by Martin Limon
“Let’s try the back,” I told Ernie.
He nodded and led the way.
Greek sailors are notorious in Asian ports. First, there are plenty of them. The world’s merchant marine is largely dominated by their country, and they greatly outnumber sailors from more-affluent countries such as Japan or the Western European nations or the United States. Lately, however, the Filipinos had been giving them a run for their money. Second, Greeks like to party. In their own way. In their own nightclubs, where the bartenders and the waitresses and, most importantly, the business girls all speak Greek; and where Greek music is played and where they can dance their famous Greek dances and break as many plates as they see fit. Americans aren’t welcome in these places and seldom go in; for one thing, they can’t even read the signs. The word “Eros” in the sign above the front door was written in what I assumed to be Greek letters. At least, they were shaped weird.
I’d been in Greek bars once or twice, alone, and gotten along well enough with the sailors. On one occasion, a Korean business girl had approached me, speaking Greek. I spoke to her in Korean, and soon I was speaking, through her, to some of the sailors at the bar. They spoke Greek, she translated it into Korean to me, and we went back and forth like that; not a word of English spoken during the entire conversation. Nice fellows, actually, as long as they didn’t feel I was showing them a lack of respect.
Another thing Greek sailors are notorious for is fighting. Down here on Texas Street, the Korean National Police never travel alone. They travel in squads, with helmets and padded vests and lead-reinforced nightsticks. When an altercation breaks out among the Greeks, knives are usually pulled-another Mediterranean tradition-and the Korean cops don’t like to take chances. They come at the problem with overwhelming force.
Usually, since international trade is so important to the Korean government, the offending sailors are treated leniently. They are locked up overnight, they’re made to reimburse Korean citizens for any damages or medical bills, and they’re released. That is, unless someone’s murdered. Then the shipping company might have to cough up some serious reparations money.
All these things were running through my mind as I followed Ernie into the dark alley behind the Eros Nightclub and Bar. Once again, I regretted not having checked out a weapon from the armory at the Hialeah Compound MP station.
Ernie shoved me against a wall. I was startled at first but quickly realized he’d done it to hide us both in the shadows. I held my breath.
The back door of the club burst open. Two men stumbled out. Drunk. They shouted words to one another that were incomprehensible. Just as one was about to shut the door, I shoved past Ernie, saying “Wait here,” and trotted the few yards to the back door. I stepped past the surprised men and grabbed the edge of the door before it closed.
“Dikanis,” I said, waving my hand at them and keeping my head bowed. It was the only word I knew in Greek. A greeting.
“Kala,” they replied, somewhat surprised, but by then I was already past them and inside the bar. I shut the door behind me, making sure it was locked.
I stood in a narrow hallway. The first thing I saw, and smelled, was the men’s room. I used it. Then I went back to the door, opened it, peeked out, and saw that the two drunken sailors were gone. Ernie scurried up. I shut the door behind him.
“I didn’t know you spoke Greek,” he said.
“There’s a lot of things about me you don’t know.”
He snorted.
We turned and walked through a dark corridor. Steps led downward to a ballroom at a split-level a few feet below us. There were two pool tables, not in use, and a long bar opposite, about a dozen cocktail tables, and a small stage. Sitting at the bar was a blond man wearing blue jeans and a cowboy shirt. Three men who looked like Greeks were huddled around him. A half-covered neon light sat low behind the bar. No bartender or waitresses or business girls in sight. All the cabinets had been locked. Small tumblers filled with a dark fluid sat in front of the men.
One of them noticed us and looked up. The rest stopped talking and stared.
Weyworth-or the man I assumed to be Weyworth-turned on his stool, gaping.
The Greek sailors reached in their back pockets. I knew, from previous experience, that that’s where they kept their knives. I reached deep into my leather coat, as if reaching for a weapon-a weapon I didn’t have. Ernie scurried down the steps and grabbed a pool cue.
That’s him, more practical than imaginative.
