“Don’t sweat the small stuff, Sueno. See you manana.”
As he started to walk away, I said, “What happens if Miss Ju is otherwise occupied?”
Ernie swung a left hook into the air. “I’ll kick the guy out. Then I’ll go find a different girl.”
He probably would, too. Ernie cared less for the opinions of other people than anyone I’d ever known. It was his two tours in Vietnam that did it to him. Death is waiting. Why worry about anything else? In a few seconds, he was swallowed up by the jumble of passageways that led back into the tightly packed hooches that surrounded the main drag of Itaewon.
I stared up at the darkness. The half moon hovered overhead, surveying the silence. I turned and headed downhill. When I reached the MSR, I looked both ways, but there was no need. At this hour, because of the midnight-to-four curfew, all traffic had ceased. The walk back to the compound was slightly less than a mile. I put one combat boot in front of the other.
The facade of the Hamilton Hotel leered in front of me. I passed it and glanced down the narrow lanes leading off the MSR. No signs of life. In this area even the street lamps seemed to have died. I heard the scratch-like scurrying of vermin getting out of my way but they were too fast for me; I didn’t see them. I half expected one of the military jeeps of the Korean National Police curfew patrol to loom out of the darkness but they didn’t. It was an eerie feeling, like being the last person on earth, but I knew I wasn’t. This area of town, like the rest of Seoul, would be crammed with people during the day; people buying and selling and driving and walking and shouting. The people were still here but they were indoors. Quiet. As if hiding from some great beast of the night. And then I heard it.
A cough, down one of the alleys. I stopped, stood silently for a moment, listening. When the cough wasn’t repeated, I stepped forward and peered up the incline. Two-story cement block buildings lined the road. Farther uphill, brick walls surrounded homes with tiled roofs turned up at the edges like blackbirds ready for flight. Just beyond the overhang of a small store, a thick telephone pole rose from the cobbled street. Behind it, I saw movement. Someone was standing there, purposely hidden. Why would anyone be out at this hour? And why hide?
I checked to make sure my flashlight was in my pocket. When we’d left the compound earlier this evening, neither Ernie nor I had time to stop at the arms room and check out a weapon. But I probably wouldn’t need one. Chances were this was just some husband who came home too late and was locked outside of his home by his wife. Or maybe it was a drunk who was afraid of being caught by the curfew police.
Or it could be the man with the iron sickle.
I stepped into the alley. Off to the side, I noticed a wooden crate of empty beer bottles of the Oriental Brewery. Thick, heavy things, a liter each. I grabbed one and held it in my right hand. Then I started uphill, holding my flashlight in my left, ready to click it on.
Whoever was standing behind the pole hadn’t moved. Maybe they didn’t realize I’d spotted them. I continued uphill, thinking about Mr. C. Winston Barretsford, the man who’d been brutally murdered right in his office, and Corporal Rickey Collingsworth, a young soldier barely out of his teens who’d had his life cut short.
I wished Ernie were there to back me up.
Suddenly, whoever had been lurking behind the telephone pole stepped out into the roadway, someone dressed all in black.
He was twenty yards above me, uphill at a steep incline, still too far away for me to charge. Too far away for me to reach him before he had a chance to whip out whatever he was holding beneath his overcoat. He stood perfectly still, staring at me, but in the dark shadow I couldn’t make out his eyes or any facial features. I was thinking of what I would do if he came at me, maybe throw the beer bottle at him. Then, unexpectedly, he took an awkward, tilting step forward.
I held the bottle loosely in my hand, ready to wing it at him as soon as he came within range. I also pulled out the flashlight, ready to use that, too. I stepped toward him, angling for position in the narrow road and hoping for enough space to maneuver and to avoid the slashing iron of his curved blade.
— 5-
Instead of continuing toward me, the man in black swiveled and disappeared into the dark mouth of an even narrower pedestrian walkway. I knew where it would lead. Back into the maze of walls and hooches that made every neighborhood in Seoul an indecipherable labyrinth. If he reached those impenetrable catacombs, I’d lose him. I shouted and started to run. It was too dark to be sure, but I thought the man had tightened his hold on the front of his coat and glanced back at me just before he stepped into the narrow walkway.
When I reached the opening, I stopped for a moment and stared into the darkness. He was already gone. Somewhere off in the distance, one pale bulb shone. The path ended about twenty yards in and then forked. I ran in, glanced to the right, and saw nothing, so I turned left and climbed uphill.
The pathway narrowed. I was forced to turn sideways in order to slide through. Spider webs at the top of the walls hung down and brushed against my ears. I swiped them away. Finally, the lane emerged onto a slightly wider passageway illuminated by a streetlamp. I walked toward the pale light, asking myself what in the hell I was doing. I wasn’t armed, I was alone, nobody knew I was up here, and the man with the iron sickle was clearly leading me into some sort of ambush. Situated the way I was, there was no way he could get at me. I’d see him before he could attack, and much of his advantage with the sickle would be nullified by the close quarters. He wouldn’t be able to swing it effectively, and he certainly didn’t have the element of surprise he had at the 8th Army Claims Office or outside of the pochang macha. Still, I had no idea what he was planning. Maybe nothing. Maybe he was just trying to get away. Maybe this wasn’t even the same man, although he fit all the descriptions. It was too late to go back; I wasn’t even sure I could find my way back to the MSR. So I plowed forward.
At last the path spilled out onto a street I knew. It was broad, two lanes, and ran parallel to the MSR over a row of hills that eventually led to a high-rent district on the edge of Namsan Mountain. I glanced up and down the dark street. Nothing. Nothing, that is, except for a three-wheeled pickup truck, locked and parked for the night, and next to that a pushcart. I knelt so I could see beneath the truck. No feet lurking. I raised myself and started to walk forward, and then I heard it: footsteps emerging from an alley to my right, an alley so narrow and so well hidden by shadow I hadn’t noticed it.
Quickly, I backed toward the pushcart. I swiveled to search for the source of the footsteps but at the same time, fifty yards downhill, a pair of headlights appeared around a curve in the road. They were moving fast. The engine roared, and within seconds the headlights shone directly into my eyes, blinding me. I backed away from the mouth of the alley where I’d heard the footsteps, covering my eyes with my hand. Then the beam of the headlights swirled, and I saw him frozen in a brilliant tableau, staring directly at me-a face with a mangled lower lip, a face contorted with hatred. Held across the long black overcoat like a scepter, the naht, the short-handled sickle with the wickedly curved blade.
And then the alley went dark and the man was gone, disappearing in an instant. The driver of the vehicle stepped on the gas, making his engine roar. The headlights swung back toward me. I ducked behind the pickup truck, but it was too late. Whoever was driving pulled up on the far side of the truck, brakes squealed, and a door opened then slammed shut.
“Hold it right there!” An American MP appeared around the rear of the truck. He held a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other.