The joint was more elaborate than the other dives in Itaewon and the chairs even had upholstered seats. Also, club policy was to hire only waitresses with straight legs. With all these amenities the Silver Dragon Club was twice as expensive as the other local bars and as such was mostly patronized by civilian businessmen and American officers.
The bartender wore a white shirt with its sleeves rolled up and his collar held close by a black bow tie. I leaned over the counter. With a glistening metal pick, he chopped into a blue-white block of ice.
“What happened to the old ice pick?” I asked.
He looked up at me, as if he’d been shocked by electricity. “You policeman?” he asked.
I showed him my badge.
He pointed down the hall. “Then you go ask Korean policeman. They know everything about ice pick.”
“Maybe you can explain it to me,” I said. Ernie fondled a delicate glass goblet, tossing it up in the air, catching it, while keeping his eyes riveted on the bartender. The young man swallowed.
“Miss Tae, she took it.”
“Who’s Miss Tae?”
“A waitress. She used to work here. Same night GI doctor killed, she take ice pick go. Never come back.”
“You told the Korean police this?” Ernie asked.
The bartender nodded.
“Did Miss Tae know Captain Everson?” I asked.
The bartender looked puzzled.
“The GI who was killed,” I explained.
The bartender shrugged. “How I know? Miss Tae take ice pick, she go, she never come back. That’s all I know.”
“You saw her take it?”
“Yes. She told me she bring right back. So I say okay. She lie.”
Ernie returned the bartender’s goblet-unbroken. We walked down the hill toward the Itaewon district office of the Korean National Police.
Lieutenant Pak Un-pyong had handled the investigation into the homicide of Captain Richard Everson. He wasn’t in at this time of night, but when I flashed my identification and told the desk sergeant what we wanted, he called Lieutenant Pak at home.
Fifteen minutes later Lieutanant Pak walked into the big concrete bunker of the Itaeown Police Station. He was a tall man, thin even by Asian standards, with a hooked nose and a no-nonsense cast to his sharp features. He waved to us, and without a word we followed him down the hallway to his office.
We sat on two metal chairs in front of his desk, pulled out a pack of Turtle Boat brand cigarettes and offered us each a smoke. When we turned him down, he struck a wooden match, lit up, and leaned back in his rusty swivel chair.
“We’ve been waiting for one of you Americans to ask this question,” he said.
I hoped he’d explain, but instead Ernie spoke up. “This Miss Tae took an ice pick from the Silver Dragon Club,” Ernie told Pak. “She disappears. Captain Everson turns up murdered by an ice pick. What’s the connection?”
Lieutenant Pak let out a plume of smoke. “She’s the girlfriend of Choi Yong-kuang.”
The convicted killer and the son of the old woman who’d harangued us into looking into this case.
It came together quickly for Ernie.
“So Captain Everson is hanging out at the high-class Silver Dragon Club,” Ernie said. “Spending plenty of money because doctors make more than regular officers. This Miss Tae spots him, fingers him to her boyfriend, and Choi Yong-kuang and his partners jump him and rob him. She delivers the ice pick so Choi can silence Everson for good.”
“That’s what we think,” Pak said.
“But why kill Everson?” I asked. “He was down. They had his money and his watch and his ring. Why make things worse for themselves?”
Pak continued to puff for a moment and then finally spoke.
“Maybe they wanted to make sure that he couldn’t identify them. Maybe they thought he would have more money on him than he did and they would all leave Seoul together, and they didn’t want us following. Maybe Choi Yong-kuang hates Americans. Maybe he was jealous because Miss Tae had been having an affair with Everson. Maybe a thousand things. Who can say?”
“And Miss Tae disappeared?”
“We haven’t been able to find her. Her mother lives alone in Masan. We checked. No sign of her daughter. The local police are keeping an eye out for her in case she shows up. So far, nothing.”
The way Ernie was fidgeting, I could tell he didn’t like Lieutenant Pak’s explanation any more than I did.
“There has to be more to this case,” I said.
Pak shrugged.
“If you don’t find Miss Tae and if this guy Choi is executed, we’ll never know for sure.”
Pak shrugged again. “The government is happy.”
I knew what he meant. The Korean government receives millions of dollars from the United States each year to help in their defense against the communist regime up north. When a Korean kills an American officer, that special relationship is at risk. The way to save grief is to have the case closed quickly. Hanging Choi Yong-kuang would make a lot of government bureaucrats breathe easier.
“What is Choi’s story?” I asked.
“He says that he and Miss Tae had originally planned to murder Captain Everson. That’s why she brought the ice pick. They thought he was going to be bringing a lot more money. Supposedly, so he could buy Miss Tae out of her contract with the Silver Dragon Club, so she’d be free to quit work and live with Everson. An old trick. But Everson didn’t bring the money; he was using Miss Tae just as she was trying to use him. Choi say that when they realized Everson didn’t have more than a few dollars, he was furious. His partners ran away, Choi claims, but finally he didn’t have the heart to murder a helpless man. He dropped the ice pick and left while Everson was still breathing.”
“Miss Tae had already left?” I asked. Pak nodded. “And a few minutes later, one of your officers found Everson’s body.”
“A routine patrol.”
“How long had he been lying there?”
“Hard to say. It was a dark walkway, seldom traveled. Could’ve been as much as an hour.”
“Plenty of time for someone else to come along, grab the ice pick, and murder Everson,” Ernie said.
“That’s what Choi told the judge. Nobody believed him.”
“Plus,” I said, “it’s more convenient for the government not to believe him.” Pak shrugged once again. I leaned across the desk and stared into Lieutenant Pak’s dark eyes. “There’s a reason you came out here at night to talk to us. You’re not certain Choi is guilty.”
Pak stubbed out his cigarette. “If I had jurisdiction, I would search further into Captain Everson’s background. But I don’t have jurisdiction on your American army compound, and besides, my superiors are satisfied with the resolution.” He raised his open palms toward the ceiling. “What more can I do?”
“But we can do more,” Ernie said.
Lieutenant Pak smiled at him like a teacher indulging a bright student.
“Yes,” he answered. “You can do more. You can do much more.”
The next day at the CID office, I looked over what records were available concerning the Everson case. Jake Burrows and Felix Slabem, two of our fellow CID agents, had been assigned liason duties. They’d studiously regurgitated the translated record of the Korean police version of events but had done no investigative work themselves.
Their reason for showing so little curiosity was simple. In the army, the less you know the safer your career prospects.
Ernie and I performed our routine black market detail duties that day, but when I found a spare moment, I made a few phone calls. What I was trying to determine was the identity of Captain Richard Everson’s best friend. I found him: Bob Quincy, an engineering officer who had shared quarters with the late Captain Everson on 8th Army’s South Post.
Early that evening Ernie and I paid Quincy a visit.
He was a portly man with a round face and round spectacles and a pugnacious air. He stared straight up at Ernie’s pointed nose.
“You had to have some idea of what his social life was like,” Ernie said.