Mr. Kill

9

After midnight, the highway leading south toward Pusan seemed like the Land of the Dead. Nothing moves in Korea during the midnight-to-four curfew. Even down here, some 200 miles from the Demilitarized Zone, the ROK Army is worried about North Korean infiltrators; worried that they could come in by sea to blow up power plants and munitions factories and communications facilities. And the government isn’t just suffering from delusional paranoid fantasies, either. Communist commandos have attacked before, in squads of up to three dozen men, and caused much death and suffering before they were stopped.

As we approached every major city, a heavily armed military roadblock awaited us. Ernie and I showed the grim-faced Korean soldiers our Criminal Investigation badges and our special twenty-four-hour vehicle dispatch-reserved for emergency military and government vehicles only-and were waved through.

The show at Camp Carroll had been a resounding success. Afterward, Ernie and I helped Mr. Shin load everything up and made sure that the girls of the Country Western All Star Review were safely bedded down in the transient billets of the bachelor officers’ quarters. Then we’d jumped into the sedan and started back to Pusan.

Ernie was disgruntled-not so much at the lack of rest, but because we’d never had a chance to pop a cold one.

“Don’t we get any time off?” he asked.

“During the show,” I said, changing the subject, “I called Kill.”

“And?”

“The KNPs have come up with a line on Weyworth.”

“Good. Did they take him into custody?”

“Not yet. They’re waiting for us.”

“Why?”

“If he’s the one, if he’s the Blue Train rapist, they want to make sure that they don’t jump their jurisdictional boundaries and pick up an American G.I. without proper cause. It could come back to haunt them. A technicality that could maybe provoke Eighth Army into asking for jurisdiction.”

“Which would piss off the Korean people?”

“Understandably enough. Two Korean women have been attacked, one of them murdered. They want the perp tried in a Korean court, not by an American court-martial.”

After the Korean War, for fourteen years, the Korean government had had no jurisdiction over American G.I. s. It didn’t matter if they’d robbed a Korean bank or stabbed the president of the country in broad daylight or wrenched the heart out of a statue of Confucius, the Korean legal system couldn’t touch them. The most they could do was have the Korean police take them into custody and then, as soon as possible, turn them over to the American MPs. Regardless of the crime-whether it was murder, theft, rape, or embezzlement-American G.I. s always received a trial presided over by a panel of American Army officers. Never by Koreans. This grated on the Korean sense of fairness. Finally, in 1967, the US-ROK Status of Forces Agreement was promulgated and Korean courts were allowed, under specified conditions, to assume jurisdiction over 8th Army soldiers accused of a crime. However, there were still loopholes in the agreement, and often, in the interest of intergovernmental cooperation, jurisdiction was turned over to the Americans. But in a high-profile case like the Blue Train rapist, you could bet that the Korean National Police didn’t want to take any chances of having a squabble over jurisdiction. They wanted Ernie and me to make the arrest and then, after the appropriate paperwork had been filled out, for 8th Army to turn jurisdiction over to them.

That’s why Weyworth was currently under surveillance and why Inspector Kill wanted us to hightail it back to Pusan.

“Where do we meet him?” Ernie asked.

“At the police station. From there, he’ll take us to Weyworth.”

We slowed in front of the last military checkpoint entering the city of Pusan. Ernie rolled down his window. The guard, a ROK Army sergeant holding an M-16 automatic rifle, barked at us and ordered us out of the vehicle.

“What the hell is this?” Ernie said. “We have our dispatch and, here it is, my identification.” Ernie waved his badge. The biting beams of flashlights played across the old sedan, blinding us, so I could barely make out the six or seven soldiers surrounding us in the dark night. The sergeant again barked something in Korean, pointing at the ground in front of him, clearly demanding that Ernie step out of the car.

“Get bent, Charley,” Ernie growled. “Here’s my dispatch. Here’s my badge. That’s all you need and that’s all you’re going to get.”

Ernie popped the idling sedan into drive. Immediately, a half dozen rifles were pointing directly at us.

“Easy, Ernie,” I said, raising my hands. “Let’s get out and see what this guy wants.”

“Screw him,” Ernie replied. But he reached forward and rammed the gearshift into park. He turned off the engine and placed both hands on the steering wheel. “What the hell is all this harassment about, anyway?”

“Probably just a routine check,” I said. “Just play along. We’ll be out of here in no time.”

I stepped out of the passenger side of the car, crossed in front of the headlights, and handed the sergeant the clipboard containing our emergency dispatch. Like most standard forms printed by 8th Army, it was in English with a translation in small-type hangul lettering beneath each line. The sergeant glanced at the paperwork, handed it back to me, and then motioned again-this time with his rifle-for Ernie to get out of the sedan.

