G. I. Bones

3

According 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.

Itaewon.

Ernie and I hit Itaewon fast and hard.

Our plan was to start our search with the brothels and business-girl hooches farthest away from the main drag, the ones most well hidden, where a G.I. who’d just stolen a thousand dollars worth of greenbacks might feel safe.

Itaewon was somewhat more cosmopolitan than the other G.I. villages in Korea. That is, neither the 21st Transportation Company nor the 121st Evac nor the 8th Army Honor Guard had their own nightclub or bar staked out for them and them alone. G.I. s from various units mingled freely, if not always harmoniously, and unlike the compounds out at Kunsan or up north at Tonduchon or just south of the DMZ at Munsan, the various infantry or artillery or combat engineer units didn’t have their own little enclaves. So Corporal Paco Bernal could be anywhere in Itaewon. Our strategy was simple: cover as much ground as possible before Paco Bernal became aware that we were in the village looking for him.

Of course, our entire search could be futile. Paco Bernal could be halfway to Pusan by now. But I was betting that he’d stay on familiar ground. Not only to be near his home turf and contacts- and to make whatever deal he’d planned-but also because G.I. s, although they won’t admit it, are afraid of traveling in Korea. For the most part they don’t speak Korean and don’t understand Korean customs and can’t read the street signs and when they wander too far from military compounds, they feel lost. So I believed that Paco Bernal was here in Itaewon-somewhere.

Itaewon was alive at this hour, preparing industriously for the busy evening to come. The front gates of the courtyards were mostly open; business girls coming and going from the local bathhouses or gathering around a low table in the mama-san’s hooch, chatting, chopsticks flashing, stuffing rice and vegetables into their mouths as sustenance for the long night’s work ahead. The smell of fermented kimchee and soap suds and hairspray was everywhere: in the open hooches, wafting from the balconies of upstairs apartments, and emerging from behind the sliding wooden doors of closetlike rooms. When Ernie and I approached the business girls, it was the same story: headshakes, denials that they knew Paco Bernal after gawking at the black-and-white photo from his personnel records that I held in front of their curious eyes.

Had they seen him before? Yes, around the village.

Did he have a girlfriend out here? Not that they were aware of.

Did they know where he was now? Heads shook vehemently. They hadn’t a clue.

Ernie and I kept prowling through the back alleys of Itaewon, down narrow pedestrian lanes, around sharp corners defined by ten-foot-high brick and stone walls. The sun started to go down. Sodium streetlamps, spaced every twenty yards or so, switched on. Still, no sign of Paco Bernal.

Finally, at one hooch, a business girl stood up from scrubbing her face above a metal pan beneath a running faucet in the middle of a stone-paved courtyard. She turned to us and said, “You looking for Paco?”

“Yeah,” Ernie replied. “You seen him?”

“No, but anybody say. Two MP in Itaewon lookey-lookey everywhere for some G.I. called Paco. We hear. Anybody know.”

She squatted back down and resumed scrubbing her face.

Ernie stuck another stick of ginseng gum in his mouth and chomped viciously. “So much for the element of surprise,” he said.

The bars and brothels and nightclubs of Itaewon-and the people who work in them-have an intelligence system that beats 8th Army’s hands down. Once word of our quest leaked out, it spread and kept spreading until the news was traveling so fast through the village that Ernie and I could not possibly hope to keep up. Paco Bernal, wherever he was, would be alerted-if he hadn’t been already-and he’d probably kara chogi, take off. Bali bali, quickly.

The sun was completely down now and along the main drag, neon flashed to life.

Ernie took defeat stoically. “He’ll show up eventually. Where the hell’s he going to go?”

For a wanted G.I., there’s no escape from the Korean Peninsula. Not with Communist North Korea guarding the DMZ to the north and the South Koreans guarding every port of international embarkation. Ernie figured Paco would squander the thousand bucks he’d stumbled into and then, after a few days, come crawling back to the army compound begging for mercy. We’d seen it happen before; G.I. s committing a crime, living big in the village, and then-when the money ran out-finally coming to their senses. And probably that’s what would happen to Paco. Maybe. But one thing worried me. Why had he taken his bayonet-eight inches of sharpened steel-off compound with him?

