by Martin Limon
Smitty was nothing if not shrewd. His eyes narrowed as he set the sheet of paper down. “You think someone’s leaking information,” he said.
“We know someone’s leaking information,” Riley told him.
We didn’t really, but it was our working hypothesis. The gumiho seemed to have somehow gotten wind of the crimes committed by Specialist Shirkey and Corporal Holdren, which we suspected had led to their abduction.
“Does this have anything to do with those three GIs who disappeared?” Smitty asked.
I held my hands up. “Hold on there, Sergeant Smith. You’re moving too fast. This whole thing has to be kept under wraps, or it has no chance of working.”
“Hey, I get it. You think I’m a newbie?” He stared at the paper again. “I’ll take this over to Frances. She runs the admin shop over there at SOFA. I’ll tell her to slip it in when nobody’s looking.”
“Can she backdate it?” Riley asked.
“Yeah, probably. No more than a week, though. Otherwise it’ll look suspicious. She’ll just claim that the charges were so upsetting that she couldn’t bring herself to type out the paperwork right away.”
I looked at Riley. He grinned sheepishly. “They’re that bad?” I asked.
“Man,” Smitty said. “If I ever see you in a dark alley, I’m running the other way. Bogus charges or no.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I think.”
We were now fairly sure that the Sea Dragon Triad had a hand in the disappearance of the three GIs, but had yet to figure out exactly how that tied in with a legendary one-thousand-year-old fox-turned-woman. It did seem that where the Sea Dragons went, the gumiho followed, with the possible exception of Camp Kyle.
Then I received a call from Officer Oh, who explained that just a few months ago, a new fish processing plant had been built on the outskirts of Uijongbu. The ownership title had been purposely obscured, but it was rumored that the Sea Dragon Triad had funded the plant’s construction. She also discovered that the Harbor Lights Club’s building belonged to an investment consortium, but the lease to the club itself had been signed by a woman named Roh Hyun-ah.
“Who’s she?” I asked.
“A wealthy woman,” Officer Oh told me. A pause as she riffled through her notes. “Married to a foreigner. His name is Donald P. Yancey.”
Ernie and I approached Don Yancey at the snack bar. He sat with his legs crossed and a cup of tea in front of him, and one of his disciples had just gotten up and walked off. It was late, an hour after the five p.m. cannon, and the snack bar was almost empty. Yancey, we figured, would finish his tea and head out to his club in Itaewon. He didn’t seem surprised when we sat down.
“Howdy, gentlemen. I’m Don.” He reached out and shook our hands. His fingers were soft, pudgy, and spangled with three or four rings.
Ernie took the lead. “We know who you are. We need your help.”
Yancey gazed at us pleasantly, with his perfectly coifed hair, light blue eyes, and air of relaxed friendliness. “How can I be of service?” he asked.
“Your new club, the Harbor Lights,” Ernie said. “We understand you’re doing well out there?”
“Praise be to God.”
“You’re religious?”
“Only when it comes to business,” Yancey said, smiling.
Ernie flashed his CID badge. “My partner and I are looking for a couple of guys. They have money, and we’ve been told they love to hang out at Harbor Lights.”
“Oh?”
“They’re not dangerous,” Ernie said, “as far as we know. But they are slippery. So we’d like your cooperation.”
“Always happy to help law enforcement,” said Yancey.
“It won’t take much,” Ernie told him. “My partner here will spend some time in your club by himself, staying out of the way and watching for these guys.”
Yancey nodded.
“When he takes them down—if they show up, that is—we expect there to be no disruption to your operations.”
“I see,” Yancey said.
“He’ll start tonight,” Ernie told him.
“All right, then,” Yancey said, checking his watch. “I have to be on my way.” He stood and said, “Oh, if you’re not a member, my security guard won’t let you in.”
“How much does membership cost?” Ernie asked.
“Oh, there’s no cost. I give it out free to friends. Here.” Yancey reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a calling card. He scribbled something on the back and handed it to Ernie. “A key to the kingdom,” he said.
