by Gus Lee
“Sorry, Min,” I said. “Magrip is uncivilized. Uncouth.”
Min nodded proudly. “Neh, he ass-hole, dae-wi”
Magrip laughed, probed his ear and studied his finger. “Min,” he said, “you're okay. I checked gate traffic. One vehicle could've taken Buford out without a record: a ROK prison truck filled with GI inmates. MPs never check because it's an MP job to fill the truck. I tried to talk to the ROKs, but no speakee English. This should be Levine's crap detail.” Briefly, he looked at her. Then he picked up a sock.
“The Wizard's trash,” she said, “shows a lot of tobacco spit and five hundred claim payouts a month. Way over.”
Magrip used the sock to clean his inter-toe spaces.
“That's unbelievably endearing,” she said. “Kan?”
I described Wizard Q, the AA workbooks, the memorial to a SGM Patrick McCrail, the girl who fed LeBlanc from her knees, the concealed map with overlay behind the door, the DMZ map on the wall. I described the theatricality of Nagol's chastisement, the Wizard's knowledge of my janitorial disguise, his recitation of good faith, his theory that Jimmy had been jumped by Koreans. His invitation to clean his floor.
Magrip shook his head. “Kan, we play cute here, we get fucked. Screw your indirect method. Time to kick butt.”
“You believe Nagol's arrest?” asked Levine.
“No.” I told them about the bogus CID report, and that two CID agents seemed to work more for the Wizard than for the provost.
Levine nodded. “That's bad news. Why do you care about a map? And when do I interview Nagol at D Cell?”
“Lawyers,” I said, “don't have tactical maps. And his is covered.” I shook my head. “And I don't want you at D Cell.”
Levine's eyes burned. Then her jaw flexed.
“Now I know why he's called the Wizard,” said Magrip. “He gets the cellar of the Corps to re-up in Korea. And makes IGs run around in circles.”
Levine snapped her fingers. “Magrip, you're right. He recruits friends of the grape here, to this cesspool. Cleans them with AA and old-time religion, max ratings and medals. He redeems them.”
“Let's move on,” I said. “Give me options.”
“I punch Willoughby until he says where Buford is.” Magrip.
“Macho Medal of Honor babble,” said Levine. The heater whined down and Magrip booted it across the room. “Yeah, screw around like ruptured ducks. Give ‘em the initiative.”
“Magrip, we make like sitting ducks until they commit. Then IT1 unleash you, throw the slab of meat and point.”
Magrip leaped up. “You asshole! We did that in Nam! Dammit! There're only three principles of war. They already got initiative and mass. We can't give up surprise.”
“We do a legal game plan to get Jimmy. The mission,” I said slowly, “is to recover Buford alive. If we blow away every kidnapper in Asia, we will have failed if we do not restore James Buford to his family. There is no need to kill. Is that clear?”
Magrip said nothing, falling onto the complaining cot.
Levine studied me, thinking.
“Levine,” I said, “is your Korean good enough for talking to ROK wardens about that GI prison truck that went out the gate?”
“Neh, honcho dae-wi,” she said. “Magrip, you have any ROK phone numbers for me to follow up on?”
Magrip didn't answer. She leaned over him. “He's asleep.”
Magrip snored in a leg-splayed sprawl, done in by a day of jet lag, bar fights, Arctic runs, short sleep, numbing cold, the angst of my tactics and the tension of Levine.
“My effect on men.” She called post operator and was immediately placed on hold. “They collapse under my pressure.”
“Let's be honest. You hit some of them with beer bottles.”
Magrip snored as I opened his pocket and took his notepad. I read notes about flights, his MP interviews, convoy identifiers and ROK prison phone numbers, surrounded by meticulous notes. I found a long letter to Magrip's wife, Carole, written in classical, textbook cursive, almost female in its precision.
“So, Levine, you're hard on yourself.”
“No, I'm pretty good to myself. Men are hard on me.”
“You have a fondness for jerks?”
“Oh, like there's a choice?”
I smiled politely. I gave her the notepad with the ROK phone numbers. She hung up and began dialing.
Magrip lay in deep sleep. I envied his skills. The ice and snow outside radiated through the new window and sharpened the scent of fresh plywood. I had returned to Asia, older, sadder. Fatigue fell like a lead mantle. Levine was shouting in Korean. My eyes burned with fatigue. I closed them.
