Jade Lady Burning

by Martin Limon

Kurtz sat up in his chair. “But I’m not here to complain. Not this time. I’m here to thank you for all your help. Since I put in my complaints and your investigation started, things have really changed for the better at the Korean Procurement Agency.”

  I had been starting to doze off but this woke me up. A little anyway.

  “For the first time we’re getting real competition during the bidding for contracts. Just last week an entirely new company won a major contract to build a recreation center at Camp Carroll down in Waegwan. And it wasn’t just one of those shifting-letterhead deals either. I met the man who got the contract. He was delighted to be doing work, for the first time, for the U.S. government. What convinced me that the whole thing wasn’t some sort of sham was how upset my Korean employees were at the whole thing. And that’s not the only contract that has gone to new vendors. The winds of change are sweeping through KPA and I have you gentlemen to thank for it.”

  “Just doing our job,” the first sergeant said. “You played a big role in this, too, Mr. Kurtz.”

  The first sergeant didn’t want all the blame.

  “No, no, no.” Mr. Kurtz waved off the compliment. “It’s you fellows. And especially Inspector Burrows and Inspector Slabem. Please give them my thanks.”

  “Write them a letter of appreciation, for inclusion in their personnel folders.”

  “I’ll do that, said Kurtz enthusiastically.

  That’s Top. Always looking out for his troops—when it doesn’t cost him anything.

  Kurtz got up, we shook hands all the way around, and he left.

  Ernie and I stood, grinning.

  “What was all that?” I said.

  “I haven’t a clue. Go on,” Top said. “Get out of here. Get back to work.”

  We clomped down the hallway. Ernie was chuckling but all I could think about was that there must be something terribly wrong at the Korean Procurement Agency. All that money wouldn’t have slipped away without a fight.

  But that worry belonged to Burrows and Slabem. I put it out of my mind and tried to figure how I could find the elusive Kimiko, as we drove off toward the ville.

  Itaewon during the daytime is sleepy and wonderful. We found a back alley parking spot for the jeep, Ernie chained the steering wheel, and we wandered up the street, past the shuttered shops, the noodle stands, and the black gaping maws of the few clubs that had their doors open this early.

  An old woman accosted us. “You want nice girl?”

  “No thanks, mama-san. I only want bad girls. Nice girls always make me feel guilty afterwards.”

  We pushed past her and headed up the hill towards the hooch where Pak Ok-suk had been murdered. The burnt-out room was surrounded by white police tape.

  The landlady squatted in front of a large pan filled with laundry, occasionally reaching up to the rusty old pump handle to draw more water.

  “Anyonghaseiyo,” I said.

  She looked at us, took off her rubber gloves, and stood up.

  “We’re looking for Kimiko.”

  The woman twisted her head towards Kimiko’s room. “She hasn’t come back.”

  I walked towards the room. The woman followed. Ernie stayed back, next to the gate.

  I slid back the paper-covered latticework door. There was a small plastic armoire in one corner, some rolled-up bed mats, and a six-inch-high makeup table with a small mirror and about twenty pounds of multicolored goop in various bottles. I took off my shoes, entered, and rummaged around. There were a few dresses hanging next to a couple of empty hangers. No wallet. No money. A few spaces on the makeup table were vacant, as if some small jars of this or that had been plucked up. I turned to the landlady.

  “She hasn’t been back?”

  “No.”

  “Not since Captain Kim talked to her?”

  “No.”

  I put my shoes back on and thanked her. Ernie and I bent over as we ducked through the small door in the gate.

  Kimiko had disappeared after being interrogated by the chief of the Itaewon Police Box concerning the murder of Pak Ok-suk. She had added nothing to Captain Kim’s investigation and she had not been identified as a suspect. And she still wasn’t, as far as I knew. Why had she taken off? Maybe because she had information that she didn’t want to divulge. Also, why had Captain Kim allowed her to go? Maybe because he, too, didn’t want any information she had to be divulged.

  Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe she knew nothing and had merely gotten spooked and left the ville to ply her trade elsewhere. Maybe.

