The Ville Rat

by Martin Limon

  Bearing a huge brass pot, one of the waitresses leaned over our table and sloshed warm barley tea into thick porcelain cups. Mr. Kill barely jerked the paper away in time. Like the goddess of all floods, the waitress ignored his discomfort and, as fast as she’d come, she was gone.

  “This is what was in her sleeve,” Kill told us.

  “The woman in the red dress?” Ernie asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Kill replied. “Precisely. In traditional Korean dresses, there are interior pockets hidden inside the long sleeves. Remember that snippet of paper we found?”

  I nodded.

  “It had calligraphy on it,” Mr. Kill continued. “I thought I recognized it at first, but I wanted to be sure, so we had it analyzed.”

  He slid the paper toward me. It was three lines of neatly printed hangul.

  “Of course what she had was just a portion of this poem. The first five words, to be exact, written in ink, we think with a horsehair brush. But I recognized it from the beginning. It’s the first five words of a work done in the ancient sijo style, probably the most famous poem in the Korean language.

  “Hwang Ji-ni,” I said.

  Mr. Kill sat back, eyes popping wide. “You know it?”

  “I know of it. I read the poem in English translation once in one of my textbooks.”

  “You would,” Ernie said, disgusted. “Read, read, read. That’s all you ever do.” He grabbed a mug of tea and slurped loudly. “Okay,” he went on, “so she liked poetry. So what?”

  Mr. Kill ignored him. “The poem was hand copied, not with a pencil or a ballpoint pen but with a traditional writing implement. We found a single strand of hair clinging to the paper. It turned out to be horsehair.”

  “Horsehair?” Ernie glanced at me, then at Mr. Kill.

  “That’s the traditional way to make Chinese writing brushes,” I told him. “Nobody makes ’em that way anymore. The few companies that do make old-fashioned writing brushes use synthetic materials.”

  “Maybe it’s too hard to catch the horse,” Ernie said.

  “Except for one place that still makes them in the traditional manner,” Mr. Kill said. “Red China.”

  “So she’s a Commie spy?” Ernie asked.

  “No. I doubt that. All imports from Communist countries are banned here in the Republic of Korea. Still, there are a few things people covet. Chinese ink, the inkstone, the horsehair brush—these are examples. Those who follow the ancient art of calligraphy believe that the synthetic substitutes are unworthy of their erudition.”

  “So some are smuggled in?” Ernie said.

  “Precisely. Mostly from Hong Kong or Japan.”

  “They allow the import of goods from Red China?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately.”

  “So this gal liked poetry,” Ernie said, “and she used a contraband brush to write it down. So what?”

  “Not your typical GI business girl,” I said.

  Ernie thought about that. “No. Most of them don’t get past the sixth grade. But maybe she didn’t write it. Maybe somebody else did.”

  “Maybe.”

  We sat in silence for a moment. Apparently, chow time was over, because the Korean soldiers rose from their benches in groups and started to depart. Many of them shot us curious glances as they passed, but they were polite. I didn’t hear one soldier use the phrase kocheingi. Big nose.

  Then I thought of something. “What about the paper?” I asked.

  Mr. Kill smiled broadly. “I thought you’d never ask. Yes, that’s an important clue. The paper the poetry was written on is imported also, handmade from the bark of the mulberry tree. Not manufactured here in Korea or anywhere else that I know of, other than Red China.”

  “If they’re such dedicated Communists and modern and stuff,” Ernie asked, “why do they still make these things?”

  “Foreign exchange,” Mr. Kill replied. “There’s a huge demand in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and other countries with enclaves of Chinese culture.”

  “So they’re anxious to make a buck.” Ernie nodded. “But as far as we know, that red dress and the paper in the sleeve didn’t even belong to the dead woman. Maybe she just grabbed them and ran, not knowing about the poetry or the mulberry leaves or any of that crap.”

