Nightmare Range

by Martin Limon

  “We haven’t been to Myongdong in a while. Wouldn’t hurt to stop by the OB Beer Hall tonight and have a few wet ones.”

  I looked at him. “You’re right about that. It couldn’t hurt nothing. Nothing but our livers.”

  The OB Beer Hall hummed with customers, most of them Korean businessmen just off work, standing at the counters chatting with friends. Blue-suited girls with jet black hair tied snugly under white bandanas ran back and forth to the tap, refilling huge mugs of beer. The hefty young woman behind the stick wore a red and white nameplate with the OB Beer logo pinned above her breasts.

  After our second refill I spoke to her in Korean.

  “Miss Kim, do you ever get a customer in here known as Cruncher Chong?”

  “Cruncher? Oh, yes. He comes in here often.”

  “Is he here now?”

  The young lady scanned the room. “No. I haven’t seen him. You know him?”

  “No. Not yet. But we’re looking for him on behalf of a boy named Yun Chil-bok.”

  The girls looked at us blankly. “Well, if Cruncher Chong is not here, he is usually at the Black Dragon nightclub.”

  “Where’s that?”

  She pointed. “Two blocks down and turn right past the Teahouse of the Seven Virgins.”

  Two more uniformed young women popped through swinging doors carrying freshly washed mugs and more snacks to put on display. Ernie stared at them, and for a moment I thought he was going to drool. Over the mugs or the girls, I wasn’t sure which. I said thank you to Miss Kim and pulled Ernie out of there.

  The Black Dragon nightclub had a long bar with upholstered bar stools and cocktail tables peeking out from behind planters and aquariums full of tropical fish. When our eyes adjusted, I saw that the joint was only about half full. The crowd was younger than at the OB Beer Hall. And full of hustle.

  A tall, slender man with a heavily greased pompadour stood at the bar. He was talking, and the bow-tied bartender kept smiling and nodding. He stared at us when we walked in, as most of the people in the place did, and then he reached in his pocket and pulled out something long and gnarled. He stuck the tip of it into his mouth. At first I thought it was a carrot, but as my eyes refocused I realized it was a piece of ginseng root.

  They say that true ginseng grows only in the soil of the Korean peninsula. It has been known since ancient time for its medicinal powers, but most men saw it as an aphrodisiac.

  As I passed him, I could almost see my reflection in his big white teeth. I fought off the urge to say, “What’s up, doc?”

  Only Ernie would have gotten away with it.

  We took a seat at a table, and after a while a heavily made-up waitress in a tightly wrapped dress came over to serve us. We ordered two beers and a plate of dried cuttlefish. When she delivered the wets, Ernie smiled and made her promise to come back and talk after taking care of a few more orders.

  The tall man at the bar continued to drink, but I didn’t see him forking over any money. Four more sleazy types paraded into the Black Dragon and joined him. They laughed at his jokes and backed off when he playfully poked them with his ginseng root.

  When the waitress came back, we discovered that her name was Miss Min and that she had been working there for six months. When we asked her if she had a boyfriend, she laughed.

  “Do you know Cruncher Chong?” I asked.

  Her head turned involuntarily toward the bar. “Oh, yes. Everyone knows him.”

  “Is he a gangster?”

  She dropped her head slightly and shook it so her short, curly black hair bounced and shimmered. “I don’t know.”

  “Did you know Ahn Chong-ai, the woman who owned the pochang ma-cha on the street here?”

  “No. I don’t know her.” Her smile had disappeared. She picked up her cocktail tray. “I must go now.”

  Ernie grabbed her by the wrist. “Don’t speak to anyone about our conversation,” he said. I translated what he said to Korean. She glared at us and left.

  I took a sip of my beer. “We’re not making many friends.”

  “Not yet,” Ernie said.

  We ate the dried cuttlefish and nursed our beers until they were just suds. Cruncher Chong and his cronies, waving and making much noise, said their goodbyes and paraded out the door.

  We paid our bill. It was about twice as expensive as in Itaewon.

