The Iron Sickle

by Martin Limon

  A murmur of assent rose from the crowd. Then the Colonel started to give us our assignments. Most of the MP investigators were to start combing through the archives of the Claims Office, searching particularly for disgruntled applicants who’d had their claims denied and might still hold a grudge against Barretsford or against the 8th Army Claims Office in general. Some of the CID agents were to look into past cases of lost or stolen Korean employee identification cards. Others were assigned to track down forgery operations that might’ve provided the killer with a phony ID. Although they weren’t at this meeting, Colonel Brace told us a half dozen counter-intelligence agents would be joining the effort, shaking down their informants, trying to gather information on whether or not the man with the sickle had been sent by the North Korean regime.

  An MP investigator raised his hand and asked what exactly the KNPs would be up to.

  “The Korean National Police,” Colonel Brace replied, “are giving this case the highest priority. They’ve already started interrogating Korean employees and bus and cab drivers in the Yongsan area to see if they can discover how he reached the gate.”

  Ernie and I had yet to be given an assignment, and as it became more apparent the meeting was closing down, Ernie began to fidget. When the Colonel asked if we had any final questions, Ernie shot to his feet.

  “What about us?” Ernie said. “Me and my partner here, Sueño?”

  “Oh, yes,” the Colonel replied. “See Staff Sergeant Riley after the meeting.”

  Some wise guy in the second row said, sotto voce, “The black market detail.”

  Everyone cracked up. Ernie flipped the guy the bird. The Colonel shouted, “Dismissed! Get out of here and get to work.”

  As everyone stood and started to file out, Riley shouted, as best he was able through his whiskey-ravaged throat, “I want a progress report every day before close of business.”

  Grumbles greeted the announcement. Colonel Brace marched out of the theater, and Ernie and I sat as the other investigators filed past. A few made snide remarks. To each one, Ernie raised his middle digit and replied, “Sit on it and rotate.”

  Finally, after everyone left, Riley walked over to us.

  “You two are staying on the black market detail,” he told us. “The Colonel doesn’t want the commissary and PX overrun with yobos while we’re chasing down the Barretsford case.”

  Yobo means girlfriend, a term used to refer, impolitely, to the Korean dependent wives of American servicemen.

  “Why don’t they want us on the case?” Ernie demanded.

  “Colonel’s orders,” Riley said, jotting something down on his clipboard.

  “I’ll tell you why,” Ernie said. “They don’t want the truth. If they wanted the truth, they’d have us taking the lead. Sueño here is the only American investigator in the country who speaks Korean. I’m the only investigator who’s not a brownnoser with a corncob stuck up his butt. What Eighth Army wants is to have the honchos manage every detail of this investigation from start to finish because they’re afraid of where it might lead.”

  “The Provost Marshal is committed to getting to the bottom of this murder.”

  “As long as nobody’s embarrassed,” Ernie said.

  Riley finished making notations on his clipboard and stuck his pencil behind his ear. “How long have you been in the army, Bascom?”

  “Almost ten years.”

  “Two tours in Vietnam?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then you know you go along to get along.”

  “Or better yet,” Ernie said, “you fuck up and move up.”

  Riley ignored the insult. “Be at the commissary when it opens,” he told us. “Make your presence known. And Sueño …” He turned toward me. “Try to convince your partner here to keep his mouth shut for once.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  “Think quick,” Riley told me. “You, too,” he said, pointing at Ernie. He started to walk away.

  “Who’s been assigned to look into Barretsford’s past?” I asked.

  Riley stopped in his tracks. Slowly, he turned around and pointed his finger at me. “You’d better be quiet about that,” he said. “It’s already been decided that this had nothing to do with Barretsford’s personal life. This was an outside attack.”

  “Decided by who?” I asked.

  Riley shook his head. “Don’t you two get it? You ask too many questions. That’s why you’re off the case.”

  He tucked his clipboard beneath his scrawny arm and stalked out of the theater.