“Bali!” he said. Quickly.

Ernie glared at the man, cursed, and spit out the window. Then slowly, arrogantly, he unfolded himself out of the car.

The sergeant barked another order and three soldiers rushed forward, turned Ernie around, frisked him, and then shoved him facedown against the roof of the vehicle. The sergeant stepped close to Ernie and ordered the three soldiers to step away. When Ernie stood away from the sedan, straightening himself and adjusting his coat, the sergeant murmured something beneath his breath:

“Keinom sikki,” the Korean version of son of a bitch.

Ernie swiveled, still holding his left arm high, and elbowed the sergeant across the face. Then Ernie raised his hands, grinning, as if he’d made a mistake. Nobody bought it. The sergeant shrieked and slammed the butt of his rifle into Ernie’s stomach. I leaped forward, grabbed the sergeant around the neck, pulling him back toward me, but by then the other soldiers had closed in. I felt the hard slam of rifle butts against my ribs; hands grabbed me and I was jerked away. Reeling backward, I lost my balance and fell. Then, faster than you could say keinom sikki again, the business end of what seemed like a dozen rifle barrels were pointed right at my face. In supplication, I showed my open hands.

Ernie was still on the ground, still struggling.

Ernie and I sat on wooden stools with our hands cuffed behind our backs.

“Fine mess you’ve gotten us into,” Ernie said.

“Me? You’re the one who elbowed the sergeant of the guard.”

“He had it coming.”

“Maybe. At least it felt good watching you do it.”

Ernie smirked.

For the half hour or so since we’d been sitting there, I’d been mulling over the incident. Why had that sergeant made us step out of the car, and why had he showed such animus toward Ernie? Usually the soldiers at the checkpoints are bored, grumpy, and grim, but I’d never encountered anything like this. This guy seemed to have it in for us. Personally. Outside, voices were raised in Korean. Arguing. Above the din, I recognized one of the voices. Inspector Kill.

The door slammed open.

His face was red; he was wearing a crumpled suit and his tie was loose, as if he’d been wearing the same clothes for days. Inspector Kill was outraged. He pointed at us, turned, and sputtered to the men behind him. I could pick up only part of what he said, but he was clearly incensed that we’d been arrested. The senior officer, an ROK major wearing dark-green fatigues, kept apologizing, half-bowing to Inspector Kill. Two soldiers rushed forward, passed keys between themselves, and unlocked our handcuffs. Ernie and I stood, rubbing our chafed wrists.

“Come,” Mr. Kill said roughly.

We didn’t need much encouragement. Following Kill, we paraded through the single-story cement-block building that was the ROK Army command post here north of the city of Pusan. A squad of uniformed KNPs waited for us out front. The door of a marked police car was opened. Ernie and I climbed in the back. Kill sat in the front passenger seat. Sirens blared, and in seconds we were speeding toward downtown Pusan.

“I am sorry,” Kill said in English. “There is much bad feeling in Pusan. About the Blue Train rapist. The military has been alerted and they know that the perpetrator is probably an American soldier. So in their minds, every soldier is a suspect.”

“You think that’s why we were arrested?”

“I’m sure of it. The sergeant who detained you told me himself that he had been carefully checking every foreigner he came across. And when he saw you two, out so late, it occurred to him that Ernie, Agent Bascom here, looked like a rapist.”

I glanced at Ernie. “He does, a little.”

Ernie flipped me a quick bird.

Inspector Kill shook his head. “Ignorant, to think that criminals can be spotted by their looks.”

“Will he be in much trouble?”

“Yes. For the embarrassment he’s brought to his superiors.”

“No harm done,” Ernie said, rubbing his back. “Except for a few bruises.”

That was Ernie. He held a grudge for exactly five seconds. I was a little less forgiving. My head still pounded with a splitting headache, and my nose had been bruised again, more red and tender than it had ever been. Still, I had a job to do, and that ROK Army sergeant would probably be scrubbing latrines for the next six months.

“What happened to our sedan?” I asked.

“We’ll have someone fetch it for you. ”

“Where are we going now?”

“To Weyworth,” Kill said. “For the moment, we have him surrounded.”

Curfew had just ended. In the darkness, an occasional three-wheeled vehicle purred in from the countryside, a canvas-covered load of turnips or cabbage or garlic balanced on the bed of the truck, heading for the produce market. A man in a gray smock pushed a trash cart into a dark alley. Ambitious cab drivers were parked at the entrances to dimly lit tourist hotels, sitting with their arms crossed and snoring in the front seat, dreaming desperately of a fat fare. Old women, their heads covered with scarves, whisked debris from the front of their homes, brandishing short straw brooms.