The Greeks pulled their knives and stepped forward.
7
Almost in unison, they pressed buttons and the blades clicked open, gleaming in the dim yellow light. Weyworth scurried to the end of the bar. Keeping my eyes on the Greeks, I spoke to him.
“Nice company you keep, Weyworth.”
“What do you want?”
I shrugged. “Just want to talk to you.”
One of the Greeks stepped forward. Ernie raised his pool cue. The man stopped.
“Tell your buddies to lay off. We’re not after them. We’re after you.”
“You tell ’em,” Weyworth said.
Apparently, he just had. One of the Greeks waved his free hand at me and said, “Go. You go.” He motioned toward the back door.
Ernie grabbed a second pool cue and tossed it to me. I grabbed it on the fly.
“How was your trip to Seoul?” I asked Weyworth.
“How do you know about that?”
“What was the purpose of the trip, Nick? Sightseeing?”
“None of your damn business.”
“Or maybe picking up some contraband and selling it to these gentlemen.” I studied the bar and the coats the Greeks were wearing. If Weyworth had just dropped off some contraband, it had to be small, something like jewelry. Dope was out of the question. Not only is there a small market for it in Korea but, more importantly, the punishment for trafficking in narcotics in the Republic of Korea is death. I couldn’t imagine even these guys would be that stupid. “Maybe these guys brought something into port,” I said. “Something valuable, and you transported it north to Seoul and made the sale.”
Weyworth squirmed. “Get the hell out of here.”
“You’re coming with us, Weyworth.”
Ernie stepped toward him. The Greeks started forward, but we both brandished our pool cues. They stopped. The sailors spoke enough English to understand that we weren’t after them, only Weyworth. And if the transaction had already been made, if they already had their money, they wouldn’t be willing to fight over keeping him here.
At least that’s the way I read the situation.
I covered Ernie as he approached Specialist Four Nicholas Q. Weyworth at the end of the bar. The Greeks stood their ground. Ernie finally reached Weyworth and shoved him with his pool cue. He threw him up against the bar and turned him around, keeping a weather eye on the Greeks. He was about to handcuff the young man, who kept squealing in protest.
“I ain’t done nothing.”
But just as Ernie snapped shut the cuffs, a plate flew through the air. I ducked. Another plate swooped toward me, and this one connected. I shrugged it off, but by now one of the Greeks had taken advantage of the distraction and was scuttling toward me, a knife with a gleaming blade held in front of him.
I swung the pool cue. He dodged it and lunged. I sidestepped, feeling the blade slice my jacket near my elbow. I twisted the cue and slammed him flush in the gut. As he doubled over, another Greek jumped on my back and I rolled with the jarring force of his body and twisted forward and then he was upside down careering through the air.
Glassware and chairs and pool cues flew everywhere. Weyworth ran past me, heading for the front door. I lunged for him but missed. I saw Ernie punching and wrestling with two Greeks, and I ran toward them. At the same time I heard footsteps tromping in from the back and someone shouting “Halt!” The front door slammed open, and there was cursing in Greek. I shoved a guy away from Ernie, and he reeled toward the front
door. I ran after him.
Just as I stepped outside, watching for knives-and just when I started to breathe the fresh tang of mist-laden air-I was hit with something heavy.
Right in the face.
***
When I woke up, I was lying flat on my back in a bed with crisp white sheets. My eyes focused on a weasel staring down at me. Then I realized it wasn’t a weasel, but something worse: Lieutenant Messler.
“You look like shit,” he said.
I tried to move my lips. They weren’t working very well. Finally, I croaked out a sound. “Where’s Ernie?”
“Oh, he’s fine. A couple of scratches and bruises. Nothing serious. Lucky for you Sergeant Norris and his partner hung around the area.”
Probably on Messler’s orders, to keep an eye on the CID guys from Seoul who were messing around in their area of operations.
“Who hit me?” I asked.
