I sat.
He tapped burnt pipe tobacco into an ashtray. “I understand,” he said, “from the KNP Liaison officer that you and Bascom had taken our prime suspect in the murder of Major Schultz into custody.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then you lost her.” He glared at me from across his mahogany desk.
“We were attacked, sir.”
“By whom?”
“We don’t know. It was a narrow alley. One of them, at least, was on a building overhead. They jumped down and landed on us.”
“Your friend Bascom was pretty successful in fighting them off. At least he didn’t end up in the hospital.”
“Good for him.”
“Not so good,” Colonel Brace said, his tone guarded. “The suspect still escaped. Bascom pursued, he says, but lost them in the narrow alleys.”
I nodded, wondering where this was going. That wasn’t exactly what happened, but Ernie had a policy of providing officers as little information as possible. In keeping with that policy, I kept my mouth shut.
Colonel Brace paused while he stuffed fresh tobacco into his pipe and then, using a stainless steel lighter emblazoned with the red and white 8th Army cloverleaf patch, he lit the concoction and puffed heartily. A cloud floated across the desk and rolled into my face. It smelled like cherry wood. I resisted the urge to wave it away. He lowered the pipe.
“Do you always dress like that when you go to the ville?”
“This is how most GIs dress, sir. We want to blend in.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
He seemed disgusted by the mere thought of going to the ville. More smoke billowed as he continued to puff away. Everything with him was an accusation, as if we’d done something wrong. But I was used to that. It seemed to be the strategy most military officers used to maintain discipline-by keeping their subordinates worried and off-balance. Straight out of the handbook; it was probably a seminar subject at the Reserve Officer Training Corps.
“That homicide detective,” Colonel Brace said, “Mr. Kill, he called about you.”
I immediately understood why he was being so condescending. He knew that Chief Inspector Gil Kwon-up had connections to officials at the highest levels of the Korean government, who in turn had connections with those at the highest levels of the 8th United States Army. Even higher, if they wanted to push it; as high as the US Ambassador to South Korea. Colonel Brace wanted to impress upon me that even though I might be consulting temporarily with someone who had power over him, in the end I was just a GI, just an enlisted man. And once my sojourn in the halls of power was over, the 8th United States Army could eat me for lunch, if they deigned to choose that particular blue-plate special on that particular day. Still, for the moment, I had power. I exercised some of it.
“What did Mr. Kill say, sir?”
“He asked about your health. I told him the doctor thought there was no serious concussion. You’d recover soon.”
I waited. There had to be more. Colonel Brace wanted me to beg for it. I wouldn’t.
“He also asked that you and Bascom be assigned to him for the duration of the investigation.”
“The investigation into Major Schultz’s death?”
“Are we talking about another one?”
I didn’t answer. After staring me down, Colonel Brace began fiddling with a stack of paperwork on his desk. That was the signal that this interview was just about over. Without looking at me, he said, “You and Bascom are to report to the KNP headquarters immediately. He’ll probably want you to make up for what you’ve already screwed up.” He became very interested in the contents of one of his plastic binders for about half a minute, then he looked up at me, as if surprised that I was still there. “That’ll be all.”
I rose to my feet, assumed the position of attention, and saluted.
While I held my salute, Colonel Brace said, “And one more thing, Sueno. While on this detail with the KNPs, you are to report to Staff Sergeant Riley every morning at zero eight hundred. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
He flicked his wrist and waved me away.
I dropped my salute, did an about face, and marched out of his office.
Before I left, I stopped by the Admin Office and asked Miss Kim if I could borrow her Korean-English Dictionary. She studied me with a worried look on her face. “You need to rest, Geogie.”
“Maybe later,” I told her.
She motioned for me to sit down. I did. She grabbed her dictionary and said, “What’s the word?”
“Koshigi.”
She set the dictionary down. “Where’d you hear that?”
“The woman we took into custody last night, the one who escaped. She used it.”
Miss Kim nodded and sipped cold tea. “Would you like something to drink?”
I shook my head.
She knew I was growing impatient so she said, “Koshigi is a word used by people in the south. Usually Cholla Namdo.” South Cholla Province. She noticed that I leaned back slightly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Go ahead, please.”
“It’s what someone says when they can’t think of the right word.”
I nodded slowly. “Like whatchamacallit.”
“Yes, something like that.”
Which made sense. Miss Jo had rattled off a list of customers and how much money she’d made and then shaken her head slightly, as if she couldn’t concentrate.
Miss Kim thumbed through the dictionary, found the word and turned the thick onion-skinned book around and pointed with her neatly manicured forefinger to koshigi. There were a number of translations, all of them vague, all meaning something like “thingamajig.”
“But it’s used only by people from the south?” I asked.
“Almost always. It makes Seoul people smile.”
I knew that in ancient times, Korea had been broken into three countries. Paekche was the kingdom that ruled the southwest corner of the peninsula, where Cholla Province was now located. Over the centuries, distinct dialects of the Korean language had evolved. Nowadays, the Seoul dialect was considered standard, but people still had little trouble discerning which part of the country someone came from by listening to their saturi; their pronunciation and word choice.
“You need rest, Geogie,” Miss Kim told me again.
“Yes, I’ll rest. Soon.” I figured now was as good a time as any to ask her. “Ernie followed you,” I said, “on the bus. Was everything okay?”
Her face turned beet red, and I immediately regretted asking.
“Okay,” she said but she held her head down and I knew she didn’t want to talk about it.
“I hope he didn’t bother you,” I said.
“No. He didn’t bother me.” After a long silence, she looked up at me. “What is it about Cholla Province that bothers you?”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“It’s about her, isn’t it?”
By her, she meant Doctor Yong In-ja, my former girlfriend. Someone I’d lost.
“I can’t fool you at all,” I told her.
She nodded. “We both have long stories. And secret stories.”
I didn’t disagree with her.
Ernie was at the MP Station, writing an arrest report for a Korean woman with a giant diamond on her left hand. She was sniffling and wiping her eyes with a pink handkerchief, occasionally blowing her nose.
“My husband taaksan kullasso-yo,” she said. Very angry.
Ernie continued writing. “You sold ten cans of Spam, one jar of soluble creamer, a pound and a half of frozen oxtail, and thirty-two ounces of Folgers freeze-dried coffee out in the ville. Of course he’ll be mad. Not because you sold them, but because you got caught.”
He turned the report around and showed the woman where to sign. She reluctantly obliged.
A female MP stood behind Ernie, watching everything he did. She wore a polished black helmet with a white-stenciled mp on the front and highly spit-shined jump boots, and her fatigues were tailored to show off her figure. A web belt was cinched tightly around her waist, the holstered pistol looking large on her hip. Her nametag said Muencher.