by Martin Limon
“It would still be expensive. The payoffs would be almost as big as the customs duties.”
Mills shrugged again. “I imagine.”
“Any other way?” Ernie asked.
Mills seemed to have gotten fed up. He stared at Ernie steadily. “Are you implying something?”
“If anyone knows how to import alcoholic beverages into Korea, it would be you.”
“Our record is clean,” Mills told him. “Nothing through here without it being logged in and logged out.”
Miss Jo entered Mills’s office. Her face was slightly flushed but still she placed her hands in front of her again and bowed. She apologized profusely and said, “There’s been an accident.”
Mills rose to his feet and bolted out the door. We followed. On the way to the warehouse I noticed the signs that said: anchon cheil. Safety first.
The reek of booze hit us like a fist. One of the forklifts at the huge main entrance to the warehouse had apparently collided with a green army pickup. The front end of the truck had been dented and the forklift was wedged against the fender at an almost forty-five-degree angle. Cases of liquor had crashed to the floor, flooding the smooth cement slab with a small tsunami of spirits.
“Gin,” Ernie said. “Beefeater.”
Leave it to Agent Ernie Bascom to notice the important details.
A Korean man stood next to the forklift clutching a blue cloth. I checked his wound. Bleeding, but not arterial. Two other workmen approached and led him to another vehicle. Rick Mills conferred with them and they sped off, escorting the wounded forklift driver to the local dispensary.
A tall GI in starched fatigues paced next to the pickup truck, back and forth, sliding his green cap across a bald skull. He was about six-foot-one, thin, with the belt of his uniform cinched tightly around a narrow waist. His eyes were large and blue and moist and his name tag simply said Demoray. His rank insignia indicated that he was a master sergeant, one step below the highest enlisted rank.
“I told Han not to take those corners so tight.” He was speaking mostly to himself but occasionally he glanced over at Rick Mills, who was glaring at him. “He comes barreling out of the warehouse just as I’m turning in and I didn’t see him, and I sure as hell didn’t have time to stop.”
Then he looked at Ernie and then at me. He pointed a long, bony finger.
“It’s your fault. If you hadn’t been here, I never would’ve needed to come over. Didn’t we just finish one freaking CID inspection?”
“That’s enough, Demoray,” Mills said. “Get this mess cleaned up. And then get over to the dispensary and check on Mr. Han. I want a full report by noon.”
Demoray stared at him for a moment, moist blue eyes blaring indignation. He rubbed his head again, tilting back his cap. Then he turned, throwing his arms up in the air in exasperation, shaking his head, and stalked away.
Mills turned to us. “He’s a good man, usually. Just very emotional.”
“And he drives too fast,” I said.
Mills nodded sadly.
Ernie poked through the broken bottles. “Why was he so worried about us?”
“He’s very protective of the operation here.”
“That’s a good thing.”
Mills sighed. “It can be.”
-7-
“Had any strange lately?”
We were at the 8th Army snack bar. Men and women in uniform jostled with Department of the Army Civilians and balanced trays of food from the serving line, wedging themselves into booths and tables that filled the massive Quonset hut. I’d bought myself a mug of coffee, Ernie was having tea, and the man we knew as Strange, a sergeant first class in the US Army, sipped on a straw that stuck out of a plastic cup.
“Before we get to that, Strange,” Ernie said, “what’ve you got for us?”
“The name’s Harvey.”
“Right, Harvey. I forgot.”
Strange was a pervert. Ernie and I weren’t. At least, we didn’t think we were. And the only reason we associated with Strange was because he was the NCO in charge of the Classified Documents section at 8th Army Headquarters. A pervert who had access to the most sensitive military secrets. In addition to that, he was a gossip. He thrived on other people’s stories; he knew almost everyone at the 8th Army head shed and he eavesdropped on every conversation he could. And he was discreet. Most of the time people hardly knew he was there. Like the proverbial fly on the wall. As a result, he was an invaluable source of information for Ernie and me. The catch was that in exchange for his secrets, Ernie had to tell him about the strange he’d gotten recently. That is, new sexual conquests. I doubted that Strange had ever had a sexual conquest in his life, but he sure liked hearing about them.
Strange looked sharp. His thinning brown hair was combed straight back and he wore sunglasses even though the only light in the snack bar was from the overhead fluorescent bulbs. A plastic cigarette holder dangled from his lips, with no cigarette in it.
“I’m trying to quit,” he’d tell anyone who asked, although I don’t think anyone had ever actually seen him smoke. Oddly, he swiped imaginary ashes from the neatly pressed sleeves of his starched khakis. Strange glanced around the room, making sure we weren’t being watched. Then he leaned forward. “The Gunslinger,” he whispered.
“The what?” Ernie asked.
“Not so loud. The Gunslinger. That’s what this is all about.”
“What’s all about?” Ernie asked.
“This case you’re working on.”
“Which one?”
Strange seemed exasperated. He blew air into his straw, making the soda at the bottom bubble. “The one about the dolly up north. The one you found in the river.”
“Who’s the Gunslinger?” Ernie asked.
