by Gus Lee
“Ma-grip-ee! Is you! Oh, yobo!” She took his hand and molded it to her breasts, moaning as she sucked the fingers of his other hand.
“I think she likes you,” I said.
“I love you best,” she breathed over Magrip's digits, the blinking of ponderous false eyelashes sounding like the rabid beating of happy puppy tails. “I love you too muchee!” Sucking harder. “I miss you too muchee in my heart, Ma-grip-ee!”
“Brigitte—no. Stop. C'mon!” Magrip, eyebrows up, tried to extract his fingers. They were stuck. He freed his hand from her chest and looked at me. “Of all the fucking gin joints in Korea, you bring me here.” His eyes burned like flares. “Lemme tell you something. If I get laid over here, I'm killing you.”
Gunfire erupted and Magrip and I went flat as Brigitte squeaked. We looked around and jumped up. My heart hammered, selector switch on auto, ready to shoot at movement. Sharp fear adrenalized me. I felt death knocking, taking names and dealing cards, my heart doing the beat.
The troops in the club were up in a cresting wave, pounding tables and roaring cacophonous, whooping cries. The galvanized mayhem and shattered glass were focused on the door. One group led by throwing beer mugs and pitchers. No guns—only a brawl cheerled by Willoughby's friends, the six GI thugs at the isolated table. Magrip, teeth bared, took his hand out of his armpit. A finger bled; in the uproar, Brigitte had bitten him.
I smiled. “Lucky it was just your finger.”
A Caucasian woman had entered the Vegas and the lone MP was up with his nightstick, clubbing her fans as they closed on her and beat him with grimy, outstretched hands, chanting “ROUND-EYE! ROUND-EYE!” with charming anatomical modifiers. The MP was being beaten as he desperately tried to blow his whistle for help.
“Americans,” sighed Willoughby. “Do we love women or what?”
Magrip and I forced a path. I took off my ring. Someone kicked me, shooting nervy signals up and down my lousy back. Glass shattering, the club rife with chaos vérité.
We pushed and waded our way to the MP and the woman. She was tall and swinging back. Magrip hit and dropped two men in rapid sequence and grunted happily as he knocked gaggles of troops away from the woman with his big body. I pushed the stunned, bleeding MP behind me, blocked wildly thrown punches. I shouted for order in the wild, flickering light; it didn't work. A man rushed me and I punched him in the nose in a burst of blood. More came and I had to kick two men in the groin.
A fellow with a big florid face rocked me with a punch to the jaw and Magrip decked him, making a deep sound of pleasure as the man flew backwards, arms out. I spat; no blood or teeth. Magrip was better at this than I; he liked it.
“AT EASE!” I cried as a trooper threw his body at Magrip and I turned and side-kicked him into a table. It cracked like a log under an axe as the halves fell on him. I had a big voice and was accustomed to people listening to me. This mob had a purpose.
Find the rhythm—hard in a brawl. I punched and missed, then kicked one in the face as a small, wiry trooper ducked Magrip's swing and thunked him viciously in the chest with a beer pitcher. Another pitcher shattered on the back of my head, making it sing. My vision blurred and a huge black man held me up with one hand.
He was a monster with a Mohawk and a mustache, a wall-to-wall-shouldered behemoth of iron banging and unrestrained steroid abuse. I shook my head. He snapped a thug's arm like a twig and threw the screaming trooper into the mob. Breathing easily, he destroyed the face of another with one snap punch.
“I'm on your side,” I said. I marveled as he lifted a trooper at neck and crotch and hurled him toward Alaska with good follow-through. I sidestepped a wild swing and snap-kicked to the face, getting eyes and nose as the woman behind me shattered a bottle on his head.
Someone screamed “Fuck the chink!,” the epithet galvanizing others to come en masse. The Marcels sang “dinga donk ding Blue Moon” and one stool bounced off me while another crunched the ironmonger in the skull with a blow that would have made a house shake. He shook his head and threw a running punch that landed like a truck ramming a picket fence. A man swung at me with a knife and I jerked right. It was the acne-faced, broken-nosed thug, wild with fear and hate and bad aim.
The hell with this. I screamed as Master Wong had taught me when I was a little boy, my lungs reaching to the heavens while I spun, jumped, coiled my thrust leg and emptied my chi in a jump-kick that caught Acne Man mid-body, took his momentum and punted him through the air, both of our howls echoing in the club.
