The Line

by Martin Limon

  The girl stared at her blankly. The question went beyond her facility with English. I translated.

  “Seingson,” the girl told me. “Meiil Inchon hantei.”

  “Fresh fish,” I told Corrine. “Every day shipped in from the Port of Inchon.”

  Her eyes widened. “You speak Korean?”

  “A little.”

  “More than a little,” she said. “That was pretty good. Ask her if she’s ever heard of a city called Taean.”

  I repeated the question in Korean. The young woman answered. “Nei. Seingak ei Chungchong-namdo ieiyo.”

  “Yes. She thinks it’s in Chungchong South Province.”

  The girl bowed and hurried away.

  “Do all GIs speak Korean?” she asked.

  Ernie had just ladled a spoonful of soup into his mouth. He coughed and spit it about halfway across the table. Still choking, he wiped his mouth and said, “Hell no! Sueño here is a freaking genius. Most GIs know only enough Korean to pay for beer and bargain for . . . never mind.”

  Hearing Ernie praise my Korean language ability was a first, but a satisfying one. Corrine looked at me, a half-smile playing around her mouth. “By the way, you guys can call me Corrine.”

  We re-introduced ourselves; I figured she’d forgotten our names from our brief encounter at the airport the day before. I rose from the table, offered my hand, and said, “Choum peipkeissumnida.”

  She shook my hand and asked, “What does that mean?”

  “Delighted to meet you.”

  “The high-class way,” Ernie said, sneering. “That’s all Sueño knows.” He shoveled rice into his mouth.

  When she tried to eat the mackerel, Corrine fumbled with her chopsticks. I called the waitress over and asked for a fork.

  “No,” Corrine said, “I don’t want one. I need to practice.”

  She watched the way Ernie and I pulled bits of mackerel flesh off with our chopsticks and popped them into our mouths. She tried to emulate it, but each morsel would slip to the table before reaching her lips. I showed her an alternative: pulling the bits off and dropping them atop the steamed rice. After a few bits accumulated in the bowl, you could use your flat spoon to scoop mackerel and rice into your mouth.

  After we finished breakfast, Corrine insisted on putting the bill on her hotel tab.

  “Fusterman’s parents must be loaded,” Ernie said, “to hire you to come all the way over here to defend him.”

  “Loaded enough,” she said. “They had a nice house, paid for, which they’ve mortgaged.”

  “Are they coming over?” I asked.

  “No. His father has a heart condition. He could go at any time, and his son being charged with murder certainly isn’t helping his prognosis.”

  “How do you know them?”

  “My law firm has worked with them before. Only one of us could be chosen to come over here, and I was selected.”

  “Because you’re Korean?” Ernie said.

  She stared at him coolly. “I’m American.”

  “Yeah, I guess you are.”

  We walked out of the coffee shop and took seats in the lobby, and I began to explain to her what we knew about the case. But also how we weren’t supposed to be helping her and the best we could do for Fusterman’s case was make sure all evidence was made available to her.

  “Isn’t JAG supposed to do that?”

  I shrugged. “They’re under a lot of pressure.”

  “You mean the North Koreans. Along the DMZ.”

  “Yes. JAG is under pressure to resolve this case right away. Get everybody to chop off on it. There’s no guarantee that the North Koreans will accept Fusterman’s guilt, but as long as they see one of us imperialist running dogs punished, they’ll save face.”

  “And withdraw their tanks?”

  “That’s the hope.”

  “But if he’s not guilty?”

  “That screws up the whole deal,” Ernie said.

  “And tensions continue,” I said. “Meaning one miscalculation . . .”

  “And we’re back to refugees,” she said, “and orphans.”

  “Right.”

  “So that’s what we’re up against,” she said.

  “What you’re up against,” Ernie corrected.

  “Yes.” She clasped her hands together. “Why are you trying to help me?”

  “Free breakfast,” Ernie told her.

  Corrine Fitch raised an eyebrow and looked at me.

  “We were at the crime scene,” I said. “We saw Corporal Noh Jong-bei’s body, blood and crushed skull and all. And then we met his family.”

  “And we went down to the stockade in ASCOM and interviewed PFC Fusterman,” Ernie added.

  “It’s pretty hard to imagine him bashing somebody’s skull in,” I said.

  “But you’re cops. You’re not supposed to work on intuition.”

  “No,” I said. “But we suspect there’s something else going on at the JSA.”

  “What?”

  “We’re not sure yet.”

  “I’ll be going up there,” she said. “To the Joint Security Area, to view the crime scene. And then down south to interview my client.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow. JAG has scheduled a military vehicle for me. And a driver.”

  “Be careful at the JSA,” Ernie said. “They see you’re Korean, and they’re liable to pull you across the line and keep you there.”

  “They can’t legally do that.”

  “No. But they’ve done it before, to a South Korean journalist.”

  “I’ll be careful,” she said.

  “Be more than careful,” Ernie told her. “At all times, keep at least one American guard between you and the North Koreans. And don’t step too close to the line.”

