“Captain Embry?” I said.
“What the hell do you want?” he asked.
I told him. Then I started asking questions. Captain Embry denied having hit any MP last night and denied having entered the women’s latrine. He vehemently denied stealing a red bra and panties.
“She wrote to me,” he said. “Asked me to come see her when the show arrived. I did. I checked out a jeep last night, drove up to Waegwan. I was sitting outside their BOQ, trying to decide if I should really talk to her or if I should just let the past be the past.”
He remained on the edge of his bunk, his head drooped, his big hands spread over square knees.
“Do you have the letter?” I asked.
He stared up at me, brown eyes luminously moist. Finally, he snorted. “Yeah. I have it. There. On the desk.”
Ernie switched on a green-shaded desk lamp, rummaged through paperwork, and lifted a letter into the light and examined the envelope. When he was finished, he tossed it to me. By now the sun was just about down, but I had left the door open and there was enough illumination from the desk lamp and the fluorescent bulbs in the hallway to read. I scanned the letter quickly.
It was postmarked two days ago, in Seoul. Staff Sergeant Riley had evidently succumbed to Marnie’s charms and located Captain Embry’s address for her. The letter was formal in tone, not emotional, explaining when she’d be arriving in the Taegu area and under what circumstances, not inviting him to see her but not telling him to stay away either.
“Did you answer the letter?” I asked.
Embry shrugged. “No reason. By the time it got there, she would’ve been on the way down here.”
“Did you see the MP on patrol around the building?”
“Yeah. I saw him. But I don’t think he saw me. I was parked across the street next to a warehouse about twenty yards away. It was dark.”
“Did you see anybody else there?”
“No. But I wasn’t really watching. After they pulled up in the van and the girls went inside, I mainly just sat there smoking and thinking.”
“Thinking about what?” Ernie asked.
“About whether or not I should really talk to her.”
“Did you hear anything when the MP was attacked?”
“That was on the far side of the Quonset hut. I didn’t hear anything.”
“Did you see someone enter the front door?”
“Like I said, I wasn’t really watching.”
“But someone could’ve entered the front door?”
“They could’ve.”
“How about the scream? Did you hear that?”
“I did. And then I looked up and somebody darted out of the door. The light was bad and he was moving fast so I couldn’t make out much, but I was sure it was a G.I., a G.I. wearing fatigues.”
“Where did he go?”
“He darted around the building. Out of sight.”
“What’d you do then?”
“I sat there. I wasn’t sure what to do. And then the MPs pulled up, siren blaring. I guess that sort of shook me out of my reverie. I climbed out of my jeep and walked forward and I was standing at the front door identifying myself to one of the MPs when Marnie came out.”
“What’d she say to you?”
“Nothing. She just stared at me, with that old disapproving look, like I’d done something wrong.”
“Had you?” Ernie asked.
“Get bent,” Embry replied.
“Easy, Embry,” I said.
“That’s Captain Embry to you.”
“Okay,” I said. “Captain Embry. You still have a thing for Marnie. That’s obvious.”
Embry didn’t reply.
I looked around the small room. “They tell me you have a good career going here. You’re a respected officer in the 19th Support Group. The brass watches USO tours closely, Captain Embry. Don’t screw things up. Don’t interfere with Marnie or the show. Stay away from her. Stay away from the Country Western All Stars and you’ll be all right.”
“You have no authority to tell me to stay away from her.”
“The hell we don’t,” Ernie replied. “One false move and we’ll arrest you for stalking a USO civilian. And for being a Peeping Tom.”
Embry rose to his feet. “Get the hell out of my room.”
Atop a metal wall locker, Ernie spotted a cowboy hat. He pulled it down and examined it, flipping back the inner lining. “Good brand,” he said. “Handmade. Direct from Austin, Texas.” Ernie tossed the cap in the air. Embry caught it on the fly. “Don’t turn this little drama into High Noon,” Ernie told him. “You’re outgunned.”
We walked out of the room.
As we walked back toward the NCO Club, Ernie asked me, “Why didn’t you arrest him?”
“He seemed like a decent enough guy.”
“But it had to be him. If we search his room, I bet we’d find that red bra and panties.”
“Maybe. And maybe he’s the one who’s been stalking them since they arrived in-country.”
“Yeah. Maybe we’d find everything there. Like the microphone and the cowboy boot, all that stuff.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But try to cop a search warrant from the Camp Henry Provost Marshal. Never happen.”
Ernie knew I was right. The officer corps protects its own.
“But if something happens to Marnie?” he said finally.
“You’ll just have to be more diligent in your protection,” I told him.
Ernie thought about that. “Maybe I will,” he said.
The Country Western All Star Review at the Camp Henry NCO Club that night was another resounding success. The G.I. s went nuts, as usual, even those who maybe weren’t crazy about cowboy music but certainly appreciated the tight blue jeans and tight blouses the ladies wore-and the way they jiggled. Marnie seemed even more animated than she usually did, maybe because she thought her exhusband might be in the audience. Even if he wasn’t, he’d hear about the performance and, being human, he’d be jealous of all those G.I. eyeballs lingering over her voluptuous curves. Anyway, if she thought Captain Embry might show up, she was wrong, because Ernie and I stayed sober and patrolled the packed main ballroom and mostly empty backstage area at regular intervals.
There wasn’t enough billeting space in the Camp Henry BOQ to house the Country Western All Stars, so the USO popped for rooms at the New Taegu Hotel downtown. After the show, while Mr. Shin and his crew were loading equipment in the vans, Ernie and I talked it over.
“We have to find Pruchert,” I said.
“And I have to make sure Embry doesn’t harass anybody,” Ernie replied.
“Right. So I’ll take the sedan and drive down to Haeundae Beach. You stay with the girls.”
“Tough duty,” Ernie replied. “I’ll do my best.”
“In the best traditions of the service.”
During the show, Ernie and I had taken turns eating some decent chow in the NCO Club dining room, and the bowl of chili beans and the fried chicken with rice and gravy had made me feel more human. Still, I was exhausted. In the last few days, what with all the running around we’d done in the southern end of the Korean peninsula, I’d managed to catch only catnaps. I was afraid that my exhaustion might be more than I could handle while driving, so I asked the club manager if he had a spare thermos of coffee. I promised to bring the jug back once I was done with it. He complied. Thus fortified and provisioned, I grabbed the keys from Ernie and set off south on the main supply route, heading toward Pusan.
If Pruchert was like most compulsive gamblers-and if he hadn’t been lying to Lucy-he’d most likely still be in the Haeundae Casino. It’s a twenty-four-hour operation, although they have to lock the doors during the midnight-to-four curfew-nobody in or out. Regardless of whether Pruchert was there, I resolved to report to Inspector Kill, and to 8th Army, as soon as I found the chance. They’d probably been wondering what we were up to, and-unlike Ernie-I was worried about aggravating them unduly.
Not that they deserved much consideration from us. After all, they’d assigned Ernie and me to two details-protecting the Country Western All Stars and finding the Blue Train rapist-both, in and of themselves, full-time jobs. And I was still worried about the rapist and his “corrective actions” and who else would be on his checklist. He’d strike again. Every moment brought us closer to his next attack.