“Three points!” cried Magrip in a blood frenzy, punching a stubborn GI with jabs and crosses, then raising his arms in a field-goal sign, laughing and hungrily waving for more victims as I kicked three men rapidly, aiming for heads but hitting throats—jet lag. Magrip and the huge bruiser were in rhythm, and the thugs in front cursed and scrabbled away, pushing against those behind.
A big man charged with a stool. I kicked low, crushing his knee, and jammed the stool into his throat. He screamed, fell, choked and doubled up. It was Howdy Doody, the rude, freckled SJA sentry who had scolded me for keeping his door open. I had wind, my back was covered and I had no injuries.
No one wanted to play.
Boots tramped in the street. A wing of MPs burst into the club, helmeted and armed with baseball bats, fanning across the room and soliciting the retreat of the mob. A last pitcher exploded on Magrip in a shower of glass as he debrained a victim, using the man's head to reseat floor nails, his eyes bright in combat delirium, looking around and chuckling. The strobes quit and the ear-splitting music stopped in the new order of pine versus flesh.
I threw beer on Magrip. He spluttered. Impervious to pain, he disliked moisture. “Cease work. MPs are here.” He stood, dropping the head in his hand on the hard, dented floor, shaking sweat and beer like a bear in a downpour. The amusements were shutting down. No more cotton candy. His mouth turned down.
The bulls sealed doors and began arresting. “Him,” said the sentry, chest bellowing, blood pouring from lip and nose. “Him him him. Battery. This guy, sex battery on the lady. This guy hit me with a pitcher—ag battery, weapon. Acne Man here, throwing up—he was like a leader, inciting. Hey, whaddya know. It's dirtbag Fleeg.”
If we had been doing what Casey needed—criminal defense—they'd be tomorrow's defendants. Not the best thing, JAGCs thumping their own clients.
Hello, I'm your lawyer, take this.
The MPs looked warily at Magrip and me. “No—good guys.”
An intuition. I searched the supine for Howdy Doody. He was out, his leg awry at a bad angle, his knee blown out.
I lifted him, his leg spasming. “Who's this?”
“Muldoon,” said the MP. “Legal clerk. Two-bit bully.”
I looked at Magrip and made the snapping hand motion for talking. He took Muldoon, seating him softly, easing his head onto the table. Magrip gently poured beer down Muldoon's head and then slapped him hard, jolting head and torso, drawing blood and almost knocking him out.
“Muldoon,” said Magrip sweetly in his ear, a buddy. “I think I killed one a them. I forget. We supposed to kill ‘em?”
Muldoon wheezed. “Aw crap, no,” he croaked. “Tol’ you…jus’ whale on ‘em.” Belch. “Fuck ‘em up.” Bingo, as I suspected.
He choked. “Ahhckkkk!” He vomited zealously on Magrip.
Willoughby was still at Mrs. Cho's table. My head ached. My head, mouth, hands bled. Get the chink. Screw up my team. I wanted to punch Willoughby in the face until he had a different personality.
“Life,” said Magrip. “The contact sport.” He snapped vomitus from his hands.
The monster who had come to our aid wiped blood from the back of his blocky head, hawked and spat, breathing smoothly, energized from the fight, twitchy with adrenaline, worried about consequences, eyes darting. He was leaving.
“I'm Captain Kan. Who are you? I want to thank your CO.” Commanding officer. We shook. His palm was all dead gristle.
“You did
n't see shit. I ain't here. I ain't got no name.” He showed his ID to the MPs at the door. They let him go.
I showed my ID. “Sergeant, who was that man?”
“Sir, Sergeant Barton's red CG sticker gets him through MP lines and crime scenes.”
A commanding general sticker. I said I had never heard of such a thing.
“Well hell, sir, oink oink.” Only in Korea.
The woman in white was gone. I didn't blame her. GI arrestees whined as handcuffs were ratcheted down.
“Captain Jackson Kan,” said a woman. “You think it was something I said? I'm Levine.”
I turned. She had eyes like fine lights in San Francisco Bay. Captain Levine, the third JAGC, jumpy from spastic illumination and male madness, chest heaving in a black overcoat with a missing button, her short brown hair in good order, licking her lips.
