G.I. Bones (4 page)

The Twenty-one T Car barracks were Quonset huts, spray-painted green and hooked together by wooden passageways. We entered at the end of one Quonset hut and wound through a long maze of corridors, passing Korean houseboys in the latrine, standing in huge metal tubs, sloshing soap suds and laundry under their feet. Finally, we found Bernal’s quarters, room 463-C. I tried to open it with the master key the first sergeant had provided. The lock clicked but the door remained secure.

“Barred from inside,” Ernie said. He banged on the door with his fist. “Bernal! Open up!” No response. Ernie banged once more. When no one answered, he motioned for me to stand out of the way. I did. Ernie took a running start from the opposite side of the hallway and jammed his shoulder into the wooden door. It burst open and the two of us charged inside.

A dim bulb beneath a red lampshade illuminated a body laying in the bunk. A long slender body, glistening like polished ivory.

It definitely wasn’t Corporal Bernal.

3

A
ccording to the Serious Incident Report, the G.I.s who knew Moretti well called him Flo. Back in those days, more than twenty years ago, the Broadway showman Flo Ziegfeld was still remembered so it wouldn’t have seemed like such an odd name. The G.I.s who didn’t know him well, and the business girls in Itaewon, called him Moretti or the Korean version: Mori Di. The MP investigator who typed out the report referred to him consistently as Moretti.

His height was given as five foot seven, his weight, 135 pounds, and there was a black-and-white photograph of him, the same one he would’ve had pasted onto his military ID card. His hair was dark, a little long by today’s military standards, greased and combed into a slight wave at front. His lips were tight in the photograph, his brown eyes focused straight ahead, as if he were braced—physically and mentally—for the rigors of military life. I imagined him with a woolen cowl over his head, like an ascetic monk from the Middle Ages. But he wasn’t a monk, he was an American G.I. who’d arrived in Korea while the war still raged and he was fortunate enough to be alive when the cease-fire was signed.

During the Korean War, air force pilots complained because all they were doing in their combat sorties was hitting targets that had already been hit. Making “rubble bounce on rubble,” as they put it. Nothing was left in the city of Seoul. Moretti had been assigned to the 8th Army Civil Affairs Office and his job, according to the Serious Incident Report, was to rebuild the section of Seoul nearest the 8th Army headquarters, the area known as Itaewon.

The U.S. was funneling millions of dollars in military and economic reconstruction aid into Korea. Moretti had three two-and-a-half ton trucks at his disposal and three G.I. drivers. He also had access to U.S.-made building supplies being shipped into the Port of Inchon and the authority to hire and fire Korean construction crews. A lowly tech sergeant was given that much authority because things were nutso at the time, everything had to be done right now, and there weren’t enough trained engineers to go around. The 8th Army Engineering staff did provide Moretti with blueprints and a list of approved Korean engineering firms to help him build and repair buildings. According to the report, Moretti set about reconstructing Itaewon with a zeal that few G.I.s exhibited. After the first brick hut was built, he moved out to Itaewon and supervised reconstruction work twenty-four hours a day.

Meanwhile, the Korean people were desperate for shelter. Shacks made of scrap metal and charred lumber went up overnight. Some of them were used as bars, more of them as brothels, catering to American G.I.s—the only people in the country at the time with disposable income. Itaewon was put off limits by 8th Army health authorities because of the lack of sanitation and the fear of communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and, of course, syphilis and gonorrhea. But that didn’t stop G.I.s from sneaking out there. Eighth Army headquarters was only a half mile away. A short walk down the MSR and a G.I. would be in paradise. For a few black-market items, like cigarettes or soap or shoe polish, he could take his pick from amongst a small sea of destitute young women. The MPs did their best to enforce the off-limits restrictions but no one could stop the G.I.s from reaching Itaewon. As the buildings started to be rebuilt and plumbing and sanitation and electricity gradually began to be restored, the 8th Army health authorities put certain facilities back “on-limits.” G.I.s could go there without fear of being arrested by MP patrols.

Most of the buildings approved to be put back on limits were buildings built by Technical Sergeant Flo Moretti.

