Specialist Four Reginald R. Crossnut wasn’t tall and blond, and he wasn’t short with brown hair. He was black. And pissed off when Ernie yanked on his mattress and rolled him out of his bunk. He hopped to his feet, swinging bony fists, cursing.
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
Ernie shoved him up against a wall locker.
“We’re CID agents,” Ernie told him. “And we’ve been up all night and we’re pissed off and we don’t like thieves. Where’d you get the six hundred dollars in MPC?”
Crossnut’s eyes widened, realizing the trouble he was in. He glanced back and forth between us. Ernie and I looked as if we hadn’t shaved in a week.
“The money is mine!” Crossnut said. He tried to wriggle out of Ernie’s grasp, but it didn’t work. “I won it in a poker game.”
Ernie clicked steadily on his ginseng gum, breathing into Crossnut’s face. “Gambling isn’t legal in Korea, Crossnut. Not on compound. Not off compound.”
Apparently Crossnut hadn’t considered that. His brow wrinkled.
“You can tell us the story of where the six hundred bucks came from,” Ernie continued, “and be on your way. Or we can arrest you right now for illegal gambling. Self-confessed.”
He shoved Crossnut higher up against the wall locker. I stepped in closer. “Who’s your black market mama-san, Crossnut?” I asked.
“Ain’t got no mama-san,” he replied. Ernie knotted his fist and cocked it. He wasn’t acting. I’d seen him rough up suspects before. Crossnut studied Ernie’s face and apparently lost all doubts about his intentions. “I got a papa-san,” Crossnut said.
“Out in Itaewon?” I said.
Crossnut nodded slowly. “You going to bust me?”
“Only if you lie to us.”
He studied our faces: tired, grim ready to punch out his lights if he didn’t open up. “His name’s Mr. Kang. Works out of the back of the Black Widow Club. He’s a good dude. Knows how to treat the brothers. You mess with him, you’ll have a lot of dudes down on you.”
Kang wasn’t much of a papa-san. Still in his twenties, he was too young for the role, as skinny as a broom handle, and wearing a red silk shirt and three gold chains around his neck. We were in the empty bar of the Black Widow Club. The place reeked of barf, beer, and disinfectant. All the chairs were turned up atop the cocktail tables, and an old woman sloshed suds on the floor with a dirty mop.
Kang chain-smoked between lips that were too thin. “Where I get MPC not your business,” he said.
Ernie grabbed a handful of red silk and leaned into his face. “If you want, Kang, we’ll call the Korean National Police. The commanding general of Eighth Army is pissed to the max about this stolen payroll. All it takes is one phone call from him to the KNP honcho and they’ll have you locked in the monkey house for twenty years.”
Ernie shoved him back. The cigarette flopped out of Kang’s mouth and sizzled in the slick suds. His eyes narrowed as he straightened his shirt.
“A lot of GIs change money in Black Widow Club,” Kang said. “How I know which one?”
“Six hundred dollars,” I said. “You remember.”
Kang shrugged, thinking it over. His black market and illicit currency exchange operation depended on the cooperation of the Korean National Police. He probably paid them a stipend each month to look the other way. But if a lot of grief rolled downhill from the 8th Army commander and the chief of police of the Yongsan precinct, the local KNPs would be embarrassed. And when corrupt cops get embarrassed, they also get angry. And they take it out on the crook who embarrassed them.
All these thoughts played themselves out on the features of Kang’s shifty face. Finally, muscles stopped twitching. He’d made his decision.
“Maybe you no believe,” Kang told us. “The guy with the six hundred, he not soul brother.”
“Who was he?”
“Everybody surprise. Tall white dude walk in Black Widow Club, ask for me, want to do business. Later I check. He do business with a lot of black market mama-san. Change MPC in Itaewon.”
“So you weren’t his only stop?”
Kang shook his head.
It figured. With ten thousand dollars to exchange for Korean currency, the thief would have to use more than one fence. Later, he could take the won to a Korean bank and use them to buy international money orders in US dollars. Mail them home. Stuff them in a bank account somewhere.
“What was this dude’s name?” Ernie asked.
“I don’t know. Tall. White hair. That’s all I know.”
“You must know something more about him.” Kang didn’t answer. “Think hard, Kang, or your next interrogation will be conducted by the KNPs.”
Ernie smiled. Civil liberties were about the last thing the local Korean cops were worried about.
Kang took his time lighting another cigarette. “He have black stuff on his fingers,” he said. “Like maybe he work on car. Later I see him with other GIs.”
“You know these GIs?”
Kang nodded.
“And they’re all in the same unit?”
Kang nodded again.
“Which is?”
“Twenty-one T Car.”
The 21st Transportation Company (Car). The main motor pool for 8th Army headquarters.
When Captain Turntwist, the commander of 21 T Car, saw two CID agents stride into his office, his narrow forehead crinkled like an accordion.
“What have they done this time?” he asked.
The troops of the motor pool weren’t known for being sedate during their off-duty hours. They ran a neck-and-neck contest with the 8th Army Honor Guard for the number of times one of their members appeared on the MP blotter report.
I ignored his question. “I’d like to see a roster of duty assignments for your drivers.”
Ernie pulled out another stick of gum and looked at me curiously. He had expected us to look through the personnel folders, searching the official photographs for two GIs who matched the descriptions give by Sergeant Holtbaker and Lieutenant Burcshoff. I had another idea.
Without argument, Captain Turntwist instructed his company clerk to provide me with the information. After ten minutes I came up with a list of names. I showed them to the captain. “Is one of these men tall, blond, and thin?” I asked.
Turntwist took the list out of my hands and studied it. “Yeah. Three of them,” he said.
“Does one of those three have a best buddy who is average height with brown hair?
He stabbed his finger at a name. “Dartworth, Private First Class.”
I found his name on the assignment list. “He’s been driving a sedan for the Protocol Office.”
“Right,” Captain Turntwist said. “Shuttling officers to and from Eighth Army social functions.”
“You need a personable guy for that.”
“That’s why we selected him.”
“And his buddy’s name?”
“Frankton.”
“Where are they now?”
“The entire unit’s in the auditorium. Mandatory winter driving class.”
“We need to talk to both of them.”
Captain Turntwist told the clerk to pull them out of training. While we waited, Ernie and I walked out onto the big cement entranceway.
“What made you look at their assignments?” Ernie asked.
“Something about this case has been bugging me. A few things.”
“But Protocol,” Ernie said. “Why would a couple of payroll thieves have anything to do with the Eighth Army Protocol Office?”
We heard the heavy tromp of combat boots down the hallway. “No time now,” I said.
Dartworth was indeed tall and blond, and good looking enough to have a shot at doing Hollywood hair oil commercials. His short buddy, on the other hand, would’ve looked more at home modeling leopard skins. The tight muscles of Frankton’s wide shoulders were knotted, as were his fists.
I decided to start with the formalities.
I pulled a copy of the Uniform Code of Military Justice from a bookshelf behind the clerk’s desk and handed it to the commander of the 21st Transportation Company (Car). “Captain Turntwist,” I said. “Would you do me a favor and read these two gentlemen their rights?”