Ping-Pong Heart

– 25-

At the yellow sign in front of the river embankment, Ernie turned left. By then I’d briefed him.

“She says it didn’t matter,” he said. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m not sure.”

Ernie veered left, taking the sharp turn with more authority now that he knew what to expect.

“It doesn’t sound good,” he said.

“No. Did you bring a gun?” I asked.

“I should’ve. You’re always the one talking me out of it.”

“They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”

“I bet you wouldn’t mind one now.”

I shrugged.

“The whole case against Arenas is phony,” Ernie said. “He ought to be released from Leavenworth.”

“This information won’t do much good though, if she doesn’t recant her previous testimony.”

Ernie shifted into low gear and churned up the slippery road. His high beams flashed on dark branches.

“All we need is her statement,” I continued. “As soon as we find a pay phone, I’ll call Mr. Kill. He’ll be able to take her into custody and convince her to write one.”

Ernie thought about it for a while. “Why was it so easy?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, this gal Miss Lee must’ve been threatened and been placed under tremendous pressure when she testified against Arenas. Why would she suddenly tell us the truth?”

“I don’t know.”

“And why’d that rich guy, whatever his name is, drive her all the way out here to have her switch jobs? Why tonight? Just because we showed up?”

“What other reason would they have? She was about to start a shift at the Cherry Girl Club, but when she saw us she ran to Nam, and then he made a phone call and drove her out here.”

“And she said that it didn’t matter if she told us the truth.”

“That’s what she said,” I replied.

Ernie thought about this for a while. He swerved around a dark corner, too fast, I thought, but I knew what he was relying on. If another vehicle was on the road, he’d see the flash of their headlights long before he saw the vehicle itself.

I thought about it, too. Miss Lee had claimed that it wasn’t Arenas who’d contacted the North Koreans, but Captain Blood. What sort of double-agent game was being played? Were Ernie and I stumbling into something that could foil a long-planned sting operation? I didn’t know-we didn’t have clearance for anything pertaining to counterintelligence. What I did know was that the more I learned about the agents of the 501st MI, the more I thought it plausible that they were covering up something much bigger than an inflated budget. They had fabricated evidence that had resulted in more than one innocent man’s court-martial and conviction, and if Miss Lee could be believed, Captain Blood was on the take from North Korea. This was one hell of a motive to murder the man who was about to expose them, Major Frederick Manfield Schultz.

Ernie screamed.

Out of the narrow road in front of us, a boulder emerged from the darkness, but it didn’t keep to its lane. Instead it veered to our right, rolling directly into our path. Ernie slammed on the brakes, but the boulder kept coming. What most drivers would’ve done was plow over into the safety of the ditch on the right, but Ernie Bascom wasn’t most drivers. Instead he veered to the left, across the boulder’s path. It was then that I realized that it wasn’t a boulder, but a truck. A truck with its headlights off. Whoever was driving adjusted to Ernie’s surprise maneuver. Before we could veer into the safety of the far left lane, the truck turned back toward us. We were on a collision course. We’d be clipped by the front bumper of the truck right where I sat, in the passenger seat.

Unexpectedly, Ernie stepped on the gas. His little jeep was kept finely tuned by the mechanics at the 21 T Car motor pool, all of whom received a cut of the money realized from the quart bottle of Johnny Walker Black that Ernie paid to the Head Dispatcher each month. The jeep leapt forward. The bumper of the truck headed straight for me, but because of our sudden increase in speed, it missed the front and slammed into the rear.

The impact jolted me out of my seat, and I was overcome by the sensation of flying through darkness. A sensation that was abruptly replaced by a jarring slam, maybe into a tree trunk. Briefly, I experienced pain-plenty of it-and then, mercifully, oblivion.

The first thing I realized was what Miss Lee Suk-myong had meant when she’d said it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what she told me because she and her boyfriend didn’t expect me to live through the night. All they wanted me to do was leave the kisaeng house and get back on the road, where my hash would certainly be settled.

But because of Ernie’s expert driving, I was still alive, or at least I hoped I was.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been unconscious but I tried to raise myself, conducting inventory as I did so of my arms, legs, and the other appendages that are so important to a young man. All still apparently intact. What else did I need? Maybe a head that didn’t feel like it was being crushed by King Kong’s foot.

