The Wandering Ghost

by Martin Limon

  “He wasn’t in my platoon.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said.

  Otis stared so steadily that for a minute I thought he was going to come across the table at me. I wouldn’t use my pistol, I knew that, but I might pick up a chair to hold him off. Although I was taller, and probably heavier, he was a strong man, the thick muscles of his shoulders bulging through the material of his green fatigues. I held his gaze. If we had to fight, I’d fight.

  Instead, his lips started to move.

  “Bufford,” he said. It was almost a rasp, as if his vocal chords had suddenly been stricken by laryngitis.

  “What?”

  “Bufford,” he repeated. “Maybe he drove Druwood on compound, maybe he didn’t. But he was behind it. Arranged it so it would look like a training accident.”

  “Druwood was killed off base?” I asked.

  “Maybe not killed. Maybe he killed himself.”

  “But you’re not sure?”

  “No. But the excuse to bring him on base was that the Division suicide rate is too high. Had to make it look like an accident.”

  “Bufford didn’t want Division to look bad.”

  “Not him,” Otis said. “Somebody higher.”

  “How high?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I listen,” he said. “And I think.”

  “So they don’t confide in you?”

  “I don’t know which ‘they’ you’re talking about but no, they don’t.”

  “Where was Druwood killed?”

  “You don’t know that he was killed.”

  “Okay. Where was his body found?”

  “In the ville, that’s what I heard. Where the black-market honchos operate. An off-limits area.”

  “Which one?” In Seoul there are numerous areas designated as off-limits to United States Forces personnel. Sometimes they’re placed off-limits for health reasons because of poor sanitation or disease. Sometimes because there’d been altercations between GIs and the local populace and 8th Army didn’t want a repeat. I assumed the same was true in Tongduchon, that there were many off limits areas. I was wrong.

  “There’s only one off limits area,” Sergeant Otis said. “The Turkey Farm.”

  I’d heard of it. Almost as if it were a footnote in history. The Turkey Farm was an old brothel district that during and after the Korean War had been infamous. Infamous for the number of desperate business girls the area housed, for the amount of venereal disease that was spread, and for something neither the U.S. military nor the Korean government liked to talk about: child prostitution.

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “There’s a map at the PMO. In the MP briefing room. Every nightclub and bar and chophouse is listed.”

  “How do you know that it was Bufford who had Private Druwood’s body driven back on post?”

  “I don’t. Not for sure. But he does everything else.”

  “Everything else? Like what?”

  A group of MPs stormed into the Gateway Club. A couple of them glanced our way.

  “You ruined my dinner,” Otis told me. “It’s time for you to leave.”

  I knew he meant it. Still, I had one more question for him. “Matthewson. Where is she?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Why’d she leave?”

  “You would too if you had to put up with the shit she put up with.”

  “Like what?”

  “What do you think?”

  I waited, my arms crossed, knowing that he was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with an 8th Army CID agent sitting across from him at his table. He sipped on his iced tea and then set the glass down, hard.

  “She was white pussy,” he told me. “Everybody was after her, from the top honchos to the bottom maggot E-1 privates. And then she gets involved in that traffic case, the one where the middle school girl was run over.”

  “Chon Un-suk.”

  “Yeah. That one. Matthewson couldn’t handle the pressure. She left.”

  “What pressure?”

  Otis shrugged. “The usual pressure.”

  “The pressure not to make Division look bad.”

  He shrugged again.

  “You know this for a fact?” I asked.

  “I don’t know nothing for a fact. You want testimony under oath, you ain’t getting it from me.”

  “Why not?”

  Sergeant First Class Otis lay down his fork and stared at me as if I were the biggest idiot in the world.

  “For one thing,” he said, “because I finish my twenty in less than two years. And for another, I’ve slept out in the snow and the rain on field maneuvers and put up with white officers and drunken GIs and their slut girlfriends for so many years that I’m not going to jeopardize my retirement check just so Eighth Army can feel good about itself for five minutes. An Eighth Army that been ignoring Division for all the three tours I spent up here. An Eighth Army that let the Division commander run his area of operations as if he were the king of the world and all the rest of us be slaves, and nobody get out of line because if they do they be subject to humiliation and the loss of everything they been working for.”

