by Martin Limon
As far as I could tell, he’d stuck religiously to that pledge.
“So what happened?” I’d asked. “You managed to evade the VC?”
“No. They decided to ambush another truck in the convoy. The one with C-rations.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to go after the truck with the ammo?”
Ernie had thought it over. “I guess they were hungry.”
I put aside such reminiscences and set down my coffee. “So what is it, Riley? What does the Colonel want us to do?”
“Nice of you to ask,” Riley said. He shuffled through some paperwork. “Here it is. A copy of both the invoice and shipping order. Should be out there waiting for you now.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ernie asked.
“Black market is what I’m talking about. Big-ticket item. Burrows and Slabem uncovered it.”
Jake Burrows and Felix Slabem were fellow CID agents. Brown-nosers to the max.
“Why don’t they take care of it?”
“It’s downtown,” Riley replied, as if that explained everything. “At this cockamamie Korean address. Burrows and Slabem would never be able to find it.”
“Not our fault they’re morons.”
“Hey, they haven’t gone native like you two. Provost Marshal’s orders. He wants you to check out a pickup at the motor pool, drive downtown, and confiscate the item.”
“What item?”
“A refrigerator.”
Ernie groaned. “Those suckers are heavy.”
Riley ignored him. “According to this invoice, the PX delivered it out there yesterday.”
“So it must’ve been on somebody’s ration control plate. What makes it illegal?”
“Where it’s being delivered. Not an authorized PX user’s home. That makes it a violation of Eighth Army regulations. An unauthorized transfer of duty-free goods.”
The words “Eighth Army regulations” and “unauthorized transfer” were tenderly caressed as they rolled off Riley’s tongue. He loved that kind of talk. Especially the word unauthorized. He made it sound obscene.
“Tell Burrows and Slabem to do it,” Ernie said. “How many years they been here, and they’re still afraid to leave the compound?”
“They can’t read the signs,” Riley said.
In the Army, ignorance could be a huge asset.
“But we have three GIs who disappeared,” Ernie told him. “One of them’s dead. Two more are still out there.”
“Dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you report that?”
“Because you’ve been busy jacking your jaw.”
“Does the Provost Marshal know?”
“He will. Captain Retzleff is probably briefing the Chief of Staff right now.”
Riley thought about it, scratching his head. “Okay, I’ll take care of that and make sure Colonel Brace isn’t blindsided. Meanwhile, you two take care of this. And I mean pronto. Shouldn’t take you more than a half hour or so.”
“A half hour?”
“Yeah, if you quit dicking around.”
Ernie ignored him and continued to read the sports section.
We knew we had to complete this detail. When Colonel Brace specified an errand, he was a stickler to make sure we got it done. He probably wanted to save face after the Chief of Staff assigned us to the missing GIs case in front of God and everyone else. Crossing him under these conditions wouldn’t be wise. To save some face of our own, we took our time finishing our coffee.
Ernie and I drove over to the 21st Transportation Company (Car), better known as “Twenty-One T Car,” the motor pool that supports 8th Army headquarters. We parked his jeep and checked out a three-quarter-ton truck. Ernie sat behind the steering wheel, and I directed him, occasionally referring to my map of Seoul, through busy traffic to a district known as Hyochang-dong.
Burrows and Slabem weren’t the only GIs who couldn’t find an address in this massive city. The system isn’t set up like it is in the States, with streets and numbers, but instead based on an old Chinese land-lot system. Seoul has a number of districts known as ku, which are further broken down into villages or neighborhoods called dong. The final entry in every address is ho, which means “house” or “door.” Since the city has grown so much since the end of the Korean War, these ho are often not in numerical order, and one has to wander around a neighborhood asking directions to find it. Still, there was no reason that Burrows and Slabem couldn’t have earned their pay and done the job. Maybe they would’ve learned something.
We cruised past a whitewashed three-story building with the Korean flag fluttering out front: the Yongsan District police station. About a half mile past that, using my map and dead reckoning, I told Ernie to turn left. We wound through the narrow lanes past television repair shops and tiny wooden stationary stores until finally I told him to stop at an open-fronted kagei, a store with discs of puffed rice interspersed with dried cuttlefish hanging from the front rafter. Ernie locked the truck and joined me inside the kagei to replenish his supply of ginseng gum. Though we were only about two miles as the crow flies from 8th Army headquarters, this was light-years away culturally. GIs had no reason to stop out here. Normally, kids from the neighborhood would’ve crowded around the truck, gawking at the presence of real soldiers, but today they were in school.
The old lady behind the counter grinned at us, and I asked for her help, reading off the address. She took the sheet of paper from my hands, then reached into a cabinet and pulled out a pair of reading glasses that made her eyes appear twice their original size. She studied the address.
“Not too far,” she said in Korean, pointing down the road. “Past the herbalist’s shop, maybe twenty meters and then turn left.”
When she handed the paper back, she stared at me to see if I understood.
“Allasoyo,” I told her. I understand. I thanked her, and we left.
Ernie was already chomping on two fresh sticks of gum when he started the truck. I pointed to a sign ahead slashed with Chinese characters. “Go past that herbalist shop,” I told him, “and after twenty meters, turn left.”
