Ping-Pong Heart

by Martin Limon

  They’d gotten the drop on us. Literally. From the roof, they’d leapt down upon us. We’d both been surprised, but fought back gamely. The guy punching Ernie saw me coming and planted a final roundhouse kick onto Ernie’s ribs, then swiveled and took off running. Holding his side, Ernie staggered after him, as did I.

  The alleys were narrow and the stone and brick walls hovered over us. We had to run single-file. The guy ahead of us was moving at top speed. He’d planned his escape route and knew exactly where he was going. We managed to stay close enough, however, to hear his heavy breathing and footsteps as he raced through the dark catacombs of Itaewon.

  Finally, we burst out onto the neon-lit pavement of the main drag. Ernie pointed. “There!” He was running toward the Lucky Seven Club.

  We took off at full tilt.

  He could’ve continued on to the MSR—the Main Supply Route—which was the busiest road that traveled through this part of the city. But Ernie and I had recovered our senses now and were on him like a pair of hound dogs. Maybe he thought he couldn’t escape, or maybe he thought he could throw us off by darting into the Lucky Seven Club. Whatever his logic, he scurried up the big stone steps beneath the club’s neon-lit awning, but instead of entering through the padded double doors, he snuck up the side steps to the Victory Hotel, which occupied the three floors above the Lucky Seven.

  Ernie hit the stairwell first, taking the steps three at a time. He was fully recovered from the initial surprise and angry as hell. I followed, trying to figure where this guy was going. As far as I knew, this stairwell was the only way in or out of the Victory Hotel, and we were so close now I could hear his huffing and puffing.

  Where had Miss Jo gotten off to? No way of knowing, but if we caught this guy, I was furious enough to beat the information out of him.

  We finally hit the top floor, and when we burst into the hallway we saw him at the end of a line of tightly closed doors. He hesitated for a moment, as if deciding what to do next. There, in the yellow overhead light, I could see that he was definitely Korean, with a square-jawed face, wearing sneakers, a pair of faded blue jeans and a cloth jacket with dark-blue streaks on it. Above him was a glowing red sign that said chulgu, exit. He opened the door and disappeared.

  We charged down the hallway just as a middle-aged Korean woman peeked out of her doorway. Her eyes just about popped out of her head at the two sweaty Caucasians barreling through the narrow passageway. Her head ducked back into her room and she slammed the door shut. Ernie hit the exit first, pushed through, and a short flight of steps led up and outside into the open air on the roof of the Victory Hotel.

  The panorama of Itaewon spread before us. In the distance loomed the dark edifice of Namsan Mountain, with an enormous radio tower blinking red above it. Storm clouds had gathered, and the afternoon was so dark it seemed almost like night. At the edge of the roof, standing on the stone parapet, stood our attacker. I propped the door open so light flooded out. He had his back to the edge and was staring right at us. His face was somber, eyelids sagging.

  I spoke to him in Korean. “Step away from the ledge. We won’t hit you any more.”

  The side of his mouth turned up in a knowing smile.

  “Ssibaloma,” he said, a particularly vile insult which translates roughly to “born of afterbirth.” Smiling even more broadly, he stepped backward into nothingness and fell off into space.

  -8-

  The narrow face of Staff Sergeant Riley stared down at me.

  “Sueño, can you hear me?”

  He waved his open palm back and forth in front of my eyes, shielding me sporadically from the twisted snarl of his lips.

  “He’s awake,” Riley said, turning to someone behind him. A blue-smocked medic replaced him in my line of sight. A hand reached toward my nose and the sharp tang of ammonia jerked me alert. I started to sit up. Gently, the medic pushed me back down. “I’ll call the doctor,” he said.

  In a few minutes, a harassed-looking MD appeared at my side. Heavy jowls sagged as he shone a light into my eyes and told me to sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. “Do you know where you are?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” I said.

  “In the One Two One Evac Hospital,” he told me. “Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes, on Yongsan Compound.”

  “Do you know what happened to you last night?”

  “I think I passed out.”

  “Yes, after you were hit on the head and ran through half of Itaewon.”

  It had also been the shock of seeing our attacker leap off that roof. When Ernie and I sprinted to the ledge, we realized that he hadn’t leapt to his death. What he’d done was grab hold of the fire escape and slide down like an expert climber, hitting the edge of the building every few yards with his feet as if rappelling down a mountain. By the time we clambered over the edge and lowered ourselves rung by rung, he was long gone. A few feet from the ground I became dizzy, probably from the blow I’d taken when the first guy jumped me, and I’d lost my footing and fallen. Apparently my head clunked on the pavement, and that was the last thing I remembered.

  “How’s Ernie?” I asked.

  “Never mind that now.”

  The doctor continued his examination, checking my heart and breathing and waving his finger in front of me, telling me to follow it and asking me questions. Finally, his interrogation was over. Apparently, I passed. He scribbled something on a sheet of paper with the 121 Evac logo imprinted on it and handed it to Staff Sergeant Riley.

  “Forty-eight hours quarters,” he said. I would be restricted to the barracks and unable to work for two days. Then the doctor wagged his finger at Riley. “And don’t let me hear about your commander putting this man back to work before the two days are up. I won’t hear of it. Understood?”

