The Interpreter (21 page)

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Authors: Suki Kim

BOOK: The Interpreter
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Rain on the brink.
Sky churning.
Empty, gray asphalt in its last light.
There is no such thing as a warning. No gentle first drop. When the rain comes, she crouches on the stoop, her arms hugging her bent knees, her hair now hanging below her waist.
“BABE, PICK UP.”
Almost noon. She had lain awake most of the night. The rain must have gotten to her. She sure asked for it. Over an hour on that stoop, much of it under the threat of the storm. Maria Sutpen never even showed up. The girl at the accountant’s office was right. For an emergency contact, Maria Sutpen was useless. Friday afternoon, silly to think that she would miraculously turn up just to greet Suzy.
“Suzy, pick up already, will you?”
“Hi, I was still in bed.”
“You sound like hell. Apparently, you told Sandy to forget about the doctor.”
Sandy called right after his phone call yesterday. She took down all the information and promised to get back to Suzy as soon as she finds out anything.
“Michael, I’m fine.”
“
Christ,
Suzy, you never listen, do you.”
She can hear the tone of disapproval. He does not like things to be out of control. He does not want Suzy sick in bed.
“I’m listening right now, aren’t I?”
That puts a little spunk in his voice. “Then where the fuck were you yesterday? Sandy called you all afternoon and you never even picked up!”
“I was asleep. I was out cold.” She does not want to get into it. She does not want to rehash the whole business of the anonymous phone call and the accountant on 32nd Street. The house in Woodside. None of it would mean a thing to Michael.
“
Hey,
I was worried sick yesterday.”
These are the terms of their relationship. Contrived intimacy. Lots of it. The sort of things a man never says to his wife. The sort of things he can freely admit without sticking to the consequences.
“Well, don’t you have other things to worry about over there? Where are you anyway? Frankfurt still?”
“Fucking Germans. Everything’s such a goddamn secret. No one tells me a goddamn thing. They think all Americans are out to fleece them, which I might just do so fucking gladly.”
Suzy smiles, comforted by Michael’s familiar grunt. Suddenly everything seems a bit simpler, easier.
“I swear, babe, the minute they come begging, I’m outta here. The bag’s all packed. The chauffeur’s getting antsy.”
“Then where to?”
“Why, you miss me?”
Typical. He ducks the question again. He never shares his itinerary beforehand. He lets her know where he is each time, but never before getting there.
“Does it matter?” She does miss him, but she won’t say.
“Babe, you have no idea.”
She is beginning to miss him more. It is all in her body. She must still be dreamy. “So what did Sandy have to say?” She changes the subject.
“Not good, I’m afraid.” He is hesitant.
“She didn’t find out?” A pang of disappointment. But it is hardly surprising. The INS, not the easiest place to crack.
“Believe me, she tried. Actually, it was some INS stringer who did. But the damnedest thing. It’s all blank. Nothing comes up.” Michael sounds unconvinced. “Yeah, you’re a citizen all right. So were your parents, and your sister. But that’s all there is. No past record of green cards or even visas. The guy said that it could be a case of special pardon or amnesty, or even NIW, which means National Interest Waiver, but that’s usually for only serious professionals like scientists or academics—you know, the sort of gigs considered to be of ‘national interest,’ which I assume wasn’t your parents’ case. But that still doesn’t explain why the file draws a blank. Whatever it is, it’s all classified. Suzy, take my word, leave it alone.”
That Park guy, he had it coming to him … He had friends in all sorts of places … I knew I didn’t want to mess with him. I’d seen what happens to guys who stand up to him.
“Babe, you okay?”
No one is as sharp as Michael. He can estimate any situation to its
n
th degree and react accordingly. A born businessman. A gift. So entirely different from Damian.
“Hey, forget it. It’s all in the past, useless.”
But the past is all she has.
“Thanks anyway. I appreciate this.”
“
Christ,
you sound like you don’t even fucking know me.”
 
 
When she puts the phone down, her first instinct is to grab her notepad to look up Kim Yong Su’s phone number. But then she
remembers that he did not have a phone number, only a pager, which never picked up. Besides, he is probably not at home right now. There was something in his testimony about working part-time on weekends. Moonlighting as a watchman at a fruit-and-vegetable store. The Hunts Point Market closes on weekends, and he needs the extra cash. She can feel the sudden aches coursing through her body. She puts her coat on, although she cannot remember where Kim claimed that he works on weekends. The Bronx, she vaguely recalls, near Yankee Stadium. That doesn’t tell her much. There could be at least twenty Korean markets around there. Korean store-owners generally tend to know each other, especially if they compete in the same neighborhood. Maybe one of them would direct her to him. It would be crazy to roam the streets of the Bronx in this rain, in her state, when she is shivering even here in the warmth of her apartment.
