by Martin Limon
I pulled out my list of invoices, trying to match them to what was in the files, but the pertinent ones weren’t where they were supposed to be. They’d been removed. We would have to go back to the issuing point at Camp Casey and retrieve copies of the original invoices, which were sequentially numbered, to prove that Camp Edwards had received the stuff. If they’d also been removed there, we’d have to go back to Seoul. It would be a lot of work, but eventually the accountability would be established.
I checked some of the desks. Nothing. Then I checked the desk with SFC Rawlings’s name plate perched on the front edge. I found them in the bottom drawer, wadded up under a half-empty bottle of Old Overholt. I spread them out on the desk, took a shot of the whiskey straight from the bottle, and shone my flashlight on them.
About thirty invoices altogether. The ones I had on my list and a whole bunch more. Enough to put these guys away. I still didn’t have the link, though. Captain Calloway, the logistics officer, would certainly be found guilty of dereliction of duty for not checking on them, but I would need more proof to nail him for actual collusion in the scheme. It could even go up beyond him. Maybe to the post commander.
Farfetched, perhaps. But it wouldn’t be the first time.
Behind one of the file cabinets was a wall locker with a non-army padlock. I looked through Sergeant Rawlings’s desk until I found a key. It worked. The locker was filled with some of your more valuable supplies: a brand new buffer with a pad, a few field jackets, a case full of Coleman lanterns. Under the shelves I found two large metal disks, about three feet across. They were rusted and soiled. Next to them lay a metal pole about four feet long. It had a narrow, flattened hook on the end.
I thought about it for a while, relocked the closet, and then went back and had another shot of Old Overholt.
I put the bottle of whiskey back where I’d found it, stuffed the invoices in my shirt, and climbed out the window. I stumbled in the snow for a minute, regaining my footing. Footsteps.
Before I could turn around, the back of my head exploded through my skull. My brains splattered against the olive drab walls of the sheet metal Quonset hut.
Or at least that’s what it felt like.
I came to after a few minutes, and when my eyes focused, I checked my watch. Almost nine. I’d been lying there for an hour. I stood up and inspected the various parts of my body. There was a big knot on the back of my head, but otherwise I was okay. The invoices, of course, were gone.
I almost climbed back into the Quonset hut to retrieve the bottle of Old Overholt, but then I remembered that the NCO Club was open. I could see the lights from there, and as I slogged up the hill I heard the music. I dusted the dirty ice off my jacket and gingerly combed my hair.
When I reached the bar I ordered a double shot of bourbon, straight up, and a Falstaff back.
Nothing had ever tasted sweeter.
I got drunk that night. Very drunk. And when they closed the club I wandered out into the darkness thinking about Miss Ma, but I never made it farther than the barracks, where I hit my bunk and passed out.
In the morning I took off my clothes, showered, shaved, and went directly to the dispensary. They gave me aspirin.
Ernie called me at the orderly room. It was a serious break in cover.
“What the hell is it?”
“There’s been a murder. Outside. In Kumchon. What’d you tell me her name was?”
“The girl I was seeing?”
“Yeah.”
“Miss Ma.”
“That’s her.”
I clutched the receiver. The throbbing in my head seemed about to explode. I spoke carefully.
“How soon can you pick me up at the front gate?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be there.”
I told the first sergeant I had to go. He didn’t like it, but I told him it would all be explained to him later. He said it had better.
I ran back to the barracks, changed into my blue jeans and sneakers, and was waiting at the front gate when Ernie’s jeep pulled up in a burst of slush.
She looked like she was asleep until you noticed the indentation in her neck. And the copper wire.
The Korean police asked me how I knew her. Ernie had returned my CID identification to me, and I flashed it at them. I told them we had been working on a case on the compound—the pilfering of supplies—and we believed this murder might be related.
The landlady had discovered the body early that morning. She hadn’t seen who had spent the night with Miss Ma, but whoever he was, he’d paid to have the old woman take care of the child for the evening.