  Otis’s right hand clutched his butter knife; his knuckles were pale brown, heading to white. Also, his language was losing its precise military cadence, returning to the rhythms of the streets.

  “Now get the hell outta here,” he told me. “Build your own case and leave me the hell alone.”

  I figured that was enough. For the moment. If Ernie and I ever broke this case wide open—if it turned out as bad as I was afraid it might—we’d corner Otis, read him his rights, and force him to make a formal statement under oath. But I wasn’t ready for that yet.

  I rose to my feet, snapped Sergeant First Class Otis a two-fingered salute, and left.

  The more Ernie and I talked about it, the angrier we became.

  Sure, we knew Division PMO was dragging their feet. We’d been expecting that since we came up here. But Mr. Fred Bufford— with the probable collusion of his boss, Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Alcott—had withheld information that bordered on being a criminal obstruction of justice. To wit, the involvement of Corporal Jill Matthewson in the case of the accidental death of Chon Un-suk and the true nature of the facts concerning the death of Private Marvin Druwood.

  When we walked through PMO’s reception area, the swing-shift desk sergeant looked surprised. We veered to the right, before he could say anything, and entered the MP briefing room. Behind us a phone jingled and a dial turned. The MP briefing room was a small auditorium with a narrow stage in front. Overhead lights shone down on rows of metal chairs, providing dim light. The map Sergeant Otis had told me about hung from the back wall, next to posters warning of the danger of venereal disease. An overhead bulb shone directly on the map. Bright colors formed an intricate mosaic that seemed to pulsate.

  It was an ingenious design. Right away, just by the style, I guessed that a Korean graphic artist had created it. It looked Asian. That is, not precisely realistic, not precisely to scale. Not scientific. Everything about it was slightly off kilter. But in many ways it conveyed the confusion and teeming life of Tongduchon better than any machine-manufactured topographical map could.

  The background was a polished cherrywood panel of about four feet by four feet, hanging from thick brass hooks. Etched onto the right side of the panel was the main gate of Camp Casey fronted by the north-south running Main Supply Route. On the left was the East Bean River with various of the vehicle and pedestrian bridges depicted, some of which Ernie and I had already walked over. Beyond that, farmland. In the center, between the main gate of Camp Casey and the sinuous flow of the East Bean River, stood the bar district of Tongduchon.

  The streets were drawn with black lines while the buildings of Tongduchon were moveable, held by thumbtacks, and depicted by various colored symbols. Gold stars for nightclubs, red hearts for brothels,
circular targets for suspected black-market operations. The stores, factories, living establishments, and markets were just various covered rectangles with Chinese symbols painted onto them. The MPs couldn’t understand those symbols of course, but they did understand where the bars and the brothels and the black-market operations were. That’s where the GIs hung out and that’s all the MPs really needed to know. Ernie stepped back to better study the huge mosaic.

  “It’s breathing,” he said.

  “I’ll say.”

  The teeming jumble of life in Tongduchon was somehow conveyed in the glowing map. We pointed out details to one another: the Tongduchon City Market; the street where Pak Tong-i’s office could be found; the location of the Chon family residence; the bar district; the Black Cat Club; the Silver Dragon Nightclub; the yoguan where we’d spent the night with Ok-hi and Jeannie. And finally, surrounded by red dashes, the off-limits area known as the Turkey Farm.

  “It’s right in the middle of the ville,” Ernie said.

  He was right. Although we hadn’t seen it in all our sojourns through TDC, the Turkey Farm sat behind the main row of bars, the row that held the Oasis Club and the Montana Club and the Silver Dragon Club—but while we walked those streets we hadn’t even realized it was there. Why? Because you couldn’t see it from the main drag and who would walk down those dark alleys to look? To the east of the Turkey Farm sat the Black Cat Club. Then I spotted something that surprised me. According to the map, right in the center of the off-limits area, the artist had deftly inserted a black inverted swastika. I pointed it out to Ernie.