Once outside, she immediately realizes that she has the wrong shoes on. The rain is mixed with something resembling hail. Pelting ice drops. The pavement is a mess, wet and slippery. Hardly anyone on the street, a rare thing on St. Marks Place. Gone are the usual brunch crowds who flock to the East Village on weekends. Some have skipped town altogether for an early Thanksgiving break. Some are holed up in their railroad flats with movies and takeout. Just two more blocks to the Astor Place subway stop. It is then that she remembers she meant to get a bottle of cold medicine. Benadryl, Sudafed, even echinacea, any of them will do.
So, instead of walking straight, she turns north on Second Avenue. There is a Korean market on the east side of the avenue. They sell fruits mostly, but, like all other Korean stores, they also carry almost everything, from candies to cashew nuts to condoms. The prematurely balding man behind the cash register always tries to speak Korean to her, but she never engages. She is
not good at small talk, especially not with a stranger from whom she buys fruit almost daily. The storefront reveals a colorful display of clementines, cantaloupes, plums, strawberries, even cherries. New York is the Garden of Eden. Even in such November rain, most tropical fruits are all here, right on Second Avenue. She shuts her umbrella and picks up a few clementines before going inside, where the cashier stands grinning at her. He must have seen her entering in the surveillance mirror on the ceiling.
“
An-nyung-ha-sae-yo,
” he greets, as if daring her to answer in Korean.
“Cold medicine, please, anything you think good is fine,” Suzy says in English, hoping to discourage him.
“Anything?” he responds in Korean. He is extra-friendly today. Or he is bored, not many customers this afternoon.
“Anything,” she repeats in English. Now that she is inside, she can feel cold sweat running down her back. The sure sign of a fever.
“This good?” He grins, handing her a bottle of echinacea. Of course, the East Village’s first choice. No one believes in synthetic drugs anymore. She is about to take out her wallet when she notices that the man is still grinning.
“Boyfriend?” As he leans forward, the bald spot on his head catches the ray of the lightbulb.
“Excuse me?” The man’s a real pain, she thinks.
“That guy out there, he your boyfriend?” He points his index finger toward the door. Suzy turns, catching a glimpse of someone dashing off.
The clementines tumble to the floor as Suzy runs outside. She looks frantically in both directions, and spots the man under a black umbrella, walking briskly. From the back, he appears to be dragging his right foot slightly, or maybe the ground is so slippery that he is having difficulty running. Even as he crosses First Avenue to head toward Avenue A, he never looks back.
Suzy keeps up at a ten-pace distance, knowing that he will have to stop soon. Ninth Street comes to a dead end at Avenue A, where Tompkins Square Park takes up three blocks in both directions. When he reaches the park, he halts for a few seconds, as if he cannot decide which way to continue. He can either make a ninety-degree turn onto Avenue A or go straight into the park, which is empty except for a few homeless men who’ve made puddly shelters on benches barely shielded under tentlike coverings.
He quickly enters the tiny fenced-in area between a dog run and a basketball court. He may have decided to give up the charade. He may be planning his next move. From behind, the man is nothing but a collage of a black umbrella and a black raincoat. For a second, she wonders if she is following the right man after all. Maybe the real guy disappeared in a different direction. Maybe he ducked into a cab that had been waiting. Maybe he dodged into the diner next door and watched her follow another man. Anything is possible, as she circles the park for the fourth time, waiting for the guy to make his move.
