by Martin Limon
“Asshole,” Ernie said. “What did he say?”
“He said he’s going to kill me.” By now we had emerged through an alley onto the main drag. “But never mind about that. Look up the street, at the King Club.”
There was a much larger fight going on up there and that’s where a half dozen MPs were headed, nightsticks drawn.
“Riot.”
He was right. Even from this distance we could tell that the men fighting one another were American G.I. s-about half of them white, half of them black.
“That damn Hilliard,” Ernie said.
And then we were running toward the center of the fray.
Less than ten minutes remained until the midnight curfew and Ernie and I were becoming more nervous by the second. Maybe the bartender had slipped out the front door. But that seemed unlikely because I knew from previously casing the Grand Ole Opry Club that they barred the front door from inside at night. It made sense for the employees, after cleaning up, to leave via the back door and emerge into this dark alley lined with trash cans and wooden crates of empty brown beer bottles. But if the bartender had gone out the front door, Ernie and I were wasting our time. I shivered in the cold night air. A few more wisps of snow swirled in front of my nose, falling to the ground and mostly melting away, except for clumps that collected in corners and on the edges of brick walls.
I wanted to talk to the Grand Ole Opry Club bartender because on the night Ernie and I found Moretti‘s remains, he would’ve been the man in charge. Someone in Itaewon-maybe the Seven Dragons-had been aware of what Ernie and I were up to. After we left that night they sent someone down there to see what we’d discovered. Sometime during the night they cleared out Mori Di’s remains, brought Two Bellies down there, and executed her. The bartender, the man on the scene, must have some knowledge of what happened. Probably he’d been paid, or more likely intimidated, into keeping his mouth shut. The statement he made to the KNPs was innocuous: he claimed he locked up that night, went home, and saw nothing. The strange part is that the KNPs let him get away with that statement. They didn’t arrest him, they didn’t lock him up in a cell, they didn’t sweat information from him with hours of brutal interrogation. Instead, they took his statement and thanked him and sent him on his way.
They were happy to let the suspicion linger that Ernie and I had taken Two Bellies down there and executed her. Of course they knew it was ridiculous but it served the vital purpose of deflecting attention away from the “person or persons unknown” who’d gone to all the trouble of removing Mori Di’s remains. The person who’d been vindictive enough to murder Two Bellies for having talked to us.
The KNPs seemed satisfied to let this case drift. Why were they completely unconcerned about finding the people who’d really murdered Two Bellies? The answer that seemed most likely was not an answer I was happy with. The local KNPs were under the thumb, and probably in the employ, of the syndicate known as the Seven Dragons.
While we shivered, waiting in the cold night for the bartender to appear, I thought about the fight we’d just witnessed outside the King Club. It had been predictable enough. As more black soldiers arrived at the King Club, Sergeant First Class Hilliard’s harangue took effect. Some of the black G.I. s demanded that the Korean rock band play soul music: Curtis Mayfield, Jackie Wilson, the Temptations. But the little band’s repertoire included only a handful of songs and all of them were either rock or country-western. When they launched into them, Hilliard complained bitterly and the black G.I. s started hooting at the hapless band and some of the white G.I. s told them to lay off and then the insults started being hurled. Before long everyone was out in the street hurling knuckles.
The MPs broke up the fight and ferried a couple of the guys who needed stitches back to the compound, but they didn’t arrest anybody. They shooed everyone off the street and it was pretty close to the midnight curfew by the time the situation returned to normal.
The MPs didn’t arrest anybody because the desk sergeant who was communicating with the MP patrols by radio from the station back on Yongsan Compound didn’t want to have to write up a racial incident. All hell would break loose-bureaucratically anyway-and everyone involved would have to be interviewed formally, under oath, and the reports would have to be filed in triplicate and be staffed up the chain of command and those reports would be personally reviewed by the 8th Army judge advocate general and eventually by the commanding general himself.
