The Door to Bitterness

by Martin Limon

  I felt alone in this multitude. Where had she gone? Where was the smiling woman?

  A horn sounded from behind. Ernie leaned out the driver’s side of his jeep.

  “What are you, Sueño, lost?”

  I turned away from him and stared into the endless passageways, inhaling deeply the garlic and green onion and rice powder wafting in the air.

  Ernie was right. I was lost. As lost as a little half-American girl who’d grown up in this indifferent city. A girl who didn’t belong here. A girl who probably hadn’t even been able to afford to go to school, who hadn’t worn the same dark skirts and tunics and white blouses as the other school-age girls, who hadn’t been welcomed at the playground or the sports field or patted on the head fondly by a bald Buddhist monk. A girl who’d grown up in this teeming city apart. Alone. A girl who’d grown up, despite all her travails, to become a beautiful woman. Beautiful, mad, and dangerous.

  Ernie honked again. He parked the jeep, jumped out, and ran after me. Seconds later, he grabbed me by the elbow.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you, Sueño? Couldn’t you hear me?”

  “I could hear you,” I said.

  “Then come on! Eighth Army’s had MPs out looking for us all morning.”

  A finger of cold fear poked into my stomach. “What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t know yet. They won’t tell me. But we have to get our butts back to the CID office right away.”

  “Why?”

  “The CG,” Ernie said. He meant the Commanding General of the 8th United States Army.

  “What about him?”

  “He wants to talk to us.”

  “Us?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Ernie tugged me toward the jeep. This time I followed.

  Tango.

  That is the military code name and what everybody calls the place. Also known as 8th Army Headquarters (Rear). It’s a huge cavern carved out of the side of Mount Baekun, fifteen miles south of Seoul. If and when war broke out with North Korea, this would be the place our heroic military commanders and their bureaucratic staffs would retreat to. It’s a small city unto itself, with offices, communications facilities, sleeping quarters, a chow hall, and even a PX to make sure that no one runs out of chewing gum or cigarettes. They say that Tango’s inner concrete walls are thick enough to withstand a direct nuclear blast of thirty megatons. Now, in the late afternoon haze, twenty-foot-high sliding steel doors stood open, like the welcoming jaws of a hungry dragon.

  A squad of MPs approached our Army-issue sedan.

  “What’s this all about, Top?” Ernie asked.

  Ernie and I were sitting in the back seat. Up front, behind the wheel, was the Provost Marshal’s white-gloved driver, Mr. Huang. Next to him sat our immediate supervisor, the First Sergeant of the 8th Army CID Detachment.

  As soon as Ernie and I had returned from Inchon and reported to the CID headquarters in Seoul, all hell broke loose.

  “Where you been?” was the main question, interlaced with various four-letter Anglo-Saxon expletives. We heard it from Staff Sergeant Riley, from the CID First Sergeant, and a few minutes later, from Colonel Brace himself, the Provost Marshal of the 8th United States Army.

  Neither Ernie nor I answered. They knew where we’d been. Investigating a crime. What they really meant to ask was “What took you so long?” and “Why weren’t you here when I needed information from you in order to avoid bureaucratic embarrassment?”

  They knew all about the robbery of the Olympos Casino. It was big news this morning at the 8th Army Command briefing. Mainly because an Army issue .45—probably mine— had been used to shoot a female Korean bystander. A GI had probably pulled the trigger. This was also the crux of the story splashed all over the Korean newspapers, television, and radio that day.

  The Pacific Stars & Stripes, official newspaper of the U.S. Department of Defense, had yet to find the story interesting enough to run. They were, however, featuring a full-page spread on the new outhouse built by a combat engineer unit at an orphanage in Mapo.