  Ernie and I sat in his jeep in the back row of the parking lot, sipping PX coffee we’d bought at the snack stand in front of the Yongsan Commissary. It was hot and tasted about as acidic as battery fluid. We watched customers, mostly Korean women, flow out of the commissary, trotting behind male baggers who pushed huge carts laden with freeze-dried coffee, soluble creamer, mayonnaise, concentrated orange drink, bottled maraschino cherries, and just about anything else that was imported and therefore highly prized on the black market.

  Even twenty years after the devastation of the Korean War, Korean industry was still flat on its back. The government was working hard to rectify that situation, but for now they were concentrating on big ticket items like oil tankers, M-16 rifles, and the new Hyundai sedans that were zooming all over the city. Ladies’ nylons, stereo equipment, and washing machines were luxury items their industrial plant could not yet produce.

  After the groceries were loaded into the trunk of one of the black Ford Granada PX taxis, the female shoppers tipped the baggers and climbed into the backseats.

  “Which one should we bust?” I asked.

  “Let’s finish our coffee first.”

  “Okay by me.”

  Earlier this morning, after leaving the 8th Army movie theater, we’d had no choice but to pass Gate Five. Without talking about it, we decided to loiter nearby beneath an old elm tree to watch the American MPs and Korean gate guards check people and vehicles as they came through. Manpower had more than doubled since yesterday: four MPs and five gate guards. Each piece of identification had to be taken out of its holder, handed to the gate guard, examined, and then, in turn, handed to the MP. If any anomaly was noted, an entry was made in a ledger with the time, date, name, and serial number of the ID card. Apparently, much of the Korean workforce had decided not to show up today. If they had, there would’ve been a line a half mile long. As it was, only about a dozen workers waited patiently to enter.

  Again without talking about it, Ernie and I sauntered casually across the street, strolling behind the brick headquarters and down the line of cement block buildings until we reached the Claims Office. It was still roped off with yellow crime tape, and the front door had been barred.

  “Yesterday it was raining,” I said. “If a guy arrived a little early and had to wait for the office to open, he wouldn’t want to stand here on the sidewalk.”

  “No,” Ernie replied, “he’d wait in there.”

  Behind us loomed the back entrance to one of the two-story brick buildings, this one belonging to the Logistics Command. Ernie and I stepped up on the porch and pushed through the door. Inside, a stairwell wound up to the second floor, and just past the foot of the stairs, a small snack stand had been set up. Most of the headquarters buildings had similar operations, sponsored by the PX.

  An elderly Korean woman wore a loose smock and a white bandana enveloping her grey hair. A small man, maybe her husband, reached into a cardboard box and handed her wax-paper-wrapped rolls and doughnuts, which she set on display behind a plastic sneeze guard. The smell of percolating coffee gave the stand a homey air.

  “Anyonghaseiyo?” I said in Korean.

  The old woman bowed slightly and said, “Nei. Anyonghaseiyo. Myol duhsi-geissoyo?” What can I get for you?

  I ordered a small coffee. Ernie bought a carton of orange juice.

  After the old woman gave us our change, I said, “Yesterday, the man who w
aited here, did he order anything?”

  Both of them stopped what they were doing, as if suddenly frozen by a cold wind from Manchuria. Finally, the old woman cleared her throat and said, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the Korean man who stepped in here yesterday morning to get out of the rain, just before eight o’clock. Did he order anything? Coffee maybe? Juice?”

  The man and woman exchanged glances, and I guessed they must’ve worked together for many years.

  “No,” the old woman said. “He ordered nothing.”

  Bingo.

  “Did he speak to you?” I asked.

  “No.” The old man spoke for the first time, straightening up from his chores. “He said nothing to us. He just stood there in front of the door, staring at the rain.”

  “What did he look like?”

  Their description matched the one given by the employees of the Claims Office.

  “Did you see him leave?” I asked.

  “No, but I was glad when he did.”

  “Why?”