What was Paco Bernal afraid of?

Now that we’d searched for Paco above and beyond the call of duty, Ernie wanted to find booze, broads, and excitement-not necessarily in that order. I agreed. There was no point in searching any further. Paco Bernal, wherever he was, would have been alerted. The better strategy now was to prowl the village and wait, like two coyotes watching a rabbit hole. We sauntered downhill toward the nightclub district.

Itaewon on this winter evening fairly sparkled with neon: red, blue, yellow, and green. Some of it spinning, some of it flashing, but all of it calling sweetly to the young American G.I., like the song of an ancient siren, beseeching him to enter an abode of pleasure, to spend his money, to enjoy the secret delights that make the nerve endings of a young man’s skin tingle, like slender fingers with long red nails scratching gently across his chest.

Business girls stood in the shadows, shivering in skimpy dresses and short skirts, their eyes lined with black, their red lips pouting, calling to every man who passed; they stood in shoes with platforms so high that you were worried they’d fall over, their faces seeking, always seeking, for some strange creature to rescue them from the frigid night.

I wanted to find someone who’d been here in Itaewon back in the winter of 1953, someone who’d lived through the events recorded in Cort’s Serious Incident Report, and maybe, with luck, someone who’d actually known Mori Di, the G.I. who ended up in the bed-at least spiritually-of a lovely Korean fortune teller by the name of Auntie Mee.

I mentioned my thoughts to Ernie. He chomped pensively on his ginseng gum. “Who in the hell’s been here in Itaewon long enough to know about all that Mori Di stuff? It’s been twenty years, ancient times.”

“The winter of 1953,” I said. “Not so ancient.”

“Ancient enough.”

Ernie waved to some of the business girls who giggled madly in response.

I thought about his question. Who had been here in Itaewon for twenty years or more? Certainly some of the club owners must’ve been here that long. And even a few of their employees: night managers, cashiers. But all the young waitresses and bartenders and pimps and whores came and went; they turned over regularly, every few months, if not every few weeks. None of them had been here that long ago. In the winter of 1953, many of them hadn’t even been born.

Had any cops been here that long? No, the KNPs rotated assignments from station to station regularly; the military government of President Pak Chung-hee didn’t want any one group staying together long enough to form a cohesive power base.

How about G.I. s? There were a few old military retirees around and most of them were veterans of the Korean War. But according to the stories I’d been told at tedious length, they hadn’t been in Itaewon at the time. They’d been assigned to combat units up north near the DMZ, or on the road to the Yalu, or fighting Joe Chink at the Chosin Reservoir. Nobody admitted to being a rear-echelon support troop. Every veteran I’d ever talked to had been only one combat operation short of forcing Hollywood to forget about Audie Murphy.

So who had been living here in Itaewon twenty years ago? There must be somebody. The only way to find out would be to start asking questions. One person would lead to another person and eventually we’d find somebody who’d been witness to the events of 1953. But that might take a while. I needed to find some way to short-circuit the operation.

We stopped in front of the King Club, staring down the main drag of Itaewon at the Seven Club and the Lucky Seven Club and the UN Club. Ernie winked at the business girls who squealed and waved, and then he said, “How about Two Bellies?”

He was right. I hadn’t thought about her. Two Bellies was plenty old enough. She’d lived and worked in Itaewon for as far back as anyone remembered, at least anyone I knew. And at this time of night we could guess, pretty reliably, where we’d be able to find her.

“We ain’t there yet?” I asked.

We turned and trudged up the hill. Beyond the neon, at the darkest alley, we turned left into the night.

