by Martin Limon
They looked back at me.
Martin Limon
G.I. Bones
13
Auntie Mee’s hooch hadn’t been trashed. In all my years in law enforcement I’d never seen anyone break into a house and be so respectful of the furniture and the artifacts and the personal possessions within. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. Nothing, that is, except for Auntie Mee.
She was still wearing her silk robes. She had been kneeling in front of the small table upon which lay her ancient codex. It was open to an astrological entry. I held my candle closer to examine the script. Chinese. Although I recognized a few characters-like those for sun and moon and the autumn season-I couldn’t read enough to make any sense of it. Doc Yong knelt next to me.
“The rites of burial,” she said. “How to honor a dead person, how to prepare their grave, how to place them in it, what rituals to perform to assuage their spirit and make sure that they continue to receive honor from their living descendents and therefore will be allowed to take their rightful place in heaven.”
“All that here,” I said, pointing at the long rows of script.
“Yes.” Doc Yong flipped the thick page. “And on further. We Koreans have no end of instructions when it comes to honoring the dead.”
“And she was studying this,” I said, “just before her murderer showed up?”
“Maybe after,” Doc Yong replied.
“After?”
I thought about it. It made sense. Auntie Mee seemed so composed in death. Her corpse lay back on the wood-slat floor, her knees curled in front of her, as if she’d been kneeling in front of this cheiksang, book table, just prior to death. And she’d purposely opened her codex to the rites for the dead, leaving instructions to whoever found her as to the proper method of her burial. So she’d known someone was going to kill her. Possibly they’d talked. Possibly, Auntie Mee had slipped on the same long silk robe in which she gave psychic readings so she’d be presentable in death. But who would do that? Who would face their murderer calmly and quietly and accept their fate? Why hadn’t she tried to run? Why hadn’t she screamed? Why hadn’t she put up a fight?
It only made sense if Auntie Mee knew that there was no place for her to run to. If she knew that whoever was here to kill her-or whoever had ordered her to be killed-was too powerful to resist. Auntie Mee’s only source of income was fortune-telling and psychic readings. If she couldn’t do that, then she couldn’t live. And if the person who wanted her killed was powerful enough to hunt her down, to find her wherever she happened to set up shop, then she might’ve decided that there was no use trying to run. That there was no use trying to fight. Better to accept her fate gracefully. To go out in style, wearing her best silk robes and leaving instructions for her burial so the rites performed after her death would bring honor to her memory and give her prestige on her journey to join her ancestors.
“She didn’t fight,” I told Doc Yong.
“No.”
The cause of death was strangulation. Her neck was bruised and her jaw was cracked open; her tongue lolled out purple and bloated. She’d bitten her own tongue and lips while trying to gasp for breath and she must’ve lost her resolve to die peacefully because she had scratched at her neck with her own fingernails. Long red welts ran down the smooth flesh. A silk rope lay next to her corpse, a few strands of Auntie Mee’s long black hair entertwined with it. The rope was composed of at least a half-dozen plies of silk strips braided together and then tied into thick knots at the ends. There was little bleeding. Only what Auntie Mee’s frantic scratching had caused on her own neck. Her body looked frail and helpless now in death. But calm. Acceptant.
“Who told you she was dead?” I asked.
“One of the business girls. She came here to ask Auntie Mee to read her fortune. The front gate was open. When there was no answer she came inside, found Auntie Mee like this.”
“And she came straight to you?”
“Yes.”
“Who was it?”
“Miss Kwon.”
Again, Miss Kwon. She seemed to be everywhere at all times.
“She recovered quickly from her accident,” I said.
“Very quickly.”
“And she’s determined.”
Doc Yong nodded. What, I thought, was Miss Kwon so determined about? Even if she couldn’t afford to stay in the hospital, certainly Doc Yong would’ve loaned her enough money to enable her to eat and to rest a few days. Instead, Miss Kwon had gone right back to work. In fact, she’d become a busybody. What was the purpose of all this determination? Or was I becoming paranoid? I said, “And after telling you about the body, Miss Kwon went to the Seven Club to meet Hilliard?”
