Page 17 of Perfect Martinis
“Moriah-ya,” Jeong-Ki says. “I’m gonna unlock his phone, and you have to tell me if what I find really is your former friend.” He bends down and cuts the dead man’s thumb off to unlock the phone before standing back up, phone in one hand, thumb in the other.
He scrolls for a bit, his brows drawing as he reads messages in Korean too fast for me to try and follow. I’m fluent, but not as good at reading it as a native.
“This … can’t be,” he whispers, his honeyed skin going a sickly shade of gray.
I put my hand on his arm, and his tremors make me shake.
“What is it?”
He closes the messages and says, “He was telling the truth; he was paid to have the club roughed up, and he was paid to have local kkangpae follow you and then find me. Even the police got paid to give me that assignment at your bar.” He turns to me. “Did you ever see a picture of our group?”
I shrug. “Maybe. I told you, I don’t know K-pop.”
“Go look us up. The last album promos we did.”
I get my phone and do just that, though the first thing that comes up is Jeong-Ki’s “shocking” departure.
I click on images and that’s when it’s my turn to tremble.
It’s Phil.
Phil was in Jeong-Ki’s group.
Granted, in this picture he has pastel pink hair and a ton of makeup on, reminiscent of 1980s female pop stars, and a sequined suit, but it is definitely him. There’s no missing his flat nose or permanent pout.
“Ji Pil-Sung,” Jeong-Ki spits. “Or as you knew him, Phil the bartender.”
I shake my head. “No. No way.” Dread pools in my gut as I try to explain this away with logic. Because this seems like a bad thriller than my life right now. “Jeong-Ki, you weren’t there. They raped him so bad he had to go to the hospital! I was the one by his side all night, keeping the cops at bay!”
Jeong-Ki shows me his scarred knuckle. “I did fight him once, when I left the group. But the story on the internet about how Pil-Sung got his chipped tooth and I got this is not true.”
Doing a quick scroll, I see a story about how Jeong-Ki got so enraged at Pil-Sung a year before the group broke up, Jeong-Ki punched Pil-Sung, chipped his tooth, and that gave Jeong-Ki the knuckle scar.
“What really happened to his tooth then?”
“Well, he and Stefan Lear needed me pliant, reliant on them, unable to escape. A scandal that I was this tough violent bastard was perfect. Who would want me then? I could stay in the group, do everything, while Pil-Sung was a sweet little angel victim.” His voice goes up an octave on the last four words, a mocking pitch.
“So, he argued with me, got in my face. Did everything to make me punch him. He slapped me, he pushed me, he threatened me. I didn’t give in. Do you know what I saw that crazy bastard do?”
He pauses and I shake my head again.
“He fucking beat himself bloody, chipping his own tooth. And when I tried to stop him, he bit me so hard he left this scar. Luckily the one on my neck faded. I watched as he bashed his face into a wall to make people think I beat him.” Jeong-Ki runs a hand through his hair. “I knew if I left, I’d never make it in K-pop. So I stayed. They got what they wanted out of me for another year, another album.”
“Are you saying … he told the guys to go that hard on him? To hospitalize him? Just to … what? Fuck me up?” That makes no sense. He hated Jeong-Ki. So when I got to Seoul it makes sense he would use me to find and hurt Jeong-Ki more.
But why did he do it the three years I worked with him? He can’t have known I’d get an inheritance.
Where do I fit in here?
Jeong-Ki nods at my question and says, “We need to find him. Quickly. Before he discovers Lear is dead.”
“It’s Friday. He’s gotta be at his bar,” I reply, feeling numb.
My best friend.
He set me up to be assaulted every fucking month? And what happened in Seoul? I feel sick and close my eyes, willing the shakes to go away and the bile to settle back down.
I am betrayed, violated, hurt.