According to the testimony of Auntie Mee’s spirit lover, the body of Mori Di was buried somewhere in Itaewon. Koreans believe that the remains of the dead should be buried with proper Confucian ceremony and then periodically honored so the ancestors can rest peacefully in heaven. Mori Di was not being so honored. A restless spirit can cause problems for those in the neighborhood who are still living and Auntie Mee, whether she was delusional or not, had problems. I saw it as just insomnia or nightmares brought on by stress but, in her mind, she was being haunted by a dead G.I. Finding Mori Di’s Serious Incident Report hadn’t been so difficult. Finding his burial place would be more challenging.

According to Cort, there’d been what amounted to a gang war in Itaewon in the winter of 1953. Moretti, and the Koreans who supported him, had been forced to defend themselves against organized toughs who were claiming the entire red-light district of Itaewon as their own. This gang-led by a group of hooligans with exotic names like Snake, Horsehead, and Dragon’s Claw Number One- were extorting money from the prostitutes and black-marketeers who huddled in makeshift tents and lean-tos made of scrap metal and rotted boards. They called themselves the Seven Dragons.

As Moretti constructed new buildings and turned them over to the Ministry of the Interior, the buildings were occupied by legitimate investors. However, within hours, the gang of hoodlums known as the Itaewon Chil Yong, the Seven Dragons, would become, through extortion and coercion, the true power behind these legitimate businesses.

Cort reserved bitter words for the Korean National Police who were blind to this activity. He’d not only accused them of being corrupt but, in effect, part of the gang. And this criminal activity was far from benign. Cort mentioned one young woman who had been bought by a procurer and trafficked into Itaewon about two days before the end-of-month G.I. payday. Cort wasn’t sure of her age but he estimated her to be either fourteen or fifteen. Sixteen tops. After being raped by all the gangsters, on G.I. payday they put her out for sale, cheap, to the droves of American G.I. s flooding into the ville. She suffered bleeding and internal damage and within a week she was dead. Cort wasn’t sure what happened to her body. It probably was buried in a pauper’s grave. Her family out in the countryside would’ve only known she was dead when the money stopped arriving.

But despite all the corruption and suffering that swirled around him, Moretti managed to keep his bearings. He was no chump. He and the three truck-driver G.I. s living with him in the ville saw what was going on. Instead of turning over buildings to the Ministry of the Interior, they switched their efforts to smaller projects. They started building on land already occupied by squatters. If someone was selling warm chestnuts from a shack made of scrap lumber, Moretti laid a cement foundation, built walls, and slapped on a roof. He classified this in his records as “repairs and upkeep” rather than as new construction. Therefore, he didn’t have to turn it over to the Ministry of the Interior. As a tactic it had been worth a try but the Seven Dragons hadn’t been fooled. As soon as a business started to prosper-and in this world “prosperity” meant a shop owner was able to feed his family-the Seven Dragons demanded their cut.

It was the orphanage that brought Moretti and the Seven Dragons into direct conflict. It was the biggest building in Itaewon, four stories high. When it was finished, Moretti commandeered the first floor of the building as his own headquarters. This meant that, technically, the building was under the jurisdiction of the 8th United States Army and, therefore, Moretti didn’t have to turn it over to the corrupt ROK government. In the upper three stories, he allowed a group of Buddhist nuns to provide food and shelter for homeless children. The 8th Army Corps of Engineers backed Moretti on this and, in recompense, promised the Ministry of the Interior that the next three buildings constructed would be theirs. But the gangsters didn’t want an orphanage in their midst. The Buddhist nuns were revered by the destitute business girls and soon the nuns were counseling them and even feeding them and encouraging them to return to their families. After praying at the little temple that was set up on a hill behind the ville, some of the girls ran away, breaking their contracts with the mama-sans who were their procurers. They stopped producing income, most of which would’ve gone to the Seven Dragons of Itaewon.

