Ping-Pong Heart

by Martin Limon

  I tried the handle of the office on the left. Locked.

  “Did you bring your lock pick?” I asked Ernie.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Got it right here.”

  He backed up against the wall opposite the door marked private, raised his right foot, and leapt forward, throwing all his weight into it. The door crashed open.

  Downstairs, I heard the front door open and the barmaid’s voice call “Koma-ya!” Boy! A few seconds later, there was a hushed conversation I couldn’t make out until a boy’s voice said, “Nei, nei.” Yes, yes. And then the door closed again.

  Ernie and I walked into the office. It was Spartan. A grey Army-issue desk with a full in-basket and wooden filing cabinets behind and a black phone resting on a blue cloth at the edge of the desk. The filing cabinets each had a metal bar running vertically through the front handles, which were padlocked securely into place.

  I started riffling through the in-box. Ernie checked the desk drawers. Sergeant Jerrod’s name was everywhere, along with the unit designation of Headquarters Company, 501st Military Intelligence Battalion.

  “I think she sent someone to get him,” I told Ernie.

  “Get who?”

  “Jerrod.”

  “You think he has a hooch nearby?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “With a cushy setup like this? Yeah, I probably would.”

  The paperwork in the in-box and in the desk drawer was routine. Personnel matters, policy directives concerning unit training and physical fitness. The good stuff pertaining to the three counterintelligence cases Jerrod had brought recently were almost certainly in the locked file cabinets. Ernie and I stared at them in frustration.

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

  “You can’t kick that metal bar off?”

  “Not without breaking my leg. Maybe the grumpy old broad downstairs has a crowbar.”

  “Maybe. But I have a better idea.”

  “What?”

  “I think the guy with the keys is on his way. Maybe he’ll open the cabinets for us.”

  “Maybe he will,” Ernie said, “if we ask him nice.”

  Ten minutes later, footsteps tromped up the stairs.

  Ernie and I had turned off the lights and re-closed the door. Of course, the lock was still busted, but there was nothing we could do about that. The footsteps slowed to a halt on the other side. “Anybody in there?” called a deep but unsteady voice.

  Ernie and I sat on straight-backed chairs on either side of the room’s only entrance. We didn’t answer. Slowly, someone pushed the door open. Then a hand reached in and flicked on the light switch. The man waited a second, then burst into the room, quickly reaching the opposite wall and swiveling around. He held a .45 automatic in his hand. His eyes were wide, his face sweaty.

  Sergeant Leon Jerrod was a stout man. Not fat, but pretty wide for his height, which was about five-foot-six. Still, he looked strong and had a low center of gravity, so fighting him wouldn’t be easy, and knocking him off his feet might be impossible. His hair was dark, trimmed short in a butch haircut that accentuated his round head. His eyes were round, too, bovine and wet. Of course, what Ernie and I noticed first was the barrel of his gun pointing at Ernie, then at me.

  “Sorry about your door,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Ernie added. “We were in sort of a hurry. And your charming hostess downstairs wasn’t much help.”

  “In a hurry for what?”

  “To talk to you,” I said, “about a couple of cases you closed in the last few months.” Both Ernie and I kept our hands motionless at our sides. Rule number one: never make an armed man nervous. “Can I reach in my pocket,” I asked, “and pull out my ID?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Agent Sueño, Eighth Army CID. He’s my partner, Agent Bascom.”

  “Sorry for the intrusion,” Ernie said, smiling.

  “Yeah,” Jerrod said, swiveling the gun between us and motioning with his free hand. “Let me see some ID.”

  We both started to reach into our jackets but he screeched, “One at a time! You first.”

  I pulled out my CID badge. “Slide it to me on the floor,” he said.

  I did.

  Crouching but still keeping the gun on us, he flipped open the leather holder and held the ID up to the light. Then he turned to Ernie. Ernie reached slowly into his coat and repeated the process.

