all the publicity. The honchos here in Seoul don’t get squat.”

“So they’re hoping the murder, and the Threets case, will bring him down a notch.”

“Exactly.” Strange grinned. It was a difficult thing to watch. Greasy lips formed into a bowl-shaped gash. Somehow, out of that mess, he continued to talk. “The honchos are out to get him, and to do that they’re using you.”

Ernie sipped on his tea. “So the honchos are jealous of each other. So what? They’re always jealous of each other.”

“Not like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“If they get rid of Kokol, they’re thinking of sending your boss, Colonel Brace, up there as Division XO.” Executive Officer.

I set my coffee down. “He’d get a star?”

“That’s right.” Strange’s smile seemed to have reached his ears. “Brigadier general, a shiny silver star on his shoulder, handed to him on a plate.”

“So that’s why the Division MPs have been messing with us,” I said.

Strange smiled even more broadly, enjoying his superior knowledge. “You’re like two white mice scurrying between tomcats.”

Ernie didn’t like the analogy. “What do you know about Colt 45?”

Strange’s smile drooped. “The weapon?”

“No, the malt liquor.”

“Rotten shit.”

“I’m not asking for your culinary opinion. If someone wanted to buy some and sell it down in the ville, where would they get it?”

“How in the hell would I know?”

“So find out.” Ernie started to stand. Like a shot, Strange reached out and clutched the back of his hand.

“Hey, what about our deal?”

“No stories today, Strange.”

“The name’s Harvey.”

“Okay, Harvey. Telling us that one general’s jealous of another doesn’t tell us nothing. We need some real dope, not bullshit.” He pointed his forefinger at Strange’s nose. “Find out how to get ahold of some Colt 45. Who could do that? How? Then you’ll get a story.”

Strange grimaced, and then the grimace turned to anger. Reluctantly he loosened his grip on Ernie’s hand. As we left, he blew more bubbles into his cup, louder this time. Outside, Ernie rubbed his hand where Strange had touched him.

“Christ,” he said. “The Eighth Army honchos are using us against the general in charge of the Second Infantry Division?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Who woulda thunk it?”

“Anybody who knew them.”

At the 8th Army JAG office, Second Lieutenant Peggy Mendelson was not pleased. She slid my report across the desk.

“Are you sure you want to submit this?” she asked.

“I already have,” I answered.

“Hearsay, that’s all it is. And accusations made by the accused. Who’s going to believe Threets? He’d say anything to get out of being sent to Leavenworth.”

“If you want corroboration,” Ernie said, “we’ll get you corroboration.”

“No.” Lieutenant Mendelson said it too fast. Then she composed herself. “We’re not going to start an investigation into alleged homosexual activity by an experienced NCO based on the word of a soldier accused of aggravated assault.”

“Why not?” Ernie asked. He was slouched in the grey vinyl chair across from Peggy Mendelson’s desk, enjoying her discomfort.

She slid a carved glass paperweight from one side of her desk to the other. “The command is interested in the shooting and only the shooting. It was a flagrant case of assault, reflecting poorly on unit cohesion and esprit de corps.”

“Piss-poor leadership,” Ernie said.

Peggy swiveled her head. “Exactly.”

I’d seen it before. Too often. The command trying to mold a criminal case into something that made an ethical or legal point they wanted to make. Something they could contain. But crime is sloppy, usually tragic, and often bloody, and people’s motivations for doing what they do can be beyond the control, or even the understanding, of the honchos of the 8th United States Army.

“So the ‘gunslinger’ isn’t properly controlling his troops,” Ernie said.

“Lack of training,” Lieutenant Mendelson said. It was a reflexive statement, one the army uses to explain virtually any failing.

“Will the ‘gunslinger’ be asked to testify at the Threets court-martial?”

Lieutenant Mendelson looked sharply at Ernie. “That hasn’t been decided yet.”

“But you’re not going to go with the homo defense?”

“Not my call.”

“Whose call is it?”

“The officer assigned as his defense counsel.”

“Who’s that?”

“We don’t know yet. The first one resigned.”

“Why?”

“He has deployment orders. No time to properly prepare his defense.”

