Mr. Kill

by Martin Limon

  He was a big boy and could take care of himself. I restarted the jeep and drove back to 8th Army compound.

  “That asshole,” Riley told me when I finished the story. “Always dipping it where he shouldn’t.”

  I glanced at Miss Kim. Her face was red and she was typing furiously on her hangul typewriter. When she realized I was looking at her, she stood abruptly, snatched a tissue from a box, and marched out of the admin office, heading down the hallway toward the ladies’ latrine.

  “What’d they tell you about the missing equipment?” Riley asked, apparently not noticing Miss Kim’s discomfort.

  “They think it’s a pattern,” I told him. “Something goes missing after almost every performance, almost like somebody hunting souvenirs. And they believe they’re being watched.”

  “Being watched?” Riley scoffed. “Of course they’re being watched. Five good-looking round-eyed women. What did they expect?”

  “They didn’t expect Peeping Toms. Faces flash in front of windows, according to them, and then disappear.”

  Riley shrugged. “Just G.I.s having a little fun.”

  In my notebook, I made a list. From Hialeah Compound in Pusan, no one was AWOL and three G.I.s were on in-country leave. I wrote down their names. At Taegu, things became more complicated. Camp Henry is a larger base than Hialeah and has a lot of Signal Corps and aviation activity. As such, I had a dozen G.I.s who’d left Taegu and were temporarily assigned to the Long Lines Signal Battalion in Seoul. Camp Ames in Taejon is tiny, and I had a minuscule report. No one AWOL, no one on temporary duty, and only one guy on in-country leave. He had a Korean name and a very specific leave address in Seoul—31 bon-ji, 15 ho, Mugyo-dong—which meant that he was visiting family and therefore he was Korean-American, what’s known in 8th Army as a “Kimchee G.I.” I scratched him off my list.

  The guys on temporary duty traveled in groups, doing repair or installation work on Signal Corps or aviation equipment. The likelihood that one of them would commit a rape, slip off the train in Anyang, and then not be reported AWOL was slim to none. I didn’t scratch them off my list, but relegated them to the lowest priority. That meant that I would start by investigating the three guys from Hialeah Compound who were on in-country leave.

  Riley logged me in for an AUTOVON call. After getting through to the 8th Army operator, I read her the authorization number and within minutes was patched through to someone named Specialist Holder, the company clerk at Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Hialeah Compound in Pusan. I identified myself, and Holder seemed impressed that the CID from Seoul would be calling all the way down to their sleepy little unit. I read the list of names to him.

  “All on in-country leave,” he told me. “What happened? Somebody get into some shit?”

  I didn’t answer but just asked him to tell me about the three men.

  He knew all of them. Personally. One of the men was black, so I scratched him off my list. The other two were odd birds, according to Specialist Holder.

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “Both of them turned down mid-tour leave,” he replied. “Didn’t want to go back to the States.”

  I’d turned down mid-tour leave myself, but I didn’t tell Holder that. Turning down your mid-tour is like admitting that you have nothing to go back to in the States. As an orphan most of my life, I fit that category, but that was nobody’s business but my own. I asked, as casually as I could, “So, where are they now?”

  “Weyworth is probably shacked up with his yobo, in her hooch right outside the main gate. They have their marriage paperwork in.”

  The process of an American G.I. marrying a Korean woman involves piles of paperwork—both on the ROK side and the US side—and usually takes six to eight months. Still, having his paperwork in didn’t preclude Weyworth from taking a trip on the Blue Train.

  “Do you have his address?”

  “No. But it’s easy to find. Down one of the alleys behind the Kit Kat Club.”

  “How about the other guy?”

  “Pruchert? He’s stranger still. No telling where he is.”

  “What’s strange about him?”

  “He likes to go to all those Buddhist temples and stuff. He’s even studying the language, training himself to be some sort of monk.”

  “Do you have an address for him?”

  “No way. He put down ‘Pusan’ on his leave orders, but he could be anywhere.”

