Mr. Kill

2

At CID headquarters, before we had a chance to take off our jackets, Staff Sergeant Riley was already complaining.

“Where in the hell you guys been? The Provost Marshal has been asking about you all afternoon.”

Riley is the Administrative NCO of the 8th Army CID Detachment. His highly starched khaki uniform puffed out around him like cardboard on a scarecrow. He doesn’t eat much, but he’s a tireless worker and he has a habit of taking the side-in every dispute-of the honchos of the 8th United States Army, which goes a long way to explain why the Provost Marshal loves him.

Ernie ignored Riley’s harangue and walked toward the big silver coffee urn on the counter in the back of the admin office. Miss Kim, the statuesque admin secretary, pecked away at her hangul typewriter. I plopped down in a gray army-issue chair.

“A woman was raped,” I told Riley, “on the Blue Train, with her children sitting only a few feet away.”

Riley studied me carefully. “That’s why you look like somebody just placed a size-twelve combat boot up your butt.”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I rubbed my forehead and then the back of my neck.

Miss Kim stopped typing. Out of a plastic container, she poured some of her personal stock of barley tea into a porcelain cup. She brought it over and offered it to me. I accepted the cup with both hands and thanked her. She returned to her desk. The typing started again, more tentatively this time.

While I sipped the lukewarm tea, Riley’s gruff voice grated on my molars. “She was a Korean national, wasn’t she?” he asked.

“Who?”

“The victim on the Blue Train.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Definitely a Korean national.”

“Then why the hell did you spend all that time out there? It’s a KNP case.”

I sat up straighter in my seat. “We have reason to believe,” I told him, “that the perpetrator was one of our brave American men in uniform.”

“Did you arrest him?”

“No. He was gone before we got there.”

“So how can you be sure he was an American?”

“The G.I. sitting next to him said he was.”

“Was this perp wearing civvies?”

“Yeah.”

“So it’s just this G.I.’s opinion that the suspect was an American.”

I knew what he was getting at. If 8th Army could pretend that a suspect wasn’t an American G.I., they’d do it. Any way to avoid bad publicity was worth a try.

“Most of these cases,” Riley continued, “nobody can pin shit on us.”

Riley was correct. Rape is a hideously difficult charge to prove, especially when most of the Korean women American G.I. s hang out with are “business girls,” women forced into prostitution because of economic deprivation. Still, I started to say something, but Riley waved me off and then he tossed a sheet of paper in front of me. I grabbed it on the fly.

“From the head shed,” Riley said. “Chief of Staff, Eighth United States Army. The Provost Marshal wants you two on this. Immediately if not sooner. Looks like we’ve got the USO show from hell.”

“No time,” I said, tossing the paperwork back onto his desk. “We have to go to Anyang.”

“Anyang? What for?”

“This rapist. That’s where we think he got off the train.”

Ernie shouted from the back of the room, “Where’s the coffee, Riley?” He was holding up an empty tin can.

“My ration ran out,” Riley yelled back.

“Your ration ran out? How much you been black-marketing, anyway? Can’t you at least buy the coffee before you use your monthly ration buying stuff for your yobo?”

“It wasn’t for my yobo,” Riley replied. Riley had a thing for older women, and some of the Korean gals he hung around with were verging on the geriatric.

Ernie returned with an empty mug and clunked it down on the edge of Riley’s desk. “So, if it wasn’t for a yobo, what have you been using all your ration on?”

“Information,” Riley said. “I’ve been trading coffee to get information to help jerks like you.”

“Jerks like me,” Ernie replied, “don’t need to trade coffee for information. We get it the old-fashioned way.” Ernie reached into his pocket, slipped on his brass knuckles, and jabbed a short uppercut into the air.

“Okay, Bascom,” Riley said. “I’m impressed. Now convince your partner here to read that report I just handed to him. You two better get it in gear before the Provost Marshal develops a case of the big ass and takes a bite out of your respective butts.”