Moretti hustled a deal with 8th Army’s Ration Breakdown Point, procuring a daily allotment of army chow for himself and his three troops. After the honcho at the breakdown point heard what Moretti was trying to do, he supplemented the daily ration with enough food to feed the entire orphanage. This wasn’t as much chow as one might assume since both the orphans and the nuns ate like birds, mostly grain and green vegetables. Later, the 8th Army honchos signed off on yet another 30 percent supplement to Moretti’s food allocation because he’d set up a soup kitchen that began operating out of the back door of the building. Soon he was feeding over a hundred people a day; just rice gruel and beans and sliced turnip but it was enough to keep them alive. And the people of Itaewon started to feel better about themselves, more confident about the future. And people who are well fed are less vulnerable to the demands of petty tyrants like the Seven Dragons of Itaewon.

This was too much. According to testimony Cort had gathered, Snake, Horsehead, and Dragon’s Claw Number One called a confab of the Seven Dragons and after much cursing and posturing, they did what they’d been wanting to do for quite a while.

They declared war on Mori Di.

“Wei kurei, nonun?” What is it with you?

Two Bellies looked up from the huatu, flower cards, she was slapping on the warm vinyl floor, clearly wishing that Ernie and I would go away. She sat with her legs folded beneath her, at the edge of an army blanket which was piled in the middle with brass coins and the hard rectangular plastic flower cards. A half dozen other women sat around the same blanket. All of them rotund, all of them wearing loose housedresses, the skin sagging beneath their cheeks. They were maids or mama-sans for the business girls.

The open oil-papered door faced a dark courtyard surrounded by more hooches, all locked and silent. They were rented by the business girls who were now at the nightclubs or walking the streets. At this hour, the old women who were the mentors to these mostly teenagers, finally were allowed a few minutes of peace and quiet that would be disrupted as soon as the midnight curfew approached and the girls started dragging half-drunk American G.I. s home with them. Then for a while, until everyone passed out, there’d be enough noise and drama to provide plots for twenty daytime soap operas.

I told Two Bellies what we wanted.

“How much you pay?” she asked.

“No pay,” Ernie said. “If you don’t help, we’ll check your hooch and bust you for black-market.”

That’s how these women made the bulk of their income. By purchasing the American-made PX goods that the G.I. s brought out to the ville. It was a good deal all around. For the few dollars the G.I. spent on imported scotch or American cigarettes, he was able to spend the night with a beautiful young woman. The woman was reimbursed by Two Bellies in hard cash and Two Bellies kept the overage that she made on the black-market.

“What you wanna know?” she asked.

I mentioned the name Mori Di.

All of the card players stopped what they were doing and stared up at me, open mouthed.

“You know Mori Di?” Two Bellies asked.

I hesitated before answering. It wouldn’t be a good idea to tell them that, according to Auntie Mee, Mori Di’s spirit had returned to Itaewon. These women were superstitious enough to actually believe the story and then be too frightened to get involved. Instead, I shrugged and said, “I’ve heard of him. People say he was a good man. I want you to show me what the village was like back then, when Mori Di was alive.”

Two Bellies pondered our proposition, cursed beneath her breath, but finally slammed her cards on the vinyl floor. She rose to her feet, stepped out of the hooch, slipped on her sandals, and led us across the courtyard to her room.

“Yogi,” Two Bellies said. Here.

We were outside, in the street. She pointed at the big cement three-story building known as the King Club. “That first one. Only building that time.” She waved a flabby arm to indicate the entire panorama of Itaewon. “Everything mud, everything wood hooch, everything shit that time. Anybody cold. Anybody hungry. Only this building have. Mori Di build.”

“You knew him?”

Two Bellies placed a hand on her hip, canted her rotund figure, and said, “Two Bellies know anybody that time.” She pointed to the center of her chest. “But that time I no have two bellies.” She grabbed her paunch. “Two Bellies look number hana.” Number one. “Better than any girl in Itaewon.”

And it was true. Before we’d left her hooch, Two Bellies insisted we look at her photo album. It was filled with old black-and-white snapshots of a slender young woman with long legs and lovely breasts, always heavily made up, her jet black hair coiffed into expensive-looking hairdos, and wearing silk dresses that clung to her curvaceous figure.

“This me during war,” she said. “This me after war.”