  The tail was easy. They weren’t expecting to be followed, especially by a couple of foreigners.

  Seven or eight customers sat around the cart on wooden stools. Steam billowed from a vat of soup, and the reddened faces of the revelers glistened in the glare of the naked bulb overhead.

  Cruncher Chong and his buddies monopolized the attention of both the customers and the rotund woman who poured shots of soju into small cups. The men toasted the company and drank heartily of the potent rice liquor.

  The crowds of Myongdong streamed past the little pochang ma-cha. Blue and white canvas flaps were draped over iron ribs, protecting the customers from the elements and the curious stares of passersby.

  “If this is the cart that belonged to the boy’s aunt,” Ernie said, “they only moved it about ten blocks.”

  “Enough to confuse an eight-year-old who’d never been in the city before.”

  We waited around the corner until Cruncher Chong and his buddies got up and left. Then we joined the revelers at the open-air cart. There were three Korean men and two women, all middle-aged working-class people who were surprised to see us. We ordered a couple of shots of soju, and the proprietress threw in some unhusked peanuts, gratis, in honor of our being the first foreigners to be seen in these parts.

  On the pole next to me I noticed a red document. A license of some sort, or a health inspection certificate. I stood up halfway to take a better look. I couldn’t read all the officialese, but I could make out that the current owner’s last name was Chong. The beginning date of the certificate was two weeks ago. The certificate was in a plastic holder, and there was something else behind it. I flipped it forward and saw the name Ahn Chong-ai.

  The revelers called to me. Everyone had raised their cups. To friendship between Korea and America. I joined in.

  A thick-bladed hatchet sat on the cutting board next to the kettle of soup. I asked the round smiling woman if I could take a good look at her cart, since I was an Amerian and we didn’t have such things where I came from. Her face crinkled into a huge round smile, and she nodded. Behind where she stood was a double panel in the side of the cart. The interior was hollow for carrying the big kettle and the cooking utensils and the canvas cover when the cart was wheeled away on its oversized bicycle wheels. I rubbed the bottom of the wood. It was splintery, not smooth, and a reddish-brown stain spread across more than half of the flat board.

  I figured I could climb inside the cart and no one would know I was there.

  I stood up and flamboyantly told the crowd how cleverly the cart was arranged and how resourceful were the Korean people. They cheered, and we all drank a little more soju.

  I sat back down and watched the woman hack a helpless turnip to smithereens and dump it in the boiling cauldron.

  The Myongdong night was in full swing now, and the streets were bustling with people on their way to restaurants or bars or just gawking at the sights. We headed back to the Black Dragon.

  “You don’t just dispose of the body of a grown woman in this part of Seoul,” Ernie said, “without somebody’s noticing.”

  “The boy said Cruncher Chong had spent some nights with his aunt,” I said. “Maybe he took care of her while they were alone and then got rid of the body.”

  “How?”

  “The cart. It’s the perfect hearse for transporting a stiff through town.”

  “And then he had the nerve to reopen the car for business under his own name?”

  “Maybe he forced her to sign a bill of sale or something.”

  “Or bribed the government inspector into not checking too close.”

  “
Maybe.”

  “And maybe we’ve been drinking too much soju,” Ernie said.

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  We had just turned down an alley, to cut from one main street to another, when I heard the footsteps behind us. I swiveled on the balls of my feet.

  Cruncher Chong and two of his boys.

  The light from the other end of the alley faded. I glanced backward. Three more guys were behind us. We took a couple of steps toward Chong.

  “You have been following us,” he said. “And asking questions.”

  The streets of LA had taught me that there is only one real advantage in a fight—the first strike. I kept walking toward Chong, casually, as if I were going to join in the conversation. When I was a few steps from him, I hopped forward and snapped a kick into his groin. He doubled over and I slammed his partner in the face and kept moving, past them, down the alley. Ernie was right behind me, but one of the guys grabbed him. I turned and kicked him in the side and he let go long enough for Ernie to break free and then we were running.

  Once we reached the main street it was a breathless three blocks until we found a policeman. He pointed us toward the Myongdong Police Station.

