Jade Lady Burning

by Martin Limon

  I thanked Lieutenant Leibowitz for his time. He straightened his jacket and strode off in a huff. Your typical infantry officer. All spit and polish. No brains.

  “She’s out here,” Ernie said. “Miss Ahn.”

  Bosun and the MPs had her behind the MA’s desk. She was tall and wore a low-cut blue-patterned dress that was guaranteed to draw every man’s eyes. Her hair puffed out in a short bouffant and surrounded a face that had been very pretty and was still holding up well.

  I spoke to her in English.

  “Why’d you bring Kimiko on the compound?”

  “She is a Korean woman. She asked me for help, so I helped her.”

  “How much did she pay you?”

  Miss Ahn reached in her handbag and pulled out a pack of American cigarettes. She tapped one free and lit it without waiting for any of us to offer.

  She said, “How much doesn’t matter. But yeah, she paid me.” She exhaled the smoke past the cheap artwork that lined the walls.

  “How long have you known her?”

  “Long time. Everybody knows Kimiko. But is she my friend? No. And did I ever take her to the Officers’ Club before? No. I was surprised she wanted to go. Usually she works in Itaewon.”

  “Why did she want to go in?”

  “I don’t know. Make money, I guess.”

  “Did she sit with you and Lieutenant Leibowitz?”

  “For a little while. Then she go.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t pay attention. Next thing I know, big fight.”

  “With who?”

  Miss Ahn’s eyes opened wide. “General Bohler. You know.”

  I thanked her for her help. No sense making enemies. These business girls can be a lot of help to an investigator, and she was looking good in that long blue dress. Near thirty, though. But my standards were getting less stringent.

  “You give me a ride off compound?” she said. Apparently, Lieutenant Leibowitz had abandoned her.

  “We don’t have a car.”

  “Shit.”

  She puffed rapidly on her cigarette. There were plenty of men inside the club and plenty of booze. Someone would help her.

  An MP stepped over. “Sueño?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “General Bohler’s aide, Major Zaronsky, wants a word.”

  “Can you point him out?” I said.

  “Sure can,” he said. “He’s the one making all the noise over there.”

  Five young officers were sitting at the table. One of them was waving his hands in the air, dominating the conversation. He was prematurely balding and cropped blond hair fringed his dome. His look was pugnacious. I couldn’t tell from this distance but I felt certain that Major Zaronsky’s eyes would prove to be blue and vacuous. I thanked the MP and walked towards their table.

  The major was in the middle of a dissertation. The other officers, all junior to him, were staring with exaggerated attentiveness, making sure they’d max their efficiency reports.

  I interrupted him in midsentence: “Are you Major Zaronsky?”

  The major stopped talking, both hands in midair. Keeping them there, he turned his upper body around slowly. “Who wants to know?” he asked, eyes wide, feigning amazement that anyone would have the temerity to interrupt.

  “You wanted to see me?” I said. “I’m Sueño.”

  “Sergeant Sueño?” Zaronsky spat it out, his hands still in the air. “You’re not in my unit,” he said, his voice rising. “What unit are you in?”

  “Sir. Maybe we could go in the game room.”

  “The game room?” Zaronsky asked in mock astonishment. “I don’t want to go in no fucking game room.” His arms came crashing down. “Now I asked you a question, Sergeant. What goddamn unit are you in?”

  “I’m with the CID,” I said, in a forced monotone. “I’m here on official business, and I’d like to keep it confidential.”

  “The CID?” Once again Major Zaronsky was astonished. “What in the world would the C-I-fucking-D want here? There ain’t nothing wrong here. There ain’t nothing wrong that everybody in the club can’t listen to!”

  Major Zaronsky was shouting. He was right about one thing: Everyone in the club was definitely listening. What the hell was his problem?

  “Well, sir,” I said, “if you insist on discussing it here, I’ll tell you—” I could see Ernie out of the corner of my eye, he was facing us, standing next to his bar stool, with no beer in sight.