While virtually everyone around her suffered, the woman we knew as Two Bellies had prospered.

“Lotta G.I. s,” she said. “Lotta officers. Not all American. Many countries. How you say? England. Ethiopia. Swiss. Some have taak-san money.” A lot of money. “Me, everybody call Miss Pak that time, not Two Bellies. Miss Pak number one girl. All man gotta be nice to Miss Pak. Miss Pak make a lot of money.”

“What’d you do with all that money?” Ernie asked.

“You know,” she said, flipping her wrist in the air. “Spend.”

And now she was pointing at the King Club, inviting us to picture it standing alone like a shining beacon amidst a sea of shanties and suffering. Back when she had been the Empress of Itaewon. All of the photos in her album were of either herself posing alone or with one or two girlfriends. Invariably, she was in the center of the photograph. They were records of her sexiness. As if she was saying, This is how I looked once. Eat your heart out.

“Before,” Two Bellies continued, “I have many picture with G.I. Many boyfriend, many different country. I takey all that kind picture, throw out.” She mimicked ripping photographs into thin shreds. “They all lie to Miss Pak. But Mori Di picture, I no have. He number one G.I. If I have picture of Mori Di, I no tear up.”

“Were you his yobo?” Ernie asked.

“No. Mori Di no have girlfriend. He all the time work.”

“With all the women around Itaewon,” Ernie persisted, “he must’ve had some girlfriend.”

“Maybe.” Two Bellies shrugged. “I busy that time, work nightclub. Mori Di, he no come inside nightclub. He all the time work.”

Two Bellies paraded down the street, her posture erect, leaning back slightly, as if to show off the paunch for which she was named. Her cotton print dress clung to a figure that now resembled a soft melon. Like a proud tour guide, she pointed out the Seven Club, built by Moretti; the Lucky Seven Club, also built by Moretti; and finally, where the Itaewon main drag meets the Main Supply Route, the UN Club, also built by Moretti. Down the MSR, about one long block away, sat the 007 Club. Up the hill behind that sat the Grand Ole Opry Club. Those clubs plus the King Club-and the Yobo Club which had since been torn down-made seven major buildings constructed by Moretti and his three assistants. Not bad work in the middle of a country ravaged by war.

“Which one was the orphanage?” I asked.

Two Bellies eyes widened. “How you know?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t going to tell her. “I know,” I said.

“Come on,” she said. “I show.”

The Grand Ole Opry Club sat halfway up Hooker Hill. The narrow road was darker than most of the pedestrian pathways in Itaewon, the only neon to be found flashed right in front of the Grand Ole Opry Club. The gaggles of business girls who stared at us from shadowed doorways didn’t bother to come out and clutch at our sleeves and coo and cajole as they usually did. Having Two Bellies with us was like a free pass. They knew we were up to something and, whatever it was, we weren’t looking for women, so we weren’t accosted. For an American G.I., walking up Hooker Hill could be a trial. The girls poured out at you like spiders from a trapdoor. Then, once you were surrounded, you had to gently unfold the pincerlike grips on your forearm, keep shaking your head no, and keep apologizing for not being more interested in the young woman’s charms, making excuses, telling the girls you had to meet someone in one of the cubbyhole barrooms up the hill. It was a relief not to have to go through all that. I’m not sure Ernie felt the same way.

The Grand Ole Opry Club was a country-western bar, and one of the less frequented haunts in Itaewon. Still, the building was impressive. Four stories. The lowest housed the nightclub. In the three stories above it were small cubicles occupied by business girls. At least they had previously been occupied by business girls. In recent months, because of the burgeoning population in Seoul and the resulting housing shortage, families had started to move into even these quarters. I saw them in the morning: fresh-faced children wearing their tattered school uniforms-the girls with hair bobbed short, the boys with dark caps pulled down low on their foreheads- hoisting their backpacks on the way to catch the bus to school. Luckily, at that hour, the business girls were fast asleep and the G.I. s had scurried back to compound for morning formation. But when the kids came home at night, after extracurricular activities that most of the hardworking Korean students participated in, they had to wend their way through groups of rowdy G.I. s playing grab-ass with the now wide awake business girls of Itaewon. I never felt good about that. I wondered, once they grew up, what memories these kids would have of Americans.