The room was green and the girl ran toward me. I tried to tell her to go back, but the muzzle came up. The rifle gave its small signature recoil as I emptied the magazine and she went down.
“Kamsamneeda,” said Levine. Min giving her a box, bowing.
My legs spasmed. I shut my eyes, seeing dead flies marching across a white ceiling, my guts weak as if I had done murder. Levine touched my forehead. Snow was on the deck. I had a fever and Ma put cold cloths on my head as we headed for Dongting Lake and the shaman. I removed her hand and I cut it on the elephant grass. I awoke to Telemann's “Harlequinade.” I thought it was in my head, but it was coming from a tape recorder near my wet pillow.
I was clammy. I sat up, head pounding. I looked at my watch. Three in the afternoon. I had been out almost three hours, dreaming of China, the boat, the girl. I looked at my hand and its scars. Magrip was still snoring, snuffling.
Levine put down the phone. “You need help,” she said. “I need a drink.” I coughed, rummaging for a warm Diet Pepsi.
She stretched long legs. “You don't face your problems, they come after you. In your sleep or lack thereof. I'm old-fashioned; I think unconsciousness is the natural enemy of thought.” A raised eyebrow. ” To your credit, it's novel to hear a man cry. I like that, but I'm a voyeur. Never made a man cry, even when I've challenged one of your sacred stupidities. One of my other skills. But no points for doing it in your sleep.”
I shook my head. Respecting inner problems only strengthened them.
“Don't feel bad. There are worse things than crying in front of a woman you're living with.”
“I'm not living with you. It just looks that way.”
She expelled air. “Don't flatter yourself. Although you do have jerk potential. Obviously, I love that.” Musing. “What would Mom think? What a shame you're not a nice Jewish boy.”
“Levine, we're Warsaw Jews. I follow the law, honor seder, eat kosher and weep for Jerusalem. You hurt me deep.”
She smiled. “I'll call Mom with the good news. Just now, you once again reenacted ‘Hamlet Laments Polo-nius.’ “She held up a hand. “It was good stuff, Gielgud and Olivier. But I worry about a team leader who's more hung up on his past than he is on mission. Your past is playing you like a harp.”
“What counts is the job. I get it done.”
“Yes, that's your rep, isn't it? Work like a jackass and get an MSM a year.” A medal. “You're on the same minority-showcase laundry line with TV coverage where I'm flapping. I saw you on CBS Morning News, talking about drug dealers and mutineers.
“I heard you followed Murray into the field in Vietnam. Sort of thing I would have done. And now, you hate to kill. Crying's normal. You ought to do it right. Talk about her to the chaplain and cry your heart out like a woman.”
Men in pain cried out guts. “I did that.” For a moment, I couldn't remember the girl's face, and was filled with a terror not unlike the moment in which I realized I had shot her.
“I doubt it! Men don't cry—they ulcerate and get strokes and male rage and beat women. Fine, trip out on it.”
“Back off. It's my problem.”
She stood. “No.” She crossed her arms, leaning on the bunk. “You made it my problem with those pitiful noises. I couldn't sleep. One night with you and you got me worrying.”
“Not t
he most flattering thing to say to a man.” “I've said worse.”
Magrip moaned. Levine looked at him. “Can't imagine him married to a conscious woman. I'm grateful he doesn't spit tobacco, but that's probably coming.”
“He writes love letters to his wife. Good handwriting.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What, in blood? Do you know you scratch your crotches and adjust your equipment like this was a locker room? And you've covered the floor with dirty socks, jock straps and boots?” Her voice was going up; she lowered it, speaking lower, the anger gone into husky, disciplined military grooves.
“But what really gives me a case of the ass is your keeping me in the background, with Magrip as my nanny. That girls-in-the-back bull is over, Jackson Kan. I'm a member of this team. I know the law, I'm competent, I'm better asleep than most men awake, I bust butt, and you don't want me at D Cell? You're Third World and you're holding me down with chauvinistic preferences? How does that sell on Self-Determination Street? Don't give me that look!”
“What look?”
