Slicky Boys

12

We checked the KNP liaison office on compound and had them contact Lieutenant Pak at the Namdaemun Precinct. The homicide investigation downtown had stalled. All leads resulted in nothing so far and they were beginning to discount any thought that the murder of Lance Corporal Cecil Whitcomb might have been a mugging gone wrong.

“They’re counting on you,” the Liaison Officer told us sourly.

Although it was still midafternoon, we purposely avoided the CID office and slid on back to the barracks. In my room, my soiled blue jeans still lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, and they still reeked of field manure.

I sighed and picked them up and carried them down to the latrine. Using hand soap, I washed them as best I could. After wringing them out, I returned to my room and dried them on the radiator.

“The guy wants money,” Ernie said.

“How much?” I asked.

“Twenty thousand won.” About forty dollars. “Just enough to cover his expenses while he sneaks out of town. He’s quitting anyway.”

“Can we trust him?”

“Shit, I don’t know. But it’s the best lead we have so far. A contract security guard. Pissed at the slicky boys. It’s our shot at catching one of them in the flesh.”

We were in my room. Ernie had stopped by and I sat on my bunk in my skivvies. We were both watching my blue jeans dry on the clanging radiator.

Ernie’s houseboy had gone on strike against him, too. The word was out, apparently promulgated by the slicky boys. No Korean workers on-compound were to help Ernie or me in any way. A not very subtle message: Leave us alone!

I had never realized how far the influence of the slicky boys reached, but we were starting to find out.

A trickle of smoke slithered its way into my nose.

“Shit! The jeans!”

I turned them over. They were singed by the radiator, Little black lines across the butt.

“Don’t sweat it,” Ernie said. “Nobody looks at your butt anyway.”

“Only your girlfriends.”

“Hey!”

“Okay,” I said. “Do you think we can write the twenty thousand won off our expense account?”

“Maybe Riley can find a way.”

“Yeah. He’s a genius at that sort of thing. What time is the meeting set up for?”

“Zero one hundred tonight. We pay the guy the money and he leads us to the slicky boy.”

“How does he know the slicky boy is going to strike tonight?”

“It’s set up. The medic who provides the medicine works on a rotating shift. He’s on duty tonight. He steals the shit out of the one-two-one Evac Hospital, leaves it at a prearranged place, the slicky boy climbs the fence and retrieves it, then climbs back out and turns it over to his fence. Sweet deal.”

“And this security guard is supposed to make sure that he’s looking the other way?”

“Right. They pay him later. But lately he figures he’s been getting stiffed.”

“Why?”

“Because the shit they’re bringing out is high-grade American primo pharmaceuticals. Products from all the big companies. Antibiotics that they don’t even make in Korea because the diseases just recently arrived. Germs carried in on jet planes by tourists with hard-ons and too much money to spend. People need the medicine in the ville. But after customs duties are paid, it’s just too expensive. And most of the time it’s not even available anyway.”

I whistled. “High profit margin.”

“You got that right. When a rich guy’s caught a case of the creeping crud, he’s willing to pay through the nose for the right kind of medicine.”

“So what’s this guard going to do?”

“He’s going back to his farm, he says, down in Cholla Province. He’s tired of all this corruption up here in Seoul.”

The people of Cholla had always been at odds with the people here in Kyongki Province. For the last few millennia anyway.

“Why doesn’t he just do his job,” I said, “and quit playing the game with the slicky boys?”

Ernie’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding? They’d fire him, if he was lucky. If they thought he was a turncoat, he’d end up in the Han River.”

“Next to us.”

“Not me,” he said. “They’re never taking Ernie Bascom down.”

I wished I felt as confident as Ernie did. I watched him. I think he was only faking his bravado, but I knew him well enough to realize that he’d never admit it.

“So we have about five hours to wait?”

“Yeah,” Ernie said. “Might as well have a brewski.”

“Capital idea.”

As he rose to walk down the hallway to the vending machine, someone pounded on the door.

“Who is it?” I yelled.

“CQ.” The Charge of Quarters. “Someone here to see you.”

Ernie and I looked at each other. Without saying anything, he grabbed the entrenching tool stashed with my field gear and padded over to the wall behind the door. When he was in place, he nodded.

I opened the door.

Two MP’s, black helmets glistening, filled my doorway, their fat thumbs hooked over webbed pistol belts.

“Sueno?” one of them asked.

“Yeah.”

“Your presence is requested over at the Provost Marshal’s office.”

“I’m off duty.”

“I don’t think it has anything to do with duty.”

“Then what’s it about?”

The MP tried to look bored. “Don’t know. All we know is that you have to come with us.”

Ernie stepped out from behind the door. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“Ah, Bascom,” the MP said. “How convenient. Your presence is requested also.”

“Me?” Without thinking, Ernie raised the entrenching tool. Both MP’s stepped back. Their hands reached for the butts of their. 45’s.

“Drop it, Bascom,” one of them said.

Ernie looked puzzled at first but he swiveled his head and looked at the entrenching tool.

“Oh, this. Sorry.”

He started to lower it but suddenly reared back and threw it at them with all his might.

“Ernie!” I shouted.

Both MP’s dodged and the short shovel slammed against the far wall, gouging a chunk of cement block and kicking up a cloud of dust.

The MP’s rushed into the room. They were big and knew what they were doing, and soon they had wrestled Ernie to the ground and slapped the handcuffs on his wrists. I started tussling with one of them but my heart wasn’t in it because I knew it was absolutely the wrong thing to do. Instead I held the MP back a little, yelling at the other one to take it easy on Ernie.

When they had him secured, the MP’s stood up and one of them pointed at me.

“Put your clothes on!”

I walked over to the radiator and slipped on the still damp blue jeans. After I had thrown on my jacket and my sneakers, the MP told me to turn around. He snapped the cuffs on my wrists.

They marched us outside to a line of vehicles waiting, red lights swirling.

In the back of the jeep, Ernie leaned over.

“I didn’t actually mean to hit them with the entrenching tool,” he whispered to me. “I missed on purpose.”

“That was considerate of you.”

He sat back in his seat.

“I’m a considerate kind of guy.”