The Wandering Ghost (george sueno and ernie bascom)

by Martin Limon

  While Ernie was making his statement, Colonel Alcott called me out into the hallway. When we were alone, he came so close I had to retreat a step. He was clean shaven and smelled of cologne and his civilian clothes were neatly pressed. My guess was that he’d encountered us as he’d taken a last turn through the Provost Marshal’s Office before heading off to the Indianhead Officers’ Club. Socializing is a big part of an officer’s life, if he’s ambitious.

  In a low voice, Alcott said, “You will not make any further false accusations about the Druwood case. That was a training accident and only a training accident. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” I understood only too well. These guys were not going to let two low-level 8th Army CID agents rock their cozy little boat.

  “If you persist in these accusations,” Alcott continued, “you will be guilty of spreading false rumor concerning the integrity of the chain of command, a crime that is prohibited under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And, I might add, a crime that is taken extremely seriously up here at Division. Do you understand?”

  “I understand, sir.” Colonel Alcott was right about the UCMJ. One of its provisions specifically states that it is a criminal offense to spread rumors that can be shown to have a deleterious effect on the morale of a military unit. But one man’s rumor is another man’s fact.

  Two armed MPs marched down the narrow hallway. Colonel Alcott stepped away from me and acknowledged their greeting. After they’d passed, he closed in on me again.

  “I suggest, Agent Sueno,” he told me, “that you and your partner wrap up your investigation and wrap it up soon.”

  “We haven’t found Corporal Matthewson, sir.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. Did that ever occur to you?”

  “It did, sir.”

  “So maybe you’d better cut your losses and head back to Seoul before one of these peripheral issues you’ve been nosing into explodes in your face.” Colonel Alcott paused and stared at me. “Now I’m not going to ask again if you understand me because, let’s cut the shit, I know you understand me. I’m telling you, for the last time, wrap up your report and get the hell out of Tongduchon.”

  With that, he swiveled smartly and marched his little body down the hallway.

  Ok-hi led the way, the heels of her black leather boots clicking down a flight of stone steps that led toward the East Bean River. About twenty yards below us, lining the muddy banks, were row upon row of wooden shanties. Candles glowed from within, as did an occasional cooking fire; some of the homes were lit by electric bulbs. The river moved sluggishly beneath the weight of moonlight, and the odor from the almost stagnant flow was what you’d expect from any waste dump. Rancid. Laundry fluttered from lines; water sloshed from buckets; old men barked; children shouted.

  “The Turkey Farm,” Ok-hi said. “No more bad thing here. KNPs say no can do.”

  So the brothels had been replaced by poor families. Families that had probably traveled from all over the Korean countryside, looking for work in Tongduchon, a city that, because of its proximity to Camp Casey, had become an economic boomtown.

  A three-quarters moon hovered above the hills on the far side of the valley, its red glow shining on the Confucian shrine, a pagoda-like structure made of stone. The back of the pagoda was to the river but its face frowned out onto a small plaza. The entrance to the shrine was guarded by stone heitei, mythical lionlike creatures that guard all religious sites in Korea.

  “There,” Ok-hi said, pointing with her open palm. “Old king die.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Ernie said. “How old was he?”

  “No.” Ok-hi shook her head vehemently. “Not old. King young but he die long time ago.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Long time.” Her cute nose crinkled. “How long? How you say?” She looked at me. “Menggu.”

  “Mongols,” I said.

  “Yeah. King die when Mongol come.”

  Ernie whistled. “That had to be before I got drafted.”

  About seven hundred years ago, to be exact.

  Surrounding the plaza were shops and teahouses and what looked like chophouses and bars. None of the buildings were very big. The largest, an ancient wooden edifice some three stories tall, stood directly opposite the shrine. The people milling about appeared, from this distance, to be Koreans. I didn’t see any GIs. I did notice, however, that a paved, two-lane road ran north from the shrine. Large enough for a KNP patrol car or an American jeep or even, with a good driver, a two-and-a-half-ton truck.

