Jade Lady Burning

by Martin Limon

  We drove through the gate and out into the city.

  All vehicles were off the street now because it was past curfew, the midnight-to-four lockup the government slapped on a battered populace over twenty years ago at the end of the Korean War. The theory is that it helps the authorities spot North Korean spies who might be prowling through the cover of night. The truth is that it reminds everybody who’s boss. The government and the army. Not necessarily in that order.

  We rolled through the shadows.

  Seoul was dark and eerily quiet and looked like a town that had been frozen to death.

  The jeep had four-wheel drive and snow tires, but still Ernie slid on the packed ice every now and then. He turned out of the skids expertly and I felt perfectly safe with him at the wheel. Safer than I would’ve felt if I were driving. He’s from Detroit. He’s used to this kind of thing. But I hadn’t learned how to drive until after I joined the army and, in East L.A., where I come from, it doesn’t snow very often. Only during Ice Ages.

  I thought of the long summer days when I was a kid, running with packs of half-wild Mexican children through alleys littered with gutted mattresses and stray dogs and broken wine bottles. There were no swimming pools in the barrio. We poured buckets of chlorine-laced water over our heads in a futile effort to keep cool. And during the hottest days of the season, when I was fortunate enough to land a job, I breathed in the tang of warm oranges and overripe limes fermenting in a metal pail as I knocked on door after door in Anglo neighborhoods, hustling for a sale.

  Every kilometer or so we were stopped by a ROK Army roadblock. The soldiers looked grim and tired. Their breath billowed from fur-lined hoods and they kept their M16 rifles pointed at the sky, which was okay with me. After we showed our identification and the twenty-four-hour emergency dispatch, they waved us through without comment.

  Neither Ernie nor I talked. We were both thinking the same thing. We were in deep kimchi, the fiery-hot fermented cabbage and turnips that Koreans love. Kimchi up to our nostrils.

  We’d taken money to deliver a note to Cecil Whitcomb, and now he was dead. Military justice doesn’t know much about mercy. If anybody found out, we’d be kicked out of the army with a bad discharge or end up doing time in the Federal Penitentiary in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, or both.

  This wasn’t going to be a routine case.

  I was also beginning to feel a little guilty about maybe getting Whitcomb killed. Maybe a lot guilty. But I decided to put that away for now. I needed to think. And concentrate on the job I had to do when we arrived at the murder site.

  Despite all the boozing we’d done in Itaewon, Ernie and I were both sober. But it wasn’t from the cold air. It was from the tarantula legs of fear slowly creeping up our spines.

  The upturned shingle roof of the Great South Gate was supported by stones weighing more than half a ton each. The gate had been built during the Yi Dynasty about four centuries ago, and was once part of a wall that surrounded the city. Now, in the deepness of the Seoul night, it sat somber and unmoving, as if it were watching us.

  We circled the great edifice twice, creating lonely tracks in the snow, until I spotted a glimmer of light in one of the roadways running up a hill.

  “Up there,” I said. “Vehicle moving.”

  “Right.”

  Ernie swerved up the incline and rushed through a narrow road until the walls widened. We turned and almost ran into a gaggle of official-looking vehicles clustered around the mouth of another, even more narrow alley. Ernie found a spot up the road, parked the jeep, and padlocked the steering wheel.

  As we walked back toward the lights, a grim-faced soldier stepped out of the night. He leveled an M16 rifle at us, blowing chilled breath through brown lips.

  “Chong ji!” he said. Halt. “Nugusho?” Who is it?

  I put my hands up slowly. “We’re from Criminal Investigation,” I said, “Eighth Army. Here about the body.”

  When he didn’t respond I said the same thing—or almost the same thing—in Korean. The creased brow above the chiseled planes of his face crinkled a little tighter.

  Ernie grew impatient. He pulled out his identification and thrust it forward. The soldier flashed a penlight on it, then studied our faces.

  He waved his black gloved hand.

  “Chulip kumji yogi ei.” No admittance here.

  Ernie took a step toward the guard, staring at him, talking to me.

