Dirty Kiss (31 page)

“She’s not really my girlfriend,” he admitted, dropping his eyes again. “Mr. Kim suggested I keep her company so she wouldn’t head back east. That’s what Hyun-Shik was planning on doing before he died. Victoria’s from Connecticut and keeps talking about going back.”

“Why is that a problem?” I asked.

“The Kims want her to stay here. She’s got their grandson.” Park looked at me like I was insane for asking. “Family’s everything. They won’t let her take Will from them. He’s all Mrs. Kim has left of Hyun-Shik.”

Things suddenly made a bit more sense. Hyun-Shik could solve a lot of his own problems by leaving California. He’d be out from under his family’s watchful eye and could easily return to the lifestyle he preferred. His wife would be busy and out of his hair, so she wouldn’t be a problem anymore. No, it would be a fantastic opportunity for Hyun-Shik, and one that someone else didn’t want him to take.

“Got it.” I stood, tucking the notepad into my pocket. Tossing a few dollars on the table for a tip, I folded a napkin around the bear claw to take with me. From the look on the counter lady’s face, I didn’t have high hopes of begging a bag from her. The refill of our coffee was more from curiosity than good service.

“So we’re done, yes?” He stood as well, brushing the wrinkles out of his suit pants. “You’re not going to go to Mr. Kim about… well, that?”

“Brian, think about it,” I said with a smile. “You’ve gone from selling yourself to Hyun-Shik to whoring yourself to his wife. Considering Mr. Kim is the one who put you up to it, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t need me to tell him a damned thing. And you might want to think about lining yourself up another job soon. I’m pretty sure that once it looks like Victoria’s staying, he’s going to make you wish you were working back at Dorthi Ki Seu.”

After
I got into the car and watched Brian Park drive off, I called Scarlet. I needed to find someone at Dorthi Ki Seu who’d seen Hyun-Shik with the person he’d met, even if it was a short glimpse, and she seemed like my best bet to find someone willing to talk.

“Hello?” Jae’s silken voice grabbed me and threw me down. I hated that he could drive me to wanting him with a single word. Actually, I hated that we’d not done anything that morning beyond a few kisses, but that was mostly my fault in my rush to get out the door.

“Hey.” It wasn’t the time to bring up the relationship he’d had with Hyun-Shik, not over the phone, and I needed time to think about what life had been like for a fourteen-year-old Jae living in the poisonous atmosphere of the Kim household. “Where are you?”

“At the club. Nuna wanted to leave some clothes she picked up from the dry cleaners.” He sounded happy, or at least less worried than I’d heard him in days. “You were gone when we came by to drop off groceries. Bobby told me you were meeting Brian.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “He told me he knew Hyun-Shik was meeting someone at the club that night. Do you think Scarlet can help me out? I need her to see if anyone saw him and who he met with.”

“Why didn’t you do that the first time you talked to her?” He made that throaty hissing sound I’d heard him do in the past, usually when he was exasperated with me. It had been a constant sound during the three days I’d spent on my back in bed. “You sure you’ve done this before?”

I’d be insulted, but he was right. I should have spent more time talking to the staff and less time mooning over Jae’s picture the first time I’d been at Dorthi Ki Seu. Still, I wasn’t going to give Jae the satisfaction of knowing he’d dug in a good one. “Just put Scarlet on the phone, okay?”

“Hello, honey,” she bubbled at me through the phone. “How are you? Passed out on the side of the road yet?”

“I’m doing fine. Thanks for asking,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Didn’t you tell me Hyun-Shik was there to see Jin-Sang the night he was killed?”

“Yes,” Scarlet replied. “Why?”

“Who told you that? Hyun-Shik?”

“No.” There was a tapping noise, and I imagined it was Scarlet’s long fingernails hitting a table as she thought. “It was Jin-Sang. I saw Hyun-Shik come in, and he said the boy was there to see him. I didn’t think anything about it. A man usually comes back to sniff around something easy when he’s been gone for a while. His ego needs it.”

“Are you two going to be there for a bit?” I started up the car. With traffic, it would take me about half an hour to get to the club, more if the freeway was feeling particularly puckish. “I need to find someone who saw Hyun-Shik that night. He met someone, and it wasn’t Jin-Sang Yi.”

“I can ask one of the boys in the front. They’re usually working,” she said. I nearly lost her as I pulled onto the street, a blare of horns erupting around me. “One of them might have seen Hyun-Shik with someone, but I can’t promise anything.”

“I’ll take anything right now, Scarlet.”

The freeway gods were kind to me, clean open lanes with only a few rough spots to negotiate. When I pulled up to the club, the sun was settling against the horizon, leaving long trails of lemony light and deep shadows behind. Dorthi Ki Seu was beginning to get ready for the evening when I walked in.

Under the bright florescent lights, the club appeared worn around the edges, its floor-length curtains faded around the hems. A couple of white-shirted waiters, their ties either undone or left completely off, set about taking down chairs, arranging the seats carefully around round tables. Another stood on a ladder, replacing the blackened bulb of a stage light. Below him, the stage glinted in spots, cast-off sequins from dresses caught in the cracks of the painted wood.