  “What the hell’s that?” Ernie asked. “A Nazi meeting hall?”

  “No. That’s not a swastika but something more ancient. The symbol for a Buddhist temple.”

  “A Buddhist temple in the center of the Turkey Farm?”

  “Yeah. Go figure.”

  Ernie searched the legend below the map. “That symbol’s not here.”

  “That’s why the artist must be Korean. There are a few other symbols on this map that American MPs probably wouldn’t recognize. Look here.”

  I pointed at the symbol for myo, a Confucian shrine. I’d remembered it from my Korean language class because it looked like two capital Ls turned upside down with their bases pointed outwards. Then, about two-thirds of the way up the spines of the Ls, a horizontal line slashed across them. The symbol looked to me like one of those tall horsehair hats Chinese priests wear when conducting Confucian ceremonies. And that’s why I could remember it.

  Ernie stared at me quizzically. “A Confucian shrine,” he said, “in the center of the Turkey Farm? Not too far from a Buddhist temple?”

  “Apparently,” I told him, “there’s more to this Turkey Farm place than GIs have been saying.”

  The double door of the briefing room swung open with a crash.

  “Freeze!” someone shouted.

  Tall, gawky Warrant Officer One Fred Bufford stood in the doorway, his knees flexed, both arms held straight out in front of his body. Clasped firmly in his white-knuckled fists, he held an army-issue .45 automatic pistol. The dark pit of the barrel was pointing right at us.

  Ernie started to laugh.

  6

  Warrant Office One Fred Bufford’s forearms quivered with tension. The barrel of the .45 bounced up and down and side to side, variously aimed at Ernie and then me. Ernie kept laughing and I wished he’d shut up.

  “Hands on your heads,” Bufford shouted.

  I put my hands on my head.

  Ernie placed his hands on his hips and, finally, stopped laughing.

  “Who do you think you’re going to shoot with that thing, Bufford?” Ernie asked. “What’s our crime? Entering the Provost Marshal’s Office without a permit? Studying a map of Tongduchon without proper authorization?” Ernie barked another laugh.

  “No,” Bufford shouted. “Assaulting a fellow MP out in the ville, for no apparent reason.”

  Ernie groaned in disgust. “I bopped Weatherwax in the nose,” Ernie told him, “for a damn good reason. You ordered him to follow us. To keep tabs on us. To find out what we were doing.” Ernie pointed his finger at Bufford’s nose and took a step closer. “And that’s interfering with an official investigation.”

  I dropped my hands from the top of my head and grabbed Ernie’s elbow, keeping him from walking into that loaded .45.

  “You don’t know that,” Bufford said.

  “I don’t know that you sent him,” Ernie said, his voice taking on a mocking tone. “And maybe Weatherwax likes to spend his spare time following CID agents around because it makes for interesting entries in his diary. Give me a break, Bufford. You’re so damn transparent. Go ahead. Shoot! Do with our bodies the same thing you did with Private Druwood’s body. Pretend we jumped off the obstacle course tower and killed ourselves.”

  By now, a few MPs had gathered in the reception area. They were elbowing one another, pointing, mumbling amongst themselves. Bufford lowered his gun and looked back at them and shouted at them to be at ease.

  That’s all Ernie needed.

  Before I could tighten my grip, he launched himself across the wood-slat floor at Warrant Officer Fred Bufford. Bufford heard the footsteps pounding, turned, and started to raise the .45 but Ernie leaped at him. The two men crashed backward into the crowd of MPs.

  All hell broke loose. Men were shouting and cursing and a few of them tried to pull Ernie off Bufford but failed. Ernie continued to pound away at him unmercifully. One of the MPs, thankfully, had the presence of mind to grab Bufford’s .45. Kneeling on Bufford’s skinny forearm, he yanked the weapon out of Bufford’s grip. I ran forward, wrapped my arms around Ernie’s waist, and pulled with all my might. For a moment, Ernie held onto Bufford’s neck but then he let go and we tumbled backward onto our butts. Just as I was rising to my feet, someone shouted “Attention!”