  “Maybe,” Kill said. “Probably even, since she had been in such a rush. But still, it tells us something. Whoever she’s associating with had gone to a lot of trouble and a lot of expense to buy contraband Chinese writing implements.”

  “You can track those,” I said.

  Mr. Kill nodded. “We’re working on it now.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a GI,” Ernie said.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Mr. Kill answered. “But then what was this young woman doing way up here near the DMZ, running through a GI village right outside of an American compound, speaking broken English, pleading with an American MP to save her life?”

  The question hung in the air. None of us had any answers.

  A different MP and a different Korean contract guard manned the front gate of Camp Pelham. I didn’t ask about gate guard Kim because I figured he’d been reassigned to either one of the back gates or, worse, perimeter patrol. The MP stared at our badges stoically and then called the Camp Pelham MP station. After a few mumbled words, he waved us through the gate. Apparently, the 8th Army provost marshal’s directive to cooperate was working, at least so far.

  We’d been here before, to the battalion headquarters, but we bypassed that single-story complex and kept walking down the narrow blacktop road. Green Quonset huts lined either side of the road, interspersed with whitewashed signs sporting black stenciled lettering: battalion ammo point; alpha battery, 2/17th fa; bravo battery; and finally charley battery, 2nd of the 17th field artillery. Without knocking, we pushed through the double swinging doors of the orderly room.

  A first sergeant was waiting for us. He didn’t stand up. “You’re here about Threets,” he said, pulling a half-smoked stogie out of his mouth.

  “We’re here about the shooting,” I said.

  “Yeah. Same same. You’ll want to talk to the CO and the executive officer. They’re both out. Don’t know when they’ll be back.” He had a smug smile on his face, as if we’d just been checkmated.

  “What makes you think we want to talk to them?” Ernie asked.

  The first sergeant’s eyes narrowed. He was a husky man, muscle bulging out of a neatly pressed but faded fatigue blouse. His name tag said Bolton. “Because they’re in charge,” he said in a low, menacing tone, daring us to contradict him.

  “I know who we want to talk to,” Ernie replied, “and it ain’t no freaking officers.”

  First Sergeant Bolton stood, placing the remnants of his cigar gently into a glass ashtray. “No one talks to the men until the CO says so.”

  “Bull,” Ernie replied. He turned and together we walked out of the orderly room. Off to the left was a small billeting area, probably for the NCOs. In front of us, across the narrow street, were two large Quonset huts linked together by a cement-block building with steam rising from aluminum vents. Two enlisted barracks with a latrine wedged in the middle. The same setup we’d seen in camp after camp throughout the Korean peninsula.

  We walked across the street. Neither First Sergeant Bolton nor anyone else bothered to follow us.

  On the door of the barracks, a rectangular sign hung from a single remaining nail. I had to twist my head to read it: off limits except to authorized personnel. Ernie pushed through into the Quonset hut. The lights were dim in here. A couple of GIs sat near a window, cleaning their M16 rifles.

  “Where is everybody?” Ernie asked.

  One of them shrugged. The other GI spoke up. “At the motor pool, mostly,” he said.

  In the back, past the exit to the latrine, stood a line of wall lockers, as if the Quonset had been par
titioned. Low mumbles escaped from behind the line of grey lockers. Ernie walked past a row of bunks. At the end, on the far side of the lockers, a group of GIs in fatigue uniform lurked in the darkness. Some of them standing, two sitting. All of them were soul brothers, black soldiers. Ernie used a hand signal to let me know he’d take over from here.

  “What’s happening?” he asked, ignoring the fact that no one answered. He walked past the row of wall lockers and took a seat on one of the square foot lockers at the end of a bunk, pulling something from his front pocket as he did so. Then he was mumbling, using the same tone the GIs had been using. They stared at him, hostile at first, and then I saw curiosity overtake their stares. Ernie kept talking, holding something between his fingers, fiddling with it. One of the GIs smiled. Another mumbled back.