  We walked up the hill towards the Roundup. If anybody knew where to find Kimiko it would be Milt Gorman.

  Gorman had been living in Korea since returning from a tour in Vietnam. He and his Korean Army buddy had set up a couple of small joints on the outskirts of Itaewon, expanded their operation, sold them, and used the money to renovate an old building and open the biggest country and western club in Korea, right in the heart of Itaewon. On the side, Gorman did a little import and export, but most of his money came from selling the beer and the hoopla and the little taste of home to the lonely country boys from the States. Most of the CID agents assumed that he was crooked. I knew he wasn’t. He was one of the most honest men I’d ever met.

  The Roundup was dark and it took our eyes a while to adjust. We heard the slap of playing cards before we could see them.

  The little girl behind the bar stopped her cleaning long enough to serve us a couple of beers. We wandered over to the table. It was Milt Gorman and three other old reprobates, Army retirees with nothing better to do on a Wednesday afternoon than play pinochle for a penny a point, ten cents a set. All four men were riffling through their cards and crinkling their eyes. Pinochle gets expensive at those prices.

  “George! Ernie!” Gorman looked back to his cards. “What brings you enforcers of the law out to Itaewon at this hour of the day? And drinking on duty yet.”

  We sat down at a couple of bar stools near the card table. Beer, sandwiches, and ashtrays competed for space with the stacked playing cards and the score sheet next to Gorman’s elbow.

  I said, “We came to talk to you, Milt.”

  “Shoot! What can I help you with?”

  A young woman shuffled out of the latrine. She emptied the ashtrays, checked the beer bottles, and asked everyone if they wanted another. She got a couple of grunts in reply and, carrying the refuse, scurried off to the bar. She had a nice tight little figure and wore the brief blue uniform of the waitresses at the Roundup. Must be nice to afford such attractive help for your personal card games.

  I waited until the woman disappeared behind the bar.

  “I’m looking for Kimiko.”

  Milt snorted. The other old guys looked up from their cards, mildly interested.

  “You want what?” Milt said.

  “Kimiko.”

  He took a sip of his beer. “You and Ernie can do better than that. Unless you’re getting into perversions that are just not becoming to men as young as you two. For these old farts”—Milt waved his arm around the table—”I could understand. But not you guys.”

  “We’re not looking to get laid, Milt. We’re looking for information— concerning the murder.”

  All four lowered their cards and the table got quiet.

  Milt spoke: “And you think Kimiko might have it?”

  “She knew her. Worked with her, you might say. And she lived right next door to the hooch where the murder took place.”

  “Haven’t the KNPs already checked her out?”

  “Yes, they have.” I was going to be patient but I wasn’t going to go away. Ernie sipped his beer and kept his eye on the door and the young waitress who was refilling the beer order.

  Milt sighed, put his cards down, and got up from the table amidst a round of grumbling. “Come on over here, George. We got to talk.”

  I followed Milt through the rows of tables and across the small dance floor. At the far wall, he ducked through a small door that led into the deejay’s room a
nd I popped through after him. The sky was suddenly purple, and the universe was full of small blinking lights. Milt fondled the headphones and looked away from me. Otherwise we’d have been belly to belly. How could that deejay stand working in here eight hours a night, spinning that cowboy crap?

  “George, the last few weeks have been some of the craziest I’ve seen since I’ve been in Itaewon. Somebody’s trying to muscle in. I don’t know who, but all the Korean bar owners are nervous.”

  I paused to think about it. “What about the guys the bar owners pay for protection?” I said.

  “They’ve been pretty calm so far. But they’ve got to be on edge, too. They don’t want to be replaced, any more than the bar owners do.”

  “Who’s trying to replace them?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Some sort of consortium, with connections of its own. I’ve never met any of them, thank God, but the one name I’ve heard bandied about is Kwok.”

  “Kwok?”

  “Yeah. Mr. Kwok.”

  “He’s leading the move on Itaewon?”

  “As far as I can tell.”

