by Gus Lee
Magrip shook his big head. My stomach growled. Min knocked and entered the Q. “Dae-wi, you want food?”
“Get the crap outa here!” bellowed Magrip. Min skittered out.
“Magrip, a small military secret: Min's on our side.”
Magrip sat up, feet on the floor, old cot springs creaking. He ran a big hand over his cropped scalp, flexing the fingers I had bent in the jeep. He smiled crookedly. “I heard a you. Pentagon poster boy. Jackson Kan, always gets the job done. Snag the medal.”
The downside to overwork.
Magrip's Vietnam War wasn't over; blood and mud were still caked on his personality. He fought it by inviting conflict with anyone he met.
“Min's on our side and Murray called you for a reason.”
“Yeah, I musta run over his dog and liked it too much.”
“Jimmy's in trouble. We'll need you to get him out.”
I saw Cyril and Curt, laughing on the day before death.
Magrip's two tours with the Twenty-fifth Infantry's main body at Cu Chi led to a Time cover story on his Medal of Honor. He was the last man Murray would invite to a banquet, and the first he would stand next to in a firefight. Butt Kicker had lost his sense of teamwork.
He squinted. “Kan, you make Brutus look unambitious.”
“Brutus was a premeditated killer. I would've busted him. I'm sorry about your bride, but I'm sorrier about Jimmy Buford.”
Magrip closed his eyes, bored.
“Magrip, why not bail out? I'll get a grad who'll serve.” He snorted.
“Stow it,” I said slowly, anger coming, “or you are relieved.”
“Good pep talk. Enjoy farting in the wind?” He yawned.
I hurled my chair into the wall above his head. It crashed and stabbed through the cheap drywall and sagged like a dead metal insect. He made a noise in his throat as he jumped up, hands out low. I put my face in his so he could hear me.
“WE GOT A GUY ON THE LINE! PULL YOUR LOAD OR STRAP OFF!”
He glared, panting, his blood up. Good. No more eyeball rolling while someone had Jimmy by the nuts. I took my face out of his. “Glad we had this chat. Now tell me about Jimmy and the gate.”
Magrip's barrel chest heaved; his face was red, his pupils pinpoints. He looked at the imbedded chair, rubbing his face below the nose. He hated Asia. Asia was flop sweat. His devils were here, playing Oriental pitchfork with mine. Once we were young and innocent and could have killed a sixpack after the Navy game and told tales about the Tac Department. He looked at me, his eyes small, nodding to himself. He yanked the chair from the wall and threw it through the window, knocking the fragile wood frame and shattering old glass into the piles of snow outside. Plinks of glass bounced into the room as gusts of cold wind and snow burst in, sucking our heat.
He sat and pulled out a notepad, his breathing irregular. He probed an ear. “Think you can take me?” he asked in a high, thin voice. He chuckled, lifting his chin to me, his teeth out. “No way, you dirty twisted sonofabitch.” He smiled like a cat, his chest working. He pulled out a Camel and lit it, hands steady, the bitter wind rippling his notepad. “Kan, I'll fucking kill you.” He blew smoke in my face.
“Okay. You talked me into it. You can have the lower bunk.”
Wet wind gusted and blew out his cigarette, rocketing papers around the room. “Primo number-one Asian suck. Okay.” He opened the pad. “Buford got here 1130 hours, Sunday, 6 January.”
Good. Jimmy had made it to Casey, improving chances for a quick rescue by limiting the area of search and eliminating the fear that he was lost somewhere in the reaches of North Asia in winter.
Boots crunched. I picked up the knife. A sentry, rifle at port arms, stuck his head through the hole, watching snow fill the room.
“Jee-sus Christ on a stick! Y'all know yur window's broke?”
I used my knife to knock out the pins from our Q door. I rested the door against the window. I pushed the bunks snug against the door and the snow stopped. “Y'all have a nice day, now,” came the guard's muffled voice.
“Thank you,” I said. “Go about your duties.”
Magrip shook snow from his hair. It was too cold in the room to melt it. “Two hundred two vehicles and nine full military convoys checked out since Buford came in on the bus.”
Any of them could have taken Jimmy off post. Whoever called the Pentagon pretending to be him was trying to buy time. Toss evidence. Cover up crime scenes. Burn witnesses. Wait for apathy to take over and for incompetence to assume control.
