Mr. Kill

11

Ernie pointed to the rubber tube sticking up the MP’s nose.

“That must hurt,” he said.

“Only when I yodel,” the MP replied.

His name was Dorsett. He was the MP assigned last night to guard the Country Western All Stars after we’d left Waegwan. His hospital bed had been cranked up so he could watch the soap operas playing on AFKN. It was an open bay, and about a half dozen other G.I. s lounged in beds in various states of repose.

“So who popped you?” Ernie asked.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” he said.

Dorsett told the story. He’d been assigned to guard the rear of the Camp Carroll Female BOQ., bachelor officers’ quarters. The Quonset hut assigned to the Country Western All Stars was deserted except for them, and they each had their own room, but they had to share a communal bathroom. Through the high windows, Dorsett could hear the showers running.

“Did you let your imagination get the best of you?” Ernie asked.

“No way. I was plenty alert. Whoever hit me hid himself inside the closet that holds the water heaters. He must’ve been in there for over an hour, because that’s how long we’d been there, even before the band finished their show. As I passed by, the door creaked open and before I could turn something hit me. I went down.”

“Did you see anything?”

“Nothing. It happened too fast.”

“What about your. 45?”

“They found it later. In a trash can toward the front of the BOQ.”

“What’s the doc say?” Ernie asked.

“He says I’m a stupid butt for not checking inside the room that held the water heaters.”

Marnie wasn’t as excited to see Ernie this time. She seemed distracted and, for the first time since I’d known her, she was puffing away on a cigarette. As we strode up onto the stage of the Camp Henry NCO Club, the other girls greeted us. Cymbals clanged and the bass guitar plunked as Ernie sat down in front of Marnie and asked her what was wrong.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, turning her head, blowing out smoke.

“None of you were hurt last night, were you?”

“No. Nobody hurt. Scared shitless, but not hurt.”

“Tell us what happened, Marnie,” I said.

Marnie shook her head, making her stiff blonde locks rustle beneath the cowgirl hat. She sighed and started talking. “Shelly was taking a shower. The rest of us were in our rooms. I heard footsteps tromping down the central aisle, you know, man’s footsteps, those big combat boots that the G.I. s wear, but I didn’t think anything of it. I figured it was just the MP patrol or the base commander coming over to thank us or something like that. The footsteps went down the hallway, past my room toward the bathroom.”

“The latrine,” Ernie said.

“Whatever you call it. So I thought that was sort of weird, some man walking toward our bathroom, but before I could do anything about it, somebody screamed.”

“Shelly?” I asked.

“None other. I threw on my robe and I was about to step out my door when I heard the same heavy footsteps coming back down the hallway, and I was looking for my shotgun and then I realized I’d left it back in Austin and suddenly I was afraid to open the door. Finally, when the footsteps subsided I ran to the bathroom and found Shelly. She was okay. She said some man had been there rummaging in her bag that was sitting on the bench in front of her shower stall.”

“Did she see him?”

“Ask her.”

By now, Shelly had joined us. She pulled over a stool and sat down. “I saw his back,” she said. “He was wearing an army uniform, the same one everyone else wears around here.”

“Fatigues,” Ernie said.

“Yeah. But I didn’t see his face. Only his back. He was Caucasian, I think, but even that I can’t be sure of.”

“But he could’ve been black,” Marnie said.

Shelly shrugged. “Could’ve been. All I saw was his back and then I pulled the shower curtain shut and knelt down in the corner, trying to make myself small.”

“But he left when you screamed?” I asked.

“Yes,” Shelly replied. “In a hurry.”

“Did he take anything?” Ernie asked.

Shelly rolled her eyes. “It’s embarrassing.”

Marnie spoke for her. “Damn, Shelly. It’s only a bra and panties.”

“Yeah, but they were my bra and panties.”

“What color were they?” Ernie asked, deadpan.

Shelly rolled her eyes. “Red.”

“Lace,” Ernie asked, “or straight cotton?”

Shelly glared at him. “Lace,” she said.

Ernie tipped an imaginary hat. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

After Shelly left, Marnie inhaled deeply on her cigarette, held the smoke in her lungs for a while, and then blew the gray mist out in a steady stream. When it was gone, she seemed out of breath. Her voice came out weak.

“What she’s not telling you is what happened after the guy ran out of the building.”

“Tell us,” I said.

“There’s a phone in the hallway and the emergency number for the Military Police is painted on the wall, so I dialed it and a few minutes later the MPs showed up. They found that poor MP out back, still unconscious, and called an ambulance and took him away. They also found someone else outside. Someone in a jeep.”