There was plenty of opportunity for Moretti to line his pockets. The MP investigator checked to see if Moretti had bought money orders from the one approved bank at 8th Army headquarters. This would’ve been the easiest way to send money home, but there was no record of Moretti ever making such a purchase. He was honest. And he was doing his best to reconstruct the country he’d been ordered to rebuild.

But then Moretti did something stunning. He decided to erect an orphanage, smack dab in the middle of the red-light district of Itaewon. The streets of Seoul were littered with children who, in the madness of war, were either orphaned or abandoned by their parents. The investigator mentioned this project above all the others that Moretti had going at that time because, he believed, this orphanage had led to Moretti’s death.

Or supposed death. There were questions.

The MP investigator identified himself in the upper left corner of all his documents as Cort. That’s it, just Cort. Cort interviewed everyone Moretti had known, including workmen who had to lay down their picks and shovels while a ROK Army MP translated his questions. Although he used precise, direct, and unemotional language in his report, Cort had been caught up in this investigation. The portrait he painted was of an honest man struggling to stay afloat in a swirling sea of corruption, doing his best to provide shelter for people who were desperately in need.

Cort was particularly meticulous in his reconstruction of the assault on Moretti. He interviewed everyone who’d been there, he took samples of the blood spatters and compared them to Moretti’s blood type, and he searched long and hard for the weapons used.

But when the body stayed missing, I believe Cort went a little nuts.

* * *

The ivory body before us was topped by a tangled mass of thick red hair.

She wore sheer black panties and matching brassiere and lay sprawled on the twisted sheets of Corporal Francisco Bernal’s unmade bunk. Her tongue lolled pink across rouged lips. Ernie checked her pulse, staring all the while at the voluptuous curves of her freckled flesh.

Ernie dropped her wrist. “Heart’s still pumping. Looks like Corporal Bernal had himself a truly fine evening.”

“With stolen money,” I said.

The redhead shook her curly locks. They rustled past pink ears and then her eyes opened. Blazing green. She sat up suddenly, her breasts swinging wildly with the movement.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Ernie crowbarred a grin. “Good morning. Let me guess. You must be Miss Motor Pool of 1973.”

The redhead’s eyes darted around the room. “Where’s Paco?”

Ernie gazed at me blankly.

“Paco’s short for Francisco,” I said.

Ernie nodded; his smile broadened once again and he turned back to the redhead.

“That’s what we were going to ask you. Seems there’s been a theft at Colonel Tidwell’s residence.”

She snorted. A dainty yet dismissive sound. Then she bent over and started groping for something, shoving her clothes out of the way. “Where are my cigarettes?”

Her tone was impatient, as if she were dealing with incompetent servants who weren’t responding fast enough.

Ernie grabbed a small black purse off a scratched footlocker and rummaged inside. He found a pack of Kools and tossed them to her along with a lighter. While she fumbled with her cigarette, Ernie searched through the contents of the purse and pulled out a military dependent ID card. He studied it for a moment, his eyes growing wider, and then he whistled softly.

The redhead ignored him, apparently accustomed to people being impressed by her pedigree.

Ernie tossed the card to me.

I snatched it out of the air. Still watching the redhead, I tilted the laminated surface toward the dim light of the floor lamp.

Her name was Tidwell, Jessica H.

Paco—Corporal Francisco Bernal—was preparing himself for a world of hurt. Regardless of who had actually stolen the thousand dollars, Paco would be blamed, as the instigator. And from the evidence I could see in front of me, he’d also be charged with statutory rape.

I gazed at seventeen-year-old Jessica. She was still bleary eyed but sitting on the edge of the bunk now, sucking on her cancer stick, puffing smoke into the air in a way that she must have imagined appeared sophisticated. She wasn’t concerned with being half naked and having two army cops leering at her. She had to have copied the safe combination from the slip of paper hidden in her father’s wallet and sneaked the key to his home office. But I started questioning her from a different angle.

“Why did Paco take the money?” I asked.

She stared at me through a puff of smoke, not shocked by my question but thinking things through. “He didn’t take the money,” she said. “He
borrowed
it.”

Ernie crossed his arms and leaned against a rickety chest of drawers, keeping his grin firmly in place, enjoying the show. One question had saved us a lot of work.

