by Martin Limon
“What else did you notice?”
“I wanted to see what unit they were in,” he said, puffing once again on his cigarette.
I held my breath.
“You know,” he continued, slashing a parallel line with his thumb and forefinger, “it’s on the front and back of the jeep.”
“Right, on the bumper,” I said. They always stenciled the unit designation in white paint.
“Yeah. That.”
“So what’d you see?” Ernie asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Yeah, nothing. Somebody covered it with black tape.”
Damn. “So, we don’t know their unit,” I said.
“Right.”
I supposed it made sense that the thieves didn’t want anyone noticing that the vehicle was assigned to, say, C Btry 2/17 FA during the two minutes their jeep was parked outside the bank. According to military nomenclature, this translates to Charlie Battery of the 2nd Battalion of the 17th Field Artillery Brigade and would lead us directly to their place of assignment.
After a long pause, Ernie asked, “Does anybody else know about this?”
“Like who?” Cho asked.
“Like the KNPs. Or like the American investigators.”
“No. Nobody came. Nobody asked me anything. You’re first.”
“But there were cops down the street all day?” I said. “At the bank.”
“Lots,” Cho replied.
“Can you tell us anything else about the GIs?”
He shrugged and took another long drag on his cigarette, thinking it over. “They’re smart,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
He looked at me like I was crazy. “Fastest way to get money.”
“Why didn’t you ever try it?” Ernie asked. “You work just a few steps from the bank.”
Cho threw his cigarette butt on the sidewalk and stomped on it. “You give me a gun and a jeep, maybe I will.”
He turned and walked back into Han’s Tailor Shop.
I yelled a thank-you at him, and he shrugged and gave a desultory wave. I turned to Ernie.
“You pissed him off.”
“How’d I do that?”
“By implying he was a thief.”
“Well, he owns a shop, doesn’t he?”
“That’s not thievery.”
“Seems like it to me every time I buy something.”
Ernie hated capitalism. He also had no use for communism. I was never sure, really, how he thought the world should be run. Except maybe through playing it by ear, according to the thoughts of der reichsführer Ernie.
We walked back toward the lights of Itaewon. After a few steps, a slim figure hopped out of the darkness of a narrow alley. “Hey!” she shouted. We turned. She raised and pointed a rectangular object. Before we had time to react, a flash erupted into the night. Both Ernie and I reached for our eyes, blinded.
“What the hell?” Ernie said.
The slim figure fumbled with something, shoved it with a click into a metallic device, and the flash erupted again. This time I lurched forward and reached for the shadowy waif, but instead of grasping something solid, all I grabbed was air.
“Relax, big boy,” a woman’s voice called. “I’m done. Your vision will come back in a second.”
“Who in the hell are you?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
“Just a tourist.”
“A tourist? There are no tourists here.”
She let out a brief chortle. “There are now.”
With that, she trotted briskly away. For a few steps Ernie ran after her, but almost immediately plowed into an electrical pole. I checked to see if he was all right. Embarrassed, he shoved my hand away. I could barely make out the retreating photographer, prancing off down the street, leaving us standing immobilized like two dumb giants.
“Witch,” Ernie said, gallantly eschewing the B-word.
-3-
“Where in the hell you two guys been?” The next day, Staff Sergeant Riley, NCO in charge of the Criminal Investigation Admin Division, gave us his usual warm greeting.
“Doing what we’re supposed to be doing,” Ernie said. “All freaking morning. Chasing down dollies and busting them for black market violations. Where the hell you think we’ve been?”
A slight exaggeration. The truth was, after being accosted by our mystery photographer last night, we’d made our way into the heart of Itaewon and discussed the bank robbery case over a couple of beers, which led to a couple of shots of bourbon, which led to a bottle of soju. All of which inevitably led to a horrific hangover this morning that had made us both late for work. We rendezvoused at the barracks, and after driving the jeep through the empty parking lot of the Yongsan Compound Main PX, we could at least claim that we’d been doing our regular duty on black market patrol. After which we’d made it over to the office.
“Burrows and Slabem,” Riley said, “are already briefing the Chief of Staff on that bank robbery fiasco. Good troops. Doing their job.”
“Brownnosers,” Ernie said, making his way toward the back counter and the three-foot-tall stainless steel urn of hot coffee. Supposedly, some years ago, it had been hand-receipted from the 8th Army mess hall. Somebody had once tried to clean the brown crust that encased its innards, but Riley had ordered them to stop, afraid it would fall apart.
I sat down in front of Riley’s desk and grabbed his copy of the Pacific Stars and Stripes. President Gerald R. Ford was having his usual headaches, and some were speculating that he was getting ready to pardon Nixon. Since those problems were all on the other side of the planet, I set the paper down. “Are the honchos still claiming the robbers weren’t GIs?”
Riley had turned his attention to a stack of paperwork in front of him. “Yep.”
“Pretty far-fetched.”
“As long as it stays out of the newspapers, they’re happy.”
