South Central Noir

Sang-woo put out his cigarette, lit another, and wondered idly if Mike would be scared of Wallace. Anthony, he didn’t bother wondering about; he would never count on anyone being scared of Anthony, only figured that both of these jokers would be better than just the one. But Wallace? He looked young, not like a kid but like he could be twenty, twenty-five, prime gangbanger age. He was thin, maybe even skinny, but Mike was no Schwarzenegger. Mike was an insurance salesman. He sold policies to Korean merchants in South Central, but he found them at church, at birthday parties, not in the actual neighborhood. When Sang-woo named South Park Liquor as their meeting place, Mike asked if there were still National Guardsmen around, then said he’d only drive down in the middle of the day. Sang-woo guessed that Mike rarely saw Black people. Yeah, he’d be scared of Wallace. Maybe even of Anthony, if he thought the big man might have a gun.

“He’ll come,” said Sang-woo. “He has a girlfriend. I met her at the casino. If he don’t come, I told him next voice mail I leave for his wife.”

Anthony laughed into his fist. “Sang! You savage!”

A minute later, Mike’s 4Runner drove cautiously down Avalon. Sang-woo made eye contact with Mike through the windshield and motioned him toward the carcass of the liquor store.

Mike stopped the car at the intersection and rolled down his window, leaving a lane between the car and the corner. Sang-woo suppressed a smile — Mike was scared, all right, the greasy little weasel.

“Park the car!” Sang-woo shouted at him in Korean. “I just want to talk, but you better talk to me.”

“I’ll park across the street,” said Mike. “We’ll sit on that bench. Only us.”

“What’s he saying?” asked Anthony.

“He wants to talk alone. Over there.” Sang-woo gestured toward the bus stop on the other side of Avalon. “You guys stay here. Watch us — do the mad dog. Then five minutes, you walk over.”

Mike parked his car and got out while Sang-woo crossed the street. There were a few other people at the bus stop, but they watched for the bus and paid the two Korean men no mind. In every direction, Sang-woo could see broken windows and burned-out buildings, but in some ways, it felt like things were going back to normal. The fires had stopped. The soldiers were gone. People left home. They walked the streets. They took the bus.

Sang-woo sat on the bench next to Mike and pulled the policy out of his pocket. “Remember this?”

Mike nodded. He looked tired and sheepish. Sang-woo could see his sunken eyes, his armpit sweat, the shape of a wifebeater under his thin, rumpled shirt.

Sang-woo unfolded the paper. It was creased and limp, but the print was clear. “It’s worth $280,000.”

Mike leaned over to glance at the numbers. “That much? Are you sure?”

“You should know what it says. You sold it to me. ‘South Central is so dangerous. Who knows what could happen? Protect your business. Think of your kids.’”

“Let me see it.”

Sang-woo set the paper down on his lap and jabbed the number with his middle finger. “Total loss, $280,000. Are you telling me that isn’t what this says? Are you telling me you lied?”

“I didn’t lie!”

The sweat stains on Mike’s shirt had spread. It felt good to see him squirm after weeks of talking to his answering machine, but Sang-woo knew what that meant: Sang-woo’s sure winner, his insurance and most responsible bet, had been a gamble after all.

“Look around, brother,” said Mike. “You think you’re the only one trying to get paid?”

Sang-woo hadn’t spoken to Mary Yoo — he’d felt lucky and didn’t want to catch bad luck from a sad-sack virtuous immigrant sucker like her. But maybe he was the sucker. Happy Hamburger was gone, but maybe Mary had insurance. And if she did, surely she’d had better sense than to buy it from Mike Shibal-Sekki Koh.

“What do you think your job is? Selling pieces of paper? I paid. What did I pay for?”

Mike said nothing. Sang-woo grabbed him by the collar.

“I want to talk to your boss. Where’s your office? We can go now.”

“The office? It’s not—” Mike pushed Sang-woo’s hand away. “My boss doesn’t work in LA.”

“What do you mean? Where does he work, then?”

“The company is in Antigua, okay?”

“Antigua? Where the fuck is that, the East Coast?”

“It’s in the Caribbean.”

The Caribbean — Pacific Marine and Fire wasn’t even in America. It hit Sang-woo like a punch in the gut. “You sold me a cruise-ship island insurance policy, you son of a fucking dog?”

He could hear Eun-ji now, telling him he should’ve listened to her, should’ve gotten insurance from a reputable place, like the companies that advertised on TV. But no, this one wasn’t on him. Sang-woo had called those places, had been told, more or less, that they didn’t do business in South Central. The one quote he managed to get was so laughably high, it wasn’t worth considering — they couldn’t pay the premiums and keep enough profit for the business to make any sense. Mary Yoo could have done no better.