Slicky Boys

11

“Lookslike a Marx Brothers movie,” Ernie said.

“Yeah. Doors slamming, people running in and out. All they need is a bottle of seltzer.”

“And a horn.”

Ernie and I stood on a hill in Itaewon, hidden behind a dragon-engraved portal varnished in shiny red lacquer.

Six Korean deliverymen pulled wooden crates off the back of a truck, dragged them into a small courtyard, pried them open with a crowbar, and reached in and yanked out the contents.

The customers, a GI and his Korean wife, looked worried. She stood on tiptoes and whispered something in her husband’s ear. The GI nodded and stepped toward the Korean man in the blue cap, the head honcho of the delivery team. The GI cleared his throat and spoke.

“Ajjosi,” he said. Uncle. “Slow down. We need to check each item off the inventory as you open the packages.”

The honcho stopped barking orders at the other workmen and looked at the young GI, a sneer quivering on his lip.

“You no trust us?”

The GI lowered his head and stuck his hands deeper into his pockets.

“Sure, I trust you. It’s just that with everybody opening crates and grabbing everything, I can’t keep track of all the household items.”

The elder man waved his hand and turned back to his workers. “After we finish, you cheeky cheeky everything. Now we no have time.”

The GI glanced around, concerned by the swirling madness of packaging being ripped apart and men running in and out of the front gate with lamps and radios and irons and clothes and nobody seeming to be in charge.

The wife was too good a Confucian to argue with the older deliveryman. She’d already lost enough face just by being married to an American.

Her GI husband seemed on the verge of losing his temper but he swallowed it, figuring, I suppose, that it would just make things worse.

We gazed down on the commotion of the baggage delivery. The snow was holding off but the sky over southern Seoul was gray and brooding.

During the ride back from Camp Market, Ernie and I had decided to hit the slicky boys again on another of their operations. Keep peppering them with jabs. Become a bother. Until they could no longer ignore us.

The GI down below was married so he’d been approved for quarters off-post, and he’d rented this little hooch in Itaewon. The deliverymen were from the 8th Army Transportation Office and it was their job to deliver the GI’s hold baggage, personal effects above and beyond what he could carry on the airplane coming over.

The way things should’ve been done is the delivery-men should hand him the inventory and he’d tick off the items one by one, making sure they’re properly accounted for. But by unwrapping everything at once and having some men carry items in and others carry torn packaging back out, and not giving the GI a chance to check all items against the inventory, they were ripping him off.

The CID office had received complaints about this type of thing, but since it didn’t happen to officers-the slicky boys were smarter than that-the head shed just figured the young troopers were being hysterical. Or maybe they were trying to pull a fast one. After all, once GI’s submitted a claim to the Transportation Office for missing items, they’d be reimbursed, at depreciated value, for everything they lost.

And the expense was budgeted for. Thanks to the largess of the American taxpayer.

“Check it out.” Ernie pointed at the flatbed truck in front of the hooch.

At first glance, there didn’t seem much place to hide anything. Just two seats in front with only a roll bar on top, no cab, and a flat wood-plank truck bed in back. But as Ernie pointed, one of the workmen lifted the front seat, revealing a space probably designed as a tool storage chest. The worker quickly stashed something inside.

“Toaster,” Ernie said.

“They already got the blender and the iron and the coffeemaker, right?”

“Check.”

“Not a big haul.”

Ernie reached in his pocket and pulled out a stick of ginseng gum. He didn’t offer any to me because he knew I couldn’t stand the stuff. Tasted like burnt tree roots. Ernie liked it because it kept his metabolic rate high. Why he needed his metabolic rate any higher than it already was, I couldn’t figure.

“Maybe it’s not a big haul,” Ernie said, “but you pull ten or twelve of these deliveries a day, every day, five days a week. A little here. A little there. Pretty soon you have a fat pile of long green.”

“And the GI’s don’t complain because they get their money back from the government?”

“You got it. And they can buy new stuff in the PX.”

“So we’re going to put a stop to it?”

Ernie grinned. “Maybe not all of it. But this one.”

The head honcho deliveryman supervised the last of the splintered crates and wrapping paper being returned to the truck. Brandishing a clipboard, he handed the GI a pen and pointed to the bottom of the inventory.

“You sign.”

“But I don’t know if \ received everything.”

“You think we slicky from you?”

“No. It’s just that I don’t want to sign until I’ve checked everything.”

The honcho pointed to the truck. “We have six more delivery today. Many more GI wait. We no have time check everything.”

The Korean wife stepped forward and grabbed her husband’s elbow, the smooth skin of her face starting to crinkle.

