“He had it coming. He was manhandling a business girl on the dance floor of the Seven Club.”
The provost marshal crinkled his nose in confusion and glanced at the first sergeant and then at me. You could almost hear his thoughts: Manhandling a business girl? That’s a crime? He glanced at the paperwork on his desk. “Hilliard said it was a racist attack.”
“Not so, sir. I would’ve been happy to punch his lights out regardless of his color.”
The provost marshal rolled his eyes and lifted both hands to the side of his head and rubbed his temples. He was through talking to Ernie. Instead, he talked to the first sergeant.
“We’ll have to answer this, Top. See if you can write up a statement that makes sense and before you send it out, run it by the JAG Office to see what they think.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Meanwhile, Bascom, you and your partner here are liable to come up on EEO charges.”
The colonel was about to go on but Ernie interrupted him.
“Sueno had nothing to do with it, sir. In fact, he tried to stop me.”
“Well he wasn’t very effective, was he?”
“I was too quick for him, sir,” Ernie continued. “I’ll accept the punishment but Sueno’s innocent.”
“Not according to the KNPs.”
The Korean National Police had not yet cleared Ernie and me of suspicion concerning the death of Two Bellies.
“That’s bull, sir. You know it. That’s their way of deflecting blame from any Korean who might have power. A safety valve. So in case they find that whoever murdered Two Bellies has money and influence, they can pretend that they suspect us.”
Colonel Brace didn’t respond to that. But he didn’t contradict Ernie either.
“All right,” he said, looking back and forth between us. “You two are about to lose your ratings as criminal investigation agents and, if you keep pissing off the power structure here at Eighth Army, you’re about to get court-martialed or even booted out of the army.” Colonel Brace held up his hand, not allowing us to respond.
“Bascom, you’re restricted to compound. No, no argument. At least until this discrimination charge blows over. Sueno, find Jessica Tidwell,” he said. “And then, once she’s safe, find the bones of that G.I. who was murdered twenty years ago. That will redeem you. That and only that. Am I understood?”
We both nodded.
Colonel Brace further told the first sergeant that he wanted extra MP patrols in Itaewon tonight, searching for Jessica Tidwell.
Colonel Brace hadn’t even mentioned the murder of Horsehead, nor the murder of Auntie Mee. And he’d only mentioned Two Bellies because Ernie and I had been falsely charged by the KNPs, thereby embarrassing the command. To the 8th Army honchos, the murder of Koreans was an abstract concept. Even the village of Itaewon itself, where the single G.I. s went, was not anything more than something to be snickered at during polite conversation at the Officers’ Club cocktail hour.
But I’d seen the blood. I’d touched it and smelled it. And my cop instincts told me that it wouldn’t be long until a G.I. was involved in some way with the mayhem that was going on in Itaewon. I didn’t know who was behind this madness or what it was all about but I believed that at it’s source, somehow, was Technical Sergeant Flo Moretti.
The fluorescent light above the provost marshal’s desk flickered and went out.
“Shit,” he said. “There goes the juice. Top, see if you can get the engineers to start up the generator.”
“Will do, sir.”
Outside, snow continued to fall in steady sheets. The first sergeant left the room. The provost marshal glanced at us. “Why are you still here?”
We didn’t reply. Instead, we saluted, performed a smart about-face, and left the room.
Jimmy Pak was looking for me. At least a half dozen business girls had relayed the message. The communications apparatus in Itaewon-word of mouth-may be ancient but it’s efficient. Once one of the Seven Dragons issues a summons, in short order the entire village knows about it.
I could’ve gone over to the UN Club to see what the hell he wanted but I was in no hurry. Maybe I didn’t feel comfortable about walking into his place of business without Ernie to back me up. But I didn’t think that was it. If Jimmy Pak, or any of the Seven Dragons, were out to get me they wouldn’t make it public knowledge that they wanted to see me. If they were out to get me, the attack would happen in a dark alley, when no one was looking and when I least expected it. As had happened to Mori Di.
I was more curious at the moment, about the Korean police reaction to the murder of Auntie Mee.
When the cannon fired on Yongsan Compound, signifying the end of 8th Army’s workday, I marched up to the mess hall, ate some chow, and then took a shower and changed into my running-the-ville outfit.
I gazed at my bunk longingly. I hadn’t been getting much sleep lately, ever since I’d first heard about Mori Di. And I’d gotten virtually no sleep with Doc Yong last night. My crotch was sore. But I couldn’t afford the luxury of letting down. Two Bellies had trusted me and she’d been killed. The remains of Tech Sergeant Flo Moretti were still missing. A harmless fortune teller had been brutally murdered and Horsehead, one of the Seven Dragons, had been hacked to death by a group of women covered in dark hoods. Ernie and I had vowed to get to Snake. Now it was all up to me.
Captain Kim was overjoyed to see me.
His cheeks sagged and his eyes took on a deathly stillness that would’ve made a mafia godfather look like a cheerleader at a high school football game. He didn’t even ask me what I wanted. He just stared.
“Anyonghaseiyo?” I said cheerfully. Are you at peace?
He didn’t answer. His head was square, his short black hair combed straight back, and the collar of his sharply pressed khaki uniform gleamed with three canted rectangles of polished gold. He didn’t smoke. Unusual for a mature Korean man, so I didn’t bother to offer him a cigarette. I didn’t smoke either but sometimes, when visiting Korean officialdom, I carried a pack of American-made cancer sticks, more as a peace offering than anything else.
I started with Horsehead.
“Important man,” I said. “Dead. Maybe the Seven Dragons are taaksan pissed off.”
Captain Kim shrugged. Not a syllable left his thick lips.
“And Two Bellies,” I continued. “She die same-same.”
The murder weapon had been similar. A knife. But instead of a thousand cuts, Two Bellies was killed by one quick slice through the throat.
“And now Auntie Mee,” I said, and mimed a hand around a throat. This seemed to pique Captain Kim’s interest.
“How you know?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Everybody say.”
Captain Kim glared at me.
We often spoke this pigeon English to one another. He didn’t like it when I spoke Korean. It made him uncomfortable to hear Korean sounds coming out of a foreign face. No matter what I said to him in Korean, he insisted on answering me in English. A lot of Koreans did this. The younger ones because they didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to practice their English. The older ones because they didn’t want a foreigner mangling their ancient language-a language that to them was sacred.
“You know a lot,” Captain Kim said.
“Because I’m a cop,” I said.
He studied me. The unspoken statement being, “Is that the only reason?”
Captain Kim knew as well as I did that I hadn’t murdered anyone. Still, if the higher-ups told him to charge me, he’d do it and watch me go to prison for that matter. Life is cheap here in Korea and had been since, at least, the Korean War. Nobody knows exactly how many civilians were killed in the war. Estimates vary from two to three million. After something like that happens to a society, death doesn’t seem so unusual. And hardship and injustice become merely routine. Even to a cop. Especially to a cop.
“So, who killed Auntie Mee?” I asked.
Captain Kim shrugged and glanced at the paperwork in front of him. I answered my own question.