Twenty yards past the turn, a wooden sign leaned out from above sliding glass doors. I pointed and said, “Slow down.” He did. I checked the numbers etched onto the doorframe and compared them to the address on the invoice.
“This is it,” I said.
Ernie parked the three-quarter-ton directly in front. As I climbed out the passenger door, I read the sign, which read yosong guonryok yonhap. And beneath that, in smaller but neatly stenciled English: women’s power coalition.
“Since when did women get power?” Ernie asked.
I shrugged. “Looks like they’re taking it.”
“Smart.” Then he thought about it. “How soon do you think it’ll be till they get stomped on?”
“Not long,” I said.
“Yeah,” Ernie replied. “Hope they enjoy it while it lasts.”
The ladies of the Women’s Power Coalition weren’t happy to see us. In fact, they were outraged. Especially when I showed them the paperwork and Ernie set to work unscrewing the refrigerator from a Korean-made electrical transformer buzzing on the floor. In short order, he’d disabled the refrigerator, unplugged it, and slid it away from the wall in the tiny service area where it sat. There was also a stainless steel hot water urn that looked like PX property to me, not to mention the freeze-dried coffee crystals and the soluble creamer and the individual tea bags. It was all prime Stateside product, but our only official concern was the refrigerator, which we’d specifically been assigned to pick up. Apparently, someone made a call after our arrival, because within five minutes, a tall, square-faced Korean woman stormed in through the front door.
“Wei kurei nonun?” she said. What are you doing?
She was a big
woman, buxom, and the sharp planes of her enraged visage made her look like a warrior goddess. She wore a plain blue cotton dress that fell past her knees, a brown belt cinched tightly at her waist, and, as protection against the November cold, a thick brown wool cardigan that she’d failed to button. The way the other women deferred to her, I took her for the head honcho.
I showed her the paperwork.
“PX item,” I said, pointing at the line on the form. “Can’t be out here.” Then I used Riley’s term. “Not authorized.”
She backhanded the air as if to slap the invoice away. “Katie donated that to us,” she said in English. “Katie! Do you know her? The Officers’ Wives Club?”
I shook my head, startled by her rapid switch from Korean to fluent English. “Doesn’t matter,” I replied. “Katie, whoever she is, is not allowed to bring a refrigerator out here.”
The regulation stated that PX-purchased goods could not be transferred to non-PX users unless they were de minimis items, valued at less than twenty-five dollars.
She tightened her fists and glowered at me. For a moment I thought she might start hitting me, and I was glad that she didn’t have a weapon stuck beneath her broad leather belt. We had to get the damn refrigerator out of here as quickly as possible. I joined Ernie in removing items from the fridge. Mostly open containers of Yogulut, a liquid yogurt product; a few tins of apple cider; bunches of fresh fruit. Pretty much the opposite of every fridge I’d seen on base—no beer, no hot dogs. On the lower shelf were several prescription drugs and suppositories, even baby formula and what looked like small bottles of mother’s milk.
So someone here was nursing. These items would go bad in a number of hours, but there was nothing Ernie or I could do about that. We pulled everything and laid it out as neatly as we could on the counter.
As we worked, I asked Ernie, “You checked the serial number?”
“Yeah, this is the right refrigerator.”
Some of the women were crying now. The tall woman was speaking on the phone in English, trying to get through to someone on the American compound. She was frowning, and her imposing form quivered with anger. I realized I was staring at her, and that I found it pleasant to do so. Her hair was long, straight, and jet-black, and she had a nice jawline, despite the twisted scowl she was aiming at me. Despite myself, I admired her strength. Then I remembered we had a job to complete.
Ernie and I each took an end of the refrigerator, hoisted it up, and carried it outside. Just as we were about to load it into the back of the three-quarter-ton, the de facto leader of the Women’s Power Coalition appeared at the door, slipped on her sandals, and rushed outside.
“You!” she shouted, pointing to me. “Katie is on the phone. Talk to her!”
I knew what would happen. The woman on the phone, whoever she was, would explain the many reasons why the refrigerator was needed very badly by the Woman’s Power Coalition and try to talk us out of taking it. But it wasn’t our decision to make. The Provost Marshal had reviewed the case and decided he wanted this refrigerator back on compound. He certainly hadn’t asked for our opinion, and even if Katie made me sympathetic to her cause, it could only stir up trouble. There was no point in talking to her.
Without answering, Ernie and I tilted the refrigerator up and slid it onto the truck. Ernie closed the back and dropped the hooks at the end of two short chains into their respective slots to secure the gate. He hurried around to the driver’s side, and I made my move toward the passenger’s seat. The leader of the Women’s Power Coalition blocked my way. As I was about to maneuver around her, she slapped me. Hard. She was as strong as she looked. I held my cheek and gazed at her in shock. Her entire face burned red, tears forming in the corners of her almond-shaped eyes.
“You hurt women,” she said. “You don’t even care. You hurt women.”