Doc Yong shrugged. “She has to live.”
“But just a few days ago, she tried to kill herself.”
“That was then. Now she wants to live.”
Yes. She did. Even to the point of putting up with Sergeant First Class Quinton Hilliard. But life, even a life of shame, is preferable to death. That’s what I thought at the moment, with the reek of lifeless flesh filling my nostrils.
A fly buzzed our heads and landed on the edge of Auntie Mee’s smooth jawline. I waved it away.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“I want to pray first.”
And then, reading from the codex, Doc Yong instructed me in how to assist her in lining up candles and igniting incense in a bronze burner and reciting chants in a language so ancient I couldn’t understand it. We spent the better part of an hour doing this, she instructing me carefully in the arcane rites of the dead. Meanwhile, outside, the silent storm brewed. And when we were finally done, Doc Yong gently closed Auntie Mee’s eyes.
“Goodbye, my friend,” she said.
We stayed still, kneeling, for a long time.
When we emerged from that place of horror, the outside world had been transformed into a universe of darkness and swirling snow. The electricity had gone out and the glow of the moon and the stars were just a memory. I knew we’d never find our way back to Doc Yong’s clinic, not while we groped blindly through this endless maze of narrow pathways. And the thought of reaching her apartment or the front gate of 8th Army compound was completely out of the question. They were much too far away. Meanwhile, the city of Seoul, blasted by the Manchurian weather, had shut down. Anyone with any sense had long ago taken shelter. There were no taxis roaming the streets, no buses; even the white mice curfew police had given up trying to find North Korean infiltrators and had taken shelter somewhere, probably in an igloo.
With a gloved finger, Doc Yong pointed ahead.
A plastic sign. Unlit. I could barely make it out in the darkness but the sign said yoguan. Literally, mattress hall. A traditional Korean inn. After staggering a few more steps, I pounded on the double wooden doors. They were locked tight and there seemed to be no life within. Still, I kept pounding. We either found shelter here or we lay down in one of the snowdrifts behind us and when the storm finally subsided the local residents would find us, frozen stiff. After every major snowstorm in Seoul, dozens of people are found dead on the streets the following day. The city fathers don’t like to advertise this fact but it’s true. In Korea, poverty is rampant but being homeless is rare. Most everyone has somewhere to go. But for those few who don’t, life is short.
Doc Yong started pulling on my elbow, ready to give up and move on but I resisted. Instead, I continued hammering my fist on the unmoving wooden door. After ten more minutes even I was about to call it quits but just before I did, metal creaked loudly behind the door. It wedged open, crusted snow falling everywhere, and then finally, with a sigh of warm air, the door opened.
A woman wrapped in a cloth overcoat motioned for us to enter.
“Bali,” she said. “Chuyo.” Hurry. It’s cold.
Doc Yong and I rushed in, stamping our feet on a flagstone walkway. The woman slammed the door shut behind us and without saying a word, scurried back toward the warmth of
the two story building. Before entering, Doc Yong and I brushed as much snow as possible off our outer coats and then, in the foyer, we slipped off our shoes and stepped up on the raised lacquered floor.
“Aigu,” the woman said, “wei pakei naggaso?” Why did you go outside?
“We made a mistake,” Doc Yong replied in Korean. Then she asked if we could rent a room. The woman nodded and led us down a hallway. There was no light in the building but the owner provided us with a candle. It was an ondol room, meaning it was heated by charcoal gas running through ducts below the floorboards. This meant that even though the electricity was out, the room was warm and cozy. The owner arranged the yo, the sleeping mats, and opened a cabinet that held silk-covered comforters. She showed us where the outside byonso was located and later she came into the room carrying a tray with two cups and a thermos of warm barley tea.