I grabbed the report again and, after reading a few sentences, I began to understand why it had received such a high priority. It involved round-eyes. A whole bevy of them. A USO-sponsored all-female band known as the Country Western All Stars, lovely ladies who’d flown over from the States to grace us lonely 8th Army G.I. s with their presence. The United Service Organization had been around since at least World War II. Bob Hope made it famous with his star-studded appearances on battlefields all over the world, and the organization, in numerous smaller venues, was still going strong. When it comes to an all-female country-western show and review-direct from Austin, Texas-the brass can’t do enough for them, and every broken fingernail shows up on the Chief of Staff’s morning blotter report.

According to the band’s leader, someone had been pilfering their equipment. At Camp Kitty Hawk, a microphone went missing. At the Joint Security Area, one of the girls’ boots. Near Munsan, at Recreation Center Four, they thought they’d lost an electric guitar but found it behind a Quonset hut. Apparently, whoever lifted the instrument had dumped it after realizing that he wouldn’t be able to make a clean getaway.

I handed the report to Ernie. He groaned.

“Babysitting,” he said.

“Babysitting, my ass,” Riley replied. He pointed at the report. “If you’d read the damn thing you’d see that this detail is going to involve a lot more than babysitting. There’s not only been theft of equipment but also threats made against the command. If you don’t get a handle on this case fast, you’re going to be up kimchee creek without a paddle.”

“Threats?” I asked.

“This band leader,” Riley said, “one female civilian known as Marnie Orville, has declared that if she isn’t assigned a full-time detective, and assigned one today, she’s going to refuse to go on.”

“She won’t perform?”

“You got it. So Eighth Army isn’t taking any chances. They’re assigning two investigators to the case. Namely, Agent George Sueno and Agent Ernie Bascom.”

“When’s their next appearance?” I asked.

“Tonight. Nineteen hundred hours. At the DivArty O Club.”

The Officers’ Club of the 2nd Infantry Division Artillery headquarters, at Camp Stanley in Uijongbu.

“The Provost Marshal wants you there,” Riley continued. “Standing tall and kissing some serious round-eyed butt.”

I tossed the report on Riley’s desk.

Ernie wandered over toward Miss Kim, who kept her eyes glued to a sheaf of paperwork and increased her typing speed to a furious rate. Ernie stood in front of her for a few seconds. They’d dated once. Until, that is, Miss Kim discovered that Ernie was involved with other romances. Ernie couldn’t understand why she’d taken it so hard. When Miss Kim still didn’t look up, Ernie finally shrugged and walked back across the room.

As I rose from my seat, I told Riley not to worry. We’d take care of this USO show situation.

“You’d better,” he growled.

Outside, Ernie started up the jeep. He shouted over the roar of the engine, “We should go to the hotel this band’s staying at. Interview them about the missing equipment. Let them know that someone’s on the case.”

“We should,” I replied.

We were both thinking of the woman on the Blue Train, Mrs. Oh Myong-ja, and her crying children. And we were thinking of the hatred radiating out of the eyes of the people surrounding her. But mostly we were thinking of what Private First Class Runnels, the courier on the Blue Train, had told us after he’d finally opened up. In particular, we both remembered his remark about “the first check mark on a long list.”

Ernie drove to Gate 5. After we were waved through the MP checkpoint, he turned left on the main supply route. Ernie plowed his way through the mid-afternoon Seoul traffic until we reached the turnoff to the Seoul-to-Pusan Expressway. A frisson of fear entered my gut. Misappropriating a vehicle, purposely defying a superior officer’s orders-these were not things to be taken lightly.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

“What do you think I’m doing?” he replied. “That guy has to be stopped, whether Eighth Army likes it or not.”

Ernie made the turn and stepped on the gas.

I didn’t have any counterargument. Ernie was right. Any “checklist” that starts with a brutal rape can’t be good. The little jeep rolled south. Twenty-five kilometers later, a sign with an arrow pointing off to the right said Anyang.

