Jade Lady Burning

by Martin Limon

  Those two guys we’d seen this morning—were they members of the local syndicate? Sent by Mr. Kwok? If so, why? If Mr. Kwok wanted to kill one of the girls in Itaewon, he could do it a lot more efficiently than Miss Pak’s assailant had. Why would he want to ice some bar girl anyway? Even if Miss Pak was a little money machine, getting married and backing out of the business was routine in Itaewon. Hundreds of girls married GIs every year. No sweat, there were plenty of replacements.

  I looked down at my plate and realized I had finished my BLT. I hadn’t tasted it. Not that there was much taste to an Army snackbar sandwich.

  I felt a chill. Or maybe it was just that I knew we had to go into the office and face the first sergeant.

  “Where the hell have you two guys been?”

  Ernie cracked his gum. “Doing what you told us to do, Top. Trying to get a line on who murdered Pak Ok-suk.”

  “More evidence on Watkins?”

  “We’re not so sure he did it.”

  “Then who did?”

  “We don’t know that either.”

  “You got any evidence?”

  “Nothing new.”

  He looked at us long and hard. “Dicking off again, eh?” Neither of us moved. “Let the Watkins case be,” he said. “The Korean courts will take it from here.”

  Ernie clicked his gum again, wandered over to the big coffee urn, and started fiddling with the cups and the spoons and the non-dairy creamer.

  “There’s no reason in the world,” I said, “to think that Johnny Watkins murdered that girl.”

  “Other than that he was going to marry her,” the first sergeant snarled, “and she was messing around with other guys.”

  “I’m talking about physical evidence. Sure, maybe he had a motive. But we got no direct evidence putting him near the scene of the crime.”

  “But we got no evidence putting him anywhere else, either. A strong motive and the lack of an alibi is enough for the Koreans.”

  “Because the newspapers and the locals want blood?” I said.

  “Yeah. But I wouldn’t worry about him too much. The judges are fair. They won’t give him too much time if they can’t pin it on him. And they’ll probably let him ease on out of jail quietly, after about eighteen months, and deport him back to the States.”

  “And kick him out of the Army.”

  “A general discharge. No sweat.” The first sergeant shrugged.

  “And if all this happened to you and you were innocent?”

  “I wouldn’t let it happen to me,” he said, softly.

  The first sergeant leaned across his desk and picked up a manila folder. He probably wouldn’t; he was a very cautious guy. But you never know.

  I rubbed my eyes. “And what about the real killer? What happens to him?”

  “If it isn’t Watkins, the Korean police will find the real killer.”

  Ernie snorted. Some of his swirling brown coffee splashed onto the counter and the dingy brown carpet below. The first sergeant waited while Ernie sopped it up with a brown paper towel, then started again.

  “Besides, I need you two for yet another load of shit that’s come up at the Korean Procurement Agency.”

  We waited.

  “There’s a guy named Lindbaugh—Fred Lindbaugh. According to Tom Kurtz, our snitch over there, he’s been approving a lot of the changes in contracts. We want you to follow him, find out a little more about his personal life. He’s single. Other than that, we don’t know much about him.”

  “I thought Burrows and Slabem were going to handle this KPA thing.”

  “They are. The paperwork part. But their faces have been seen in the main office. Lindbaugh knows them.”

  “Does he run the ville?”

  “Probably. He’s single.”

  “Which is why you want us to follow him?”

  “Yeah. The experts.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “A flamboyant lifestyle. He’s only a GS-7. We want to find out if he lives above his means.”

  “GS-7. Single. That’s a lot of loot for Korea.”

  “Yeah. And we understand he’s very popular with the ladies.”

  “He doesn’t have to be on the take to be spending pretty free.”

  “Just watch him. Burrows and Slabem will be checking out his bank account.” The first sergeant gave us a long once-over. “You two look sort of haggard. Take the rest of the day off. Lindbaugh gets off at five. Be there.”

  On the way out, we turned into the Admin Office. Miss Kim had on a bright green dress that clung to her figure and when she smiled my nerve endings flared like flower buds triggered by the sun. Ernie offered her his customary stick of gum, she took it, unwrapped it, and they fell into their customary monosyllabic conversation punctuated by grunts and giggles.