Marnie continued to puff on her cigarette.

Finally, Ernie said, “Freddy Ray.”

“How’d you know?” Marnie asked.

“Just a guess. He knew you were playing at Camp Carroll. He hopped in a jeep and drove out there.”

Marnie nodded.

“Did the MPs question him?” I asked.

“They questioned him.”

“Did you have a chance to talk to him?”

Marnie shook her head. “No.”

I finished her thought for her. “And some of the MPs thought that Freddy Ray might be the peeper, the guy who’d stolen Shelly’s bra and panties.”

“That’s what they thought,” she said.

“What do you think?” Ernie asked.

Marnie stubbed out her cigarette. “I don’t know what to think.”

She rose from her chair and strode over to her keyboard and plugged it in.

Camp Henry is a small compound, just five or six hundred yards wide in any direction. We walked the hundred or so yards from the NCO Club to the 19th Support Group headquarters. In the foyer, we read the signs and Ernie followed me down to the 19th Support Group Personnel Service Center (PSC). The door was locked. Ernie rattled it and then turned back to me. “It’s six p.m. The duty day ends at five.”

I went back to the entranceway and checked the sign. The Staff Duty Officer was in room 102. We went back down the hallway, turned left, and spotted a light on and a door open. We stepped inside.

The Duty Officer was a young man with curly brown hair. He sat behind a gray army-issue desk, his chair facing away from us, watching the Armed Forces Korea Network on a black-and-white portable television. He looked almost like a teenager relaxing on his mother’s couch. When he heard us come in, he fumbled with the knob, turned off the set, and swiveled on the chair to face us. His rank was second lieutenant. His name tag said Timmons.

I showed him my badge.

“Lieutenant Timmons,” I said, smiling. “Looks like you caught the duty tonight.”

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“No. I’m Agent Sueno. And this is my partner, Agent Bascom. We’re from the Seoul CID office.”

“All the way down here?”

“All the way down here,” I said.

Ernie took a seat on a padded gray vinyl chair. He usually let me handle bureaucratic transactions, as long as we got what we wanted.

“What can I do for you?” Timmons asked.

“What we’re here about,” I said, spreading my fingers, “is the security of the USO show.”

“The Country Western All Stars,” he said.

“The same. We’re supposed to keep an eye on them, all five musicians, and we understand that there was a problem at Camp Carroll last night.”

“So I heard.”

“I want you to help us find Captain Freddy Ray Embry.”

Timmons’s face darkened. “The accusations they’re making about him, they’re not true. Captain Embry is one of our finest officers.”

“I’m sure he is. Still, we have to talk to him. Where can we find him?”

“I’ll get him on the horn right away.”

Timmons reached for the phone. I stayed his hand.

“No. It’s better if we talk to him in person.”

“Where’s he work?” Ernie asked.

“At the logistics supply depot. He keeps our eighteen-wheelers running up and down the spine of the Korean peninsula.”

“He’s off duty now,” I said, “so where are his quarters?”

“I’m not sure.” Timmons rose to his feet and walked across the room to a large metal cabinet bolted to the wall, fiddled with a combination lock, and finally pulled back the sliding doors. He searched until he found the right key, took it out, relocked the cabinet, and told us to follow him down the hallway. Timmons entered an office with a sign that said Officer Records. He switched on the light, unlocked a filing cabinet, and, after searching for a few minutes, found the personnel folder of Captain Frederick Raymond Embry. He pulled out the billeting assignment sheet and, as he did so, Ernie and I studied the black-andwhite photo of Captain Embry.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, but somehow I was. We all project our stereotypes onto people, and somehow I didn’t expect a female country-western singer from Austin, Texas, to have been married to a black man. And I hadn’t expected a former Texas A amp;M cadet of the Reserve Officer Training Corps to be of African descent. Of course, the color barrier at Texas A amp;M had been broken years ago, but still most of the graduates during the sixties were white.

I studied Ernie’s face. His expression didn’t change. At least this went part of the way toward explaining Marnie’s suggestion that the intruder very well could have been black.

Lieutenant Timmons jotted down Captain Embry’s billeting assignment and handed me the slip of paper.

“Here you are,” he said. “I’m sure Captain Embry will be happy to see his former wife.”

“I’m sure he will,” I replied.

I slipped the paper into my pocket and Ernie and I left the 19th Support Group Headquarters building. The Bachelor Officer Quarters were on the far side of the compound; still, the walk took us less than ten minutes.