Compared to Seoul, Anyang is a small city. A population of about 10,000, according to my 1973 almanac. After winding our way through a few buildings over three stories tall, we reached the eastern side of the city and finally found the Anyang Train Station.

I flashed my badge to the official in charge of the station; he called the local KNPs; and in a few minutes I was being introduced to Captain Ryu, the chief of the Korean National Police, Anyang contingent. In the late afternoon sunlight, he and Ernie and I walked out onto the tracks. Captain Ryu pointed at the main rail.

“This is the track used by the Blue Train,” he said. “But earlier today, for the first time in years, the Blue Train was ordered off onto that side rail.” He pointed to another track on the west. I translated for Ernie. “They stopped there,” Ryu continued, “for about twenty minutes.” Then Ryu walked us back to the main line. “Coming from Seoul,” he said, “heading south, was the special train carrying the body of our late First Lady, Madame Yuk Young-soo. It was beautiful. The entire front of the engine was covered with a wreath of white flowers. Some of my officers and I stood on the platform there and saluted.” Then he pointed back to the side rail. “Most of the passengers, the ones who ventured outside when the Blue Train stopped, bowed as the First Lady’s train approached.” Captain Ryu stood quietly for a moment. Then he repeated, “It was a beautiful sight.”

Koreans love death. It gives them a chance to practice every Confucian virtue: reverence, obedience, filial piety, loyalty. The greatest moments in Korean lives are when they travel to the grave mounds of their dearly departed, sweep away debris, burn incense, bow, and then have a picnic with the family, including ritual types of food set aside for the deceased. I can’t tell you how many times Koreans have shown me photographs of themselves with their parents and their children and other family members, enjoying one another’s company, sitting on the grass eating rice cakes while the death mound of their grandfather looms in the background.

When Captain Ryu recovered from his reverie, he escorted us to the Anyang Police Station. There he showed us a stack of reports from the cab drivers who had been working this morning when the First Lady’s train passed. “Not one of them,” he said, “picked up a foreigner.”

That wasn’t surprising. There were no American military bases near Anyang. If our theory was correct and the rapist, whoever he was, had taken advantage of the unscheduled stop in Anyang to make his escape, then the first thing he would’ve needed was transportation out of town. He couldn’t stay here. A foreigner would be easy to spot. Already, Captain Ryu had checked the one tourist hotel in town and the three or four dozen Korean inns. No foreigners in any of them. We studied Captain Ryu’s map of Anyang.

“Here,” Ernie said. “Only a little more than a mile from the train station.”

What Ernie was pointing at was the Myong Jin Bus Station.

Within a few minutes we were sitting in the back room of the ticketing office. A nervous young Korean woman, only slightly portly, twisted a white handkerchief in her lap. In hangul, her nameplate said Ju. I asked her to relax, but it didn’t do much good. Then, in Korean, I asked her if she remembered selling a bus ticket to a foreigner.

“Yes,” she said. “It was about eleven thirty a.m. because I hadn’t yet eaten my toshirak.” She was referring to the square metal tin most Koreans use to carry their lunch. Then Miss Ju blushed, probably embarrassed about how she remembered things in relation to food. I encouraged her to continue.

“He was a foreigner. The only one I’ve seen all day.”

“What did he look like?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see his face.”

The ticketing window was made of opaque plastic with only a few holes in the middle to speak through and a horizontal slot on the counter through which to slide money.

“If you didn’t see him,” I asked, “how can you be sure that he was a foreigner?”

“Because of the way he spoke. The way he mispronounced Seoul.”

Americans say the name of the Korean capital city as if it were one syllable, like the English word “soul.” Koreans pronounce it the way it is written, with two syllables: “So-ul.”

“That’s it?” I said. “The way he talked?”

Miss Ju twisted her handkerchief even tighter, blushed a brighter shade of crimson, and said, “And his hands too.”

“What about his hands?”

“So hairy,” she said, crinkling her nose, “like a won-sungi.” Like a monkey.

Then she stared at me, her eyes wide, as if she had realized her mistake, and bowed her head, twisting her handkerchief more ferociously than ever.