  Riley was out. I sat down behind his desk and pouted. Over Miss Kim and over the Watkins case—I wasn’t happy about being taken off it. On the other hand, I really didn’t know what else to do. The only lead I had was Kimiko and she wasn’t the type to spill much of anything. If this guy Lindbaugh was a ville rat, though, we could still keep an eye on her. And also I had my free time. Top couldn’t say anything about that.

  I wondered why I gave a damn about the fate of Johnny Watkins and, to be honest, I probably didn’t. Top was right. He would be okay. A little jail time—max. Unless they actually proved that he did it. It wasn’t him that I was worried about. It was the late Miss Pak Ok-suk. She would never be okay. Maybe she wasn’t a saint but she wasn’t the worst person in the world either. She didn’t deserve to be murdered that way and none of us who were still living deserved to have her killer walking around free.

  Back in the barracks I took out a pencil and paper and wrote down as much as I could remember of what the Korean thug had said to us that morning.

  The first part was clear. E yoja dala kamyon meant “if you follow this woman.” The second part was a little more difficult. Jamji chaluhkeita. This meant he was going to cut something. Something of mine. Something called a jamji.

  I got out my little plastic-bound Korean-English dictionary and thumbed through it, humming to myself. Happy to have something academic to do for a change. My humming stopped when I found the definition.

  Jamji was the diminutive reference to the male member: the penis of an infant.

  The offices of the Korean Procurement Agency were in a small compound off by itself, away from the main Eighth Army Headquarters complex, near Samgakji. The buildings were the familiar two-story red-brick jobs built by the Japanese Imperial Army during the occupation prior to World War II.

  The parking lot was small and almost full. A lot of the American civilians who worked here had cars. The Koreans, without exception, took the bus. We were sitting in Ernie’s little jeep, wedged between a beat-up old Chevy Impala and a quarter-ton delivery truck.

  “We should be off by now,” Ernie said, getting ready to run the ville. “Not waiting around for some overpaid civilian asshole.”

  Ernie, when he wasn’t raving, was usually a pretty calm person. One of the calmest people I’ve ever met in my life. Almost comatose. But don’t mess with his Happy Hour.

  People started to pour out of the offices, as if a whistle had gone off. Then we heard the distant bugle call and the blast of a howitzer on the main post. The flag-lowering ceremony was under way. Nobody stopped for it here. The Korean men in suits and ties and the women in smart office outfits shrugged on their overcoats on the steps, wrapped mufflers around their necks, and headed purposefully towards the bus stop just beyond the gate, manned by two Korean security guards.

  A roly-poly rascal bounded down the stairs. Tom Kurtz trotted to keep up with him, almost tugging on his sleeve, and finally got him stopped in the parking lot, chatting quickly. The fat guy looked around, trying to make a getaway, totally uninterested. Kurtz had promised to show us Lindbaugh by glomming on to him at the end of the workday. The fat guy was our boy.

  Finally Kurtz sm
iled a goodbye and let Lindbaugh go. With a sigh of relief, the fat man waddled towards a green Army sedan on the other side of the parking lot.

  Lindbaugh was average height, maybe five nine or so, but he must have weighed about two hundred pounds, most of it lard. His hair was straight and black and parted, so it had a habit of sliding down across his forehead into his eyes. He kept brushing at it with his pudgy fingers. He wore a three-piece suit and the vest was stretched so far beyond its limits that it rode up a couple of inches above the overloaded belt, exposing white shirt.

  He bundled into the sedan, fired it up, and pushed his way through the crowd of Korean co-workers. Ernie started up the jeep, rolled slowly forward and, after watching the thick calves of a pair of nice-looking female office workers, he popped us into the Seoul rush-hour traffic.

  Lindbaugh seemed to be in a big hurry so he fit right in, because everybody was. Kimchi cabs swerved in and out of one another’s way, straining for that extra few inches of advantage over their competitors. Lindbaugh swerved, accelerated, slammed on the brakes, and seemed to be cursing a lot. Ernie sat back in his canvas seat, hands lightly touching the steering wheel. Relaxed. And he had no trouble keeping us an almost constant fifteen or twenty yards behind the erratic Lindbaugh.

