The Line

by Martin Limon

  “We should’ve brought a sign,” Ernie said.

  “Yeah. I guess we’ll just have to stick with deductive reasoning.”

  “Like what?”

  “Ask any woman who seems as if she might be a Stateside female lawyer if her name is Corrine?”

  “I like that name,” Ernie said.

  “Calm down. You haven’t even met her yet.”

  As the travelers emerged from the customs area, I asked a couple of women who were clearly with their husbands if they were Corrine Fitch and received odd looks in return. Finally, it dawned on me that I was assuming too much. When I adjusted my expectations, I spotted her almost immediately. A slender woman in a conservative dark blue skirt and matching vest, pulling a suitcase on rollers. In her left hand she held a briefcase. I walked up to her.

  “Are you Corrine Fitch?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she answered, surprised. “Who are you?”

  I showed her my badge. She smirked. “Am I under arrest already?”

  Her face was pure Korean, a long oval with inquisitive eyes and an expressive mouth. Black hair fell to her shoulders in a wave.

  “No, not under arrest,” I stammered. I introduced Ernie. “We’re just here to give you a ride into town. And to show you something, a piece of evidence that might be pertinent to your case.”

  She eyed me carefully, trying to discern my intentions.

  “Is the Army trying to set me up?”

  “Not at all. We were originally assigned the Corporal Noh Jong-bei murder case. We were brought to the crime scene just an hour or two after the body was discovered. We’ve interviewed your client, Private Fusterman, and we subsequently discovered an item that we believe will be important to the defense.”

  “Why don’t you give it to JAG?” she asked.

  Apparently, she was familiar with the standard operating procedures in the military judicial system.

  I fidgeted. She was right. That was what we were supposed to do. Of course, we’d have been in hot water no matter how you looked at it, because when we’d found the entrenching tool, we’d already been under orders to keep our hands off the JSA case. Still, the evidence should’ve been turned over to our side—the prosecution, not the defense. How could I explain to her our mistrust of 8th Army justice? Or about the times we’d seen enlisted men scapegoated for trivial offenses? And I certainly couldn’t blurt out our suspicions concerning the larger forces at work, trying to pawn off responsibility for Corporal Noh’s death onto PFC Fusterman. Nor could I admit to my suspicion that if we turned the entrenching tool over to JAG, it might very well never see the light of day.

  I couldn’t explain all that to a practical stranger, especially here in a busy airport.

  Ernie jumped in. “You want to see the evidence or not?”

  She crossed her arms, thinking. “What is it?”

  “An entrenching tool,” Ernie replied.

  “A what?”

  “A shovel.”

  “Okay,” she replied slowly. “A shovel. What does this have to do with my client’s defense?”

  “It has his initials on it,” I said. “A similar tool, according to JAG, was used as the murder weapon.”

  Her eyes lit up as she instantly processed the implications of this. “Do you have it here?”

  “No,” I replied. “It’s somewhere safe.”

  “All right,” she said, apparently having made a decision. “I’ll be staying at the Cosmos Hotel. Call me when you have the evidence and you’re ready to meet.”

  With that, she swiveled on her short heels, grabbed her suitcase, and began walking toward the taxi stand.

  Ernie called after her, “You want a ride into town?”

  “No thanks,” she replied without looking back.

  Ernie and I watched her disappear into the crowd.

  “What a woman,” Ernie said. Then he turned to study me. “I see you agree.” He grinned.

  I looked away. Ernie constantly teased me because every time I fancied a woman, my face flushed red. A childish trait I wished I could get rid of.

  “Sounds like she’s All-American.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  He slapped me on the back. “Come on, Sueño. We’ve got people to save.”

  The headquarters of the Korean National Police is a twelve-story, partly granite building in downtown Seoul, and in the middle of the workday, the traffic near it was maddening. Ernie somehow navigated through the honking kimchi cabs and three-wheeled trucks loaded with huge mounds of cabbage and small peaks of garlic and found a narrow alley with a pochang macha. We knew the old woman who ran it, and she was always happy to see us. We paid her two thousand won—about four dollars—for the privilege of parking our jeep right up against her cart, which she shoved over a few feet to make room. After thanking her, we trotted off through the swirling pedestrian masses until we reached the stone steps leading to the main entranceway of the KNP headquarters. Huge plate-glass doors wheezed as they slid open and allowed us into a world of slightly damp air. The unmistakable odor of fermented kimchi and burnt Korean tobacco glommed onto my face like a moist glove. I knew the Koreans imported their tobacco from somewhere, but exactly where I wasn’t sure. It was a safe bet that wherever it came from, the proud planters of Virginia would hardly recognize it as the same weed.

  At the information counter we were told to wait. Some two minutes later, Officer Oh, the assistant to Chief Homicide Investigator Gil Kwon-up, emerged from a narrow elevator and walked toward us. Both Ernie and I admired the sharp lines of her light-blue blouse and the formfitting navy blue skirt of the female KNP uniform. When she reached us, she bowed slightly, flashed a half-smile, and told us to follow her. Inside the elevator, all three of us were silent. This was Officer Oh’s general state, speaking only in response to a direct question. The elevator doors opened onto the tenth floor, and we got out and followed Officer Oh down the tiled hallway. When we reached the door marked office of the chief homicide inspector, she pushed it open and motioned for us to enter.

