The Ville Rat

by Martin Limon

  “So you think he was abused as a child because he was left-handed?”

  The old calligrapher thought about my question. “Probably for much more than that. I thought of him as a cripple.”

  “A physical cripple?”

  “No, physically he’s quite capable. I thought of him as an emotional cripple. One of the most emotionally crippled people I’ve ever encountered.”

  A light shone in the guard shack of the main gate of the Far East District Compound. The small base had served as the headquarters for the US Army’s Corps of Engineers in Korea since the end of the Korean War. It was nestled amidst high-rise buildings in downtown Seoul, only a few blocks from the massive Dongdaemun shopping district.

  We’d said our goodbyes to Inspector Kill and Officer Oh and made our way here alone. Ernie drove up to the gate and a bored guard emerged from the shack. He wasn’t an MP, just a GI with the rank of buck sergeant with a leather armband hanging from his left shoulder that read duty nco. Stitched above the lettering was the red and white cloverleaf patch of the 8th United States Army.

  Ernie showed him our dispatch.

  “CID? What the hell do you guys want?”

  His name tag said campione. He was slightly overweight, his uniform was slovenly, and he could’ve used a shave before he started the night shift.

  “What we want,” Ernie said, “is none of your freaking business.”

  Campione’s eyes narrowed. “We have a squared-away compound here,” he said, “and if I remember correctly, a complete inventory was just conducted by a couple of you guys.”

  He was right; I recalled the purportedly award-winning audit by Agents Burrows and Slabem.

  “Yeah,” Ernie said. “So what?”

  “So you got no business messing with the Far East Compound again.”

  This was too much. Ernie climbed out of the driver’s seat. I stepped out of the passenger’s seat and walked around to the front of the jeep.

  “Who in the hell do you think you are?” Ernie said. “The freaking provost marshal of the Far East Compound?” Campione backed up half a step. Ernie leaned in closer. “Open the goddamn gate. It ain’t up to you where we go and where we don’t go.”

  “We’re not part of Eighth Army,” Campione protested.

  “The hell you’re not!”

  “We run a tight little compound here and we don’t need this shit.”

  “I don’t care what you need or don’t need,” Ernie told him.

  I stepped into the guard shack and pulled a handle that released the crossing bar. Ernie swiveled away from Campione, jumped back in the jeep, shifted it into gear, and rolled across the threshold. I jogged to the side of the jeep and jumped in. As we drove onto the compound, Campione glared at us for a moment, then hurried back into the guard shack, lifted the phone, and started dialing.

  “He’s calling reinforcements,” I said.

  “Screw them,” Ernie said, still fuming. “A bunch of freaking supply clerks trying to tell us where we can and can’t go.”

  Trees lined the road, fronting well-tended lawns. Behind them were yellow bulbs illuminating signs that labeled the stone and brick buildings: logistics planning; 34th supply and maintenance battalion; shipping and import control; highway and bridge construction. The compound was a square about a half-mile on each side; we cruised around in the jeep, not quite sure what we were looking for.

  “Cushy assignment,” Ernie said. “Looks like a college campus.”

  We rolled past a well-lit sign that said: far east district compound club, all ranks welcome. They weren’t big enough to have their own officers’ club, and besides, to the best of my knowledge, the handful of officers assigned to the Far East District Compound were quartered five miles away on Yongsan South Post and commuted here every day. They would mostly use the 8th Army officers’ club. There was only one barracks on the Far East Compound, a two-story cement-block building housing about three dozen enlisted men. What must’ve been half of them stood on the broad cement steps in front of the club, searching the night, staring in our direction. One of them pointed.

  “Looks like Campione alerted his buddies.”

  “Yeah, and they don’t like strangers,” I said.

  Ernie snorted.

  We continued to cruise through the compound, searching for a warehouse with a back entrance that might match what the little kisaeng had described. The place where a late-night poker game had been held; where several young girls had been trucked in against their will and one—a talented calligraphist who called herself Miss Hwang, her real name perhaps lost indefinitely once her corpse turned up on the banks of the Sonyu River some twenty-five miles north of here—had been purchased by an American.

