Dirty Kiss (8 page)

Tapping at the order pad with his pencil, he tilted his head to look at me. “Something from the bar, hyung?”

The
hyung
word confused me. To my untrained ears, it was the same word that Jae-Min used for Hyun-Shik.

“I’d love a whiskey.” Whiskey not only sounded good, but there were some bottles I’d seen at the bar that I lusted for and sticking to the no-alcohol rule I’d set up a few hours ago nixed sampling. “Just a diet Coke, please.”

“Is diet Pepsi okay?” His smile was warm, an underlying promise of sex in his voice. “I can add lime if you want.”

“Thanks.” I watched his ass move as he walked away. Whoever did the hiring knew what they were doing.

The room smelled of cigarettes and expensive booze. I knew there were private karaoke rooms off the main room, usually rented by drunken, middle-aged Korean men for God knows what, but apparently singing was involved. Even more private rooms were upstairs, and by all accounts, these were for exclusive members of the club. Just small getaways where they could relax, or so we’d been told.

It was only considerate that these rooms had beds or pillow pits in them.

When I was a junior detective, Dorthi Ki Seu had become a place of interest for a multi-city Vice shakedown. There were other spots that were more lucrative, but Dorthi Ki Seu was a holy grail for one of the senior guys I worked with. That was how I met Scarlet.

The detective eventually arrested Scarlet and a few of the other main floor entertainers, cross-dressing gay men who worked the stage of the club either singing or dancing. She’d been attractive then, and I didn’t expect her to have changed. When I placed the cuffs on her, I apologized when I cinched a wrist too tightly. I loosened it and asked if she preferred to be addressed as a woman or a man. Her smile was brilliant, making her already gorgeous Filipino face heartbreakingly beautiful.

Scarlet spent less than an hour in the holding cell after her phone call. I never knew who she called, but within twenty-four hours of her arrest, all charges were dropped against the Dorthi Ki Seu staff, and the task force’s head detective was reassigned. Last I heard, he was manning an information substation on the pier.

It’d been made clear to us that Scarlet had very powerful friends, friends who would move heaven and earth for her. Or at the very least, make her problems disappear. But I liked her. She was sweet and funny, not to mention in possession of a wicked sense of humor. And I admired the comfort she had in her own skin. I envied that. I’ve still not found it.

I’d given her my card when she was released, asking her to call if she needed anything. She called casually, more to keep in touch and maybe pump me for information about what was going on in the world of vice and cops. Scarlet was always good for a laugh. I’d just not felt like laughing for a while.

The soft music playing over the club’s speakers quieted, and the lights went up on the stage. It was nearly ten o’clock, time for Scarlet’s first show. My heart stopped for a brief second as a smoky tune rolled out of the piano on stage, and she stepped out from behind the stage curtains.

She was as seductively gorgeous as I remembered her.

I’d worked Vice long enough to spot a ladyboy, but Scarlet was a different level altogether. As she approached the box-style mic set at the corner of the stage, a spotlight followed her lithe body, and she smiled at the crowd. Even knowing how old she was, Scarlet was flawless, showing miles of café au lait skin, and her luminous black eyes were expertly rimmed with a dark kohl to emphasize their almond shape.

Red sequins flashed under the lights, her slinky gown slit up past mid-thigh and down to her belly button. Her glossy black hair was up, very Audrey Hepburn, and studded with large diamonds near her right ear. She looked expensive, like the kind of woman none of us could afford. I certainly couldn’t, even if I leaned that way.

“
You look at me and smile
.” Sex oozed from Scarlet’s throat.

There was no other way to put it. She might be a man under the dress, but she knew how to cast a pure womanly spell. Playing with the Etta James tune, she worked the stage, leaning over to croon at a pack of suited men sitting at the edge of the lights. They loved it, grinning back like schoolboys who’d earned a gold star from their teacher.

“Miss Scarlet got your message. She said to come to the back when she’s done.” A large hand clamped down on my shoulder, and I found myself looking up at a Korean version of one of Claudia’s mountainous children. If ever I spoke to my father again, I was going to have a talk with him about the lack of enormous in our gene pool.

Not wanting to startle him into stampeding, I replied, “Thanks.”

There were a few more songs, and I listened with half an ear, more interested in secretly watching the men who approached a wide doorway cordoned off with a thick velvet rope and protected by the much larger older-brother-in-arms of the man who gave me Scarlet’s message.

An older Korean man, conservatively dressed and immaculately groomed, approached the man, standing by the rope. He was let in with a respectful nod, and continued through the door and up the stairs. Another followed a few minutes later, and then a pair of men, speaking to each other as if they were headed to have dinner.

A round of applause jerked me back, pulling my attention to the stage, and I clapped loudly. Scarlet took a bow, then another, sweeping her arm back to include the piano player in her due. The mountain stood nearby, watching me stand up and finish my soda.

“Just go through the door?” I rattled the ice in my glass and left a five on the table for my server.

“I’ll take you.” He didn’t grab my elbow, but his massive paw brushed at the back of my arm as if he was used to steering people around.

I left the sedate nightclub atmosphere as a troupe of dancers took the stage, the slender men dressed in brightly colored robes that slightly resembled kimono, but not quite. One smiled at me, bowing his head slightly so as not to dislodge the elaborate wig he wore.