  Lindbaugh turned right at Huam-dong, ran up the long straightaway between Camp Coiner and the ROK Marine Corps Headquarters, and was waved through by the gate guards at the back entrance to Yongsan Compound. We followed him in and past the barracks and the gym and the main PX and the big Army Communications Center, back out through Gate 5, across the MSR, back to the sedate environs of Yongsan South Post. He turned left in front of the Officers’ Club, raced past it, turned right down a tree-lined avenue, and stopped in front of one of the small houses that served as BOQs—Bachelor Officers’ Quarters. That’s what the civilian workers get: their own private rooms, a communal living room, kitchen, and latrine with an old mama-san who did the laundry and the cleaning. Pretty convenient lifestyle really and, other than the monthly tips for the cleaning woman and the aged houseboy, free. All part of their pay and benefits.

  Ernie rolled on past. Lindbaugh was struggling to get his chubby body out of his car, not paying any attention to us whatsoever. Ernie cruised around the block, came back, and parked under a tree where we had a clear view of the sedan and the front of Lindbaugh’s BOQ.

  We could have busted him for unauthorized use of a government vehicle. The sedan was for use during the day, for official business, not for running back and forth from your hooch. Lindbaugh seemed pretty brazen about its use, not caring how many of his co-workers saw him using it to get home at the end of the workday. Small wonder Kurtz had fingered him.

  Ernie drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “We could be here all night.”

  “No way, pal. If he doesn’t go out in an hour or two, we’ll just figure he’s going to stay in for the night.”

  “Any place to get beer around here?”

  “There’s a Class VI store back by the Officers’ Club.”

  Before we could decide whether one of us should walk over there or if we should take the jeep, Lindbaugh left his quarters. He wore a pullover golf shirt that fit him like Saran Wrap. His blue jeans were baggy and faded and his white sneakers scuffed. Just a regular guy kicking around the neighborhood. He drove off. We followed.

  “He can’t be going to the village dressed like that.”

  “No way,” I said. “Got to be a local run.”

  We followed him down a narrow lane that led up around the rear of the Officers’ Club to a small back parking lot where most of the food and beverage deliveries were made. Off to the side was the Class VI store, a PX Shopette, and the Steam and Cream.

  The Steam and Cream was known officially as the Army and Air Force Exchange Service Steam Bath and Massage Center. Lindbaugh parked out front, popped from his car, and ambled through the door as if he’d been there a million times.

  Ernie parked the jeep between some other cars in the lot.

  “Now I know it’s going to take a while.”

  “Five dollars for thirty minutes or seven-fifty for an hour.”

  “At least he brought us to the Class VI.”

  Ernie got out of the jeep and came back in a few minutes with a six-pack of cold beer. We popped open a couple of wets and waited.

  In the Army you get used to things like this: not really being in charge of an investigation, not knowing all of what’s going on, just being told to watch somebody and report back. People think of the Army as being demeaning. In a lot of ways it is. Though I think many civilian jobs have the same demands: don’t ask questions, just do it.

  The one thing the Army has going for it is that you can’t be fired. Not easily, anyway. You have to do something wrong, almost commit a crime. Of course the Army’s standards for what constitutes a crime are a little less stringent than those of the civilian world. For instance, being late for a formation or not showing up for work—in the Army those are crimes. But if you avoid the obvious stuff, the things they can nail you for under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, then you have a lot of latitude. If your boss doesn’t like you, he can make your life miserable but he can’t fire you. Not without specific charges. And being a smartass isn’t good enough. In fact, if he brings it to the attention of his higherups, they’ll probably wonder why he isn’t capable of handling the situation himself.

  So in a lot of ways the Army offers more freedom than the civilian world. I don’t have to worry about whether or not the company I work for is making a profit or if the wife of the boss doesn’t like the way I look. I can mostly count on having a job as long as I don’t get stupid.

  Besides, who else would send me to Korea and pay me to drink beer outside of a Steam and Cream?

