Slicky Boys (37 page)

I pulled out the photo. “Is this him?”

She looked at Shipton’s picture and then up at me.

“Yes.” For the first time concern edged her wrinkled face. “What did he do?”

“He killed three people.”

Her eyes widened. She sat down on the porch without bothering to wipe off the droplets of rain.

“Three people?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Koreans or Americans?”

“One Englishman. Two Koreans.”

“English?”

I nodded. The old woman shook her head. Her voice became less strident. Soft. Almost as if she were in awe.

“I never see this man before. He come this morning. First time. I paid him two hundred and thirty thousand won.” She waved at the black market goods piled in the back of her hooch. “Not bad price. I wanted to pay less, but he said he would put them back in the cab and go somewhere else. So I give him a little more. Anyway, I make money. He was very quiet. Very serious. Didn’t seem like GI. Most GI just give black market stuff to girls. Girls bring to me, sell. I always get good price from the girls because they not smart. Think only of today. Of new hairdo. Of new makeup they want to buy. This man, he very patient. Wait until finally we settle on price. He count money, put in his pocket, and go.”

She looked up at me and then at Ernie, as if she were puzzled. The mistlike rain splattered on her face and dress. “I never see before. It’s true.”

She crossed her arms over her withered chest and shivered.

“I never want to see again.”

The thought of murder had somewhat chastened the old woman, and before we left she told us the names of the clubs from which she received referrals. They were clubs nearby on the strip.

As we walked down the hill toward the sea I breathed deeply of the salt air, fighting off the disappointment at having been so close to Shipton and yet missing him again. But we weren’t back to square one. Shipton was in the neighborhood somewhere. Maybe just a few hundred yards from where we stood right now. We had his photograph and we had plenty of shoe leather.

“Is it possible that he’ll make another black market run today?” Ernie said.

“I don’t think so. He maxed out his monthly ration on that card, so now he’d have to use a different card and a different ID. Too risky. Somebody on the compound might remember him, call the MP’s.”

We stepped gingerly on the wet cobbled streets, which sloped down to the sea. Gulls soared in graceful circles above us.

“So what would you do,” I asked, “if you’d just cleared over a hundred thousand won on the black market and you didn’t have to go to work and you were right smack dab in the middle of Texas Street?”

“I’d get laid,” Ernie said promptly.

“So would I. Which sets out an interesting course for this investigation.”

Ernie rubbed his hands together. “Time to get cracking, pal. What we gotta do, we gotta do.”

“That’s what I like about you, Ernie. Dedicated to your tasks.”

“You got that right.”

We checked the open bars on Texas Street first, hoping Shipton would be spending some of his hard-earned money. No luck.

We wandered around, trying to look like horny sailors—which wasn’t hard except for the sailor part—and, as we expected, we received a few propositions. All of which we accepted. Every hooch we went into, though, was full of willing girls but no Shipton. We showed his photograph around, but all we received in return were blank stares. And disappointed scowls when the business women realized they weren’t going to make any money.

It was noontime now and the district was starting to come alive. A few merchant marines prowled the streets: Filipinos, Greeks, Dutchmen. They were off watch now—or whatever their work shifts were called—and it was time for a little fun. Neon crackled and sparked to life under the drizzling rain. Jukeboxes started up. Girls in miniskirts appeared in dark doorways.

Ernie and I never had gotten that breakfast we wanted on the compound so we decided to break for some chow at a noodle shop with big steamed windows. We sat up front where, after rubbing a couple of portholes on the plate glass, we had a pretty good view of the street.

A girl of about thirteen took our order. She looked like she should’ve been in school. Two bowls of
meiun-tang.
Colas. No beer.

“He could be anywhere,” Ernie said.

“Yeah. He might’ve gone to the train station and caught the Blue Line heading north or he might’ve hopped on a bus or he could be next door taking a nap. The only thing we got going for us is that he doesn’t know how close we are.”

“At least we don’t
think
he knows.”

“Sure. But it doesn’t seem likely. And if he doesn’t know, he’ll do what he wants to do.”