  “Who does this asshole think he is, telling us we can’t go in there? We’re on an investigation.”

  I reached my hand out toward Ernie’s elbow. The guard’s face hardened.

  “Relax, Ernie.” I couldn’t blame the guard much. We didn’t look like investigators right now, dressed in our blue jeans and nylon jackets with dragons embroidered on the back. It was oh-dark-thirty, just a few hours until dawn. We were tired and it occurred to me that we must smell like a rice wine distillery.

  “We don’t have jurisdiction out here,” I told Ernie. “He’s just doing his job.”

  “Fuck his job.”

  Ernie turned and walked down the alley.

  “Chong ji!” the guard yelled. When he aimed his rifle at Ernie’s back, I stepped in next to him and spoke in soothing Korean.

  “We’re here for the investigation,” I said. “A foreigner has been killed.” I raised my open wallet in front of his eyes. “We’re from Eighth Army. If you try to stop us, you will have many problems.”

  The guard looked at me warily. I saw the indecision in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You won’t get in trouble.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I knew he’d be in a lot more trouble if he shot Ernie—or me.

  I backed down the alley, hands raised, identification held over my head. When I was convinced that the guard wasn’t going to shoot, I turned and hurried into the darkness.

  Korea is a divided country—north and south—and a country under the gun. Over 700,000 armed Communist North Korean soldiers breathe fire across the Demilitarized Zone only thirty miles north of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. It’s not surprising that paranoia seeps into everything.

  The alley near Namdaemun was like most alleys I’ve wandered through in Korea. Narrow. High walls of brick or stone or cement on either side. Spikes and shards of broken glass atop the walls to keep out intruders. Flat, uneven stone paving. Water seeping out of open pipes, running freely down the indented center of the walkway, reeking of decay.

  Around the bend Ernie waited for me.

  “Did you get him straightened out?”

  “Yeah, Ernie. Jesus. Why didn’t you wait until he checked it out with his Sergeant of the Guard? They would’ve let us through.”

  “Fuck that shit. They see a Miguk face and they just don’t want to let us in.”

  “They would’ve had to. Patience pays in Korea.”

  Ernie snorted.

  “You’re going to get us shot one of these days,” I told him.

  He grinned at that. I don’t know why the idea seemed appealing to him.

  At first glance Ernie appears quite normal. He has short sandy brown hair, combed straight to the side, and a pointed nose and big green eyes that shoot out at people from behind round-lensed glasses. In uniform he looks as if he belongs on a recruiting poster. It’s after you get to know him that you realize he’s cracked.

  A white sign pointed up a flight of stone steps. “Peikchae Yoguan” the sign said. The Peikchae Inn.

  Peikchae was the southernmost country on the Korean Peninsula during the Three Kingdoms Period, about 1,300 years ago. Koreans don’t forget much.

  We walked up the steps. The stone walls followed the stairway and then turned. I felt as if we were in some ancient place. The alley was stuffed with the smell of rusty water and cold stones and frozen hay.

  During the Korean War, much of Seoul had been leveled. But many of these old walkways and flights of stairs had survived. Not worth wasting a shell on. New buildings had
been constructed on the old foundations. The Peikchae Yoguan was one of those, although the inn was made of cheap wood that was already splintering and starting to rot.

  An open spot in the flights of stone stairways spread out enough to make room for a stone bench. Flashlights swirled. Men mumbled. Some squatted and took photographs of footprints or collected minuscule items from the snow with tweezers and dropped them into plastic bags.

  The Korean National Police. The all-pervasive law enforcement arm of the government of the Republic of Korea. A federal police force with representatives in every city, town, and village in the country. None of them looked back when we walked up.

  The spot was isolated. The high walls around us were the backs of two- and three-story buildings. Tiny windows gazed out on us like half-shut eyes. The entrance to the Peikchae Yoguan was around another flight of crooked stairs with no direct line of sight from the front door. Whoever had chosen this place had chosen it well.

  No lighting. At the bottom of a pit of stone and brick in the middle of an indifferent city. The perfect spot for a killing.

  We scanned the soot-flaked ice looking for a stiff.

