“You frightened her,” I said.
“Not me,” Ernie replied. “It’s you speaking Korean. They don’t expect that from a big nose Miguk. You’ve got to break it to them gently.”
I snorted.
In less than a minute, a Korean man in a baggy black suit appeared in the hallway with the receptionist hiding behind him. He approached us quickly, his dark eyes appraising Ernie and me, his stainless steel, horn-rimmed glasses glittering in the overhead light.
“I am Mr. Pak,” he said in English.
I pulled out my badge, flashed it and said, “I’m Agent Sueno of the Eighth Army Criminal Investigation Division and this is my partner, Agent Bascom.” I slid the credentials back into my pocket. “I was wondering if we could have a few words with you?”
“Is this about Mr. Barretsford? Such a tragedy. Such a fine man.”
I glanced toward the hallway where the tiny receptionist was still hiding. “Is there a place where we could talk?”
“Yes,” Mr. Pak said, opening his palm. “This way.”
As we passed, the receptionist pressed herself against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible. Pak spoke to her in Korean. “Bring us tea.”
Ernie and I sat on a low, straight couch in front of a coffee table. Pak sat opposite us. Her hands shaking, the receptionist brought in a tray with a porcelain pot of green tea and poured it into three handleless cups. She bowed and backed out of the room. Neither Ernie nor I drank. I let the silence stretch for a while, and then I spoke, in English. “Your man at the Eighth Army Claims Office tells us you’re their biggest customer.”
“Mr. Ku?”
Bingo.
All Korean enterprises that do business with 8th Army have a Korean civilian point of contact on the inside. I hadn’t known who the Sam-Il Claims point of contact was, but he’d just told us: Mr. Ku. This was not a formal arrangement. It was Koreans doing business in the traditional way as they mined the gold deposit that had been dropped into their midst by the 8th United States Army. The on-compound civilian workers received a kickback. In return, they provided intelligence. Information on things such as how much the annual budget of their office was and therefore how much their American bosses were willing to spend. When their American bosses were trying to make a tough decision, these go-betweens made recommendations in their own client’s favor. Many of the American supervisors served a tour of only one year. They had no idea which Korean companies to work with. Their Korean civilian workers would take care of all those details, which left the Americans free to socialize with the right people and play golf with the post commander and do all those things that insured their continued employment and prosperity with the 8th United States Army and the Department of Defense.
I changed the subject. “Very few of your claims are turned down.”
Pak started to smile but thought better of it and ordered his face to compose itself. “We are very careful about our clients,” he said.
“You make sure they’re telling the truth?”
He nodded vehemently. “Of course. We check into their claims ourselves. Make sure. Take pictures.” He mimed clicking a camera. “Everything okay. No problem.”
The more nervous he became, the more his English deteriorated.
“And Mr. Ku always handles your cases?”
By now, Pak had realized his mistake. “I don’t know. I think so. That’s Eighth Army business. Not my business.”
Ernie leaned forward. “You’ve been submitting claims to Eighth Army for many years, Mr. Pak.”
Pak nodded.
“Your business is good,” Ernie said. He waved his open palm to indicate the building we were sitting in. “But some people have trouble at the Eighth Army Claims Office. Some people don’t get their money. Some people become very angry.”
Pak nodded, silent now.
“Someone killed Mr. Barretsford,” Ernie continued. “You’ve been in this business a long time. Who are the people who don’t win their claims? Who are the people who might be very angry at the Eighth Army Claims Office?”
Pak sat back, appearing to think about the question. Most adult Korean men would take advantage of this pause to reach in their pockets and pull out a pack of Kobukson cigarettes. Pak didn’t. Apparently, he was a non-smoker, unusual in Korea. He sipped on his tea. When he set the cup back down he looked back at us.
“There are many people,” he said, “who lose claims. Some other offices, maybe they not as good as Sam-Il.”
And maybe the other offices don’t have an inside contact named Mr. Ku, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. Instead, I pulled out my notebook. Acting as nonchalant as I could, I said, “What are the names of the other offices?”
Pak hesitated but in the end he told me. I wrote down the names of about a half dozen enterprises that also specialized in filing claims through the 8th Army Claims Office. I handed Mr. Pak my card and asked him to call us if he thought of anything that might shed light on the murder of Mr. Barretsford. He promised he would. As we left, the tiny receptionist bowed deeply, relieved to see us go.
Outside in the jeep, Ernie started the engine. “Why ask this guy about the other offices? We have a list of them back at Eighth Army Claims, don’t we?”
“Sure. But I wanted him to rat out his competition. In order to head off trouble, he’ll call at least some of them and let them know we’re coming.”
“And are we?”
“No time. I just wanted to rattle their cages. See if any fat vermin scurry out.”
“Speaking of vermin,” Ernie said.
“Yeah. Let’s go see Moe Dexter.”
The MP barracks was composed of two thirty-foot high Quonset huts hooked together with an interior framework constructed of sturdy lumber. Ernie and I strode down a long row of double bunks, a few with MPs sleeping in them because of the constant rotating shift work that was part of military law enforcement. The NCOs, buck sergeants and above, had individual rooms on the second floor. We stomped upstairs and marched down a long hallway until we reached the end. The last door, like everything else in the building, was painted green-olive drab, to be exact, the army’s favorite color. Stenciled on the door in black paint was a name and rank: DEXTER, M., SSG.
Ernie pulled a pair of brass knuckles out of his pocket and slipped them on, flexing his right hand and making a fist. He popped its heft into his open left palm with a wallop.
“I’m not taking any shit from Dexter,” he whispered. “Not today.”
He tried the door. Locked. He pounded on it. No answer. He was backing up, just about to kick it in, when an elderly Korean gentleman in flip flops, short pants, and a T-shirt hurried up to us. He rattled a ring of keys.
“No sweat,” he said. He held a bundle of laundry under his right arm.
“Anyonghaseiyo,” I said.
“Nei. Anyonghaseiyo,” he replied. With his left hand, he located a key, stuck it in the lock, and turned.
The door swung open. Ernie charged in. Nobody there. The bed was unmade and there was a wrinkled set of fatigues thrown on a straight-backed chair and a pair of Army jump boots lying on the thin carpet. I picked up the fatigue blouse. It had the name DEXTER printed onto the nametag. I knelt and examined the boots, turning them over and taking a good look at the soles. Bits of crushed glass were embedded between thick tread.
“You’re the houseboy?” Ernie said to the Korean man.
“I’m service man,” he replied. Most of the houseboys who worked in 8th Army didn’t like the term “houseboy.” Over the years they’d picked up on the fact that in English it’s demeaning. Somehow, they’d come up with the term “service man.”