  “How about that?” Ernie said, pointing.

  The sign out front read: central locker fund, far east compound annex.

  We drove around back. There was indeed a back entrance. Ernie parked the jeep.

  “How are we going to get in?” I asked.

  Ernie reached in his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys.

  “Where’d you get those?”

  “From Strange. They’re the extra set of keys kept by the Eighth Army staff duty officer.”

  I shone my flashlight at the thick steel ring. A metal tag was imprinted with the words far east district compound. It was a large ring holding about three dozen keys of various shape and age. Some had cryptic numbers and letters scratched on or written in permanent marker, and others had paper tags Scotch-taped to them. I shone the flashlight steady on the lock on the back door while Ernie knelt and methodically tried each key. About halfway through the ring, the door popped open. Ernie turned the handle and shoved it forward as the heavy door creaked open.

  “Class Six Heaven,” Ernie said and shone his flashlight into the darkness.

  Before I closed the door behind us, I peered outside at the small asphalt parking area. No movement. Beyond the walls of the compound, traffic purred, lights in tall buildings blinked on and off, and the pulsing life of the massive city of Seoul beat with the steady rhythm of a prehistoric beast; a beast ready to reach down and chomp us with its yellow fangs.

  I closed the door.

  “Over here,” Ernie shouted.

  We strolled past pyramids of cardboard cases of beer and soda, then long rows of all types of liquor—gin, vodka, scotch, bourbon, rum—arrayed neatly on ten-foot-high metal racks. After a short section of brandy and liqueur was the wine, and behind everything was an accounting office near the huge roll-up metal door that opened onto the loading dock.

  I followed the sound of Ernie’s voice, off to the side past the latrine and a supply cabinet for mops, brooms, and cleaning supplies. Finally I found him by a cement door with another padlock on it.

  “Air-raid shelter,” Ernie said. “You grab a case of booze, run downstairs with some dolly, and wait for the shooting to stop.”

  “Great way to survive World War Three.”

  It was a weak joke, but with some truth to it. Many observers thought that the Korean peninsula was a prime candidate for the starting point for World War III. After all, Korea was a country bitterly divided between the Communist north and the capitalist south, and was surrounded by three great powers: Red China, the Soviet Union, and Japan. And the most powerful country in the world, the United States, was heavily committed to the defense of South Korea, not only stationing 50,000 US troops here, but also sending squadrons of Air Force bombers on patrol out of Okinawa and Guam and keeping the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet in Japan and in the waters nearby. Meanwhile, of course, we had plenty of booze and party girls—to soothe our worried brows.

  Once again, I aimed my flashlight while Ernie knelt and studied the lock. He touched it, heard something rattle, and then gently pulled the hasp away from the wall.

  “It’s phony,” he said. “Just her
e for show.”

  He grabbed the metal handle of the door and tugged. It didn’t move. “Stuck,” he said. He braced himself and pulled with two hands. The heavy door slowly slid open, swinging in a ponderous arc, cement scraping on cement. Ernie reached inside and fumbled along the wall until he found a switch. Below, down a short flight of steps, a weak yellow bulb switched on, glowing inside a metal mesh cage.

  “Prop the door open with something,” Ernie said.

  I stepped toward the nearest rack, hoisted a case of triple sec from its shelf and set it on the floor up against the open door.

  Clutching his flashlight, Ernie led the way.

  The stairway turned back on itself. Down one more flight, Ernie found another light switch. This time, an overhead fluorescent bulb sputtered and blinked to life, exposing a large room. It was square, about ten yards on each side, and empty for the most part. Tile flooring had been swept clean. Cement walls, no windows, but what appeared to be ventilation fans overhead. On the far wall was a large steel sink, like those found in restaurant kitchens, and two faucets, one of them dripping patiently as if waiting for us.