The Five Star Yoguan was a four-story brick edifice with a long neon sign bolted to its side. The name was written vertically in hangul script and at the bottom was a half-circle with three wriggly lines rising from it, the symbol for hot baths.

“He’s in room 307,” Kill said. “I have two men on the roof and four men stationed on the stairwell halfway up from the second floor.”

And another half dozen Korean National Policemen standing outside here with us. A drizzling mist from the ocean suffused the world with the odor of fish, a fleshy smell, reminding us that the sea was a living, breathing thing, an overpowering thing. We stood across the street from the yoguan, beneath a striped canvas awning in front of a small grocery store that was barred with an iron grating. Shivering.

“How’d you find him?” I asked.

“He registered under another name,” Kill replied. “But the local constables had been ordered to check every foreigner in every hotel or yoguan in the area. Once we located him, we put him under surveillance. Last night, a Korean woman with a small child came to visit him. The constable stopped her after she left and she admitted that the man inside was Weyworth.”

“The child was half-American?” I asked.

“Yes. A girl.”

Jeannie’s mother, I thought. Weyworth must’ve contacted her while he was in hiding.

“So we’re all here,” Ernie said. “Let’s kick the freaking door in and get this over with.”

Mr. Kill nodded. He barked commands to a couple of uniformed officers, and they scurried off around the edge of the building. We marched to the front of the yoguan. The double front doors were unlocked. Kill pushed through and we followed him into the darkness. Without taking off our shoes, we stepped up onto raised varnished flooring and then climbed a narrow stairwell, steps creaking angrily beneath us. Halfway up, we found four bored-looking uniformed cops. They straightened as Kill approached.

The hasp of a glassed-in case was broken. Inside, a neatly folded fire hose sat wedged between brackets and a sign above said Pisang Yong. Emergency use only. Other brackets sat empty.

“Where’s the extinguisher?” I asked.

Kill shrugged. The exterior of this building was made of brick, but the interior was all wood. Fire safety is a big issue in Korea, especially with these old ondol buildings being heated by flaming charcoal briquettes.

Kill whispered something to the four cops and we continued up to the third floor. Down a vinyl-covered hallway, we found room number 307. The door was small-Ernie and I would have to crouch to get through-and there was one pair of shoes out front.

Ernie knelt and examined the inner labels.

“PX,” he whispered to me. I nodded.

Kill raised his eyebrows and gestured toward the door, as if asking who wanted to go first. Ernie stepped in front of the door, braced himself, and then raised his foot and slammed it sole-first, with all his weight behind it, into the rickety wooden door. The door burst open. Like a cat, Kill darted into the room. Then me. Then Ernie.

The Republic of Korea, in the early seventies, did not have a drug problem. Marijuana, even hashish, was tolerated because the Koreans see those things as herbs, natural products of the earth, and not drugs. Besides, the hardworking and ambitious Korean populace wasn’t interested in marijuana and hashish. The little that was grown in-country was almost exclusively sold outside military compounds to American G.I. s. Heroin, opium, cocaine-all the harder drugs-were absolutely prohibited by the Korean government. The penalty for trafficking in them was death; a penalty that, more than once, had been enforced. As such, no one but the extremely foolhardy ever tried to move any hard stuff into the Republic of Korea.

For Ernie, this was good. Like many G.I. s who’d served a tour in Vietnam, he’d developed a drug habit. And after two tours, the habit had become an addiction. Being assigned to Korea, however, had saved him from that habit. Heroin wasn’t available. Even if it had been, Ernie was heroically fighting off the urge to use the stuff, replacing it with a drug that was not only approved, but even encouraged, by the honchos of the 8th United States Army: alcohol. In the Class VI store on compound, a quart of Gilbey’s gin could be purchased for ninety-nine cents, Johnnie Walker Red for less than four dollars. Regular-priced drinks in the NCO Club used to be fifteen cents for a can of beer, twenty-five cents for a highball. Both prices had recently been raised to thirty-five cents, causing an uproar among people like Staff Sergeant Riley and other aficionados of the distilled and brewed arts. At happy hour, however, which was held daily, the price of either a beer or a shot of liquor dropped to a dime. With these kind of prices, who could afford not to drink? Certainly not me, and certainly not Ernie. As long as I’d known him, Ernie had been completely over his heroin habit. Or at least that’s how it had seemed until we burst into room 307 and found Specialist Four Nicholas Q. Weyworth spread-eagled on his sleeping mat on the warm ondol floor of the Five Star Yoguan.