  When I left, Ernie was still mumbling. I thought I knew what he was doing, and if I was right, I didn’t want to know any more about it. I hurried out of the building. First Sergeant Bolton was waiting for me in the company street, arms crossed, felt cap pulled low across his forehead.

  “I thought I told you not to talk to our troops.”

  I was worried about what Ernie was doing in the barracks, so I decided to stall. Instead of telling him to drop dead, I pulled out my badge and patiently explained to him that, when on a case, the Criminal Investigation Division doesn’t require the permission of superior officers to speak to potential witnesses.

  “None of these guys witnessed nothing,” he said.

  “They were on the range, weren’t they?”

  “Yeah, but it happened so fast. Threets swiveled, fired his rifle, and the chief of smoke went down. These guys didn’t see nothing.”

  “But you saw something,” I said.

  Bolton’s face flushed red. “I didn’t see nothing.”

  With that, he stormed past me into the barracks. The two GIs I’d seen earlier were still cleaning their weapons. In back, behind the row of wall lockers, Ernie and the black GIs had disappeared. Apparently, in a puff of smoke.

  The MP barracks sat off by itself, on the far side of a circle of reinforced gun emplacements. The bunks were lined up in a similar fashion, but the wall lockers were evenly spaced. No partitions here. A couple of MPs were asleep, with pillows pulled over their heads, probably night-shift workers. Others were flopping around in white boxer shorts and rubber sandals, heading back and forth to the latrine. They looked at me curiously.

  “Groverly,” I said to one of them. He glanced upstairs, toward the front of the huge Quonset hut. I hurried up the wooden stairway, figuring I didn’t have much time. Groverly was awake, sitting on the edge of his bunk, dressed in a crisp pair of fatigues, lacing up a pair of spit-shined jump boots. I recognized him from his rank insignia, buck sergeant, and his embroidered name tag.

  “Swing shift?” I asked.

  Slowly, he looked up at me.

  “You’re the CID guy?”

  “That’s me.” I smiled.

  “You’re not supposed to be talking to me.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion.”

  “It’s a matter of orders.”

  “The orders don’t override a murder investigation.” I stared at his eyes as I spoke. They were green, his face was long, soft, almost girlish, but there was a steel to his countenance, and I understood why this guy was an MP in a combat unit. He was tough. He’d be able to hold his own. I spoke quickly, knowing I might only have a few seconds to convince him to cooperate.

  “She was murdered,” I said, “probably held down face-first in the freezing water and the mud. She didn’t have a chance. The worst part is she saw it coming. She knew somebody was after her and she knew they were about to catch her. After talking to you she ran to the ville, to the nightclubs, asking mama-sans for help. Nobody wanted anything to do with her. She was trouble, she was a crazy woman. Then a woman heard her in one of the alleys heading toward the Sonyu River. He must’ve caught up with her there. They argued, she struggled, then she was gone.” I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the black-and-white photograph Mr. Kill had provided. “This is how she ended up.”

  I handed the photo to him. Gingerly, he took it in his hands and studied it.

  After a pause, he said, “This is her?”

  “She looks different,” I said, “from when you talked to her?”

  Sergeant Groverly nodded. “Different,” he said.

  “No one’s blaming you,” I said. “You had no jurisdiction over her. It was a Korean matter. In fact, gate guard Kim says you told her to go talk to the KNPs. You even pointed her in the right direction.”

  Groverly nodded. “I did.”

  Now he was staring at the floor. Then he looked back up at me and finally started talking. “There was nothing I could do,” he said. “I couldn’t leave my post and there was no point in even talking to the watch commander. We don’t deploy MP assets for Korean civilians. It just isn’t done. Never. It’s a matter of jurisdiction. If we did, the KNPs would have a fit.”

  I nodded. He kept talking.

  “She was so desperate. It was clear that someone was right on her tail.” He paused and stared at the glossy tip of his jump boot. “I figured it was her pimp or her boyfriend or something like that. He’d knock her around, maybe. I figured she’d be okay . . .”

