by Martin Limon
“What is this, an interrogation? Are you planning to arrest me?” She looked at Colonel Brace. He pretended to be busy lighting his pipe, apparently not minding us digging around a little.
“No,” Ernie replied. “We’d just like to know what we’re dealing with.”
“You’re dealing with the women of the United States and Korea who are taking their power back. And now we want our refrigerator.” She checked her watch and we glanced at Colonel Brace. Instead of asking if we had any other irons in the fire, he turned to her and said, “Mrs. Allsworthy, they’ll have it back before noon.”
So it was Katie Allsworthy, firebrand of the OWC, versus Mrs. Frankenton, wife of the Chief of Staff, 8th United States Army.
How had we gotten into the middle of this?
Before we left, I stopped at Miss Kim’s desk. When I sat down, she stopped typing, looked up, and smiled. I asked if I could borrow her Korean-English dictionary. She pulled it out of her desk drawer, laid it atop her immaculate desk, and slid it toward me.
I looked up daejang jang-i and discovered that it meant “blacksmith.” I should’ve known. Heat and flames, just like the manager of the yoguan had tried to explain. She’d even made some hammering motions, but I hadn’t picked up on them. If he was a smithy who used traditional Korean methods, that might explain why his face was burnt and mangled. Especially if he’d ever splashed molten iron on himself.
For the next word, I needed Miss Kim’s help. I slid the dictionary back to her.
“Gumiho,” I said, not “gummy whore,” as Pug Grayson had said it.
Miss Kim’s eyes widened. “Who teach you?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Somebody. What’s it mean?”
She shuddered and rubbed her bare arms. “Not good,” she said.
I waited.
“From Chinese,” she told me. “Japan have, too.”
Then she opened the dictionary, thumbing through it rapidly with her slender fingers. Finally, she stopped and pointed.
It was definitely a word derived from Chinese. There were three characters following the printed hangul. I pulled out my notebook and jotted them down. The first one was easy, the character for the number nine. The second two were more complicated—each with more than a half dozen strokes—and when I was done, I turned my notebook to Miss Kim, and she checked them and made a couple of minor corrections.
Now I knew how to write the word gumiho in both Korean and Chinese. The literal translation of it was “nine-tailed fox.” The dictionary said “a cunning person.” But Miss Kim told me there was more to it than that. She lowered her voice and spoke in Korean.
“Some people believe,” she said, “that the gumiho is not human, but a fox that has managed to survive for centuries. Once it reaches the age of one thousand years, the gods smile upon it, and it is allowed to transform itself. Then it is no longer a fox, but a woman with magical powers.”
“What kind of woman?” I asked.
“Very lustful,” she said. “Like an animal.” She blushed, snatched a tissue out of her box, and held it to her nose. “Some people believe that the gumiho can disappear and reappear in another spot, and even change its shape.”
“Do you believe this?” I asked.
“Of course not.” Then she said, “Mishin.” Superstition.
I thanked her and stood up. As I walked away, she once again hugged herself and rubbed her arms. Though the steam heater clanged away merrily, it still seemed like she was freezing.
Ernie and I drove to the motor pool, hoping to retrieve the three-quarter-ton truck we’d used to pick up the refrigerator in the first place. Chief Warrant Peters told us that it was “dead-lined” due to its shattered windshield. Which meant that, because of safety issues, it couldn’t be moved or dispatched by anyone. We asked him for a different one.
“They’re all out right now,” he said. “Maybe at close of business.” Five p.m.
“Don’t you have another truck?” Ernie asked. “Maybe a deuce-and-a-half?”
“Nothing. Everything’s out.”
“We don’t have time for this shit,” Ernie told him. “We’re trying to find three missing GIs. The clock is ticking.” He didn’t bother to mention that one of them was already dead.
“Missing?” Peters asked. “Maybe they ought to be big boys and find their own way home.”
“This case is top priority,” Ernie told him.