The Park Chung-hee government had total control over the South Korean press. More than a few reporters who’d crossed the line with anti-government rhetoric had been arrested and charged with sedition. The rationale was that with over 700,000 bloodthirsty North Korean Communist soldiers stationed thirty miles north of Seoul, ready to invade at the drop of a bayonet, the people of South Korea had more to worry about than freedom of the press. They had to think about survival. Niceties like James Madison’s First Amendment would have to wait. And wait. And wait.
A snippet of pulp stuck out from beneath Riley’s desk blotter.
“What’s this?” I asked, reaching for it.
Riley slapped his hand down on top of it. “Nothing,” he said.
“If it’s nothing, why are you so nervous?”
“Mind your own business,” he said.
High heels clicked down the hallway toward us. Miss Kim, the tall, elegant admin secretary, entered the office. She nodded to me and took her seat at her desk behind her hangul typewriter. After fumbling with some paperwork and propping it against a wire holder, she rolled a blank sheet into the platen and started typing away.
I joined Ernie at the back counter. He had gone silent—the uneasy truce between him and Miss Kim still ruled the office, sort of like the détente between North and South Korea. I supposed she’d never forgiven him for his wandering ways during their brief relationship. He hadn’t bothered to apologize, after all.
I pulled myself a mug of hot coffee and sat with Ernie on the folding metal chairs at the wooden field table.
“Are we gonna tell ’em?” I asked.
“Tell who what?”
“Tell Riley and Burrows and Slabem and the Provost Marshal about the fourth GI—the driver—and the fact that they covered up their jeep’s unit designation.”
“Screw ’em,” Ernie said, before glugging down more coffee. “I say we keep working on
the case ourselves without sharing anything.”
“The information could be important to their investigation.”
“They don’t want it to be important,” Ernie replied. “All they want is to be able to claim that our pure-as-driven-snow American soldiers had nothing to do with this. We tell ’em that it was GIs who robbed the bank, and they’ll blame us for bursting their bubble. As if the entire robbery was our fault.”
I watched Riley shuffling his documents and Miss Kim pecking at the keys of her typewriter. “These guys could strike again. After all, it was so easy for them this time.”
“Except for the bank guard.”
“Yeah. Except for that.”
“Otherwise, they were pretty lucky,” Ernie said.
“You know it and I know it. But they may not know it. This time, an old man lost some teeth and ended up with a broken jaw. Next time, it could be worse.”
Ernie stirred his coffee.
“I still say screw ’em. They don’t want our help, they don’t get it. The KNPs didn’t even bother to canvass the area. They know the deal. The Americans and, therefore, the higher-ups in the Korean government—their bosses—want deniability. They want to be able to say it wasn’t American GIs. Tens of millions of dollars in US aid are hitched to that story.”
Actually, it was hundreds of millions. Both economic and military aid was provided by the US government to the South Korean regime in order to prop them up as our bulwark against Communist aggression. Bad publicity in the States could ruin all that, turn the American public and therefore Congress, which controlled the purse strings, against the US military presence on the Korean Peninsula. An eventuality that the honchos of the 8th United States Army would go to great lengths to avoid.
“So they’re investigating with one hand tied behind their back,” I said.
“Yes. Which is why they put those bozos Burrows and Slabem on the case. You’re the only GI in Korea who speaks Korean. And you and I are the only two law enforcement officers with enough gumption to venture out into Seoul and ask questions. The other guys can’t even read the signs, they think people are talking bad about them every time they hear a foreign language, they aren’t limber enough to squat over a Korean toilet, and they hate the smell of kimchi. They’re morons,” Ernie said, warming to the subject. “The only two real investigators Eighth Army’s got are you and me. And we’re sidelined; they’ve relegated us to wandering around the PX and the commissary, busting housewives for selling a jar of maraschino cherries to black market mama-sans.”
I sipped on my coffee, set it down, and said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But other than that.”
Ernie sighed. “Screw you, Sueño.”
Riley rose from his desk, hiked up his pants, and walked out into the hallway. I listened to his footsteps, figuring he was headed to the latrine.
“Hold on a minute,” I told Ernie, as I rose and walked toward Riley’s desk. There, beneath the blotter, was the little piece of pulp. I carefully slid it out. A newspaper. The Overseas Observer. It was a single fold tabloid type, like the Stars and Stripes, but this periodical was definitely not Department of Defense authorized. I held it up to the light. Covering most of the front page was a gorgeous young woman kneeling on a beach, beaming at the camera and wearing nothing but a leather bikini that accented her voluptuous curves.
Miss Kim glanced in my direction, saw what I was holding, and quickly turned back to her work. I liked her a lot and did my best to treat her well, especially after Ernie’s betrayal. I quickly refolded the newspaper, carried it to the back of the room, and plopped it down in front of Ernie.
“All right,” he said, ogling the bathing beauty. “The Oversexed Observer. I used to read this rag all the time in ’Nam. The honchos hate it.”
“They won a court case against McNamara,” I said. “So the PX has to sell it.”
“I see Riley’s a fan.”
