Dirty Secret (4 page)

“We weren’t here long,” Shin-Cho interjected. “Maybe eight months? Maybe longer?”

“About a year,” Scarlet said. “Then Dae-Hoon disappeared, and Ryeowon took the boys back to Korea. I didn’t see them much.
Hyung
visited, but you know….”

I did know. Her lover had a wife and children, a wholly separate life in South Korea that Scarlet wasn’t a part of. It seemed to work for them. If it didn’t, Scarlet wasn’t saying anything.

“My mother remarried. She didn’t want us to be… exposed to our uncle’s perversions. That is how my family puts it, just not to his wife’s face.” Shin-Cho had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I didn’t know about…
nuna
. I thought… she… I mean he… I didn’t know. I thought Uncle was with a woman.”

“Yeah,” I said, letting him off the hook. “
Nuna
’s a hot woman.”

“I consider it a compliment,
dongsaeng
,” Scarlet reassured us. Jae chuckled behind the rim of his coffee cup and failed at looking innocent when she tsked at him.

“So your family knows about you liking men, and things went to shit.” I nodded. “I know how that is. I’m sorry it happened to you, man.”

“It’s why I’m in Los Angeles. The Seong family… my mother’s family… is very traditional. There’s no room in it for someone like me.” He pressed his lips together. “My uncle said he would help me. He and
nuna
have been….”

“It’s been a rough few weeks, Cole-ah,” Scarlet murmured. “All of this has opened up old wounds… old arguments.”

“They think I’m this way because of something my father did. One of my uncles even asked me if my dad touched me,” Shin-Cho spat. “He says things like that, and they think I’m the one disgracing my family? I thought my father’d been killed in a car accident. So many lies are told to cover up something they hate. I need to find out what happened to him. I need something to make sense now, especially since my family….”

“You have David,” Scarlet said. “Your brother is still with you.”

“The one marrying your dad’s lover’s kid.” I still had a hard time getting past that tangle.

My brain was spinning a bit. I couldn’t read the expression on Jae’s face. He’d shut down a few moments earlier, his features becoming a placid mask I couldn’t penetrate. What Shin-Cho was describing was Jae’s worst nightmare. The pain in the man’s voice nearly broke me. I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel if I had to watch Jae go through the same anguish. It would kill me. It would kill us both.

“David says he’s okay with how I am. He supports me, but the rest of my family refuses to even talk to me.” Shin-Cho sighed. “My brother’s wedding is Saturday. My mother is here in Los Angeles, but refuses to come if I’m there. I’ve told David that I’d stay away so she could be there, but he said no, our mother’s made her choice.”

“What do you need me to do?” I tried to bring them back on track.

“I’d like you to find out what happened to my father. I need to know,” Shin-Cho said. “
Nuna
was with him when he disappeared. After that, no one knows what happened to him.”

“I think he’s dead, Cole-ah,” Scarlet said. “And Kwon Sang-Min is the one who killed him.”

Chapter Three

“
N
UNA
,” Jae scolded her gently. She sniffed in response. No one can sniff like a pissed off Filipino transvestite. “We don’t know. We can’t say.”

“It’s because she doesn’t like him,” Shin-Cho added. “I don’t like him either. He stares at my brother oddly. Now that I know about him and my father, I like him even less.”

“Okay. Let me ask you something.” I tried to be as diplomatic as I could. I’ve sat across from a lot people who wanted to find answers to things before. They didn’t really want answers. They wanted to be told there was nothing to be found. Too often, those same people ended up with answers they didn’t really want to hear. I wasn’t certain what Shin-Cho was expecting to find. “What do you think’s going to happen if I find out anything? What do you need to happen?”

“Maybe I can understand my father a bit more? I don’t know,” Shin-Cho admitted. “I hate that no one looked for him, other than
nuna
and my uncle. He was a problem that went away, and they didn’t care. I can’t live with that. Not if he went through how I feel. I can’t, Cole-sshi. I just have to know.”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened,
nuna
.” I turned to Scarlet. “I can’t promise anything. It’s been a hell of a long time.”

