Slicky Boys (18 page)

Ernie glared at her, murder in his eyes.

In his haste, Ernie had missed a couple of spots.

“Over here,” I said.

We trotted to the other end of the chamber and in the shadows found an opening carved out of the rock. Ernie stared down a short stairwell that led into blackness. I turned to the girl.

“Where does this go?”

“Not out. Please, have a seat. You will be taken to my employer.”

Ernie peered into the black pit. “It’s too damn dark down there.”

I looked at the steps. They were carved out of stone.

Who in the hell had built this place?

I didn’t have any particular desire to go deeper into the cave. I looked back across the room. There must be a way to pry the doors open. I grabbed Ernie’s elbow and whispered.

“She’s our best bet to get out of here. Come on back. We’ll talk to her.”

He nodded and we returned to the center of the chamber.

“Who is your employer?” I asked.

She answered in Korean. “So Boncho-ga.” Herbalist So.

The man we wanted to talk to. Might as well have a go at it. We were just as likely to be able to bust out of here later as we were now. Which maybe wasn’t very likely at all.

I sat on the edge of the couch, keeping most of my weight on the balls of my feet, my forearms draped over my knees. Ernie joined me, but his head kept swiveling around as if he expected a window to open up in the stone walls any second.

She poured aromatic tea into thick porcelain cups with no handles and offered them to us with both hands. I took my cup from her and as I did I brushed the flesh of her fingers. Amazingly soft. This was a woman who had been bred for graciousness, not work. I looked at her feet. Normal. Soft-soled black canvas shoes with sequins. I’d almost expected her feet to be bound.

I sipped on the tea. The bitter taste of ginseng rolled down my parched throat. Ernie set his on the table in front of us. Didn’t touch it.

When I finished, I asked for more. No sense being impolite. She poured with a pleased expression.

Relaxing us like this so soon after our ordeal was obviously her job. And the fact that even I, a half-crazed foreign devil, had responded to her ministrations would give her good face. Demonstrate to her employer the full extent of her skills. Which were extraordinary. Just having her around, with her graceful movements and her beauty and the smooth serenity of her demeanor, had a calming effect.

On me, anyway. Ernie still looked angry enough to frighten Jack the Ripper.

I started to wonder about this Herbalist So. He hires thugs to knock us out and cart us through Itaewon. And then this beautiful woman to bring us back to a semblance of civility. So was used to manipulating people. I’d let him think it was working. For the time being.

After I finished my second cup of tea, the young lady rose and bowed again.

“It is time to see my employer,” she said. “Please come with me.”

When we didn’t move she stared at us, puzzled.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

She shook her head and her black hair fluttered like a raven’s wing. “Not important.”

“You’re not Korean,” I said. “You’re Chinese.”

“Many Chinese in Korea. Since the revolution.”

“Why do vou work for Herbalist So?”

“Who?”

“So Boncho-ga.”

“Oh. Because he is a very kind man.”

I rubbed the back of my neck.

“Then why did he hit me over the head?”

“He did not hit you over the head. Those boys did.” A disapproving expression crossed the soft features of her face. “They are very bad.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Very bad.”

I pushed myself up. Ernie rose too, still swiveling his head around, looking for a monster to leap out of the dark so he could bust him in the chops.

We followed the beautiful Chinese woman through the carved opening in the stone, into the darkness that led to Herbalist So.

17

W
E MADE TWO TURNS, DOUBLING BACK ON OURSELVES
through narrow passageways. It was cold down here and getting colder. I admired the goose-bumped flesh on the arms of the Chinese girl and wondered how she could stand the frigid temperatures.

Our path was lit by small oil lamps flickering out of indentations carved in the granite walls. Whoever set up this operation had little faith in electricity.

Mining must’ve gone on down here at one time or another. At the opening to an old shaft I spotted rusty rails and what appeared to be a cast-iron mining car. Probably an antique.

A shroud of smoke drifted close to the floor, snaking its way into the dark shaft.

At another carved opening, this one covered only with a beaded curtain, the Chinese girl bowed and motioned for us to enter. I nodded to her and watched as she trotted back into the darkness.

“Nice can,” Ernie said.

I grunted. He never lets up.

The beads clattered as we pushed through. This chamber was even darker than the hallway. In-

side, there were no lamps. Instead, the sparse flames of stone stoves sputtered beneath thick earthen pots. The room was filled with the pungent aroma of herbs. Some tangy, some sweet. All types of herbs. Seared, boiled, roasted. I felt as if I had stepped into the den of some long-lost medieval alchemist.

Along the walls were plain wooden cabinets, each lined with hundreds of square panels. A wooden knob poked out of each little panel and every one was marked in black ink with a Chinese character. I couldn’t read all of the characters but most of them had the radicals for “wood” or “plant” or “horn.” The collection of herbs in the wall of tiny drawers was vast. It must’ve taken years to accumulate.

Something moved.

At first I thought it was nothing more than a shawl draped over the back of a chair. Then I realized it was a man, hunched over one of the small pots.

“Good evening, Agent Sueño,” he said.

His voice resonated with venerable authority. To my amazement he even pronounced my name correctly.

Ernie stepped toward one of the stoves and grabbed a pair of metal tongs.

“Ah,” the man said, “and Agent Bascom. So good of you to join us.”

Ernie spat on the floor.

I decided to answer in Korean. And not politely.

“Wei uri chapko deiri wasso?”
Why did you drag us here?

The man known as So Boncho-ga, Herbalist So, stood up. He was tall for a Korean, with a back that was crooked only when he leaned over his pots.

