was as densely packed as the Casbah.
“Won’t the KNPs check it out?” I asked.
“When they have time,” Ernie said, “but not now, they’re overextended. Besides, it would take a small army to search every little hovel in every little hooch in the Yellow House.”
“We’re a small army.”
“That we are.”
Ernie started up the jeep, backed away from the United Seaman’s Service Club, and gunned the engine hard, swerving on dirty pavement, heading south toward what was perhaps the most notorious den of iniquity in the Far East: the Yellow House.
Last spring, on a bright sunny day, Ernie and I had cruised in his open-topped jeep through the narrow lanes of the Yellow House. The two-and three-story brothels loomed on either side, and since it was late morning, the girls were out and about, not sitting in lingerie behind brightly lit display windows, as they were required to do at night. Instead they wore their regular clothes: house dresses, blue jeans, tight-fitting T-shirts. There were no foreign sailors about, so they were outside, their black hair tied up and held by silver clasps, munching on snacks or playing badminton or gossiping with their neighbors. Some of them held plastic pans propped against their hips, filled with soap and shampoo and washcloths, sauntering on their way to the public bathhouse. When Ernie and I approached, driving slowly through the narrow lanes in the jeep, they shouted, and more of them swarmed out of the brothels, and then they were all headed toward us like young girls on their way to a rock concert.
Quickly, our jeep was surrounded. Ernie shifted into low gear and barely crept forward. All the girls laughed and reached into the open-topped jeep and some pinched us and then squealed when we slapped their hands away. Others down the lane gazed out of their second-and third-story windows, waving and yelling at us.
You’d think they’d be sick of men, in their line of work. But to them young GIs are like saviors. Their usual clientele is surly merchant marines, most from Greece or the Philippines or Indonesia or other countries just as poor as Korea. They pinch every penny and pinch more than that. American GIs are the only men who have something in common with the girls who work the Yellow House: they’re young, naive, caught in a world not of their own choosing, and quickly finding out, sometimes painfully, what life’s struggle is about. GIs are for the most part clean and healthy, and they have more disposable income than the merchant marines. Most important of all, some GIs are young enough and foolish enough that they just might take one of the Yellow House girls away from all this. It’s happened before, plenty of times, and that is why, on that fine spring day, the fresh round faces of the young whores of the Yellow House were so playful when they saw Ernie and me. And so full of hope.
This time, Ernie parked the jeep two blocks away from the Yellow House, and we approached on foot. Ernie checked the .45 under his coat. Without thinking, I checked mine and was momentarily shocked to find my shoulder holster empty. Then I remembered. He had it, the dark thief.
Did Ernie and I have a plan? Not exactly. We’d enter the Yellow House as we normally did, sniff around, pretend to be shopping for a girl. Try not to raise any alarms. Try not to scare away the thief. We wouldn’t Bogart our way into the Yellow House like twenty or thirty KNPs would. And while we were shopping for girls, we’d look for anything unusual. Anything that might give us a lead.
Night had lain its purple blanket over the City of Inchon. As Ernie and I navigated the cobbled pedestrian lanes, yellow street lamps buzzed nervous greetings. Ahead, sandwiched between a row of brick buildings, loomed the dark opening to one of the many narrow alleys leading into the Yellow House. Ernie flashed me a thumbs-up, turned, and entered the gloom.
I followed.
A cold mist from the Yellow Sea began to roll
“Won’t the KNPs check it out?” I asked.
“When they have time,” Ernie said, “but not now, they’re overextended. Besides, it would take a small army to search every little hovel in every little hooch in the Yellow House.”
“We’re a small army.”
“That we are.”
Ernie started up the jeep, backed away from the United Seaman’s Service Club, and gunned the engine hard, swerving on dirty pavement, heading south toward what was perhaps the most notorious den of iniquity in the Far East: the Yellow House.
Last spring, on a bright sunny day, Ernie and I had cruised in his open-topped jeep through the narrow lanes of the Yellow House. The two-and three-story brothels loomed on either side, and since it was late morning, the girls were out and about, not sitting in lingerie behind brightly lit display windows, as they were required to do at night. Instead they wore their regular clothes: house dresses, blue jeans, tight-fitting T-shirts. There were no foreign sailors about, so they were outside, their black hair tied up and held by silver clasps, munching on snacks or playing badminton or gossiping with their neighbors. Some of them held plastic pans propped against their hips, filled with soap and shampoo and washcloths, sauntering on their way to the public bathhouse. When Ernie and I approached, driving slowly through the narrow lanes in the jeep, they shouted, and more of them swarmed out of the brothels, and then they were all headed toward us like young girls on their way to a rock concert.
Quickly, our jeep was surrounded. Ernie shifted into low gear and barely crept forward. All the girls laughed and reached into the open-topped jeep and some pinched us and then squealed when we slapped their hands away. Others down the lane gazed out of their second-and third-story windows, waving and yelling at us.
You’d think they’d be sick of men, in their line of work. But to them young GIs are like saviors. Their usual clientele is surly merchant marines, most from Greece or the Philippines or Indonesia or other countries just as poor as Korea. They pinch every penny and pinch more than that. American GIs are the only men who have something in common with the girls who work the Yellow House: they’re young, naive, caught in a world not of their own choosing, and quickly finding out, sometimes painfully, what life’s struggle is about. GIs are for the most part clean and healthy, and they have more disposable income than the merchant marines. Most important of all, some GIs are young enough and foolish enough that they just might take one of the Yellow House girls away from all this. It’s happened before, plenty of times, and that is why, on that fine spring day, the fresh round faces of the young whores of the Yellow House were so playful when they saw Ernie and me. And so full of hope.
This time, Ernie parked the jeep two blocks away from the Yellow House, and we approached on foot. Ernie checked the .45 under his coat. Without thinking, I checked mine and was momentarily shocked to find my shoulder holster empty. Then I remembered. He had it, the dark thief.
Did Ernie and I have a plan? Not exactly. We’d enter the Yellow House as we normally did, sniff around, pretend to be shopping for a girl. Try not to raise any alarms. Try not to scare away the thief. We wouldn’t Bogart our way into the Yellow House like twenty or thirty KNPs would. And while we were shopping for girls, we’d look for anything unusual. Anything that might give us a lead.
Night had lain its purple blanket over the City of Inchon. As Ernie and I navigated the cobbled pedestrian lanes, yellow street lamps buzzed nervous greetings. Ahead, sandwiched between a row of brick buildings, loomed the dark opening to one of the many narrow alleys leading into the Yellow House. Ernie flashed me a thumbs-up, turned, and entered the gloom.
I followed.
A cold mist from the Yellow Sea began to roll
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