  “What line?”

  “The Military Demarcation Line. The line between North and South Korea.”

  “You can’t be serious?” she said. “They wouldn’t really pull me across the line.”

  “Since you were born on the soil of the Korean Peninsula,” I explained to her, “in their minds, you’re a citizen of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. And as far as being unpredictable, think about taking the USS Pueblo on the high seas, or shooting down the EC-121 reconnaissance plane which evaporated with thirty-one American sailors aboard, or sending a commando raid into the heart of Seoul to assassinate President Park Chung-hee. Nobody was expecting any of those things. It’s important that you don’t relax, that you don’t assume they’ll follow any rules. Be on guard at all times.”

  Corrine Fitch stared at us silently without speaking.

  I described the entrenching tool to her, down to the initials TF scratched into it. And I told her how Fusterman had claimed somebody must’ve switched it for the one covered in blood. This time, she pulled out a pen and spiral notebook and started to write.

  “JAG has the shovel now?” she asked.

  “The entrenching tool,” Ernie corrected.

  “Yes,” I said. “JAG has it. We were spotted waiting for you, so we had no choice but to turn it over to them.”

  “As long as I know it’s there,” she said. “Of course, they’ll claim my client could’ve done the switching, so it doesn’t prove anything.”

  Then I asked her the question I’d been holding back since we’d run into her again. “You’re doing something else here,” I said, “besides representing PFC Fusterman. You went somewhere yesterday, and you didn’t return to your room until this morning.”

  She slipped her notebook back into her pocket. “What are you, my chaperone?”

  “No. But my partner and I are sticking our necks out just by talking to you. And if we help Fusterman any further, we’ll be violating a direct order. We could be court-martialed.”

>   “Weren’t you violating a direct order when you located the entrenching tool?” She glanced at Ernie.

  “Not really. If evidence happens to fall into our lap, it’s our duty to turn it into JAG.”

  “But you were going to show it to me first.”

  I shrugged. “You’re also an officer of the court. We were going to let JAG know about it too.”

  “You’re really stretching the rules,” she said.

  “Welcome to Eighth Imperial Army,” Ernie said.

  She turned back to me. “So you want to know what I’m up to.”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You have no right to question me. What I do on my own time is none of your damn business, nor Eighth Imperial Army’s.” She rose to her feet. “Hope you enjoyed your breakfast. I’ll see you gentlemen in court.” She turned and marched toward the elevators.

  Once she was out of earshot, Ernie said, “Why do I feel like we’ve been had?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “in terms of passing along information, that was strictly a one-way street.”

  -21-

  That afternoon, Ernie and I staked out the Yongsan Commissary and made one black-market bust, hoping that would be enough to keep Riley off our backs. The perpetrator’s name was Chong-ja Jaegerman. After making her purchase, she had the bagger load her groceries into the back of one of the big Ford Granada PX taxis that line up beside the commissary. From there, she made her way straight to one of the well-known black-market operations in Itaewon, the red light village less than a mile off compound. Ernie and I followed at a safe distance and waited nearby until money changed hands. Then we rushed in and made the arrest.

  We were only allowed to arrest her, not the Korean black-market honcho she’d sold the goods to, because he was a Korean citizen and therefore outside our jurisdiction. We didn’t bother to notify the local KNP office about him because they were already fully aware of his operation. And even if we’d made a fuss and embarrassed them into arresting him, they would’ve let him go within twenty minutes. Partly because black marketeering wasn’t seen as the most serious crime in town, but mainly because the local station commander was almost certainly on the black-market honcho’s payroll.

  We escorted Mrs. Jaegerman to the Yongsan MP Station. By the time we finished the paperwork, she was in crying mode. I called her husband to come and pick her up. He was a tall Sergeant First Class with a slight paunch pushing over his brass belt buckle, and he signed for his wife with a grim resolve. I gave him the commercial. “You’re responsible for the actions of all your dependents, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

  “I know that,” he snapped.

  And then I told him to report to the 8th Army Ration Control Office.

  The worst part, other than the fine and reprimand he was likely to receive from his unit commander, was that his family rations would be cut to what the military called “health and welfare maintenance.” This restriction—a reduction of what he could spend in the PX and commissary to only ninety dollars per month—would be in effect for the remainder of his tour in Korea. Once a military family was back in the States, nobody cared how much they spent in the PX because there was no black-market demand for items they could purchase there. Maybe that was why GIs called America “the Land of the Big PX.”

  That night, Ernie and I returned to our home turf: the red-light district of Itaewon. Neon flashed and rock and roll blared from behind beaded curtains. Young women wearing only hot pants and halter tops, goose-fleshed in the cold, waved and cooed at us, trying to lure us into their domain.

  At the bar of the King Club, Ernie tossed back a double shot of watered-down bourbon, chasing it with a cold bottle of OB Beer.

  “You’re going to get wasted,” I told him.

  “Why not? I live in the Mad Hatter’s world of the Eighth United States Army. Sometimes a guy needs to take a bite out of the psychedelic mushroom.”