“Trying is enough,” Scarlet said, and Shin-Cho nodded briefly, his eyes fixed on his clasped hands. “There are some powerful men involved,
hyung
included. You have to promise that you’ll be discreet, honey.”

“Discreet is my middle name,” I assured Scarlet.

“Your middle name is Kenjiro,” Jae snorted. “It means second son who is nosy.”

I ignored Jae and dug a notebook and pen out of the stack of work things I left on the coffee table. “Let’s start with what happened.”

“It was in….” Scarlet paused, counting the time back. “November of ninety-four. Dae-Hoon and I were at a bathhouse here in Los Angeles… in K-town. Bi Mil was more like a club. There was a floor where we could dance, and there
was
a pool of sorts, but it was small, barely big enough to hold twenty men. I would go there to meet
hyung
. We were… younger. Things were harder. It was harder for us to be together.”

“This place—Bi Mil—made it easier to meet up?” I made a note to find the address in case I found some older gay men who were around at that time. Too many moved to friendlier climates or died from the disease that ate its way through the gay community. “Lots of people to get lost in? What was the clientele like? Did you have to worry about someone going too far with a scene, or something?”

“It was mostly Asians, like Dorthi Ki Seu, but well, more hidden. Dirtier, really.” Scarlet laughed softly, and a gentle blush colored her face. “Not as classy. More like some place men could go to for relief… not love or companionship.
Hyung
and I could take one of the rooms and spend time together… without anyone seeing us. He wasn’t as… secure as he is now. Being seen with me would have meant trouble for him. It’s different now. So different.”

“You and Dae-Hoon were there together? Then what?”

“There was a raid. There were men dressed all in black. They said they were police….” Scarlet’s voice dropped, rough and torn from emotion. “This was after the Riots, but the police then, they were still brutal. They blamed us for so many things. Hated us for so many things. We would never go out alone, not to the clubs. Being gay then… was dangerous. Even though things were changing, it was still hard.

“That night,” she continued softly. “When the police came in, Dae-Hoon and I ran down the hall. There were doors on the side of the building, and I thought we could get to one and get outside. Those men… those police… followed us. I didn’t think about it at the time, but afterward, I thought, ‘Why did they follow only us? Why didn’t they grab the other men first?’”

“They grabbed you and Dae-Hoon?” I prodded gently.

“No, not me. Just Dae-Hoon. Me, they hit,” Scarlet said, shaking her head. She lifted her long dark hair away from her face. The sunlight coming through the living room windows hit the shallow half-moon scar near her temple, throwing the edge of it into shadow. Something sharp had gouged out a tiny piece of Scarlet’s skin, leaving behind a memento of that night.

“Was….” I realized I didn’t know Scarlet’s lover’s real name. “Was
hyung
there yet?”

“Not yet. Not then.” She leaned back into the couch and looked worn. “There were so many men running out. By then, the cops were hitting everyone. So many of us were bleeding and crying.
Hyung
was outside, just coming in when the police came. I didn’t think about it. He was just there, and I was safe. I told him Dae-Hoon was still inside, but he put me into a car and told the man to drive off. Later,
hyung
said no one saw Dae-Hoon… no one could find him. That night was the last time I saw him. I searched. I called everyone we knew… even his ex-wife… but he was gone.”

“Ex?” I asked. “They were divorced?”

“Not yet,” Shin-Cho said. “My mother said he’d started it, but they were still married when he died.”

“He didn’t want to hide anymore,” Scarlet said, tilting her head. “His family… everything… he walked away from everything, because he said he was tired of lying to protect other men like him. Dae-Hoon was angry about how the family was treating him.
Hyung
told him not to make trouble, but I don’t think Dae-Hoon cared anymore.”

“Who was he there to meet? Anyone in particular?” I reached for Jae, putting my hand on his. Shin-Cho’s dilemma mirrored his own life too closely for him not to be affected, and I was grateful when his fingers tightened on mine in return. “Who was Dae-Hoon meeting that night? Who knew he was going to be there besides you and
hyung
?”