I gave Magrip the nylon bag. He pulled out the nickel-plated Browning High Power. He cleared the action and put it back in the bag. “How the hell you get this in-country?”
“Eastern Theater weapons permit, ROK- and Tokyo-approved.”
“You're shitting me. I thought JAGCs killed with paper.”
“Then why the grenades?”
“Frags take out all kinds of people.” He smiled falsely.
“Forget it, Magrip. The paperwork on my death would take the rest of your life.” I put the Browning in my briefcase.
Murray had sent me a warrior, more interested, perhaps, in killing me than in killing the enemy. Maybe if he took me out, he'd smile.
Corporal Min stopped the jeep at Pork Chop Hill and Heartbreak Ridge roads. Traffic was heavy with troop patrols in trucks.
“Up there, dae-wi” said Min. “Wizard Q.” Wizard quarters, Colonel LeBlane's hooch. The moon was rising, swollen with light, a traditionally good omen for authorities seeking bandits. It illuminated a gray two-story house with a smoking chimney.
Oz of the East, comfortable and warm, the lights bright.
Jimmy, you be up there, recording events, charming the guilty with tales of Southern belles and Carolina shrimp recipes, pickpocketing watches and the laughter of your boys. Your faith in all tomorrows intact, sharp eyes clear, dog tags dry and warm against a breathing chest, the father in you preserved for the future of innocent children.
I'll come back, Jimmy, tonight, when dogs curl up near heat vents and frostbitten riflemen stack rifles. Then we'll see how soundly the Wizard sleeps.
8
THE LAS VEGAS
We reconned Casey's rows of dismal barracks and old Quonsets. Choppers whumped across camp, the rotors raising my pulse. Six P.M. and getting colder. “Corporal, take us to high ground.”
“Hill 902,” said Magrip. “Radar peak. Good view.”
Min parked at the top. A concave radar dish turned, the generator hum loud. I got out. “Please get grub. Come back fast.”
Min handed us old copies of Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper filled with ads for throwing knives, used Chevies and Philippine rattan furniture. “Use in jacket, dae-wi” We opened coats and inserted newspapers around torsos and zipped up.
The jeep rumbled away. The view was good and the wind caustic. My eyes teared and my bones and innards felt brittle.
Casey, home of the Second Infantry, the only Pacific Theater combat unit not to go to Vietnam. But the smoke from that war worked like a depressant on all American soldiers. Here was a village of GIs, living on booze and danger, counting down days.
To the north were forbidding, hard-spined mountains that formed an encircling horizon against a darkening sky. Five snow-capped peaks stood sentry over the leprous valley, the wind whipping the ice pack on the higher ridges. To the south was a taller, darker mountain.
The mountains formed a channel that led from the DMZ to us. It was an Inmingun attack highway. It was not a pretty sight.
“Shit,” said Magrip. “No way we can defend this damn valley.”
Indefensible. “We're a North Korean speed bump.”
“Yeah. Pearl Harbor, they blow us away—America avenges Casey.”
Not the best tactical posture: kill me and my daddy will beat you up. It was the Alamo and the Maine, stuck on the dark side of the moon. I felt something missing in the equation.
“Tough to find one missing guy,” said Magrip. “Ever
yone here's a transient. Winter or a commie sniper could take you out.”
“Where would you hide Buford?” The wind howled.
“Under ice. Find him in spring.” The weather invited irritability. Casey was like Vietnam, with numbing cold in lieu of sweat tropics. Maybe Jimmy could see tonight's sky. He would know that Carlos had assembled a team, and that I would come looking.
Min returned and we got in the jeep. The Q was merely cold, an improvement on what whistled around the building. I blew on my hands. The battalion mess halls were closed, so dinner was snack-bar Gainesburgers, nine-tenths grease. Min ate rice from a small tin. I paid him for the meal and took the paper from my chest. I took a bite; it was more than enough. I put the knife in my boot and gathered the Browning and magazines.
“Time to climb in a window in Wizard Q. Tell Jimmy the Bee to wash his hands for dinner.”
Magrip stood, smiling like a pirate, happy with the prospect of hurting someone. He put a Gerber knife in his boot.
A knock sounded; I stowed the gun. A fine-featured man in a black turtleneck, a double-breasted gray blazer and a fur-lined overcoat, George Hamilton on the town. I knew him. The question was, would he recognize me?