Like most entertainment clubs, backstage was chaos. Clothes and lights were fighting for space with a sea of men in various stages of naked. Several were sitting in front of long mirrors, trying to apply makeup, while others jostled and elbowed to get into costume. A hallway continued past the main room, and I hugged the wall when an older man wearing a tight, black-fringed dress sashayed out of a dressing room. An envious chatter from the others followed him as he headed out to perform.

The mound of muscle took me to a room at the end of the hall. A sparkling gold star was stuck to the door, a spatter of Korean boldly painted beneath it. I couldn’t read it, but I guessed it was Scarlet’s name. I knocked and turned the knob when I heard Scarlet give me the go-ahead.

Her dressing room was an oasis of fabrics and color. Overwhelmed by the glut of sequins, feathers, and frills, I almost missed seeing Scarlet wiping pancake makeup off her face, the bright lights of her vanity mirror turning her skin a white-gold.

“Hey, Scarlet.” Even close up, she was flawless. I knew a lot of women who wanted to look as good as Scarlet did right now. Sadly for them, they couldn’t even come close. “I see you’re still gorgeous.”

“Honey, you are sweet. I haven’t seen you in a while.” She stood, tightening the sash of an orange satin robe around her narrow waist. Leaning over, she brushed a kiss over my cheek, patting at my chest as she sat back down. The sultry torch singer, for the most part, was gone. The only trace of her remaining was the diamonded sweep of black hair arranged on Scarlet’s head. “How have you been?”

“Nothing worth mentioning.” I settled into a chair, watching as Scarlet made short work of her face, layering a more sedate foundation with a flick of delicate fingers.

“You’ve come for something, no?” Dark eyes met mine in the mirror. “I saw the card you gave the doorman. You’re a private investigator now, right? Did you get tired of being a cop?”

“Cops got tired of me being a cop,” I said. It was the only concession I was going to give the past. I had other things I needed to deal with. “I’m here about Hyun-Shik Kim’s suicide. I thought maybe you’d be able to talk to me about him.”

“Hyun-Shik?” Her fingers stilled, and the ghost of her Adam’s apple bobbed in her throat. “Oh, you don’t want to sniff around the Kims, honey. Big teeth lawyer.”

“Papa Kim is the one who hired me. My brother, Mike, does some work for him.”

“Mikio McGinnis is your brother? Ah, I should have known.” She turned, her eyes wide with surprise. “You’re prettier than he is. He must be jealous.”

“You know my brother?”

“He does some work for my lover, sometimes. Nice man. I’ve met him a few times. Hyung hires his men to take care of driving me if someone else can’t.” She pushed her vanity bench back, stepping behind a dressing screen. The robe was flung up over the edge, a splash of tangerine against the brown wood. “Do you have a Japanese name too? Or just Mikio?”

“It’s Kenjiro, but I never use it,” I called out over the screen. “Mike’s first name is Colin. He hates it.”

“Colin’s a nice name.” She stepped back out, dressed in a pair of black pedal pushers and a white man’s shirt. Leaving the tails out, she fluffed at the back, satisfied with how the fabric fell over her trim backside, and sat back down at the vanity to undo her hair.

“I used to call him Colleen.” The memory was a good one. Nothing infuriated my brother like minimizing his masculinity. “Probably why he hates it.”

“But you’re here for Hyun-Shik, not small talk, yes?” Scarlet plucked the diamond hair picks from her hair, setting them into a velvet case. “I don’t really know what goes on upstairs, baby. Not really.”

“Scarlet, I know how these places work. I’m sure you know something, maybe?” She gave me a glance in the mirror, briefly meeting my eyes before she plucked at the bobby pins along her sweep. I pressed closer, leaning in until we were almost touching. “I’m just looking for some information. Something about Hyun-Shik’s death doesn’t work for me, and I want to know why.”

“Boys like you are trouble, dongsaeng,” she said. “You poke at things you should leave alone. What happens when it comes back to you?”

“Is there something I should be worried about?” I tried for a reassuring smile but wasn’t so sure I pulled it off. “Hyun-Shik killed himself, or someone helped him do it. Either way, I was hired to see what I could find. What can you tell me? Anything?”

Scarlet pulled her hair free, letting it fall in a black wave down her back. Working her fingers around her temples, she undid the last of the bindings and picked up a hairbrush, separating out hanks of hair to finish untangling the strands. For a minute, I thought she wasn’t going to say anything to me. Then, with a sigh, she began to talk.

“Hyun-Shik started coming here when he was in college. His father bought him his membership,” she said, waving the brush at my reflection, warning me to shush.

“Kim bought his son the membership? The same man that insists his son wasn’t gay?”

“Anything I say to you here isn’t going to go anywhere, yes? You keep it between us. I like you, honey, but I’m not going to start trouble for the Kim family. Hyung depends on the father to do business for him.” Waving her finger under my nose, she nearly hit me with the end of the brush.

“Not a word to anyone,” I replied, running the tip of my finger over my mouth in a show of silence.

“Mr. Kim knew his son was iban. It wasn’t a surprise to him. Maybe the mother didn’t know, but the father did.” Emotions flitted in her moist, dark eyes. Whatever Scarlet was thinking, it wasn’t just about Hyun-Shik. “A lot of fathers try to help their sons in some way. Mr. Kim probably thought that a membership for Hyun-Shik would be a good idea.”

“Membership gets you what upstairs?”

“Dorthi Ki Seu membership only gets you upstairs. You have to pay for everything else.” She kept her attention on her hair, brushing at tangles. “You can get a lot of things upstairs: drinks, drugs, and boys. Most men go up there for the boys, but they do other things too.”