G.I. Bones (16 page)

We walked down the long driveway to Ernie’s jeep. Mrs. Tidwell stood at the huge entranceway to the J-2’s quarters and watched until we drove away.

Ernie glanced at me as he rounded a corner. “Sticking our necks out for the brass. I’m not sure I like it.”

“I figure we’re doing it for Eighth Army.”

Ernie raised one eyebrow and asked again. “What has Eighth Army ever done for you?”

We were just leaving Yongsan Compound South Post and crossing the MSR, the Main Supply Route. I waved my hand toward Itaewon.

“Eighth Army’s given me all this,” I said. “And this.” I plucked the front of my white shirt and tie.

Ernie grunted and wheeled the jeep between the barricade that led to main post.

At the Yongsan Compound Military Police Arms Room, Staff Sergeant Palinki, the Unit Armorer, presented me with a well-oiled .45 automatic and matching shoulder holster. Ernie was already carrying. He was supposed to have turned the weapon in when we were stripped of our investigative duties but he hadn’t bothered. Ernie handed over his weapon and allowed Palinki to perform a quick maintenance check and cleaning.

“Bad boys,” Palinki said. “This will make them think twice before messing with you two.”

“Nobody messes with us, Palinki,” Ernie said.

“Nobody. Sure, boss. Nobody mess with Sueño and Bascom. In case they do though . . . ” He pointed a big finger at the business end of the .45. “This is the part you point at them, brother. Make them think twice. If they don’t be good boys, you blow their fucking heads off, OK brother?”

Ernie offered Palinki a stick of ginseng gum. The big man took two. He chomped on them both and grinned as we slipped into our leather straps, holstered the .45s with the grips pointing out, and then put on our jackets over them.

“Nobody know you packing,” Palinki said.

Nobody except somebody who might wonder why we had two-inch-wide bulges under our armpits.

We saluted Sergeant Palinki and left.

10

I
was the only CID agent—or MP for that matter—in the entire Republic of Korea who could speak Korean. Not that I received any credit for having slaved in night classes. On the contrary, I was most often accused of being “too close to the Koreans.” The honchos wouldn’t admit that actually talking to the people you’re investigating can sometimes help.

Ernie, on the other hand, could move in any low-life circles. Whether the G.I.s off post were druggies or criminals or perverts on the prowl for unmentionable delights, Ernie could gain their confidence. Probably it was Vietnam that had done it to him. He spent two tours there. On the first he’d bought marijuana and hashish like most G.I.s but on his second tour all the marijuana and hash had disappeared, replaced now by vials of pure China White. A plan encouraged by the North Vietnamese to incapacitate American soldiers, he thought. Upon returning to the States, Ernie found the willpower to lay off drugs. He switched to booze, a perfectly acceptable alternative as far as the United States Army is concerned. I admired him for his strength of will and his ability to move chameleon-like from one world to the other.

But what ultimately forced the provost marshal and the other honchos at 8th Army to tolerate George Sueño and Ernie Bascom was that Ernie and I were the only investigators in country willing and able to waltz right into any G.I. village and come back with the goods. The other CID agents were tight-asses. They didn’t know how to conduct themselves in nightclubs or bars or brothels and they froze up, acting stilted and embarrassed. And, of course, none of them could speak the language. Neither the language of the people of Korea nor the language of the night.

Eighth Army needed Ernie and me. And because there was a lot more G.I. crime off compound than 8th Army liked to admit—which was the reason they kept the SIRs under lock and key—the skills of George Sueño and Ernie Bascom were, if not prized, at least tolerated. But you wouldn’t have known it by the scowling countenances of the CID first sergeant and the 8th Army Provost Marshal, Colonel Brace.

“You went over my head,” Colonel Brace told us.

Ernie and I kept quiet.

“Out of nowhere,” Colonel Brace continued, “the CG’s chief of staff calls me and says that I’m to reinstate your full investigative powers and to hell with what the Korean National Police might think. And, furthermore, I’m to let you concentrate full time on the Jessica Tidwell case.”

Ernie and I hadn’t been asked a question, so we didn’t respond.

“Don’t you have anything to say for yourselves?” Colonel Brace asked.

“The KNPs are just playing games,” Ernie replied, “embarrassed that we’re digging up old, and not-so-old, skeletons in their closets. They’re using the murder of Two Bellies to badger us into dropping the investigation.”

This seemed to make Colonel Brace even angrier.