Strange grimaced. “Don’t you know nothing?” He glanced around the room again. “The Gunslinger is the two-star general who runs the Second freaking Infantry Division. Real name’s Kokol. Army Digest even ran an article on him. Changing the whole culture of the Division. Gung-ho rallies, karate classes, the whole works.”
“Yeah,” Ernie said. “So?”
“You still don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“Eighth Army’s got a case of the big ass. Division is getting all the publicity. The honchos here in Seoul don’t get squat.”
“So they’re hoping the murder, and the Threets case, will bring him down a notch.”
“Exactly.” Strange grinned. It was a difficult thing to watch. Greasy lips formed into a bowl-shaped gash. Somehow, out of that mess, he continued to talk. “The honchos are out to get him, and to do that they’re using you.”
Ernie sipped on his tea. “So the honchos are jealous of each other. So what? They’re always jealous of each other.”
“Not like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“If they get rid of Kokol, they’re thinking of sending your boss, Colonel Brace, up there as Division XO.” Executive Officer.
I set my coffee down. “He’d get a star?”
“That’s right.” Strange’s smile seemed to have reached his ears. “Brigadier general, a shiny silver star on his shoulder, handed to him on a plate.”
“So that’s why the Division MPs have been messing with us,” I said.
Strange smiled even more broadly, enjoying his superior knowledge. “You’re like two white mice scurrying between tomcats.”
Ernie didn’t like the analogy. “What do you know about Colt 45?”
Strange’s smile drooped. “The weapon?”
“No, the malt liquor.”
“Rotten shit.”
“I’m not asking for your culinary opinion. If someone wanted to buy some and sell it down in the ville, where would they get it?”
“How in the hell would I know?”
“So find out.” Ernie started to stand. Like a shot, Strange reached out and clutched the back of his hand.
“Hey, what about our deal?”
“No stories today, Strange.”
“The name’s Harvey.”
“Okay, Harvey. Telling us that one general’s jealous of another doesn’t tell us nothing. We need some real dope, not bullshit.” He pointed his forefinger at Strange’s nose. “Find out how to get ahold of some Colt 45. Who could do that? How? Then you’ll get a story.”
Strange grimaced, and then the grimace turned to anger. Reluctantly he loosened his grip on Ernie’s hand. As we left, he blew more bubbles into his cup, louder this time. Outside, Ernie rubbed his hand where Strange had touched him.
“Christ,” he said. “The Eighth Army honchos are using us against the general in charge of the Second Infantry Division?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Who woulda thunk it?”
“Anybody who knew them.”
At the 8th Army JAG office, Second Lieutenant Peggy Mendelson was not pleased. She slid my report across the desk.
“Are you sure you want to submit this?” she asked.
“I already have,” I answered.
“Hearsay, that’s all it is. And accusations made by the accused. Who’s going to believe Threets? He’d say anything to get out of being sent to Leavenworth.”
“If you want corroboration,” Ernie said, “we’ll get you corroboration.”
“No.” Lieutenant Mendelson said it too fast. Then she composed herself. “We’re not going to start an investigation into alleged homosexual activity by an experienced NCO based on the word of a soldier accused of aggravated assault.”
“Why not?” Ernie asked. He was slouched in the grey vinyl chair across from Peggy Mendelson’s desk, enjoying her discomfort.
She slid a carved glass paperweight from one side of her desk to the other. “The command is interested in the shooting and only the shooting. It was a flagrant case of assault, reflecting poorly on unit cohesion and esprit de corps.”
“Piss-poor leadership,” Ernie said.
Peggy swiveled her head. “Exactly.”
I’d seen it before. Too often. The command trying to mold a criminal case into something that made an ethical or legal point they wanted to make. Something they could contain. But crime is sloppy, usually tragic, and often bloody, and people’s motivations for doing what they do can be beyond the control, or even the understanding, of the honchos of the 8th United States Army.
“So the ‘gunslinger’ isn’t properly controlling his troops,” Ernie said.
“Lack of training,” Lieutenant Mendelson said. It was a reflexive statement, one the army uses to explain virtually any failing.
“Will the ‘gunslinger’ be asked to testify at the Threets court-martial?”
Lieutenant Mendelson looked sharply at Ernie. “That hasn’t been decided yet.”
“But you’re not going to go with the homo defense?”
“Not my call.”
“Whose call is it?”
“The officer assigned as his defense counsel.”
“Who’s that?”
“We don’t know yet. The first one resigned.”
“Why?”
“He has deployment orders. No time to properly prepare his defense.”
“So who’s been appointed to take his place?”
“That hasn’t been decided yet.”
“With less than a week to go before the trial starts, don’t you think you ought to assign someone?”
“That’s our job, not yours.”
Ernie grinned, pulled out a pack of ginseng gum and offered her a stick. She declined.
“What about our report?” I asked.
“You refuse to change it?”
“No reason to change it,” I said. “It’s based on face-to-face interviews.”
“Hearsay.”
“Unless it’s corroborated, yes.”
She slid the report into a folder.
“Okay. It’s your butts on the line.”