Murray had given me a suicidal driver, a homicidal grenade thrower and a woman who caused sex riots. She removed an old leather glove and offered her hand. An empty Crown beer bottle was in the other. We shook.
What the hell was Carlos thinking, sending a woman here? He had a nuts sense of humor, but there was no joke in pitching a female to the DMZ to test her reaction to gang rape.
“Thanks for your help,” she said. “I am happy to work with you. It's an honor to be with someone focused on mission.” Levine then set her face, preparing for rejection.
I was a West Pointer, trained to take the worst member of any team to the designated objective. I was also the firstborn son of a Chinese Christian laoban and a Taoist Long River woman. You ride the current the gods give you, carrying the cargoes reddened by your father's blood mark. You do not argue about leaking wood-oil ballast or complain about starving pirates who smile at the screams of women. You do not curse the winter wind god or the red war god, who killed your gung-gung and didi your grandfather and younger brothers. You obey your father and all elders. You marry the merchant's pig-tailed daughter BaBa picks for you. You do your job.
If you must, you work with women, even if they can get killed doing it, their blood on your hands forever.
9
CAPTAIN LEVINE
For some reason, Magrip and I looked like we had been in a cathouse brawl.
“Captain Levine, this is Magrip. Magrip, Captain Levine. We have a high standard of Dignity Under All Circumstances.”
Chunks of glass fell from Magrip's stinking clothes.
She laughed loudly, a honking goose, offering her hand. Magrip took it as if it were the palm of a herpes patient.
“Got held up. Fog in Frankfurt. The taxi ride up MSR-3 was a kick. This…” She waved at the Vegas, the staff picking through the wreckage. “Surreal. But not fun.” A distant breath of New York. “Kan, I got your note to meet you here.”
I shook my head. “I left no note. We were set up. Looks like the Wizard's welcome. Not homicide. Just a sincere beating.”
She digested that. “You do this often?”
“This afternoon, we imitated chickens doing the Grand Prix. You been briefed?”
She had. I pointed with my eyes. “Willoughby works for the Wizard. I think he set up the riot. Say nothing.”
The madam stared at the Caucasian female in her factory.
“Kan dae-wi,” hissed Mrs. Cho, “is she prostitutee?” “Ma'am, she's a captain lawyer in the American Army.”
Mrs. Cho swooned. Blue Hearts ran to her, fanning her face with cheap paper napkins that once had been in Army inventory.
I introduced Levine. Brigitte aimed her chest, her only weapon, at her. Levine nodded. “So that's where they went.”
Mrs. Cho hissed an insincere welcome. A round-eye woman lawyer would inspire thoughts of unions, health plans and night school. GIs would remember mothers, sisters and wives. Levine represented recession, even depression.
Willoughby had a different idea. He approached Levine with the subtlety of stallions in spring. I tried to count the reasons I despised him. Too daunting.
Mrs. Cho waved at her DJ. The lights went out, the strobes flashed and “I Want to Go Stateside” began, allowing my ear to ring once more while I went temporarily blind. Every American officer in the club, none of whom had helped us, gathered around Levine like bees about the queen. Even Brigitte's loyalists changed flags. The Blue Hearts left huffily. For the officers, I made a slicing motion across my neck. Remembering Magrip and the Mohawk hulk, they left.
Levine removed her overcoat, wanting no help. Willoughby studied her as if she were removing everything. She wore a gray wool pants suit. Dark, thoughtful eyes studied us as I sat up, for reasons not entirely clear. Snow melted in her hair.
I had seen Caucasian American women two days ago, but the cultural curiosity of Captain Levine in this place made us gawk. I pushed my beer mug away from me. It was as if one of my sisters had arrived, and I didn't have any sisters.
She had short, thick brown hair above a narrow and muscular neck, a softly curved nose, a wide and generous mouth and a natural, sharp intelligence that rose from big observant eyes like morning mist. We could use that. We could dispense with the woman part. Magrip would like her because she invited brawls, but we needed to get the Bee.
“Where did you come in from?” I asked.
“Twenty-First Support Command, Heidelberg, Chief of Justice.” She narrowed her eyes. “Are DMZ troops psychotic, or is it the water?” A strong voice, casually employed.