I paid her and after she left, Doc Yong and I took off most of our clothes, grabbed the comforters, and lay down on the warm sleeping mattress on the floor. Within seconds we were clutching one another, strictly for warmth. We were both exhausted and after a few minutes our mutual body heat and the warm floor below finally allowed us to thaw out. And then I was kissing her and she was kissing me back.
Maybe it was the death we’d seen in Auntie Mee’s hooch. The horrible death and the horrible pain. It made life, every second of it, seem more important. And then I was slipping the last of Doc Yong’s clothes off and she was slipping off the last of mine. We found a joy in one another, a joy that people rarely find, both of us becoming rabid with our desire to touch one another and suddenly, and completely, embrace life.
When we woke up on the mattresses in the yoguan, we didn’t talk to one another.
Gray sunlight filtered through the oil-papered windows and I tried to speak but Doc Yong shrugged me off, not making eye contact, acting as if I’d committed a great sin. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said nothing. Maybe she needed time; time to deal with what we’d done last night. I didn’t need any time myself. I felt great. But I had no idea what feelings she was dealing with so I left her alone. She didn’t even use the byonso but started to leave before I was half dressed.
“Wait,” I said. “I’ll go with you.”
“No.” It was a shout. Too loud. And then she realized that she was showing panic and she took a deep breath. “Better,” she said, holding out her hand in a halting gesture, “if I go first. Anyway, I must go to the clinic and you must go to your compound.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. She was ashamed of me. Ashamed to be seen on the street with a big-nosed foreigner. But I didn’t blame her. All the Koreans would look at her with amused smiles on their faces and later they would talk about her. Relentlessly. “Yang kalbo,” they’d whisper. Foreign whore.
I longed to step toward her and take her hand and tell her I understood. That she didn’t have to be seen on the street with me if she found it embarrassing. But she looked so skittish, like a yearling ready to bolt, that I didn’t dare. Instead, I stayed where I was and just nodded. Dumbly.
She said, “OK,” and walked out and closed the door behind her.
I listened to her footsteps retreat down the hallway.
The provost marshal was about to pop a blood vessel.
“You did what?”
Ernie stood in front of Colonel Brace at the position of attention, his jaw thrust out, his lips set into a grim sneer. “I punched his lights out.” Then he said, “sir.”
“Oh, I see. You punched his lights out. Any particular reason why you punched his lights out?”
“He had it coming. He was manhandling a business girl on the dance floor of the Seven Club.”
The provost marshal crinkled his nose in confusion and glanced at the first sergeant and then at me. You could almost hear his thoughts: Manhandling a business girl? That’s a crime? He glanced at the paperwork on his desk. “Hilliard said it was a racist attack.”
“Not so, sir. I would’ve been happy to punch his lights out regardless of his color.”
The provost marshal rolled his eyes and lifted both hands to the side of his head and rubbed his temples. He was through talking to Ernie. Instead, he talked to the first sergeant.
“We’ll have to answer this, Top. See if you can write up a statement that makes sense and before you send it out, run it by the JAG Office to see what they think.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Meanwhile, Bascom, you and your partner here are liable to come up on EEO charges.”
The colonel was about to go on but Ernie interrupted him.
“Sueno had nothing to do with it, sir. In fact, he tried to stop me.”
“Well he wasn’t very effective, was he?”
“I was too quick for him, sir,” Ernie continued. “I’ll accept the punishment but Sueno’s innocent.”
“Not according to the KNPs.”
The Korean National Police had not yet cleared Ernie and me of suspicion concerning the death of Two Bellies.
“That’s bull, sir. You know it. That’s their way of deflecting blame from any Korean who might have power. A safety valve. So in case they find that whoever murdered Two Bellies has money and influence, they can pretend that they suspect us.”
Colonel Brace didn’t respond to that. But he didn’t contradict Ernie either.
“All right,” he said, looking back and forth between us. “You two are about to lose your ratings as criminal investigation agents and, if you keep pissing off the power structure here at Eighth Army, you’re about to get court-martialed or even booted out of the army.” Colonel Brace held up his hand, not allowing us to respond.