  So here it was. The Turkey Farm that I’d heard so much about. An eyesore that had caused so much embarrassment for both Korean and U.S. authorities that they’d finally mustered the will to clean it up. What stories this village must hold. Of young girls sold into indentured servitude, forced into prostitution. Of GIs during the Korean War, and in the years after, rolling their vehicles down muddy roads, pulling up along the banks of the river, paying for sex with a bar of soap or a pack of cigarettes. The girls from the impoverished countryside being brought in younger and younger, being used, worn out, and tossed aside to make room for more. Whole seas of young women ruined, lost, ravaged by disease. And GIs, their biological lust never sated, experiencing all this, experiencing the unbridled satisfaction of all their desires and then returning home to Dubuque, Iowa or Little Rock, Arkansas, or Pasadena, California, trying to forget what they’d seen. Putting it out of their minds. Getting on with their lives. But never, by no stretch of the imagination, being the same again.

  “Sueno!”

  It was Ernie’s voice. Angry.

  “You just going to stand there all night or are we going to get some work done?”

  “Work,” I said. “Right.”

  I stepped gingerly down the steep stone steps.

  Ok-hi looked at me quizzically, unable to figure me out. Then she shrugged her shoulders, turned, and resumed tip-toeing sideways down the narrow steps. Wading through moonlight.

  I’d seen hookers in L.A. Some just high school girls, working to pay for their drug habit. But how did their drug habit start? When they fell in with gang members and pimps. Gang members and pimps who brought the curious young girls along until they were hooked, under their power, and then, and only then, would they put them out on the street.

  Even when I was still in junior high school I saw this and marveled at how young girls could fall for it. One of my classmates, Vivian Matatoros, started hanging out with gang members. Everything about her changed. The glasses she wore disappeared, the brown hair pulled back into a pony tail became a frizzed-out mess, and she slid down from the classes that held the top students to the lowest rung of academic hell. So I seldom saw her or had a chance to talk with her or laugh with her. I spotted her only occasionally in the hallways, swaggering with girlfriends who chomped on as much gum and wore as much makeup as their jaw capacity and facial measurements would allow.

  One morning, in the passageway behind the girl’s gym, I cornered her. I stood in front of her so she couldn’t ignore me and she couldn’t walk past me. When she realized that she was trapped, she gazed up at me, ready to fight.

  “What’s happened to you, Vivian?” I asked.

  “Get away from me.”

  I wouldn’t let her go. I forced her to talk.

  “I was bored,” she told me finally. “No one was paying attention to me.”

  I knew the feeling. I told her I often felt the same way. I offered to talk to her, to meet her after school. She looked at me with contempt.

  “Where were you when I needed you?” she asked.

  I had no answer.

  She shoved past me roughly and marched away. Soon she dropped out of school. Weeks later some of the guys told me that she was working a corner off Whittier Boulevard. They wanted me to go look-and laugh and shout names at her-but I couldn’t do it. I remembered the Vivian who used to help me with my algebra. The girl who’d shared a sandwich with me when I had no lunch. Tha
t Vivian was the only Vivian I wanted to remember. The only Vivian I could bear to remember.

  A huge slab of polished marble stood at the front of the shrine, flanked by the snarling stone heitei. By flickering candlelight I read as much as I could. Some of the hangul script and the Chinese characters were too complicated for me but I managed to understand the gist of the story.

  His name was Yu Byol-seing and he wasn’t a king, as Ok-hi had assumed, but merely a general. As a young man he started his career as a common soldier but by his intelligence and daring rose through the ranks rapidly. The Koreans were desperately trying to hold off the invading Mongol hordes and the carnage was such that there were plenty of promotion opportunities. Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan had already conquered most of northern China. He expected that conquering Korea would be like pulling ripe fruit off a plum tree. Instead, much to the Mongols’ surprise, they met fierce resistance.

  By the time the Mongols had crossed the Yalu River into Korea and conquered the north, there was only one small army left, led by General Yu. This battered force was all that stood between them and Kaesong, the ancient capital city. The Mongol cavalry, of course, was the best in the world. After all the defeats the Koreans had suffered, General Yu had no cavalry left, only foot soldiers. For foot soldiers to face Mongol horsemen on flat land was suicide. Yet making a stand in rocky mountain retreats might slow them down but would do no good in the long run. The Mongols had shown that they were perfectly willing to ride past Korean soldiers holed up on rocky ridges, and continue south to rape and pillage. General Yu had no choice. He had to face the Mongol army.