She observed us with a fine exactness. The moral, confident prosecutor, operating on brains, reliant upon insight, friend to humor, no stranger to courage, and better organized than most men. She rode subways and knew New York at night.
“It's the weather,” I said.
“I'll be careful.” Tough, but in need of guarding. Magrip would hate the duty but would love the friction, which ought to make him happy.
“Why's the IG here?” asked Willoughby.
I faced Willoughby. “Who's an IG?”
Willoughby frowned. “You telling me you're not?”
“I'm here for the sun. Get a tan and truck home.”
Willoughby, doubtful: “Dogface Nagol wants you at 0800.” The Wizard's deputy calling the tune on his own investigation.
“Where do I find Nagol? Right now?”
“Shacked up with his yobo. Hey, wait till you see him.” He shook his head and sucked air through teeth, Korean style. “You'll witness the power of the almighty greenback over the judgment of Oriental snatch.”
“Watch your mouth. Where's his hooch?”
He shrugged. “None of my business.”
Pig Breath would know. “Where's Pig Breath Altman?”
“Library,” said Willoughby. “Book farter. Probably a fag.”
I leaned forward. “You got a mouth problem. Fix it.”
Willoughby tried to smile, wondering at my joke. Magrip returned and shook his head without a suggestion of subtlety; no Jimmy. Brigitte stood, wetting her lips as she leaned on Magrip, settling on him like tapioca on a spoon. She closed her eyes, hips undulating, pressing assets into him. “Ma-grip-ee, too long stay ‘way,” she breathed. “You, me, go have love.”
“I'm married, now,” growled Magrip. “Buzz off.”
She tried to change his mind. Magrip pushed her off. She looked hurt. She had an old crush on Magrip. Bad choice. She left, injured, still managing to look like Jayne Mansfield absorbing admiration on a klieg-lit, male-convict-infested runway.
Willoughby examined her as she left. Then he turned to Levine. “Been here a long time. Seen stuff. No one as good as you. Lady, you're a stone fox and you knock me out. Not because there are no American round-eye chicks here. It's you. You're really beautiful. Got a great body. I mean that sincerely.” He laughed easily. “I like long-legged women with small waists and good hips who still got it upstairs.”
“Don't stop,” I said. “What do you think of her pancreas?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Where you billeted?” He smiled with white, straight teeth. “J
ewish, right? I love Jewish women. Lotta guys don't. Think you're all too neurotic. Not me. You're all sensualists! Let me escort you. Hey, lady, I'm smitten. Big-time.”
She looked at her well-formed hands. Attempted gang rape, and now Willoughby. If she looked up, a hundred strange men would propose marriage for the benefit of the honeymoon.
“Let me make this clear. I understand male hormones. This understanding fills me with pity, but not kindness. I'm not here to play bull's-eye for your testosterone overload.”
She interlaced fingers. “Captain Smitten, I am not here to see who can score.” She looked at us, the prosecutor assessing a new grand jury. “I am here to do my job to the best of my ability, under the provisions of the Constitution and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”
Tight jaw. “All I ask is that you keep your personal problems away from me. Use whatever discipline you have as an officer and a gentleman. Please take your eyes off my chest.”
Willoughby tried, his eyeballs becoming elliptical in an effort to comply. He moaned in the grip of the moon. “I'm in love.”
Magrip scowled: women on the DMZ.
“You're going to be a lot of work,” I said quietly.
A New York shrug. “Love your support.” She ignored me and Willoughby's brainless, doelike gaze.
I stood. “Levine, see you later. Magrip, with me.” I looked at Willoughby. “For a moment.” We stepped away.
“Proud of you. I know it was an accident, but you left some people alive.”
He lifted his big jaw and laughed. “A sweet fight. Ended too damn soon. I owe Willoughby for starting it.”
So did I. Magrip was Scarlett O'Hara after a warm kiss.
“Magrip, how's your sense of humor?”
He paused. “I'm the funniest goddamn man you'll ever know.”
“Good. Protect Levine. Get her housed and stay with her.”
He recoiled. “You're shitting me.”
“I poop you not. Your shorts too tight? Stow that anger.”
He pushed my shoulder. “Who the fuck says I'm angry?”
I stiffened. “No one. It's a vicious rumor being circulated by the fifty guys you just beat the crap out of.”