  Riley nodded.

  “Good.” The doctor patted me on the shoulder and said, “And when the two days are over, go on sick call so they can check you once more.” He peered at me, and when I didn’t answer, he said, “Repeat that back to me.” I did. He patted me on the shoulder one more time, said, “Keep your head down,” and walked briskly out of the ward.

  “Your clothes are behind that curtain,” the medic told me before he left the room too.

  Riley tapped the paper in his hand. “What a get-over.”

  “I’m not getting over on anybody,” I told him. “The doctor says I should rest, so I’ll rest.”

  “The Provost Marshal wants you to report to his office, immediately if not sooner.”

  I groaned. “Let me get dressed.”

  I did. Slowly and painfully, my head still throbbing, but soon I was back in my running-the-ville outfit, which was soiled where I’d fallen but not much worse for wear.

  Riley had parked a green Army sedan out front. I hopped into the passenger seat. He drove.

  “Where’s Ernie?”

  “Already back at work, on black market detail.”

  “Alone?”

  “They assigned an MP to him.”

  “Who?”

  “A female type. I forget her name.”

  “How long was I out?”

  “Just overnight.”

  I stared down at my clothes. “Don’t you think I should change?”

  “Naw. The Colonel said bring you in as is.”

  So I went into the office of the Provost Marshal of the 8th United States Army “as is.”

  “What is this,” Colonel Brace asked, “an insult?”

  He put his pipe down and stared up at me from his chair behind his desk. He was referring to my slovenly attire. I held my salute.

  “No, sir. Sergeant Riley told me I was to report to you immediately.”

  “Don’t blame other people for your shortcomings, Sueño.”

  That’s the Army. You receive conflicting orders, try to follo
w them—which is impossible—and no matter what, it’s always your fault.

  “I’ll return to the barracks and change, sir. Then I’ll be right back.”

  “No time for that.” Instead of returning my salute, he waved me toward one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Sit.”

  I sat.

  He tapped burnt pipe tobacco into an ashtray. “I understand,” he said, “from the KNP Liaison officer that you and Bascom had taken our prime suspect in the murder of Major Schultz into custody.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And then you lost her.” He glared at me from across his mahogany desk.

  “We were attacked, sir.”

  “By whom?”

  “We don’t know. It was a narrow alley. One of them, at least, was on a building overhead. They jumped down and landed on us.”

  “Your friend Bascom was pretty successful in fighting them off. At least he didn’t end up in the hospital.”

  “Good for him.”

  “Not so good,” Colonel Brace said, his tone guarded. “The suspect still escaped. Bascom pursued, he says, but lost them in the narrow alleys.”

  I nodded, wondering where this was going. That wasn’t exactly what happened, but Ernie had a policy of providing officers as little information as possible. In keeping with that policy, I kept my mouth shut.

  Colonel Brace paused while he stuffed fresh tobacco into his pipe and then, using a stainless steel lighter emblazoned with the red and white 8th Army cloverleaf patch, he lit the concoction and puffed heartily. A cloud floated across the desk and rolled into my face. It smelled like cherry wood. I resisted the urge to wave it away. He lowered the pipe.

  “Do you always dress like that when you go to the ville?”

  “This is how most GIs dress, sir. We want to blend in.”

  “I’ll bet you do.”

  He seemed disgusted by the mere thought of going to the ville. More smoke billowed as he continued to puff away. Everything with him was an accusation, as if we’d done something wrong. But I was used to that. It seemed to be the strategy most military officers used to maintain discipline—by keeping their subordinates worried and off-balance. Straight out of the handbook; it was probably a seminar subject at the Reserve Officer Training Corps.

  “That homicide detective,” Colonel Brace said, “Mr. Kill, he called about you.”

  I immediately understood why he was being so condescending. He knew that Chief Inspector Gil Kwon-up had connections to officials at the highest levels of the Korean government, who in turn had connections with those at the highest levels of the 8th United States Army. Even higher, if they wanted to push it; as high as the US Ambassador to South Korea. Colonel Brace wanted to impress upon me that even though I might be consulting temporarily with someone who had power over him, in the end I was just a GI, just an enlisted man. And once my sojourn in the halls of power was over, the 8th United States Army could eat me for lunch, if they deigned to choose that particular blue-plate special on that particular day. Still, for the moment, I had power. I exercised some of it.

  “What did Mr. Kill say, sir?”

  “He asked about your health. I told him the doctor thought there was no serious concussion. You’d recover soon.”

  I waited. There had to be more. Colonel Brace wanted me to beg for it. I wouldn’t.

  “He also asked that you and Bascom be assigned to him for the duration of the investigation.”

  “The investigation into Major Schultz’s death?”

  “Are we talking about another one?”

  I didn’t answer. After staring me down, Colonel Brace began fiddling with a stack of paperwork on his desk. That was the signal that this interview was just about over. Without looking at me, he said, “You and Bascom are to report to the KNP headquarters immediately. He’ll probably want you to make up for what you’ve already screwed up.” He became very interested in the contents of one of his plastic binders for about half a minute, then he looked up at me, as if surprised that I was still there. “That’ll be all.”