“Thanks,” Ernie said, handing the card over to me.
Yancey shook our hands again and left. As we watched him push through the door, Ernie said, “That was easy.”
“He’ll want something in return someday,” I warned.
“Yeah. But he didn’t ask for anything. Or even hint that he’d want something in the future. I think he’s nervous.”
“I think so, too.”
Back at the barracks, I sat alone on my bunk. Listlessly, I picked up the book Miss Kim had given me and opened to the chapter on the gumiho. About every third sentence, I had to stop to look up a word in my Korean-English dictionary. When I was done, I rubbed my face, trying to put what I’d just read out of my mind. It wasn’t easy.
I glanced at the framed photograph in my wall locker of me and Leah Prevault in front of Changgyong-won, the royal palace in downtown Seoul. We were both smiling as a ferocious stone heitei snarled behind us. I knew Doctor Prevault was busy in the psychiatric ward at Tripler, which was a huge military hospital, but it still bothered me that she hadn’t found more time to write. Her last letter had been friendly, joking even, but impersonal. I’d answered it right away, and though I hadn’t yet received a response, I was already considering sending another.
I showered, shaved, and changed into the best pair of slacks I owned. Ernie kept saying I was moping around too much. According to him, I hadn’t been the same since Leah had left. He probably liked the idea of my solo mission at the Harbor Lights Club because hanging around some fancy nightclub would give me the chance to find someone new.
“She’s gone,” he’d told me. “No one ever comes back. We’re young. Time to live a little.”
I slipped into a starched shirt with long sleeves. Before leaving the barracks, I slapped on some aftershave.
I walked up stone steps. A GI I recognized from the weight room at the Collier Field House on Yongsan Compound South Post sat on a stool outside the main club entrance, wearing blue jeans and a too-tight sweatshirt. Emblazoned across his chest was the flaming logo of the Harbor Lights Club.
“You’re moonlighting,” I said.
“Yeah.” Dead-eyed, he asked, “You a member?”
I showed him the calling card Yancey had signed. He studied it suspiciously. Finally, he reached for the phone. “I’ll call him.”
I snatched the card back from him. “Don’t bother,” I said. “I’ll talk to him inside.”
I breezed past the bouncer, forcing him to decide whether to strong-arm me. He stayed on his stool. But he did lift the phone and dial.
After passing through a short hallway, I entered the Harbor Lights Club proper. It was a huge space, considerably larger than most of the nightclubs in Itaewon, and bustling with people. There was a long L-shaped bar on the right bathed in the blue glow of elevated round bulbs. It was packed with single men. To the immediate left was a stage about ten yards wide, and in front of that a round parquet-covered dance floor with a mirrored ball hanging so low a basketball player would’ve had to duck his head. The band must have been on break, because a too-loud song about rocking some sort of boat was being piped in through an overhead sound system. Cocktail tables were spread across the room, covered in white cloth and spangled with candles glowing red in netted glass holders. Along the far wall
, shrouded in shadow, stood a row of high-backed, padded leather booths. Ghostly figures haunted the darkness.
Despite being in my best shirt and slacks, not to mention a highly spit-shined pair of Army-issue low quarters, I felt like a bumpkin fresh from the cabbage patch. Everyone else here was decked out in the latest fashion, especially the women. Most of the female clientele was Korean, but I spotted several Caucasian and a few African American faces. Some men sat with their girlfriends or wives at tables, while the single men stood together at the bar or chatted up business girls. Everyone seemed anxious to dance except the guys at the bar. I would normally have joined them, but on this mission I had to at least make the attempt to socialize.