“Timmons knew,” Ernie said, “that Captain Embry had been married to one of the Country Western All Stars.”

“G.I. s gossip,” I said.

More than old ladies, I thought, but I left that unsaid.

When Ernie and I reached the BOQ area, we entered Building C. At the door to room C9, Ernie knocked. Nobody answered. Ernie pounded on the door again. Finally, the door creaked open. The room was dark.

Ernie said, “Embry? You in here?”

Nobody answered. Ernie repeated himself. Finally an exasperated voice said, “Who the hell is it?”

Ernie stepped inside.

I swept my hand along the wall, searching for the light switch. I found it and switched it on. Light blazed into the room, blinding me.

Someone shouted, “Turn that damn light off!”

I did. Ernie, meanwhile, had found a window and opened the shades. In the fading afternoon light, a man sat on the edge of an army-issue bunk, his face in his hands.

“Captain Embry?” I said.

“What the hell do you want?” he asked.

I told him. Then I started asking questions. Captain Embry denied having hit any MP last night and denied having entered the women’s latrine. He vehemently denied stealing a red bra and panties.

“She wrote to me,” he said. “Asked me to come see her when the show arrived. I did. I checked out a jeep last night, drove up to Waegwan. I was sitting outside their BOQ, trying to decide if I should really talk to her or if I should just let the past be the past.”

He remained on the edge of his bunk, his head drooped, his big hands spread over square knees.

“Do you have the letter?” I asked.

He stared up at me, brown eyes luminously moist. Finally, he snorted. “Yeah. I have it. There. On the desk.”

Ernie switched on a green-shaded desk lamp, rummaged through paperwork, and lifted a letter into the light and examined the envelope. When he was finished, he tossed it to me. By now the sun was just about down, but I had left the door open and there was enough illumination from the desk lamp and the fluorescent bulbs in the hallway to read. I scanned the letter quickly.

It was postmarked two days ago, in Seoul. Staff Sergeant Riley had evidently succumbed to Marnie’s charms and located Captain Embry’s address for her. The letter was formal in tone, not emotional, explaining when she’d be arriving in the Taegu area and under what circumstances, not inviting him to see her but not telling him to stay away either.

“Did you answer the letter?” I asked.

Embry shrugged. “No reason. By the time it got there, she would’ve been on the way down here.”

“Did you see the MP on patrol around the building?”

“Yeah. I saw him. But I don’t think he saw me. I was parked across the street next to a warehouse about twenty yards away. It was dark.”

“Did you see anybody else there?”

“No. But I wasn’t really watching. After they pulled up in the van and the girls went inside, I mainly just sat there smoking and thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” Ernie asked.

“About whether or not I should really talk to her.”

“Did you hear anything when the MP was attacked?”

“That was on the far side of the Quonset hut. I didn’t hear anything.”

“Did you see someone enter the front door?”

“Like I said, I wasn’t really watching.”

“But someone could’ve entered the front door?”

“They could’ve.”

“How about the scream? Did you hear that?”

“I did. And then I looked up and somebody darted out of the door. The light was bad and he was moving fast so I couldn’t make out much, but I was sure it was a G.I., a G.I. wearing fatigues.”

“Where did he go?”

“He darted around the building. Out of sight.”

“What’d you do then?”

“I sat there. I wasn’t sure what to do. And then the MPs pulled up, siren blaring. I guess that sort of shook me out of my reverie. I climbed out of my jeep and walked forward and I was standing at the front door identifying myself to one of the MPs when Marnie came out.”

“What’d she say to you?”

“Nothing. She just stared at me, with that old disapproving look, like I’d done something wrong.”

“Had you?” Ernie asked.

“Get bent,” Embry replied.

“Easy, Embry,” I said.

“That’s Captain Embry to you.”

“Okay,” I said. “Captain Embry. You still have a thing for Marnie. That’s obvious.”

Embry didn’t reply.

I looked around the small room. “They tell me you have a good career going here. You’re a respected officer in the 19th Support Group. The brass watches USO tours closely, Captain Embry. Don’t screw things up. Don’t interfere with Marnie or the show. Stay away from her. Stay away from the Country Western All Stars and you’ll be all right.”

“You have no authority to tell me to stay away from her.”

“The hell we don’t,” Ernie replied. “One false move and we’ll arrest you for stalking a USO civilian. And for being a Peeping Tom.”