  In the unlit corners, Ernie’s flashlight found large slabs of varnished lumber leaning against the wall.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Dividers,” I said. “Hinged. You can separate the room with these. Maybe make a kitchen area over here, a serving area over there.”

  “No chairs,” Ernie said.

  But he was wrong about that. In a far corner, covered by a sheet, was a stack of straight-backed banquet chairs. I pulled the sheet off.

  “Okay,” Ernie said. “Plenty of beer and booze. Chairs. A place to make snacks in. What about a table?”

  That’s what was missing: a poker table. But why would anyone move one, unless they were trying to cover their tracks?

  We searched. No table. But in a corner near a trash can, Ernie found shards of splintered wood. He picked up one of the pieces. Hanging from its edge, apparently glued, were a few strands of something green. Ernie fondled the material. “Felt,” he said.

  “Then there’s more,” I said.

  “Outside?”

  We hurried upstairs, turning off the lights and closing the doors behind us. On the far side of the asphalt lot, a row of metal drums sat atop a long wooden pallet; standard trash disposal at 8th Army. Every few days, a truck full of Korean workmen came by, hoisted the cans up and dumped the trash into the back of the truck. Primitive, but at least it provided jobs.

  Using our flashlights, Ernie and I searched each of the drums. At the far end, one was full of nothing but shards and plenty of ripped green felt. Ernie pointed to one of the chunks of varnished wood.

  “Corners. It was probably in the shape of an octagon. A gutter for chips, green felt on the inside.”

  “A poker table,” I said. “But why’d they chop it up?”

  “And recently, too,” Ernie said. “They must pick this trash up at least twice a week.”

  For years I’d been seeing trash trucks winding their way through various military compounds in Korea, never paying them much mind.

  “So whoever chopped up this poker table did it today. Or maybe yesterday.”

  “Why?” Ernie asked. “What set them off? They could’ve been having poker games in that room for years.”

  “And whoever was hosting them was making serious money.”

  The usual house rake was one chip out of every twenty-five. That was a fat 4 percent of every dollar bet, and in a typical high-stakes game, thousands of dollars would cross the green felt, with the house pocketing big money.

  Gambling was illegal in Korea, except in the handful of casinos the government has authorized for tourists only. Private games were strictly prohibited. Korean television news is full of stories of locals being busted for illegal gambling and perp-walked in front of the klieg lights. But here on the Far East District Compound, conveniently located in the heart of downtown Seoul, the Korean National Police had no jurisdiction. The only law enforcement we’d seen so far in this little enclave of Americana was Sergeant Campione with his duty nco armband.

  “This might’ve been going on for years,” Ernie said.

  I stared at the shards. “So why stop now?”

  Footsteps scraped on asphalt. We turned. Across the lot, approaching through the harsh rays of the overhead floodlight, a group of men approached. One of them was Campione, apparently off duty now, wearing baggy blue jeans and a sweatshirt with a drawing of a bulldog and the words northern new jersey state stenciled beneath the canine’s drooping jowls.

  There were ten men behind him, all of them looking grim. But what most caught my attention was what Campione held in his hand: a short-handled axe, its blade glistening in the harsh light.

  I stared fixedly at the axe blade, but shook off my fear. When you’re outnumbered and outgunned, the best strategy is to go for the bluff.

  “Sergeant Campione,” I said, as the men approached. “Good. I was just about to go looking for you.”

  I pulled my CID badge out of my pocket and held it over my head in the glare of the floodlight. Showing a confidence I didn’t feel, I strode toward the men, raising my voice. “I’m Agent Sueño of the Eighth Army Criminal Investigation Division. This is my partner, Agent Bascom. I’m glad you’re gathered here, because all of you are going to have to be interviewed.”

  The men stopped. I glanced at the axe. Campione still clutched it tightly in his grip.

  “You’ve got no right,” he said. “This is the Far East District Compound, not Eighth Army. You’ve got no right to mess with us.”