“So who’s been appointed to take his place?”

“That hasn’t been decided yet.”

“With less than a week to go before the trial starts, don’t you think you ought to assign someone?”

“That’s our job, not yours.”

Ernie grinned, pulled out a pack of ginseng gum and offered her a stick. She declined.

“What about our report?” I asked.

“You refuse to change it?”

“No reason to change it,” I said. “It’s based on face-to-face interviews.”

“Hearsay.”

“Unless it’s corroborated, yes.”

She slid the report into a folder.

“Okay. It’s your butts on the line.”

“I love it when you talk like that,” Ernie said. She glared at him.

I dialed and listened to the phone ring once, twice, three times. On the fourth ring someone picked up and, in an exasperated tone, said, “BOQ.” Bachelor Officer Quarters.

It was a woman’s voice, so I knew I had the correct number.

“Hello?” she said.

I kept my silence. She listened. “Okay,” she said finally. “No heavy breathing, so you must be the mystery man.”

She waited for me to reply, but again I said nothing. She sighed and the phone clattered to the wooden table.

“Prevault!” she shouted, her voice echoing down the hall. “It’s him again.”

Footsteps pounded into the distance and a few seconds later, lighter footsteps returned. The phone was lifted up and then a hushed voice came over the line, muffled, as if she’d covered the receiver with her hand.

“George, is that you?”

“It’s me,” I said.

Captain Leah Prevault was a psychiatrist at the 121st Evacuation Hospital; she and I had worked together on a previous case. We’d also gotten to know one another pretty well and one thing had led to another. But our relationship had to be kept secret because, even though as a CID agent my rank was classified, I was still an enlisted man and pretty much everyone on Yongsan Compound knew it. Captain Prevault, on the other hand, was a commissioned officer. Under the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, we were prohibited from fraternization-for the maintenance of good order and discipline, supposedly. Violation of this directive could make either one of us-or both-subject to court-martial. Which is why I didn’t identify myself the few times I called her at the BOQ.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Have you interrogated Orgwell yet?”

“We don’t call them ‘interrogations.’”

“But you asked him about the case?”

“No. I let him talk.”

“That must’ve been tricky, getting him to open up.”

“We have our ways.”

I imagined her wearing her bathrobe, a white towel wrapped around her hair, holding the phone with both hands and leaning against the wall in the center of the BOQ hallway.

“I have a favor to ask,” I told her. She waited. I explained what Threets had said at the 8th Army Stockade in ASCOM.

When I finished, she said, “They’ll claim he’s lying.”

“I know. Can you meet with him?”

“I’ll need a referral.”

“They have a doctor down there in ASCOM, don’t they?”

“I suppose.”

“Contact him. Tell him someone told you that Threets needs help.”

“Does he?”

“A lot of it.”

“But mainly you’re just trying to evaluate his credibility.”

“Yes,” I replied.

She sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“When can we meet?” I asked.

She told me.

The Kit Kat Club sat in the maze of narrow pedestrian lanes that comprised the district in Seoul known as Samgakji. Literally, the Three-Horned District. It derived its name from a famous three-way intersection centered at the Samgakji traffic circle. Roads ran from there north to the Seoul Train Station, south to the Han River Bridge, and east to 8th Army headquarters-and, beyond that, to the village of Itaewon.

It was a short walk out of the wastern gate of 8th Army’s Yongsan Compound to the red-light district of Samgakji. However, it was a walk that white GIs seldom took. The village of Samgakji was frequented almost exclusively by black soldiers. White soldiers frequented Itaewon, a mile away on the other side of the compound. Nobody enforced this segregation, it had just developed over the years, but for some reason it was an unwritten rule that was seldom broken.

Except for tonight.

Ernie and I pushed through the front swinging doors of the Kit Kat Club.

Marvin Gaye wailed through the withered speakers of a jukebox. It was early, so there were only about a dozen GIs in the place, some of them shooting pool, others standing near the bar, laughing about something. But the laughter stopped when Ernie and I walked in.