  He chose the environs of East Bean River for his stand. Many small streams intersected in this open valley. None of the rivers were broad enough to totally stop a cavalry advance, horses could wade across them and climb the muddy banks, but the damp geography slowed them down. And the narrow rivers ran in jagged patterns, slicing the valley like a complex jigsaw puzzle. General Yu took advantage of this terrain. First, he arrayed his army in full view of the advancing Mongols. When their cavalry flanked him and charged, he let loose with his archers and pulled his foot soldiers back, retreating across a muddy stream. On the far bank the men turned and made their stand, emplacing iron pikes and holding their ground as the mounted Mongols struggled up and out of the mud. Before the horsemen could find any room to maneuver, the Koreans attacked. The battle was fierce and General Yu moved his soldiers around the chessboard of the East Bean valley with consummate skill, befuddling the Mongol cavalry at every turn. The Mongol losses grew and the Koreans became bolder but Kublai Kahn and his generals hadn’t conquered the world by being timid. With lightning speed, a horseman raced to the rear requesting reinforcements. By the next morning, they arrived. Over ten thousand strong, according to the stone slab, all of them arrayed on the hills surrounding Tongduchon. Wounded but still willing to fight, the Koreans were defiant. By now, the Mongols had a better idea of how to maneuver in the tricky terrain of East Bean River. They placed various units of cavalry in different sectors so they wouldn’t have to cross rivers so often. By the end of the second day, General Yu and his entire force were destroyed. According to the stone tablet, not one soldier surrendered.

  The Korean king in Seoul retreated to Kanghua Island and sued the Mongols for peace. They gave it to him, but in return for maintaining his life and his throne, he turned Chosun, the Land of the Morning Calm, over to Kublai Khan.

  When I was finished reading, I glanced around at the little village that surrounded the shrine. From glory to degradation and some day, I hoped, back to glory.

  Ernie trudged up the steps of the shrine, Ok-hi by his side.

  “While you been reading, Ok-hi and I were out asking questions. Everybody in that chophouse over there saw it.” He pointed at a noodle shop with a wooden sign that said, TONGDU NEING-MYON. East Bean Cold Noodles.

  “They all saw it? What do you mean?”

  “I mean they all heard the thud and when they ran outside they found a dead body. A GI with his skull crushed in.”

  “Where?”

  “Right there.”

  Ernie pointed to the heitei nearest the three-story building. I walked over, shining my small flashlight on the snarling beast. His left ear was shattered. I touched the wound. Tiny bits of gravel broke off on my finger, the same type of gravel I’d plucked from Private Druwood’s skull.

  Across from the shrine, the woodwork of a three-story building creaked in the gentle breeze. It was an old and venerable construction, almost like a Victorian mansion except there was no intricate gingerbread trim. A lone electric bulb burned inside a window on the third floor. The sign on the lower level said TONGDU SSAL-GUANG. East Bean Rice Storage.

  At the top of the roof, moonbeams glinted off a ledge. From there it would be an easy leap to the stone heitei. Skulls would meet. Bone would crunch. Blood would flow, but only for a moment. Then the man’s heart would stop and the flowing blood would cease and people would rush out of East Bean Cold Noodles and the KNPs would be called and the 2nd Division Military Police would be notified and someone would come out with a jeep or an ambulance and transport the dead GI back to Camp Casey.

  But no one would dump the body at the obstacle course, if normal procedure was being followed.

  I turned to Ok-hi. “Did you ask about black-market honchos?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Everybody say there, in ssal changgo.” She pointed to the rice warehouse. “Old mama-san work there, do black market all the time. Everybody say she called Chilmyon-jok Ajjima.” The Turkey Lady.

  Actually, nobody knows for sure why GIs christened this old brothel area the Turkey Farm. Some say because it was full of young chicks. Whatever the reason, the name had caught on not only with the GIs but also with the Koreans. To call the black-market honcho, Chilmyon-jok Ajjima, the Turkey Lady, implied that she’d been here a long time.