  Ernie and I had just started to type up our report when the First Sergeant emerged from his office, wearing a freshly pressed dress uniform. We were ordered out to the Provost Marshal’s sedan, told to climb in the back seat, and then Mr. Huang drove us south across the Han River. Once we left Seoul, we continued south down the Seoul-Pusan Expressway. Ernie and I were both too stubborn to ask questions. If the First Sergeant wanted to push us around and not tell us what was going on, so be it. We were soldiers. We followed orders. To the letter if we had to. The First Sergeant sat in front with his shoulders back, staring straight ahead. For the entire thirty-minute drive we were quiet, all of us, admiring the brown rice paddies that stretched toward gently rolling hills.

  Finally, when we pulled up in front of Tango, this huge bomb shelter that is 8th Army Headquarters (Rear), Ernie couldn’t stand the silent treatment any more. He spoke up and asked what this was all about.

  The First Sergeant cleared his throat. “Go with the MPs,” he said. “Somebody wants to talk to you.”

  “Who? The CG?”

  “Just answer the questions straight, Bascom. Don’t offer any information that isn’t requested. If you don’t know the answer to something, say you don’t know. Don’t try to bullshit the man. And, most importantly, no mouthing off.”

  An MP swung open the rear door. When Ernie hesitated, the MP leaned in and grabbed him by the arm.

  “Keep your hands off!” he shouted. “I’m coming.”

  With that, Ernie climbed out. So did I. The MPs fell in on either side of us, and without a verbal command, we all marched toward the huge looming doors of Tango, 8th Army Headquarters (Rear).

  Mr. Huang shoved the sedan in gear, performed a wide, slow U-turn, and he and the First Sergeant drove off toward the expressway leading back to Seoul.

  Neither one of them waved.

  Our little detail walked down one of Tango’s endless carpeted hallways. There was dim fluorescent lighting, portable walls, and a feeling of cold immensity above. And no doubt that we were in the hollowed-out center of a mountain. The MPs stopped at the end of the hallway, and one of them knocked on a double door made of paneled wood. In the center hung the red-and-white four-leaf-clover patch of the 8th United States Army.

  Ernie and I and the small squad of MPs stood for what seemed a long time. Finally, from within, a hollow voice shouted, “Enter!” The MP saluted and he and his fellow MPs stepped back, forming a single file in the center of the hallway. As one, they performed an about face and marched back down the corridor.

  Ernie and I glanced at one another. “I’ve had plenty of ass-chewings before,” Ernie whispered, “but no one’s ever

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  gone to this much trouble.” Then he stepped past me and pushed through the door into the room.

  I followed, frightened at first by the darkness.

  When my mother lay dying, when I was a child barely able to talk, her room had been dark like this. Women stood by, lace mantillas covering their heads, and a priest hovered near her bed. They brought me forward. My mother’s face, which had once been smiling and vibrant, appeared wan in the flickering candlelight. She grabbed my hand. Her fingers were cold. So cold I pulled away. But she beckoned and I stepped forward and grabbed her hand in both of mine. Her fingers, and then her palm, became warm again and she smiled at me, a smile as radiant as the wings of a flight of angels.

  Suddenly I was back in Tango, shoving such thoughts out of my mind, forcing my concentration back to my immediate surroundings. I’m an adult now. A soldier. A CID investigator. Time to do my job. And accept my ass-chewing if that is what I was here for.

  There was a box with a handle on a desk. It was metal, larger than a construction worker’s lunch box, and sticking out of the top was a six-inch-wide bulb. It lit up the desktop but nothing else. The rest of the room was dark. Still, there was enough light to see the man who sat behind the desk. He was t
hin to the point of emaciation, his receding gray hairline cut so close to the scalp you couldn’t be sure where his forehead ended and the top of his skull began. He wore highly starched fatigues with a razor sharp crease running from the top of the shoulder down to the wrist. On his pressed collar were four black stars. His name tag said ARM-BREWSTER.

  Ernie and I both knew who he was, as did every American GI in country. General Frederick K. Armbrewster, Commanding General of the United Nations Command, U.S. Forces Korea, and the 8th United States Army.