“I’m looking for Scarlet,” I said quickly when one of the bouncers detached himself from the long bar and approached me, his glowering frown deep enough to carve his face into deep crevices.

“Honey!” Scarlet swept out from the back, shoving aside the curtains with one elegant push of her hand and stalking into the main room. “It’s good to finally see you on your feet.”

“That sounds particularly dirty,” I said, kissing her cheek. “You look nice.”

“Thank you.” She wore her femininity well, her long hair in a smooth, complicated up-do that defied my reasoning. A line of small diamonds winked at me from a barrette nestled amid the loops, as bright as her wide-toothed smile. Jae followed, his hands tucked into his jeans pockets, a pretty shadow attached to a beautiful woman.

“Hey, baby.” I reached for Jae, intending to kiss his mouth, but he pulled back, his eyes sliding around the room.

Our worlds were different. For me, to kiss him was natural, a normal thing. He shied away. Even though the people around us knew he preferred men, Jae kept up the pretense. He was used to hiding who he wanted without even a second thought, and it hurt me in ways I didn’t think possible. Not for the first time, I was angry at the world for doing this to him, taking away the simplest pleasure of a kiss from a young man.

He leaned into a semi-hug, and I felt the smallest brush of his mouth against my jaw. It was all I was going to get, but it was enough to make me hard.

“Cole, come here.” Scarlet dragged me away from my temptation into sin, her ringed hand motioning one of the larger mounds of meat toward us. “This is Johnny. He was working that night.”

He lumbered closer, and I involuntarily took a step back. The Korean looked like he’d been hewn directly from a granite slab, his face pitted with pockmarks and a dark red scar sliced down one cheek, an angry, vivid line on his pale skin. His uniform shirt had long since given up its battle with his arms, the hems stretched out with popped stitches. If I were the management, I might briefly consider having a talk with my bouncers about adhering to a more proper dress code, but only if I wanted my face rearranged with their fists.

“Hi.” I debated shaking his hand but decided I wanted to keep my fingers.

“Miss Scarlet said you wanted to ask some questions.” His voice matched his girth, full bodied and dangerous.

“If you don’t mind,” I said. Scarlet and Jae abandoned me, heading to the bar for something cold to drink. The air conditioning hadn’t yet kicked in, and the club was stuffy, the air stagnant and still. I sat down, hoping he would join me and relax. His paw swallowed the back of the chair, and it made a loud noise as he pulled it out to sit down. “Did you know Kim Hyun-Shik?”

“Yeah, I knew him.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Johnny stared at me from across the table. I was guessing verbal skills weren’t high on his priority list. A good bouncer knew when to keep his mouth shut, and that usually was always.

“Were you working the night he died?”

“Yeah, or I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.” He glanced over his shoulder to where Scarlet stood. I wasn’t sure if he was checking to see if she was watching him cooperate or if he was assigned to keep her safe. I didn’t think she’d come to any harm by the bar, except for the real risk of choking on the lime pith in her gin and tonic. “He sat over there.”

I looked over to where he pointed. It was a smaller table, nearly hidden by a froth of palms and overgrown ferns. The spot was secretive, the perfect place to have a talk away from the rest of the action in the club.

“Why don’t you tell me what you saw?” I said.

“He shows up and sits down. I hadn’t seen him in a long time, but I knew who he was.” He nodded toward the young man changing the light bulb. “Took him about four minutes before he was talking to Kwang-Sun, trying to get him upstairs.”

“Not something he should be doing?” I asked, cocking my head to look at the young man. He was young, a lot younger than I like, but some men prefer that. Thinking back on how old Jae had been when Hyun-Shik had probably seduced him, it wasn’t much of a stretch to believe Kwang-Sun had caught Hyun-Shik’s eye.

“No,” Johnny said, tapping at the table to get my attention. “The upstairs boys work there because that’s what they do. Kwang-Sun’s not going to do that. Not if I can help it.”

“Is he your lover?” I ducked to avoid the spit flying from Johnny’s pursed snort.

“My baby brother,” he answered with a smile. “He’s going to go to medical school. I’m not going to let some asshole like Kim Hyun-Shik fuck him up like he did his cousin or Jin-Sang.”

“Fair enough,” I agreed. “So you scared him off Kwang-Sun, then what?”

“Some blonde woman came in. I didn’t see her face, but she was pretty fine. Long legs, and dressed nice. Expensive-looking. I remember thinking she had to be white because her hair was very blonde and natural-looking.” Johnny’s eyes were distant, trying to call up the details of that evening. “I thought she looked out of place. Most of the women who come in here aren’t… really women. Or if they are, they’re hookers. She didn’t look like one.”

“You didn’t see her face?”

“No, she was too far away, but she made it straight to Hyun-Shik,” he replied thoughtfully. “I guess he called her or she called him, but she went right over there. I didn’t pay him too much attention after that. He kept away from Kwang-Sun, and my shift started.”

“Anything else you can remember?” It wasn’t much to go on, but I had a sneaking suspicion I knew who had met Hyun-Shik that night.