Desultory crooning drifted out of the front door of the Grand Ole Opry Club. I recognized the voice: Buck Owens, in stereo.

“How about the Grand Ole Opry Club owner?” I asked Two Bellies. “Did he know Mori Di?’

Two Bellies shook her head vehemently. “No. Woman own now. Her daddy long time ago own bar. Long time ago, he die. Now she run place.”

“How about the other owners of the other nightclubs?” Ernie said. “Did they know Mori Di?”

“Of course they know. They all know.”

The nightclub owners Ernie was referring to were stalwarts of the local community. Whenever they were seen inside their own nightclubs-which was seldom-they were close shaved, slickly coifed, and clad in a suit and tie. They had formed an important organization with much influence here in the southern Yongsan District of Seoul: the Itaewon Club Owners’ Association. And they had influence at 8th Army. More than once I’d seen one owner or another glad-handing with the brass at the 8th Army Officers’ Club or shooting a round of golf at the 8th Army golf course.

“Who was Snake?” I asked.

Two Bellies eyes widened. “How you know?”

“Never mind. Who was he?”

“I no talk.”

“Why? What are you afraid of?”

Two Bellies took a step backwards. Ernie positioned himself to grab her but I waved him off.

“How about Horsehead?” I asked. “Or Dragon’s Claw Number One?”

Two Bellies’s eyes glistened in the neon glow. She began stepping backward, stumbled, and then righted herself, waggling her forefinger at us.

“You no talk Two Bellies. You no tell nobody Two Bellies talk to you.”

As if realizing suddenly that she stood in a public alleyway, Two Bellies glanced at the wary eyes lining the road. None of the business girls made a move. Two Bellies hugged herself over her ample paunch, turned, and started click-clacking her way down the cobbled road.

I shouted a question. “What about the night Mori Di was murdered? Were you there?”

She kept walking, waving her hand in the air. “Two Bellies no know nothing.”

“Should I stop her?” Ernie asked.

I thought about it. We could stop her halfway down Hooker Hill. Embarrass her. Maybe get a little more information but we’d probably get even more information if we waited until we could catch her alone.

“No,” I said finally. “Let her go. She told me plenty.”

We turned and gazed up at the Grand Ole Opry Club.

“So what’s next?” Ernie asked. “We roust the Club Owners’ Association?”

Ernie was always in favor of direct action.

“Maybe. But not yet. First, let’s take a look inside the Grand Ole Opry.”

“You’ve seen it before.”

“Only the bar. I want to inspect the entire building, from top to bottom.”

Ernie rolled his eyes. “All you’re going to find is business girls and booze.”

We climbed the cement steps of the Grand Ole Opry Club.

As I pulled open one of the double doors and turned to let Ernie enter first, one of the shadows across the street shifted suddenly. The shadow had been tall, like a G.I. I looked again. Three business girls who’d been standing there were now gone.

Many American G.I. s are ashamed to let people know that they frequent Hooker Hill, so they lurk in the back alleys, bashful about emerging into the neon-spangled light of the nightclub district. Sometimes they’re ashamed because they’re in a position of authority, officers or senior NCOs. Other times its because they’re married and have a photograph of their wife and children hanging in their wall locker or displayed prominently on their desk at work.

But this shadow had moved fast. Too fast.

I skipped down the cement steps and sprinted across the road.

A wooden gate started to swing shut. I shoved it open. A business girl fell backwards on her butt. I didn’t wait to ask her questions. I ran across the courtyard and sidled down a narrow slit between the hooch and a cement-block wall. For a moment I was blind. But finally, moonlight revealed that another gate, in the wall behind the hooch, was open. I went through it.

Behind me, footsteps pounded. Ernie. He almost plowed into me.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Movement,” I replied. “Too quick to be just somebody worried about being embarrassed.”