  Suddenly, all the MPs stood ramrod straight, their arms held tightly at their sides. Except for Fred Bufford who still lay on the floor, clutching his throat, trying to breathe. Apparently, Ernie’s headbutt had knocked the air out of him. I helped Ernie up. Colonel Stanley X. Alcott, in a civilian coat and open-collared shirt, strode into our midst.

  “What the hell? Bufford, are you okay?”

  Without being told, two MPs knelt and helped Fred Bufford sit upright. One of them yanked upwards on Bufford’s armpits to give his lungs maximum inhaling capacity. After a few seconds, he started to breath normally. He pointed at Ernie.

  “He came at me,” he told Colonel Alcott.

  “After your man here,” I said, pointing at Bufford, “pulled his .45. For nothing more than standing inside the briefing room and reading this map.”

  Alcott glanced back at Bufford.

  “No, sir. I was arresting him for the assault on Staff Sergeant Weatherwax.”

  Alcott glanced back at me. “That wasn’t good.”

  “Weatherwax was following us,” I said. “Interfering with an official investigation. He had it coming.”

  “That’s not what I heard,“” Alcott said. “I heard you two were drinking beer and chasing women.”

  So Weatherwax had, in fact, been reporting his observations up the chain of command.

  “It doesn’t matter what we were doing,” I replied. “Weatherwax shouldn’t have been following us. Besides, your man here,” I pointed at the still-seated Bufford, “failed to put in his serious incident report that Corporal Jill Matthewson had been involved in the Chon Un-suk traffic fatality.”

  “That has nothing to do with her disappearance!” Bufford shouted.

  “How the hell do you know that?” Ernie roared out the question so loudly that everyone, including the armed MPs, took a half a step backwards. “You been cherry-picking information ever since you arrived in Division, Bufford. Whatever, in your opinion, might have a chance of making the Division look bad, you exclude from your reports. Don’t you understand? That’s dangerous! Lives can be lost. For all we know Corporal Matthewson has been k
idnapped and is being raped and tortured as we speak. And you want to dick around and tell me that something as big as the Chon Un-suk death has nothing whatever to do with her disappearance? Maybe some enraged Korean decided to take revenge for Chon Un-suk’s death and right now Jill Matthewson is paying the price.”

  That was a long speech coming from Ernie and it was a measure of how much Division had pissed him off. I don’t think Ernie really believed that Jill Mathewson had been kidnapped, but it was a possibility and every possibility had to be taken into consideration. A few of the MPs started to mumble. Ernie was right about the danger of excluding information and they knew it.

  “And now,” Ernie continued, “you pull a gun on me just because me and my partner are in here doing our jobs.” Ernie took a step closer to Bufford. “Well, I’ll tell you something, Mr. Fred Bufford. Me and my partner are going to do our jobs and I don’t give a shit if you or the provost marshal or the entire goddam Division tries to stop us. Whether you like it or not, Corporal Jill Matthewson was a soldier and an MP and we’re going to find her. We all have to stick together, or we’ll all go down together because there’s a lot of ass-holes out there and if we don’t stop them nobody else will!”

  The MPs were mumbling louder now, in total agreement with my partner, Ernie Bascom.

  Colonel Alcott must’ve known that he was losing control of the situation so he gestured for silence. As he did so, Bufford piped up.

  “They were tired,” Bufford said.

  “Who was tired, Bufford?” Ernie asked.

  “Privates Elliot and Korman. They were ferrying cargo back from the Western Corridor. They’d been driving in the dark and under poor road conditions. When they approached those girls on the side of the road, they weren’t expecting such a big crowd. The truck slid, one of the girls was killed. It was an accident.”

  Most of the MPs murmured in assent.

  This was news to me. I’d assumed that at seven thirty in the morning, the truck had been leaving Camp Casey. Instead, they’d been returning to Camp Casey, with cargo no less. What sort of cargo would you pick up in the middle of the night? I needed to confirm what I’d just heard.