  Lieutenant Lee, night commander of the Myongdong Police Station, was somewhat skeptical of our explanation of a murder that had taken place in the middle of his precinct. But we were Americans, and CID agents, so he brought a couple of uniformed patrolmen with him and followed us to Cruncher Chong’s pochang ma-cha.

  We showed him the recent change of certificate, and he nodded and lifted out the old certificate behind it. He showed me that the deed had been legally transferred, with both a beginning and ending date for the ownership of Miss Ahn Chong-ai.

  As I was about to take him around behind the cart, the rotund woman pulled a bloody, newspaper-wrapped piece of meat, which must have just been delivered, from beneath her cart. She sliced off a piece, pulverized it, and dropped it into the cauldron. Pork. She re-wrapped the large chunk and put it back down inside the cart. When Lieutenant Lee and I looked into the base of the cart, fresh blood had been added to the stain I had seen before.

  Lieutenant Lee’s jaw bulged as he stared at me, trying to figure what to do with us. Finally he spoke.

  “What you say about Cruncher Chong carting this Miss Ahn’s body off in the cart is, of course, possible. The evidence, however, is slim as yet. We will locate Cruncher Chong and have a talk with him.”

  I nodded and thanked him.

  Ernie’s lips were clamped tight and his head rotated slightly on his neck, as if it sat atop a greased ball bearing.

  A couple of dumb Americans, meddling where we shouldn’t. I was starting to worry that Cruncher Chong might bring up assault charges.

  After about thirty minutes Lieutenant Lee walked out of the back room, tugging off his fingerless leather glove.

  “Cruncher Chong has confessed to everything,” he said.

  He shrugged, loosening his shoulders. A sheen of perspiration glistened atop his high brown forehead.

  “And we know where to find Miss Ahn Chong-ai. Tomorrow morning I will take you there.”

  We met him at the compound and followed his police sedan in our army jeep. It was a crisp, bright blue morning. After we left the outskirts of Seoul I breathed deeply of the clean air and had no doubt about why the ancients called Korea the Land of the Morning Calm.

  Suwon is a small town in the country, surrounded by green rice paddies and groves of apple trees. It has little of the hustle and bustle of Seoul. Lieutenant Lee’s driver asked directions one time and after a couple of turns parked in front of the Paris Beauty Shop.

  There wasn’t much family resemblance, but of the three beauticians on duty it was easy to figure out who was Miss Ahn Chong-ai. When she saw two Americans and the uniformed Korean police lieutenant, her eyes grew as big as two hairdryers.

  A couple of days later I called Father Art, and Ernie and I drove out to the orphanage.

  Miss Ahn had sold her cart and Chil-bok’s gold watch to her boyfriend, Cruncher Chong. That, along with the two hundred thousand won she stole from the boy, had allowed her to invest in the business of her dreams, a little beauty shop in Suwon. She was single, and maybe she thought an eight-year-old boy tagging along would hurt her chances for marriage, or maybe she just didn’t deem family ties to be as sacred as did most Koreans.

  I thought of Father Art’s words when I explained the situation. “The greatest shame,” he said, “that could scar a Korean’s soul is not honoring their family.”

  Lieutenant Lee’s treatment of her had not been gentle. If she’d robbed a bank instead of abandoning her only nephew, he probably wouldn’t have been so offended.

  When Miss Ahn sold the shop and refunded the money, Lieutenant Lee turned the proceeds over to the KNP Liaison Office at the 8th Army provost marshal’s office. It was all in one Korean bank note totaling four hundred and sixty-five thousand won, made out to Yun Chil-bok. I signed the receipt and we went to the orphanage.

  Father Art and Chil-bok were waiting for us. I knelt down and gave him the envelope.

  “What of my aunt?” he asked.

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Keep her memory well,” I said.

  “And the man who killed her?”

  I thought of the hardness in Lieutenant Lee’s eyes as he glowered at the petty criminal, Cruncher Chong.

  “He will be punished,” I said, “many times over before his life is through.”

  “Thank you,” the little boy said. Then he bowed.

