“You seen enough?” Ernie asked.
I nodded. He pulled the shroud back over Collingsworth’s open blue eyes.
Outside, the three MP jeeps were still parked. A fourth had joined them. When we pushed through the morgue’s double doors, all the MPs in every jeep climbed out and strode toward us. We stopped on the steps. Staff Sergeant Moe Dexter took the lead. He had both thumbs hooked over his web belt, and he was leaning back, a big smile on his round face. He was always smiling and always joking, even when he arrested someone. It was the way he dealt with life, the way he defused tough situations and the way he relaxed a miscreant right up to the moment before he jammed his baton in his gut.
“Sweeno,” he said, purposely mispronouncing my name. “And Agent Ernestine. How are my two favorite CID pukes doing this fine afternoon?”
“Get bent, Dexter,” Ernie said.
“Oh,” he said in a falsetto voice. “Are you going to bend me over? How thrilling.”
Ernie walked down the steps, and I followed. When Dexter didn’t get out of the way, Ernie shoved him.
Dexter staggered back in mock alarm. “Oh, rough stuff. How could you?”
The eight MPs followed us to our jeep. Ernie and I were about to climb in but stood waiting for them, staring them down. The smile had dropped from Dexter’s face. He stared at us through tinted rectangular glasses.
“When you have a lead on this guy,” he said, “you point him out to us. None of this playing footsy with the KNPs, none of this showing respect to their bullshit judicial system. This guy killed an MP.” Dexter jammed his thumb over his shoulder. “He was one of our own, and you’re MPs too, or you used to be. Once you find him, you turn the guy over to us,” he said, “not to the ROK Army, not to the Korean National Police.”
There was a long silence. “I can’t do that,” I said.
“Why?” Dexter said, stepping closer. “Because you’re too close to the Koreans? Because you speak their freaking language and eat that foul-smelling shit they put in their mouths? Is that why, Sweeno, because you think you’re better than us? Better than regular GIs?”
“There’s nothing regular about you, Dexter,” I said.
“Not without using Ex-Lax,” Ernie added.
Dexter threw his helmet at Ernie. Ernie dodged it but slid around to the front of the jeep, and before anyone could stop them, the two men were trading blows. Dexter’s hard left jab slid off Ernie’s ear, leaving Ernie close enough to land a right uppercut to the taller man’s ribs. I jumped in, holding the two men apart. Some of the more levelheaded MPs grabbed Dexter.
“Don’t you betray us,” Dexter shouted, spewing spit. “Don’t you throw your lot in with people who ain’t our people. You understand me, Sweeno?”
Without answering, I shoved Ernie into the passenger seat, stalked to the other side of the jeep, and climbed behind the steering wheel. I started the jeep and bulled forward through the MPs, kicking up gravel as I gunned the little jeep out of the parking lot.
I drove to the CID office and got out. Ernie had calmed down a little and he was smiling, trying to pretend Dexter’s taunts hadn’t effected him. He slid into the driver’s seat and told me he’d meet me in the ville at twenty hundred hours. Before he left, I said, “You’re not hurt, are you?”
“From that puke? No way.” He gunned the jeep’s engine and sped off.
Inside the office, both Miss Kim and Riley had already gone home. I picked up a phone and tried Captain Prevault’s number. Still no answer. It figured there wouldn’t be since the cannon had gone off signifying the end of the duty day. I used Riley’s Rolodex and then called the duty officer at 8th Army Billeting. I identified myself, gave him my badge number, and asked for the location of Captain Prevault’s BOQ, Bachelor Officer Quarters. He gave it to me. Yongsan Compound South Post, female BOQ 132, Unit 4. A pretty good walk but one I could manage.
A half hour later, I stood in a long central corridor lined with individual rooms and knocked on the door of Unit 4. It took a few minutes but eventually darkness covered the peephole. The door opened slightly, a security chain drawing taut. A smooth-complexioned face peeked out, hair wrapped in a white towel.
“Agent Sueno,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You didn’t call.”
“I tried.”
“Wait a minute. I have to get dressed.”
She closed the door. I stepped back and leaned against the far wall. Occasionally, a female officer entered or exited a room down the hall, glanced toward me, and when I smiled went about her business. With my short haircut and my CID coat and tie, I didn’t look too threatening.
The door to Captain Prevault’s room opened.
She wore blue jeans and sneakers and a light rain slicker over a white blouse. “You ready?” she asked.
“For what?”
“For a visit to a nut house.”
She smiled demurely, cocked her head, and walked down the corridor. I followed.
Our destination was in the northwest corner of Seoul, an area snuggled beneath Bukhan Mountain known as Songbuk-dong. The kimchi cab chugged up a winding road, past a break in the ancient stone ramparts that had once protected the city from waves of invaders: Chinese, Manchurians, Mongol hordes. Now lovers strolled along it, hand in hand, gazing down at the sparkling expanse of the city of Seoul.
“Where are we going?” I asked, staring out at the darkness.
“A sanitarium,” she replied. “What you call a ‘nut house.’ ”
“Sorry about that.”
She turned and in the light of a passing street lamp, I saw her prim smile once again.
A sign in slashed Chinese characters loomed ahead and Captain Prevault motioned for the driver to turn left through stone gates. The driveway wound another quarter mile through dense foliage and finally circled in front of an Asian-style building with moonlight reflecting off a tile roof. Clay monkeys perched on the edges, protecting the inhabitants from evil spirits. A yellow bulb in the entranceway illuminated a double front door painted crimson, and all around the light, moths flailed madly.
As I paid for the cab, I inhaled deeply of the tree-scented air until the cab sped off, spewing carbon.
Captain Prevault stood a few feet away, smiling and gazing around her. “It’s nice up here, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
She turned and walked toward the front gate. I followed. She pounded with a brass knocker. The gatekeeper must have been just inside because within seconds the big red doors swung open. A toothy old man bowed to Captain Prevault, recognizing her. She smiled and bowed back, and then we were walking past the front building and climbing broad stone steps lined with more wooden buildings. Captain Prevault pulled a flashlight out of her bag and switched it on.
“It gets dark up here.”
“Where is here, exactly?” I asked.
“The National Mental Health Sanatorium. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“A doctor or a patient?”
“Both.”
The steps stopped in front of a more modern building, one with plate glass windows through which to enjoy the view and a door reinforced with iron bars. Captain Prevault pressed the buzzer. A metallic voice said, “Nugu seiyo?” Who is it?
“Leah Prevault, here to see Doctor Hwang.”
Without further preamble, the buzzer sounded, and Captain Prevault pushed through the door. For a moment I felt I was back in my element: an administrative office with three desks, a typewriter on a table, a water cooler, a short row of wooden filing cabinets, and papers stacked everywhere. Overhead, fluorescent bulbs glowed.
The man who let us in was young, not much older than a teenager, and he wore a white tunic and matching pants. His open-toed sandals made him look somewhat less than professional. He bowed deeply to Captain Prevault.