  “How about you, Milt? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. No sweat. I’m small potatoes. And an American to boot. Besides, my partner’s family has its own pull around here. We’ll be all right.”

  “What’s all this have to do with the murder?” I said.

  “I’m not sure. All I know is the gossip I hear from the Koreans. The word is that the police aren’t going after the case as hard as they usually do. They’re not too anxious to find out who really killed that little girl.”

  “Why?”

  Milt shrugged. “Somebody is lacking enthusiasm.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe somebody involved in what’s going down around here.”

  I shook my head. “How did this little girl, just in from the country, get caught up in all this shit?”

  “Hell if I know, George. The citizens out here don’t really want to talk about it. And they’re not too excited about hanging a GI for it. I know the Korean papers and TV are playing that up big, and the general populace is all pissed off about it, but here in Itaewon people know better.”

  “We’ve arrested a GI for the murder.”

  “I heard,” he said.

  “That didn’t take long.”

  “Out here, nothing takes long.”

  I handed Milt my card, paid for by the U.S. government. I wouldn’t shell out any of my paltry paycheck for that sort of stuff.

  “If you need help, Milt, call me.”

  “From what I hear about you and Ernie, you’re not in the office much.”

  “Leave a message.”

  On the way back to the compound I briefed Ernie on what Milt had told me. We were both quiet. First a young girl had been hideously murdered, maybe by a GI, and the Korean police hadn’t gone after it in full force. Then the decades-old networks that had been formed to maximize profits from U.S. Army contracts had begun to break up and be replaced with new ones. Now somebody with muscle was putting a move on Itaewon, going after the millions of dollars that flowed through the village every year from booze, women, and black marketeering.

  And then there was Miss Pak, an innocent who hadn’t understood such things. Of course, Ernie and I didn’t understand them either.

  We zigzagged through the traffic and finally popped through the gate and into the relative calm of the Eighth Army Compound. It was an oasis, like a piece of Kansas in the middle of a bustling metropolis.

  “You know what I wish, pal?” Ernie said.

  “No. What’s that?”

  “I wish things weren’t getting so interesting.”

  7

  The first sergeant had already finished his report on the interrogation of Johnny Watkins and the frightened young man had been transported, under heavy MP escort, down to the Eighth Army Stockade at the Army Support Command in Bupyong. There he would await the paperwork that had to be done before the U.S. authorities could turn him over to the Koreans.

  The U.S. government would pay for a Korean lawyer for him but the trial would be decided primarily on the basis of public opinion. If somebody had to pay the price for the murder of Pak Ok-suk, and the public thought it should be a GI, then whoever happened to be in custody would be it. It was like the government minister who had to step down when a typhoon destroyed a couple of cities. Everybody knew he didn’t have any control over the weather but he had the responsibility. And somebody had to be sacrificed to restore the harmony.

  If the judge determined that Johnny was probably innocent they’d go easy on him. The last GI Ernie and I had tried to keep out of a Korean jail only got four years. Not bad for murder. He would have gotten a lot more if he’d actually been guilty.

  All this somehow made sense to me. Maybe it’s my Mexican genes.

  I didn’t see how we could make much progress in this case and keep Johnny Watkins out of jail unless we found Kimiko. The best way to do that was to run the ville, which was no problem because it was always on my program anyway.

  After the retreat bugle sounded, Ernie and I turned in the jeep, changed out of our coats and ties, and showered, shaved, and popped a couple of wet ones. We were parading through the alleys of Itaewon, OB bottles in hand, when we heard the squawk of a radio in a parked MP jeep. The two uniformed MPs had their feet kicked up and they were laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “The Officers’ Club. They’re asking for MP support. Some old gal named Kiko something is raising hell. Apparently she kicked the chief of staff in the balls.”

  Ernie and I looked at each other, jumped in a cab, and headed for the compound. We were both thinking the same thing: Kimiko. Who else would be nuts enough?

  We paid the driver and, flashing our identification, ran through the gate heading towards South Post. We trotted along the placid avenue until we saw red lights flashing atop MP sedans in front of the canopied entranceway to the Eighth Army Officers’ Club. Doors slammed and more sedans raced past as we ran towards the commotion.

