Mr. Kill (4 page)

Instead of responding to the colonel’s argument, I said, “I have some leads, sir. Movements that we have not yet accounted for coming out of Hialeah Compound. Request permission to travel down there to continue the investigation.”

Colonel Brace reached across his desk and grabbed a pipe from a mahogany stand. Thoughtfully, he opened the top drawer of his desk, pulled out a pouch of tobacco, and took his time filling the pipe, patting it down, lighting it, and blowing a puff of blue smoke into the air. All the while, Ernie and I were standing at parade rest in front of his desk. The colonel was disappointed in me, of this I was sure. He had hoped that I’d take his very broad hint and just keep my mouth shut and wait for him to tell us how—or whether—to proceed on the case. Asking for permission not only to continue the investigation but to take specific action put him on the spot. If the case ever blew up in our faces and there was an after-action investigation, I would be able to say truthfully that I had requested permission to continue the search for a suspect. Colonel Brace would be in the awkward position of saying he’d specifically turned down that request.

This was part of the reason Ernie Bascom and I were not popular in the hallowed hallways of the 8th Army Criminal Investigation Division. We pursued cases, regardless of whether the honchos of 8th Army were embarrassed by that pursuit or not. Other CID agents played the bureaucratic game. They trod softly. They investigated only when and where they were told to investigate, like dumb hounds on a very short leash.

Colonel Brace knew as well as we did that the Blue Train rapist was a G.I. If he attacked again, and his US affiliation were proven, 8th Army would be blamed for not doing enough to stop him. But if he
never
attacked again—which is what Colonel Brace was counting on—and we continued the investigation, that would be tantamount to admitting publicly that the rapist was a G.I.—and, more importantly, besmirching 8th Army’s reputation for no good reason. Besmirching 8th Army’s reputation is something that would be frowned on by the 8th Army Chief of Staff, criticized at the 8th Army Officers’ Club, something that would reflect poorly on Colonel Brace’s efficiency report. If Colonel Brace ever wanted to pin the silver star of a general on his shoulder, he needed nothing but topnotch efficiency reports.

Colonel Brace snuffed out his wooden match and tossed it in an amber-colored ashtray.

“We’ll hold off for now,” he said. “You have enough to do with that theft investigation of the USO show.”

“There was no theft, sir,” Ernie told him. “The microphone that went missing was found two days later in one of the musicians’ traveling bags. The cowboy boot was probably just left behind when they packed in a hurry to beat the midnight curfew back to Seoul. And, as has already been reported, the electric guitar was recovered.”

Colonel Brace stared at Ernie. “Has the band retracted their complaint?”

“No,” Ernie replied. “They’re convinced they’re being targeted.”

“Targeted? By who?”

“By G.I.s peeking through the windows of their dressing rooms.”

Colonel Brace pulled his pipe out of his mouth and shook his head. “Put a stop to that, will you? And until this band retracts their complaints, you stay with them.” He thought about that for a second and then added, “And even if they
do
retract their complaints, stay with them anyway. I don’t want any problems coming down from the Stateside headquarters of the USO.”

“And the rapist?” I asked.

Colonel Brace lowered his pipe and stared at me steadily. “Like I said, Sergeant Sueño, you are to take no further action on that case. For the moment, it falls under Korean jurisdiction, not ours. Understood?”

“Understood,” I replied.

We resumed the position of attention, saluted, and left.

In the admin office, Miss Kim was smiling, not looking at us but smiling nevertheless. The green paper had been unwound from the stem of the rose and water poured into the vase. Someone had delicately fluffed out the red petals. Maybe it had been a mistake to present the rose to her secretly. Apparently Miss Kim thought
Ernie
had given it to her. Ernie, for his part, didn’t even notice the rose.

“During the day,” Riley told us, “the Provost Marshal wants you working on the black-market detail. At night, you escort the USO show.”

“When are we supposed to get any rest?” I asked.

“A soldier is on duty,” Riley said, “twenty-four hours a day.”

Something I’d heard since the first day I enlisted in the US Army. But only some of us were on duty twenty-four hours a day. Others seemed to be on duty hardly at all.