  I slipped my badge back into my pocket and held both hands up. “I know what you’re thinking. One inspection just finished, and now another. But we’re going to keep this one short and sweet. All we want to know is who was involved with the illegal gambling that was going on here. That’s all. After we know that, we’ll leave you alone.”

  The men glanced at one another, murmuring sullenly.

  “What game?” Campione said. “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  From the darkness behind me, something large flew out of the night. It arched toward Campione and then crashed in front of his feet.

  “How about this, Campione?” Ernie shouted.

  Everyone stared at the chunk of wood that had just landed on asphalt. It was a corner chunk of the poker table, with a clear indentation for holding chips and what amounted to almost a square yard of green felt.

  Ernie stepped forward. “You should’ve chopped finer,” he said, gesturing toward Campione’s axe.

  A voice in the crowd said, “Why don’t you get off our compound?”

  Another voice said, “Yeah.” And then a chorus joined in, cursing us and moving forward en masse. Ernie and I backed up. Somebody picked up the chunk of wood and lobbed it into the air. It landed with a thump on the hood of Ernie’s jeep.

  That did it.

  He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a .45 automatic. He brought the charging handle back with a clang. Before I could stop him, he fired a round into the air. The men leapt back. He leveled the weapon.

  “You first, Campione. Drop the axe!”

  When Campione didn’t respond, Ernie fired a round past his head, the lethal slug zinging into the night and exploding on the high brick wall about ten yards away. Some of the men crouched.

  “Stay where you are!” Ernie shouted, but by now the discipline of the mob had broken and individual GIs were slinking off into the shadows. Soon they were running. Campione stood alone now, the axe fallen to the asphalt, holding his open palms off to the side of his head.

  Ernie leveled the pistol at him.

  “Ernie,” I said.

  “I’m tired of this shit,” Ernie shouted. “First they try to run you over with a garlic truck, then they send
this fat slob to come at us with a freaking axe. It stops now!”

  “Ernie,” I said.

  He breathed deeply, sighed over the .45, and then, taking another deep breath, lowered the pistol until it pointed at the ground.

  “Did you run that poker game, Campione?” I said.

  “No way. None of us enlisted men are allowed in there.”

  I stepped toward him. “But you knew about it?”

  “I didn’t know about nothing.”

  “But you knew about the girls being brought in. You saw them, when they were driven through the gate.” He shuffled nervously. “And somebody told you to chop up that poker table. And you did what you were told.”

  His face flushed red. “Okay, so we got it good here. No duty other than our regular jobs and gate guard. None of that military horseshit.”

  “Good enough that you were willing to chase us off,” Ernie said, “with an axe.”

  Campione looked away.

  “How much did you make from the poker game?” I asked.

  “We didn’t make nothing.” Campione’s eyes were moist, burning into mine. “Who do you think runs this compound? A sergeant E-5? No chance. The DACs run this freaking compound.”

  Department of the Army Civilians.

  “Like who?” I asked.

  “Like I don’t know. There’s Mister this and Mister that and they pretty much keep to themselves. We’re the worker drones, you know, us and the Koreans. And at night they leave us alone except for one or two things that go on in the offices or in the Central Locker Fund warehouse, and it ain’t none of our business, you understand.”

  “Bull,” Ernie said. “You’re getting your cut. That’s why you tried to chase us away. You know the deal. Keep the bosses safe and they’ll take care of you.”

  For once, he didn’t have a smart-mouth answer. I motioned to Campione to get lost. He did, moving quickly for such a big man.

  I told Ernie I’d drive. He didn’t object. Still holding his weapon, he climbed in the passenger side. I grabbed the big chunk of splintered poker table and tossed it into the backseat. Maybe it would come in handy as evidence, or at least we could use it to put pressure on somebody. Then I slid in behind the steering wheel, started the engine, shoved it into gear, and drove slowly out of the Far East District Compound.