“Only a loan?” I asked.

She dimpled her cheeks and crossed her eyes, letting me know that she was pleased that the moron had understood.

“When does Paco plan to pay this thousand dollars back?” I asked.

Jessica let out a sigh of exasperation. “Before the end of the week. He needs it for an investment.”

“What type of investment?”

Suddenly Jessica realized that she’d said too much. She inhaled nervously.

When she didn’t answer, Ernie spoke up. “Maybe buying and selling a little weed? Or some hash? Something that the kids at the high school need?”

She lowered her glowing cigarette. “Paco’s not a pusher.”

“But he
is
a dealer,” I said.

She didn’t answer but looked away and continued to smoke.

A photo atop a footlocker showed Corporal Paco Bernal in green uniform and garrison cap. He was a full-cheeked Hispanic man. Dark. Handsome. A smile that could break teenage hearts.

I knew him. Of fifteen hundred enlisted men assigned to 8th Army headquarters, only two of us were Chicanos from East L.A., Paco and myself. I didn’t know him well. We’d had only one or two casual conversations, asking one another if we had mutual acquaintances back in the barrio. We didn’t. My cop instincts had picked up a devious side to Paco Bernal but I never thought he’d go as far as this. A thief and a defiler of young women, he was shaming the Latino world.

“By the way,” Ernie asked, “where is the dear boy?”

Unconsciously, Jessica patted the sheet beneath her and gazed down.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“But he was here last night when you fell asleep?”

She raised the cigarette to her lips and nodded slowly, lost in thought. “Are you his only girlfriend?” Ernie asked.

Instead of growing angry she said, “I don’t know. Why would I care about that?”

Ernie persuaded Jessica Tidwell to put on her clothes. After finishing her cigarette, she combed her hair and pulled herself together.

Ernie and I interviewed some of the other guys in the barracks. A few of them had seen Paco come in last night with Jessica. She was drunk and stumbling but Paco appeared sober. None of them had seen him leave. His full issue of uniforms was still hanging in his wall locker, so he must’ve been wearing civvies when he left. And his little traveling bag was still there, so he probably left wearing only the clothes on his back—with a thousand stolen dollars tucked safely in his pocket. One item was missing from his field gear, his bayonet.

After we notified CID headquarters about the incident, the search for Paco Bernal began. Despite a military police all-points bulletin, no trace of him was found on base, so we expanded our search to include Seoul’s international airport at Kimpo. No Francisco Bernal on any of the manifests. We also checked the military embarkation point at Osan Air Force Base. Again, no sign of Paco. There are only a half-dozen international embarkation points from South Korea. We contacted them all. While conducting these checks, we passed along an edict from the 8th Army commander: If found, Corporal Francisco Bernal was to be arrested and detained.

Jessica Tidwell was whisked away to the 121st Evacuation Hospital for an examination in the emergency room. Her mother met her there. Colonel Tidwell, we were told, was still conducting business as usual in the J-2 office at the opulent headquarters of the 8th United States Army. He didn’t call and ask us any questions or order us in for an interview but we knew he’d read our blotter report.

Back at the CID office, I started typing up that blotter report, trying to keep it as neutral sounding as possible. I figured the Tidwell family had suffered enough embarrassment. Word of the latest Jessica Tidwell incident spread through the 8th Army headquarters complex like wildfire. I heard words like “goddamn Mexicans” and “beaners” and “greasers” and did my best to keep my temper in check. Paco had placed Chicanos at the forefront of bigotry. I cursed him silently and swore that I’d find the son of a bitch. Which exactly matched the sentiments of Colonel Brace, the 8th Army provost marshal.

Ernie and I stood in front of his desk at the position of attention.

“You two are off the black-market detail until further notice. Understood?” We nodded. “I want this Corporal Bernal found and I want him found now. Any questions?”

Neither Ernie nor I had any. We saluted and left.

Just before we exited the building, the cannon went off signifying the end of the duty day. We waited until the last notes of the retreat bugles sounded and then jogged across the small parking lot to Ernie’s jeep. We didn’t have to talk about where we were going. Both of us knew. The same place either one of us would go if we’d just stolen a thousand dollars.