Then she stepped away from me. Regally, as if dismissing a servant. I climbed into the front passenger seat, eager for this business to be over. When she reached the porch leading inside, the woman bent toward the ground as if searching for something. She apparently found whatever it was she was looking for, because she then stood upright, staring us down. Ernie started the engine, pulled forward a few yards, and then made a three-point turn in the narrow lane. As we started back toward the storefront office that housed the Women’s Power Coalition, the tall woman strode into the road. Her long hair waved in the morning breeze. Using her full height and weight, she flung a rock directly at us. Reflexively, Ernie and I ducked, and at the same time we heard a loud thwunk. When I looked back up, the truck’s windshield had shattered.
Ernie swerved around the woman and kept driving, squinting through a thousand kaleidoscopic shards of glass. “She took it sort of hard,” he said.
“Yeah, sort of,” I said, still breathing heavily. “I wonder what her name is.”
“The big one?”
“Yeah.”
“Sandy Koufax,” Ernie said, “judging by her fastball.”
-5-
Back on compound, we stored the refrigerator in the CID evidence room. In the admin office, Miss Kim handed me a phone message on pink paper. “Very urgent,” she told me. “Chief Homicide Inspector Gil Kwon-up wants to talk to you.”
Mr. Kill. He’d probably gotten wind of our activities in Pusan—and the discovery of Sergeant Werkowski’s body. I showed the message to Ernie.
“Our next stop is Camp Kyle,” he said. “Right?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Where Werkowski was assigned, and the first place a GI disappeared.”
“So KNP headquarters is on our way.”
I frowned. “Maybe we should skip it this time.”
“Why?” Ernie asked. And then he got it. “You’re afraid of what they might do to Soon-hui and that food cart lady Auntie Suh once they find out they have information about Shirkey’s disappearance.”
I nodded.
Ernie thought about it. “They might disappear, too,” he said, “if their role in this embarrasses the Korean government in any way.”
“Mr. Kill wouldn’t do that,” I said. “Would he?”
“I don’t know.”
Mr. Kill dealt with those at the highest levels of the Korean power structure. He was well-connected, dangerous, and, most importantly, secretive.
We thought it over, but ultimately decided that going straight up to Camp Kyle to continue our investigation would probably be worse than meeting with Mr. Kill. We might be able to figure out what the KNPs were thinking if we stopped at their headquarters, maybe even influence that thinking.
I returned the refrigerator invoice to Riley. He grabbed it and said, “Where is it?”
“In the evidence storage room.”
“Have you turned in your report on the trip to Pusan yet?”
“You know I haven’t,” I told him. “You didn’t give me time.”
“Time? All you’ve got is time, trooper. You’re on duty twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
“You’ll get your report,” I said.
Before he could give me a deadline, Ernie and I walked out of the CID office.
It wasn’t our day. When we dropped the truck off at Twenty-One T Car, the Operations Officer, Chief Warrant Peters, said he planned to file a Report of Survey for the broken windshield, which most likely meant we would end up paying for it. Unless, that is, we could convince the Report of Survey officer that it had been damaged in the line of duty. But nobody I knew had ever won one of those. A meteorite could land on your officially dispatched military vehicle, and you’d still be held liable.
Ernie retrieved his jeep. After stopping at the barracks and changing into our running-the-ville outfits, we drove to downtown Seoul.
On the way there, we were quiet. Ernie made his way through midmorning traffic, easily maneuvering the finely tuned vehicle while we both tried to ignore the fact tha
t we had lost control of our lives and this investigation.
“All they do is mess with us,” Ernie said.
“That’s the Army.”
“Maybe we should talk to the Chief of Staff, tell him to order everyone off our backs.”
I glanced at Ernie skeptically. Blowing the whistle up the chain of command might give us temporary relief and the space we needed to thoroughly conduct our investigation, but Colonel Brace, Staff Sergeant Riley, and Chief Warrant Officer Peters would certainly make our lives hell in the months to follow. This was simply a GI’s life. And we’d have to put up with it, even with the lives of two missing soldiers at stake.
Ernie’s grip on the steering wheel loosened. “Fine,” he said. “Maybe not.”
Officer Oh, Mr. Kill’s assistant, met us in the lobby. As usual, she looked sharp in her dark blue skirt, light blue blouse, and the KNP cap pinned to her curly black hair. But her face betrayed worry, which was unusual. She usually sported the same grim expression, which I suspected was to ward off Ernie’s attention. She escorted us into the elevator and up to the top floor of KNP headquarters, where Mr. Kill’s newly remodeled office sat.
He was hunched over a stack of paperwork on his desk as another dark-suited officer hovered over him. Mr. Kill looked up, nodded, and motioned for us to be seated. It was a small office, considering his rank, but with accoutrements like a goose-necked lamp and a celadon vase filled with artificial cloth flowers. I thought of the ajjimas—the middle-aged women—who’d spent hours deftly crafting them. Ernie and I sat on the edge of a low divan in front of a mahogany coffee table. When Kill finished whatever he was working on, the other officer bowed and retreated from the office. Officer Oh stepped outside. After she shut the door, Mr. Kill scribbled a few last notes, rose to his feet, buttoned his jacket over his flat stomach, and joined us at the coffee table.