Bulging eyes glistened in the dim light like eggs swimming in water. From a tangled bush of gray hair, a bronze forehead slanted downward, lined with deep wrinkles, making the skull that housed his brain seem as solid and as secure as the steep flight of stone steps which led to his kingdom.

He reached forward with a pair of rusty tongs that were almost as crooked as his fingers and moved a steaming

pot from one fire to another. When he looked back at me his full lips moved, enunciating the English as if he had been born a first cousin to the House of Windsor.

“You employ our mother tongue well,” Herbalist So said. “Even the indirect insult. Quite admirable.”

He puttered amongst his pots for a moment or two, finished some obscure chore, stepped forward, then turned his full attention toward me.

“Are you familiar with Chinese medicine, Agent Sueño?”

I could’ve tried to hard-ass him. Make him answer my question. But I knew the door behind us was barred and I doubted that there was any other way out of this damp cave. Besides, his boys probably weren’t far away. I had to go along with him. For now.

Ernie still stood motionless. I didn’t know how long that would last.

“I know that a lot of Koreans believe in Chinese medicine,” I replied.

“Oh, yes. They certainly do. And for good reason. There are many secrets locked in these herbs. Secrets that I have spent my life trying to unravel.”

“But it’s only a hobby for you,” I said. “Not your main line of work.”

He chuckled at that.

“Yes, you’re right. Not my main line of work. It was at one time, though. When I was young. Even our Japanese overlords believed in Chinese medicine. They had no objection to us plying our trade as long as all prescriptions were written in their foul language.” He turned, spat on the floor, and stared directly at Ernie.

Ernie tightened his grip on the tongs. Herbalist So looked back at me.

“This chamber.” He waved his arm. “It was carved out of natural formations that were discovered when dropping a new well in the area behind Itaewon. The local chief of the partisans decided to use it for his headquarters.”

I stared at him, trying to discover the source of the pride that rang in his voice. I said nothing.

“Yes. That’s right. The chief of the partisans was my father.”

With a damp cheesecloth he wiped residue dripping from an earthen spout.

“We held classes down here. I was one of the students. The Japanese had forbidden us Koreans to speak or read or write our own language. Everything had to be conducted in Japanese. To keep our own culture was risky, but we did it. After four thousand years of Korean history, did they really think their brutal methods could turn us into second-rate Japanese?”

I didn’t have an answer for him.

“Of course not,” he said. “Have you been to south post on your own compound lately? The old prison there?”

“Yes. I’ve seen the bullet holes in the wall,” I said.

“The Japanese executed many Koreans. Some of them just before you Americans arrived, after their Emperor surrendered. The Imperial Army from your compound made a final raid on Itaewon and the surrounding areas. With the thought that our misery was almost over, my father was careless. They caught him, up above. Two days later they executed him. The following day an American troop ship landed at the port of Inchon.”

One of the pots started to bubble. He rushed toward it, lifted it with a thick pad, and with a charred stick rearranged the glowing coals beneath.

I could see more clearly now and I searched the walls. They were mostly carved stone but there were some spots that were darker than others. My bet was that there were back entrances. If these chambers had been used by_armed men resisting the Japanese, they would’ve had more than one means of escape. There had to be ventilation. The smoke from the pots drifted back to the entranceway, toward the old mining shaft we had seen on the way in.

“After the war,” Herbalist So said, “we Koreans had nothing. The Japanese, yes, set up some industry. But its purpose was to export raw materials back to their heathen islands. The rest of our economy was utterly devastated. Still, we started to rebuild.”

“And then the Communists came south?”

He looked at me sharply, wondering if I was mocking his slow tale. I kept my face unrevealing.

“Yes,” he said, nodding. “Armies paraded up and down our peninsula. First the North Koreans, then you Americans, then the Chinese. We were poor before, but after our own civil war we were desperate.”

“That’s when you started the slicky boy operation.”

The pot he had been puttering with must’ve been done. He poured some of the potion into a thick cup. He leaned forward and inhaled, testing it, pleased. Sloshing it around to rinse the cup, he tossed the rest of it on the ground and poured a new cup to the brim. He held it out to me.

“You have been through a lot tonight, Agent Sueño. For that I apologize. Here, drink this. And sit down. You will find a bench over there.”

He motioned into the darkness. I took the cup from him, walked over to the bench, and sat.

Ernie followed, keeping a few feet away from me, heavy tongs still at the ready.

“What is it?” I asked Herbalist So, indicating my cup.

“A concoction of herbs. Designed to restore the harmony of the
yin
and the
yang.”

I held the cup to my nose and breathed deeply. The liquid smelled of ancient things decayed and rotting in the earth.

Herbalist So walked out from behind his pots and sat down on another bench opposite me, ignoring Ernie. Ernie didn’t mind. He kept his eyes moving, studying the darkness, expecting more slicky boys to spring out at us at any moment.

At first, Herbalist So kept his back ramrod straight. Then he leaned forward.

“Balance is the key to everything we do. To our health and to our ‘slicky boy’ operation, as you call it.”

“What does ‘balance’ have to do with thievery?”

He sat back up. “You are bold, Agent Sueño. They told me that you were but now I see for myself.”

“A man named Cecil Whitcomb,” I said, “a soldier in the British Army, was killed in Namdaemun. Slaughtered by a man expert in the use of the knife. Were you, or any of the men who work for you, involved in his murder?”

Herbalist So seemed amused by the question. “And if I said no, would you believe me?”

I shrugged. “I will believe the facts.”

“Wisely said.”

I looked into his big eyes. Half-moon lids slid lazily over them, as if he were a lizard with a full belly, about to fall asleep. The steam from the cup drifted into my nostrils. I held the cup away.

“Then tell me the facts,” I said.