Ernie and I sat in a draft beer hall across the street from the Anyang Police Station.

“Seoul,” Ernie said. “We’ll never find him there. He’ll just blend in with the crowd.”

“Maybe,” I said.

Captain Ryu had contacted the head of the Myong Jin Bus Line and they were attempting to locate the driver of the bus that had left Anyang at approximately 11:45 this morning, heading for Seoul. While they did so, Ernie and I decided to get some chow. What we ended up with was beer and unshelled peanuts.

Captain Ryu came over a few minutes later and told us that he’d managed to reach the bus driver by phone. He remembered the foreigner on his bus but was unable to describe him other than that he was tall and American. Where he had gotten off the bus in Seoul, the driver didn’t remember, even though there were only two possible choices. The first stop was in front of the Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon in the southern reaches of the city, and the second and final stop was at the Central Bus Station in downtown Seoul, both of which were bustling locations frequented by thousands of people every day. Trying to trace a lone G.I. getting off a bus at either one of those spots would be impossible.

We thanked Captain Ryu for his help, paid for our beer, and left.

“Where the hell you guys been?” the MP said.

We were stopped in front of the big arched gate at the main entrance to DivArty headquarters, Camp Stanley. Ernie’d made good time through Seoul, skirting the downtown area by taking the road along the Han River, past Walker Hill. Still, the sun had set by the time we arrived. Floodlights glared out of the darkness. The MP leaned forward, his M-16 rifle held across his chest.

“You’re the CID agents from Seoul, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“We’ve been expecting you for hours. And now this shit happens at the club.”

“What shit?” Ernie asked.

“You’ll see.”

The MP motioned to his partner, and the rusted wheels of the twelve-foot-high chain-link fence began to roll open. A whistle shrilled, Ernie shoved the jeep in gear, and we drove slowly into the compound.

Camp Stanley was the home of the 2nd Division Artillery headquarters, more commonly known as DivArty. Two of the division’s artillery battalions were stationed at this camp, the other in a forward position closer to the Demilitarized Zone. When Ernie parked the jeep behind the two-story edifice that was the DivArty Officers’ Club, we could hear a steady pounding, like rhythmic thunder.

“What’s that?” Ernie asked.

“Hell if I know.”

In the long hallway leading into the main ballroom, black-and-white chain-of-command photos hung on whitewashed walls. Crew-cut men wearing pressed green uniforms glared out at the world. I stopped at the last photo, the photo of the colonel who was the current DivArty commander. There wasn’t much to it: pale skin, vapid eyes, thin lips, short gray hair. Even his wire-rimmed glasses were almost invisible. Still, he was doing his best to look terrifying.

Ernie and I entered the ballroom.

A small man, hands on his hips, wheeled on us. I recognized the face, the same one I’d just been looking at in the chain-of-command photo. Instead of a green uniform, he was wearing a straw hat, an embroidered cowboy shirt, and tight blue jeans held up by a long-horned brass belt buckle.

“Where in the hell have you two been?” Spittle erupted from his tight lips.

The thunder surrounded us now, rattling the walls of the huge ballroom. Benches were filled with row after row of G.I. s in fatigue uniforms, some of them wearing cowboy hats similar to their commander’s. Most of them held cold cans of beer in their hands. It was their combat boots that were causing the thunder. They were stomping them on the wooden floor, in a cadence that threatened to shake the building apart.

The thin-lipped commander approached me.

“She refuses to go on,” he said, pointing at the stage. “That obstinate woman is willing to let my troops sit here cooling their heels, and she won’t make a move to do her duty until the ‘detectives from Seoul,’ as she calls them, show up. And I’m assuming you’re the detectives from Seoul.”

It hadn’t required great powers of deduction to figure out who we were. Ernie and I are required to wear civilian clothes while we work. That way no one will know our military rank and, theoretically, we can’t be bullied by someone of higher position. But according to the 8th Army Supplement to the Department of the Army regulation, we’re not allowed to wear just any civilian clothes: we’re required to wear coats and ties. This is 1974. No one wears coats and ties, not unless he’s forced to. With our short haircuts, Ernie and I are like blinking advertisements: “Here comes the Criminal Investigation Division.”