“Which is stay here on Texas Street for a few days?”

“Wouldn’t you? He doesn’t know we have the stolen ration control numbers. If I were him, I’d use the four plates to the max, then head north.”

“So maybe we can stake out the PX tomorrow and catch him when he comes through the door.”

“Yeah. Maybe. But since we can’t count on it we have to stake out Texas Street for now.”

“Tough duty.”

The girl brought our steaming bowls of red broth. A glassy-eyed mackerel stared up at me, surrounded by three clam shells atop a pile of onion shoots. The girl set down the bowls of rice and the plates of fermented cabbage and diced turnip while Ernie and I unwrapped our wooden chopsticks and pried them apart. After pouring our colas, she left us and we dug in; all the while keeping an eye on the people parading through the lively drizzle of Texas Street.

After we finished eating, we paid the girl, left her a little tip which sort of surprised her, and went back to work.

The Texas Street district was composed of one main drag stretching about three blocks, with side streets shooting off from it. We decided to start on the northernmost end, near the black market mama-san’s hooch, and work our way south.

As more and more joints opened, we had more and more opportunities to ask questions and flash Shipton’s photograph. Apparently he hadn’t made a big splash in townbecause every bartender and business girl and boy mopping floors swore they’d never seen him before.

We also checked
yoguans.
Climbing up creaking staircases that smelled of urine and charcoal smoke, flashing the black-and-white photograph to old men and women who looked as weathered as the wooden buildings they lived in, always receiving the same unknowing stare.

I was beginning to understand why even the ROK Navy investigative services hadn’t been able to collar Shipton.

At midafternoon, a truck with workmen came by and made a big to-do about climbing up power poles and unraveling a cloth banner across the roadway. The wind and rain fought them but they finally unfurled the long canvas, and it rippled out its message:
Welcome,
U.S.S.
Kitty Hawk!

We asked some of the girls in the bars about it and they bubbled with excitement. The
Kitty Hawk
had already entered the harbor. Tonight the liberty launches would be pulling into the port loaded with American sailors, all wearing tight pants bursting at the seams with three months’ pay.

Girls were pouring in from all over the country, they told us, from as far north as Seoul and Inchon, to get in on the easy money.

“Just what we need,” Ernie said. “Three thousand horny sailors getting in our way. And half of them who look just like Shipton. Or close enough so a bunch of busy Koreans won’t be able to tell the difference.”

I thought about it for a minute. “He planned it this way,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what better time to make a bunch of runs on the PX than when there’s an aircraft carrier in town? The squids’ll go right over to the compound, load up on cigarettes and scotch, and sell it here on Texas Street to pay for their three days of liberty. The clerks on the compound won’t have time to notice a guy going in and out three or four times a day, each time using a different name.”

“Yeah,” Ernie said. “He’ll just be another sailor.”

“And maybe he plans to run Texas Street, too. The MP’s and Shore Patrol will be too preoccupied with breaking up fights and keeping sailors from tearing down the town to notice what one quiet guy might be up to.”

“So he heard that the
Kitty Hawk
was on the way in and decided to take a working vacation?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“But he’s not expecting us to be searching for him.”

“I hope not.”

“So we’ll find him in the crowd.” Ernie thought about it for a minute. “Have to wade through a lot of squids, though. Up to our assholes in squids.”

By the time the sun went down we’d checked out every bar or flophouse or brothel that ever existed on Texas Street. I’d come to the conclusion that Shipton wasn’t here; he was hiding out somewhere else. Still, I believed there was a good chance he’d show that night.

We found a cozy bar where the girls wore their hair up, held in place by jade pins, and floated around the room in the rustling silk of their full-skirted
Hanbok
gowns. Texas Street catered to just about every taste. Even if you were strange enough to prefer your women elegant and well-dressed.

The girls spoiled the effect of their appearance, however, when I listened to their conversations in Korean. They talked about how to get the most money out of a sailor and how to avoid VD and what to do if you got pregnant.