  Ernie stepped closer to take a look at a drift of snow up against a short stone wall. He walked back.

  “Tried to deep-freeze the son of a bitch.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Hid him under the snow.”

  I sidled my way in closer, watching where I stepped.

  In the center of the clustered policemen lay a body, already turning blue. When a beam of light slid over the corpse I saw what resembled the guy we had talked to this morning: Cecil Whitcomb. But it was a lifeless thing. As drained of color as death itself. Eyes wide. Blood spattered like spreading satin on the frozen sheet beneath him.

  Whoever killed Cecil had dug out a hole for him in the drift and tried to cover him up. It hadn’t worked well because the body made a lump in the smooth blanket of white lace that covered the city. But to the unobservant it would pass unnoticed. And probably all the killer wanted was a few minutes to make his getaway. This frail camouflage had given him that time.

  Somebody finally decided to notice us. A tall Korean man. Almost six feet. A long gray overcoat, slicked-back hair, and a hawk nose under almond eyes. I wondered if he didn’t have an ancestor who had ridden as one of the Middle Eastern auxiliaries with the hordes of Genghis Khan. He approached slowly. I nodded and we greeted one another. His English was precise. Careful. As were his movements.

  “Are you Inspector Bascom?”

  Mexican or Anglo, we were all just Americans in the eyes of a Korean policeman. When I was growing up in Southern California that attitude would’ve come in handy if more people had shared it. Saved me a few lumps.

  “No,” I said. “I’m George Sueño. This is my partner, Ernie Bascom.”

  Ernie ignored the tall cop and continued to gaze at the body and chomp on a fresh stick of gum.

  “I’m Lieutenant Pak. Namdaemun Police Precinct.”

  He stuck his hands farther into his pockets and turned his head toward the corpse. “I understand that this person is not an American.”

  “No. British. Cecil Whitcomb.”

  “You knew him?”

  “I’ve seen him.” Lieutenant Pak waited, as if expecting a fuller explanation. I gave it to him. “He was in the United Nations Honor Guard. Since they’re such a small contingent they’ve turned over police power to us at Eighth Army. They fall under our jurisdiction.”

  Pak shook his head. “Murders in Seoul fall under my jurisdiction.”

  He was right. According to the treaty between the U.S. and Korea, any crimes involving United Nations personnel that happen off a military compound can be handled by the Korean National Police if they choose to exercise jurisdiction.

  Our role would be as observers, unless Pak asked for our help. I expected he would.

  Two men in blue jumpsuits trotted past us, carrying a folded canvas stretcher. They knelt near the body and hoisted it out of its capsule of ice.

  Whitcomb’s necktie and white collar had been twisted askew. Dressed for an appointment downtown. No American GI would wear a white shirt and tie unless he had to. Who could understand these Brits?

  I motioned for the men to wait and knelt near the stretcher. I grabbed one of their flashlights and played it over the body. The sleeves of Whitcomb’s jacket had been shredded, as if someone had slashed them repeatedly with a sharp, razorlike blade. His hands and wrists had also been cut, along with portions of his ear and cheek. None of the cuts were deep, except for the big one in the center of his chest.

  I pulled open a fold in the white shirt. He wore green woolen underwear. The caked blood made me think of the colors of Christmas. Apparently the knife had entered just below the sternum. One deft gash into the heart.

  I lifted his lifeless hand and checked under the fingernails. Nothing. Maybe a lab could find a trace of flesh, but I couldn’t see any. I dropped the limp hand and turned back to Lieutenant Pak.

  “What have the neighbors said?”

  “So far, nothing. My men are out now.” He waved at the high canyon walls surrounding us. “Asking questions.”

  In the flickering beam of the flashlight, I studied the footprints in the crusted snow, “There was a fight. Someone must’ve heard something.”

  “Maybe.” Pak looked at me steadily. “But sometimes men fight and don’t make noise.”

  He was right about that. Sometimes you’re too preoccupied with saving your life. Screaming can wait.