  The members, mostly officers in tailored dress blue uniforms and a few ladies in evening gowns, wandered back into the club. The master-at-arms was a burly black NCO by the name of Bosun. He wore a baggy Hong Kong suit and looked like he’d just lost the main event in a wrestling match with the Magnificent Destroyer.

  I didn’t need to show him my badge. He’d seen me around.

  “Who was it?”

  “Some old bitch.” He patted the scratches on his forehead with a handkerchief. “Crazy.”

  “Kimiko?”

  He looked at me suspiciously. “Yeah. I think.”

  “What’d she do?”

  “Tried to corner General Bohler. When he told her to get lost, she went berserk.”

  “Kicked him in the balls?”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “The news is already in Itaewon.”

  The big guy just shook his head and walked back towards the door.

  “Who escorted her in?” I said, following.

  “I don’t know. Let’s look in the log.”

  At the raised desk just inside the glass doorway, Bosun opened the big ledger marked Guest Register. He didn’t have to look too far. Most of the people who entered the O Club were authorized. At the NCO Club, dozens of business girls were brought in every night and the guest registers had to be ordered by the bushel full, but here not too many officers brought their Korean girlfriends. Bad for the career.

  “She was brought in by a Lieutenant Leibowitz. He brought in two girls. A Miss Ahn and this old broad, Kimiko.” The master-at-arms looked up at us.

  I said, “See if you can round up this lieutenant and his girlfriend. Do you have a place where we can talk to them?”

  “Yeah. Back here in the MA’s office.” Bosun was happy to cooperate because he was pissed and wanted to see Kimiko get burned. We waited. When the lieutenant came in, all decked out in dress blues, I
showed him my badge.

  He put his hands up in front of his chest. “Hold on, now. I just brought a couple of girls to the O Club.”

  “To a commander’s call?”

  “Yeah. It’s sort of formal but Miss Ahn is such a nice person, and so well dressed. I never figured anything like this would happen.”

  Ernie stuck his nose through a crack in the door and peered out. Apparently Miss Ahn was worth looking at.

  “Where’d you meet her?”

  “I’ve known her for a long time. She’s never been any trouble. And she’s—”

  “Where’d you find her, Lieutenant?”

  “Outside the gate.”

  “On the street?”

  “Well … not like you mean. She was just standing outside the gate and she needed somebody to escort her on post to the O Club.”

  “So you signed her in at the gate and then into the club?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long ago did you first meet her?”

  “A couple of months ago. And she’s never been any trouble.”

  “She stays with you sometimes on the compound?”

  “Sure. But that’s never—”

  “How did Kimiko get into the act?”

  “I’d never seen her before tonight, she’s just a friend of Miss Ahn’s, and when I went outside the gate to pick her up, this woman Kimiko was there, and Miss Ahn asked if I could escort her, too. I figured one more wouldn’t hurt, so—”

  “Did Kimiko say why she wanted to come to the O Club?”

  “No. She didn’t say much of anything.”

  “Why do you think she wanted to come to the O Club?”

  “Just to have a fun evening, I guess.”

  “She had that. And didn’t you think she wanted to meet someone here and maybe make a few dollars?”

  Leibowitz straightened his shoulders. “That is no affair of mine.”

  “You’ve paid Miss Ahn before, haven’t you?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  I knew the answer. A few of the classier girls stood outside the gate that led to the Officers’ Club and made arrangements with someone, usually young officers, to escort them on post. Sometimes they had someone who would meet them out there and sometimes they just took their chances, smiling and asking a likely-looking young man to help a lady in distress. There weren’t too many women because the pickings were slimmer at the Officers’ Club, but when they made their rare strike the payoff was better. And most of the women who went that route were good-looking and highly presentable in the more sedate confines of the Officers’ Club. Not like the droves of old hags and young floozies who crowded the front gate, waiting for someone to take them into the Lower Four Club. Of them all, I preferred the old hags. They weren’t trying to be something they weren’t.