Ernie and I drove along a tree-lined lane to the headquarters of the Long Lines Signal Battalion North at Camp Coiner. It was less than a mile from 8th Army headquarters, on the way to Huam-dong, adjacent to the north gate of Yongsan Compound, across the street from the ROK Marine Corps headquarters.

I showed Major Rumgarde, the XO of the battalion, the list of names of the men sent to him on TDY from Camp Henry in Taegu. The names didn’t mean much to him, but he conferred with his Operations NCO and came back after a few minutes to tell us that all twelve of them were working on a signal upgrade at the communications relay site atop Namsan Mountain.

We thanked him, asked him not to warn them we were coming, and hopped into the jeep.

Namsan
literally means South Mountain. Its elevation is almost 900 feet at its highest point, and it is covered in lush green vegetation for most of the year. It sits just south and slightly east of the downtown area of Seoul. The city spreads out around it, some buildings running up its sides, but the main expanse of the mountain is reserved for parks and rock-paved pathways, gurgling creeks and treecovered meadows, where the denizens of Seoul can find at least temporary refuge from the madness of the city.

Perched atop the peak is a hundred-foot antenna, surrounded by squat green Quonset huts. The United States Army, once again, marking its territory.

“I’ve never been up here,” Ernie said, as we wound our way up the narrow road through Namsan Park. Occasionally we spotted young women, usually walking alone.

“Hookers,” Ernie said.

“Nah,” I said, surprised. “They’re not hookers. They look so wholesome.”

“That’s part of the come-on.”

“You’re not serious?”

Ernie nodded. “I’m serious.”

“Why would they be out here?”

“Rich Koreans cruise by, sometimes Japanese businessmen in their limousines. They pull over, talk to the girls, make an arrangement.”

I turned in the passenger seat to take a good look at Ernie. His green eyes were glued to the road, arms reaching out straight to the steering wheel. “How do you know all this?”

He sighed. “Here. I’ll show you.”

With a squeal of brakes, Ernie pulled toward the side of the road. A young woman about ten yards ahead stopped walking and turned to look at us. Ernie rolled up to her slowly until I was staring out the open door of the jeep directly into her eyes.

“
Anyonghaseiyo?
” I said. Are you at peace?

“
Nei
,” she replied with a bow. Yes.

She was a cute girl; round face, plump figure, wearing a demure brown skirt and a tight blue blouse. Despite the overcast gray above, she held a plastic multicolored parasol atop her head to shield her from ultraviolet rays. I continued to smile stupidly, not wanting to say anything, not wanting to corrupt her if she didn’t want to be corrupted. She studied us both quizzically, rolling the handle of the parasol deftly in soft fingers. Finally, she recalled some long-ago-studied English and said, “We go?”

“
Odi
?” I replied. Where?

She pointed back down the road. “
Chogi. Yoguan isso
.” There. To an inn.

Ernie grinned at her broadly. I turned and glared at him. He was much too happy with his victory. I turned back to the girl and said in Korean, “I’m sorry. We don’t have time now. We have to go to the compound on the top of the mountain.”

The girl seemed disappointed but nodded, understanding the requirements of work and duty. There was a hardness to her features now that I hadn’t noticed before. I said good-bye and she watched us as Ernie pulled back onto the road.

The peak of South Mountain was a flat, leveled-off area. After we flashed our identification, a khaki-clad Korean gate guard with an M-1 rifle slung over his shoulder shoved the big chain-link gate open just far enough for us to drive through. We rolled onto a dirt-covered parade field. To our left, about a hundred yards away, sat a long rectangular building with a sign that said “Namsan Mess” and, beneath that, the Korean word “
Siktang
.” Literally, food hall. In the center of the open field loomed the antenna, painted red and white, rising a hundred feet into the sky. Atop it, a red light blinked. On the opposite side of the quadrangle, beyond the antenna, sat a matrix of linked Quonset huts with a sign over the main entrance that said “Namsan Relay Site, Long Lines Battalion North.”

Ernie parked next to a short line of military vehicles.

Inside, a sergeant in a neatly pressed fatigue uniform waited. Apparently, he’d already been informed of our arrival.

“Can I see your badges?” he asked.

We showed him.

“Captain Fieldjoy isn’t in. He’s on a supply run down in Seoul. Is there something I can help you with?”

