The Iron Sickle (14 page)

I had the address written in my note pad:
Sogye-dong, 3-ku, 105-ho
. Once we looped around Seoul Station and behind the big railroad yards, I had Ernie slow and pull over. On a greasy wooden board holding up a bicycle repair shop, someone had written,
2-ku, 36-ho
.

“Keep going,” I said.

The road was lined with lumber yards and spare parts warehouses. We reached a cross street that seemed a little more prosperous. Off to the right were two-story brick buildings, so I told Ernie to turn right. When we slowed I saw we’d reached 3-ku and the numbers were rising rapidly. Across the street I spotted it: a clean, three-story brick building with a placard that said
SAM-IL PEIKHUA SAMUSIL
. Literally, March First Hundred Products Office. In Korea, March first was like the Fourth of July in America. It was the day in 1919 when the entire country spontaneously arose in opposition to the Japanese cccupation of their country. Not that it did them much good. The world ignored their uprising and hundreds of protesters, including all the movement’s leaders, were summarily executed. Beneath the
hangul
sign smaller English letters said
SAM-IL CLAIMS OFFICE
. This was common practice with Korean businesses. Their

Korean name was often different, sometimes radically different, than their English name.

“That’s it,” I told Ernie. “Pull over where you can.”

Ernie waited until the traffic slowed and then hung a U and pulled over right in front of the building in an area reserved for buses.

“We’ll get a ticket if we park here,” I said.

“Police business,” Ernie replied as he looped a chain welded to the metal floorboard around the steering wheel and snapped it shut with a padlock. As we climbed out of the jeep, people waiting for the next bus stared at us dully.

Ernie straightened his jacket. “What is this place again?”

“I told you. Of all the claim packets submitted to 8th Army, both the ones accepted and the ones rejected, this office submitted the most. About half, maybe more.”

“They’re mining the US Treasury.”

“Yes, but instead of a pickax and a shovel, they’re using an Eighth Army Claims Form.”

We pushed through the double doors of the building. The foyer was clean, with polished tiles, light brown walls, and another one of those narrow elevators. I read the sign for the various offices. The one we were looking for, Sam-Il Claims, was on the third floor. We decided to take the stairs.

Behind a sliding glass door sat a receptionist. Petite and young, she was a Korean woman with a doll-like face. She stared up at us, surprised. I pulled my notebook out and read off a name I’d written down, the name that had signed most of the 8th Army Claims Forms as the legal representative of the claimant.

“Pak Hyong-ku,” I said. “
Uri halmal issoyo
.” We have business with him.

Ernie pulled out his badge and shoved it in front of her face. The leather foldout was almost as broad as her forehead. The young
woman blanched. A pink handkerchief appeared in her hand, and then she stood, holding the handkerchief to her mouth and, without a word, scurried away on clattering high heels. Ernie watched her tight skirt until she was out of sight.

“You frightened her,” I said.

“Not me,” Ernie replied. “It’s you speaking Korean. They don’t expect that from a big nose
Miguk
. You’ve got to break it to them gently.”

I snorted.

In less than a minute, a Korean man in a baggy black suit appeared in the hallway with the receptionist hiding behind him. He approached us quickly, his dark eyes appraising Ernie and me, his stainless steel, horn-rimmed glasses glittering in the overhead light.

“I am Mr. Pak,” he said in English.

I pulled out my badge, flashed it and said, “I’m Agent Sueño of the Eighth Army Criminal Investigation Division and this is my partner, Agent Bascom.” I slid the credentials back into my pocket. “I was wondering if we could have a few words with you?”

“Is this about Mr. Barretsford? Such a tragedy. Such a fine man.”

I glanced toward the hallway where the tiny receptionist was still hiding. “Is there a place where we could talk?”

“Yes,” Mr. Pak said, opening his palm. “This way.”

As we passed, the receptionist pressed herself against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible. Pak spoke to her in Korean. “Bring us tea.”

Ernie and I sat on a low, straight couch in front of a coffee table. Pak sat opposite us. Her hands shaking, the receptionist brought in a tray with a porcelain pot of green tea and poured it into three handleless cups. She bowed and backed out of the room. Neither Ernie nor I drank. I let the silence stretch for a while, and then I spoke, in English. “Your man at the Eighth Army Claims Office tells us you’re their biggest customer.”