“Yes, sir. We’re the detectives from Seoul.”

“Then get up there,” he said, pointing once again at the stage, “and get that woman and her band off their butts and out there entertaining my troops.”

I nodded to the colonel, and Ernie and I made our way past the thundering crowd, climbed up a short flight of steps, and pushed through musty velvet curtains. A naked bulb shone at the end of a short hallway. Ernie passed me and stepped first through the open doorway.

Five women looked up at us. All of them blondes. Each woman wore tight blue jeans and a tighter red-and-whitechecked blouse. Straw cowboy hats had been pinned expertly to the back of their elaborate coiffures.

One of them pushed back her Stetson. “You don’t look like much,” she said.

“Kinda scrawny,” another added, “but you’ll have to do.”

They broke into raucous laughter.

After making us swear that we wouldn’t leave before the show ended, Marnie Orville led her Country Western All Stars out on stage. One of them strapped on a guitar, and two more took up positions behind an electric bass and a steel guitar, respectively. Finally, a woman with straight long blonde hair sat behind the drum set. Marnie, the tallest and most voluptuous of the five women, fiddled with the keyboard, glanced at her fellow musicians, and nodded to the Korean man standing next to hemp ropes on pulleys. As he pulled back the curtains, spotlights were switched on out front and Marnie stomped her boot. Electric amps hummed and the band clanged to life, belting out some country tune that I’d never heard before.

The G.I. s in the audience leaped to their feet, roaring their approval. Ernie covered his ears. He stepped toward me and shouted in my ear.

“Why’d you promise all that to her?” he asked.

“I was being coerced. I had to get them out on stage,” I shouted back.

“Now we’re her slaves.”

I shrugged. “Weren’t we anyway?”

He crossed his arms and frowned at the five women gyrating before us. “Hayseed heaven,” he said.

“You stay here,” I told Ernie, “keep an eye on the girls and their equipment.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Ernie asked.

I worked my way backstage and then out behind the Officers’ Club, where the van and the equipment truck were parked. Four Korean men-two drivers and two men to load and unload the equipment-squatted between the vehicles, smoking and murmuring among themselves. A flood lamp illuminated the scene. As I approached, they stopped smoking and stared at me above glowing embers.

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

The men nodded, bemused by my use of the Korean language. As I continued using their native tongue, their eyes grew wider and then they were smiling. In a few minutes, we were old pals. The eldest driver and leader of the group was named Mr. Shin. He offered me a cigarette, which I politely refused, and then he started telling me about their adventures of the last few days, driving five white women from their hotel in Seoul to the nether regions near the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone that divides North and South Korea.

I listened, not asking any questions, taking it in.

Inside the Camp Stanley Officers’ Club, guitars continued to clang, women shouted, men roared.

A half hour later, the music subsided and Ernie and I joined the band in their dressing room. I pulled out my notebook, sat on a stool, and started to ask them about the complaints they had alerted us to. Before we could finish, their break was up and they returned to the stage. G.I. s were already clapping their hands and stomping their feet again. When the curtain opened, the audience, on cue, went mad.

Ernie stayed backstage while I returned to Mr. Shin and the loading crew. After the final set, Ernie emerged from the back of the Camp Stanley Officers’ Club. He pulled me aside.

“They want me to take them to a nightclub,” he told me.

“Who?”

“Marnie and the other girls.”

“We’re calling her Marnie now? Not Miss Orville?”

Ernie ignored the remark.

“What about the time?” I asked. We had only an hour and a half until the midnight curfew, equipment to inventory and load, and a long ride back to Seoul.

“They’re counting on me,” Ernie said, “to work something out.”

“We could get in trouble behind this,” I said.

Ernie grinned. “Trouble I can handle. Especially when it’s packed in tight blue jeans.”