Her eyes blazed at me. “That ‘this hurts my ears’ look! God! Men scream and troops bang out ‘Yes sir, three bags full!’ A woman yells and men cringe like they're getting circumcised, crying pathetically about ‘women's libbers’! Listen to me—men who can't deal with women and feelings are crippled. And they make really lousy managers and shitty boyfriends and intolerable husbands and useless fathers and they are turning our world to shit!”
“Don't be shy. Tell me what you think.”
She drove her hands deep into her pockets, pacing angrily. “Screw your dismissive humor. God, I hate it that men can't cope emotionally! Drunks, drugheads, bummed by emotion. This isn't war, where you point your guns and kill people. We get Buford back if we think better than the opposing party—and if we're prepared.”
She pointed a slender finger at me. “That's not going to happen if you go psycho on us.”
Her voice was a drill in my head. I rubbed my face. “Butt Kicker has combat fatigue. Used his youth in Vietnam. No flex left. Small things grind him down. Can't cure him—not here. We trained him to kill Asians. He's not going to get well with me as team leader. Humor him. If it goes south on us, we'll need him. And let's be fair. I'm not psycho. I'm an insomniac.”
“I used to like men who don't sleep.” She fluffed her hair and pulled a metal chair. The noise made Magrip spasm. “Kill ‘em—kill ‘em now!” —his voice a desperate wheeze of an ancient man, twisting with old agonies.
She licked her lower lip. “It must have been bad over there.”
“He did two tours.” I had been undone by ten seconds.
She took a deep breath and picked up her notes. “The ROK prison led to a Sergeant Major Patrick McCrail—”
“Wait. Levine, end this argument.”
“Monsieur Doggie Breath, this was not an argument. Not even a spat.” She appraised me. “Listen, someday I'll show you an argument, and then there will be no doubt in your military mind.”
I put up my hands. “I'll pass.”
“The fragility of men.”
“Ouch.” The Q was a sty, but there were three of us, it was winter and my stuff was in discrete piles. It wasn't Monaco, but we were hostile, fragile, inexpressive, emotionally crippled males with one dresser, filled with her stuff.
I remembered clearing the footlockers of the dead. I imagined telling Murray that while chasing down Buford, Levine had been killed. I wondered if she was married or had kids. She wore no ring. I realized I was shivering.
“Levine, I'm old-fashioned too. I don't want you KIA, WIA, or MIA.”
She stood. “Then don't screw around. Do it up front. Boot me ‘cause women don't hold your confidence. Don't patronize me by tossing floor scraps and saying I'm a good little girl.”
Droves of women were coming out of law school, and Levine was a TIG. There was a bill in Congress to admit women to the Academy and to Airborne School. Women in Beast Barracks, shower formations, getting hazed. I shook my head: no way. This was men's work. Casey was the global anus, plunked in the latrine of the DMZ, and when the balloon went up and the Grim Reaper went to work, the dead would be stacked like cordwood, the 57Fs, the Fifty-seven Foxtrots—graves registrars—facing a work glut and a shortage of leak-proof plastic bags in the zipper-tent morgues of the combat dead.
The new political creed declared males and females identical except in acculturation. I didn't think so.
I believed men's deaths were more endurable than women's. That wasn't Chinese; it was American, and I respected it. It confirmed Ma's value and made her the equal of anyone, regardless of gender, birth order, guan shi—face—connections, or wealth. In the China I knew, women were expendable, fungible, invisible.
In America, they could pretend to equality.
“Levine, Casey's a crap detail. You're giving me the evil eye, wanting to play in the dump.” I waved at the camp. “This manure is for men. Crud on the floor, the toilet seats up.” I shook my head. “If we die, we get zip bags with our names. You get killed, it'll be a national scandal and Carlos Murray's fault.”
“Don't lay it on him. He made this IG team with a redneck, a Jewess, and a Chinese. Park your medieval courtesies. You use gallantry as license for bigotry.”
A breath. “We're taking all the jobs we can, but surprise! Contrary to your castration fears, we don't want your silly little dicks. We want a shot—and not even a fair one. I took the same oath to the Republic you did. And you use all the latrines.”