Embry rose to his feet. “Get the hell out of my room.”

Atop a metal wall locker, Ernie spotted a cowboy hat. He pulled it down and examined it, flipping back the inner lining. “Good brand,” he said. “Handmade. Direct from Austin, Texas.” Ernie tossed the cap in the air. Embry caught it on the fly. “Don’t turn this little drama into High Noon,” Ernie told him. “You’re outgunned.”

We walked out of the room.

As we walked back toward the NCO Club, Ernie asked me, “Why didn’t you arrest him?”

“He seemed like a decent enough guy.”

“But it had to be him. If we search his room, I bet we’d find that red bra and panties.”

“Maybe. And maybe he’s the one who’s been stalking them since they arrived in-country.”

“Yeah. Maybe we’d find everything there. Like the microphone and the cowboy boot, all that stuff.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But try to cop a search warrant from the Camp Henry Provost Marshal. Never happen.”

Ernie knew I was right. The officer corps protects its own.

“But if something happens to Marnie?” he said finally.

“You’ll just have to be more diligent in your protection,” I told him.

Ernie thought about that. “Maybe I will,” he said.

The Country Western All Star Review at the Camp Henry NCO Club that night was another resounding success. The G.I. s went nuts, as usual, even those who maybe weren’t crazy about cowboy music but certainly appreciated the tight blue jeans and tight blouses the ladies wore-and the way they jiggled. Marnie seemed even more animated than she usually did, maybe because she thought her exhusband might be in the audience. Even if he wasn’t, he’d hear about the performance and, being human, he’d be jealous of all those G.I. eyeballs lingering over her voluptuous curves. Anyway, if she thought Captain Embry might show up, she was wrong, because Ernie and I stayed sober and patrolled the packed main ballroom and mostly empty backstage area at regular intervals.

There wasn’t enough billeting space in the Camp Henry BOQ to house the Country Western All Stars, so the USO popped for rooms at the New Taegu Hotel downtown. After the show, while Mr. Shin and his crew were loading equipment in the vans, Ernie and I talked it over.

“We have to find Pruchert,” I said.

“And I have to make sure Embry doesn’t harass anybody,” Ernie replied.

“Right. So I’ll take the sedan and drive down to Haeundae Beach. You stay with the girls.”

“Tough duty,” Ernie replied. “I’ll do my best.”

“In the best traditions of the service.”

During the show, Ernie and I had taken turns eating some decent chow in the NCO Club dining room, and the bowl of chili beans and the fried chicken with rice and gravy had made me feel more human. Still, I was exhausted. In the last few days, what with all the running around we’d done in the southern end of the Korean peninsula, I’d managed to catch only catnaps. I was afraid that my exhaustion might be more than I could handle while driving, so I asked the club manager if he had a spare thermos of coffee. I promised to bring the jug back once I was done with it. He complied. Thus fortified and provisioned, I grabbed the keys from Ernie and set off south on the main supply route, heading toward Pusan.

If Pruchert was like most compulsive gamblers-and if he hadn’t been lying to Lucy-he’d most likely still be in the Haeundae Casino. It’s a twenty-four-hour operation, although they have to lock the doors during the midnight-to-four curfew-nobody in or out. Regardless of whether Pruchert was there, I resolved to report to Inspector Kill, and to 8th Army, as soon as I found the chance. They’d probably been wondering what we were up to, and-unlike Ernie-I was worried about aggravating them unduly.

Not that they deserved much consideration from us. After all, they’d assigned Ernie and me to two details-protecting the Country Western All Stars and finding the Blue Train rapist-both, in and of themselves, full-time jobs. And I was still worried about the rapist and his “corrective actions” and who else would be on his checklist. He’d strike again. Every moment brought us closer to his next attack.

With two jobs to do, I had no choice but to return to Pusan alone. Still, there was an advantage to being alone. Sergeant Norris, the Hialeah Compound MP, had given it to me. The merchant steamer known as the Star of Tirana was scheduled to pull into the Port of Pusan at 2 a.m. tonight. Aboard, according to Norris, was an East European sailor who’d been searching for me.

Why would a man I’d never heard of be looking for me? A man who came from a country in which I knew no one and where I’d never been?

As far-fetched as it sounded, I thought I knew the answer. Or, at least, I was afraid I did. If my hunch was right, I was in for a lot more sleepless nights.

If and when I met this man, I wanted to be alone. I certainly didn’t want to involve Ernie, or anyone else, in something that might prove to be more dangerous than anything I’d encountered before.