I jotted down his name. Sergeant Ernsworth. He was a little old for a buck sergeant, maybe in his mid-thirties, and he sported a flaming red crew cut and a splash of freckles across a pug nose.

Ernie wandered over to a wall plastered with black-and-white photos of officers in uniform, shaking hands and presenting one another with plaques and awards. I showed Sergeant Ernsworth the list of names. “A dozen guys,” I said, “up here from Taegu. Working on some sort of communications upgrade.”

“What about ’em?”

“I want to talk to them.”

“What if they’re busy?”

“They’ll get un-busy. At least for as long as it takes to ask them a few questions.”

Ernsworth thought about it; after a few seconds, he shrugged. “Follow me.”

He opened a low door for us and then led us down a long corridor, turned right, and at a new Quonset hut turned left. We entered an air-conditioned room with rows of impressive-looking equipment, like stainlesssteel refrigerators embedded with the occasional blinking green light.

“All of this stuff is classified,” Ernsworth said. “Don’t be jotting down any nomenclatures or model numbers.”

“That’s not why we’re here,” I replied.

Finally, we reached an open area with canvas tarps spread on the floor. Toolboxes were scattered in disarray and men huddled in groups behind metal panels, peering into copper-and-rubber-wired innards that sparked and blinked and beeped. Ernsworth waited until one man who was reaching deep into a pit of complicated machinery retracted his hand and looked up at us.

“They want to talk to you and your team,” Ernsworth told him. Then he swiveled on his heels and left. The man who stood to face me was a sergeant first class, balding slightly at the front of his short-cropped gray hair, holding a rubber-handled screwdriver loosely in long fingers. His mouth hung open.

Ernie and I flashed our badges.

“Just routine,” I said. “We want to ask you a few questions.”

I pulled out my notebook and started to ask.

On the way back down the mountain, I gazed out the side of the jeep at the magnificence of the city of Seoul. Maybe I was trying to avoid staring at the innocent-looking hookers who appeared every quarter mile or so. Maybe I was thinking about Mrs. Oh on the Blue Train and the crazed look in her eyes as her children glanced back and forth between the adults who surrounded them, wondering what had gone so terribly wrong. The city lay like a pulsating god, spread-eagled across the countryside, stretching from Tobong Mountain rising high above the mist in the north to the sinuous blue of the Han River in the fogshrouded south. I loved this city. I wasn’t sure why. It was so far from my original home, the people were so different from anyone I’d known growing up, but I’d adopted the city now. Had it adopted me? I didn’t think so. The city of Seoul would always turn its back on me. I’d always be an outsider. I’d always be the stranger who, oddly, spoke a little of their sacred language. My love of the city and my love of Korea, I felt certain, would never be returned.

Ernie rounded a corner and honked at two girls walking arm in arm by the side of the road. After overcoming their shock, they both waved gaily.

“What’d you think?” Ernie asked me.

“About what?”

He turned to study me. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

“So what’d you think about what those Signal Corps twerps had to say?”

“I think they’re telling the truth. They took the Blue Train from Taegu to Seoul two days before Mrs. Oh was raped.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Oh. The woman who was raped on the Blue Train.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“And everybody on their team has been present for duty every day. There’s no way one of them was on that train.”

“So scratch them off your list.”

“Already done.”

“So, now what?”

“We could work on the black-market detail like Riley told us to.”

“Get serious.”

Ernie hated working the black-market detail. The job consisted of lurking outside the Yongsan Compound commissary and waiting for a Korean dependent wife to come outside with a load of black-market items—Tang, instant coffee, soluble creamer, imported bananas, frozen oxtail—and follow her to the ville and bust her when she sold the duty-free goods to a black-market mama-san. A crummy job. A job that was supposedly designed to protect Korean industries from having to compete with cheap, imported tax-free American goods, but a job that was really designed to keep as many Korean yobos out of the commissary and PX as possible.

Ernie hated the black-market detail, and so did I.

“Where to, then?” Ernie asked.

“Colonel Brace said the Blue Train rapist was a Korean problem,” I replied. Ernie nodded. I continued, “I agree with him. So let’s go have a talk with the Koreans.”