  Holder gave me more particulars on both Weyworth and Pruchert, including when they were expected to report back to their units. Both of them had plenty of leave built up and wouldn’t be returning to duty for two weeks in one case and three in the other.

  Ernie still hadn’t made his appearance at the CID office, so I went to the snack bar and drank more hot coffee and filled my complaining stomach with a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. I kept thinking of the frightened look on the face of Mrs. Oh when I’d first seen her cowering next to her children on the Blue Train. The cruelty that people can inflict on one another is unfathomable to me. I finished my sandwich and returned to the big silver urn on the serving line to refill my cup. I sat back down and thumbed listlessly through today’s edition of the Pacific Stars and Stripes. International news, comics, sports, but nothing on crime. They have a policy against it. Crime in Korea involving American servicemen isn’t reported unless it’s something big and has already hit the Stateside wire services. There wasn’t a word about the Blue Train rapist, not that I’d expected any.

  On the way back to the office, I stopped in front of the PX and bought a red rose wrapped in green paper. When I reentered the CID admin office, I kept it hidden under my coat.

  Ernie had arrived. Sergeant Riley was trying to cheer him up.

  “You look like dog shit,” Riley told him.

  “Get bent,” Ernie replied.

  “Sueño,” Riley barked as I hung up my coat, keeping the rose hidden. “The Provost Marshal wants to talk to you. Now. Along with this wasted wreck of a human being.”

  Too tired to lift his palm from his lap, Ernie flipped Riley a low bird.

  Miss Kim wasn’t at her desk; probably trying to avoid seeing Ernie.

  Ernie struggled to his feet, straightened his tie and his jacket, and marched down the hallway toward the Provost Marshal’s office. I held back for a second and, when Riley wasn’t looking, I stuck the red rose in the celadon vase that sat on the front edge of Miss Kim’s desk. It was a vase that had been empty for weeks.

  “A brouhaha at the Seoul Train Station,” the Provost Marshal reminded us. “The KNPs had to provide an armed escort just to get you two out of there.”

  “The crowd was surly, sir,” Ernie replied. “A woman with children had been raped by an American. They weren’t happy about it.”

  “An American?” The Provost Marshal raised one eyebrow.

  Colonel Brace was an intelligent man, a decent man, but he was also—to his core—a military man. And a loyal one. That meant that as a full-fledged member of the 8th Army bureaucracy, he threw himself heart and soul into protecting that bureaucracy. Colonel Brace repeated the same line Staff Sergeant Riley had spouted earlier. We had no proof that the perpetrator had been an American; and even if he had been an American, that didn’t necessarily mean he fell under our jurisdiction. He might be a civilian with no affiliation to the 8th United States Army.

  The odds of the perpetrator not being an 8th Army G.I. were real but prohibitively small, especially since Private Runnels, the courier who’d sat next to the suspect on the Blue Train, had been convinced that the man was an American soldier, convinced by everything about him: his haircut, his demeanor, the language he used, even the civilian clothes he wore. They looked like they’d been purchased out of the PX, according to Runnels. Still, as long as there was a shred of doubt, Colonel Brace would continue to pretend, at least publicly, that the rape of Mrs. Oh Myong-ja in the latrine of car number three of the Pusan-to-Seoul Blue Train was not 8th Army’s problem.
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br />   Instead of responding to the colonel’s argument, I said, “I have some leads, sir. Movements that we have not yet accounted for coming out of Hialeah Compound. Request permission to travel down there to continue the investigation.”

  Colonel Brace reached across his desk and grabbed a pipe from a mahogany stand. Thoughtfully, he opened the top drawer of his desk, pulled out a pouch of tobacco, and took his time filling the pipe, patting it down, lighting it, and blowing a puff of blue smoke into the air. All the while, Ernie and I were standing at parade rest in front of his desk. The colonel was disappointed in me, of this I was sure. He had hoped that I’d take his very broad hint and just keep my mouth shut and wait for him to tell us how—or whether—to proceed on the case. Asking for permission not only to continue the investigation but to take specific action put him on the spot. If the case ever blew up in our faces and there was an after-action investigation, I would be able to say truthfully that I had requested permission to continue the search for a suspect. Colonel Brace would be in the awkward position of saying he’d specifically turned down that request.

