“Nothin’ good. You heard of a Spec. Five Arthur Q.
Fairbanks?”
“Fairbanks? No.”
“Yes, you have. You just don’t know his name. He’s the VD Honcho.”
I knew who he meant. The medic at the 121st Evacuation Hospital who was in charge of the daily venereal disease sick call. Forty or fifty GIs every morning. The clap, herpes, nonspecific urethritis, chancroid, even an occasional case of syphilis. Fairbanks and his staff took the complaints, conducted the tests, and turned the results over to an overworked medical doctor who reviewed the paperwork, then allowed Fairbanks to administer drugs to the routine cases. Only the most severely afflicted GIs saw a doctor. Fairbanks took care of the rest.
Naturally, GIs called him the VD Honcho.
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“Dead,” Riley said. “Shot sometime early this morning. With a forty-five. We haven’t done the ballistics yet, but we’re betting it’s yours.”
“Why?” I whispered. “Why mine?”
Riley didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice came out softer, less gruff. “The way your luck’s been running, Sueno.”
I hung up the phone.
Ernie started to say something, but one look at my face, and he bit off whatever comment he’d been about to make.
“Another one,” I said. “Itaewon, this time.”
He didn’t ask me to elaborate. Silently, we walked outside to the jeep. Ernie fired up the engine.
We sped back to Seoul, breaking the speed limit all the way.
During the interrogation at the Pupyong Police Station, Private First Class Rodney K. Boltworks had told us what he liked about the brother of Yun Ai-ja, the smiling woman.
“He kicked my ass,” Bolt said. “I thought I was good, but he knows all kinds of karate moves and shit. You know, like Bruce Lee, except this guy doesn’t whistle or flex his muscles, he just comes at you. He doesn’t stop. His face is covered with little scars, and you should see his body. Knife wounds, the works. And man, don’t look at his sister. He goes off.”
“How does that work?” Ernie asked. “His sister’s a prostitute.”
“When he’s not around. When he’s around, she bows and serves tea and does all that kind of shit.”
“What kind of shit?” I asked.
“You know. Lights incense. Bows to those statues they got.”
“She’s religious?”
Bolt shrugged muscular shoulders. “I never saw her go to church.”
To him, religion was church. Anything else, he wasn’t sure of.
“What made you decide to go AWOL?” Ernie asked. “And rob a casino?”
“Kong, that’s what he calls himself.”
“’Kong?’” I asked. “That’s it?”
“Yeah. His sister said Kong is part of his full name. She told me the whole thing, but I forget.”
Given names are almost sacred in Korean society. Not shared lightly. The fact that the smiling woman’s brother only allowed PFC Boltworks to use part of his name said something about how much he trusted him.
“I was tired of Charley Battery,” Bolt continued. “Tired of taking crap from lifers, and tired of getting up early in the morning. Kong told me that with an American to help him, we could make a lot of money.”
“Help him do what?”
“You know, fool people. Make GIs relax when they saw me, and then Kong would bop ‘em over the head.”
“Did you do that?”
“A few times. But sometimes the GI fought back, and there were always too many people around.”
“So you decided to switch to robbing casinos.”
“Yeah. More money.”
“Did you know that Kong and his sister are half-American?”
“I figured.”
“You ever talk about it?”
“Never. Kong hates Americans.”
“Did he hate you?”
Boltworks grinned. “Yeah. He and I were always about to fight, you know. But after a while, I learned a lot of his tricks, so he started to lay off me.”
“Why would you hook up with somebody who hates you?” Ernie asked.
“We were making money. Besides, his sister didn’t hate me.”
“You were still boffing her?”
“When Kong wasn’t around.”
“Wasn’t that sort of dangerous?”
“Yeah.” Boltworks smiled. “Real dangerous.”
There were certain lines of questioning that I didn’t want to follow. Instead, I stuck to the more pragmatic questions. Bolt told us that after the casino robbery, he had split from Kong and, as planned, Kong kept the money and met up with his sister. Kong took off his sunglasses, changed clothes and put on a hat, and that made him look more Korean. She tied a shawl over her blonde hair. Together, carrying the money, they walked to the Inchon Train Station, merged with other commuters, and caught a ride to Seoul. Bolt holed up at the Yellow House at Brothel Number 17, and the idea was that after a few days, they would rendezvous in Itaewon and divide the money.
“You didn’t keep any money?” Ernie asked.
“I was supposed to meet with them.”
“Did you?”
“You guys screwed me up. Ai-ja was going to contact me at the Yellow House, but you guys chased me away.”
“Didn’t you have an alternative plan?”
Boltworks looked confused, and then remorseful, and then he shook his head.
“Did it ever occur to you,” Ernie said, “that they never intended to give you any money?”
“No way.” He sat up and pulled his hands against the cuffs behind him. “Ai-ja liked me. She told me she did.”
“So what were you going to do?” Ernie said. “Wait in ASCOM City forever?”
“No. When the heat died down, I was going to go to Itaewon. To the coffee shop at the Hamilton Hotel. They like it there.”
The Hamilton Hotel sat right on the MSR, across the street from the main nightclub district of Itaewon. The hotel featured a hundred or more rooms, and they were usually full of Japanese tourists and American GIs. The coffee shop was comfortable and well-appointed and probably the most popular meeting place in Itaewon.
“They go there often, do they?” Ernie asked.
“All the time.”
“So all you’d have to do is sit there a few days, sipping on overpriced coffee, and eventually they’d show up.”
“Two hundred and fifty won per cup,” Bolt said.
“That’s not so much.”
“No,” Ernie said. “I suppose not. Not when you’re a big-time gangster.”
Bolt grinned. And he kept grinning until we started to leave. Which is when he started to squeal.
At the main drag of Itaewon, the jeep’s engine churned up the incline. We passed the U.N. Club and the Seven Club and the King Club, and then hung a left about a block past the clump of nightclubs. A bunch of U.S. military vehicles- sedans, vans, MP jeeps-blocked all vehicular traffic. Ernie parked the jeep, chained and padlocked the steering wheel, and we climbed out.
We entered an alley leading into the bowels of Itaewon. Ahead, a gateway was open in a stone and brick wall.
As we approached, the hum of murmuring American voices grew louder. I ducked through the gate, and all talking stopped.
Eyes were on me. Gawking. Technicians and MPs and astonished Korean National Policemen turned their heads and stared. As if they couldn’t believe I’d have the temerity to show up at this crime scene.
Ernie tried to stuff a fried dumpling into my mouth. I slapped it away.
“Come on,” he said. “Yakimandu. I paid two thousand won for this stuff.”
He motioned at the plate on the bar between us. A dozen meat-filled dumplings, fried in peanut oil, fanned out in a circle with a bowl of soy sauce in the middle. We were sitting at the bar of the Seven Club on the main drag of Itaewon. Night had fallen, and I’d already polished off four beers and two shots of bourbon.
Ernie lifted another dumpling, dipped it in the soy sauce, and offered it to me. “You haven’t eaten all day, for chrissake. You need something.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“It ain’t your fault,” he said. “How many times do I have to tell you? They could’ve stolen anybody’s gun and done what they did. You can’t blame yourself.”