Suzy is now wondering if she should catch up to him after all. It does not look like he will do anything other than amble through the park. She must be trailing the wrong man. Maybe he’s just one of those aimless people who like to meander in parks on rainy Saturdays. As she is contemplating what to do next, he suddenly takes the St. Marks Place exit back at Avenue A. He’s decided to leave, obviously, for reasons she cannot tell. He trots along, back toward Second Avenue. The rain is fiercer. She is getting drenched. The umbrella is definitely not strong enough; its spokes keep flipping in whichever direction the wind blows. Already a few of the spines have broken loose, one of them dangling before her eyes at a precarious angle. She might just as well throw it out and take the rain as it comes. Now, suddenly, there are more people on the street. A crowd sweeps past
her, which must’ve poured out of the monstrous Sony Cineplex nearby, or the New Village Theater, where a certain British troupe has been recycling the same sellout number for the past five years. But do shows run this early? Is this the matinee crowd? Then she realizes that it is suddenly impossible to tell which black umbrella belongs to the man. In a mere second, he seems to have gone missing amidst the dancing umbrellas before her eyes. All the strength in her body gives at once, and she is not sure where to turn, what comes next. She knows only how bitterly cold she is suddenly, how wet her clothes are. She is no longer holding the umbrella. What did she do with it? Did it fly off with the wind? She has begun looking around frantically, when something bright and yellow flashes right under her eyes.
It is a flyer, on yellow paper. A club invite. Around here, on weekends, it is not unusual to find kids on street corners passing out flyers. But not now, not in such rain, not when she has just lost someone who’s been following her for days. She is about to crinkle it up when a phrase catches her eyes. “HOTTEST PARTY OF THE MILLENIUM”—and underneath it, “COME THIS SATURDAY NOVEMBER 18, D WAVE D RAVE DJ SPOOKY & HIS FRIENDS!!!!!”
It is “DJ” that stops her heart.
DJ. The fourth member of the Fearsome Four. The missing KK. The orphan. The name has stuck with her from the first time she heard it. For no reason, really. It is not even his real name.
Instead of trudging through the rain, she runs for the underground hole less than a block away. She knows exactly where to go. She is almost elated at this sudden direction. And the man she just lost in the rain? Let him catch up with her if he wants to play real hide-and-seek.
BOLTED ACROSS THE TOP WINDOWS of the three-story building is the dilapidated electric sign for EAST BILLIARDS, trimmed with blinking red lights. A couple of bulbs are broken; the line is not as smooth as it should be. The floor below is dark, blinds drawn, no sign of life. On the ground floor, three stores are jammed together. A Korean market. A nail salon. Santos Pizza, the third one is called, and Suzy wonders if Santos is as common a name as Kim.
The rain has not eased. Her clothes are soaked through. The forty-minute ride here has only made it worse. She can feel the chill in the core of every bone. She should have grabbed that bottle of echinacea. She ran out so fast that the bottle just fell from her hands, along with the clementines. And the gaping face of the man behind the cash register—probably the last time he would smile at her.
Climbing the stairs, she is surprised at how quiet it is. Not a peek coming from the pool hall above. But. then, she has never
been to a pool hall before. Too decadent, where bad kids congregate and dropouts make trouble. What would Dad have said if he saw her here? And Damian? At least they had that in common, she thinks, quickly averting her eyes from the genitalia-shaped graffiti on the cement wall. When she reaches the third floor and opens the door, she finds a spacious room filled with pool tables. Some with solids and stripes dotting their green tops, and others sitting wide and empty. It is dark inside, the only light belonging to the foggy windows, through which the sky is barely visible.
“Hello?” Her voice rings loud, making an echo. Nothing. No one around. “Hello? Anybody here?” she calls out again. Strange, Saturday should be their busiest day. Maybe it is too early. Maybe they don’t open until late afternoon, like some restaurants. But, then, why isn’t the door locked? “Hello?” Suzy tries once more. No one still. Not much to see. A rickety soda machine by the entrance. A jukebox to its right that’s seen better days. A couple of Budweiser cans on the floor, which no one seems to have bothered to pick up. Farther in the distance is a partition; must be an office of sorts.
She is not sure what she expected. What is it that keeps tugging at her? When Detective Lester mentioned the Flushing pool hall where the drugs were found, Suzy remembered another pool hall, in Jackson Heights, which had been a notorious hangout in the mid-eighties. There were always rumors surrounding it, with gory details of gang rapes and drug deals gone sour. Everyone in her high school had heard of it. The kids whispered its name with awe and fear. The KK had still been active then, along with several other minor gangs whose names Suzy cannot remember now. Back then, it was just a rumor. It belonged to the underground world of the underground kids whose lives would never touch hers. That is, until now.
She is turning to leave when she is stopped by a sound behind the partition. “Hello?” she tries again, to no avail. Yet those rustling steps, an unmistakable murmur. Maybe there is more than one person there. Maybe they are in the middle of an important conversation and do not want to be interrupted. Suzy is tempted to turn around and walk out, but then she remembers the rain outside and hesitates. Besides, she is curious. Why wouldn’t the person answer her four hellos? What’s he doing there behind the wall? From the doorway to the cubicle is about fifty steps. Five rows of pool tables, two in each row, ten total. It is not such a great distance.