  This was part of the reason Ernie Bascom and I were not popular in the hallowed hallways of the 8th Army Criminal Investigation Division. We pursued cases, regardless of whether the honchos of 8th Army were embarrassed by that pursuit or not. Other CID agents played the bureaucratic game. They trod softly. They investigated only when and where they were told to investigate, like dumb hounds on a very short leash.

  Colonel Brace knew as well as we did that the Blue Train rapist was a G.I. If he attacked again, and his US affiliation were proven, 8th Army would be blamed for not doing enough to stop him. But if he never attacked again—which is what Colonel Brace was counting on—and we continued the investigation, that would be tantamount to admitting publicly that the rapist was a G.I.—and, more importantly, besmirching 8th Army’s reputation for no good reason. Besmirching 8th Army’s reputation is something that would be frowned on by the 8th Army Chief of Staff, criticized at the 8th Army Officers’ Club, something that would reflect poorly on Colonel Brace’s efficiency report. If Colonel Brace ever wanted to pin the silver star of a general on his shoulder, he needed nothing but topnotch efficiency reports.

  Colonel Brace snuffed out his wooden match and tossed it in an amber-colored ashtray.

  “We’ll hold off for now,” he said. “You have enough to do with that theft investigation of the USO show.”

  “There was no theft, sir,” Ernie told him. “The microphone that went missing was found two days later in one of the musicians’ traveling bags. The cowboy boot was probably just left behind when they packed in a hurry to beat the midnight curfew back to Seoul. And, as has already been reported, the electric guitar was recovered.”

  Colonel Brace stared at Ernie. “Has the band retracted their complaint?”

  “No,” Ernie replied. “They’re convinced they’re being targeted.”

  “Targeted? By who?”

  “By G.I.s peeking through the windows of their dressing rooms.”

  Colonel Brace pulled his pipe out of his mouth and shook his head. “Put a stop to that, will you? And until this band retracts their complaints, you stay with them.” He thought about that for a second and then added, “And even if they do retract their complaints, stay with them anyway. I don’t want any problems coming down from the Stateside headquarters of the USO.”

  “And the rapist?” I asked.

  Colonel Brace lowered his pipe and stared at me steadily. “Like I said, Sergeant Sueño, you are to take no further action on that case. For the moment, it falls under Korean jurisdiction, not ours. Understood?”

  “Understood,” I replied.

  We resumed the position of attention, saluted, and left.

  In the admin office, Miss Kim was smiling, not looking at us but smiling nevertheless. The green paper had been unwound from the stem of the rose and water poured into the vase. Someone had delicately fluffed out the red petals. Maybe it had been a mistake to present the rose to her secretly. Apparently Miss Kim thought Ernie had given it to her. Ernie, for his part, didn’t even notice the rose.

  “During the day,” Riley told us, “the Provost Marshal wants you working on the black-market detail. At night, you escort the USO show.”

  “When are we supposed to get any rest?” I asked.

  “A soldier is on duty,” Riley said, “twenty-four hours a day.”

  Something I’d heard since the first day I enlisted in the US Army. But only some of us were on duty twenty-four hours a day. Others seemed to be on duty hardly at all.

  Ernie and I drove along a tree-lined lane to the headquarters of the Long Lines Signal Battalion North at Camp Coiner. It was less than a mile from 8th Army headquarters, on the way to Huam-dong, adjacent to the north gate of Yongsan Compound, across the street from the ROK Marine Corps headquarters.

  I showed Major Rumgarde, the XO of the battalion, the list of names of the men sent to him on TDY from Camp Henry in Taegu. The names didn’t mean much to him, but he conferred with his Operations NCO and came back after a few minutes to tell us that all twelve of them were working on a signal upgrade at the communications relay site atop Namsan Mountain.

  We thanked him, asked him not to warn them we were coming, and hopped into the jeep.