We weren’t in uniform. We were wearing our running-the-ville outfits: sneakers, blue jeans, sports shirts with collars, and blue nylon jackets with fire-breathing dragons embroidered on the back. Beneath the writhing reptile, Ernie’s jacket said: I’ve served my time in hell. Somewhat of an overstatement, unless he was talking about his two tours in Vietnam. Mine said simply: Korea: 1970 -1974.

Most of the black GIs wore slacks and colorful shirts, occasionally with a beret or fedora tilted rakishly to the sides of their heads. None of them wore blue jeans.

Ernie was all out of reefer but he approached the GIs at the bar and offered them sticks of ginseng gum. There were no takers. While he bantered with them, I ducked behind the bar and flashed my badge to the barmaid. Her hair was tightly curled into a bouffant Afro, and as I started opening the beer coolers, her mouth dropped open. I was sliding up the first one, illuminating the contents with my flashlight, when she found her voice.

“Whatsamatta you?” she said.

“Inspection,” I replied, an English word most Korean workers in GI bars understood. Not only were inspections a big part of their GI customers’ lives, but they were also a favorite means of control utilized by Korean government authorities. Not so much to make sure that the bars complied with safety and health regulations, but rather as a means of coercing payoffs.

“No can do,” she said. When I didn’t stop, she repeated, “Mama-san say no can do.”

She scurried into the back room.

I found them in the last cooler, hidden in a cardboard box that said Samyang Ramyon: a dozen sixteen-ounce cans of Colt 45.

An older woman appeared behind me.

“Whatsamatta you?” she said. A favorite expression around here. But her voice was more gravelly, scraped raw by years of booze and tobacco smoke.

I showed her my badge.

“This,” I said, holding up one of the cans. “Where you get?”

“Present-uh,” she said quickly. “Some GI present-uh to me.”

“It was a gift?”

She nodded quickly.

“And where did the GI get it?” I asked.

“PX,” she said. “He buy PX.”

She was lying and I was about to call her on it when something heavy slammed onto the bar. A sledge hammer. That’s what I thought at first. But then I turned and looked. An angry black GI held a pool cue aloft, threatening to use it again.

“You don’t mess with the Kit Kat Club. You arra? You don’t mess with Mama and you don’t mess with the brothers.”

He was a burly-looking character with a broad face and angry eyes. The rest of the GIs in the bar were slowly approaching at his rear to back him up.

I held up my hands in surrender, palms facing forward.

“All right,” I said. “Just a health and welfare inspection.” I came out from behind the bar and Ernie joined me. We pushed our way through the small crowd, staying on the opposite side of the pool table from the guy with the pool cue, and were about halfway to the door when one of the GIs said, “Health and welfare inspection, my ass.”

An eight ball slammed against the door in front of us.

We hurried outside, but before we exited Ernie turned and waved and gave the patrons of the Kit Kat Club a slight bow.

Out on the street, Ernie said, “Nice fellows.”

“A little territorial,” I replied.

The next bar was called the Aces High Club. It was smaller but had piped-in jazz and a longer bar with a few booths along the wall. Three or four older business girls sat in the booths, smoking and gossiping, but interrupted their talk long enough to gape at us as we walked in. The bartender was a young man wearing a white shirt, black bow tie, and black vest. Ernie ordered an OB. I surprised the bartender when I said, “Colt 45.”

“No have,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked. “I thought everybody have.”

“Most tick have.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow we get, maybe.”

The black market in Korea is so widespread that no one bothers to deny its existence.

I settled for an OB and waited for one of the business girls to approach. Within five minutes, two of them did. Ernie horsed around with them, getting them laughing, and when they asked us to buy them drinks, I mentioned the lack of Colt 45. The girls looked concerned, anxious that I wasn’t pleased. For a moment they chatted between themselves in rapid Korean. I followed most of it and picked out the words “maeul ui jwi.”

Then one of them turned to me and said, “Tomorrow have.”

“What time?”

That stumped her. “Tomorrow daytime, anybody bring Colt 45. Tomorrow night you come Aces High, have.”

I decided not to press them, not right now. I didn’t want to spook whoever was bringing the Colt 45 tomorrow.

Ernie and I finished our drinks, thanked the girls, and left them mumbling that we hadn’t bought them a drink. I told them we’d see them tomorrow. I don’t think either of them believed it. Of course, neither did I.

Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, the US Army ignored segregation and prejudice within its ranks, pretending it didn’t exist. Now, because of mandates by Congress, Equal Employment Opportunity training had been established, but the effects of race riots only a few years ago and what the black GIs saw as the bias of the predominantly white officer corps meant that nerves were still rubbed raw. As such, most of the black GIs treasured their time off compound, where they could get on down with the Korean girls and commiserate with their brothers. And they weren’t real happy when white GIs burst through their porous little bubble and stepped into their world.

Ernie and I tried three more clubs, keeping a low profile, not wanting to piss off the black GIs any more than we had to. At each club, I mentioned the name maeul ui jwi.

“What’s it mean?” Ernie asked.

“A rat of the village.”

“The Ville Rat,” Ernie replied.

“Right.”

We managed to locate two bar owners, three waitresses, and two business girls who gave me a description of him: skinny, curly red puffed-out hair, a wispy mustache. His clothing was strictly nonregulation: slacks and leather boots and brightly colored shirts with starbursts and swirls.

“Migun?” I asked. Is he an American soldier?

The response was unanimous: He was, but he’s not now. Bit by bit I gathered that the Ville Rat made his money by selling malt liquor and imported cognac to the bars in Samgakji and elsewhere. He traveled from GI village to GI village, selling his wares, showing up on a set schedule to replenish supplies. He was white but he sold to the bars that catered to black GIs. Most of the bars charged 1,500 won for a can of Colt 45, three bucks, which was a hell of a lot. So not many GIs bought it. But there were a few who did. Maybe because it reminded them of home. Maybe because they wanted a little more kick than beer offered without having to drink so much that they’d put on weight.

I tried to find out what the bar owners paid the Ville Rat for each can, but they were evasive. Black marketeering was widespread but still a crime. I figured they probably paid a thousand for it. The Ville Rat would want twice what he paid for it, standard remuneration on the black market. So maybe he paid a dollar for it, sold it to the bar owner for two and they in turn sold it to their customer for the equivalent of three US dollars, or 1,500 won.

I wasn’t sure of any of this, but the economics made sense. Nobody sold what they purchased out of the military PXs or commissaries without receiving at least twice what they paid for it, and sometimes more. The catch was that the Ville Rat wasn’t buying the Colt 45 out of the PX or the Class VI store because 8th Army’s Central Locker Fund didn’t carry it.

Ernie and I strolled down the main drag of Samgakji. Groups of GIs standing near the front of nightclubs stopped talking as we approached and glared at us. Clicking loudly on his ginseng gum, Ernie raised a hand in greeting, as if they were old friends. No one returned the gesture.

“So where does the Ville Rat buy the Colt 45 and the cognac?” Ernie asked.

“If he’s not in the army anymore,” I said, “he doesn’t have a ration card, so he can’t buy the cognac out of the Class Six.”

“And the Colt 45?”

“He can’t buy that anywhere,” I said. “There’s no demand for it amongst Koreans, so no one imports it.”

“Do we know that for sure?”

“Okay,” I admitted. “Maybe we don’t. But we do know about the customs duties and the transportation costs. You buy a can of Colt 45 from a wholesaler in the States, you pay maybe fifty cents for it. Then you have it shipped overseas and then you pay the customs duties.”

Ernie whistled.

“Right. By then it costs you at least two bucks. Maybe more.”

“And two bucks, a thousand won, is what he’s selling the Colt 45 to the bar owners for.”

“Right. He’d lose money on the deal.”

Ernie thought about that. “So maybe he’s like Johnny Appleseed, just spreading joy around the world.”

A brown bottle hurtled out of the sky, missed my head by a few inches, and crashed to the pavement. I ducked. Ernie turned and ran toward the dark alley where it had come from. He halted when he looked down the narrow pedestrian lane and saw no one there. Across the street, a pack of black GIs stood in front of a juke joint. Music blared out of the bar in a sinuous, thumping rhythm. A single bulb illuminated their faces-all of them sweaty, flushed, lined with glee, greatly enjoying our anxiety.

Fists clenched, Ernie glared back at them.