  “If you had done a thorough shakedown of the guests tonight,” I said, “you might have prevented an attack on a general staff officer.” I hurried my speech, so the loudmouth major wouldn’t be able to interrupt. “And that unaccountable lapse in security has turned out to be deeply unfortunate.”

  Major Zaronsky’s face was changing. The feigned surprise was gradually becoming genuine anger.

  “But,” I said, “since you’re so sure that there is nothing wrong with your procedures, Major Zaronsky, I won’t bother you any further.”

  I stared into his empty blue eyes. For the first time he was quiet. I turned and started to walk away but the major was up and red with rage.

  “Now hold on, Ser-geant,” the major said, dragging the word out a few extra syllables. “I’m the security officer here and I’m sure as hell not going to let you come in here and cast aspersions and insults.”

  The major got up real close and stuck his nose right in my face.

  “You asked me to tell you, sir.” I struggled to keep my voice even.

  “Don’t argue with me!” His foul breath wafted up against my closed mouth. “And stand at attention when I’m talking to you.”

  I wanted to punch him and he knew it. And the more I showed it, the more he enjoyed it. I came slowly to attention.

  “Who’s your commander?” the major barked.

  I hesitated and then answered. “Captain Daily.”

  “And your immediate supervisor?”

  From the corner of my eye I saw Ernie moving slowly away from the bar. He held a glass ashtray in his hand; the sharp, jagged point protruding from between his thumb and forefinger.

  His movements were languid—zombie-like—and his head was tilted back, lifting his nose high into the air. He peered down from this vantage point and moved toward us as if his mind had retreated to some higher plane.

  I ran at him, hit his shoulders with my forearms, and got him moving back towards the exit. He allowed his body to be guided towards the door but his head swiveled back at the offending officer. Behind his glasses, his bulging eyes were fixed on Zaronsky, who had fallen uncharacteristically silent.

  By the time we arrived at the PM station it was too late.

  “What’d you do with her?”

  “Turned her over to the KNPs.” The desk sergeant was working the crossword puzzle in that day’s Pacific Stars & Stripes. It seemed to be much more interesting to him than the Kimiko incident.

  “But she just kicked a major general in the balls.”

  “He decided not to press charges. Public relations, you know. Who wants to admit that an old, worn-out business girl got the best of a warrior like General Bohler? Don’t press charges, turn her over to the Korean National Police, that’s the best route. They’ll work her over good. That’s what the man wanted. Otherwise he’d lose face.”

  “Which police station did they send her to?”

  “Itaewon.”

  Ernie and I headed towards the door.

  The desk sergeant glanced up from his puzzle. “What’s a tenletter word for ‘a destroyer of sacred images’?”

  “Ball-breaker,” I said.

  Ernie and I trudged back to the Main Supply Route and this time it took twenty minutes to flag down a taxi.

  Ernie said, “If I’d known we were going to be working on a case tonight, during our off-duty hours, I’d have checked out the jeep.”

  “No sweat, Ernie. You can afford it.”

  “It’s your turn t
o pay for the cab.”

  “Like hell. I got a family to support.”

  “The King Club bartender and Miss Oh don’t count. They’re only Class B dependents. Me, I got the Nurse.”

  Nobody could accuse the Nurse of being Class B. I paid the cab fare.

  We got off about a block before reaching the Itaewon Police Station. I wanted to sneak up on the place. In case we heard screaming.

  She clutched the bars, spread-eagled; her long black hair in mad, sweat-matted disarray. Her dress was hiked up to her waist and her facial muscles were bunched in knots across her face as she grunted and held on.

  The two policemen trying to pull Kimiko out of her cell were getting nowhere and when they sensed the presence of two large Americans they pulled harder, cursed, and first a brass button and then an epaulet popped off of their uniforms. Finally one of them let go, Kimiko’s body recoiled towards the bars, and then he was pummeling her.