  We had gone through the entire six-pack and both taken a leak in the bushes behind the parking lot by the time Lindbaugh came out. A young lady in a blue steam bath uniform held the door open for him and waved goodbye. He looked like a pink new baby—pampered, powdered, and now patted on the butt on the way out. He walked next door to the PX Shopette and emerged again with a shopping bag full of groceries and a magazine wrapped in cellophane. Then he drove back to his hooch. Ernie and I parked outside for a conference.

  “He ain’t going nowhere.” Ernie said.

  “Naw. Tomorrow’s a workday. He’s had his fun.” I checked my watch. It was still early. Nineteen thirty. “Time to head out to the ville.”

  “You got that right.”

  When Kimiko spotted us she strutted across the King Club, brown OB beer bottle in hand, and reached for my crotch. I jumped back spasmodically, barely avoiding her grasp.

  “How’s it hanging, GI?” she said.

  “It’s hanging just fine, Kimiko,” I said, “all by itself.”

  “You buy me drink?”

  “Hell no. You’re supposed to buy us a drink, for saving your kundingi.”

  The same beige dress she had had on this morning was now washed and pressed and her long black hair had been shampooed and combed. She had scrounged some makeup from somewhere. The oldest business girl in Itaewon was back in town.

  She considered my proposal about the drinks. “Okay,” she said. “I buy, you pay.”

  Ernie and I elbowed our way to the bar. I ordered three OBs and ceremoniously handed one to Kimiko. She curtsied, her knobby knees flared slightly to the side.

  The joint was busy, as usual for this time of night, and Miss Oh hadn’t noticed our entrance yet. She served a tray of drinks and was heading right for us when Kimiko, with that incredible sense of timing that women have, threw her arms around my waist and buried her face in my shirt.

  I tried to pull her off but she had a tight grip and Miss Oh walked by, increasing her speed as she passed, glowering at me for the loss of face I was causing her.

  If she didn’t have time to see me, because she had to party with a bunch of big-shot Koreans, did I get mad? No. But some old broad throws her
arms around me, without invitation, and she acts as if I’ve just broken a sacred vow.

  I pried Kimiko’s biceps away from my ribs. She looked up at me, her face clouding.

  “Whatsamatta you? You no like Kimiko?”

  “Yeah, I like,” I said. “Just don’t break my back, okay?”

  She pouted and lifted her beer bottle to her lips. Tilting it straight up, she let the bubbling hops gurgle and swirl down her pulsating throat. My kind of chick. Then she burped. Me and Ernie too. Three-part harmony.

  Miss Oh was snapping quick looks at me from the waitress station. Hell with it, I thought. Ernie had commandeered a bar stool and sat down, his back to the bar, knees pointing towards the crowd. He was chortling. I said, “Pretty hilarious, eh, pal?”

  “You’re a riot, George. Better than Dobie Gillis.”

  We decided to get into some serious drinking and ordered shots and another round of beer. When we had finished, the three of us paraded out into the streets of Itaewon, not really sure where we were going, letting the surging pedestrian masses lead us. Shortly, we found ourselves in front of the American Club. Ernie dragged us in. I was worried about running into Miss Lim but the lust for more booze kept my feet moving.

  Ginger saw us and her face brightened. She started her charge down the planks behind the bar when she saw Kimiko and, slowly, her face hardened. She sauntered down to us at the open bar stool we had found. Kimiko jumped up on it and Ernie and I wedged ourselves close to the railing on either side of her. Ginger filled our order and gave us our change without saying anything. I hadn’t spotted Miss Lim. Then I noticed Ginger on the phone, face grim.

  Some of the old retirees at the bar knew Kimiko, and soon she was glad-handing around as if she were running for mayor.

  Ernie and I leaned into the drinks heavy—who knew when the stuff could run out?—and then the C&W band started and all of my thought processes stopped. During a particularly hideous cowboy lament, Kimiko returned and at the same time Miss Lim walked in the door. Kimiko’s beer bottle was empty and she tried to get me to refill it for her. Miss Lim sashayed past without looking at me and joined one of the more presentable retirees at the end of the bar. He smiled so broadly I thought his cheeks were going to pop. Then he stood up and offered her his bar stool. Offering someone a bar stool is the greatest sacrificial gesture a retiree can make.