  Bony fingers shuffled through stacks of paperwork. Much of the paper had already been placed in a box labeled “Out.” More was stacked on the other side of the desk, next to a box labeled “In.”

  “Bullshit,” General Armbrewster said. His voice sounded dry. Crackling. As if he needed desperately to gulp down a glass of water. “That’s what it is,” he continued. “All paperwork is bullshit. Designed by the politicians and lawyers to keep themselves rich.”

  Then he looked up at us, his mouth set in a straight line.

  Ernie and I saluted, both feeling awkward, what with our unshaven faces and grimy clothes. General Armbrewster didn’t seem to notice. Listlessly, he returned our salute and told us to sit on two folding metal chairs in front of his desk.

  He didn’t bother to explain the lighting, or why he had to work with a battery-powered lamp on his desk. This was a man who didn’t bother with trifles.

  He continued to finish up the paperwork in front of him, hardly noticing us. But he hadn’t made Ernie and me remain at attention while he worked. That seemed out of character. Usually, when we received ass-chewings—and Ernie and I were experts on them—the person doing the chewing took every opportunity to humiliate us; to keep us standing at attention while they leisurely finished their task. That was standard procedure. In the army, humiliating subordinates is what lifers live for. General Armbrewster was different. He hadn’t brought us here to chew us out. Such minute disciplinary detail would be beneath his dignity. He’d brought us here for another reason. Something that had to be done face to face.

  Suddenly, I was nervous. Much more nervous than I had been before.

  The General finished with the paperwork, slipped a metal clip on a short stack, and tossed it into the “Out” basket. Then he stared at us, each in turn, long and steady.

  “First,” he said, “forget all the bullshit.”

  I sat with my back ramrod straight in the chair.

  He turned his attention fully to me. “They’re going to bring a Report of Survey down on you, Sueño, for losing your forty-five. A Report of Survey that could lead to court-martial.” He stared at me for a few moments. I stared back. He turned toward Ernie. “And an official reprimand against you, Bascom, for being the senior man and allowing it to happen.”

  He waited for a reaction, but Ernie and I were still too stunned at being in the presence of a four-star general to say anything. Ernie shows no reverence for anyone alive. And I’ve seen him mouth off in circumstances that were bound to get him slapped in the stockade or even killed, but he chose to mouth off anyway. Threats don’t scare him. Yet even he knew that now was not the time to say anything. A private audience with the Commanding General of 8th Army was not something two lowly CID agents experienced every day. It was as if we’d suddenly been shoved in a cage with a Bengal tiger.

  “I believe in redemption,” General Armbrewster declared. “We all make mistakes. The test of a man is whether or not he corrects them.”

  He paused and seemed to want a response to this. Was he saying that neither Ernie nor I would be punished if we caught the people who stole my .45 and shot Han Ok-hi? I think he was. However, I was afraid to say so out loud. Negotiating with a four-star general was not something I was used to. The silence grew longer. Finally, I found the courage to speak. “Yes, sir,” I said. Nothing more.

  Armbrewster nodded his bony head, taking my statement as complete acquiescence. Which, of course, it was.

  “On the other hand, if one doesn’t correct one’s mistakes . . .”

  The General let the sentence trail off, spreading both his hands, as if allowing sand to sift through his fingers.

  His meaning was clear. If Ernie and I don’t catch the people who perpetrated these crimes, he’d allow all charges to be brought against us. The full force and power of the Uniform Code of Military Justice would hammer us senseless.

  These weren’t idle threats. In the military justice system, the commanding officer performs the same function that the district attorney and the grand jury do in civilian proceedings. He decides who is going to be prosecuted and who isn’t. In addition, he appoints the officers who will preside as judges over the trial. And often there’s an understanding as to what the CG expects the verdict to be. So the Commanding General functions as the district attorney and grand jury and also—if he chooses to—as the judge and the jury. Ernie and I were toast if the CG decided against us, and we both knew it.

  When General Armbrewster was satisfied that we understood what he was saying, he crossed his arms and leaned back in his swivel chair.