Ernie picked up the paper and thumbed through it. It was twenty flimsy pages with plenty of photos. And plenty of ads for liquor, hair cream, cigarettes, sports cars, even mail-order jewelry, complete with instructions on how to have the perfect engagement ring mailed to your girl back in the States. The headlines were salacious: colonel boff’s private. tennis court first, then perimeter defense. gi convicted of fragging co.
All the stuff that would never be covered in the Stars and Stripes.
“How do they get these stories?” Ernie asked.
“Shoe leather,” I said. “And leaks from inside the military.”
Plenty of GIs were pissed off at the Green Machine and willing to pass confidential information to the Overseas Observer, even though they could technically be court-martialed for violating a standing order. To wit, all reporters and other media inquiries were to be referred to the local command Public Affairs Office.
Riley stomped back into the office, surveyed his desk, noticed that his blotter was slightly askew, and glanced back at us.
“Hey,” he said, “what are you doing with that?”
“Wrapping fish,” Ernie said.
Riley marched toward us, holding out his palm. “Give it here.”
“Ix-nay,” Ernie said, still reading. “I’m improving my mind.”
Riley snatched the newspaper, but Ernie held on, and a loud ripping noise tore through the office. Miss Kim stopped typing, stood up, grabbed a tissue from the box in front of her, and briskly swept out into the hallway.
“See what you’ve done,” Riley said. “You’ve upset Miss Kim. And you ripped my paper.”
“You’re the one who ripped it,” Ernie replied.
“I haven’t even read it yet,” Riley said.
“Sueño will buy you a new one.”
Riley glanced at me.
“Sure,” I said. “When does the next issue hit the stands?”
“Sunday,” Riley replied.
“All right,” I said. “The next Overseas Observer is on me.”
That seemed to calm the waters. Working with Scotch tape, Ernie and Riley pieced the Oversexed Observer back together. It was great to see the boys cooperate. The girl in the bikini probably had something to do with it.
Three days later, on a Friday, Riley answered a call from the MP desk. He listened for a while, repeating, “Yeah.” And finally, “Roger that.” He slammed down the receiver.
“Bascom! Sueño!” he yelled, though we were only a few feet away.
“What?” Ernie said.
“Hat up! Your presence is required immediately, if not sooner.”
“What are you talking about, Riley?”
“Another bank. This one ain’t good.”
“What do you mean, not good?”
“I mean somebody’s dead.”
Ernie and I looked at each other. “Somebody like who?”
“Korean civilian. That’s all I know.” He gave us the name of the bank and the district, grievously mispronouncing both. Still, I knew what he meant. The Daehan Bank in Dongsung-dong. Miss Kim stood up and helped me find it on the large office wall map of Seoul.
“Okay,” I said. “Got it.”
Ernie and I slipped on our coats and our headgear and left the office. In the parking lot on the way to the jeep, Ernie said, “Why are they sending us and not Burrows and Slabem?”
“Maybe they’re through dicking around.”
“That’ll be the day.”
Ernie started the jeep and we roared out of Gate Seven and into the overcast afternoon, heading north toward Namsan Tunnel #3, which would lead us to Dongsung-dong on the far side of downtown Seoul.
-4-
The body had already been taken away.
Still, there was no doubt that someone had been killed. Not only was there a sticky pool of dried blood behind the teller’s counter, but all the remaining staff were either crying or comforting one another. A
s we walked in, men in black suits and women in white skirts and blue waistcoats stared at us through tear-filled eyes. Some of the men mumbled inaudible curses. Women grabbed their handkerchiefs and turned away. The hatred was palpable. Someone who I suspected looked very much like us had just killed an innocent bank employee.
In the back office, a command post of sorts had been set up. A broad-shouldered man in a dark suit, with gray at his temples, hunched forward, interviewing the man I presumed was the bank manager. One of the Korean police officers stepped forward and whispered something in his ear. He sat up and turned around. We made eye contact and nodded to each other in recognition. Inspector Gil Kwon-up, better known as Mr. Kill, Chief Homicide Inspector of the Korean National Police. He whispered something back to the officer, who hurried toward us.
“Outside, please,” he said, motioning with his hand.
“We want to look around,” Ernie said.
“Okay. But quickly, please.”
The pool of blood was behind the counter at the last teller window, next to the wall. The front door was about ten yards away. From the front door to the teller window, at an angle and past stanchions, it would’ve been a difficult shot. Had the woman resisted when the thieves were collecting the money?
Alongside scattered sprays of loose coins, several cash boxes lay on the ground, having been pulled from their drawers and turned upside down. At the work station with the pool of blood, the cash drawer was still intact.
“They didn’t take her money,” Ernie said.
“You’re assuming it’s a her,” I said.
“One of the tellers,” Ernie replied. He had a point. Korean society was patriarchal to the point that most frontline customer-service personnel were women.
Mumbled conversation around us grew louder.
“Please,” our escort policeman said, once again motioning toward the exit. This time we acquiesced. As we moved away from the blood, a ray of light glanced off a large heating and cooling unit halfway to the front wall. A wicked dent, accompanied by a long scratch, had been plowed across its metal surface. I touched the wound. The edge was sharp, and dried paint flaked off beneath my finger. The damage was recent.