The GI still hadn’t signed. The honcho pulled out another sheaf of papers and handed them to the wife. He explained in Korean.

“If anything’s missing, you fill this out, take to Eighth Army, they will give you all your money back. You cannot lose. Now tell him to hurry because we are busy.”

The wife accepted the papers from the honcho, bowing slightly, grasping them with both hands. She turned to her husband.

“You sign. Bali ball” Hurry.

The GI signed.

The honcho grabbed the clipboard, ripped off a copy of the inventory, thrust it at the GI, and hurried out to his truck.

Ernie elbowed me. “As soon as they fire up the engine and roll forward, we take them.”

That would be proof of intent to abscond with the pilfered goods.

Ernie trotted down the hill. I stayed on the other side of the narrow road, keeping my eyes open.

As the truck driver started the engine and rolled forward, Ernie hopped up on the running board, holding up his badge.

“CID. You’re under arrest. Pull over now!”

The slicky boys must all have attended the same training session. They knew that with American rules of evidence, if you escape, and you destroy the tangible proof of your crime, it is much harder to convict you. The driver here made the same move the driver at Camp Market had.

He stepped on the gas.

This time, though, Ernie was already aboard the truck.

I ran after them, shouting. “Chong ji!” Halt.

They didn’t listen.

The truck careened down the hill. The red brake lights sparkled to life at the bottom of the incline, but only for an instant. The driver jammed the gears and plowed forward, into the heavy afternoon traffic.

Ernie was still holding on. I couldn’t be sure but it looked as if he were trying to claw his way over the driver.

When I hit the bottom of the hill, I could still see the truck. The traffic was heavy, as usual on an afternoon in Seoul. Our jeep was parked two blocks away. Too far away to be of any help now. I kept running after the truck, pushing through the crowds.

Ernie punched the blue-capped honcho. The driver was trying to help his boss but couldn’t do much because he had to keep his eyes on the swirling flow of traffic. The guys squatting in the back seemed confused at first. Then they started to move forward. One of them clutched a short crowbar.

Shit! Even if they didn’t get the best of Ernie, one false move and someone could fall off the truck and be crushed beneath the wheels of the oncoming herd of kimchi cabs.

I wished I had a pistol. Korea is a country with complete gun control. Only the police and the military are allowed to possess weapons. Seldom do we carry arms on a case. Busting a guy for stealing a toaster didn’t seem to require heavy armament, but after dealing with these slicky boys for half a day, I was starting to reconsider.

The traffic ahead opened up and the truck zoomed forward. By now, Ernie had rolled the honcho out of the way and had managed to lift up the front seat. The truck was bouncing wildly, and by cursing and threatening and using the vinyl-covered seat as a shield, Ernie somehow kept the irate deliverymen at bay.

He raised a stainless steel toaster aloft in the air. Suddenly, he tossed it forward and the deliverymen flinched. The toaster bounced once on the back of the cab and caromed off into the cars behind. It hit a bumper and bounced back, hit another and started being kicked around like a soccer ball.

Undaunted, the guy with the crowbar moved forward but Ernie flung the blender at him. It hit his shoulder, flew off into the traffic, and the crowbar clattered after it.

After that, Ernie unleashed his entire arsenal: the iron, a radio, a makeup mirror, the coffeepot. All the appliances crashed into the pavement and were smashed to smithereens.

Cab drivers slammed on their brakes, tires squealed, men cursed.

Up ahead the traffic bunched up and the truck slowed.

Ernie leapt off the truck running, stumbled, hit the pavement with his shoulder and rolled, and finally came to a halt.

I plowed through the pedestrian traffic, knocking people over, ignoring their curses. Ranting, I finally reached him.

“You crazy son of a bitch!” I shouted.

Ernie ignored me and glanced back at the escaping truck. The driver gunned the engine and pulled quickly away. The men in the back growled and slammed their fists into open palms. Ernie watched them fade into the distance.

“Fuck you too,” he said softly.

I knelt down. “Are you out of your gourd? Jumping on a moving truck like that?”

He fingered his head. “No. My gourd’s still here.”

“And your shoulder?”

He rotated it. “No problem.”

“Hey,” I said. “No arrest is worth that much risk.”

“They didn’t get their damn toaster, did they?”

He swiveled toward the road. A half dozen cab drivers had pulled over and were examining the damage to their headlights and grillwork. One of them picked up the dented iron, chattered away to his comrades, and pointed at us.

“Time to fade into the alleys,” Ernie said.

“Yes,” I said, helping him up. “Let’s do that.”