“I don’t give a damn about this Two Bellies. But I do give a damn about unidentified G.I. bones. You keep looking for them and to hell with the ROKs.” Now Colonel Brace jabbed his forefinger at us. “And by god you’d better find Jessica Tidwell and find her fast before something happens to her. You got that?”

What he was so angrily telling us to do was exactly what the chief of staff had just ordered him to do. Pretending you’re a tough guy while slavishly following orders is an excellent way to enhance your career in the United States Army.

Ernie and I nodded.

Once Colonel Brace dismissed us, we saluted and walked back through the CID Admin Office. Both Staff Sergeant Riley and Miss Kim sat at their desks, pretending to be engrossed in their work. Neither one of them looked up at us.

Out in the parking lot, Ernie said with exasperation in his voice, “Lifer bullshit.”

Huatu,
Korean flower cards, is played with twelve suits that are identified by vegetation. The suits follow the seasonal progressions. The first suit is January and features the evergreen pine; the next suit is February and is symbolized by brightly splashed paintings of purple plum flowers. The suit representing March is festooned with red cherry blossoms opening in early spring. Colorful stuff. Idyllic. But in contrast, actually gambling with
huatu
is a ferocious exercise.

The friends of the late Two Bellies surrounded the tattered old army blanket and took turns slapping the tough little plastic cards atop a pile of bronze coins, all the while cursing, grabbing money, and surveying every move as the next player took her turn. If a player stuck her hand into the center at the wrong time, one of the flying cards would have sliced off a finger.

When Ernie and I stepped onto the creaking wooden floorboards outside the hooch, the group of women stopped their game and gazed up at us.

“We know nothing,” one of them said.

Each of the retired business girls—women who were so aggressive only seconds ago—now seemed frozen in fear.

“Who killed Two Bellies?” Ernie asked.

No answer.

“Was it the Seven Dragons?”

Still no answer.

Ernie stepped past the open sliding door, grabbed the edge of the army blanket, and in one deft movement swept it off the floor. Flower cards and coins and ashtrays and lit cigarettes flew everywhere. Strangely, none of the women screamed. They merely scooted back on the warm vinyl floor until their backs were protected. Some of them covered their knees with their arms and looked down. Others glared at us directly.

“She was your friend,” Ernie said.

Finally, a woman spoke. “She dead. She help you so she dead. You no protect her. You no help Two Bellies.”

What she said was true but it just made Ernie angry. He wadded up the army blanket and tossed it at them in disgust.

I crouched down so I was at eye level with the women. “The night she died, where did she go? Who was she going to see?” No answer. “Did somebody come here and meet her or did she go out on her own?”

Still no answer.

“I’m going to find the man who killed her,” I said. “Whoever that is, he will be punished. But I need your help.”

After a long silence, one of the
huatu
players said, “That night, Two Bellies go out, nobody know where go but she dress up like she got big business. You know, important business. She no tell us what kind business she got.”

“Do you know where she went?” I asked.

“Itaewon, somewhere. She no take handbag. If she gotta go long way, she take handbag.”

So that was something. The night of her death, Two Bellies was operating close to home. I had another question for them but I had to phrase it delicately.

“That night, when Two Bellies went out,” I said, “do you think she was going out to have fun? Or was she going out, somewhere, to make money?”

The talkative woman barked a sardonic laugh. “Two Bellies never go anywhere have fun. She only go out make money.”

“Did she go alone?” Ernie asked.

The women stared at him warily for a moment. Finally, one of them said, “She say somebody follow her all the time. She no like.”

“Who?” I asked.

The women shrugged. I studied the circle. Nothing but blank faces.

“So someone had been following her,” I said. “A man or a woman?”

They all laughed. I wasn’t sure what I’d said that was so funny. Finally, the talkative one spoke up again. “If it man,” she said, “then Two Bellies no mind. She likey.”

The women cackled with glee. I figured it was best to leave them laughing. At least we’d learned something. Not much, but something.

We retreated back across the courtyard and ducked through the small gate out into the Itaewon street.

Doc Yong helped me research the Golden Dragon Travel Agency. From her clinic she made a few phone calls for me, received a few evasive answers, and eventually we formed the same working hypothesis: The Golden Dragon Travel Agency was owned, or at least controlled, by the Seven Dragons. A few of the women who’d been treated in her clinic freelanced part time for Japanese sex tours.

She gave me their names and addresses and Ernie and I wandered around the village searching for them.