Ernie sniffed the air. Later, he told me he could smell it.

Mr. Kill checked Weyworth’s neck. Still a pulse. Still breathing.

Near Weyworth’s sleeping mat, a red cylinder lay on the floor. Weyworth moaned. He seemed to be coming to. At least we wouldn’t have to carry him out. I knelt to examine the cylinder, already knowing what it was: the fire extinguisher. Apparently, as stoned as Weyworth had been, he still maintained the presence of mind to want a fire extinguisher nearby. I was about to raise myself back to my feet when Ernie shouted.

“Drop!”

I did. Letting myself go completely, I collapsed facedown onto the floor. Behind me Weyworth wrestled with blankets, and just inches above my head something heavy whooshed through the air. With a jarring thud, it smashed into wood. Ernie and Kill leaped on Weyworth. He screamed. They struggled. I looked up and saw an ax, a short-handled firefighting ax, wedged into the wall just inches above where my head would’ve been. An ax that we later found fit perfectly into the empty brackets in the fire-extinguisher case. Savagely, Ernie punched Weyworth one, two, then three times. He lay still.

I rose to my feet, straightening myself out.

After Weyworth had been taken away, the Korean National Police inspector found recently used drug paraphernalia. The KNP lab confirmed that traces of Weyworth’s blood were on the needle and smudges of the illicit drug were in the syringe. Specialist Four Nicholas Q. Weyworth-whatever else he had done or not done-was now, formally, toast.

Kill handled the interrogation. Ernie and I spent most of the day watching through a two-way mirror. A listless Weyworth admitted moving contraband for the Greek sailors, items highly prized in the world of Chinese medicine-antler horn from Siberian caribou, powder from the tusk of the African rhinoceros, and paws from the carcasses of the Asian tree bear-all items long since banned from use as legitimate herbal remedies.

Kill patiently unraveled the facts. The Greek sailors smuggled the items into the Port of Pusan. Weyworth, as an American G.I., was valuable to them because he could travel throughout the country without attracting suspicion. Also, the Greek sailors seldom had time to leave their ships. Weyworth’s job was to transport the goods north to Seoul and deliver them to dealers there, who would in turn provide them to local Chinese herbalists. Weyworth brought the payment back and turned it over to the sailors. In addition to a share of the money, Weyworth accepted heroin as part of his wages. This was convenient for the Greek sailors because they visited ports where heroin was plentiful and cheap. A good deal all around. Everyone profited. Except for the endangered animals-and the sick people who bought this stuff thinking it would actually cure them.

By mid-afternoon, Weyworth was sober enough to stand in a lineup. Once he did, the woman who’d sold the purse to the Blue Train rapist and the cab driver who’d driven the rapist to the Shindae Tourist Hotel were brought in. Independently, they both confirmed what we’d already surmised: Specialist Four Nicholas Q. Weyworth was not the Blue Train rapist. Rape and heroin addiction are two vices that don’t usually go together.

Ernie blew out his breath. “So, who else we got?”

I crossed my arms and leaned back as best I could on the straight-backed wooden chair. “Pruchert,” I said.

“Pruchert?” Ernie asked. “He spent the last few days meditating in that cave.”

“With who?”

“Huh?”

“With who? Who else was in that cave to keep an eye on him?”

Ernie thought about it. “Okay. So maybe he slipped out.”

“Yeah. And maybe he walked down that mountain to that little village we saw down there, the one with that joint called the Chonhuang Teahouse.”

“He could have,” Ernie said cautiously.

“And from there, he could’ve caught a cab.”

“A cab to where?”

“East Taegu or Pusan. A place where he could catch the Blue Train.”

Ernie thought about it. “Awfully expensive.”

“A cave’s a good place to conserve your pay.”

“And Pruchert’s head was scratched,” Ernie added. “A wicked slice.”

“That it was.”

“I figured when I saw it that it was from shaving his head.”

“Could be. But we don’t know exactly when he shaved his head.”

Ernie thought about that too. “Was the rapist wearing a hat?

“Not that anybody’s testified. But everyone has said that his hair was short, dark, giving the impression of being curly.”

“A tight cap,” Ernie said. “If they weren’t paying attention, it might’ve seemed like short hair when they looked back on it.”

“Maybe.”

“So maybe we should talk to him again.”

“Maybe we should.”