  “Okay,” he said, tossing the badges onto his desk. “What the hell is all this about?”

  “You are Sergeant Leon Jerrod,” I asked, “aren’t you?”

  He wasn’t wearing his uniform. Like us, he was wearing blue jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.

  “I’ll ask the questions,” he said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Just paying a friendly visit,” Ernie said. “And looking for some backup information on that guy you put away.” He turned toward me. “What’s the name?”

  “Do you mind?” I asked, motioning toward my jacket pocket again.

  He nodded. I pulled out Major Schultz’s inspection report, thumbed toward the back pages and said, “Arenas, Hector A., Staff Sergeant. Convicted by general court-martial of espionage. Twenty years at Leavenworth.”

  “Good job,” Ernie said, smiling even more broadly.

  “Just what I get paid for,” Jerrod said, but I knew he felt proud.

  “Do you want to frisk us or something,” I asked, “before you put the gun away?”

  He stared at the .45 as if just realizing it was clutched in his hand. “Oh, this. Yeah, sorry.” He switched on the safety and shoved the weapon beneath his belt. “You guys gave me a start.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said.

  He grinned at us like a guy hungry for companionship. Which he probably was. I’d seen the crowd at the VFWs and AmVets around the country, and they were mostly geriatric. Korean War and World War II veterans, few within a decade of Jerrod’s age. And as a counterintelligence agent, he wouldn’t be encouraged to socialize with the young guys on Camp Red Cloud. He had, after all, been sent here to spy on them.

  “How about we have a beer downstairs?” he said.

  “Sounds good to me,” Ernie said, slapping his knees.

  “Me too,” I said.

  Ernie and I stood, towering over Jerrod. He grimaced briefly, but then laughed and backed out of the door. We followed him downstairs and ordered a liter of cold OB and three glasses from the ravishing creature behind the bar. How she felt about serving us, no one could tell. Her face remained grim at all times; I thought she’d missed her calling as an undertaker. The first beer was followed by the second, and then Jerrod suggested a round of bourbon. Ernie and I heartily agreed. We sipped on the imported whisky, but since Ernie was buying, Jerrod kept putting single shots away, and then doubles, as fast as Miss Congeniality could pour.

  The way I understood it, these barrooms operated under the charter of the American veterans associations while someone else, invariably a Korean, paid for the concession. So the barmaid must’ve been happy to see two big spenders from Seoul, although you’d never guess it from her facial expression.

  By the time the regular drinking crowd showed up, Jerrod was looped. Ernie engaged him in animated conversation—something about how the counterculture wastrels were leaching our resolve to fight Godless Communism—and while they raved, I leaned against Jerrod and unhooked the keys that hung by a metal ring clasped to his belt loop. I excused myself to use the latrine, but when I returned, I passed the two guys arguing now about whether or not Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In had weakened our national fiber and, while the barmaid was busy serving some old vets, I slipped upstairs.

  A single key opened all three cabinets. One of them was empty, and another held Jerrod’s military-issue field gear: fur-lined cap, parka, mittens, rain poncho, w
et-weather overshoes. The central file had what I was looking for. The Arenas file was right up front. Behind it, farther back in the alphabet, I found the other two. I slipped the files into a large mailing envelope, then slipped the envelope beneath my belt in front. I zipped up my nylon jacket and slapped my stomach to make sure the entire package was secure. Then I relocked the cabinets, turned off the light and trotted downstairs. Ernie glanced over at me. I gave him the high sign and continued out the front door, walking quickly over to the jeep. By the time he approached, I’d already pulled the Arenas file and slid the other two files under the metal floor panel beneath the passenger seat where the jack, crowbar, flares and the other pieces of roadside equipment were stored, including a short-handled axe for chopping off ice during the brutal Korean winters.

  “Got it?” Ernie asked.

  “Got it,” I replied.

  “And his keys?” Ernie asked.

