The Wandering Ghost (george sueno and ernie bascom)

by Martin Limon

  Colonel Alcott peered at me. “What the hell did you do, Sueno?”

  I didn’t feel like answering. Colonel Alcott should’ve demanded that I be released from my handcuffs immediately. I was a U.S. military investigator, innocent until proven guilty-under American jurisprudence anyway-and the benefit of the doubt should’ve been automatic. Instead, Alcott was busy glad-handing with the KNPs, ignoring me, showing them by inference that they could do with me whatever the hell they pleased.

  Although I was tempted to show my disdain for Colonel Alcott by refusing to answer him, finally, I piped up.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I replied. “My partner and I were out after curfew trying to track down a lead.”

  “But you fired your weapon.”

  “Only when someone attempted to interfere with our investigation.”

  Bufford, leaning against the wall, could no longer contain himself. He pointed a bony finger at me.

  “You were in west Tongduchon,” he said. “A man was murdered out there.”

  I stared directly at him. “Your ass,” I growled.

  That shut him up. Colonel Alcott shook his round head. “Sueno, your attitude is not good.”

  “Take these handcuffs off me,” I said. “My attitude will make a miraculous recovery.”

  Colonel Alcott continued to shake his head. “Unfortunately,” he said, “that’s not my decision to make.”

  “The hell,” I said. “If you vouch for me, these Korean cops would release me in a heartbeat. And my partner, too.”

  Colonel Alcott responded with a tone of exaggerated reasonableness. “But how well do I know you? You and Agent Bascom are sent up here to the Division area of operations, supposedly to search for Corporal Matthewson, but you end up investigating god knows what. What am I supposed to tell the KNPs? You’re up here doing something but I don’t know what it is, and you’re out after curfew and weapons are fired and a man turns up murdered and I’m supposed to risk the prestige of the Second Infantry Division to have you released? Based on what?”

  “Based on you could call the Eighth Army provost marshal. He’d order it.”

  “Ah, yes. The Eighth Army provost marshal. That will be done. As soon as the Division chief of staff is fully briefed.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Don’t be impertinent.” For the first time since I’d known him, the round, pleasant face of Colonel Stanley X. Alcott flushed red. “You don’t hurry the Second Infantry Division. We have procedures. We observe protocol. Maybe something you and that Agent What’s-His-Name..”

  “Bascom,” Bufford said.

  “Yes. Agent Bascom. Maybe you two don’t know what it is to follow procedures but up here in Division we have procedures, and we’re damn sure going to adhere to them.”

  Through the entire conversation, Captain Ma kept puffing on his cigarette, smiling, amused that people who appeared to him so foreign could hold such a long conversation. He reminded me of a zoologist observing baboons.

  The 2nd Infantry Division chief of staff would be briefed in an hour or two at the daily staff meeting. Then the decision would be made to inform 8th Army about our arrest and then the 8th Army provost marshal would discuss the situation with the 8th Army commander and finally-hopefully-word would be sent down to request transfer of custody from the KNPs to the 2nd Infantry Division.

  That gave the smiling Captain Ma, puffing serenely on a cigarette, many hours to mess with me.

  It was midafternoon by the time the doors of my jail cell clanged open.

  Two KNP recruits, their khaki uniforms pressed to glistening creases, entered the cell, handcuffed me again, and walked me down a long, wood-floored corridor and upstairs into another interrogation room.

  This time Captain Ma wasn’t there. Instead, the mystery man entered, a middle-aged man in jacket and tie and overcoat and porkpie hat and, what I could see now, were goatskin gloves on either hand. He sat down on the chair opposite mine.

  “Mian-hamnida,” he said. “I’m sorry. The KNPs have treated you very badly.”

  His face was full, not fat, with fleshy cheeks that bobbed when he shook his head. He lit up a cigarette. I was right. The brand was Kobukson and the holder was made of ivory. Or faux ivory.

  “Are you a cop?” I asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  His English-what I’d heard of it so far-was perfect. No hesitation in answering me, each word pronounced crisply, precisely. This wasn’t your usual KNP.

