The Price of Insolence
Kwak Young-joo seized Lee Ki-jo by the collar and wrenched it so tight the younger man could scarcely draw breath.
"You son of a bitch—did you drink your wits? I treat you like a brother and you start thinking you're somebody? You little—"
Bloodshot eyes bored into him. Ki-jo dropped his gaze. There was more he wanted to say, but his windpipe was shut and nothing would come. When his face flushed red, Lee Jeong-jae and Yu Ji-gwang moved in to pull Kwak off.
"Hyung. Hyung."
Jeong-jae wrapped both hands around the fist at Ki-jo's throat, and only then did Kwak let go. Some part of Ki-jo was sorry he had. In the same instant he took the measure of every man in the room. Jeong-jae, Yu Ji-gwang, and Kim Tae-ryeon had all moved to restrain Kwak. Lim Hwa-soo stood back and watched as if the whole thing were none of his affair.
Typical of Hwa-soo. He would not, under any circumstances, step out of a powerful man's sight.
Jeong-jae smoothed the heat out of the room and rounded on Ki-jo.
"President Lee! What are you doing? Pour hyung a drink and apologize!"
Ki-jo swallowed the dry cough rising in his throat, knelt at Kwak Young-joo's side, and filled his cup. Kwak sat turned away from him, breathing hard.
"I'm sorry, Superintendent. Please forgive me."
Kwak gave no sign of having heard. He set the cup down on the table with a hard click. It was a cold piece of theater, and it pleased Ki-jo. At least someone in the room would be able to testify that he had fallen out of Kwak Young-joo's favor.
Whether he meant to thaw the air or simply saw a chance to score, Lim Hwa-soo chose that moment to step forward.
"Hyung, I'm thinking of putting together an anti-communist artists' troupe before long. A gathering of entertainers who'll back the Liberal Party in next year's election."
It was a shamelessly clever proposal—exactly the sort to prick up the ears of Kwak Young-joo, who marshaled the police at every election to prop up Syngman Rhee and the Liberal Party.
"Not bad."
That was all he said. Ki-jo could not see his face, turned away as it was, but the set of the man's back told him Hwa-soo's plan had landed well.
"Hwa-soo. Pour me a drink."
Kwak flicked the liquor Ki-jo had poured across the side dishes and emptied the cup. When Hwa-soo came close and filled it again, Kwak looked fit to die of fondness for him. He clapped the man's shoulder.
"Hwa-soo, you said you wanted to make pictures with foreign studios, didn't you? Your hyung will push it through. Japan, Hong Kong—just say the word. I'll get the deals done."
"Thank you, hyung!"
Hwa-soo bowed and scraped. Watching the two of them trade warm talk while he himself was shut out, Ki-jo thought they were soulmates. If he left it here, though, word would get around that he had failed to carry out Kim Jong-pil's request properly. Whether Kwak looked at him or not, he called to the man.
"Superintendent."
Kwak pretended not to hear.
"If you grant Park Chung-hee's request just this once, I'm certain he'll repay you."
He meant it. After April 19, Kwak Young-joo would receive only a light sentence; then, after the May 16 coup, a revolutionary tribunal would condemn him to death for the very same crimes. It amounted to double punishment, and it offended any sense of proportion. Others indicted on the same charges were also sentenced to death, then commuted, and lived. Only Kwak would actually be executed—because he had not merely humiliated Park Chung-hee in public, but stood squarely in the man's way. If he reached out to Park even once now, he might at least keep his life.
The shoulders of the man pretending deafness heaved. The heat was back in him; his breath had gone short again. Unable to bear another word, Kwak whirled and slapped Ki-jo across the face.
Smack!
Ki-jo's head snapped aside. The print of the hand bloomed red on his cheek.
"You stupid bastard, you don't know when to shut your mouth, do you? Hey, you naive little shit! Park Chung-hee's going to repay me? What the hell is he, that I'd take anything from him? You—!"
Jeong-jae caught the hand a split second before it flew again.
"Hyung, bear it just this once. I'm asking you."
He bowed his head as he said it. Yu Ji-gwang and Kim Tae-ryeon straightened and bowed as well. When the whole of the Dongdaemun gang asked him to spare the man, Kwak seemed to wonder whether he had gone too far. Without a word he held his empty cup out to Jeong-jae. Still on his knees, Jeong-jae—a full seven years the elder—poured for the younger man.
Ki-jo decided that, with this, whatever debt Jeong-jae owed him had been paid.
Lim Hwa-soo appeared to judge that walking Ki-jo out was the surest way to earn points with Kwak. He rose and came over.
"President Lee, get up. Go home today, and apologize to hyung again tomorrow."
Ki-jo let himself be helped to his feet. Inwardly he was crowing. Outwardly he kept his eyes down, like a man who had committed a grave offense.
"I'm sorry, Superintendent. I've been terribly rude."
Kwak's mood was thoroughly ruined. He did not answer.
"Let's go, President Lee."
Hwa-soo led him out to a quiet corner of Myeongwolgwan and offered a cigarette. He lit Ki-jo's, then his own.
"I understand, President Lee. Our hyung doesn't get along with the military."
"I didn't know he disliked them that much."
Ki-jo played the innocent.
"Let me tell you. Remember just two names. Kim Ik-ryeol and Park Chung-hee."
He named Kim Ik-ryeol, commander of the 9th Regiment, who had opposed the police's hard-line suppression during the April 3 Incident, and Park Chung-hee beside him.