“Well, la-di-da,” Peters said. “You look just like a couple of enlisted pukes to me.”
Ernie was about to pop him in the jaw, but I pulled Ernie back.
“Asshole,” Ernie said as we walked away.
“You don’t talk to a warrant officer that way!” Peters called after us.
“I just did,” Ernie replied.
Back at the barracks, we changed into our running-the-ville outfits. It was almost noontime, and we’d skipped breakfast, so we decided to have some chow before making our next move. We headed to the 8th Army Snack Bar.
Strange was in his usual spot at a two-person table next to the wall. Ernie sat down opposite him as I pulled up a free chair. His real name was Harvey, his rank was Sergeant First Class, and he was the NCO in charge of the Classified Documents Distribution Center at 8th Army headquarters. He was a pervert, but also an invaluable source of information, so Ernie and I catered to him.
“Heard about your escapade at that Commie stronghold,” Strange told us as soon as we sat down.
“What Commie stronghold?” Ernie asked.
“Whatchamacallit. Broads with a Hard-On Committee, or something like that.”
“The Women’s Power Coalition,” I said.
“Yeah, that one. You really walked into it.”
“Walked into what?” Ernie asked.
Strange raised one eyebrow above his shades. “They’re jerking you around,” he said, waggling his empty cigarette holder with thin lips. “You have no idea how big this catfight is that you’ve gotten tangled up in.”
“You mean Mrs. Frankenton?” The president of the Officers’ Wives Club.
“Yeah. She hates that young broad. The blonde one.”
“Katie Allsworthy.”
“Right. Old Lady Frankenton thinks sweet young Katie is putting the moves on her husband.”
“The Chief of Staff?”
“Who else is her husband?”
Ernie and I glanced at each other. Finally, Ernie asked, “Do you think it’s true? Is Mrs. Allsworthy seducing General Frankenton?”
“Well,” Strange said, “she’s doing what she has to do to convince him to help her support Commies.”
“So they’ve been in the sack together?”
“Are you kidding? She’s just stringing the old goat along, trying to control him. She’d no more spread her legs for him than she would for a couple of enlisted pukes like you.”
“Wanna bet?” Ernie said.
I waved him off. “So Mrs. Frankenton feels insecure about her marriage.”
“You’d understand why,” Strange said, “if you saw her.”
Gossip is a vicious thing. But Mrs. Frankenton’s worries weren’t uncommon for Army wives. As a military couple ages, both the husband and wife become less physically attractive to the opposite sex, but the husband often gains in rank and therefore in power. Power, the ultimate aphrodisiac, attracts people who need something, and the husband, after years of being just a low-ranking officer, becomes the most popular guy in town. Naturally, the wife feels left behind, alone and worried. Some women shrug it off and get on with their lives; others withdraw into themselves. A few become vindictive.
Apparently, Mrs. Frankenton was the vindictive type.
“And she hates Commies,” Strange added.
“What makes you think the Women’s Power Coalition is Communist?” I asked.
“It’s not me. It’s every counterintelligence agency in Korea. They’re all monitoring it.”
“Just because they want women to get a fair shake?” Ernie said.
Strange turned and looked at him. “You ever heard of anything more Communist than that?”
A group of men loudly entered the snack bar, led by a dapper-looking man with greased-back hair, pressed slacks, thick-soled shoes, and an expensive-looking blue windbreaker. Strange glared at him.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Don ‘Fancy Pants’ Yancey,” Strange replied. “I hate that guy.”
“Why?”
“He works at Special Services. In charge of the gyms and the arts and crafts center and stuff like that. So he has access to all the dependent wives.” Strange’s cigarette holder waggled. “And their teenage daughters. He’s a smooth talker. Everybody loves him.”
“You haven’t said why you hate him.”
“That’s not enough?” Strange swiveled and looked right at me. “And now they say he’s opening a swanky new joint in Itaewon called the Harbor Lights Club.”