“Mr. Ku?”

Bingo.

All Korean enterprises that do business with 8th Army have a Korean civilian point of contact on the inside. I hadn’t known who the Sam-Il Claims point of contact was, but he’d just told us: Mr. Ku. This was not a formal arrangement. It was Koreans doing business in the traditional way as they mined the gold deposit that had been dropped into their midst by the 8th United States Army. The on-compound civilian workers received a kickback. In return, they provided intelligence. Information on things such as how much the annual budget of their office was and therefore how much their American bosses were willing to spend. When their American bosses were trying to make a tough decision, these go-betweens made recommendations in their own client’s favor. Many of the American supervisors served a tour of only one year. They had no idea which Korean companies to work with. Their Korean civilian workers would take care of all those details, which left the Americans free to socialize with the right people and play golf with the post commander and do all those things that insured their continued employment and prosperity with the 8th United States Army and the Department of Defense.

I changed the subject. “Very few of your claims are turned down.”

Pak started to smile but thought better of it and ordered his face to compose itself. “We are very careful about our clients,” he said.

“You make sure they’re telling the truth?”

He nodded vehemently. “Of course. We check into their claims ourselves. Make sure. Take pictures.” He mimed clicking a camera. “Everything okay. No problem.”

The more nervous he became, the more his English deteriorated.

“And Mr. Ku always handles your cases?”

By now, Pak had realized his mistake. “I don’t know. I think so. That’s Eighth Army business. Not my business.”

Ernie leaned forward. “You’ve been submitting claims to Eighth Army for many years, Mr. Pak.”

Pak nodded.

“Your business is good,” Ernie said. He waved his open palm to indicate the building we were sitting in. “But some people have trouble at the Eighth Army Claims Office. Some people don’t get their money. Some people become very angry.”

Pak nodded, silent now.

“Someone killed Mr. Barretsford,” Ernie continued. “You’ve been in this business a long time. Who are the people who don’t win their claims? Who are the people who might be very angry at the Eighth Army Claims Office?”

Pak sat back, appearing to think about the question. Most adult Korean men would take advantage of this pause to reach in their pockets and pull out a pack of Kobukson cigarettes. Pak didn’t. Apparently, he was a non-smoker, unusual in Korea. He sipped on his tea. When he set the cup back down he looked back at us.

“There are many people,” he said, “who lose claims. Some other offices, maybe they not as good as Sam-Il.”

And maybe the other offices don’t have an inside contact named Mr. Ku, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. Instead, I pulled out my notebook. Acting as nonchalant as I could, I said, “What are the names of the other offices?”

Pak hesitated but in the end he told me. I wrote down the names of about a half dozen enterprises that also specialized in filing claims through the 8th Army Claims Office. I handed Mr. Pak my card and asked him to call us if he thought of anything that might shed light on the murder of Mr. Barretsford. He promised he would. As we left, the tiny receptionist bowed deeply, relieved to see us go.

Outside in the jeep, Ernie started the engine. “Why ask this guy
about the other offices? We have a list of them back at Eighth Army Claims, don’t we?”

“Sure. But I wanted him to rat out his competition. In order to head off trouble, he’ll call at least some of them and let them know we’re coming.”

“And are we?”

“No time. I just wanted to rattle their cages. See if any fat vermin scurry out.”

“Speaking of vermin,” Ernie said.

“Yeah. Let’s go see Moe Dexter.”

The MP barracks was composed of two thirty-foot high Quonset huts hooked together with an interior framework constructed of sturdy lumber. Ernie and I strode down a long row of double bunks, a few with MPs sleeping in them because of the constant rotating shift work that was part of military law enforcement. The NCOs, buck sergeants and above, had individual rooms on the second floor. We stomped upstairs and marched down a long hallway until we reached the end. The last door, like everything else in the building, was painted green—olive drab, to be exact, the army’s favorite color. Stenciled on the door in black paint was a name and rank:
DEXTER, M., SSG
.

Ernie pulled a pair of brass knuckles out of his pocket and slipped them on, flexing his right hand and making a fist. He popped its heft into his open left palm with a wallop.