  Namsan literally means South Mountain. Its elevation is almost 900 feet at its highest point, and it is covered in lush green vegetation for most of the year. It sits just south and slightly east of the downtown area of Seoul. The city spreads out around it, some buildings running up its sides, but the main expanse of the mountain is reserved for parks and rock-paved pathways, gurgling creeks and treecovered meadows, where the denizens of Seoul can find at least temporary refuge from the madness of the city.

  Perched atop the peak is a hundred-foot antenna, surrounded by squat green Quonset huts. The United States Army, once again, marking its territory.

  “I’ve never been up here,” Ernie said, as we wound our way up the narrow road through Namsan Park. Occasionally we spotted young women, usually walking alone.

  “Hookers,” Ernie said.

  “Nah,” I said, surprised. “They’re not hookers. They look so wholesome.”

  “That’s part of the come-on.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  Ernie nodded. “I’m serious.”

  “Why would they be out here?”

  “Rich Koreans cruise by, sometimes Japanese businessmen in their limousines. They pull over, talk to the girls, make an arrangement.”

  I turned in the passenger seat to take a good look at Ernie. His green eyes were glued to the road, arms reaching out straight to the steering wheel. “How do you know all this?”

  He sighed. “Here. I’ll show you.”

  With a squeal of brakes, Ernie pulled toward the side of the road. A young woman about ten yards ahead stopped walking and turned to look at us. Ernie rolled up to her slowly until I was staring out the open door of the jeep directly into her eyes.

  “Anyonghaseiyo?” I said. Are you at peace?

  “Nei,” she replied with a bow. Yes.

  She was a cute girl; round face, plump figure, wearing a demure brown skirt and a tight blue blouse. Despite the overcast gray above, she held a plastic multicolored parasol atop her head to shield her from ultraviolet rays. I continued to smile stupidly, not wanting to say anything, not wanting to corrupt her if she didn’t want to be corrupted. She studied us both quizzically, rolling the handle of the parasol deftly in soft fingers. Finally, she recalled some long-ago-studied English and said, “We go?”

  “Odi?” I replied. Where?

  She pointed back down the road. “Chogi. Yoguan isso.” There. To an inn.

  Ernie grinned at her broadly. I turned and glared at him. He was much too happy with his victory. I turned back to the girl and said in Korean, “I’m sorry. We don’t have time now. We have to go to the compound on the top of the mountain.”

  The girl seemed
disappointed but nodded, understanding the requirements of work and duty. There was a hardness to her features now that I hadn’t noticed before. I said good-bye and she watched us as Ernie pulled back onto the road.

  The peak of South Mountain was a flat, leveled-off area. After we flashed our identification, a khaki-clad Korean gate guard with an M-1 rifle slung over his shoulder shoved the big chain-link gate open just far enough for us to drive through. We rolled onto a dirt-covered parade field. To our left, about a hundred yards away, sat a long rectangular building with a sign that said “Namsan Mess” and, beneath that, the Korean word “Siktang.” Literally, food hall. In the center of the open field loomed the antenna, painted red and white, rising a hundred feet into the sky. Atop it, a red light blinked. On the opposite side of the quadrangle, beyond the antenna, sat a matrix of linked Quonset huts with a sign over the main entrance that said “Namsan Relay Site, Long Lines Battalion North.”

  Ernie parked next to a short line of military vehicles.

  Inside, a sergeant in a neatly pressed fatigue uniform waited. Apparently, he’d already been informed of our arrival.

  “Can I see your badges?” he asked.

  We showed him.

  “Captain Fieldjoy isn’t in. He’s on a supply run down in Seoul. Is there something I can help you with?”

  I jotted down his name. Sergeant Ernsworth. He was a little old for a buck sergeant, maybe in his mid-thirties, and he sported a flaming red crew cut and a splash of freckles across a pug nose.

  Ernie wandered over to a wall plastered with black-and-white photos of officers in uniform, shaking hands and presenting one another with plaques and awards. I showed Sergeant Ernsworth the list of names. “A dozen guys,” I said, “up here from Taegu. Working on some sort of communications upgrade.”