Somebody who was flush. And wanted to get rid of witnesses.
After the police were finished in the room, they left her there. The landlady was supposed to be trying to notify Miss Ma’s relatives, but so far she wasn’t having any luck. I didn’t hear the little girl. When I looked in the landlady’s room she was just sitting there, her head down. No tears.
On the way back to Camp Edwards, I told Ernie about getting beaned last night. I also told him about the invoices, and the metal disks, and the long slender hook. He saw it right away.
“They were smuggling out the spools of wire under a false bottom in the trash drums.”
“Right. And since they had that down to a science, no sense going after the more awkward stuff like lumber and cement and steel bars.”
“And whoever followed you last night knew he had to get his hands on those invoices.”
“Yes,” I said. “But he also knew that eventually we’d follow the chain of paperwork until we nailed both the NCO-in-charge and the logistics officer. With a good lawyer they might be able to avoid getting charged with direct culpability, but no matter how you look at it, that much thievery on their watch would ruin their careers.”
“The young captain would be out on his ass, and the old sarge would be lucky to hang on until retirement.” Ernie popped another stick of gum into his mouth. “So why the girl?”
“Whoever it was that popped me on the head thought it over later and decided that he should have killed me. Aware of Miss Ma’s charms, he decided that even with a bump on the head I’d make it out to her hooch last night.”
“But you didn’t?”
“No. So he was sitting there waiting for me, staring at her, and he realized that all she’d have to do is open her mouth once and I’d know who was behind the whole scene.”
“So he killed her?”
“Exactly.”
Ernie shook his head. “The guy should have taken the rap for the copper wire. Let it go at that.”
We flashed our identification to the MPs at the main gate, and Ernie stared up the hill.
“Who do we see first? Sergeant Rawlings or Captain Calloway?”
I thought about it. Captain Calloway was a young officer, the kind who cherished his army career maybe more than he cherished his left testicle. But still he was young. And he had a college degree. If he got kicked out with a bad discharge, he could get up, dust himself off, and continue with his life. Sergeant Rawlings, on the other hand, didn’t even have a high school diploma. And the skills he’d learned in the army—chewing out privates and pilfering supplies—don’t pay a lot on the outside. He’d probably end up driving a hack and working on systematically demolishing his liver.
I decided to go with the more desperate of the two.
“Sergeant Rawlings first,” I said.
We found Rawlings at the NCO Club, on his favorite barstool, having a shot of bourbon with his lunch. It looked like the Chef’s Special was pretzels.
He was a burly guy with wrists as thick as my biceps, so we didn’t bother with any formalities. Ernie slammed his head down on the bar, I pulled his left wrist back and cuffed it, and then we both wrestled him off the stool until his arms were cuffed behind his back. Ernie took his knee off his spine long enough to read him his rights.
“Why’d you kill the girl, Rawlings?”
�
��What girl?”
“Miss Ma. Out at the Golden Night Club.”
“Stuff it.”
He clammed up and said he would tell us nothing until he talked to a lawyer. That’s what I like about old NCOs. They always take a common sense approach to problem solving.
Captain Calloway’s neatly painted jeep sat in front of the logistics office. I checked the odometer, yanked the trip ticket off its clipboard, and compared the readings.
Everything clicked, like a bunch of zeros lining up at a hundred thousand miles.
When we went in, he was talking on the phone and thumbing through paperwork, acting way too busy to talk to us.
When he finally hung up, he said, “Who the hell are you?”
I showed him my badge. He smirked.
“Undercover, huh? Well, you won’t find anything missing here at Supply Point Fourteen. And all that copper wire, that can be explained.”
Like I said, some people just want to get caught.
Ernie spoke first. “We’re not here about the wire.”
Captain Calloway flinched but quickly straightened his face. I held up the trip ticket.