  She swung back wildly but it was no contest and, while she was protecting herself from the blows, the other policeman grabbed her under her arms and jerked her through the doors and down the hallway to the interrogation room.

  Captain Kim came up behind us, red faced, waving his hand in front of my nose.

  “No. No. No. You go! You go!”

  He put his head down and pushed me and Ernie back towards the front desk.

  When we had come in, no one was paying too much attention to us so we decided to slip back into the cell block and see how Kimiko was doing. Now we knew.

  “We want to talk to her,” I said.

  “Not now. She is in our custody. First we will talk to her. Later you talk to her.”

  “When?”

  Captain Kim paused and looked around the room, catching his breath.

  “Tomorrow. Tomorrow you come back.”

  There was nothing else to do. She was in their jurisdiction and, as far as the United States was concerned, no charges had been filed by us against her.

  As we were escorted out of the police station, we heard more guttural cursing down the hallway and what sounded like a slap.

  We walked until we were out of sight of the police station and then we hopped across the street to the Hamilton Hotel. We found a narrow alley running off the Main Supply Route that gave us a clear view inside the police box, and there we stood in the shadows. I doubted that they’d spot us, primarily because they weren’t looking.

  “Well, we’re here,” Ernie said. “We got a great view of the Itaewon Police Box. My next question is, why?”

  “I want to make sure they don’t take Kimiko anywhere.”

  “Hold on a minute, pal. I’m not going to stand outside here all night just to protect the human rights of some poor innocent bar girl.”

  “We won’t have to stand here all night. Just until Captain Kim leaves. He’s the honcho. Nothing important happens unless he’s there to supervise it.”

  “Why would they want to move her?”

  “I’m not sure. She seems to be at the center of this whole thing. I just don’t want to lose tabs on her.”

  “And when Captain Kim leaves?”

  “We take the rest of the night off. And then come back here before he returns to work.”

  “Holy shit, George. You always get like this. Taking these cases too personal. If Kimiko knows anything about the murder, the KNPs will get it out of her tonight, and if not, at least they’ll give her a block of instruction on the importance of not kicking general officers in the cajones. Nothing to worry about.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “And you’re worried about losing her trail?”

  “Right.”

  Ernie sighed. “All right. I’ll get the beer.”

  In a few minutes he was back with a big frosty liter of OB. The cap had already been popped off. He took a swig and handed the bottle to me. I was hot and thirsty from all the running around and the beer tasted delicious. I gurgled about half of it down.

  We waited.

  By the time we were thinking about buying another bottle, Captain Kim walked out of the police box. He had changed into a dark blue business suit and carried a briefcase. Korea, for all its modernity and contacts with the Western world, is still a Confucian society. Scholars are esteemed while people who work with their hands, like policemen, are lower on the social ladder. So it’s not uncommon for people to change into suits on their way to and from work, hoping they will look like your average professor of nuclear physics. Even my houseboy did it.

  Ernie watched him go. “Just another day at the office.”

  “And now we’re off duty, too.”

  “Where to?”

  “Where else?”

  We walked across the Main Supply Route, up the hill, and into the glittering heart of Itaewon.

  The King Club was packed and Miss Oh was busy serving drinks. Ernie and I wedged ourselves into the crowd at the bar so as to stay as close to the source as possible. She spotted me, gave me a half smile, and then let it drop. Trouble.

  The band wailed away. They were a little better than the one the club used to have. I figured two or three more beers and then I might be able to fool myself into believing they were on key. The last combo had required a six-pack.

  I leaned towards Ernie. “Who’s it going to be tonight? Miss So or the Nurse?”

  “I sort of gave up on Miss So. The Nurse is all right. She takes care of me.”

  Like the time she took the butcher knife to you, I thought. And threw your mattress into the well.

  Miss Oh walked by, balancing a tray full of drinks. She sidled her way through the tables and served a group in front of the dance floor. When she was finished, she stopped in front of me.