In other words, 8th Army was making it so cumbersome to report a racial incident that it was unlikely anyone would actually go to the trouble of doing so. Good for the stats. Then the honchos could claim that there were no racial incidents in their command.
Sergeant Hilliard was the joker in the deck. While fists had been flying, he’d been nowhere to be found. I know because I looked. And he’s lucky Ernie didn’t find him. But the big question was, would Hilliard raise hell tomorrow morning at 8th Army? Would he file a complaint and accuse the MPs of a cover-up?
I didn’t believe that there were no racial problems in 8th Army. I’d been in the service long enough to know that black soldiers were discriminated against. I’d seen it happen with my own eyes; racist sergeants whispering about who would get the shit detail or miscreant officers scratching out the names of black soldiers when it came time for promotion. As a Mexican-American myself, I knew that sometimes those whisperings were directed at me. So the problems were real, the solutions elusive. But what I disliked about Sergeant First Class Hilliard was that he wasn’t really searching for solutions. Rather he was using racial tensions to elevate himself above the crowd and stroke his own ego. And, not incidentally, to wriggle his way into the panties of a certain teenage business girl by the name of Miss Kwon.
The back door of the Grand Ole Opry Club creaked open and a sliver of light bit into the dirty darkness of the narrow alleyway. A figure emerged. A young Korean man, wrapped in a heavy coat, a white shirt and a bow tie barely visible beneath it. He stepped out into the alley and slammed the door behind him. Ernie and I hid in the shadows-he on one side of the alley, me on the other-holding our breath. Without looking to either side, the bartender marched past us, hands shoved deep into his pockets. At the end of the alleyway, he turned a corner and Ernie and I emerged from the shadows.
Following.
Itaewon is an endless maze.
Narrow pedestrian lanes zigzag every which way because the homes and hooches and stores and brothels were plopped down every which way. So now, with frigid moonlight shining down and the midnight curfew finally upon us, Ernie and I were having trouble keeping up with the young bartender. We couldn’t run or he’d hear our footsteps. Periodically, we had to stop and listen for his. But he kept turning this way and that, like a very intelligent rat winding his way through a maze. Finally, headlights flashed against a wall. Ernie and I ducked into darkness-a recessed wooden gate in a cement brick wall.
“White mice,” Ernie said. The curfew cops. Their jeeps were painted white and their uniforms were white, supposedly so they wouldn’t be mistaken, after curfew, for North Korean intruders and be shot by their fellow cops. Ernie and I were not dressed in white and therefore were subject to being shot. Few people were actually gunned down for a curfew violation. Usually, what happened was that the white mice took the violator into custody, locked him or her up overnight at the local police station, and in the morning a relative came by to vouch for them and profusely apologize to the cops for having caused them any inconvenience. Of course, they also had to pay a fine. G.I. s would be similarly detained, but the MPs would be called and their transgressions would end up on the 8th Army blotter report.
Ernie and I were protected by our CID badges which allowed us to be out after curfew. Still, we didn’t want to talk to the white mice because we didn’t particularly want anyone taking note of our stalking the Grand Ole Opry bartender. Another reason we hid from the white mice was because it was always possible that the curfew cops would make a mistake-or be ha
ving a bad day-and we would be shot on sight. Perfectly permissible in a country trying to protect itself from 700,000 half-crazed Communist soldiers stationed just thirty miles north of their capital city.
We stayed hidden and when the beam of the headlights passed on, we breathed a sigh of relief. We resumed following the young bartender. Ernie ran to the intersection where we had last spotted him and stopped; we both listened. Pots and pans clanged. A stray voice shouted in the distance. Far away, a dog barked.
No footsteps.
We stood listening for a long time. Perspiration ran down my forehead. I wiped it out of my eyes.
Nothing. No sound.
I checked one intersection, Ernie checked another. Then we returned to where we had started.
“Shit,” Ernie said finally.
My sentiments exactly. We’d lost him.
Ernie snorted.
