Read Online The Door to Bitterness by Martin Limon - Free Book Online
Authors: Martin Limon
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into the city. Soon, we were wading through a blanket of fog. The walls seemed to lean forward, closing in around us.
I was still trying to figure if the crooks who robbed the Olympos Casino bought my badge and gun on the black market, or if they were somehow in on the theft of those items from the beginning.
As far as I knew, and as far as the Korean National Police knew, there was no black market in guns in Korea. The penalty was too harsh. Death, as a matter of fact. The only people daring enough to traffic in weaponry and explosives were the highly trained Communist agents who infiltrate into the south from North Korea. But that’s a military operation, conceived and controlled by the People’s Army in Pyongyang, and there’s no way a couple of miscreant GIs could’ve bought my gun and my badge from North Korean agents.
More probably, they’d obtained the .45 and the badge from the smiling woman herself. But what’s the chance that a poor, half-caste prostitute would just happen to know two guys who were in the market for a pistol and were daring enough to rob the Olympos Casino? It was unlikely that she’d lured me into an alley, convinced some guys to bop me over the head and help her steal my gun and badge, and then— within a couple of days—just happened to find two buyers for those items who just happened to be planning a robbery.
More likely, the two thieves who robbed the Olympos Casino and shot Miss Han Ok-hi had been in cahoots with the smiling woman from the beginning. From the moment one of them came up with the evil idea until she drugged my glass of beer and lured me into that cold Itaewon alley, she’d been part of a team. A team with a plan.
I’d been targeted.
Would they have bopped Ernie over the head if they’d been given the chance?
Probably. But, as usual, Ernie was surrounded that night by a bevy of women. The smiling woman hadn’t bothered competing with that. Instead, she’d turned her star power on me. The lone and drunken and morose George Sueño. The perfect target for a beautiful blonde Asian woman with blue eyes and a smile that advertised madness.
And I’d walked right into her trap, like the fool that I am.
* * *
She said her name was Suk-ja.
She sat on a plump red cushion, wearing see-through pink silk panties and a frilly silk upper garment of the same material. Her face was overly made-up, but the goop couldn’t hide her ready smile and curious expression. While listening to Ernie talk, she alternately wrinkled her brow and contorted the lines around her full-lipped grin, until she looked like a white-faced mime performing in front of a close-up camera. But she wasn’t mugging for laughs; she was genuinely interested in what Ernie had to say and what he and I were doing here in House Number 59 in a narrow alley about as close to smack dab in the middle of the Yellow House area as it was possible to get. So far, House Number 59 was the sixth brothel we’d reconnoitered.
“You want girl?” Suk-ja asked.
“Maybe,” Ernie replied. “First we checky checky every woman.”
Ernie waved his hand to indicate the entire expanse of the neighborhood known as the Yellow House.
“You dingy dingy?” Suk-ja asked, circling her forefinger around her ear. “Too many woman. No have time checky checky all.”
Ernie shrugged, grinned, and glanced at me. “Maybe me and my chingu, we try.”
Suk-ja rolled her brown eyes. “Every GI think they big deal. Every GI think they number hana.”
She pressed one elbow against her crotch, stuck her forearm straight out, and fisted her palm.
“Too skoshi,” Ernie replied. Too small. “Me taaksan.”
He spread his open palms apart, as if describing a huge fish.
Suk-ja laughed and covered her mouth with both hands.
“Every GI same same,” she said. “All time bullshit.”
“No bullshit,” Ernie replied.
Suk-ja rolled her eyes toward the varnished rafter beams.
While they bantered, I’d been looking through the
I was still trying to figure if the crooks who robbed the Olympos Casino bought my badge and gun on the black market, or if they were somehow in on the theft of those items from the beginning.
As far as I knew, and as far as the Korean National Police knew, there was no black market in guns in Korea. The penalty was too harsh. Death, as a matter of fact. The only people daring enough to traffic in weaponry and explosives were the highly trained Communist agents who infiltrate into the south from North Korea. But that’s a military operation, conceived and controlled by the People’s Army in Pyongyang, and there’s no way a couple of miscreant GIs could’ve bought my gun and my badge from North Korean agents.
More probably, they’d obtained the .45 and the badge from the smiling woman herself. But what’s the chance that a poor, half-caste prostitute would just happen to know two guys who were in the market for a pistol and were daring enough to rob the Olympos Casino? It was unlikely that she’d lured me into an alley, convinced some guys to bop me over the head and help her steal my gun and badge, and then— within a couple of days—just happened to find two buyers for those items who just happened to be planning a robbery.
More likely, the two thieves who robbed the Olympos Casino and shot Miss Han Ok-hi had been in cahoots with the smiling woman from the beginning. From the moment one of them came up with the evil idea until she drugged my glass of beer and lured me into that cold Itaewon alley, she’d been part of a team. A team with a plan.
I’d been targeted.
Would they have bopped Ernie over the head if they’d been given the chance?
Probably. But, as usual, Ernie was surrounded that night by a bevy of women. The smiling woman hadn’t bothered competing with that. Instead, she’d turned her star power on me. The lone and drunken and morose George Sueño. The perfect target for a beautiful blonde Asian woman with blue eyes and a smile that advertised madness.
And I’d walked right into her trap, like the fool that I am.
* * *
She said her name was Suk-ja.
She sat on a plump red cushion, wearing see-through pink silk panties and a frilly silk upper garment of the same material. Her face was overly made-up, but the goop couldn’t hide her ready smile and curious expression. While listening to Ernie talk, she alternately wrinkled her brow and contorted the lines around her full-lipped grin, until she looked like a white-faced mime performing in front of a close-up camera. But she wasn’t mugging for laughs; she was genuinely interested in what Ernie had to say and what he and I were doing here in House Number 59 in a narrow alley about as close to smack dab in the middle of the Yellow House area as it was possible to get. So far, House Number 59 was the sixth brothel we’d reconnoitered.
“You want girl?” Suk-ja asked.
“Maybe,” Ernie replied. “First we checky checky every woman.”
Ernie waved his hand to indicate the entire expanse of the neighborhood known as the Yellow House.
“You dingy dingy?” Suk-ja asked, circling her forefinger around her ear. “Too many woman. No have time checky checky all.”
Ernie shrugged, grinned, and glanced at me. “Maybe me and my chingu, we try.”
Suk-ja rolled her brown eyes. “Every GI think they big deal. Every GI think they number hana.”
She pressed one elbow against her crotch, stuck her forearm straight out, and fisted her palm.
“Too skoshi,” Ernie replied. Too small. “Me taaksan.”
He spread his open palms apart, as if describing a huge fish.
Suk-ja laughed and covered her mouth with both hands.
“Every GI same same,” she said. “All time bullshit.”
“No bullshit,” Ernie replied.
Suk-ja rolled her eyes toward the varnished rafter beams.
While they bantered, I’d been looking through the
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