“I’m not taking any shit from Dexter,” he whispered. “Not today.”

He tried the door. Locked. He pounded on it. No answer. He was backing up, just about to kick it in, when an elderly Korean gentleman in flip flops, short pants, and a T-shirt hurried up to us. He rattled a ring of keys.

“No sweat,” he said. He held a bundle of laundry under his right arm.

“Anyonghaseiyo,”
I said.

“
Nei. Anyonghaseiyo
,” he replied. With his left hand, he located a key, stuck it in the lock, and turned.

The door swung open. Ernie charged in. Nobody there. The bed was unmade and there was a wrinkled set of fatigues thrown on a straight-backed chair and a pair of Army jump boots lying on the thin carpet. I picked up the fatigue blouse. It had the name
DEXTER
printed onto the nametag. I knelt and examined the boots, turning them over and taking a good look at the soles. Bits of crushed glass were embedded between thick tread.

“You’re the houseboy?” Ernie said to the Korean man.

“I’m service man,” he replied. Most of the houseboys who worked in 8th Army didn’t like the term “houseboy.” Over the years they’d picked up on the fact that in English it’s demeaning. Somehow, they’d come up with the term “service man.”

“What’s your name?” Ernie asked.

“Joe.”

“Okay, Joe. Where’s Dexter?”

The elderly man looked around. “He no go. All shoes still here.”

“Except for his shower shoes,” Ernie said.

The Korean man nodded. “Maybe he go
byonso
. Take shower.”

“Maybe.”

I thanked the man who called himself Joe. Ernie and I walked down the stairs and exited through a side door that led to the big cement block latrine wedged between the two giant Quonset huts. We even checked a couple of the occupied stalls but Staff Sergeant Moe Dexter wasn’t there.

“He couldn’t have gone far,” Ernie said.

“That’s what makes you a great detective,” I said. “Deductive reasoning.”

There were two other buildings associated with the MP barracks. They were both normal sized Quonset huts, only one story tall, and
they sat on either end of the complex. One was the arms room. We didn’t go in there. The other was the enlisted day room. I’d been in it before: privately stocked bar, pool tables, a TV, and a couple of vinyl couches. Ernie and I pushed our way through the unlocked door.

Staff Sergeant Morris Dexter sat in a T-shirt, flip flops, and a pair of green gym shorts on a centrally located bar stool. In front of him lay a baseball cap with the name
MOE
embroidered on it. He clutched a can of Falstaff in one hand and a shot glass of what looked like hard liquor in the other. A Korean bartender washed glasses behind the bar and two other MPs, both men I recognized from our confrontation at the 8th Army Morgue, sat on either side of Dexter.

When we walked in, they swiveled on their stools.

Ernie said, “You blew it this time, Dexter.”

He glared drunkenly, eyes half lidded. Even sitting, he swayed slightly, and he had that mean drunk look that comes when the alcohol makes you hate not only the world but everyone in it.

“Criminal investigation pukes,” Dexter said. The words came out moist and slurred. “Protecting the Koreans instead of stopping them from slicing MP throats.”

“You were on duty last night, Dexter,” I told him, “in charge of the MPs patrolling Itaewon. You decided to take out your frustrations on an inanimate object. Namely, the
pochang macha
.”

“The what? You mean that pile of shit cart where that old gook woman sells slimy crud? What do you call it, Sweeno? A
poontang chacha
?”

Dexter’s sidekicks snickered.

“Yes, that one,” I said.

“Never
heard
of it.”

That was the punch line. Dexter and his comrades slapped one another on the shoulders, howling. The other two men were younger than Dexter, his military subordinates. They were both red-faced but
not as sloshed as Dexter. If they decided to fight, in their current state, Ernie and I could take all three of them. Especially with the help of Ernie’s brass knuckles.

Ernie’d had enough of the banter. “Keep your hands on the bar, Dexter,” he said. “Stand up, lean forward, and place your feet shoulder width apart. You know how it works.”

Ernie pulled his handcuffs out from behind his back and stepped forward. All three of the MPs stood up, Dexter more slowly because he had to push himself to an upright position and then straighten his back, trying to keep from losing his balance.