“Don’t know. Probably a third-country national. Try to remember, Agent Sueno, Eighth Army encourages us to make friends with our international neighbors.”
I meant to say “Screw you,” but I think it came out more like “Scoo you.” I can’t be sure, because my hearing wasn’t too great either. Suddenly I felt dizzy staring at Lieutenant Messler, and a nurse came over and shooed him away. “What about Weyworth?” I managed to croak before he walked away.
“Who?” he said, stepping back to the edge of the bed.
“Spec Four Weyworth.”
“Nobody else was there when Norris and his partner found you. Just you and Bascom. Knocked out. Lying on the floor.” Then he grinned a weasel-like grin. “Good show, old chap.”
He chortled and disappeared.
My eyes popped open. I’m not sure how long I’d been out, but it was still dark outside. A yellow-bulbed lamp glowed dimly next to my bed. A figure sat in a chair, so silently that I almost hadn’t noticed he was there. He grinned and leaned into the light.
Ernie.
“They say you’ll be fine,” he said. “Just a mild concussion. Nothing to worry about.”
“Good.”
I started to get up. He held out his hands. “You should rest. At least until the morning.”
“What time is it now?”
“Zero five hundred.”
I groaned. “Do you know who hit me?”
“Greek sailors,” he replied. “I popped a couple of them good. Would’ve popped more if Norris and his partner hadn’t interrupted me.”
“Chased them away?”
“Yeah.”
“What about Weyworth?”
“One of the Greeks managed to get hold of my keys somehow.”
“He escaped?”
“Yeah.”
Ernie hadn’t been “popping them good” like he’d claimed. He’d been overcome just as I had. Sergeant Norris and his partner had apparently saved our butts.
There was a metal guard taped to my nose. I pulled it off.
“You look mah-velous, dah-ling,” Ernie said.
“Screw you.” I climbed out of bed, found my clothes stuffed in a bag beneath the nightstand, and started slipping them on. “Maybe we should wake up the armorer,” I said.
Ernie opened his coat. The butt of a. 45 peeked out of a holster.
“‘Great minds’ and all that,” he said.
Two hours later, we were sitting at the PX cafeteria sipping coffee and perusing the morning edition of the Pacific Stars and Stripes. I was very conscious of my nose. It was puffed up and bright red and almost glowed, and it was very tender to the touch. While drinking, I was careful not to tilt my coffee mug back too far.
We’d already been out to Weyworth’s hooch. Jeannie’s mother woke up angry and remained angry while we asked about Weyworth, claiming he hadn’t come home last night. We searched her hooch and its environs just to make sure. Ernie thought she was cute when she was angry.
“She’s cute when she does anything,” I replied.
We returned to the compound, and by then the cafeteria was open.
Now that the grill was heated up, I hobbled over to the serving line and ordered a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, hold the mayo. Ernie had scrambled eggs and sausage. While we ate, I gradually started to feel more human.
“So, if you were Weyworth,” I asked Ernie, “where would you go?”
“Back to my hooch.”
“To face your angry girlfriend?”
“Hell, yeah. She’s cute.”
“But eventually you’d be arrested by the likes of you and me.”
“Maybe. But I wouldn’t be locked up long. The Greeks don’t talk-mouthing off to cops isn’t in their nature-and if I kept my mouth shut and said nothing more than that I wanted to talk to a lawyer, I’d be out in a couple of hours.”
“You know that because you work in law enforcement. Weyworth doesn’t necessarily know that.”
Ernie shrugged and continued shoveling eggs in his mouth.
“All we want to know,” I continued, “is what he saw on the Blue Train.”
“And if he’s the killer.”
“There’s that.”
“And if he’s not the killer, who is.”
“There’s that too.”
I walked to the serving line and pulled myself a cup of joe from the huge stainlesssteel coffee urn. When I reached in my pocket for my receipt, the tired female cashier waved me past. There were so few customers, she remembered that I qualified for the free refill. I studied her face. She didn’t look much like Mrs. Oh Myong-ja, the first victim, but there were similarities. They were both Korean, they were both in their early thirties, and I could tell by her ring that they were both married. Did she have children? Probably. Why else would she be working so early in the morning on a G.I. compound?
