“How did he and Major Schultz get along?”
“Screaming matches, they tell me. Both of them with tempers that exploded about half a dozen times a day. Major Schultz had Colonel Jameson backing him up. Good thing he did, because Lance Blood is as tall as Sueno here, but with muscle on him. They say he bench presses four-twenty.”
Four hundred and twenty pounds? I could bench press two-forty and was proud of it.
“Four-twenty ain’t shit,” Ernie said.
“You try it.”
“When I have time,” Ernie replied.
“So did Major Schultz conduct a formal inspection of the Five Oh First?” I asked.
Strange grinned. It was a hideous sight to see. His cigarette holder waggled between greasy lips, and his eyes seemed to grow even more opaque behind his thick sunglasses.
“Thought you’d never ask.” He unfastened a center button on his khaki shirt and slid out a folded packet of paper. “Right, here it is.” I reached for it, but he quickly slid it back into his shirt and refastened the button.
“Uh uh uh,” he said. “First what you promised.” I glanced at Ernie. “No, not him. You.” Then he leaned closer to me and said, “Had any strange lately?”
I was tempted to punch him out right there, rip the copy of Major Schultz’s 501st inspection report out of his shirt, forget Strange and continue on with our investigation. The problem was that he was our only source for information directly from the Headquarters Command Staff of 8th Army. Asking for classified information formally was a waste of time. In the Army, it’s always safer to disallow a request for information than grant it. You can’t get into trouble by saying no.
Ernie patted my arm as if to say, We can’t afford to lose him. Then he rose from his seat and walked out of the snack bar, leaving me alone with Strange. Strange leaned even closer until I could smell his hot breath. “Well?” he said.
My problem was that I hadn’t had any strange lately. And even if I had, I’d sure as hell never tell him about anything with Leah Prevault. Even if I left her name out of the story, it would still feel like a betrayal.
“Strange,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied. “Strange.”
I remembered a blue movie I’d seen years ago in high school. My classmate’s older brother had a projector and some 16-millimeter film, and he’d shown it to us in his parents’ basement. To be honest, I’d been shocked by it at the time, but like the other kids in the room, I pretended that I experienced such things every day. I looked back at Strange, trying to imagine myself back in that formative moment. Stammering, I started to describe what I’d seen.
After a few sentences, Strange interrupted me. “Not the guy in the gorilla suit.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what you’re describing. That old smut film about a guy in a gorilla suit who breaks into some innocent girl’s house and rapes her.”
“I didn’t say anything about a gorilla suit.”
“I know the plot,” Strange said, crossing his arms and leaning back. “I want something real. Not made up.”
Apparently, Strange was an expert at these things. How did Ernie fake it? Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe he didn’t.
I started to talk. But after every sentence or two, Strange interrupted me and told me he didn’t believe my story. Finally, after several attempts, I remembered an article I’d read on the Stanislavsky method, something about putting yourself into the story and living it to make your emotions more believable. I remembered what Miss Jo had said to that hapless GI: “You slicky my ping-pong heart.” I took a deep breath and tried again, describing an Itaewon bar, a business girl approaching me and whispering those words. My imagination began to move forward on its own: We walked to her hooch, I handed her a folded stack of bills and she began to undo my belt. This time, Strange didn’t interrupt me. I envisioned Miss Jo Kyong-ja with her clothes off-it wasn’t difficult, especially after seeing Torrelli’s Polaroid of her in a two-piece bathing suit. I took her in my arms, feeling her closeness and warmth, hoping upon hope that she was still actually, truly alive.
When I was done, Strange seemed satisfied. He unbuttoned his khaki blouse, pulled out the paperwork, and set it down in the middle of the table.
“The last report Major Schultz turned in,” he told me, “just before he died.” He stood up and said, “Thanks for the hot chocolate. But that ping-pong heart bit, you’re going to have to work on it.”
He waddled his way out of the 8th Army Snack Bar. I sat there for a few moments, feeling soiled. Then I grabbed the report and, holding it with two fingers, walked back to the CID office, wishing I had an evidence bag to drop it in.
– 16-
Ernie and I drove to the 501st headquarters building, which was on Camp Coiner, a small base adjacent to Yongsan Compound. The camp remained off by itself with its own entrance gate, its own small barracks, and even its own flagpole, used to raise the flag at zero eight hundred every morning and lower it at seventeen hundred every evening, seven days a week.
“So what’d it say?” Ernie asked. I’d read Major Schultz’s last inspection report. Ernie hadn’t.
“The usual,” I said. “He saw plenty of duplication of effort and ample opportunity to cut the operating budget and staffing.”
“Inspection reports always say that.”
“Right. But this one had some added recommendations. Namely, that the Five Oh First had established too many branch offices.”
“Like where?”
“All over the damn place. In the Second Infantry Division along the Demilitarized Zone and at every major logistics and supply point all the way down to the Port of Pusan.”
“Did they all put up a sign saying Five Oh First Counter Intelligence?”
“No signs. These places are off base and kept completely covert. Their expense budget has ballooned because of all that civilian rent they have to pay. Usually they set up near the local AmVets Club or Veterans of Foreign Wars.”
American veterans associations are chartered by the Korean government to operate legitimately as nonprofit organizations. This gives them permission to run small bars, restaurants, and even gambling halls in addition to granting long-term work visas for the Americans staffing the organizations.
“You mean they set up operations in those little casinos?” Ernie asked.
“Not in the casinos themselves, but they rent office space in the building. They justify it by claiming that they have to be off base so the military community won’t be aware that counter-intel is operating in their midst. But mainly it’s a way to have an unsupervised office with a desk and a chair, plus a special Eighth Army phone line.”
“So they don’t have to go through the Korean telephone exchange.”
“Right. And with a monthly rent check coming in, the veterans’ organizations are more than happy to share their facilities.”
“Meanwhile, the agents of the Five Oh First can range out from there and go pretty much wherever they want.”
“Right. And their agents receive a per diem.”
“On top of their regular pay?” Ernie was impressed.
“Yes.”
“And separate rations?” Money paid by the military to servicemen who were not able to use the free military dining facilities-necessary for the 501st guys, since they weren’t on base.
“And separate rations,” I confirmed.
Ernie whistled. “And here we’ve been happy with our fifty-dollar-a-month expense account. These counter-intel pukes are pulling down more per month with these extras than we pull down in our regular paycheck. Nice deal. And if they black market on top of that . . .”
“These are dedicated counter-intel agents,” I said. “They wouldn’t break the law just for a little extra cash in black marketeering.”
“Yeah, right,” Ernie said. “So a bunch of guys were getting over. Away from the flagpole, pulling down good money. They must worship Captain Blood.”