We stared down the dark cobbled lane. Liquid trickled through an open drain, reeking of ammonia. Ernie ran one way, I ran the other. More intersections, more narrow pathways. Lights peeped out from homes behind high walls. Pots and pans clanged; radios blared; children laughed. Charcoal smoke wafted out of underground flues, irritating me like smelling salts up the nose. Periodically, I stopped and listened. No sound. No footsteps.

Finally, I returned to the hooch across from the Grand Ole Opry. Ernie was waiting. Moonlight glistened off the perspiration on his forehead.

“Paco?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

The frightened business girls didn’t know the G.I.’s name but said he was dark, like me, except darker. We showed them the photo. Curled fingers rose to trembling lips. They were afraid they’d be in big trouble. I told them to relax.

Did they know where he was now?

They shook their heads negatively.

Did they know his name?

No.

Had they ever seen him before?

Again they shook their heads.

How long had he been watching us?

Since we’d arrived with Two Bellies.

Ernie and I weren’t new to Itaewon. We knew a lot of people and were aware of the obvious hiding places. G.I. s had tried to hide from us before and hadn’t been able to pull it off. Yet, after three hours of searching, we hadn’t found Paco Bernal. Most likely, someone was helping him. Someone who had the means and connections to keep him hidden from us and that someone, almost certainly, was a Korean.

Ernie and I returned to the Grand Ole Opry to check it out.

It was like most of the nightclubs in Itaewon except not quite so rowdy. Most of the customers were older G.I. s, career noncommissioned officers: lifers. When Ernie and I were sitting at the bar, I heard a lot of words dragged out in slow country drawls.

“This place is dead,” Ernie said. He swiveled on his barstool, stared at the half-empty ballroom in disgust, and tossed back some more suds from his brown beer bottle.

The business girls who occupied the rooms upstairs worked in the more lively nightclubs along the strip-the nightclubs that specialized in live bands and rock and roll and go-go girls. None of which could be found here at the Grand Ole Opry Club.

Surreptitiously, Ernie and I slipped into the back hallway, past the latrines, and climbed the cement stairs. Although we received some surprised looks from the occasional startled resident, we searched the building from top to bottom. Afterward, we examined the other clubs: The King Club, the Seven Club, the Lucky Seven, the UN, and the 007. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for exactly; I was just looking.

Two hours before the midnight curfew, we climbed the highest hill overlooking Itaewon. A full moon rose red into a black sky. According to the lunar calendar, this was the time of year the Koreans call Sohan, the small cold. A storm cloud crossed the moon. A few splats of snow fell on the ground and then a few more on my forehead. At the top of the hill, we reached a small Buddhist shrine that had been here as long as anyone remembered, since before the Korean War, since the ancient days when the village of Itaewon had been nothing more than cultivated fields of rice and cabbage and turnip. A tile roof, upturned at the eaves, sheltered a bronze bell. I switched on my flashlight and examined the shrine, the stone foundation, and even the raked gravel surrounding it. With bent knuckles, Ernie bonged the bell.

“What the hell we doing up here, Sueno?”

“Looking for likely burial spots,” I said.

“Like a needle in a freaking haystack?”

“Maybe not.”

“I don’t have time for this. I have people to see and things to do.”

Ernie started walking down the hill, away from the temple.

I watched him go. It wasn’t like him to leave while we were in the middle of an investigation but this wasn’t an official investigation- not yet-so I couldn’t really blame him.

“Stay out of trouble,” I shouted after him.

Without looking back, Ernie waved his hand in the air. As if on cue, snowflakes began to pelt the roof above me; I turned back to my work.

After searching the temple and finding nothing, I started back down the hill toward the bright lights of Itaewon proper. The snow was falling a little thicker now and started to stick in the mud beneath my feet, creating a sheet of white lace. In two weeks we’d experience Daehan, the big cold; traditionally, the coldest day of the winter. So far this year, the weather had been unseasonably warm. It looked like that was about to change.