Using back alleys, we made our way the mile or so to Yongsan Compound. At the main gate, I talked to the MP and, citing law enforcement solidarity, I asked him not to write us up for having returned to compound after curfew. Even though CID agents were allowed to be out after curfew, the gate guards were supposed to make a record of our return, but I didn’t need grief from the first sergeant.
The MP listened-at this late hour no honchos were around anyway-and he finally agreed. Ernie promised to buy him a drink at the NCO Club. But since the MP didn’t drink, Ernie was at a loss as to how to reward him.
I just said thank you.
11
The next morning, Doc Yong pulled me out of her office and into the back hallway. “No time now, Geogi,” she said. “Too many girls sick.”
Influenza was storming its way through Itaewon. G.I. s on compound were coming down with it too, especially the ones who had avoided taking the mandatory annual vaccination. So far, neither Ernie nor I had any symptoms; we’d taken our shots.
Doc Yong waited for me to say what I’d come to say. I asked her about health certificates. Specifically, the one belonging to the Grand Ole Opry bartender.
Of course, he had one. Everyone who worked in a food or beverage establishment was required to be checked for communicable diseases, particularly tuberculosis, a scourge that ran rampant after the Korean War. She looked it up in her files. His name was Noh Bang-ok. Then she gave me his local address here in Itaewon and his home of record, an address in Mapo. Next, I asked if Horsehead had a county health certificate.
Doc Yong stared at me, her eyes wide. She knew something, I’m not sure what. Maybe she’d heard of our altercation last night. While she stared, I studied her soft flesh and hungered for its touch.
“Horsehead doesn’t need a health certificate,” she finally said.
“Why not?”
She looked at me as if I were dumb.
“He own Itaewon,” she said. “Owner don’t need nothing.”
She was busy and exasperated with me and exhausted by the full waiting room in her little clinic. That’s why her English was deteriorating.
“How’s Miss Kwon?” I asked.
“Better.” Then she shook her head. “Everywhere hurt but anyway she start work last night.”
“Still at the King Club?”
She nodded.
I wondered if Miss Kwon had been involved in the white-on-black fighting last night. I hoped not. I thanked Doc Yong for the information and started to leave. She grabbed my elbow. I was surprised at how cool her fingertips felt on my skin.
“Last night,” she said, “everybody say Horsehead punch you.”
I nodded. He did more than that. He also threatened my life but I didn’t tell her that.
“Chosim,” she said. Be careful.
Once again, I nodded, almost a bow this time, and left.
As I made my way through the waiting room, business girls, their puffy faces splotched and naked, stared at me. I wondered why but probably they’d heard of Horsehead’s threats too. Maybe they were studying someone who they expected, any minute now, would be dead.
Ernie and I checked the bartender’s address in Itaewon. His landlord told us that early this morning he’d packed his few belongings and moved on. No, he hadn’t left a forwarding address. I had to believe that Noh Bang-ok was a clever young man. He’d spotted us last night, following him, and he’d taken evasive maneuvers. He’d also realized that from here on out things were going to get rough. We’d want to interview him and whoever was behind the murder of Two Bellies might decide that he knew too much to be allowed to go on living. Whatever his motivation, there was no doubt he was scared. Nobody in this country leaves a good paying job on a lark. Noh Bang-ok was running. To where? I could only hope he’d act like most frightened people and return to the place where he felt safest. In this case, his hometown of Mapo.
We returned to Yongsan Compound, gassed up the jeep, and then drove over to the CID office. I told Staff Sergeant Riley where we were going.
“All the way to Mapo? he asked. “What the hell for?”
“This guy ran,” I replied. “That means he knows something that he doesn’t want to tell us.”
“What about the Tidwell girl?”
“Don’t tell Top anything, or the provost marshal, but we might have a lead on her tonight.”
“And you’ll be back in time to follow it up?”
“Sure.”
“You been listening to the weather report?”
“Not lately.”
“Maybe you’d better.”