  “He just stared out the window. He didn’t move. Not one muscle the whole time he stood there.”

  “There was one thing that moved,” the old woman corrected.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “His lip. His lower lip. It was purple, puffed up, like something was wrong with it. The whole time he stood there it kept pulsating, like blood was pounding through it.”

  “Is that it?”

  “No,” she replied. “He kept sniffling, as if his nose were running. I kept thinking he was going to cry.”

  I tried more questions but stopped when I realized they had nothing else to tell us.

  On our way back to the barracks, Ernie insisted we ought to tell Riley that none of the vaunted investigators who’d been assigned to the Barretsford case had thought to interview the couple who ran the PX snack stand across the pathway from the Claims Office.

  “You just want to rub it in,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Let’s wait for them to come to us.”

  This crime wouldn’t be solved on the American compound. Like an avenging warrior, the man with the iron sickle had emerged out of the vast city of Seoul. Eventually, if Colonel Brace wanted Americans to solve this case, he’d have to enlist someone who spoke Korean and wasn’t afraid of snooping around back alleys and asking embarrassing questions. That would be us. Most of the other investigators were afraid to even venture off compound. They couldn’t read the signs, Korean addresses made no sense to them, and not enough people out there spoke English. If you ventured too far from compound, toilets were hard to find; and when you did find one, it was often nothing more than a stinking square hole in a dirty cement floor. If you weren’t limber enough to squat, you were in trouble.

  And more importantly, most of our American colleagues were afraid to piss off their military superiors. Ernie and I sometimes tried not to piss off our superiors, but it rarely worked. Mostly we just didn’t give a damn.

  We sipped on our coffee for a while, each lost in thought, until suddenly Ernie said, “Whoa! Who’s that?”

  I glanced up. Barreling across the parking lot was an American woman, light brown hair uncovered in the drizzle. She was wearing only a long black dress covered by a grey sweater, and was dragging a little girl behind her who looked to be about eight or nine. The woman was thin but strong, as if she worked out regularly, and she was glaring at us, enraged. As she headed straight toward us, I realized who she was. Ernie did, too.

  “Trouble,” Ernie said, quickly climbing out of the jeep. I popped out of the passenger side and walked to the front of the jeep.

  The woman marched up to Ernie and slapped his chest with her free hand.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  Ernie stood with his mouth open, dumbfounded.

  “You’re CID!” she shouted. “You’re supposed to be finding the man who murdered my husband. What are you doing here?” She glanced at the commissary, quickly turning back to us with an incredulous expression. “Are you worrying about the black market? Black market! At a time like this?” Her mouth hung open, and her eyes were scrunched in disbelief. “What is wrong with you people?”

  This time she let go of her daughter’s hand and launched at Ernie in earnest, reaching sharp nails toward his eyes. Just in time, he grabbed her wrists and leaned away from the assault, but she continued to come at him, throwing a knee to his groin, pushing him back onto the hood of the jeep, screaming at the top of her lungs. The little girl, Barretsford’s daughter, Cindy, held both her hands to her mouth, her shoulders hunched in fear, crying.

  I hurried around the jeep and grabbed Mrs. Evelyn Barretsford in a bear hug. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that people were beginning to congregate in front of the commissary, and a few of them were trotting across the parking lot. In the distance, I heard the groan of an MP siren. By then, Mrs. Barretsford had started to calm down, and we let her go. She knelt and hugged her daughter, sobbing and saying, “You should be looking for him. You should be looking for the man who slaughtered by husband!”

  A few other military dependent wives gathered around her, comforting her and her daughter, all the while shooting evil looks at us.

  When the MPs arrived on the scene, even they gave us the business. “What are you doing here?” one of them asked. “You’re CID. Maybe you should forget about the black market for a while and go out and solve some real crime.”

  “Get bent,” Ernie told him.

  The MP, a burly fellow, took a step forward, then stopped, apparently seeing the fire in Ernie’s green eyes. The MP hesitated, shrugged, and turned back toward Mrs. Barretsford.