“Your driver closed out the jeep’s log last night at twelve thousand four hundred sixty-three miles, but now the odometer reading is twelve thousand four hundred sixty-six miles. Three miles. It’s a mile and a half to Kumchon, so the jeep has traveled the equivalent of one round trip.”
Captain Calloway’s neck muscles worked up and down his throat, and his right hand crawled toward the telephone receiver, as if he were going to call for help.
I continued. “You started watching me when you noticed I was speaking Korean to Miss Ma at the Golden Night Club. Not your typical GI on his first tour in the Orient. That’s why you were raising hell in the orderly room. An excuse to check me out. And then you followed me when I broke into the warehouse last night and clubbed me over the head when I came out.
“You’ve probably already destroyed the invoices, but you knew that with a little homework we’ll uncover the whole scheme. You could deny any accusation Rawlings might make against you, just accuse him of trying to bargain his way out of trouble, but in the end you’ll be charged with dereliction of duty; with letting your subordinates get away with pilfering hundreds of dollars’ worth of supplies. That, at least. Even if you’re found innocent, it will mean the end of your army career.
“Hitting me over the head and destroying the invoices was only meant to give yourself a little more time. A little time to go out to Kumchon and take your revenge on Miss Ma for finding a new boyfriend. Or maybe take your revenge on the new boyfriend and stop him from blowing the whistle on your little black market scheme. What you didn’t expect is that I wouldn’t go out there. And when I didn’t show up, you took it out on her.”
Calloway stared directly at me, but for him I wasn’t there.
Ernie clicked his gum a couple of times.
“We can check with the MPs on duty last night,” I said. “They’ll remember you driving your jeep off post.”
Calloway stood up slowly. “There’s no need.” He bowed his head for a moment, and then he looked up at us. “It was Rawlings’s idea. He said he’d sold copper wire before, on previous tours over here. It was easy money. I used the money at first to spend weekends down in Seoul. In first class hotels. But then I met Miss Ma, and instead I spent all my time in Kumchon. I tried to get her to quit her job, stay with me, but she wouldn’t do it.”
His eyes widened, as if he were amazed at something.
“I’m an officer, with a good future, and I was getting rich, but she still turned me down. Can you believe it? But you! You with no money, just here for a few days …”
He shook his head, angry at the tears that were squeezing themselves out of his knotted face.
Ernie’s gum clicked faster. He didn’t like this kind of thing. He twisted Calloway around and made him assume the position up against the wall. Then he cuffed him and read him his rights. All the while Calloway cried, and when Ernie was finished, he had to unwrap two more sticks of gum and pop them nervously into his mouth.
We stayed at RC4 for a couple more days, wrapping things up, trying to enjoy the freedom of being away from the flagpole, but it didn’t work.
Someone from Miss Ma’s family came and took her body away. And the little girl.
We went back to Seoul.
On cold winter nights I still think of the woman from Hamhung, with her big warm smile, and the little girl who refused to cry.
THE DRAGON’S TAIL
Strange asked us to meet him at the Snatch Bar.
Its official title was the Snack Bar, but Strange liked to call it the Snatch Bar because he claimed he always found some “strange” there. That is, lonely female dependents of officers and NCOs who were unable to resist his charms. What charms those were, though, was beyond me. He was overweight and balding, always wore wrap-around dark glasses and sucked on a greasy plastic cigarette holder that never left his lips. His real name was Harvey and he was the non-commissioned officer in charge of classified documents at headquarters, working directly with the Commander of 8th United States Army and the Chief of Staff and everyone who made the most important decisions for the United States forces in the Republic of Korea. So my partner, Ernie Bascom, and I put up with Strange. We listened patiently to his fantasies, no matter how perverted, and, as a quid pro quo, we fed him fantasies of our own. The information he provided was just too good to ignore.
At the stainless steel serving line, I purchased a thick porcelain mug of steaming hot black coffee, carried it through the crowded cafeteria, and plopped it down on the table in front of Strange.
“Nothing for me?” he asked.
