Nightmare Range

by Martin Limon

  That shut him up for a while. After a few minutes, he resumed cursing softly beneath his breath.

  The village of Three White Cranes sat in a bowl-shaped valley about halfway between Seoul and the Eastern Sea. Most of the world refers to the Eastern Sea as the Sea of Japan but the Koreans aren’t particularly fond of that nomenclature.

  After two hours of winding roads and narrow country highways, Ernie slowed the jeep and rolled past clapboard hovels that lined the main street of downtown Three White Cranes. The largest building was made of whitewashed cement and the flag of the Republic of Korea waved proudly from a thirty-foot-high pole out front. The Three White Cranes Police Station. Two cops inside had already been alerted by Captain Kim in Itaewon and they drew us a map to a pig farm about two clicks outside of town.

  An old man stood in front of a straw-thatched hut. He wore a tattered khaki uniform of the Korean National Police that hung on him like a loose sack. When I climbed out of the jeep and approached him, he waved his bamboo cane in the air.

  “Kara,” he said. “Bali kara!” Get lost!

  Ignoring rudeness is an important skill for any investigator. I approached the old man and started shooting questions at him in Korean about his involvement in the Moretti case.

  Ernie stood by the jeep, staring over at a pen full of hogs. The fence was so rickety that he was worried some of them might break out.

  “You go,” the old man told me, using broken English now. “Long time ago. No use now. You go.”

  “Who murdered Moretti?” I asked the former Lieutenant Kwang.

  “You go. No use now.”

  I kept at him, badgering him with questions, sometimes in English, sometimes in Korean.

  “Why you cause trouble?” he asked me finally. A watery film covered the old man’s eyes. “He dead now. Life hard in Korea that time. You no ask question.”

  “You know who killed Moretti,” I said.

  “No. I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Just like before. I don’t want to know.”

  I started to ask more questions but the old man hobbled quickly toward the pigpen. Using his bamboo cane, he knocked loose two supporting beams and the rickety wooden fence collapsed. A herd of hogs charged out. I ran toward the jeep and jumped in. The huge animals swarmed around us, snorting and pawing and trying to climb into the vehicle.

  Ernie started the jeep and backed down the dirt road. The hogs followed.

  “If I had my forty-five,” Ernie said, “I’d land us some pork chops.”

  Instead, he turned around, slammed the gear shift into first, and sped away.

  When I looked back, the old man was still waving his bamboo cane.

  An oil lamp guttered in the small office adjacent to Haggler Lee’s warehouse.

  Although he might’ve been the richest man in Itaewon, Haggler Lee had a habit of keeping expenses to a minimum. Electricity was seldom used in his place of business. He wore traditional Korean clothing, a green silk vest and white cotton pantaloons, and didn’t believe in wasting money on haircuts. Instead he kept his black hair tied above his head and knotted with a short length of blue rope. We sat on the oil-papered floor in his office.

  “Moretti,” Haggler Lee said. “Nineteen fifty-four. Only one person I know of was in business back in those days.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  Ernie sipped on the barley tea that Haggler Lee’s servant had served shortly after we arrived. The entire room smelled of incense. A stick glowed softly in a bronze burner.

  Haggler Lee rubbed his smooth chin. “Why would two famous CID agents be interested in a case so old?”

  “What do you care?” Ernie said. “Your operation is safe. We’re not after you.”

  “Thanks to my ancestors watching in Heaven,” Lee replied. “Still, nineteen fifty-four. Unusual, is it not?”

  “Unusual,” I said. “Who was in operation then?”

  “The black market was small in nineteen fifty-four. Koreans were so poor they could afford few of your imported American goods.”

  “Who is it, Lee?” Ernie asked.

  “Whiskey Mary.”

  “Whiskey Mary? What’s her Korean name?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. She’s been called Whiskey Mary so long even we Koreans call her that.”

  “Where can we find her?”

  “Last I heard she worked at a yoguan in Munsan-ni. An unsavory place.”

  Haggler Lee gave us the name of the inn, the Kaesong Yoguan. Ernie finished his tea and we left.

