Slicky Boys by Martin Limon Read Free Book Online Page B

If I hadn’t noticed that before, maybe I’d never noticed that Eun-hi wasn’t all that attractive either. It didn’t matter. I was sober now. I’d find out for sure this morning.
    “Is this address correct?”
    Lee glanced at it. “Yeah. Maybe. Unless she move.”
    I committed it to memory.
    “All right, Lee.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “Make sure that girl gets her card right away.”
    His face didn’t move. “You guys want a drink?”
    Ernie and I looked at each other. Lee knew we were CID agents and he was a smart businessman. Keeping the police happy was part of his job. At night, with a lot of other GI’s watching us, we never accepted gratuities. Ernie didn’t wait for me to answer.
    “Yeah. Double bourbon. And one for my pal here.”
    Lee deftly poured the drinks, set them in front of us, and folded up the ledger and put it away. Ernie and I lifted our shot glasses and tossed them back.
    On the way out, we saw the skinny waitress sitting in a rickety chair, hugging herself, bare legs crossed, glaring at us.
    “Looks like you made another friend,” Ernie said.
    We pushed through the door and stepped into a slap of cold air.
    “Yeah,” I said. “So far this morning we’re on a roll.”
    We turned up the hill and trudged past a quiet row of shuttered nightclubs. Behind them lurked a jumbled sea of upturned shingled rooftops. Hundreds of business girls and pimps and hustlers lived back there, in the maze of narrow alleys and shadowed courtyards that is the heart of the bar district known as Itaewon.
    Eun-hi was in there somewhere. She knew something. Whatever it was, we’d find out.

6

    E UN-HI’S HOOCH WAS IN A NARROW ALLEY IN THE catacombs behind the Itaewon main bar district. We ducked through a doorway cut into a big wooden gate and entered a slender courtyard lined with sliding, paper-covered doors. Upstairs, a balcony with more rooms and hallways wound off out of sight.
    Young women squatted on the raised walkway near the kitchen. Steam billowed from the concrete room and the scent of boiling onions filled the air. Pots and pans clanged.
    When the girls saw us they let out gasps of surprise and covered their naked faces with splayed fingers.
    “Ajjima!” one of them said. “Sonnim wasso!” Aunt. We have guests.
    An elderly woman waddled out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron strapped around her waist. She gawked at us. They weren’t used to seeing GI’s at this time of morning. Not on a workday.
    “Ajjima,” I said. “I spent the night with Eun-hi but I left something in her room. I came to pick it up.”
    She squinted. “You spent the night with Eun-hi?”
    “Part of it.”
    “What did you leave?”
    I did my best to act embarrassed. “Underpants.”
    The girls laughed.
    ‘Yes, yes. Go ahead.” The elderly woman waved her hand toward the stairway behind us. I thanked her and we turned and climbed up the steps.
    The splintered wood slat floors creaked beneath our shoes. As we turned the corner we ran into the cement block outer wall on one side and a long line of doorways on the other. We walked forward slowly. Each room was quiet. Not a sound.
    “They’re all getting their beauty rest,” Ernie said.
    “But which one belongs to Eun-hi?”
    “Take your pick.”
    Ernie stopped and pounded on a door. When there was no answer he pounded on another. A little farther down the hall a door creaked open.
    “Nugu-seiyo?” Who is it?
    A sleepy-faced girl, wrapped in a flowered robe, gazed with half-closed eyes into the hallway. I walked down to her quickly.
    “I’m looking for Eun-hi.”
    Clutching her robe across her chest, she waved impatiently.
    “That door.”
    Ernie pointed at one. “This one?”
    “No. Next one.”
    Ernie walked over and pounded on the door. No answer. He tried to open it. Nothing. The girl in the doorway waited, the cold air starting to wake her up.
    “She’s not there,” I said to her. “Do you have a key?”
    She shook her