When she finally makes her way across the room and stands before the partition, she can hear a sort of humming from the other side. A staccato rumble, oddly youthful and cheery. She knocks before peering in, although the attempt is superfluous. Rocking in the armchair is a young man, with his feet up on the desk. His eyes are shut, his head bobbing to the Discman whose volume is high enough so that she can even make out the lyric. Some kind of rap. Hip-hop, he would insist. Obviously, calling out to him is useless, but she is uneasy about tapping him on the arm. She is standing there mulling over what to do next when, as if in a miracle, he opens his eyes and jumps out of his seat.
“Holy shit! You scared the shit out of me!” the young man screams, peeling the headset off his ears.
“I’m so sorry. I called you a couple of times, but you didn’t hear me.” Suzy panics as he flinches from her. “I really didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Fucking hell you didn’t; what the hell were you doing creeping up on me like that!”
“I was just … I didn’t know how to get your attention.”
“Yo, let’s forget it.” His face is turning red, as though he is embarrassed at getting so easily frightened. Then he reaches for
the can of Coke on the desk and gulps it down, struck by sudden thirst. “Don’t tell my old man. He’ll whack me if he finds out I wasn’t minding the door.”
“It’s a deal, my lips are sealed,” she says in a conspiring whisper. His father must be the owner. Family business, not unusual.
“So what do you want? A table?” he says, looking her over once, not without a hint of amusement. He is barely twenty. Boys of his age, they have just one thing on their minds. Even when the woman is old enough to be their aunt.
“Are you open? Looks pretty dead to me,” she says, surveying the empty room.
“Sure, we’re open. I just haven’t bothered turning on all the lights yet. Too early, and no one’s here these days anyway. Why waste electricity?” He shrugs, strutting over to the wall to flick the switch. In an instant, the room turns fluorescent.
“Why no one these days?” Suzy asks, squinting her eyes as the white balls beam under sudden artificial bliss.
“Some trouble out in Flushing; the guys’re laying low,” he says, clicking the “Stop” button on his Discman.
“Can’t be good for business?”
“We’re used to it. It happens once in a while. Everyone crawls back sooner or later. This time, the deal’s bigger, so it’s taking longer,” he says with a purposeful toss of his hair, which is moussed into a ball of stiff spikes.
“How long has your father owned the place?” she asks cautiously.
“What’s up with twenty questions? What’re you, a cop or something?” he fires back, then stares hard at her for a minute or two before shaking his head. “Nope, you’re not a cop.”
“How can you tell?” She asks, half amused.
“Too fine to be one,” he says with a wink. “Lady cops are butt-ugly. No Charlie’s Angels around here. So you’re not one, not a chance. So why twenty questions?” The boy is sharp,
doesn’t miss a thing. He knows how to use a compliment to get what he wants.
“I used to live around here, long time ago. Went to Astoria High for a while, and then Lincoln High, over on Queens Boulevard.” She wants him to know he can trust her. No funny business.
“Fucking hell, Lincoln High? I went there too! Well, didn’t quite graduate, but still … when did you go there?” the boy asks with a wide grin, as though he now considers her okay.
“You were just a kid.”
“No way, you don’t look much older than me.” He smiles slyly.
“I’m ancient; I was around when the KK was around.” She takes the risk.
“That’s
old,
” he exclaims, teasingly.
“Told you!” Glancing at the room, she says, “Those guys, do they come around still?”
“Who? The KK?”
“Yeah. I know it’s been too long, but I was in the neighborhood and thought it’d be nice to see an old face or two,” she says, running her index finger along the edge of the table. It is easy to believe this. The familiar place of her youth. The friends long gone. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, even when made up.
“Not really, especially not since Flushing. The trail’s still hot. No one wants to get mixed up with a drug mess, you know. The cops are jumping on any Korean kids with a record, which is just about everyone who hangs out here.” He chuckles. “Even the room salon downstairs is slow these days. Mina’s bumming, she only took over the place not so long ago. Fucking hell, all those booties pining away.”
“Room salon?” A call-girl joint. The sort of establishment where hostesses sit around with clients and pour drinks. But “hostess” is really a code word for a prostitute. Implicit in the exorbitant entrance fee are girls as part of the deal.