  “Then what exactly are you?”

  “First, let’s have those handcuffs removed.”

  He barked a command and the two young KNPs who’d escorted me into the interrogation room burst through the door. He barked more commands and my hands were freed.

  “The rest of my clothes?” I asked. “And my identification?”

  “Soon. Someone’s arrived from Eighth Army to fetch you.”

  Fetch? This guy’s English was becoming more impressive by the minute.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “In time.” He blew smoke in the air from his Turtle boat cigarette. “Now is my time.”

  His first grammatical failing.

  “What do you want to talk to me about?” I asked.

  “About Corporal Matthewson.”

  I tried to hide the surprise on my face.

  “We believe she’s become a deserter,” he said.

  Deserter. A loaded word. Technically, Corporal Jill Matthewson would begin to be carried on the 2nd Division books as a deserter as soon as she had been absent without leave for thirty days. One week from today. This is standard procedure. But this mystery man was calling her a deserter right now. To classify Corporal Matthewson as a deserter before the thirty days were up, you needed knowledge of her intent, her intent to desert. But I ignored the word deserter for a moment.

  “Who,” I asked, “is ‘we’?”

  He waved his cigarette in the air. “Unimportant. What’s important is that we have reason to believe that you will be opposed, and opposed quite forcefully, if you continue your search for Corporal Matthewson.”

  “Are you warning me to stop?”

  “Not at all. This is just one cop to another. There are dangerous people involved and I feel it is only fair to warn you that this is not your usual-how you say? — fender bender.”

  “Not your usual missing person’s case.”

  “Exactly.”

  His big Asian face beamed, satisfied that I was beginning to understand. I felt like a disciple of Confucius who’d just realized the importance of filial piety.

  “But you don’t want me to stop looking for her,” I said.

  He shrugged. “That’s up to you. And your superiors.”

  “Are you looking for her?”

  He shrugged again.

  “Will you try to stop me?”

  This time he didn’t move. Instead, he puffed on his cigarette and studied me through the smoke. A long silence passed between us.

  “We’ve heard of you,” he said. “We Koreans are always impressed when a foreigner takes the time to learn our language, to understand our culture. You’re respected. Maybe not your partner, but you. That’s why I’m warning you.”

  He allowed his cigarette to drop to the wood-slat floor. He hoisted himself from his chair and stomped on the burning butt.

  “Go back to Seoul,” he said. “You’ll live longer.”

  “You guys look like shit.”

  The man who stood in the reception area of the Tongduchon Police Station was Staff Sergeant Riley, the Administrative NCO of the 8th Army Criminal Investigation Division. He was even thinner than most of the Korean cops and his frail body seemed lost in the starched material of his fatigue uniform. His teeth were crooked and he wore his black hair just a little longer than regulation. During the duty day he greased it down and combed it straight back but at night, when the work day was done, he wore it in a rakish pompadour, like some has-been fifties rock star.

  Erni
e and I ignored his insult. Maybe we did look like shit. But after being locked in a Korean dungeon for the better part of a twelve-hour period, we were delighted to see him. Outside, a green four-door army-issue sedan stood ready to whisk us to freedom.

  “What about my jeep?” Ernie asked.

  “Division’s bringing it,” Riley answered.

  “Tell them to keep their paws off it.”

  Riley ignored him. There was paperwork to complete. On behalf of the 8th United States Army, Staff Sergeant Riley signed receipts for Ernie and me, as if we were items of property. At the time he took us into custody, he assumed responsibility for our future conduct.

  I felt like a toaster he’d won at a raffle.

  After the paperwork was done, we retrieved our clothing and our identification. The final things the KNPs turned over to Riley were our. 45’s, wrapped in plain brown paper and tied tightly with twine. He tucked the two weapons under his arm. None of the KNPs came to see us off. Outside, Ernie and I stood for a moment, breathing the late afternoon air, laced with the aroma of burnt diesel and fermenting kimchee. The breeze from the north was bitingly cold but we didn’t mind. To us it was the bite of freedom. Down the road, in the TDC bar district, neon began to twinkle to life, as if to fight back against the gray overcast that darkened the sky.