“Bascom, you’re restricted to compound. No, no argument. At least until this discrimination charge blows over. Sueno, find Jessica Tidwell,” he said. “And then, once she’s safe, find the bones of that G.I. who was murdered twenty years ago. That will redeem you. That and only that. Am I understood?”
We both nodded.
Colonel Brace further told the first sergeant that he wanted extra MP patrols in Itaewon tonight, searching for Jessica Tidwell.
Colonel Brace hadn’t even mentioned the murder of Horsehead, nor the murder of Auntie Mee. And he’d only mentioned Two Bellies because Ernie and I had been falsely charged by the KNPs, thereby embarrassing the command. To the 8th Army honchos, the murder of Koreans was an abstract concept. Even the village of Itaewon itself, where the single G.I. s went, was not anything more than something to be snickered at during polite conversation at the Officers’ Club cocktail hour.
But I’d seen the blood. I’d touched it and smelled it. And my cop instincts told me that it wouldn’t be long until a G.I. was involved in some way with the mayhem that was going on in Itaewon. I didn’t know who was behind this madness or what it was all about but I believed that at it’s source, somehow, was Technical Sergeant Flo Moretti.
The fluorescent light above the provost marshal’s desk flickered and went out.
“Shit,” he said. “There goes the juice. Top, see if you can get the engineers to start up the generator.”
“Will do, sir.”
Outside, snow continued to fall in steady sheets. The first sergeant left the room. The provost marshal glanced at us. “Why are you still here?”
We didn’t reply. Instead, we saluted, performed a smart about-face, and left the room.
Jimmy Pak was looking for me. At least a half dozen business girls had relayed the message. The communications apparatus in Itaewon-word of mouth-may be ancient but it’s efficient. Once one of the Seven Dragons issues a summons, in short order the entire village knows about it.
I could’ve gone over to the UN Club to see what the hell he wanted but I was in no hurry. Maybe I didn’t feel comfortable about walking into his place of business without Ernie to back me up. But I didn’t think that was it. If Jimmy Pak, or any of the Seven Dragons, were out to get me they wouldn’t make it public knowledge that they wanted to see me. If they were out to g
et me, the attack would happen in a dark alley, when no one was looking and when I least expected it. As had happened to Mori Di.
I was more curious at the moment, about the Korean police reaction to the murder of Auntie Mee.
When the cannon fired on Yongsan Compound, signifying the end of 8th Army’s workday, I marched up to the mess hall, ate some chow, and then took a shower and changed into my running-the-ville outfit.
I gazed at my bunk longingly. I hadn’t been getting much sleep lately, ever since I’d first heard about Mori Di. And I’d gotten virtually no sleep with Doc Yong last night. My crotch was sore. But I couldn’t afford the luxury of letting down. Two Bellies had trusted me and she’d been killed. The remains of Tech Sergeant Flo Moretti were still missing. A harmless fortune teller had been brutally murdered and Horsehead, one of the Seven Dragons, had been hacked to death by a group of women covered in dark hoods. Ernie and I had vowed to get to Snake. Now it was all up to me.
Captain Kim was overjoyed to see me.
His cheeks sagged and his eyes took on a deathly stillness that would’ve made a mafia godfather look like a cheerleader at a high school football game. He didn’t even ask me what I wanted. He just stared.
“Anyonghaseiyo?” I said cheerfully. Are you at peace?
He didn’t answer. His head was square, his short black hair combed straight back, and the collar of his sharply pressed khaki uniform gleamed with three canted rectangles of polished gold. He didn’t smoke. Unusual for a mature Korean man, so I didn’t bother to offer him a cigarette. I didn’t smoke either but sometimes, when visiting Korean officialdom, I carried a pack of American-made cancer sticks, more as a peace offering than anything else.
I started with Horsehead.
“Important man,” I said. “Dead. Maybe the Seven Dragons are taaksan pissed off.”
Captain Kim shrugged. Not a syllable left his thick lips.