  His voice trailed off.

  “Where had she come from?” I asked. “Which direction?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Suddenly she was just there.”

  “What else did you notice?”

  “She was on foot, and stepping carefully.” He gazed at me as if it were the strangest thing in the world. “She didn’t have any shoes.”

  “What else did she say, Groverly?”

  He shook his head, as if to clear it. “That’s it. She said it in English. ‘Help me.’ And then something in Korean to Kim. ‘Saram sorry oh,’ or something like that.”

  “Saram sollyo,” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  It means help. Literally, save a person.

  I stood silent for a moment, waiting for him to add something more. He didn’t. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, slowly shaking his head. Finally, I thanked him and walked away. He still hadn’t finished lacing up his boot.

  “The Black Star Club,” Ernie told me as we exited the main gate of Camp Pelham.

  I waited until we were off compound to say it: “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “What do you mean?” he said, innocent and red-faced.

  “Your eyeballs are as big as platters.”

  “Oh, that. Yeah,” he said, “some good shit.”

  “You brought reefer up here?”

  “Yeah, shared it with the brothers.”

  “First Sergeant Bolton was looking for you.”

  “The brothers knew that. We went to a good place, out behind the motor pool.”

  An exasperated sigh escaped my lungs. “You know the Division doesn’t play. They’ll lock us up and drop the key in the Imjin River if they catch us with that shit. Do you have any more?”

  “No,” Ernie said, “all gone.”

  “You’re sure?”

  He glanced at me. “You don’t trust me?”

  “Sure, I do,” I said.

  But not when it came to drugs. I didn’t say that part. Ernie had spent two tours in Vietnam, volunteering to go back for the second. He always said it was a “sweet one” and there’d never be another war like it. On his first tour, young boys sold hash to the GIs, dirt cheap. On his second tour, all the hash was gone, replaced by pure China White. Also cheap. Ernie had picked up the habit there, but I had to admire him, he’d kicked the jones completely here in Korea. Of course, there was no heroin to be had in Korea, not by anyone. The South Korean government checked every bag of every traveler coming in or out of
the country, and possession of heroin was punishable by life in prison. The sentence for trafficking was death. And they’d carried out that sentence more than once, standing the erstwhile drug kingpin up against the wall and executing him by firing squad. The 2nd Infantry Division and 8th Army in general were also tough on drug possession. But when it came to marijuana, the Americans might take a hard line but the Koreans were surprisingly more tolerant. After all, it was a natural plant, grown by local farmers, and although it was technically illegal, the KNPs wouldn’t prosecute a poor farmer for making a few extra bucks by selling weed to American GIs. Koreans weren’t interested in the stuff, with the exception of a few business girls who’d picked up the practice from their clients. Still, Ernie worried me, but as long as he promised he didn’t have any more, I had to trust him.

  “You showed them the picture?”

  Mr. Kill had provided us each with a three-by-five-inch glossy of the corpse in the Sonyu River.

  “Showed ’em,” Ernie said. “They never saw her before.”

  “How about Threets?”

  “Him, they knew well and they gave me an earful.”

  “They didn’t look like a very talkative bunch.”

  “You just have to get them started,” he said. “Besides, I brought an icebreaker.”

  “Where’s The Black Star?” I asked.

  “Up that crack,” he said, pointing toward a narrow pedestrian lane just past Miss Cho’s Brassware Emporium. For the first time I noticed that there was a small neon sign with a finger pointing optimistically into the darkness.

  “There’s a club up there?”

  “Yeah, for them.”

  “They don’t hang out with the white GIs?”

  “Did you see any black GIs when we ran the ville?”

  I hadn’t thought of it, but he was right. In the village of Sonyu-ri, all I’d seen were white GIs, a few Hispanics, and dozens of Korean business girls.

  “So if the brothers told you all they know about Threets, why are we going to The Black Star?”