I grabbed his elbow and pulled him away.

“Shit heads,” he said. That seemed to make him feel better.

When we hit the road that led back to the compound, a blue KNP sedan blocked our way. A dapper Korean man in an overcoat stood next to the vehicle. The dim yellow bulb of the street lamp illuminated his face: Mr. Kill.

He motioned for us to get in. We did. He sat up front, next to his driver and full-time assistant, Officer Oh. As usual she wore the official KNP female uniform: low-cut black oxfords, navy blue skirt, neatly pressed baby-blue blouse, and a pillbox cap with an upturned brim pinned to her braided hair.

“How’d you find us?” Ernie asked.

Inspector Gil Kwon-up, chief homicide inspector of the Korean National Police, shrugged.

“We have our ways.”

Ways like police stations strategically placed throughout the entire metropolis of Seoul and foot patrols branching out from there.

“Why’d you find us?” I asked.

“There’s something I want to show you,” he said

Officer Oh drove toward the main drag that headed from Samgakji circle toward the Seoul Train Station, stepped on the gas, and plowed into heavy nighttime traffic.

Ernie leaned forward, gazing avidly past her left ear, excited by something. Maybe the traffic. Maybe the chase. More likely, her. There’s nothing he likes better, he once told me, than a woman who’s a fascist.

A kisaeng house is an institution in Seoul that virtually all men of any means participated in, at least occasionally. Of course the kisaeng houses for the rich and famous are elaborate edifices behind stone walls with accoutrements so luxurious that people like me and Ernie can only imagine what they might be like. But there are lower-level kisaeng houses, more like converted homes, where women in traditional Korean gowns, the chima-jeogori, dance and sing and pluck tunes on the kayagum zither. Where kimchi and soju and marinated beef and various delights from the sea are served and hardworking businessmen take off their jackets and loosen their ties and sit cross-legged on cushions on a warm floor and allow the gorgeous female kisaeng to rub their brows with warm towels and massage their backs and giggle musically every time they tell a weak joke.

That was the type of place Ernie and I had been to a couple of times, and it was the type of place Mr. Kill took us to this time. Stoically, Officer Oh waited outside in the sedan. Bright red Chinese characters shone from a white background on the neon sign. Mr. Kill glanced at me, raising one eyebrow. I read it.

“Myong Un,” I said. “Bright Cloud.”

Kill cracked a begrudging smile. “Very good,” he said.

At the entranceway, at least a dozen pairs of men’s shoes sat beneath the raised wooden floor. A heavily made-up middle-aged woman in an embroidered silk gown bowed to us and spoke in rapid Korean to Mr. Kill. We slipped off our shoes, stepped up on the polished surface, and followed her as she floated down the long hallway. She turned right, then left, and finally stopped and slid open an oil-papered door, motioning us in and bowing as she did so.

Ernie and I followed Mr. Kill into the room. He slipped off his overcoat and hung it on a coatrack. We did the same with our nylon jackets. Ernie arranged his so the fire-breathing dragon snarled at anyone who might approach. Then we sat on flat cushions on the floor around a low rectangular table. Mother-of-pearl white cranes flapped their wings against a black background, attempting to lift themselves into a beckoning sky.

“So what the hell are we here for?” Ernie asked.

“To talk to a girl,” Mr. Kill said.

Ernie’s eyes widened. “That’s what everybody comes here for.”

The oil-papered door slid open. The middle-aged woman entered again, this time carrying a wooden tray with three steaming cups of barley tea and a small porcelain pot for refills. She poured the cups, offered them to us with two hands, and bowed once again before backing out of the room.

I sipped on my tea. So did Ernie, gathering by Mr. Kill’s silence that more answers wouldn’t be forthcoming. Not, at least, until he was good and ready.

Footsteps pattered down the hallway. Tentative, light. The footsteps of a small person, almost childlike except for the deliberateness of the step. They paused in front of the door, as if they had to take a deep breath to summon courage. There was a moment of silence, and then the door slid abruptly open. A small young woman bowed very low and shuffled into the room.

Mr. Kill motioned with his open palm. “Anjo.” Sit down.

She did.