The day was overcast, the wind growing colder by the minute but still, in this late afternoon, dozens of young women were parading back and forth to the bathhouses in the Itaewon area: cleanliness was a virtue close to the Korean heart. Their straight black hair was tied up over their heads with brightly colored yarn or metal clasps and against their hips they held plastic pans filled with soap and scrubbing implements and skin lotion and shampoo. Most of them wore only shorts and T-shirts and their goose-pimpled flesh and shapely figures were on display.

The girl we finally found was called Ahn Un-ja. She was slender, probably weighing in at less than ninety-five pounds, and she was frank with us, saying that many of the Japanese businessmen liked diminutive girls like herself. We asked her about the Golden Dragon Travel Agency and she admitted that she sometimes worked for them but she was afraid to say more. Ernie kept wheedling for more information and finally she told us why she was so frightened.

“Horsehead get angry,” she said.

We thanked her, promised we wouldn’t mention her name to anyone, and left.

Sergeant First Class Quinton Hilliard, the man who liked to call himself Q, was holding court at the King Club. This time he was complaining to a few of the cocktail waitresses, who were hovering around him, that the band never played any soul music. The band was a group of teenage Korean rock musicians who probably knew five chords and six songs between them but that didn’t seem to matter to Hilliard. If they weren’t up on the latest James Brown or Marvin Gaye, he considered their lack of knowledge to be a personal affront.

We were leaning against the bar. Ernie hadn’t taken his eyes off Hilliard since we walked in.

The young cocktail waitresses were all smiling and cooing around Hilliard. For his part, he sat at his table like the godfather of Itaewon, lapping up the phony adulation.

“Ignore him,” I said. “We have more important things to do.”

Ernie grunted before saying, “How’s Miss Kwon doing?”

“Doc Yong says better.”

“That son of a bitch likes to throw his weight around.” Ernie glared at Hilliard. “Everybody knows the club owners have to kiss his ass. Otherwise he’ll sic Eighth Army EEO on them. That’s why the waitresses are treating him like that. If he accepts one free drink,” Ernie said, “I’m busting him.”

Accepting gratuities for performing—or not performing—your military duties is against the Uniform Code of Military Justice. However, it’s a difficult charge to prove. If I could prove it, I’d be able to bring half the honchos at 8th Army up on charges.

“Forget it, Ernie.” I dragged him out of the King Club.

Once we were out on the street, Ernie said, “All right,” and shrugged my grip off his elbow. “Where to now?”

“Mrs. Bei told me that Jimmy Pak was in his office tonight.” Mrs. Bei was the manager behind the bar at the King Club and was tuned into the scuttlebutt that pulsed through Itaewon. Also, she was grateful to Ernie and me for having tried to save Miss Kwon. The attempted suicide had caused the local KNPs to blame Mrs. Bei for Miss Kwon’s ill-considered act; they were threatening her with charges and fines for not properly counseling the “hostesses” who plied their trade in the King Club. So far, Mrs. Bei confided in me, she’d had to shell out over 30,000
won,
more than sixty bucks. If the girl had died, the King Club would’ve been closed by the Korean authorities and it would’ve cost her ten times that much to re-open.

I would’ve preferred to talk to Horsehead but I had no idea where to find him. We settled for another charter member of the Seven Dragons. Jimmy Pak was the long time owner of the UN Club, probably the classiest club in Itaewon. It sat right on the corner of the Itaewon main drag and the MSR and was always busy, filled with some of the most gorgeous women Itaewon had to offer. Civilian tourists, diplomats, and foreign businessmen who occasionally found their way to Itaewon, usually ended up partying in the UN Club.

Neon glittered brightly in the dark night. Korean business girls and American G.I.s jostled one another in the busy pedestrian thoroughfare. The wind had picked up and flakes of snow swirled haphazardly through the crowds, landing on brick walls and cement steps and cobbled lanes and beginning to stick, to form drifts in the midwinter cold. If the Armed Forces Korea Network weather report was accurate, we could expect more precipitation moving south down the peninsula, out of Manchuria, closing in on Seoul.

As we shoved through the double doors of the UN Club, a boy in black slacks, white shirt, and bow tie bowed to us and said,
“Oso-oseiyo.”
Please come in.

The place was packed and there were no empty tables but we didn’t muscle our way to the bar as we usually did. Instead, we walked up narrow varnished steps that led to a chophouse upstairs. The joint served hamburgers with oddly flavored meat patties and fat french fries and sliced cucumbers instead of pickles. The menu also featured other delicacies such as
ohmu
rice—steamed rice wrapped in an omelet—which the G.I.s considered to be Korean food but which was actually viewed by the Koreans as a form of
yang
sik,
foreign food.