  “He’s a killer.”

  Ernie and I both jerked forward. My first thought was for Han Ok-hi—she hadn’t made it, after all—but the General said, “A traveling man.”

  “Where?” Ernie croaked.

  “Up in Songtan.”

  We knew the place. The village outside Osan Air Force Base, the largest U.S. Air Base in Korea.

  “I don’t know much more about the victim yet,” General Armbrewster said. “An old hag who works the streets, they tell me.”

  “Who told you, sir?” Ernie was already investigating.

  “The Korean National Police Liaison Officer,” Armbrewster answered. “He says the KNPs are worried because they don’t have access to our compounds or much good intelligence amongst the GIs who work mischief off base. He’s going to need American help.”

  “How do the KNPs know it’s the same guy?” I asked.

  “The way she was killed. Raped, strangled, stabbed, and then she was . . .”

  “But that’s not the way Han Ok-hi was hurt,” Ernie interrupted. “Not at all.”

  “I’m not finished.” Armbrewster stared at Ernie until he quieted. “Once this cretin was through with the old bag, he put a hole in her skull. With a forty-five.”

  My side was still throbbing from the knife wound last night. In fact, I was worried it had started bleeding again. But now it felt as if another hot blade had been shoved into my stomach, by the same guy who had pulled the trigger of my pistol.

  “It could be anybody’s forty-five,” I said. “The KNPs couldn’t run a ballistics test that quickly.”

  “No, they couldn’t,” Armbrewster agreed. “But they also have this.”

  He shoved a small piece of cardboard wrapped in plastic across his desk. Then, while Ernie and I leaned forward, he lifted the portable lamp and shone the beam directly onto the document.

  It was made of rectangular white cardboard. Wallet-sized. Perforated edges. A standard 8th Army Form: USFK 108-b, Weapons Receipt. The card that was needed by every GI when he checked out his weapon from his unit’s arms room. This one described the type of weapon authorized—.45 pistol, automatic, one-each—and next to that the serial number of the specific weapon.

  I recognized the serial number. I had memorized it over a year ago, when I’d arrived in Korea and been assigned to the 8th Army CID Detachment.

  I also recognized the name typed into the top square: Sueño, George (NMI).

  There was a thumbprint on the card. Brown. Probably dried blood. Clear. As if it had been purposely placed there by a professional.

  I looked back at General Armbrewster, still too stunned to speak. Ernie spoke for me.

  “He wants us to catch him,” Ernie said.

  General Armbrewster nodded his skeleton-like skull.

  “Yes. On that, if nothing else, I and this cretin agree. I want you to catch him. Now. Not tomorro
w, not the next day, but now! I saw your MPRFs.” Military Personnel Records Folders. General Armbrewster took a deep breath. “You’re both a couple of fuck-offs. You never do anything right. Your black market arrest statistics are for shit, and you’re always embarrassing some staff officer with a lot of scrambled eggs on the brim of his cap. Why? Because you don’t care about a damn thing except catching crooks.” He looked directly at us, eyes blazing. “Good work, goddamn it! Keep the bastards on their toes. You two are the only cops I’ve got who can find out anything in the ville. All the other investigators are like the assholes who work for me here in the headshed. Always trying to impress somebody, disdainful of going where the real soldiering is. This case fell on you two like a ton of latrine waste. God only knows why. But it’s yours now. You solve it. You catch this creep. You do it now. Not later. Now! Before he kills again. And if anybody gives you any bullshit, any bullshit at all, you contact me. You understand?”

  We both nodded.

  He handed us each another wallet-sized card. This one clean, no blood on it, only his name and personal phone number and his radio call sign. English on one side, Korean on the other. The card was stamped “Secret.”

  “Don’t stop until you find him.”

  We both stood and were about to salute again when General Armbrewster waved us off. “I told you. Forget about the bullshit. Get this guy. Get him now.”

  We turned and started to walk out, but he called me back, as if he’d forgotten something.