  Munsan is a small city about thirty kilometers north of Seoul, near the DMZ. Ernie and I cruised through the narrow main road. This was Sunday morning so Korean soldiers were everywhere, elbowing their way past farmers pushing carts full of turnips and grandmothers balancing pans full of laundry atop their heads.

  The Dragon Eye Yoguan sat in an alley just off the main drag. It was a ramshackle building, two stories high, made of old varnished slats of wood. When Ernie and I slipped off our shoes and stepped up into the musty foyer, a woman wearing a long wool skirt and wool sweater emerged from a sliding, oil-papered door.

  “Andei,” she said. No good. “Migun yogi ei, andei.” American soldiers aren’t allowed here.

  Ernie didn’t understand and I didn’t bother to translate. It was understandable that the woman wouldn’t want American GIs staying here. If her main clientele were Korean soldiers, that would be asking for trouble.

  I ignored her remark, showed her my badge, and spoke to her in Korean. When I mentioned the name Whiskey Mary, her eyes widened.

  “No trouble,” I said quickly. “We just want to ask her some questions.”

  Shaking her head, the woman led us down a long narrow hallway. Sliding doors were spaced along the walls every few feet, some of them open, showing rumpled blankets and porcelain pots inside. The aroma of charcoal gas and urine filled the hallway. Occasionally Ernie and I had to duck to avoid bumping our heads on overhanging support beams.

  Out back was a muddy courtyard with a few skinny chickens behind wire and two neatly spaced outdoor latrines made of cement blocks. The woman motioned with her open palm, turned, and left.

  Ernie and I crossed the courtyard.

  Whiskey Mary was bent over with her back to us, kneeling in one of the latrines, scrubbing with hot soapy water and a wire brush.

  “Whiskey Mary,” I said.

  She froze in mid-stroke.

  When she turned around, I could see two teeth missing up front, the others blackened around the edges. Wiry gray hair, face full of wrinkles and a suspicious squint to her eyes.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Moretti,” I said.

  She squeezed the wire brush, leaned on it, and began to cry.

  In wine is truth, the Romans used to say, and maybe that’s what happened to Ernie and me. When we returned to Itaewon that night we sat at the bar in the Seven Club and rehashed what we knew about the Moretti case.

  Whiskey Mary had owned her own bar and run a successful black market operation out back. She wasn’t worried about arrest because the US Army authorities had no jurisdiction over her and the Korean National Police were being paid off. She even showed us photographs of herself in those days. Sitting with the girls who were hostesses in Whiskey Mary’s, all of them with new hairdos and makeup and wearing expensive silk chima-chogori. GIs brought in the PX-bought whiskey and cigarettes and instant coffee and Whiskey Mary turned it into cash and other favors from her hostesses. A sweet deal.

  Until Moretti was killed.

  He was one of her best customers. And went so far as to hustle other GIs, especially those new in-country, to use their ration cards to make a little money. And if they were worried about being caught by the MPs, Moretti would handle all transactions for them, taking half the profit for his efforts.

  He was a good boy, Whiskey Mary told us. Most of the money he made, he mailed home by US Postal money order to his mother in Newark, New Jersey.

  Then someone sta
bbed him to death.

  Neither the KNPs nor the MPs had a clue as to who had murdered Moretti. But his body had been found in the middle of the street in Itaewon, apparently attacked just after curfew at four in the morning, stabbed in the solar plexus and left to bleed to death on a muddy road.

  A senator from New Jersey raised hell and the Syngman Rhee government was under pressure to do something to insure the safety of American GIs. If the GIs left Korea, they’d take military and foreign aid money with them. The Rhee government couldn’t tolerate anything like that so the pressure to charge someone with Moretti’s murder was enormous.

  Whiskey Mary was chosen.

  “They wanted to take over my operation,” she said. Her English was heavily accented but still understandable after all these years. “Somebody up high.” She pointed toward Heaven. “In the government. The Americans were happy and the Korean big shots stole my business at the same time.”