  Ernie turned to Ok-hi. “You wait here.”

  “No way,” she answered. “I go, too.”

  Ernie shrugged. It was a free country. Sort of.

  The front door of the warehouse was locked from the outside. We walked around back and found a wooden loading platform. The metal shuttered entranceway from the platform was padlocked, also from the outside. A side door, however, was open. We walked in.

  I shone my flashlight around a large space. The first floor was about a third full of what you’d expect a granary to be full of. Large hemp sacks on wooden pallets. They were slashed with Chinese characters and apparently contained rice, barley, and millet, whatever in the hell millet was used for. Feeding livestock, I supposed. The floor of this main warehouse wasn’t completely flat. Elevated platforms raised some pallets above others. And then I realized why. There had been a stage against the far wall and a bar to our right. The ground level, before it had been turned into a grain warehouse, had served as a nightclub.

  How long ago? During the Korean War, once the frontlines stabilized? Maybe. How many GIs just in from the field, wearing muddy boots and reeking of two weeks worth of stink, had traipsed in here? How many frightened young girls just in from the countryside had been dragged through these doors by procurers? Girls who’d never seen a building this big nor heard a live band nor even gazed eye-to-eye with a Westerner.

  Ernie elbowed me, bringing me back to the present. Sometimes he became exasperated by my moods. At a time like this, in the middle of an investigation, I couldn’t blame him. I was sometimes impatient with myself for wallowing in the past or, worse, in a future that existed only in my imagination.

  A cement-walled stairwell led upward. Even from the bottom we could see the glow of the bulb shining above. I heard clicking. Someone using a typewriter? But the clicks were too soft, wood on wood, and much too rapid for a typewriter. Then I realized what the sounds were. Ok-hi realized it at the same time.

  “Jupan,” she whispered.

  Someone, an expert, manipulating an abacus.

  I led, holding the f
lashlight. Ernie followed, holding his. 45. And Ok-hi came last, stepping lightly so her high-heeled leather boots wouldn’t make too much noise on the stairs.

  The second floor seemed to be deserted. Still, I took a few steps along the corridor to investigate. Small rooms, open, no doors. I shone the flashlight beam into one. Jam-packed with black-market merchandise, cardboard cases of canned fruit cocktail imported from Hawaii. In the next room, cases of crystallized orange drink were piled almost to the ceiling. The next held boxes of bottled maraschino cherries and about a jillion packets of nondairy creamer. Each room was like that, filled with merchandise taken from the American PX. But these items hadn’t been purchased one by one by a lone GI doing weekend shopping. These items had been bought in bulk, probably straight off the truck that had transported them from the Port of Inchon. That implied someone in procurement was involved in the scam, making the sale and also covering it up in the inventory chain. Both Koreans, who did the actual clerical work, and Americans, who supervised them, had to be involved. Using my flashlight, I checked the dates stamped onto some of the cases. Months ago. By the pristine condition of the boxes and the volume of the product, there was no doubt that this black-market operation was sophisticated, widespread, and had at least the tacit approval of someone high up. A lot of money was involved. Did this have anything to do with the death of Private Marvin Z. Druwood? Or with the disappearance of Corporal Jill Matthewson?

  Maybe.

  One thing that struck me as odd was the size of the rooms. Obviously, this building had never been designed to be a warehouse. These rooms were tiny and there were dozens of them spread down the hallway. Just enough room for a small bed. Just enough room for a young girl to lie down and for a young GI to slip off his boots and pull down his trousers.

  Ernie and Ok-hi waited for me at the stairwell. Ernie pointed upstairs. I nodded. The three of us started to climb.

  At the top of the steps I allowed my eyes to adjust to the ambient light from the single bulb that illuminated the long corridor. More rooms, like the ones on the second floor, were jam-packed with made-in-the-USA black-market items. This time mostly electronics: tape recorders, stereo equipment, cheap cameras. One doorway stood open, light flooding out into the hallway. We walked forward and as we did so whoever was working inside stopped clicking disks on the abacus. I strolled to the door, Ernie right behind me, and by the time we arrived I’d shoved my flashlight deep into my jacket pocket.