“GIs can’t open businesses,” I said.
“He can. His wife is a tall piece of work named Agnes. She used to be the ‘publicity coordinator’ for some casino out in Inchon. Which means she was spreading her legs for the rich and famous from Hong Kong to Tokyo.”
“How do you know all this?” Ernie asked.
“How do I know anything?” Strange replied.
Sergeant First Class Harvey not only had access to all the classified information that flowed through 8th Army headquarters, but he was also a notorious gossip with studiously cultivated contacts throughout the military community in Seoul. Still, much of what he told us was either fantasy or outright wrong.
When Ernie and I didn’t seem all that interested in Yancey, Strange asked, “Any leads on the Three Stooges?”
“The Three Stooges?”
“Yeah, the three GIs who disappeared. Everybody’s talking about it. General Frankenton is getting daily phone calls from the Pentagon. Apparently, one of the Congressmen is raising hell. Asking how in God’s name Eighth Army could lose three GIs in a row.”
“We didn’t lose them,” Ernie said. “They walked away.”
Strange spread his arms at the Quonset hut. “Why would they want to leave this paradise?” When we didn’t answer, he said, “A woman. That’s it, isn’t it? They sniffed something they liked, and they followed it out.”
“We don’t know yet,” I replied.
“Couldn’t just be your routine business girl,” Strange said, “must’ve been something special. Something any GI would trade a month’s pay for.”
He continued to study us, looking for a hint of reaction. We didn’t give him one. Ernie slapped his knees and said, “I’m gonna get some chow.”
“Me, too.” I followed him to the chow line. Ernie ordered a cheeseburger with fries, and I ordered a BLT and coffee. When we returned with our trays, Strange had left. But he’d spread a thin layer of sugar in the center of the table. In it, he’d traced two words: gummy whore.
-8-
The third GI who’d gone missing was named Holdren. He was a Private First Class, and the youngest of the trio that both Ernie and I had adopted Strange’s term for—the Three Stooges.
“Strange has that effect on you,” Ernie said. “He worms his way into your mind.”
We ran west along the Han River Road, Ernie maneuvering his jeep through kimchi cab traffic and past a long line of birch trees sitting on a bank that led down to the ancient River Han. Our destination was ASCOM, the large logistical base located just outside of the city of Bupyong. In the distance, toward the Han River Estuary, a dark bank of fog sat on its haunches, glowering like a hungry dragon.
I turned back to business, reciting the particulars from the MP report Captain Retzleff had given us after the Chief of Staff’s briefing, which seemed so long ago now.
“Holdren was a tow truck driver assigned to the Forty-Fourth Engineer Battalion,” I said. “He’d been in-country almost ten months.”
“Not a newbie,” Ernie said.
“No,” I replied. “He knew the ropes.”
“And out in the ville?”
“According to the MP report, his buddies claim he was constantly out there. A real ville rat.”
Ernie pondered that for a moment and I thought he was going to ask me about the case, but instead he said, “How did Strange know about the gummy whore?”
I shrugged. “Don’t worry about him. He’s just trying to show off, prove he’s smarter than us.”
“Still, Pug Grayson swore that the MPs never interviewed him, so we were the first ones he talked to.”
“But he also said all the business girls in town were talking about it. So somebody found out. After all, the term ‘gummy whore’ is sort of hard to forget. It must’ve appeared in one of the reports that Strange has access to.”
“Or someone was gossiping about it.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“So why didn’t the MPs pursue the lead?”
“It sounds too farfetched. No MP wants to sign off on a report talking about a nine-tailed, thousand-year-old fox called a ‘gummy whore.’”
“How about us?” Ernie asked. “Did you put it in our report?”
“Haven’t had time to type one up yet,” I told him. “With our refrigerator deliveries and running all over the damn country.”
“Riley will be pissed.”
“He’s always pissed.”
“In this crazy, mixed-up world,” Ernie said, “he’s the one person we can count on.”
