When I turn up to the bar, it’s what I would expect of a place far past its glory days. It’s a cramped and dingy hole in the wall situated next to a shuttered pharmacy, a massage parlor, and some dumpsters. The sign above the door flickers so badly you can barely read the characters.
Inside there are only a handful of customers. Most old men who are either nursing glasses of soju or inhaling cigarette smoke into their lungs.
Behind the bar, wiping down glasses with a rag that’s seen cleaner days, is a man who must be Baek Dok-su.
He’s in his seventies, at least—grizzled and weathered, with a face like cracked leather. His hands are gnarled, his posture partially hunched. It seems like his patrons, he’s had several glasses to drink himself.
I approach the bar and take a seat on one of the rickety stools. Dok-su glances up at me, his expression instantly wary.
“We’re not hiring,” he says in Hangugeo. “And if you’re looking for trouble, find it somewhere else.”
“I’m not looking for trouble,” I answer plainly. “I’m looking for information. About my father.”
Recognition flickers in his eyes, yet he gives a single shake of his head, switching to English. “I don’t know your father.”
“Seo Jung-hoon,” I say, closely watching his cryptic expression. “He used to come to this bar thirty years ago. You were associates.”
The name drop triggers something in Dok-su. He goes still in the middle of wiping down the glass with the dirty rag.
The ambiguity on his cracked, leathery face fades as he releases a scoff and sets down the glass hard.
“You’re his son,” he says accusatorially. As if it’s damning. “The one who survived.”
“Is that how I’m known?” I ask in return. The corner of my mouth twitches. “So you know all about what happened to my family that night. How they were slaughtered like pigs.”
“I don’t know anything about it. You need to get out of here. You’re not welcomed!”
“I’m not asking to be polite,” I say, then I gesture at the claw marks along my neck. A well-known symbol of the white tiger the Baekho Pa is named after. “I’m telling you to provide the information I need or else.”
“Or… else?” he repeats, then he scoffs again. “You’re a gangster now too, eh? Like father, like son?”
“Yes, apparently. Being a gangster seems to be in my blood,” I answer. The grin that had started twitching its way onto my face spreads. “So if you want to find out what ‘else’ means, it would be my pleasure to show you.”
The threat seems to work. Dok-su scowls as if agitated he’s being bullied by a former associate’s son, but that doesn’t stop him from revealing what I’m asking for.
“Alright,” he says. He pauses long enough to glance around the dingy bar as if paranoid who might overhear. “Your father… if you must know… he was Hyeonmudan.”
My eyes narrow, glaring across the bar counter at him. “Hyeonmudan? The Black Turtle syndicate? They’re not real. Everyone knows that’s a tall tale.”
“The Hyeonmudan are very real,” he replies. “The rumors were not simply rumors—they were stories passed by word of mouth. But the gang was so secretive, so under the radar, people became convinced it was just fiction. They didn’t do public wars or flashy power struggles. They were the true underground crime syndicate, existing only in the shadows.”
I’m struggling to believe what he’s saying.
From the time I was a troublemaking youth, I’ve existed in the underworld of South Korea. I’ve run in criminal circles and met my share of gangsters and had many run-ins with other syndicates.
Not once have I ever known the Hyeonmudan to be real.
It’s always been understood it was nothing more than an urban legend. Some secret society like the Illuminati.
Nothing that existed in reality.
“You’re serious,” I say to the elderly man. “You’re saying the Hyeonmudan are not only real, but that my father was a member?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Your father was important,” Dok-su continues. “I don’t know all the details or what exactly he was doing for them, but it was significant. Then he betrayed them.”
“Betrayed them?” My brows draw closer in more suspicion.
“Something about information he gave up. It got people killed. I only know the Hyeonmudan don’t forgive betrayal. They sent their best to make an example of him. Of your whole family.”