They were just as foulmouthed as any of the other girls on the street. But I liked the joint. The music was soft and the bar stools comfortable and fish floated in blue aquariums. The gentle notes of a Korean love song warbled out of the sound system. The women here probably serviced over-the-hill bosun’s mates who could hardly get it up anymore.

Another reason I liked this place was that they had draft OB Beer served in frosted mugs. It had been a hard day. Ernie and I were putting them down pretty good. We were both hungry but didn’t feel like leaving the tap, so we gave one of the girls some money and sent her out for “cut bait.”

That’s what we called it because it attracted business girls like schools of fish.

What she brought back was actually small bundles of grease-stained newspaper. She set the bundles down on the bar, unwrapped them, and the aroma of hot onion rings and batter-fried tempura billowed upward. The girls swarmed around us, picking away greedily at the hot slices. Somebody poured soy sauce onto a plate and we all dipped and munched and talked.

We ate as much as we could and enjoyed the girls rubbing their silk-covered bodies against us. After the chow was gone, however, Ernie seemed a little morose., I wondered if it was the fatigue of traveling. After the fourth beer, he started talking.

“She was pregnant,” he said.

“The girl who bought the onion rings?”

“No. The Nurse.”

I set my beer down. Looked at him. Waited.

“She said she wanted to ‘present’ the baby to me, but I didn’t answer her right away.” He sipped on his beer and looked over at me. “That’s why the Nurse said she’d kill herself if my extension didn’t go through.”

“Because the marriage paperwork takes six months?”

“Yeah.” Ernie looked at me, studying my face. “You think we’ll catch this guy?”

I nodded. “We’ll get him.”

He studied my face for a while longer. “Okay,” he said, “I believe you.”

A pack of American sailors burst into the room like Irish banshees on New Year’s Eve. Their black uniforms were neatly pressed and their spotless white hats sat at jaunty angles on their heads. I saw the patch on their left shoulders: U.S.S.
Kitty Hawk.

The girls beamed as if a host from heaven had just floated down from the sky. Soon the place was crammed with sailors and every girl was on somebody’s lap, being pulled and tugged and handed around.

The bartender was too busy to even refill our beer mugs. We tossed down the last of the suds and left.

Texas Street was like what I imagined Rio de Janeiro must be like during the Carnival season. Except nobody was half naked because it was too cold, and almost all the men wore the uniforms of the U.S. Navy. They traveled in packs. The doors to the clubs were wide open and music and screaming roiled out onto the street and every seat inside was taken and so was every girl.

There weren’t any Hialeah Compound GI’s around. They had a tendency to stay away when a big ship was in port, resenting the squids for running up the prices.

Since we weren’t in uniform and wore only our blue jeans and nylon jackets, we were a little conspicuous ourselves. We stayed in the shadows. Scanning the road for anyone who looked like Shipton.

A couple of times we thought we spotted him, but when we got close we realized it was someone else. We bought bottles of beer from street vendors and drank under awnings, protected from the sporadic rain, keeping an eye on the street scene.

As curfew approached, things didn’t seem to be slowing down, but a phalanx of a dozen burly guys with batons and Shore Patrol arm bands plowed through Texas Street, warning everybody to get off the streets or back to the ship by midnight.

We were going to have to find shelter, too. There weren’t any girls available so we faded back a few blocks from Texas Street until we stumbled into a little place that advertised sleeping accommodations. The Koreans call it a
yoin-suk,
not as high-class as a
yoguan
and not nearly as luxurious as a hotel.

The woman who owned it said she had one private room left and Ernie and I could have it for only seven thousand won. About ten bucks. I thought it was a little steep for this kind of joint, but the
Kitty Hawk
was in, so what the hell. We paid her and told her we had to go back out for a few minutes, and she promised to keep the front gate open for us as long as we weren’t out too late after curfew. I told her we wouldn’t be.

Back on Texas Street the crowds were beginning to thin. Sailors wandered down to the pier and caught launches that were lined up to take them back to the ship.

Back in the bar district there was nothing new. No sign of anybody who looked like Shipton.