  The charge was murder. She was arrested, tried, and sentenced to five years.

  “Why only five years?” Ernie asked.

  Whiskey Mary answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Because I wasn’t guilty.”

  “But Eighth Army kept the case open,” I said.

  She waved her hand in the air. “They never happy with what Korean police do. American CID man, he know I no kill Moretti.”

  “How would he know that?”

  She smiled her toothless smile. “Because he sleep with me that night.”

  When I asked her who did kill Moretti, she didn’t know.

  “Mori Di, he knew everybody,” she said. “He have many friends and many girlfriends. I don’t know why anybody want kill him.”

  When we finished our questions, I handed Whiskey Mary a few dollars. She stuffed them in her brassiere.

  Probably an old habit.

  The Seven Club’s new all-Korean Country Western band clanged to life. Ernie and I sat through the yodeling and the twanging guitars patiently, both of us thinking about what we’d learned. When the Korean cowboys finished their first set, Ernie swiveled on his barstool and faced me.

  “We both know who we have to talk to.”

  “We do?”

  “Sure. We’ve been looking at this case in the wrong way from the beginning. All that kut mumbo jumbo bent our heads the wrong way.”

  I thought about that for a moment. Finally, I said, “I see what you mean.”

  “Tomorrow,” Ernie said. “We wrap this damn case up.”

  We ordered two more draft OBs and drank to that proposition.

  It was Monday now so we had to wait until after work. During the day, I called Miss Choi and tried to convince her to give me an address. When she figured out what I had in mind, she refused but promised to show us the way. Reluctantly, I agreed.

  That night, driving through the crowded Seoul streets, Ernie and I didn’t talk much. Miss Choi sat silently in the back of the jeep. At a park on the northeast side of downtown Seoul, she told us to pull over. A huge wooden gate painted bright red was slashed with Chinese Characters: Kuksadang. Altar for National Rites.

  “We have to walk from here,” Miss Choi said.

  On the other side of the gate, stone steps led up a steep hill.

  Miss Choi wasn’t wearing her usual Western clothing. Instead, she wore a long white skirt and white blouse, very similar to what the Widow Po had worn during the kut. Also a large canvas bag was strapped over her shoulder.

  “Why no blue jeans?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I must protect you.”

  “Protect us?” Ernie asked. “From what?”

  “From the Widow Po.”

  When I asked her to explain she shook her head. We climbed the long flights of steps in silence. Slowly, we wound our way toward the top of a line of steep hills—small mountains actually—guarding the northwestern flank of the capital city of Seoul. Square stone parapets lined the summit, built during the Yi Dynasty as protection against Manchurian raiders and Japanese pirates. Below, the glowing lights of the city sparkled in the darkening sky. To the east, a red moon started to rise.

  While tossing back wets at the Seven Club, it had occurred to Ernie that the one person who knew more about the Moretti case than anyone in the world was the Widow Po. If you believed in ghosts, that would be because the spirit of Moretti took possession of her during a kut. If you don’t believe in ghosts, that would mean that she had specific knowledge of the case.

  Neither Ernie nor I believed in ghosts.

  Behind the ancient battlements, a dirt pathway led through a small grove of quivering elms. Miss Choi marched in the lead, staring straight ahead. Ernie and I glanced at one another. She looked exactly as if she were going into battle.

  Once past the grove of trees, we descended into a dry gully. On the other side a clearing held maybe a dozen hooches, all thatched with straw. Candles flickered in one of the windows. No street lamps or cars or electricity up here. Down below, the modern city of Seoul hummed vibrantly.

  Miss Choi stopped and waited until we were close.

  “Only I talk,” she said. “Not you.”

  “We have to question her,” Ernie said. “About Moretti.”

  “I do that. You listen.”

  Without waiting for further comment, Miss Choi Yong-kuang turned and strode toward the one home with a light in the window. As she walked, she reached in her canvas bag and pulled out a small drum made of wood and leather. Using a short stick she banged the drum lightly, only once, and then in a steady rhythm. In front of the hooch, we waited.