  After passing through a small anteroom, we walked into Mr. Kill’s office. He had gotten this name among GIs because his family name—Gil—was rare and the nickname fit well with his job title. In Korea, the death penalty was alive and well. And the Korean judicial system didn’t fool around with lengthy appeals. Sometimes, within two weeks of sentencing, a condemned man would be marched up on a wooden platform, a rope looped over his head, and he’d be hanged by the neck until dead.

  Since Mr. Kill tracked down and arrested murderers, it was often his testimony that determined the criminal’s fate. The eight-million-plus population of Seoul kept Kill and his team busy, but on a per capita basis, there wasn’t much crime in Korea, at least not compared to the States. Maybe it was because of the country’s underlying hierarchical structure and the inflexibility of the Park Chung-hee regime—or, as some believed, the swiftness and inevitability of punishment.

  The man who was responsible for much of what led to that punishment, Inspector Gil Kwon-up, sat beneath a green-shaded lamp, staring at us. His eyes burned like polished coals, sharpened eyebrows pointing toward spiked bristles of swept-back black hair.

  “Have a seat,” he said, motioning toward a low divan next to a rectangular wooden coffee table. Officer Oh bowed and left the room, closing the door behind her. Mr. Kill finished some paperwork, rose from his chair, and walked around his desk. He took a seat across the coffee table. Neither Ernie nor I smoked, which Mr. Kill knew, so he didn’t pull out his cigarettes.

  “Evelyn Cresthill,” he said, as usual dispensing with formalities. “A missing American Army wife. Apparently the case was elevated to your Ambassador, and from there to our Ministry of the Interior.” He sighed. “And after that, down to me.”

  Mr. Kill spoke better English than most GIs. Not only had he received a university educ
ation here in Korea—highly unusual for those outside of the wealthiest backgrounds—but he’d participated in an anti-Communist program sponsored by the US Department of Defense, and been sent to an Ivy League school in the States for two years to study the latest techniques in law enforcement. Rumor had it that during the Korean War, as a very young man, he’d been sent north to act as a spy. He’d survived, even though eighty percent of the South Korean spies sent there didn’t, and brought back valuable targeting information for allied bombing raids. This had caught the attention of powerful men in the government. After two more missions, which he’d also miraculously survived, he’d been conscripted into the Korean National Police force and put on a fast track to success.

  “You do homicide,” Ernie said. “How did Evelyn Cresthill land on your desk?”

  “This case is sensitive enough that my government wants to make sure it doesn’t become a homicide.”

  “Do you believe she’s in danger?” I asked.

  “We’ll soon find out.”

  The report in front of him was from the KNP officer who’d assisted us at the Blue Heaven Nightclub.

  “I’ve had my men,” Kill said, “visit Blue Heaven and they re-interviewed the people you spoke to.”

  “Anything new?” Ernie asked.

  Mr. Kill’s eyes widened. “Of course there’s something new,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Inspector Kill continued. “Our chief interrogator, Mr. Bam, conducted the interviews. You are aware of his sophisticated ways of delving into the human mind.”

  Ways that typically included a gloved fist.

  Mr. Kill paused and stared at his hands. “I believe that Evelyn Cresthill was turned over to a group of mobsters who run several of the fanciest nightclubs in the city. They need young women like Evelyn to work as hostesses for wealthy Japanese and Korean businessmen with Western tastes.”

  “Who exactly are these gangsters?” Ernie asked.

  Mr. Kill ignored him. “They will be sending Evelyn to downtown nightclubs. Maybe even kisaeng houses.”

  Kisaeng were originally ancient female entertainers for Korean royalty, highly trained and educated women amongst whom numbered the greatest poets of sijo tradition. But nowadays the term had an almost unsavory connotation, referring to little more than attractive young women who catered to the whims of wealthy older men.

  “An American woman,” Kill continued, “confers status. Evelyn as a hostess represents a small victory—an economic one, at least—over the most powerful country on earth. She will be reserved for their richest, most powerful clients.”

  “Have they ever done this to an American woman before?” I asked.

  “Not to my knowledge. They are becoming very bold.”

  “And if they have her,” Ernie added, “they won’t want to let her go.”

  “Exactly,” Kill replied.

  “So all we have to do,” I said, “is figure out which joints cater to the biggest of the big shots. Then we go there.”

  Kill glanced toward Ernie, who nodded in agreement. Then he turned back to me. “Good. And how will you obtain such a list?”

  “Through you,” I said.

  He nodded again. “Not me specifically, but yes.” Then he rose and returned to his desk. “See Officer Oh on the way out. She has already prepared a list. I recommend you stick to it, starting with the nightclub at the top tonight. We believe Evelyn Cresthill will be there.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “She’s new. The freshest are always reserved for the most prized clients.”

  “What if we don’t find her there?”

  “Contact me,” Kill said, smiling.

  Ernie rose to his feet. “And if we do find her and she refuses to return to her husband?”