Our sedan had been retrieved by Inspector Kill’s minions. It was mid-morning now and Ernie and I were both completely exhausted. We told Inspector Kill that we were going to Hialeah Compound to gas up the sedan and maybe catch some shut-eye. Later, we’d interrogate another G.I. whom we had questions about.

“Between the first attack and the second,” Kill told us, “the rapist waited less than a week. If he continues this pattern, we have two or three days to catch him, at the most.”

We nodded. Rest didn’t seem so important when he put it that way.

At the front gate of Hialeah Compound, a bored-looking MP opened the chain-link fence, rolling it back on its iron wheels. Before waving us through, he approached us.

“You Sueno? The CID guy?”

“Yeah.”

“Norris wants to talk to you.”

“Who?”

“Sergeant Norris. He’s at the MP station. Says its important.”

First, we topped off at the fuel point. Military training: always be ready to embark if an alert is called. Once the tank was full of mo-gas, we returned to the MP station. I found Norris in the briefing room, waiting to start his shift.

“Remember that merchant marine?” he said. “The one who was asking about you? The one who wanted to talk to you?”

“I remember,” I said.

“I was down at the Port of Pusan earlier today and I checked. His ship is due in tonight. About two in the morning.”

“You think he’s on it?”

Norris shrugged. “Don’t know. These guys move around a lot.”

Still, he gave me the name of the sailor and the name of the ship. He was called Arkadus. The ship was the Star of Tirana.

Before I walked out, Norris said, “Watch yourself with these guys.”

“Why?” I asked, turning. “Because they all carry knives?”

“Not just that. They play mind games. Like in chess. They always seem to be a few moves ahead of you.”

“I’ve played a little chess myself.”

“Maybe. But they play for keeps, these guys. It’s all they have in life. The hustle. They either hustle or die. And if you try to stop them, you’d better get them before they get you.”

I touched my forehead in a mock salute. Then I turned and walked out the door.

After some chow and some rest, Ernie and I made our way north. By the time we arrived at the Dochung Temple, it was already mid-afternoon. The monks were surprised to see us. The one who could speak English stepped in front of his brethren, a puzzled look on his face.

“Is Pruchert still in his cave?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“We have to talk to him.”

“It is very bad to disturb him during meditation. And twice in two days.” The monk shook his head sadly.

“Show us. Please. It is very important.”

The monk stared at us for a while and finally turned and strolled across the courtyard. We followed. At the side of the temple, the monk picked up an old-fashioned lantern made of green metal that I thought might be brass. He lit the wick, and when the light began to shine, he turned to Ernie and me and said, “Come.”

Shadows crept up the sides of the mountain. When we passed near steep cliffs, I understood why the monk had brought the lantern. In some of these crevasses, it was already night. The pathway was narrow and well trod, and many of the rocks had been splashed with black-ink Chinese characters. I could read a few of them. They referred to “the path” and “eternal” and “the Buddha,” although I couldn’t read enough of them to decipher any complete sentences. The path continued to rise steeply, so steeply that we had to steady ourselves using the handholds that someone had thoughtfully provided. The monk moved quickly, like a mountain goat, but I soon realized that he was placing his feet in well-worn steps that he’d unconsciously memorized. Ernie and I started mimicking his every move, and our speed increased. We reached a plateau where dozens of small cave entrances were arrayed before us. Incense floated out of many of them, and in a few the dim glow of charcoal fires could be seen, sometimes illuminating a golden figurine. The monk found another path and continued up the side of the mountain. Here the trail branched off through thick brush in dozens of tributaries. Each one, apparently, had a cave, or a few caves, at the end. I wondered how the monk kept all this straight; but just as I was about to ask him, he stopped on a narrow rock shelf and pointed.

“In there,” he said.

It was a four-foot-high opening that was just wide enough for a man to crawl through. The monk handed me the lantern and said, “Go.” Then he swiveled on his leather sandals and quickly trotted back down the trail.

Ernie stepped forward and peered into the cave. “Nothing,” he said. It was completely dark in there.

I stood next to him and breathed deeply. “No smell of incense.”

“Maybe he ran out,” Ernie said.

“After a few days, I suppose so.”

“Must be cold as hell at night.”

“I suppose so.”

We stood in front of the cave. Stalling. Without admitting it to one another, we were both hoping that Pruchert would hear us and come out of the cave on his own. When he didn’t, I looked around. The sun was going down quickly now and Chonhuang Mountain would soon be in total darkness.

“I’ll go in first,” I said.

“No,” Ernie replied. “I’ll go in first. You hold the lantern and stay right behind me.”

“Okay.

He crouched and entered the darkness.