“Gentlemen, Gary Willoughby, claims.” He had taken the phone message about Jimmy. He had pulled an automatic on me in the SJA shop, almost shooting himself.
“Gents, welcome to Frozen Chosen, home to the Fighting Second Infantry and five thousand comfort girls.” It was rehearsed. He thrust his hand at me and shook heartily without a hint of recognition. He saw Min.
“What's a garlicky craphole KATUSA doing in the Q?”
“Funny,” I said. “I thought it was his country.”
Min kept his eyes down, big boots twitching.
Willoughby shrugged. “Get civvies. I'm going to the Ville.”
“I'll alert public affairs. How'd you know we came in?”
“DMZ rumor control, light speed,” he said. “Oink, oink.” “Oink oink?” I said.
“O-I-N-K—‘Only in Korea,’ “he said. “Where the sun never sets on the American Far East empire. C'mon. I'll show you around.”
“Seen it,” said Magrip, eyes shut. “Prostitute country.”
“C'mon, guys,” urged Willoughby. “It's Disneyland for men!”
“I'm married,” said Magrip. “Or I was.” “I'm not doing women right now,” I said. Willoughby looked at me in shock. “Wrong place to quit! Guys! Just a beer! Any of you like military history trivia? I know a lot. Look, I'll buy. C'mon, Jack Kan—be a pal!”
A lonely, friendless man offering a chance at recon and the unknown. “Corporal, you want to join us?”
Min shook his head, his jaw flexing. My knife was in my boot. Magrip checked his armpits and belched. My team was ready.
Strobes blinded us. A mob was roaring. We were in the Las Vegas Club, fifth hellhole from the first corner of the Strip of the Ville and two klicks from the gate.
Willoughby slapped me on the back, grinning wildly. He was happy. You could see the caps to his dental cavities and the girth of his tonsils. “Is this sweet, or what?”
“It's cute as leaping crap,” snapped Magrip.
“Luke, you're bad-mouthing Heaven!” cried Willoughby. In civvies, we looked like sailors come to shore.
“Don't call me Luke,” said Magrip.
The Ville, said Willoughby, was Tongducheon, a farm town of fifty thousand centered in the Inmingun invasion route. It had three markets, a drainage canal, five thousand hookers, an overburdened VD clinic and an American GI ghetto of unredeemed whorehouses, knife fights, regimental inebriation, American projectile vomiting and a full company of U.S. Military Police. This to arrest a random few and provide a political suggestion of civil order.
The Las Vegas was like last year's birthday cake with the candles still burning. The Rolling Stones screamed “Satisfaction” the way dying men cry at fate. Ill-timed strobes blinded us, lending disorientation to our jet-lagged sense of moral defeat. Garish murals adorned concrete walls. A worried MP scanned us, adjusting his nightstick, service automatic, cuffs and CS gas canister as we stomped on icy, muddied sawdust.
GIs danced with Korean waitresses, doing the frug and western swing in a floor space bordered by a mirrored bar where five Korean bartenders in red vests and white bow ties spilled booze for steady queues of drunks. A cigarette-dangling DJ spun platters inside a smoke-filled cubicle on the right wall, leaning on the Stones.
Racially and morally, I had loathed such institutions in Saigon. Later, jittering on the steel bed of the vibrating medevac, my brains scrambled and back blown out, I regretted not having seen the Amazon, the Nile, the Irrawaddy and the beautiful Asian women who danced in the bars on Tung Heng Dai Do, inspiring febrile memories in my men.
Now I was here. There was a concealed rear area. The front was astream with long-haired waitresses carrying beer pitchers with the care it takes to fall from a bridge. Miniskirts revealed pink underwear. Little plastic blue hearts adorned each left breast. “Hey, little Blue Heart!” cried a GI.
A waitress with hip-long hair, tiny waist and over-advertised legs looked at me over her shoulder. She tapped a friend and pointed. She approached, smiling, warm from her work. She brushed back her hair, lips parted professionally.
“Officer man, I think I love you too muchee.” Breathless. “You big honcho man!” She was pretty as a picture, hard as a tank hull, panting like Marilyn Monroe in front of the camera.
“I'm married,” I lied. “We have six kids.”
“Eh, you like-ee good time! I here for you, sweet time!”
I smiled. “No, thank you very much.” She leaned into me so sincerely I felt her folded money.