  “I can’t see you tonight,” she said, and started to walk off.

  I grabbed her by the arm. “Why?”

  “Somebody’s having a big party tonight. I have to go.”

  “Who?”

  She swiveled her head and stared at me. Her narrow eyes flattened a little. “Why you ask me?”

  “Is it the new honcho in Itaewon? Mr. Kwok?”

  Her eyes widened for a moment and then her lips tightened. “Yeah. That’s him,” she said. “Mr. Kwok. So what?”

  I let go of her arm, we glowered at one another for a moment, and then she tossed her hair back as she walked away. I watched her hot pants sway as she teetered down the crowded aisle.

  Ernie took a swig of his beer, looked at me, grinned.

  “Miss Lim?”

  I thought of something coarse to say but instead just slammed my empty beer bottle down on the bar. “Yeah.” I said.

  It was against my principles but there I was in the American Club, after already spending the last two nights with her, looking for Miss Lim again. I didn’t ask but Ginger told me that she hadn’t been in yet. After serving us a couple of beers, Ginger slid off, back to the telephone. If I hadn’t known better, I might have suspected that she was doing something devious. Actually I didn’t mind, and I was fuming about Miss Oh. In my opinion she was the best-looking woman in Itaewon and she had to be on everybody’s list of the top ten. If the honchos have a big party, they will staff it with the best-looking help available and Miss Oh was sure to be in on it. This guy Kwok—she hadn’t flinched when I mentioned his name, so maybe she didn’t actually know him. Or maybe she would have agreed with whatever name I gave her just to make me jealous. If so, it was working.

  By the time Miss Lim arrived, I had calmed down and was delighted to see her. We had a few beers and then a few more and the band started to sound great. I even danced with her one time: a slow dance, to be sure.

  I have a theory about fast dancing, that it’s intended to make men look ridiculous. And the more ridiculous a woman can make a man look, the more power she has over him and the more she affirms her own attractiveness. It makes me want to barf to see all those guys out there shucking and jiving with big smiles on their faces, as if they’re really enjoying themselves. I don’t
believe it. Why don’t they admit that they’d rather be in the sack with the woman and stop pretending that they love the rhythm and the sounds of the movement? Give me a break.

  Once, at the Lower Four Club, I was somewhat less than sober and a girl Riley had picked up somewhere coaxed me into fast dancing with her. When they saw me on the dance floor, Riley and Ernie had apoplectic fits that ended up with them both rolling on the carpet, holding their stomachs. But there was nothing wrong with slow dancing with Miss Lim and it made me remember what had gone on last night and made me want to repeat it again tonight. I even came up with some new ideas.

  By the time we left, Ginger was pleased with her handiwork and Ernie and I walked out into the cold air, Miss Lim held firmly between us.

  Ernie hailed a cab and guided him down the MSR a couple of blocks, up a steep hill, and around a few alleys until we pulled to a halt in front of the Nurse’s hooch.

  She stood in the doorway, nightgown fluttering, silhouetted by the stark light behind her. We all took off our shoes, sat down on the warm vinyl floor, and the Nurse put on some music. Ernie slipped her some money, and in a few minutes she was back with beer, unhusked peanuts, and strings of dried cuttlefish. We drank and feasted and laughed and when it got too late, we turned off the music and turned off the light and Ernie slept with the Nurse in the bed and I slept with Miss Lim on the floor.

  At dawn I shook Miss Lim awake. She seemed confused, and embarrassed about being there. I helped her find her clothes and then walked her out to the street and hailed a taxi for her. If I were more of a gentleman, I would have paid the cab fare.

  Ernie was up by now and the Nurse had prepared a large pan of warm water for each of us. I squatted outside, washed my face, and borrowed one of Ernie’s razors to shave. Without a mirror. When we were presentable we sat cross-legged in the hooch while the Nurse served us steaming cups of freeze-dried coffee.