“I love it when you talk like that,” Ernie said. She glared at him.
I dialed and listened to the phone ring once, twice, three times. On the fourth ring someone picked up and, in an exasperated tone, said, “BOQ.” Bachelor Officer Quarters.
It was a woman’s voice, so I knew I had the correct number.
“Hello?” she said.
I kept my silence. She listened. “Okay,” she said finally. “No heavy breathing, so you must be the mystery man.”
She waited for me to reply, but again I said nothing. She sighed and the phone clattered to the wooden table.
“Prevault!” she shouted, her voice echoing down the hall. “It’s him again.”
Footsteps pounded into the distance and a few seconds later, lighter footsteps returned. The phone was lifted up and then a hushed voice came over the line, muffled, as if she’d covered the receiver with her hand.
“George, is that you?”
“It’s me,” I said.
Captain Leah Prevault was a psychiatrist at the 121st Evacuation Hospital; she and I had worked together on a previous case. We’d also gotten to know one another pretty well and one thing had led to another. But our relationship had to be kept secret because, even though as a CID agent my rank was classified, I was still an enlisted man and pretty much everyone on Yongsan Compound knew it. Captain Prevault, on the other hand, was a commissioned officer. Under the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, we were prohibited from fraternization—for the maintenance of good order and discipline, supposedly. Violation of this directive could make either one of us—or both—subject to court-martial. Which is why I didn’t identify myself the few times I called her at the BOQ.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Have you interrogated Orgwell yet?”
“We don’t call them ‘interrogations.’”
“But you asked him about the case?”
“No. I let him talk.”
“That must’ve been tricky, getting him to open up.”
“We have our ways.”
I imagined her wearing her bathrobe, a white towel wrapped around her hair, holding the phone with both hands and leaning against the wall in the center of the BOQ hallway.
“I have a favor to ask,” I told her. She waited. I explained what Threets had said at the 8th Army Stockade in ASCOM.
When I finished, she said, “They’ll claim he’s lying.”
“I know. Can you meet with him?”
“I’ll need a referral.”
“They have a doctor down there in ASCOM, don’t they?”
“I suppose.”
“Contact him. Tell him someone told you that Threets needs help.”
“Does he?”
“A lot of it.”
“But mainly you’re just trying to evaluate his credibility.”
“Yes,” I replied.
She sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“When can we meet?” I asked.
She told me.
The Kit Kat Club sat in the maze of narrow pedestrian lanes that comprised the district in Seoul known as Samgakji. Literally, the Three-Horned District. It derived its name from a famous three-way intersection centered at the Samgakji traffic circle. Roads ran from there north to the Seoul Train Station, south to the Han River Bridge, and east to 8th Army headquarters—and, beyond that, to the village of Itaewon.
It was a short walk out of the wastern gate of 8th Army’s Yongsan Compound to the red-light district of Samgakji. However, it was a walk that white GIs seldom took. The village of Samgakji was frequented almost exclusively by black soldiers. White soldiers frequented Itaewon, a mile away on the other side of the compound. Nobody enfor
ced this segregation, it had just developed over the years, but for some reason it was an unwritten rule that was seldom broken.
Except for tonight.
Ernie and I pushed through the front swinging doors of the Kit Kat Club.
Marvin Gaye wailed through the withered speakers of a jukebox. It was early, so there were only about a dozen GIs in the place, some of them shooting pool, others standing near the bar, laughing about something. But the laughter stopped when Ernie and I walked in.
We weren’t in uniform. We were wearing our running-the-ville outfits: sneakers, blue jeans, sports shirts with collars, and blue nylon jackets with fire-breathing dragons embroidered on the back. Beneath the writhing reptile, Ernie’s jacket said: I’ve served my time in hell. Somewhat of an overstatement, unless he was talking about his two tours in Vietnam. Mine said simply: Korea: 1970 –1974.
Most of the black GIs wore slacks and colorful shirts, occasionally with a beret or fedora tilted rakishly to the sides of their heads. None of them wore blue jeans.
Ernie was all out of reefer but he approached the GIs at the bar and offered them sticks of ginseng gum. There were no takers. While he bantered with them, I ducked behind the bar and flashed my badge to the barmaid. Her hair was tightly curled into a bouffant Afro, and as I started opening the beer coolers, her mouth dropped open. I was sliding up the first one, illuminating the contents with my flashlight, when she found her voice.
“Whatsamatta you?” she said.
“Inspection,” I replied, an English word most Korean workers in GI bars understood. Not only were inspections a big part of their GI customers’ lives, but they were also a favorite means of control utilized by Korean government authorities. Not so much to make sure that the bars complied with safety and health regulations, but rather as a means of coercing payoffs.
“No can do,” she said. When I didn’t stop, she repeated, “Mama-san say no can do.”
She scurried into the back room.
I found them in the last cooler, hidden in a cardboard box that said Samyang Ramyon: a dozen sixteen-ounce cans of Colt 45.
An older woman appeared behind me.
“Whatsamatta you?” she said. A favorite expression around here. But her voice was more gravelly, scraped raw by years of booze and tobacco smoke.