“Not until we hear what you have to say.”
“I’ll take hot chocolate,” he replied, “with two marshmallows.”
Ernie joined us at the table. As he sat down, he flicked Strange’s cigarette holder with his forefinger. “How’s it hanging, Strange?”
“The name’s Harvey.”
“Yeah, I forgot. Harvey. What’ve you got for us?”
Strange frowned at my cup of coffee. “I want hot chocolate,” Strange repeated, “with two marshmallows.”
“Talk first,” Ernie said, “then the reward.”
Strange glanced between us. “You guys going cheap on me?”
“Not ‘going,’ ” Ernie replied. “We’ve always been cheap.”
Strange shoved a new cigarette into his holder, tossing away the one Ernie had bent. He never lit them, just kept them dangling. He said he was trying to quit. As far as I knew, he’d never started. The sunglasses, the slicked-back hair, the cigarette holder were all part of the apparatus that he thought made him look intriguing. Actually, it just made him look like what he was, a pervert gone to fat.
Ernie and I waited. Strange surveyed the busy snack bar, making sure no one was listening, and then he leaned forward, whispering.
“You CID assholes have your butts in a wringer,” he said.
“We always have our butts in a wringer,” Ernie replied.
“This time it’s different.” Strange leaned in even closer. I could smell some sort of cologne or aftershave, like musk. It made me want to throw up. I jolted back some of the hot coffee. It didn’t help much.
“This time,” Strange continued, “they’ve got you dead to rights.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Ernie asked.
Strange leaned back, startled. “The Officers’ Wives’ Club. Who else? They’ve been pissed off at you for years for letting all those yobos into the Commissary and PX.”
Yobo was GI slang for a Korean girlfriend.
“They’re not yobos, they’re wives,” Ernie said. “They have dependent ID cards and we have no choice but to let them into the Commissary and PX.”
“Maybe so. But the honchos at the OWC think you’re letting them off easy on the black marketing. You should be busting each one of those sweet little Korean dollies, one
by one, and taking away their privileges.”
The US military in Korea meticulously controls the amount of goods a GI or his dependents can purchase each month out of the PX or Commissary. The official reason is twofold: to protect fledgling Korean industries from being swamped by duty-free US goods and to save the US taxpayer the expense of shipping excess consumer items across the Pacific. The real reason—the visceral impulse behind the mania to enforce ration control regulations—was because most Americans didn’t like seeing a bunch of Korean female dependents, the wives of lower ranking GIs, in “their” Commissary or “their” PX. Racism is a cleaner word for it.
“You know how many black marketers there are,” Ernie asked, “buying and selling every day? And do you know how many there are of us?” With his left hand Ernie indicated me and him.
“Mox nix,” Strange replied. “The OWC thinks that if you weren’t wasting your time on other assignments, you’d be able to do your job and clear the Commissary and PX of all those yobos.”
The “other assignments” Strange was referring to were cases involving murder, rape, kidnapping, torture, extortion and various and sundry other acts of mayhem. The Officers’ Wives’ Club, however, thought that having to compete with three Korean women for the last bunch of bananas was more important than dealing with felonies. We’d heard this criticism before. But the 8th Army CID was spread thin. Most of the other agents were assigned to chores like investigating the pilfering of supplies from transshipment points or breaches in internal security involving Top Secret documents. That type of work meant dealing with the 8th Army hierarchy and required a certain amount of tact, which left me and Ernie out. We went after crime and to hell with kowtowing to someone’s rank. Naturally, any shit detail—like the black market detail—devolved onto us.
Working crime out in the ville, which was GI-on-Korean crime mostly, took up most of our time: rapes, robberies, burglaries. Since I was the only CID member in the country who could speak Korean and since Ernie Bascom could blend in with the lowest dregs of any society, it was usually me and Ernie who were assigned to those cases. Therefore, fighting black market crime in the Commissary and the PX was left to twist slowly in the wind.