  -3-

  An hour later we were ordered to report to the Provost Marshal—immediately if not sooner. We found him out on the parade field in front of 8th Army headquarters, standing with a group of dignitaries on a white bunted podium. We skidded to a halt at the edge of the field.

  “Too late,” Ernie said.

  A bass drum pounded and the United Nations Command Honor Guard marched onto the raked gravel. First out was a unit of the Republic of Korea Army with their green tunics and white hats, followed closely by the American honor guard in their shiny brass buttons and dress blue uniforms. Finally a platoon of Gurkhas from the British Army swung white-gloved fists resolutely forward as they strutted onto the field in their bright red blazers. A six-gun salute from a battery of 105mm howitzers blasted into the sky as sergeants shouted commands and the parade wound into formation in front of the podium. Smoke roiled across the field, cuing the 8th Army band to strike up first the Republic of Korea national anthem and then “The Star Spangled Banner.”

  “Who are they trying to impress?” Ernie asked.

  “Some dignitaries from the UN,” I said, “here on an inspection tour.”

  “Hope they watch out for guys with sickles.”

  A Korean general spoke first. I couldn’t understand everything he said; the language was formal and used a vocabulary seldom heard in the red light district of Itaewon, but I picked up most of it. Every few sentences he paused, and a younger officer translated what he’d just said into English. The general expressed his gratitude to the countries of the United Nations for their support of the free Republic of Korea, both now and during their time of need some twenty years ago, when they’d been attacked by the forces of the North Korean Communists and the massed legions of Chairman Mao Tse-tung and the Red Chinese People’s Army.

  After a few more droning remarks by the American general, which were similarly translated into Korean, a plaque was presented to a UN civilian in a grey suit. Dutch, I believe he was. Then a half-dozen Korean women, decked out in full-skirted silk hanbok, placed leis over the heads of the smiling dignitaries. The pretty young women backed up and bowed deeply. More martial music blasted out, and the UN Honor Guard saluted with their silver bayoneted rifles. Then, to the accompaniment of a pounding drum, they marched smartly off
the field.

  The assembly was dismissed and Colonel Brace, along with many of the other dignitaries, hopped off the podium. After saluting a few generals and exchanging some smiling remarks, he motioned for us to meet him beneath a quivering elm tree. When he reached us, his demeanor had changed completely. His eyes were squinting, and he glanced away from us, setting both fists on his hips, as if manfully controlling his temper. Colonel Brace was a jogger who kept his weight down to anorexic levels as was the fashion of the 8th Army officer corps. He might have been much smaller than either of us, but his fists tightened as if he were preparing to spring forward and pummel us both.

  “Where do you two guys get off,” he said, “upsetting Mrs. Barretsford like that?”

  “We didn’t upset her,” Ernie replied. “The fact that we were assigned to the black market detail is what upset her.”

  Colonel Brace shook his head slightly, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Finally, he said, “No ‘sir’ in that answer, Bascom?”

  “Sir,” Ernie said.

  “You should’ve kept a low profile,” he told us, “done your work without drawing attention to yourselves.”

  When neither of us answered, Colonel Brace continued. “I’m putting you back on Sergeant-of-the-Guard duty, effective immediately. Report to the MP Station after evening chow. You’ll be on that detail every night until further notice.”

  “No more black market?” Ernie asked.

  “No more black market. And end your questions with ‘sir.’ Is that understood?”

  “Understood, sir,” Ernie replied.

  He stared at us for a while, as if amazed at the human wreckage he had to deal with. Finally, he shook his head again and said, “Dismissed.”

  Ernie and I saluted, maintained the position of attention, and waited for the colonel to stalk away. As we watched him go, Ernie chomped on his gum a little louder. Other than that, he showed no reaction to the butt chewing. We were used to being treated as if we were lower than whale shit. It’s a leadership technique the officer corps uses. I believe at West Point they have a week-long seminar on the finer points.