  “I left them in his top desk drawer.”

  Ernie climbed behind the steering wheel. “He’ll be so hung over tomorrow, he won’t remember if he left them there himself or not.” Then he turned to me. “Where to?”

  I retrieved the Arenas file and, using my flashlight, quickly thumbed through it. After a couple of minutes, I found what I was looking for. “There’s a bar in Songsan-dong called the Star Mountain Club.”

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “That’s where Staff Sergeant Arenas’s yobo used to work.”

  “They didn’t throw her in jail too?”

  “No. Since she cooperated with the prosecution, the KNPs gave her a pass. Probably because they knew she had no real connection to Communist spies.”

  “You’re assuming a lot.”

  “Maybe. But if they thought she had a real connection, they would’ve never let her go.”

  Ernie started the engine. “So where’s Songsan-dong?”

  “On the other side of Uijongbu. We’ve been there before.”

  “That village outside Camp Stanley?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I like that place,” he said. “Nice and decadent.”

  We rolled out onto the main road, turned left, and passed the VFW. No commotion. Apparently, our departure was going as we’d hoped. Unnoticed.

  -22-

  Songsan means Star Mountain. Looming above Camp Stanley, it’s a pointed peak that would provide a layer of protection from incoming artillery in case of war. The peak slants down to a narrow plateau, upon which two artillery battalions and the 2nd Infantry Division Artillery headquarters are stationed, and from there the mountain continues to slope downhill. The narrow pathway leading out of Camp Stanley’s back gate was steep and lined with neon-signed bars and nightclubs jammed together like dominoes. Heaven, in other words, to an American GI. We parked the jeep at the base of the hill, about a hundred yards from the compound itself, and walked up slippery steps, passing soul music and rock and roll blaring out of open doorways. About thirty yards from the base’s back gate stood the Star Mountain Club.

  I entered first. Ernie followed shortly after.

  The joint was for older soldiers, with slightly more sedate music, soft lighting and upholstery a few millimeters thick on all of the seats. The women working the bar were older, too—some in their thirties, a few probably in their forties. A couple of NCOs sat at the bar, and one guy lounged in a booth with his yobo—or at least, his yobo for the evening. The far end of the bar was wide open, so Ernie and I sat down. We ordered ourselves OB.

  Time was of the essence, so I got straight to the point. “Where’s Miss Lee?” I asked the waitress who brought us the drinks.

  “Who?”

  “Miss Lee Suk-myong. She works here, doesn’t she?”

  The woman looked startled. “Miss Lee? She long time go.”

  “She doesn’t work here anymore?”

  “No. Long time tonasso-yo.” She left a long time go.

  “Long time,” I repeated, “like one month ago, two months ago?”

  The woman thought about it. “Not last payday, maybe payday before that one.”

  Two months ago, maybe less.

  “Where’d she go?” I asked.

  Her forehead crinkled. “I don’t know,” she said. Then she looked at me more closely. “Why you wanna know?”

  “When I was in the States,” I told her, “my chingu told me he steadied her before. He told me she is a good woman.”

  Chingu means friend. It’s not uncommon for a GI to have a steady yobo, to return to the States after his tour is up, and then recommend her to a friend who’s on his way to Korea. If she’s proven to be reliable and not a thief, some guys will look her up and, if she’s available, move right in.

  “You too young for her,” the woman told me.

  I shrugged. “Young woman, old woman, what’s it matter?”

  This seemed to please her. She grinned and said, “You wait.”

  At the end of the bar, she conferred with two of the other hostesses who were chatting and smoking. Life can be boring, even in a sex bar, and after listening to the barmaid, the three women engaged in animated conversation.

  Finally, the barmaid returned. “Maybe not sure, but somebody say she move to TDC.” Tongduchon, the city outside of the 2nd Infantry Division headquarters at Camp Casey.

  “There’s a lot of clubs up there,” I said.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Taaksan.” Many. “Maybe she get job at Cherry Girl Club.”