We rolled through the town of Bupyong and finally arrived at ASCOM. A huge, whitewashed wooden arch loomed over the front gate. In large black letters it said, welcome to the united states army support command (ascom). The MP at the gate checked our dispatch. “Purpose of visit?” he asked.
“I need some support for my command,” Ernie said.
The man studied us warily. “Identification?”
We handed him our military ID cards. He jotted the information down on his clipboard, then returned them to us and waved us through.
Ernie rolled slowly onto the compound. “You think he knows we’re CID?”
“Of course he does,” I replied. “We’re wearing civilian clothes, and besides, nobody drives all the way out here from Seoul just for the hell of it.”
“What was Holdren’s unit again?”
I told him. At the first crossroads was a white information board with the names of various units and functions and their corresponding directional arrows. The arrow that pointed left said, 44th engineer battalion (construction). We followed the narrow strip of blacktop.
In a gravel-strewn parking lot in front of battalion headquarters, Ernie pulled over and parked. We didn’t spend much time at the 44th Engineers because the initial MP report had covered most of that ground. According to his unit commander, Corporal Holdren had been a hard-working soldier with no blemishes on his record. If we had reason to, we’d reevaluate this information later, but for now we accepted it. The only thing we needed to find out was who his best buddy in the unit was. While we were told that Holdren was a loner and kept mostly to himself, the company clerk did confide to us that to the best of his knowledge, Holdren had spent virtually all his spare time out in the ville at the Wild Lady Nightclub.
“Did he have a girlfriend out there?” I asked.
The bespectacled young man shook his head. “I don’t know. I take night classes.”
“What are you majoring in?” I asked.
“Accounting.”
“So you’ll be rich one day.”
He grinned. “I hope so.”
“Go to Wall Street,” Ernie told him, pointing his forefinger at him like a pistol. “That’s whe
re the action is.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
We thanked him and headed outside. Ernie pulled a stick of ginseng gum out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth.
“He can have Wall Street,” Ernie said. “I’ll keep the ville.”
“And business girls and dried cuttlefish and soju?” I added.
“Those, too,” Ernie replied. “Eat your heart out, Manhattan.”
We drove over to the ASCOM PX, left the jeep in the parking lot, and hoofed it to the gate. At the pedestrian exit, another guard checked our identification. Outside, after crossing the two-lane street and stepping over the railroad tracks, we were in the ville. A few square acres that the Korean map had no special name for, but the GIs hailed as ASCOM City.
It was midafternoon, and though the sky was dark and overcast, none of the clubs had switched on their neon. Still, the place looked exciting. Narrow lanes, barely wide enough for a single kimchi cab, all with mazes of tiny pedestrian alleys branching off from them—wooden signs jutting from walls, touting the names of chophouses, beauty shops, and brassware emporiums. The unlit neon signs on the main stretch were made of plastic; I guessed what the colors might be for the Red Dragon Nightclub, the Kiss Kiss Lounge, the Yobo Bar, and the Suzy Wong Dance Hall, just a small cross-section of the bars and clubs here. The whole of this debauched tumult was crammed into a tiny area currently full of women with laundry atop their heads, men hauling charcoal briquette-laden A-frames on their backs, and business girls with their hair clasped up, parading in shorts and T-shirts to and from the Golden Mermaid Bathhouse. The occasional uniformed Korean national policeman strolled slowly through the maze, swinging his gleaming wooden nightstick like the pendulum of a clock.
Ernie breathed in deeply. I inhaled, too, closing my eyes and attempting to identify every molecule swirling through the afternoon breeze. The outhouses were close by. Mercifully, the air was also laced with the bite of charcoal gas and the tart aroma of anchovies boiling in red pepper stew.
“Kimchi fermenting in clay pots,” Ernie said. “That smell is like life.”
“Like our life.”
We passed an open-fronted restaurant with wriggling sea creatures splashing in an iridescent blue tank. Below that, a sign read nakji.