  He ordered another double shot and a beer. I had a second beer too.

  “It bothers you,” I said, “that they’re trying to railroad Fusterman.”

  “Damn right it does.”

  “So maybe we don’t let them.”

  “How? We can’t go up to the JSA or question anyone involved. It’s not likely we’re going to make much progress.”

  “Maybe there’s a different way.”

  “Like what?”

  I paused, trying my best to come up with some sort of method to pin this murder where it belonged, which I suspected might be on someone we hadn’t even yet considered.

  When I didn’t say anything, Ernie asked, “Well?”

  “How’s the bourbon?” I asked.

  “Shitty,” he said.

  I called the bartender over and ordered a double shot.

  Just before the midnight curfew, Ernie and I staggered down Itaewon’s hill toward the MSR. At the dark entrance to the open-air Itaewon Market, we decided to take a shortcut. We plowed into the darkness past empty wooden stalls that before dawn would be filled with piles of cabbage and turnips and garlic, interspersed with shimmering blue ice encasing various forms of wriggling sea life.

  We were about ten yards in when a dark figure emerged from the shadows. Neon flashed from the main road, illuminating a pudgy hand squeezing the grip of a small pistol. Pointing the business end of the weapon toward us, the man behind it said, “Make a move, and I’ll plug you where you stand.”

  Ernie and I put our hands in the air. The man took a half-step forward, revealing his face—skin white, slathered in perspiration, the top of his head bald.

  “Colonel Peele,” I said.

  “Be quiet,” he told us. “Stand at attention.”

  Ernie and I lowered our arms to our sides, placed our feet together and stood up straight.

  Colonel Peele glanced in either direction to see if anyone was approaching, which no one was. At this time of night, there was no reason for any pedestrians to cruise by this empty alleyway. Except for a couple of drunks like Ernie and me.

  “You’ve been following us,” I said.

  “I told you to shut up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “For once, you’re going to keep your traps shut and listen.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his free hand. It was cold, maybe ten degrees above freezing, but he acted as if we were in the tropics. “I know about the entrenching tool.”

  We waited silently, per his instructions.

  “It’s a good thing. Enough to get Fusterman off and put the blame back on the Commies where it belongs.”

  “But?” Ernie said.

  Peele swiveled the barrel of the pistol toward him. “I told you to shut the fuck up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re right,” he conceded. “There is a but. When it comes to appeasing the North Koreans, the lily livers at Eighth Army always have a but. They’re already saying the entrenching tool is phony, that it’s just a plant to get this kid free. Maybe so, I don’t know. And I don’t care. All I know is that it was the North Koreans who murdered Corporal Noh, and by God they’re going to pay for it.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  This time, he didn’t tell me to shut up. A good sign.

  “Because I know the North Korean Commies. They’re two-faced, lying, devil-worshipping sons of bitches. They’ve gotten away with torturing and murdering our men for years, but they’re not about to get away with it this time.” He waved the business end of the pistol between us. “You two are going to prove that the North Koreans murdered Corporal Noh Jong-bei.”

  “And how are we supposed to do that?” Ernie asked. “You were the one who barred us from going up there.”

  “Yeah, that was a mistake. I figured you two were trying to let the North Koreans off the hook, dragging the corpse south and messing up the crime
scene. Then making Fusterman look guilty by exposing his affair with Noh’s sister in your report.”

  “And now?”

  “You’ve found the second entrenching tool and turned it in to JAG. It could let Fusterman off.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Maybe. We need definitive proof so Eighth Army doesn’t pull any more shenanigans.”

  “Why don’t you just rescind the order barring us from the JSA?” Ernie asked.

  “Can’t. Too many people chopped off on it, including the Chief of Staff. They can’t back down now.”

  “So what do you want us to do?” I should’ve added a sir to that, but his pointing a pistol at me was sort of pissing me off. “Colonel Peele, you may want to quit waving that gun at us.”

  He glanced down at his hand, as if just remembering he was holding a firearm. “Oh, yeah.” He lowered it to his side but didn’t put it away or turn the safety off. “What I want you to do is come up to the DMZ with me.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. I have to set up a meeting.”

  “A MAC meeting?”

  “No, nothing that out in the open. This meeting will be private.”

  “With who?”

  “Commissar Han. He’s the one who’s really in charge up there.”

  “You work with him?”

  “If work is the right word. More like I suffer insults from him. You know, lackey of the mad-dog imperialists. Stuff like that.”

  “He’s a political figure,” I guessed, “not military?”

  “Right. The real power in the North Korean government lies with the Workers’ Party, not the army.”

  “What good can he do us?”

  “I’m going to convince him to hand over whoever murdered Corporal Noh.”

  “And how are you going to manage that?” Ernie asked.

  Colonel Peele raised the pistol again, holding it closer to his chest this time. “With this,” he said, running his hand over the burnished metal absentmindedly. “Any man will tell the truth with a gun pointed at him.”