  As we sauntered down the sidewalk, Staff Sergeant Riley assured us that we hadn’t been charged with a crime. However, Division had lodged a formal complaint with the 8th Army provost marshal about our firing rounds at their soldiers. In response, the 8th Army PMO agreed that we would be withdrawn from the 2nd Division area of operations.

  “Immediately if not sooner,” was the way Riley put it.

  Ernie howled. “What? You’ve got to be shitting me? We were just starting to make progress.”

  Riley shook his head. “I’m not ‘shitting’ anybody. If you were making progress, you should’ve made it faster. Eighth Army says you’re history up here.”

  Racial tensions were high at all fifty-seven U.S. military base camps throughout the Republic of Korea and the 8th Army honchos were well aware of it. A couple of years ago there’d been riots in Itaewon-black GIs fighting white GIs-and the Command had received horrible press coverage. They weren’t taking any chances of that happening again.

  As soon as we reached Riley’s sedan, three jeeps pulled alongside. Two armed Division MPs sat in the first two. Trailing them was another jeep we recognized. Ernie’s. An MP was driving that one, too, and they refused to turn the jeep over to us until we reached the border of the Division AO. Argument was futile, so Ernie and I climbed into the sedan.

  As Riley slid into the driver’s seat, he said, “Watch the merchandise back there.”

  Ernie grunted. I looked back and saw an old army blanket covering some lumpy objects. Probably Riley was black-marketeering. The less I knew the better.

  We pulled away from the police station, cruising south toward the Main Supply Route. Within a mile, we’d left the city limits of Tongduchon. The two Division MP jeeps and Ernie’s 8th Army jeep trailed behind us. No one spoke. Ernie and I were too exhausted. I still hadn’t had a chance to tell Ernie about the mystery man. Time for that later.

  About five miles on, we reached the southernmost Division checkpoint. The MP guards and the Korean honbyong had been notified by field radio to expect our little convoy. Holding their automatic rifles pointed at the sky, they blew their whistles shrilly, and waved us on. About twenty yards past the checkpoint, we reached the last row of dragon’s teeth. Four-foot-high cement monoliths stretched away from the MSR for miles on either side, like a poor man’s version of the Great Wall of China.

  Riley pulled over and so did the Division MPs. The guy driving Ernie’s jeep hopped out, tossed the keys to Riley, and climbed into the back of one of the Division MP jeeps. Without so much as a fare-thee-well, the Division MPs performed a U-turn and roared off back north, gunning their engines all the while. Irritated, apparently, at having to venture so close to the realms of REMF territory.

  Riley tossed the keys to Ernie. “Can you drive?” he asked.

  “Can I drive?” Ernie growled out the question, leaving no doubt that he believed he was capable of driving under any conditions.

  As Ernie walked toward the jeep, Riley turned in his seat and said, “Okay. You can come out now.”

  The bundles beneath the army blanket wiggled. Then the old blanket was tossed back and a huge Afro hairdo emerged. With a big smile spread across round cheeks, a voluptuous woman rose from the back seat of Riley’s sedan like Athena springing from the brow of Zeus.

  “Ain’t no bag, man,” she said.

  Brandy, the bartender from the Black Cat Club, the woman we’d been searching for last night. She stared directly into my eyes, smiling. Amused by the completeness of my surprise.

  About five miles farther south-while we were still fifteen miles north of Seoul-Riley pulled off the Main Supply Route and onto a road that led to the main gate of Camp Red Cloud, the I Corps headquarters. After we were cleared by the MPs at the gate, he drove to a large wooden building with a huge sign out front: The Papa-san Club. I’d heard about it. An NCO club that was rumored to be one of the best in the country.

  Riley, Brandy, and I climbed out of the sedan. Ernie climbed out of the jeep, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  “Did you see what those bastards did?”

  He motioned toward the back seat of his jeep. We all walked over. Our traveling bags sat in the front passenger seat, chock full of our clothing and belongings that had been stuffed into them. Apparently, the Division MPs had checked us out of billeting. But the back seat was what Ernie was upset about. It was in tatters. Black leather tuck-and-roll upholstery, had been shredded systematically with what must’ve been a very sharp knife. White cotton puffed out of the wounds like popcorn.