  Ernie checked the body as the men with the stretcher lifted it up. He sniffed the air above it, as if examining a side of beef, and chomped more furiously on his wad of gum. He didn’t say anything.

  I glanced up the stairway leading to the yoguan. A light blazed yellow and the front door of the inn was open. At least someone in the neighborhood had taken note of all the commotion. I started up the steps. Ernie followed. So did Lieutenant Pak.

  The big wooden double doors of the rickety wooden building were unbarred, and an elderly man and woman peeped out around the entrance. They stood at the end of a long wood-slat hallway that had been varnished and revarnished maybe a million times. The floor squeaked beneath our feet.

  The woman wore a long cotton housedress and folded her arms over a thick sweater. A black bandana tied around her forehead hid almost all of her liver spots. The man was thinner, with wispy white hair. He wore the loose pantaloons and shiny silk vest of the ancient Korean patriarchs.

  Even though Ernie and I walked in first, they ignored us and bowed to Lieutenant Pak.

  “Oso-oseiyo.” Come in, please.

  Lieutenant Pak nodded back. Before he could speak I shot a question at the couple in Korean.

  “Yogiei junim ieyo?” Are you the owners here?

  Both nodded. Lieutenant Pak leaned back, mildly surprised that I could speak the language. Not many GIs bother to learn.

  “Did you see any foreigners tonight?” I asked.

  They both shook their heads. The husband smiled, as if he had suddenly encountered a talking horse, but the wife found her voice.

  “No. No foreigners.”

  I twisted my head toward the murder site. “Did you hear anything—shouting, fighting—earlier this evening?”

  The woman shook her head again. “Once curfew comes, we lock up and go to bed. We never stay open past curfew.”

  Not unless they have customers, I thought. The old woman was parroting the lines because of the presence of a Korean National Police officer. Not that Lieutenant Pak would give a damn if the inn stayed open past midnight, but Koreans are a cautious people. Especially when dealing with government officials.

  “Did you see a young woman in here tonight? A very attractive young woman. A university student?”

  Lieutenant Pak looked at me. Ernie fidgeted. Suddenly, I realized that I’d made a mistake by bringing it up.

  “College student?” The old woman shook her head. “No.”


  “Maybe not a college student, but a young woman. Waiting for someone.”

  She shook her head again. “There have been no young women here tonight.”

  Right, I thought. There were probably three or four bar girls upstairs right now. With paying customers.

  I asked a couple more questions but the old couple stuck to their story, which boiled down to they hadn’t seen anything and they hadn’t heard anything. With those big bolted doors it was possible. Maybe.

  On our way down the steps, Lieutenant Pak walked next to me. Snow started to fall again, in moist clumps.

  “Who is the young woman you asked about?”

  I shrugged. “All soldiers—British, American, or Korean— always look for young women.”

  “Yes. But you …” He stopped and searched for the word. “You expect something.”

  “I expect GIs to look for women,” I said. “That’s all.”

  The blue-smocked technicians at the crime scene were wrapping up their work. The Korean police—and the U.S. Army overseas—don’t rely much on high-tech methods of crime detection. They rely on shoe leather. And on interrogation techniques, the most reliable of which is a fist to the gut.

  I turned to Lieutenant Pak and waved my arm toward the jumbled buildings and shacks that ran up the hill away from the murder site.

  “Will you let me know if you learn anything from your interviews in the neighborhood?”

  “Yes.” He handed me his card. One side was printed in English, the other in Korean. It gave his phone number and his address at the Namdaemun Police Station. I didn’t have a card, but he knew where he could find me. “Will you be talking to his unit today?”

  “First thing,” I said.

  “And will you tell me what you find out?”

  “Yes. I will.”

  He nodded. Not quite a bow but good enough for cop to cop. I nodded back.

  As Ernie and I stepped down the treacherous stairway, Lieutenant Pak stood at the top, hands thrust deeply into his overcoat, watching us.

  So far, this case fell fully under Korean jurisdiction. But Lieutenant Pak knew he’d need my help to ferret out information on the military compounds. And I’d need his if the assailant turned out to be a Korean. So far, we were cooperating.