Silly little dicks. The potential weight of another dead woman. I hadn't known the dead girl and she was a blight on my life. I liked Levine and felt my brittle self, the absence of flex, my emotional reserves and youth spent. I'd probably lost Cara. I had no room to lose Levine to the Reaper. I looked at her, at her bright, shining will.
I saw BaBa's muscular face. He had come to America because it had no blood lords to wage war on the river. A laoban, an illiterate junkman, could see his firstborn son read books and sit freely on dry land.
“You ought to let a Chinaman keep you from being kidnapped. In a country where torture's legal,”
“C'mon, Kan—the Wizard tried to get me in the Vegas. I'm in the fight. Once, Chinese guys couldn't vote, marry, testify, or own land, or protest your own lynching. Now it's your turn to make some big changes.”
I started picking up my socks.
“I meant bigger changes.” She sucked on the inside of her mouth.
“Okay. Here's your final citizenship test: look at me.” I did, rather sadly.
“What do you see, Kan? An officer? Or just a skirt?”
President Kennedy, in the bloom of his Army romance, had waived my lack of U.S. birth to appoint me, a naturalized citizen, to West Point. He was President and it was my yeh, cast by Fan taitai, to go, to pay off my family's debt to our new land. The Academy was a dark place of regimented duties and deadly honor, illuminated by his Boston Irish trust, his Celtic vigors. I studied her; I saw a competent officer, full of fervor.
Levine's fervor could cost her her life.
Her life. I was tired and she was wearing me down. “Okay, Levine. You're out of the law library. Go incite riots and bash men all over Korea. Make me wish I had become a pianist.”
“Thanks, Kan.” Her fires were banked. She looked at me as if we were old friends, her eyes soft, and I knew she was going to ask me questions about myself.
I held up a hand. “And please. No more bad-mouthing Magrip's medal.”
“Well, excuse me if I don't get misty-eyed over a chauvinist killer.”
“He got the Medal of Honor for saving people.”
Levine popped a candy. “Not people, Kan. Men.”
15
COLONY OF LOST SOULS
“I called the post NCO Academy. Found a master sergeant who knew McCrail when they were both Vietnam advisers. Said he was huge—six-five, two fifty, white hair and the biggest voice in the Army. Known for never leaving a man behind.
“McCrail was wounded in a second Vietnam tour, then got in some political hassle with the Pentagon. He became Far East recruiter, then, something of a dead-end assignment.
“Seven years ago, the ROKs arrested him for emptying one of their munitions trains down in Pusan on Buddha's birthday.”
A sergeant major stealing on anyone's birthday made no sense. They were the Army, the icons of high conduct, the unforgettable marching repositories of killing arts and military courtesies.
“ROKs were no help. I called our embassy in Seoul— McCrail was busted for the train theft but never went to ROK custody. He deserted 24 April ‘66. Five days later, he was declared dead. And guess who reported his death by drowning, no body?”
“Don't tell me—Fast Freddy LeBlanc, counselor-at-law.”
“Maja-yo—bingo! Then I found a grocery bill in the office garbage. To Major Nagol, from Suwon—a ROK prison for GIs.” The wind howled at the rebuilt window, finding the cracks.
“Korea's a civil law system. It lays prison costs on the families of the con for food and clothing.
“So why would Nagol, a man without a hint of a human heart, pay for inmate meals? I called the Suwon grocery and got a woman.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“I had someone who'd talk to me. I asked if we owed for Sergeant Major McCrail. No hit. I asked about the huge man.
“‘You owe,’ she said. ‘Curadess ate big this quarter.’
“I asked her to describe Curadess. Hundred ninety-five centimeters, hundred twenty kilos. White-haired, six-foot-five Yankee with a big voice and a gut the size of Yoi-do Island.
“MILPERCEN said a Cabra Curadess got life for heroin dealing at Chinhae seven years ago. He died in a traffic accident on the MSR, 29 April ‘66, en route to Suwon Prison.”
“The same day,” I said, “the Wizard said McCrail drowned.”
“You got it. The man named Curadess isn't Curadess.”
“Curadess is in the Wizard's backyard under a sergeant major's flag. What's Curadess's description?”
“Five-seven, one thirty, DOB 1946. Kan, the big man in Suwon is Sergeant Major McCrail. He's filling Curadess's jacket. The Wizard slipped him in when Curadess checked out.”