When I returned to our table, I clunked my coffee mug down and asked Ernie, “What do you think Runnels meant about the Blue Train rapist having a ‘checklist’?”
Ernie looked up from the sports page. “I think the guy has a lot of people he hates.”
“What makes you say that?”
Ernie shrugged. “What he did on the train was an in-your-face act. Like flipping the world the bird.”
I already knew that Ernie had more brains than people gave him credit for. And more brains than he usually bothered to show.
“And what he did next,” I said, “here in Pusan, is an act even more brutal than the first.”
“Right.”
“So the ‘checklist’ probably becomes progressively bloodier.”
Ernie looked back at the sports page. “Unless we catch him first.”
Mr. Kill was waiting for us at the Pusan Police Station.
He rose as we walked in, and within seconds we were in a police sedan being driven over to the Pusan-yok, the train station.
“The local police,” Kill told us, “are checking with every cab driver who picked up a fare at the Pusan station yesterday. They should have a report for us some time today. Not only did Mrs. Hyon and her three children take a cab from the train station to the Shindae Hotel, so did the killer.”
“So if they’re checking that,” Ernie asked, “why are we going to the train station?”
Mr. Kill raised a paper bag he’d been holding in his lap. “This.” He pulled out a woman’s purse. “This is the one the rapist showed to the desk clerk,” he told us. “So he could follow Mrs. Hyon up to the third floor.”
“Already dusted for prints?”
“There weren’t any. He must have wiped it down.”
“If the guy’s so smart, why’d he leave the purse?”
“Probably thought we couldn’t do anything with it,” Kill said. “And he might be right.”
The sedan pulled up in front of the huge flagstone expanse in front of the Pusan train station. Canvas-covered lean-tos were set up in neat rows. Some of them had wooden counters and sold hot bowls of noodles; others hawked already-packed toshirak with rice and kimchee and other savories inside, suitable for eating o
n the train. Other stands sold umbrellas or galoshes, and a few sold clothing items of various descriptions for the traveler who might’ve forgotten to pack something.
Mr. Kill stopped at every clothing stand, showed them the handbag, asking if they sold this type of item. Three of them did. He questioned them at length. Finally, a tall woman with a pronounced overbite admitted that she’d sold a handbag exactly like that to a foreigner. She remembered the time: it was already dark, and the Blue Train from Seoul had just pulled in.
“After that,” she said, “we locked up and went home. No business after the last Blue Train.”
“What did he look like?” Mr. Kill asked.
“Like them,” she said, pointing to Ernie and me. She realized Mr. Kill expected more, so she said, “Big. With a big nose.”
Patiently, Mr. Kill took her through all the various physical attributes a person can have. When he was finished, we had the picture we expected. A Caucasian male, about six feet tall-maybe a little more, maybe a little less-with short-cropped dark hair, but she hadn’t noticed if the hair was curly or straight. His nose was big, not as pointed as Ernie’s and not as puffed up as mine. He wore a dark shirt of some sort, she wasn’t sure of the color, and he wore dark slacks, although they could’ve been blue jeans. His shoes, she didn’t see.
“How about a traveling bag?” Kill asked.
She shook her head. “He wasn’t carrying one. And I would’ve noticed. I’m in that line of work.”
Mr. Kill asked about the man’s hands. He’d used them to point at the handbag and he’d used them to make payment.
Yes, there was hair on the hands. She crinkled her nose at the memory. And the nails, she thought, were probably cut short, although she couldn’t be sure. No rings or jewelry that she remembered.
Mr. Kill asked if he’d spoken to her in Korean or English.
“He didn’t say anything,” the vendor replied. “He just pointed.” Her array of handbags was hanging by nails on the rafters.
“He didn’t ask how much it was?”