Way in the back, I found a small, round cocktail table with a single chair. The joint was so busy it took ten minutes for a waitress to reach me. By then the band had started up, and I had to shout to be heard. I ordered a Heineken, since no one here was drinking domestic OB. When I paid, I was shocked to learn they were charging 1,500 won. Three bucks a bottle. Outrageous. It was more than we’d paid on Texas Street, and easily three times as much as I’d pay for a beer at any of the old, run-down nightclubs in Itaewon. But this place was so trendy. Which was what people paid for, right? To see and be seen in the most fashionable of places.
Disgusted, I slowly sipped my beer.
A half hour later, Don Yancey pulled up a chair and sat down across from me, all smiles. He offered his hand and I gave it a firm shake.
“Everything going as planned?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I didn’t catch your name,” he said.
“Sueño,” I said.
“Oh,” he replied, confused for a moment.
“Just call me George,” I added.
He was back to his stock smile. “These guys you’re looking for. Maybe you could describe them to me? I can keep an eye out.”
“Better if you don’t,” I said. “They could be dangerous.”
He frowned, the expression out of place on his visage. “Your friend told me there wasn’t going to be trouble.”
“There isn’t, as long as I spot them before they spot me.”
“I don’t want any violence here in the Harbor Lights Club.”
“That why you have a bouncer?”
“Randy’s a good man.”
“One guy,” I told him. “Muscle-bound. Wouldn’t be much use in a fight.” I nodded toward the back, over by the men’s room, where a plastic sheeting hung down. “You expanding already?”
Yancey beamed proudly. “Yes. We’re partnering with the WVOW. You heard of them?”
I had, on my last big case. “The Wounded Veterans of Overseas Wars?”
“That’s them. The Seoul city government approved an expansion of their charter, so we’ll be able to open a WVOW operation here at Harbor Lights.”
“A casino,” I said.
“Yes. Isn’t it great?”
“Wonderful,” I agreed. So you can rip off more GIs, I thought, still smiling. “That’s a hell of a managerial responsibility, what with all the cheats out there.”
“I’ve got a great manager lined up. A casino boss from way back. Twenty years of experience,” he bragged, raising his eyebrows at me expectantly.
I played along. “Let me guess,” I said. “Your new manager’s from the Sheraton Walker Hill.” The big casino on the eastern edge of Seoul.
“Nope,” Yancey said. “The Olympos Hotel and Casino. You ever heard of it?”
The Olympos Hotel and Casino sat on the edge of the Yellow Sea, just a few yards from the main train station in Inchon. Right in the heart of Sea Dragon country.
I did my best to hide any reaction. “Oh, yeah. Class operation.”
“I’ll say.”
Yancey snapped his fingers as a waitress passed by. “Miss Lee,” he said, “Heineken hana,” and he pointed at the almost empty beer in front of me. Hana meaning one.
I thanked him.
“Don’t mention it,” he said, getting up and shaking my hand again. “You need anything, just give me a holler.”
“Thanks, Don,” I said. “There is one thing.”
He sat back down.
“It’s about a—a misunderstanding I had,” I stammered, forcing the words out.
“With a girl?” he asked.
“Yeah. A Korean girl, here in Itaewon.” He leaned forward and listened patiently, like a priest in confessional. Information and wheeling and dealing were Don Yancey’s stock-in-trade.
“She filed a SOFA charge,” I went on.
Yancey nodded knowingly.
“It’s phony,” I said, “just a ploy to make money, but it’s official now, and the SOFA Committee will be taking it up soon.”
I stopped and stared at my beer.
“So you’re asking if I know anyone on the SOFA Committee?” he said.
“Do you?” I said, looking up hopefully.
“No. But Don Yancey always knows somebody who knows somebody.” He stared at me hard, knowing that a CID agent in 8th Army had plenty of power to make life easy or make it difficult. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I appreciate it,” I told him.
When he left, I glugged down the last of my Heineken. The waitress arrived with a fresh bottle and retrieved the fallen soldier. I watched her sashay back toward the bar, wondering where Don Yancey found all these beauties to staff his nightclub—maybe a modeling agency. He had connections, that was for sure. I sat back, feeling the bubbling suds wash their way through my stomach. I gave myself permission to enjoy the night now that step one of my job had been completed. This could all be a dead end. But, with any luck, we’d dropped enough crumbs in the forest for someone to follow the trail.