I backed up. She curled her lip, turning her pretty face into something quite different, and left with angry heels. “Tina digs you!” shouted Willoughby. “Her stuff makes my teeth ache! An overnight with her is fifteen bucks and she screams!”
We followed him deeper into the club. Blue Hearts stared.
Willoughby screamed like a rebel at Bull Run, making my skin crawl. “I'm a consumer in the supermarket of love! If I do a Blue Heart a night, I'll do them all in thirteen years. Every one of these girls trying to get a ticket to the Big PX in the Sky—using hum jobs on Mr. Happy.” The Big PX was America. Mr. Happy was probably Willoughby's cause for life.
He nodded. “Guys.” Six GIs nodded back. Their table lacked Blue Hearts offering wares. Six men with empty beer pitchers, nervous as they studied me and Magrip. One was a big man with a broken nose in an acne-scarred face, a hand out of sight. He wore the longish center-cut. They looked like Leavenworth cons or recycles from the disciplinary barracks of the Retraining Brigades.
“This,” said Magrip, shaking his head, “turns men into jumping idiots. Whores who set up murder. Hundreds of whores.”
“Five thousand,” corrected Willoughby. “Tell a bad joke, they still hum you all night, all you can take. Luke, you'll love it.”
“And some,” I said, “dare say romance is dead.”
“No one calls me that,” hissed Magrip to Willoughby.
“What do you want me to call you?”
“Nothing,” said Magrip. “Unass my life.”
Willoughby shrugged, accustomed to rejection. “Guys,” he breathed, “this is sweet paradise on high heels.”
“You're full a crap,” snapped Magrip. “Kan, you had enough? This stinks.” He grimaced. “Let's bag it. I was here before.”
“He led us here,” I said quietly. “Check out the back.”
Magrip sighed. “I can see brains aren't everything. This is a whorehouse. You look under the sheets, you find whores.”
At a table on an elevated mezzanine sat a woman in white. Through the bad, explosive lighting and the world of noise, she looked at me with large dark eyes. I sensed her sadness, the hints of dignity or clinical depression. Then, a tug of superstitious, boyish fear in my gut, a warm breath of the unknown in my throat. She did not wear a he
art. I wasn't sure what she was or what she represented.
“She is checking you out, big-time,” said Willoughby. “Ice Queen. Bitch plays hard-to-get in a whorehouse. You love that? There's a pink pot on her. Put in and score, you get the pot. Hey, man, your chances are excellent She digs you!”
A small, rotund woman in a flowing, floor-length lavender robe arrived in a swish of satin. Willoughby introduced us. Mrs. Cho, proprietress. She grabbed us, taking my arm.
“Too muchee big Chinese man! Come! No, dae-wi, no lookee her—Ice Queen, michaso, crazy, no-good numbah-ten! My good girl make you happy. Bambi, Boom-Boom, Shanghai Mary, hum-job you, make you feel Heaven! Aeguu, dae-wi, I likee your arm too muchee! Big Man, you pickee!”
“Diet Pepsi?” I asked. Mrs. Cho blinked. The women gazed at Magrip, drawn by his raw yang scent. Magrip scowled and curled his lip, causing swoons.
“Elvis,” breathed one.
You ladies see Jimmy Buford? I wondered. Not his kind of place, but he was an IG, and Willoughby was the tour guide.
Mrs. Cho lambasted Bambi, who changed chairs to press her chest on me while she poured a beer with a cardboard smile. It was a big chest. I may have coughed. “No, thank you,” I said, and Bambi leaned back, relieved. The beer smelled like radiator antifreeze.
Mrs. Cho shook her head, then spoke above the music. “My girl not used to Chinese soldier. My girl, she see your honcho face, see Kong-ja, Confucius. See father. Get muchee pukurom—shame. Their family hate them too muchee. You no hate my girl, neh?” The Marcels began to sing “Blue Moon.” I said that I didn't.
A statuesque, improbably proportioned woman arrived, her chest working. She wore buckskins and tassels and hair past her waist. She hitched her head and Bambi leaned both hands on my privates to stand, leaving with a smile to match my raised brows.
“Crap,” said Magrip. Miss Buckskin sat and gazed at him, eyes bright, lips parted, chest heaving, her hard, angularly handsome face alight with carnal or monetary fantasies. An entourage of panting GIs regarded her as if she were Ann-Margret.