“‘Seven Stars,’ right downstairs, didn’t you see it coming up? I guess it’s kinda easy to miss, they try to keep a low profile.”
“Seven Stars?”
“Don’t you remember?” the boy asks incredulously. “Used to be a major KK hangout, long before my old man’s time here.”
Seven Stars.
Why does that sound familiar?
“So you here for old times’ sake? Why, the rain get to you?” he asks, as if noticing her wet clothes for the first time.
“The rain, yeah …” And the yellow flyer, she remembers, yes, the flyer. “Have you heard of a guy named DJ?” A long shot; the boy’s too young.
“DJ? What does he look like?”
Of course she has no idea. An orphan. The last one of the Fearsome Four. The one deported to Korea five years ago, the same month as her parents’ murder.
“Doesn’t matter, I guess. He got deported.”
“Deported? That’s fucked up. Fuck those INS assholes!” he says, shaking his head.
Whatever happened, happened too long ago. Whatever evidence has long been erased.
“So where’s your father?” Suzy asks, walking to the door.
“A dumb fight, a couple of weeks ago. He should’ve known better than trying to break up those punks,” he answers with feigned indifference. “He got shot.”
Suzy pauses, turning around.
“Yo, it’s no big deal. He’s not dead or anything, besides, he’s got me.” The boy puts on a tough voice, suddenly looking even younger than his baby face.
 
 
It is not until she is halfway down the stairs that she notices the silver dots engraved on the metal door on the second floor. Seven tiny stars in the shape of a loop. A logo. No letters next to
it. No explanation. Just a plain circular arrangement of seven stars. She tries the intercom, a neon-green button to the right of the door frame. No answer. Not surprising. If it’s too early for a pool hall, definitely sleeptime for a bar. The door will not budge. The video camera glares down like a hawk, patrolling from a corner of the ceiling. The security system is no joke. With the sort of guys who frequent here, everything would have to be bulletproof.
A loop of seven stars. Common enough, not particularly memorable. Yet Suzy is sure she has seen it before.
But where
?
She lingers for a while. The staircase is mute, fully cemented, and dim. Not much use standing here. She makes her way down the steps slowly, hoping that someone will emerge. She keeps looking back at the door, but no one is there. Then she is outside again. Out in the torrential rain.
No umbrella. She is about to run into the Korean market to get one when she notices the warm glow from Santos Pizza. It is inviting, this pizzeria in deepest Queens, right below the pool hall. Like a candlelit cottage in a fairy tale, made of cakes. She could be one of the lost siblings, Hansel or Gretel, following the bread crumbs through the haunted forest.
Inside are a couple of empty booths, and a sleepy man in red and white stripes, kneading the dough. He hardly reacts when he sees her. Maybe he can tell that she does not really want pizza. Maybe he is afraid of the abyss of wanting in her eyes. Maybe she is not the first of the lost children to end up here.
“Coffee, please.”
“That’s it?” he asks grumpily, as if saying, “Hey lady, this ain’t a café, you order pizza at a pizzeria.”
“And a slice,” she adds, to appease him.
He makes no response, cutting a slab from the congealed pie on the table and flinging it into the oven with hardly a glance.
When the slice finally comes back out, nothing about it signals
magic. Drippy yellow on an extra-thick crust. The cottage in the forest was a phantom. No wicked witch. Not a single crumb.
The mushy cheese tastes like fat, a lukewarm chunk, moist and chewy. It instantly turns her stomach, and she washes it down with a sip of coffee, which is so hot that it burns her tongue. She puts down the cup and glances out the window instead. The rain does not seem too bad now, at least more promising than the rancid-fat smell. As she is about to get up, she notices a car pulling up outside. A BMW, too fancy for this neighborhood. From the door on the driver’s side, a woman pops out and runs in with her hand on her forehead, covering her face from the rain.
A whiff of candy-sick perfume. The flaring red raincoat gleams too shiny against her yellowed skin. Her copper curls look burnt, in need of a fresh dye job or a perm. With her chapped lips and blotted mascara, she seems to have just rolled out of bed. Someone else’s bed, most likely.
The sleepy man, though, perks up. “
Ciao, bellissima
,” he greets her with a wide grin.
The woman blows him a kiss, brushing her coat noisily, shaking the water out. “Hey handsome, did you miss me?” she says with a wink.
All gooey now, he asks, “What you doing here so early, Mina?”
“Johnny hasn’t come by, has he?” she asks.

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