The signs along Vermont Avenue were mostly in hangul, so I followed street numbers.
They led me to a club that was tucked deep into the corner of a mini-mall and looked unimposing from the outside.
Inside, the place was stylish and expansive, opening up to dining rooms on one side and a polished parquet dance floor on the other, with contemporary art on the walls and a tall vase of exotic flowers in almost every corner.
In the middle of the dance floor, a young couple kissed, dancing slowly to a tune heard only in their own hearts. Nearby, a sharply dressed deejay in an elevated glass booth packed up his music for the night. Three more young couples passed me going out, speaking animatedly in Korean. I was the only Caucasian in the place, but no one seemed to care or even notice.
Jin Jai-Sik sat alone at the front bar, mumbling over an empty shot glass, while an attractive female bartender dutifully listened. He was dressed in a dark sport coat and light slacks, and, in his lap, clutched a black shoulder bag large enough to contain the box of photos I’d come for.
When he saw me, he straightened up, his face suddenly ebullient.
“My friend, Benjamin Justice!”
He stood, wobbling, and placed the shoulder bag carefully on the bar stool next to him. He bowed decorously, shook my hand, and glanced at the bartender.
“Teresa, this my friend, Benjamin Justice.”
I shook her hand, and he pushed me onto an empty stool.
“Drinks for us,” he told her, “and one for you.” He laughed. “Because you so beautiful.”
She smiled patiently, glanced at her watch, and reached up at the end of the bar. Crown Royal bottles crowded the top shelf, filled to varying levels, each marked with a different name or set of initials. She found one marked “JJS’’ that was nearly empty, brought it back, and set it on the bar.
Jin spoke to her in Korean, and when she shook her head, he raised his voice.
She hesitated, looking unhappy. Then she reached under the bar and brought out a fresh bottle, which she placed beside the other.
Jin pushed a finger into my shoulder.
“You drink with us,” he said.
I asked the bartender for a glass of white wine.
“No pussy drink!” Jin shouted. “If you want me give you something, you drink man’s drink!”
I glanced at the shoulder bag on the stool beside him, then at the bartender watching me. I nodded and she skillfully poured three shots, equal levels in the small glasses, finishing off the old bottle.
The liquor was amber, gemlike. I held it up to the light, appreciating the color and the feel of the smooth, solid glass in my fingers.
I hadn’t tasted hard liquor in several months, and felt my insides caving in.
I set the drink down and pushed it away.
“You want what I have?” Jin said. “You drink with me.”
I looked into his eyes. There was nothing soft in them, nothing yielding.
I picked up the glass. Jin raised his to mine, and the bartender joined us. My hand trembled.
“To my two good friends! Teresa and Benjamin!”
We threw our heads back and emptied the liquor into our throats. As it went down, my body shuddered gratefully and immediately demanded more. I pushed my glass across the bar.
The bartender opened the new bottle and poured. I drank quickly, without bothering to toast.
Jin craned his head toward Teresa.
“She pretty, yes?”
I nodded.
“You single. She single. Maybe she like you.”
He turned to her.
“You want to go out with this Caucasian guy? He got big dick.”
I put a hand on his wrist.
“Jin, let’s go.”
He pulled his arm free.
“We go when I say! Not when you say!”
He pointed to the empty shot glasses. She filled two of them, but whisked hers out of sight below the bar.
I could feel the alcohol flowing through me now. Everything was slowing down, feeling good.
“This time you say toast how,” Jin commanded.
I lifted my glass.
“To my friend, Jin,” I said, looking into his narrow dark eyes. “Whose sorrow I hope to one day understand.”
The fierceness suddenly went out of him. His shoulders slumped, and he hung his head, letting it bob drunkenly.
“You make me feel bad. Why you do that to Jin?”
I held my glass upraised until he lifted his head and tapped my glass with his. We downed our drinks, and he put a hand on my shoulder to keep from falling. I felt his warm breath on my face.
“They’re closing, Jin. It’s almost two.”
He peered into my eyes, and the cruelty returned.
“More drinks!”
“I’ve had enough.”
I could hear how weak and unconvincing I sounded. It made me feel ashamed, and I seized on it to help fight the craving that was eating away at me inside.
Jin clutched the shoulder bag with one hand. With the other, he picked up his glass and held it between our noses.
“You have enough when I say.”
I put a hand on his leg, high inside his thigh, where the bartender couldn’t see. I reached deep and stroked him through the thin material of his pants, until I felt him stiffening.
“I think we should go,” I said. “Right now.” He looked at me like he hated me. I kept stroking him, and gradually saw desire overcome the anger in his face.
He nodded dumbly and pulled out his wallet. Inside were three singles, nothing more.
“You got money?”
My wallet was fat with the remainder of Harry’s advance. Jin plucked out two twenties and pushed them at the bartender for the bottle. Then he took another, slipping it toward her for a tip.
“Because you so beautiful, and I want marry you,” Jin told her. Then, to me: “She beautiful. Yes?”
“Yes, she is.”