  ASCOM CITY

  The breath of hungover GIs steamed the windows of the rickety army bus as it swerved around potholes on the road to ASCOM City. Things couldn’t have been better. Except that we weren’t going there to run the village, we were going there to look at a corpse.

  When Ernie and I received the assignment from the first sergeant, we thought it was harassment.

  “GIs turn up dead in business girls’ hooches all the time,” Ernie said. “Carbon monoxide poisoning. Routine.”

  “Maybe so,” the first sergeant said. “But this time the girl wasn’t lying next to him. She cleaned out the room, and she’s gone.”

  Ernie shrugged. “She probably got scared. The Korean National Police will find her.”

  “Or you will.” The first sergeant looked at his watch. “A bus leaves for the Army Support Command every other hour. I expect you two guys to be on the next one.”

  Ernie started to say something, but I slapped him on the elbow. He looked at me, I jerked my head toward the door, and we rose to our feet and walked out. We didn’t speak until we were halfway down the hallway.

  “The team from the inspector general is going to be here tomorrow,” Ernie said. “That’s why he wants us out of the way.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe his cop’s sense of propriety is offended when a GI wakes up in the morning dead.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Ernie slammed through the big double doors of the red brick CID building. “At least it’ll give us a chance to run the ville in ASCOM City.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”

  We flashed our identification to the desk sergeant at the ASCOM MP station.

  “Lieutenant Crane has been waiting for you,” he said. “Straight down the hallway. Third room on the left.”

  Lieutenant Crane was a gangly man in his early twenties with fatigue pants covering the length of his stilt-like legs. When we walked in, he looked up from a scattering of paperwork and ran a hand through his hair.

  “I don’t know why they sent you down here. The KNPs are still looking for the girl, but other than that it’s nothing more than a carbon monoxide poisoning.”

  Erne let me do the talking. He usually did when we talked to officers.

  “Let’s go see the hooch anyway, Lieutenant. You never know.”

  His face went through suspicious contortions, but then he came to the conclusion that since we were from 8th Army headquarters, and since we were
on an official investigation, it would be best to cooperate. In our business those thought processes are familiar.

  He strapped on his .45, perched his shiny MP helmet liner atop his head, and ambled out into the hallway. As we went through a doorway, the top of his narrow shoulders hunched forward and stayed that way. “I’ll be in the ville,” he told the desk sergeant, “on the VonEric case. Send a patrol for me if you need me.”

  The desk sergeant nodded.

  At the gate, armed MPs carded Ernie and me but just saluted the lieutenant and let him by.

  The ville started right across the street: Lee’s Tailor Shop, the Brass Emporium, Chosun Souvenirs. Farther down the road came a few nightclubs: the Hideaway, the Lotus Blossom, the UN Club. And then the alleys. Narrow. Mud-filled. More nightclubs, more neon, and more rock and roll blared out of darkened doorways. Little eateries were interspersed throughout the maze, advertising fried chicken and yakimandu, fried dumplings. Old women carried bundles of laundry atop their heads. Young girls scurried back and forth from bathhouses, flat sandals slapping against the balls of their feet.

  Ernie took a deep breath.

  “Nice place they got here,” he said.

  We wound down another couple of alleys, Lieutenant Crane leading, until he turned down an opening that was nothing more than a gap between cement block walls. As we passed through, I turned slightly sideways to keep the arms of my leather coat from getting scuffed. A quick jog to the left and then he pounded on a high wooden gate.

  “Ajjima,” Crane said. “Honbyong!”

  I was impressed. He announced himself in a polite way as being a representative of the military police. And his pronunciation was good.

  An old woman opened the gate and let us in.

  The hooch was typical. A small dirt-floored courtyard surrounded by a tile-roofed building divided into four or five rooms. Without bothering to speak to the woman, Lieutenant Crane stepped up on the wooden porch in front of the nearest hooch and slid back the wood frame door.

  “It was here,” he said. “We found Specialist VonEric dead about zero seven hundred this morning. This old lady called the Korean National Police, and they relayed the message to us.”