"Hyung hates those two. He's itching to be rid of them and can't manage it, so don't even bring their names up again."
He said it gently, like a man offering counsel—as if trying to repay all the help Ki-jo had given him.
"Before you leave Myeongwolgwan, put a cold compress on that face. It's going to swell. We'll smooth hyung over ourselves. Come see him again in a few days."
"Thank you, hyung."
At being called hyung, Hwa-soo broke into a grin.
"Ha—I like hearing that from you, President Lee. Don't take tonight too hard."
"Of course not. I was in the wrong."
"Good. I'll settle the bill. I'm always eating on your tab; I meant to buy you one for once."
"Please just leave it on the account, hyung."
"Aigo, still digging in. Go on and ice that face."
He patted Ki-jo's shoulder as he said it.
When Ki-jo parted from him and went to Lee Seong-ryong's room, she started at the sight of him.
"Yeong-su's dad, what's this? Why did Kwak Young-joo slap you?"
She came right up and examined his cheek. Word that he had been struck had already reached her.
"Where do you find a man as decent as Yeong-su's dad, and they hit him like this..."
Upset, she brought a cold wet towel. Ki-jo deliberately did not press it to his face. He wanted the swelling to show.
"Just a glass of water, please. I'll drink it and be on my way."
"All right."
Seong-ryong fussed over him the way she would a youngest brother. While he drank the water she had brought, she muttered to herself.
"Vicious little bastard. Swaggering around calling himself a policeman, honestly... all he's doing is shortening his own life."
She spoke as if she could already see the road ahead of Kwak Young-joo.
"I'll be going. It's nothing, so please act as if you don't know when you see Yeong-su's mother."
"All right. But tell me what it was about before you go, Yeong-su's dad."
Ki-jo let himself be pressed, and told her. Seong-ryong was incredulous.
"You asked him to send a general named Park Chung-hee to America, and he slapped you for that? That's worth a slap?"
"I don't know. I thought it was something I was allowed to say."
"Aigoo... they hit your face and it twists me all up inside. I don't think I'll even be able to eat."
"It's nothing. Please see that those men enjoy themselves before they leave."
"All right. That's our specialty, I'll grant you. But I wish they'd stop coming to our house."
"I'll see to it. From the way old Kwak was acting tonight, he didn't much care for the new kisaeng."
"Good. I was afraid we'd get another Mi-hyang. I'm sorry to say it, after all you did trying to help us sell the place."
"Don't be. When I think of how I've made things difficult for Brother Hwa-ryong, the fault is mostly mine."
"Aigoo, hitting an angel like Yeong-su's dad... what a rotten man..."
Ki-jo left after taking his fill of her comfort. She, too, would be a witness that Kwak Young-joo had struck him.
Out of Myeongwolgwan, he headed for Eighth Army Headquarters while the iron was still hot. He met Hausman alone and conveyed Park Chung-hee's request to go to America. Hausman was lukewarm.
"Park Chung-hee hasn't changed a bit. Not then, not now."
"What do you mean?"
"We worked together during the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion. He was always trying to keep his distance from me."
"He did that?"
Ki-jo already knew Hausman carried complicated feelings about Park Chung-hee.
"If he wanted a favor like that from me, he could have come himself any time. Sending you means he doesn't want it badly enough."
It was a refusal in all but name.
"President Rhee can send him to study in America if he feels like it. Tell them to sort it out inside the Korean Army."
"I will."
Hausman glanced at Ki-jo's cheek.
"Who hit you?"
"There was an argument."
He studied the mark more closely.
"Stepping out?"
"Sorry?"
"Your wife didn't hit you, did she?"
"Ah—no, Advisor."
Ki-jo swallowed a laugh. It felt like tattling, but he told Hausman that Kwak Young-joo had been the one to strike him. To a man like Hausman, he needed to be a first-rate source. When he recounted the evening without adding or leaving anything out, Hausman sneered.
"That duckling up at Gyeongmudae is a little free with his hands. Hits like a girl, though. Ha."
He spoke as if it were nothing. But he would report to the Americans that Korea's police and its military were at each other's throats.
Ki-jo asked him once more to reconsider Park Chung-hee's study in the United States. Hausman cut him off even more flatly.
"I've already helped Park Chung-hee as much as I intend to. When they locked him up as an officer who'd joined the Workers' Party of South Korea, I kept him from getting killed. That's enough."
Watching him, Ki-jo thought the man was remarkably consistent. Hausman judged good and bad by a single measure: whether a man would be of use to America. When he learned that Park Chung-hee, who had helped put down the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion, had joined the southern Workers' Party, he had probably not paid the man much mind. But when Park offered, as the price of his own survival, to inform on every officer in the army who had joined the party, Hausman decided to let him live. Sweeping the communists out of the Korean Army served American interests, and the debt had been paid—paid in full, and then some. Swallow what profits you, and give back in proportion to the profit you have received. That was Hausman's way, and he never departed from it.
Leaving the office, Ki-jo decided he had done as much as could be done with both Kwak Young-joo and Hausman. Kim Jong-pil would gather what he had learned and carry it to Park Chung-hee. He would say that Lee Ki-jo had done what he could for them. He would also expect, after tonight, that Lee Ki-jo would drift away from Kwak Young-joo.
That was enough. No one yet knew how large Park Chung-hee and Kim Jong-pil were going to become. Ki-jo alone could see the two dragons lying beneath the water.
He brushed the cheek where the sting had faded, and started the jeep. His heart felt lighter. The road home had become an easy end to the day.