  Ernie grew impatient. “Why don’t I just knock on the damn door?”

  Miss Choi shushed him.

  In the other hooches there didn’t seem to be any life whatsoever. But someone must live here. Wash fluttered on lines behind the houses. A skinny rooster flapped its wings and scratched into soil. Were they all gone? Or were they sitting silently behind dark windows, watching us?

  This afternoon on the phone, Miss Choi had told me that the entire village was reserved for mediums. Wealthy people from the city below climbed up here to have their fortunes told or to talk to dear departed loved ones. But there were no customers tonight.

  The front door of the hooch creaked open. Miss Choi drummed a little faster. A figure in white stepped out onto the porch. Then she stepped off the porch, slipping into her plastic sandals, and followed a flagstone walkway until she stood just a few feet from us. Moonlight reflected off a pock-marked face: the Widow Po.

  I expected her to smile at Ernie. After all, they’d practically been intimate during the kut. Instead, she ignored us and frowned at Miss Choi.

  “You insult me,” the Widow Po said in Korean.

  “These are good men,” Miss Choi retorted. “And you asked me to bring them to the kut. This is your doing.”

  “You expect I will hurt them?”

  Miss Choi stopped drumming, slipped the instrument back into her bag, and pulled out a long red scarf embroidered with gold thread. I couldn’t make out what it said but the embroidery was clearly stylized Chinese characters. She draped the scarf over her head.

  The Widow Po took a step backward.

  “You are insolent,” she said. “Do you think I can’t ward off evil spirits on my own?”

  “Not evil spirits,” Miss Choi said. “I want to ward off you. You must have some plan. It is not me who brought these men here tonight. It is you.”

  The Widow Po turned to me and then slowly turned to Ernie. She smiled.

  “I should offer you tea,” she said in English.

  “Not necessary,” Ernie replied. “We just want to ask you some questions.”

  “Will you be able to appease the troublesome spirit who has been haunting me?”

  “That’s up to you,” I said. “How old are you?”

  Her eyes widened. “A woman should never answer such a question.”

  “American women shouldn’t,” I said. “Korean women are proud of their a
ge.”

  She smiled again. “I am older than you think.”

  “Old enough to have known Moretti?”

  Miss Choi pulled a small prayer wheel out of her bag, started spinning it, closed her eyes, and chanted softly beneath her breath.

  We waited.

  Far below in Seoul, neon sparkled and an occasional horn honked. The orange moon was completely above the horizon now. Miss Choi’s gentle chanting seemed to encourage its glow. Finally, the Widow Po spoke.

  “I knew him,” she said. “I was young then. And beautiful. Yes, beautiful,” she repeated, as if I had challenged her. “Despite the marks on my face I was beautiful. We were never married in your Yankee way, what with all your military paperwork. It was only there to discourage American GIs from marrying Korean women. But we were married in the proper way, taking vows before the Goddess of the Underworld, swearing that our devotion would be eternal. That we would never part. Not like you Americans who change husbands and wives so often.”

  She was speaking Korean now. Ernie couldn’t understand but he was following the intensity in her voice. I struggled to understand every word.

  “But Moretti was like all you Americans, consorting with evil. With that woman called Whiskey Mary …”

  Ernie understood that.

  “… and with the girls who worked for her. And who knows who else? He wouldn’t come home. He wouldn’t perform the filial rights during the autumn harvest or visit the graves of my ancestors and introduce himself to them. He laughed at such things. Laughed!”

  Now she was crying, her lips quivering in rage.

  “When he was gone, I had to make a living. Not by finding another GI like so many women did but by honoring my ancestors. By doing this.”

  She waved her arms to indicate the totality of the little village of shamans and mediums.

  “When he was gone,” I said. “He was gone because you killed him.”

  The Widow Po stared into my eyes a long time. Miss Choi’s chanting grew more rapid.

  “Yes,” the Widow Po said. “I killed him. I had no choice. He was dishonoring me. He was dishonoring the Goddess of the Underworld.”

  “And the Korean police left you alone.”