The Armed Forces Korea Network is a television station that broadcasts from a small hill in the center of Yongsan Compound. During duty hours there is no programming but at night they broadcast reruns of Stateside shows, whatever they can buy cheaply.
AFKN also, of course, does plenty of news and weather. The news show comes on in black-and-white and is pretty bland. A couple of uniformed G.I. s sit behind desks and read wire service reports. Things pick up when the weatherman comes on. He’s a zoomie, a sergeant in the air force, and as such he’s zany-at least when compared to the army automatons who read the regular news. He points at a huge map of Korea and moves cutouts around the board representing a shining sun or a storm cloud or wind blowing in the shape of an arrow.
Exciting stuff.
But hold on to your hat because next comes sports, the only part of the news that G.I. s pay attention to. It doesn’t matter how monotonously the latest sports statistics are droned out, G.I. s focus all of their attention on such things as batting averages and yardage gained and historical rates of fielding errors. This information is reported in minute detail and soldiers absorb these facts with the intense concentration of actuarial accountants.
But for the last few days the air force weatherman had been in his glory, outshining even the sports announcer. According to his map of Korea, a huge front was bubbling out of Manchuria, from deep within unclimbed mountains and uncharted forests. The front had begun rolling south down the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang, in North Korea, had already been swallowed up by every storm cloud cutout the airman had. And he kept shoving those storm clouds south, in a jumble that looked like an invasion of chubby snowmen. But the report was no joke. Barometric pressure was dropping, the temperature was dropping, precipitation was increasing, and within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours the capital city of Seoul could expect anywhere from six to fifteen inches of precipitation, in the form of thick, slushy snow.
The worst storm the republic had experienced in over ten years.
Electricity would go out, roads would be closed, tree branches would snap, power lines would be sheathed in tubes of ice, heating fuel would become difficult if not impossible to obtain, and water pipes would most likely freeze. Finally, once the storm hit full force, food shipments would stop.
The airman predicted the cold front would linger over the peninsula for three to four days before it moved slowly out to sea. And then he grinned a big toothy grin and pulled out a fur-lined cap and slipped it on over his head.
“Go
nna be cold, folks,” he said into the microphone.
Off-camera, a stagehand barked a laugh.
Military humor.
What the airman hadn’t mentioned was that the last time a cold front of this size moved in from Manchuria over three hundred people, most of them elderly citizens or children not yet in school, had died within the city limits of Seoul. Despite the attempt at levity, a few score people were now marked for death-in Seoul, in Itaewon, and throughout the country.
The only question was who, when, and how painfully.
***
We were making good time. The engine of Ernie’s jeep purred like the well-oiled machine it was and the little heater under the metal dashboard was churning out a steady flow of warm air. I sat in the passenger seat, my nose pressed against the plastic window in the jeep’s canvas canopy, watching rice paddies roll by. Out here, most of the farmhouses were thatched in straw. President Pak Chung-hee’s New Village Movement had yet to provide tile roofs for all the families that tilled the soil.
“What if we don’t find him?” Ernie said. “We could get stuck out here.” Snow covered the countryside like a sheet of white silk.
“Not if we hurry,” I said. “The zoomie on AFKN claims that the worst of the storm won’t hit until tomorrow morning.”
Ernie snorted. AFKN weather reports were notoriously wrong. When we’d departed through the main gate of Yongsan Compound, the MP shack had already taken down the yellow placard, meaning “caution, dangerous road conditions” and replaced it with red for “emergency vehicles only.”
Luckily, our CID Dispatch qualified us as an emergency vehicle. Or maybe not so luckily, depending on how you looked at it.
“Maybe he’s not even here,” Ernie said.
I didn’t bother to reply. Ernie was becoming increasingly morose. Maybe it was the fact that the KNPs still considered us to be suspects in the murder of Two Bellies. Whatever the reason, I figured it would be best to get our business over with and return to Seoul as quickly as possible.
