Ping-Pong Heart

– 12-

Mama-san started screeching about the broken glassware. Torrelli backed up, wide-eyed now, wondering what the hell he’d gotten into.

Maybe it was the pressure of the Schultz investigation, or maybe it was the humiliation we suffered when we’d taken Miss Jo into custody and then lost her. Whatever the reason, Ernie’d just about reached the end of his rope. He stepped around the tilted table and over flooding beer and started for Torrelli. I jumped up from my chair and reached for Ernie, grabbed him by the shoulders and held him back. The guys at the bar were up now, all of them gathered around Torrelli.

The Yobo Club mama-san had handled incidents like this before. “Whatsamatta you?” she screamed at Ernie. “You breakey all glass.” Turning to Torrelli she said, “Why you bother mama-san? We talk about something important! We talk about Miss Jo.” Torrelli looked stricken. “You know now,” the mama-san said, wagging her forefinger in Torrelli’s face. “Your old yobo.”

“Is she all right?” Torrelli asked.

“Maybe all right. Maybe no.” The mama-san pointed to the bar. “You sit down, mind own business.”

“Okay, Mama,” Torrelli said, chastened now. Grumbling, he and the other GIs returned to the bar. I helped the mama-san set the table back upright. The first girl we’d encountered hustled out from the behind the bar with a damp cloth and a dustpan, and soon everything was mostly dry, the broken shards were collected and the Yobo Club was once again shipshape.

We were pretty much done here. The mama-san had no more useful information for us, but we ordered another round of beer simply to save face. We didn’t want to run off too soon. Still, Torrelli kept glaring at us. Ernie glared back.

Finally, Torrelli came over again. “I just want to show you something.”

I nodded. He reached into the breast pocket of his fatigue shirt and pulled out a folded envelope wrapped in a thick rubber band. He unwrapped the package and pulled out a short stack of Polaroid snapshots. Leaning over mama-san’s shoulder, he spread them on the table.

“That’s her,” he said. “And me. I took them last summer.”

“I go now,” the mama-san said and rose abruptly and left.

I studied the photos. They were mostly of Miss Jo. She had a different look then. Shorter hair, heavily permed; more makeup, making her look older and more severe. In the photos of her inside the Yobo Club, she crossed her shapely legs and smoked a lot. But there were other photos of Torrelli and his buddies having a barbecue, probably on base. Miss Jo and a few other Korean women were there, dressed more demurely for an outdoor outing. Torrelli was proudest of the photos he had taken by the shores of Namyang Bay. Miss Jo wore a two-piece bathing suit and looked like a knockout, although she spent most of her time in the water, trying to avoid Torrelli’s omnipresent camera lens.

“Have a seat, Torrelli,” I said.

He sat. Looking sheepish, he said, “Sorry for interrupting you guys earlier.”

“That’s okay,” I replied.

Ernie sipped on his beer.

Nervous, Torrelli said, “Do you know where she is?”

“No,” I replied. “Not too long ago she was in Itaewon, but now she’s gone. We were hoping someone down here could tell us how to locate her.”

Torrelli shook his head sadly. “I wish I could.”

“She didn’t say goodbye?” I asked.

“Not a word.”

Ernie sneered and gurgled some beer between his teeth. Torrelli glanced at him, but I brought the conversation back to the subject at hand.

“Have you ever gone to Seoul to look for her?”

“No. She used to talk about it all the time, the big city and all that. But I’ve never really spent time there, and I wouldn’t know where to start looking.”

“What would you do if you found her?” Ernie asked.

Torrelli studied Ernie for a moment; deciding, I believe, whether or not to take offense.

“I don’t know,” he answered. Then he lowered his head. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t go looking for her.”

“How long did you steady her?” I asked.

“Almost six months.”

That was six months of paying her rent and providing her a stipend upon which to live. Many GIs did this. The advantage was that it was safer, from a disease standpoint, to stick with one woman. Also, much of the expense could be defrayed by simply spending all your PX ration on easily black-marketed items and bringing them out to your yobo. The problem was feelings. GIs often fell in love, sometimes to the point of matrimony.

“Six months,” I said. “Unless you extended your tour, it was too late to put in the marriage paperwork.”

“Yeah,” Torrelli replied.

A GI’s tour in Korea is one year. If you decide to put in the paperwork to get permission to marry a Korean woman, it takes anywhere from nine to ten months. Both the 8th United States Army and the Korean government have to sign off on it. To keep the number of marriages down, the paperwork is purposely cumbersome and very slow.

“Have you put in an extension?” I asked.

Torrelli nodded. “Yeah.”

So he had another year in country. Enough time to find her and put in the marriage paperwork. Also enough time to do something else, like maybe track her down and beat the crap out of her.

“When were you last in Seoul?” Ernie asked.

“I told you. I’ve never been there. Only during in-processing.”

“If you hear from her,” I said, “or find out she’s contacted anybody, give me a call.” I slipped him one of my cards.

Torrelli studied it. “Eighth Army CID,” he said.

I was hoping Ernie wouldn’t say, “Hey, he can read.” Luckily, he didn’t.

“Is she in trouble?” Torrelli asked.

“I’m afraid she is.”

“For what?”

“Some people think she murdered someone.”

“Murder?” he said. “She wouldn’t do that.”

“I don’t think so either. But unless we talk to her, I won’t be able to get her off the hook.”

Torrelli policed up the photographs like a stack of cards, rewrapped them, and stuck them carefully back in his pocket. He slid my card in there, too.

“There’s no way she could murder somebody,” he said. And with that he rose and stalked back to the bar. His buddies were talking but mostly ignoring him. Even though he stood amongst them, he was the odd man out.

“Talk about carrying a torch,” Ernie said.

“Do you think he’d commit murder for her?” I asked.

“I think he’d do anything for her.”

We were back in the jeep, speeding on country roads toward Pyongtaek. The sun lowered in a reddish light, casting long shadows. I was driving because Ernie had somehow jammed his finger when he’d flipped over the cocktail table at the Yobo Club. Amidst straw-thatched homes, a pack of small boys played on the edge of the road. I slowed. Suddenly a ball rolled toward the center white line and a small figure darted after it. Without thinking, I slammed on the brakes.

The jeep’s front bumper came to a halt just inches from the boy.

Ernie let out a breath.

“Good stop,” he said.

The boy hardly noticed us. He retrieved his ball and returned to his comrades. I watched him for a long while, until I knew he was safe. Then I restarted the engine and we proceeded on our way.

Ten minutes later, we passed the city limits of Pyongtaek and approached the on-ramp to the Seoul-Pusan expressway. Seoul, north of us, was the way I was supposed to go. Ernie glanced at me.

“I know what you want to do,” he said. “And why you didn’t want to stay in Anjong-ri. I have you all figured out, Sueno.”

My hands tightened on the oversized steering wheel.

“If you feel it,” Ernie said, “do it.”

At the last second, I jerked the jeep to the right and sped up the ramp with a sign in both Korean and English: south, busan. Busan was the new, government-approved English spelling for the ancient port city of Pusan.

Ernie leaned back in his seat, preparing for a long ride. “You really think you can find her?”

“Probably not,” I answered.

He leaned on his right shoulder, favoring his jammed finger. “At least you’re not delusional,” he said.