Her face was full cheeked but not fat, and heavily made up. The chima-jeogori she wore was made of cotton, not the fine silk of the older woman’s, and had a broad print pattern of red, green, and blue stripes, not elaborate hand embroidery. She stared at the tabletop, fingers interlaced in front of her waist. What she looked like was a rice-powdered chipmunk waiting for a falcon to swoop down and snatch her into the sky.

“Miss Kwon,” Inspector Gil said gently, speaking in Korean, “do not be afraid of these two men. They are here to listen, not to hurt you.”

She nodded very slightly to indicate that she had heard. In a halting voice she told her story.

She was from the province of Kyongsan-namdo and her parents had been very poor; itinerant laborers moving from farm to farm. She hadn’t acquired even the nationally mandated six years of schooling, and when she reached her teens her parents were approached by a recruiter looking for young women to purchase for work in Seoul.

“Purchase?” I asked, using the Korean word.

Mr. Kill motioned for me to be quiet. “Once you started work,” he said in Korean, “your employer promised to send money directly to your parents?”

She nodded.

“Did he?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What happened then?”

“They took me to a kisaeng house in Mapo. There I was trained in how to serve men.” Her face reddened as she said this. “Later, when they thought I was presentable enough, I was driven along with three other girls to Seoul.”

“And one of these girls was the woman you knew as Miss Hwang?”

“Yes. That’s what she called herself.”

None of them, I figured, would be using their real names. In fact, Mr. Kill hadn’t even used this young woman’s name. Remaining anonymous made it easier for her to confess.

“And they took you where?” Kill asked.

“To a dormitory, somewhere out near Guri.” Just east of Seoul. “I thought it was strange. I mean, strange that we didn’t have to entertain men at night. And then I found out why.”

She paused, looking down. We waited while she composed herself. I was beginning to realize what a brave little woman this was. She took a deep breath and started again.

“They had a van, and a driver. They would take us to various places. Office buildings after they were closed, hotel basements, even picnic areas outside the city.”

“What would you do there?” Mr. Kill asked.

“We would serve the men,” she said simply.

“In what way?”

For the first time, she looked up at him. “In every way.”

“And Miss Hwang always went with you?”

“She was one of us.”

“How well did you get to know her?”

“Not very. They kept us separated during the day. They had work for us to do. Mending old dresses. Washing. Ironing. Trying to make old rags look like new.” She shook her head at the memory. “We tried to look like kisaeng, but we weren’t kisaeng. We were the lowest of the low. Shuttled around from one place to another. I read about it in a movie magazine once. We’re what the Americans call ‘party girls.’”

She pronounced it in the Korean way: pa-ti gu-ruhl.

“How long did this go on?”

“Months. Until I escaped.”

“How did you escape?”

“The van driver was lax. And the man who was supposed to accompany him was sick. We were stuck in traffic, late in the afternoon, all dressed up and on our way to another party. Right in the middle of the road, I slid open the door, jumped out, and ran.”

“In your chima-jeogori?”

“Yes. And my rubber sandals. The driver wasn’t able to leave the van, and the traffic was so heavy that he couldn’t turn around. Not in time, at least.”

“Where did you go?”

“I don’t know. I just ran. When night fell and I realized that I was safe, I started to beg. No one would help me, but one kind woman gave me some money. With that, I caught a bus and came here, to Mukyo-dong.”

“Why Mukyo-dong?”

“Because I knew there were real kisaeng houses here. Where the girls just served the men in the traditional way, not that other way. I thought maybe I could get a job.”

“And you did?”

“Yes. I found the Bright Cloud and knocked on the door, and by that time I looked horrible, but the woman who owns this place is kind. She took me in. She fed me. She took care of me.”

Tears came to her eyes.

“And you’ve worked here ever since?”

“Yes.”

“You took a big risk by trying to escape.”

“Yes.”

“What would they have done to you if they caught you?”

She hugged herself and shuddered. “I’m not sure.”

“The same thing they did to Miss Hwang?”

She stared at the far wall. “Yes, maybe.”

Inspector Gil Kwon-up, the man known as Mr. Kill, leaned closer. “What exactly did they do to Miss Hwang?”