  “I paid good money for that tuck-and-roll,” Ernie said, “and now look at it.”

  This jeep was exclusively assigned to Ernie. But not officially. Officially, vehicles were rotated based on the priority established by local commanders. However, Ernie made sure a bottle of imported Scotch landed on the desk of the head dispatcher at the 21 T Car motor pool in Seoul every month. Therefore, the jeep was his. And he paid to have it maintained and painted and cleaned regularly. The tuck-and-roll had been an additional touch. If he thought he could’ve gotten away with it, Ernie would’ve equipped his jeep with reverse chrome rims and had it painted cherry red.

  “Just spite,” Ernie told us. “Petty jealousy and spite.”

  And then he realized that Brandy had joined us and he leaned over and hugged her, a little too long I thought. After Ernie’d calmed down somewhat, the four of us walked up cement stairs into the warm environs of Western civilization. Or Western civilization as its practiced in the military compounds of the 8th United States Army.

  After chow, Riley was anxious to get back on the road and return to Seoul.

  “You have a day off tomorrow,” he said. “It’s Sunday. But first thing Monday morning the First Shirt wants you two back on the black-market detail.”

  “Bullshit,” Ernie said.

  He expressed my feelings exactly. More chasing GIs-or their Korean spouses-through the back alleys of Itaewon to bust them for selling duty-free PX goods on the Korean black market. A waste of time. Especially when real crime swirled all around us.

  The cannon went off outside at I Corps Headquarters and the flag was lowered; a few NCOs drifted into the bar. A Korean go-go girl climbed up onto a round stage and after a few coins were dropped into the jukebox, she started dancing. Brandy watched her intently, perhaps imagining that she’d look even better in the sequined outfit. Then Brandy told us what she was doing here. After the fiasco at the Black Cat Club last night, when she’d heard that we were looking for her, she’d waited until curfew was over and come looking for us. Earlier today, she’d hooked up with Riley. Now, most significantly, she felt guilty that she’d previously held out on
us concerning the whereabouts of Jill Matthewson.

  “Jill made me promise. Don’t tell nobody where she go.”

  “So where’d she go?” Ernie asked.

  Brandy didn’t know. But she claimed that she could put us in touch with somebody who did know. Somebody who was desperate to talk to us about the disappearance of Corporal Jill Matthewson.

  I pressed Brandy on why she hadn’t told us this before. She said at first she couldn’t be sure if we were working for 2nd Division. Jill was afraid of the Division, although Brandy wasn’t sure why. Once we were arrested by the KNPs, and kicked out of Tongduchon by the 2nd ID honchos, Brandy decided that she’d better fess up.

  “Maybe Jill need help,” she said. “I don’t know. But I trust you guys now.”

  The new lead Brandy provided made up my mind. We had to return to TDC and follow it up. Ernie agreed with me immediately. Staff Sergeant Riley, however, went into shock.

  “You can’t go back up to Division,” he said. “You’ll be refusing to comply with the provost marshal’s direct order to return to Seoul.”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday,” Ernie said. “During our off-duty time we can go anywhere we want.”

  “But Eighth Army specifically told you to stay out of the Division area of operations.”

  “What they don’t know, won’t hurt them,” Ernie said. “Besides, Jill Matthewson is still missing.”

  “The Division MPs will find her,” Riley replied.

  “They haven’t yet,” I responded. “And after what Brandy just told us, they may not want to find her. Not alive anyway.”

  “You’re full of it,” Riley said. “So maybe she can embarrass the Division. It’s happened before. They’ll survive. But they have no reason to murder her.”

  “Maybe she’s already been murdered,” Ernie said.

  “Maybe its more than just embarrassment,” I added. “Careers could be involved. Did you ever find those ration control plate records I asked for?”

  “I checked with Smitty at Data Processing. He says those records are classified. Locked in the OIC’s safe.” The safe of the officer-in-charge.