“You were right,” I said, plopping myself down in the seat next to Ernie’s.
It was a routine morning in the CID office: Riley shuffling through a stack of disposition forms and Ernie reading the paper as a fresh pot of coffee brewed on the back counter.
“Of course I was,” Ernie said. Then he looked up. “About what?”
“About the Sea Dragon Triad making a move on Itaewon.”
He pointed to his cranium. “It’s all up here,” he whispered loudly.
“Ain’t nothing there but mush,” Riley retorted.
“Beats bull crap,” Ernie replied.
After Don Yancey had left me, I’d spent the rest of the night sipping one green bottle of imported Heineken after the other. How many I’d actually consumed, I wasn’t sure, at least until the next morning in the barracks when I counted my money. Including the one Yancey had bought for me, I’d had eight bottles. Not nearly enough to give me a hangover. Which was why I was up early this morning, having called Inspector Kill’s office before he’d even arrived.
“I left a message with Officer Oh,” I told Ernie.
“She never sleeps, does she?” Ernie asked.
“Guess not. I asked her to check out the new WVOW charter at the Seoul City Hall. All the other American veteran groups—like the VFW and the AmVets—operate little casinos elsewhere in Kyongki Province.” Still in the region, but outside of Seoul.
“Not in the city itself,” Ernie said.
“Right. It’s not allowed.”
“Which means that Yancey has connections,” Ernie said.
“He works for them,” I replied. “He’s always smiling and shaking hands and doing favors.” I thought of his sympathetic stare last night as I unloaded my woes about the made-up SOFA case. “I also asked Officer Oh about the casino boss from the Olympos Yancey claims is going to be running his new gambling spot.”
“The Olympos?” Ernie asked.
I nodded.
“That’s in Sea Dragon territory.”
“And it all comes together,” Riley said flippantly.
/> Ernie turned slowly toward him. “Why don’t you just take care of your paperwork, and we’ll take care of the investigations.”
“Up yours,” Riley said, but he still grabbed a folder out of his inbox and snapped it open.
Ernie and I walked over to the coffee urn. “So Officer Oh called back?”
“Yeah. Just talked to her.”
“What’d she say?”
“She says it’s long been known that the Sea Dragon Triad unofficially controls the Olympos Casino. They even fly in high rollers from Hong Kong.”
“They must lure ’em with girls,” Ernie said. “Or whatever else they want.”
I nodded and sighed. “We’ve been compiling all this info, but in terms of concrete evidence, we’re not really closer to finding the missing GIs than when we started.”
“Yeah, it’s frustrating,” Ernie said. “Did Officer Oh have anything that could help us connect the Sea Dragon Triad to the disappearance of the three GIs?”
“Not yet. But she said something that has me worried—mot kidaryo.”
“What does that mean?” Ernie asked.
“That we can’t wait.”
“Did you ask her why?”
“I didn’t think to before she said goodbye and hung up,” I said.
“So you think Kill’s going to make a move?”
“It’s possible,” I replied.
“But what good will that do?” Ernie asked. “If the remaining two GIs are still alive, Kill could endanger them and drive whoever’s holding them even deeper into hiding.”
“Yeah. But this case isn’t his only priority. The Korean government might be pressuring him to crack down on the gang activity.”
“If those GIs are killed, it’ll be a PR nightmare for the ROK,” Ernie said.
“The Koreans will blame it on the Chinese Communists.”
“The Chicoms,” Ernie said slowly, his eyes widening as he saw the sense in it. “And there will be three American martyrs the ROK can use to lobby for more US aid in countering not only the foreign gang problem, but the influence of the Communist Chinese government.”
“They might be looking at it that way. It’s a gamble, but from their point of view, it could both alleviate the problem and convince the US congress to open up its purse strings.”