I rose to my feet. Somewhere I heard groans. I pushed myself away from the adjacent tree and turned. It had suffered a large gash from the impact of the front fender of Ernie’s jeep. The roadway loomed a few feet above me, and on the far side a small fire glowed.

The jeep? I looked around before spotting it upright in a shallow ditch just yards away. Unsteadily, I pushed myself from tree to tree until I reached it. Ernie was still in the driver’s seat, his head slumped forward. The dim glow from the distant fire shone on his face, and it appeared that his nose was bleeding. The back of the jeep on the passenger side had been caved in by the truck. But after being hit, the jeep slid sideways down the incline and landed against another tree. The trunk stood indented into the chassis right behind Ernie’s head. I hobbled around to his side, reached in, and pulled Ernie upright. His eyes popped open.

“What the . . .” he said.

“Don’t talk now.”

I felt his arms. They didn’t appear broken, and his legs seemed all right, too. But because of the odd angle at which he sat, his feet were twisted to the side. I pinched his nose and tilted his head back. Blood ran down over his lips and into his mouth. Oddly, his round-lensed glasses were still in place.

I slapped him.

“Huh?”

If I’d had smelling salts, I’m sure I could’ve brought him fully awake. I didn’t, so I made do and slapped him again.

“Knock it off!” he said.

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

“I am now.” He rubbed his cheek where I’d slapped him.

“Can you climb out?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He flexed his arms and fingers, then moved his legs. “Everything seems to be working.”

“I’ll carry you.”

I kept one hand under his left armpit, and with the other I held onto the edge of the jeep. He lifted himself gingerly and climbed out. Once on solid ground, we continued to cling to tree trunks and branches and, like two old men using walking staffs, we made our way uphill to the road.

On the far side, a military vehicle had plunged into the ditch. We walked unsteadily across pavement and peered down.

“A three-quarter-ton,” Ernie said.

I squatted down and read the white stenciling on the rear bumper. “Headquarters Company,” I said. “Five Oh First MI.”

“For Christ sake,” Ernie said. “These boys play rough.”

The engine still rumbled, low and threatening. Quickly, we dropped down the incline to salvage what life we could.

At the first farmhouse we reached, I banged on the wood plank door, but the farmer who peered out told me there was no telephone in the village. He pointed down the road. When I asked him how far, he said three kilometers.

I trudged back to the pavement, where Ernie sat hunched over.

“Oh, great,” he said when I told him the news. He glanced around at the surrounding darkness. The only things that moved were the clouds drifting in front of the half-moon above. “Must be past curfew,” Ernie said. Then he thought to check his wristwatch. Broken. He slipped it off and tossed it away.

During daylight hours, dozens of ROK Army and US military vehicles traveled back and forth between the Eastern and the Western Corridors. It would’ve been easy to catch a ride, or even use one of their field radios to contact the local MPs.

“The driver was alive,” I said.

“He won’t be much longer,” Ernie replied, “if we don’t get an ambulance out there.”

We’d stopped the bleeding, cleared his air passage and did everything the Army First Aid Field Manual told us to do. We’d even treated him for shock by elevating his feet, loosening his belt and wrapping him in a tent-half of canvas-one half of a full pup tent-we found in the bed of the truck. But that had been all we could do, so we left to find help. He probably had internal injuries. Although we couldn’t see much in the dark, he seemed to be turning sheet-white.

As if Ernie had conjured up a guardian angel, headlights appeared in the distance. We both stood in the middle of the road, waving our arms. We were blinded by the high beams but held our ground. When the vehicle stopped, two armed soldiers hopped out. As they approached, I could see that they were ROK Army-their helmets were stenciled with the word honbyong, Military Police.

I told them what had happened. They radioed for an ambulance and told us to climb in. We didn’t fit very well. At the turnoff from the main road we had them stop, and they left one of their MPs at the roadway to guide the ambulance in. The rest of us bounced down the narrow road. When we reached the wreck, the driver was still breathing. For the first time since the accident, I finally had the presence of mind to take a closer look at his face. His nametag confirmed it-Fenton, Specialist Four. The same guy who’d threatened Miss Kim.