“Kwon Sang-Min,” Scarlet whispered. “He’d broken it off with Dae-Hoon, but Sang-Min asked him to come with me, and then they’d meet. I don’t think Sang-Min was ready to give Dae-Hoon up. I don’t know. We’re not close.”

“Does his family know?” I asked. “Kwon’s family, do they know he’s gay?”

“No. He is not like…
hyung
. He goes from… he is not looking for love. For Kwon, young men are just for his… use,” she replied. “He’s someone
hyung
knows. I hear gossip sometimes, but I haven’t paid attention. He treated Dae-Hoon badly. I don’t think he’s treating any of them any better now.”

“Is he close with… okay, what’s
hyung
’s real name?” I finally asked.

“Seong Min-Ho,” Scarlet laughed.

“Are Kwon and Seong close?” I wrote down the names as best I could. I’d have Jae look over my spelling later when I could be mocked in private.

Scarlet pursed her mouth. “They know each other. Both are second-generation
chaebol
. I don’t know when they met.”

“They went to university together,” Shin-Cho said. “Sang-Min told me that when he met me.”

“So both gay and exiled to America?” I drew boxes around their names and dotted a line between them.

“I have something else,” Scarlet said. “When Dae-Hoon didn’t come back,
hyung
offered to have his things stored. I can get the key for you. I have it in my jewelry case.”

“Does Seong know you’ve come to me?” Seong was at the top of my list of people to talk to. He could have not told Scarlet if he knew something’d happened to Dae-Hoon in order to spare her from any unpleasantness. What I knew of the man, he struck me as someone who’d ruthlessly take care of business, then say it was all kittens and roses.

“He knows,” she replied. “He said he’ll make time to talk to you if you need it.”

“I’ll need to,” I said, nodding. “So you’ve had Dae-Hoon’s things in a storage unit for almost two decades? You haven’t taken a look at it? Or taken Shin-Cho there?”

“No.” Both she and Shin-Cho shook their heads. “It hurt too much, but I wanted the boys to have his things when they found out the truth. When I told Shin-Cho about his father’s things, he thought you might like to look at it first, in case there is something to help you.”

“I miss my father, Cole-sshi, I do,” Shin-Cho said. “But
nuna
shared with me what photos and letters she had. I can wait to see the rest.”

“Who packed his stuff?” My main concern was someone’d already filtered through Dae-Hoon’s belongings. If there was anything incriminating, it could have disappeared long before a single box reached the storage unit.

“I did some. Dae-Hoon’s roommate helped. There wasn’t a lot,” Scarlet replied. “They both used to work for
hyung
.”

I had to assume that if Seong had anything to hide, Lee could have taken anything Seong didn’t want found, but with Scarlet there, it would have been harder to hide. Seong walked a tighter rope then than Jae-Min did now. “Tomorrow… well, today is Thursday. Can you get me the key later? I’ll see what I can find.”

“You need sleep first,” Jae reminded me. “And if you go, it has to be on Friday. We’re going to the wedding on Saturday.”

“Eh?” I tried to remember if I’d been asked to attend a wedding, then remembered Jae had a booking for one. He had help in the morning for the formal shots and the wedding, but asked me to help him for the evening reception. The look he gave me was suspicious, as if he’d expected me to forget. “Oh no, don’t give me that look. I’ve got it blocked out on my phone. Even Claudia knows. Big wedding. Help Jae or die.”

“You’d wish you were dead if you forgot.” Jae gave me an evil eye that would’ve made his cat jealous. “I would make sure it would take you a very long time to die.”

“I’ll see you at my brother’s wedding, then.” Shin-Cho stood up. “Unless you’re coming tonight too?”

“What’s tonight?” I stood when Scarlet got to her feet, moving out of the way so she could get past.

“The rehearsal dinner,” Jae whispered. “Don’t worry. Andrew said he’d do that one with me.”

“No need to whisper. My feelings aren’t hurt.” Scarlet lightly slapped his arm as she passed him.

“What? Why would your feelings be hurt?” My lack of sleep was beginning to wear on my brain.