“He like you,” Jin said, getting to his feet. “I think he like to take you out. You want to take her out?”
The bartender and I exchanged an understanding look. I reached for the bag, but Jin grabbed it first.
“This mine. You want it, you do something for me later.”
He grabbed the bottle of Crown Royal and shoved it into the bag. “This go with us.”
The young couple from the dance floor shuffled toward the door, still necking, and we followed them out.
*
I turned toward the car in the parking lot, but Jin staggered away toward a side street, disappearing around a corner.
I went after him, catching up as he weaved along the sidewalk, caroming off parking meters.
“It’s after two,” I said. “The clubs are closed.”
“This Koreatown. Never close.”
He stumbled on for another block, then turned into an alley. He found an unmarked door imbedded with an electronic eye and pushed a buzzer.
A young woman opened the door, balancing bottles of OB beer and glasses on a tray. When she recognized Jin, a cautious smile appeared on her face, and they spoke in Korean.
We went in, and she locked the door behind us.
Inside it was warm and noisy; the air was heavy with cigarette smoke. Koreans of all ages, from sleeping babies to toothless grandparents, filled the booths and tables and little side rooms. Waitresses scurried about with bottles of beer and orders of food, and customers moved from table to table, greeting friends.
Around the main room, television sets were suspended from the ceiling, all showing the same karaoke video: a young Korean couple walking hand-in-hand on a pristine beach while romantic string music played in the background.
A balding, strongly built man stood at his table gripping a microphone and singing the lyrics that appeared in hangul beneath the scenes.
The waitress led us to an empty booth. Along the way, Jin boisterously greeted old friends. Most were courteous and responsive, but wary.
As we slid into the booth, the song ended, and the crowd rewarded the singer with polite applause.
Jin placed an order. The waitress went away and returned quickly with two small glasses, which he filled with whiskey.
He pushed one at me. The air had sobered me up a little and sharpened my sense of shame, and the booze started to look as poisonous as it did inviting.
“What about the photos, Jin?”
“First, we drink more whiskey. Eat. Drink some beers. Then I go with you and you get what you want.”
He drank his whiskey down at once. I held my glass to my lips and waited.
His head fell forward, almost to the tabletop. I dumped my drink into a small vase of plastic flowers and reached across to touch his face.
His head bobbed up.
“We go your place soon.” His words slopped together now, and his voice was full of contempt. “I give you back your dirty pictures.”
“They’re not mine, Jin.”
“They yours. I find under your bed.”
“Why did you take them?”
“I see them and think maybe my picture there too. That you get my picture when I sleep and put it with all your other lovers.”
“I didn’t take those photos, Jin. They don’t belong to me.”
He reached across the table, grabbing at my shirt but missing.
“You lie!”
“They’re not my pictures, Jin.”
“So why you have them, then?”
“They belonged to Billy Lusk.”
“Who that?”
“The man who was killed at the bar.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“He slept with those men, not me. He took those photos.”
He looked at me stupidly, barely able to keep his head up.
“You say the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Why you keep them, then?”
“I need to find something.”
“Find what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But I have to look.”
“They really not your pictures?”
“Not my pictures.”
His head weaved strangely, and his eyes roved the table, fixing on me only fleetingly.
“I sorry, then.”
He picked up his glass and managed to find his lips with it. When he discovered it was empty, he shouted in Korean to the waitress, who was nearby. She hurried toward the kitchen.
“Jin.”
His eyes had glazed over like those of a dead fish. I thought he might pass out or throw up, or both.
“Are you sure your photo wasn’t with the others? And that you didn’t remove it?”
“I tell you!” he shouted. He thrust his chest angrily against the table. “I never sleep with that man! Only shoot pool!”
“But you still haven’t told me where you were on Monday night, just before he was murdered.”
He looked away, growing sullen.
The waitress arrived with beer and sandwiches. As she left, Jin shouted angrily after her, and she hurried off again, returning moments later with a microphone. Jin chewed at his sandwich and watched the TV monitor closest to us.
A minute later, the video he’d requested appeared on the screen: a young Korean couple with a small child, walking hand-in-hand through the tree-lined streets of Seoul.
As the music came up and the lyrics appeared on the screen, Jin swallowed some beer and raised the microphone to his lips.
When he sang, the slurring seemed magically to disappear. His voice was clear and steady, deep and resonant.
He sang in Korean, with strength and passion, but also unabashed tenderness. Tears welled up in his eyes, but his voice never quavered, and his eyes never left the screen.
I thought at that moment that Jin Jai-Sik was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Impossible to know or befriend, perhaps, but immeasurably beautiful.
The room grew quiet, and he sang as if totally unaware of anything around him, lost in the images of a homeland that was still part of him, but only a memory and a dream.
The others seemed to sense what he was feeling, and to share it. As he finished, they erupted into enthusiastic applause. Several men stood and raised their glasses to him, shouting their praise in Korean. A few wiped away tears.
Jin laid the microphone on the table, and looked at me passively, as if everything had been resolved for him.
“We go now. I got no more money. You pay. I sorry.”