  I rose to my feet, assumed the position of attention, and saluted.

  While I held my salute, Colonel Brace said, “And one more thing, Sueño. While on this detail with the KNPs, you are to report to Staff Sergeant Riley every morning at zero eight hundred. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He flicked his wrist and waved me away.

  I dropped my salute, did an about face, and marched out of his office.

  Before I left, I stopped by the Admin Office and asked Miss Kim if I could borrow her Korean-English Dictionary. She studied me with a worried look on her face. “You need to rest, Geogie.”

  “Maybe later,” I told her.

  She motioned for me to sit down. I did. She grabbed her dictionary and said, “What’s the word?”

  “Koshigi.”

  She set the dictionary down. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “The woman we took into custody last night, the one who escaped. She used it.”

  Miss Kim nodded and sipped cold tea. “Would you like something to drink?”

  I shook my head.

  She knew I was growing impatient so she said, “Koshigi is a word used by people in the south. Usually Cholla Namdo.” South Cholla Province. She noticed that I leaned back slightly. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Go ahead, please.”

  “It’s what someone says when they can’t think of the right word.”

  I nodded slowly. “Like whatchamacallit.”

  “Yes, something like that.”

  Which made sense. Miss Jo had rattled off a list of customers and how much money she’d made and then shaken her head slightly, as if she couldn’t concentrate.

  Miss Kim thumbed through the dictionary, found the word and turned the thick onion-skinned book around and pointed with her neatly manicured forefinger to koshigi. There were a number of translations, all of them vague, all meaning something like “thingamajig.”

  “But it’s used only by people from the south?” I asked.

  “Almost always. It makes Seoul people smile.”

  I knew that in ancient times, Korea had been broken into three countries. Paekche was the kingdom that ruled the southwest corner of the peninsula, where Cholla Province was now located. Over the centuries, distinct dialects of the Korean language had evolved. Nowadays, the Seoul dialect was considered standard, but people still had little trouble discerning which part of the country someone came from by listening to their saturi; their pronunciation and word choice.

  “You need rest, Geogie,” Miss Kim told me again.

  “Yes, I’ll rest. Soon.” I figured now was as good a time as any to ask her. “Ernie followed you,” I said, “on the bus. Was everything okay?”

  Her face turned beet red, and I immediately regretted asking.

  “Okay,” she said but she held her head down and I knew she didn’t want to talk about it.

  “I hope he didn’t bother you,” I said.

  “No. He didn’t bother me.” After a long silence, she looked up at me. “What is it about Cholla Province that bothers you?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  “It’s about her, isn’t it?”

  By her, she meant Doctor Yong In-ja, my former girlfriend. Someone I’d lost.

  “I can’t fool you at all,” I told her.

  She nodded. “We both have long stories. And secret stories.”

  I didn’t disagree with her.

  Ernie was at the MP Station, writing an arrest report for a Korean woman with a giant diamond on her left hand. She was sniffling and wiping her eyes with a pink handkerchief, occasionally blowing her nose.

  “My husband taaksan kullasso-yo,” she said. Very angry.

  Ernie continued writing. “You sol
d ten cans of Spam, one jar of soluble creamer, a pound and a half of frozen oxtail, and thirty-two ounces of Folgers freeze-dried coffee out in the ville. Of course he’ll be mad. Not because you sold them, but because you got caught.”

  He turned the report around and showed the woman where to sign. She reluctantly obliged.

  A female MP stood behind Ernie, watching everything he did. She wore a polished black helmet with a white-stenciled mp on the front and highly spit-shined jump boots, and her fatigues were tailored to show off her figure. A web belt was cinched tightly around her waist, the holstered pistol looking large on her hip. Her nametag said Muencher.

  Ernie tore off the yellow copy of the arrest report and handed it to the Korean woman. “Your husband is on the way,” he said. “He’ll escort you over to the Ration Control Office to apply for a new plate.”

  There would be a much smaller limit on her new Ration Control Plate. The woman knew this and she started to sniffle again.

  Ernie stood up from the rickety wooden field desk and walked toward me. “Have you met Muencher?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  He made the introductions. She had a long face with a smattering of freckles across the nose. I could tell by the way that her helmet sat too high on her head that plenty of reddish-blonde hair was knotted up and hidden under there. Pinned to her lapel was the rank insignia of corporal. She held out her hand.

  I shook it. The flesh was cool and smooth.

  “Sergeant Sueño,” she said. “I’ve heard of you.” I nodded. “You speak Korean, they tell me.”

  “A little.”

  “More than that.”

  “When I have to.”

  “And you work with Mr. Kill.”

  “Also, when I have to.” I smiled. Some of the MPs were jealous of the special details Ernie and I were assigned to. She didn’t seem to be. I turned to Ernie. “We gotta go.”

  “Where?”

  “Downtown.”

  He nodded, knowing that meant the KNP headquarters. “What about the black market detail?”

  “Looks like Corporal Muencher has it all to herself.”