  “Is she a cherry girl?” Ernie asked.

  The woman laughed with just a hint of bitterness and waved her cigarette. “Long time ago she cherry girl. Same time Yi Sing-man president.” The Syngman Rhee regime had been deposed by a military coup in 1962, more than eleven years ago.

  We thanked her and rose to leave. Ernie left a generous tip: five hundred won. Almost a buck.

  “Now who’s spoiling them?” I asked.

  Ernie patted the envelope with the expense money Inspector Kill had given us. “My days of being a Cheap Charley are over.”

  “For the time being,” I said.

  The city of Tongduchon was about a twenty-minute ride up the road. That is, it would have been twenty minutes if it weren’t for the 2nd Infantry Division military checkpoint. That took over fifteen minutes to clear; there was a long line of vehicles waiting to get through. When we reached the front of the line, we showed our emergency dispatch, but just our regular military ID instead of our CID badges.

  The MP eyed us suspiciously, keeping his M-16 rifle pointed skyward. Then he gazed at the bumper of the jeep, which was stenciled in white with the 21 T Car unit designation. He brought the dispatch back.

  “You can’t drive a military vehicle while wearing civilian clothes,” he said.

  “Why not?” Ernie asked.

  He seemed flummoxed by the question. Finally, he said, “This is Division. I don’t know what you all do down in Eighth Army.”

  “There’s nothing that says we can’t drive a jeep in civilian clothes,” Ernie said, “as long as we can identify ourselves and the vehicle is properly dispatched.”

  We’d been through this before.

  The MP motioned to the ROK Army MP not to move the barricade. He returned to his field radio and made a call. The radio buzzed and clicked and the MP kept his voice low so we couldn’t make out what he was saying. Finally, he switched off the radio, returned to us and said, “Destination?”

  Before Ernie could argue with him, I said, “Camp Casey.”

  He nodded and said, “They’ll be expecting you at the front gate. Check in there. The Duty Officer wants to talk to you.”

  “Why?” Ernie asked.

  “To make sure your heads are screwed on right.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  The MP ignored him, turned away, and motioned fo
r the ROK MP to pull back the crossed metal stanchions.

  “It means they want to show us who’s boss,” I told Ernie.

  He gunned the engine and we sped off.

  “Butthole,” Ernie said.

  We didn’t check in at the Camp Casey front gate.

  We were still a hundred yards from it when we parked in a side alley. Just off the main road ahead, neon was punctured by silhouetted GIs parading from nightclub to nightclub in packs of three or four, as if buttressing one another in their quest for debauchery.

  “What’s the name of the club again?” Ernie asked.

  “According to the gal at Star Mountain, it’s called the Cherry Girl Club.”

  “How could I forget?” asked Ernie rhetorically. “Do you know where it is?”

  “No idea.”

  “So we search.”

  And search we did, navigating past the drunken GIs who barreled down crowded lanes like pinballs in a brightly lit machine. Korean business girls in shorts and miniskirts pressed against beaded curtains, beckoning to passersby to enter their dens of sweet iniquity. Old women fished onion rings and sliced yams out of bubbling vats, slapping the oily concoctions onto folded wads of newspaper and collecting a few coins from half-drunk GIs. MP patrols shoved their way through the milling crowd, checking one bar after another for miscreants, overwhelmed by the boisterous humanity that threatened to envelop them.

  I asked a couple of the business girls where the Cherry Girl Club was. They shook their heads, confused.

  “It must be new,” Ernie said.

  I nodded. And if it was new, it wouldn’t be here in the heart of the GI village. It would probably be somewhere on the outskirts. “Maybe across East Bean River,” I said. There were a few bars over there, mostly frequented by the older non-commissioned officers. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

  “She’s no spring chicken,” I told Ernie, “if the other gals who work at the Star Mountain Club are any indication.”