  Kill’s smile widened. “Contact me immediately.”

  “One more thing,” Ernie said, “when I asked who these gangsters were, you didn’t answer. Why? You don’t know?”

  “We know,” Kill replied simply.

  “Well, then who are they?”

  I frowned. Mr. Kill’s refusal to answer likely had to do with embarrassment because he couldn’t control corruption above his pay grade, but I knew Ernie wouldn’t stop pushing.

  “You’re persistent,” Mr. Kill said.

  “If you know, you should tell us.”

  “They don’t have a name,” Kill told us. “They’re not like some juvenile group of hoodlums. They’re more than that.”

  “What?”

  “They’re connected at the top levels. All I can do is give you leads. You take action. Against the Americans, they are less likely to strike back. Your country has too much power and influence amongst the most important people in the Park Chung-hee government for them to do that.”

  “They really won’t strike back because we’re American?” Ernie asked.

  Kill stared at him for a few seconds too long. And then at me. “I don’t think so,” he said finally. “But lately they’ve become reckless. Proceed with caution.”

  “Caution is our byword,” Ernie said.

  On the way out, Officer Oh gave us her list. It was typed in both English and Korean hangul. I studied it briefly, then folded it and slipped it into my jacket pocket.

  Halfway to the jeep, Ernie was agitated. “Why don’t the KNPs just line the gampei up against a wall and shoot them?”

  “They’ve tried,” I said.

  “And?”

  “There are always more.”

  When we reached the pochang macha, Ernie waved to the old woman who ran it. She smiled and nodded, then returned to stirring her bean curd stew. We hopped into the jeep. Ernie started the engine. Winding through the heavy Seoul traffic, Ernie headed toward Namsan Tunnel Number Three.

  “Before we leave compound tonight,” he said, “we’re stopping at the MP Arms Room. I’m not going into some gangland playground without a .45 under my arm. If these guys play rough, I’m gonna have something for ’em.”

  “Oh, joy,” I said.

  -17-

  Back at the 8th Army CID office, I called Corrine Fitch at the Cosmos Hotel. She picked up on the second ring.

  “I was just leaving,” she said.

  “Where are you headed?” I asked.

  “Who is this?”

  “George Sueño,” I said. “One of the guys from the airport. I didn’t get to properly introduce myself.”

  “George what-o?” she said.

  I was used to this. Hispanic names often threw people, especially an unusual one like Sueño.

  “Sueño,” I said. “With the ‘n’ like the ‘ny’ in canyon.”

  “Oh. Are you the tall one?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t have time to chat right now,” she said. “I’m on the way to meet someone. But I’m moving into office space on Yongsan Compound tomorrow.” She riffled through paperwork. “JAG office annex number two. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes.” It was in a redbrick duplex provided to defense attorneys under the rare circumstances that a GI—usually a senior officer—coughed up enough dough to hire a Stateside lawyer.

  “Good. Let’s meet there around nine?”

  “Zero-nine-hundred hours?”

  “If that’s what you want to call it,” she said.

  “Nine it is,” I told her.

  “Okay. Bring the shovel.”

  With that, she hung up.

  Ernie was sitting in a straight-backed chair, thumbing through the Pacific Stars and Stripes.

  “Sounds like she’s into you,” he said.

  I ignored him and returned to my report on our search for Evelyn Cresthill, which sat half-finished in my Olivetti. A half hour later, I had an idea—one that seemed to get better each minute I thought it over. I cornered Riley ou
t in the hallway. “Who’s your contact over at Ration Control?”

  “Why?” he asked, squinting warily at me.

  I towered over him, aware that I outweighed him by close to fifty pounds. Still, he acted like he was the toughest guy in three brigades.

  “I need to access some data,” I said, “without making an official request.”

  “Not if it’s about the JSA murder. So is it?”

  “Why do you care? Just tell me who to talk to.”

  “You’ve been ordered to leave this shit alone,” Riley said.

  “There’s no airtight evidence that Fusterman killed anybody, especially not his best friend—the brother of the woman he wanted to marry.”

  “Hell,” Riley scoffed. “That makes him the most likely suspect.”

  “I don’t think so,” I told him. “Look, I just want to check out some data. If nothing comes of it, nobody’s the wiser. If there is something, I’ll have JAG make a formal request for an official report.”

  “You’re out of your gourd, Sueño.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “You still dating that cashier out at the Statue Lounge?”

  Riley stiffened. He had a penchant for older women, which embarrassed him, and Ernie teased him about it mercilessly.

  “You’re not going mention that to anyone, are you?”

  “Me? Of course not.”

  His shoulders relaxed. “Okay. I’ll make a phone call.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What should I ask for?”

  I told him.

  Two hours later, Ernie and I picked up the report Riley had requested. A guy named Rodney Porter, a Specialist Five in charge of recordkeeping at the 8th Army Ration Control Office, met us on a stone bench on the far side of the 8th Army Library, a place not much frequented by men in uniform.

  He handed over a manila envelope stuffed with a computer printout.

  “What’s it show?” Ernie asked, peering inside.

  “More than usual,” Porter said. “But that’s expected from a unit in an isolated area like the JSA.”