Slicky Boys

26

Before the First Sergeant had finished with Ernie, I placed a call to the British Honor Guard.

The Sergeant Major confirmed for me that Cecil Whitcomb had indeed been the proud owner of a Gurkha knife. He’d bought it off a soldier in a British Gurkha unit in Hong Kong. For “five quid,” whatever the hell that was. The knife was not listed in the inventory of his belongings conducted after his death.

The Sergeant Major told me that Whitcomb’s body had been released by the Seoul coroner’s office and had been flown out that morning via a specially arranged flight from Kimpo Air Force Base. I asked him for the name and address of Whitcomb’s next of kin. He gave me an address somewhere in London, but of a woman with a last name other than Whitcomb. His mother, he said. Her husband, Whitcomb’s father, had died a few years ago and she’d remarried.

I folded the address and stuck it in my wallet.

I went back to the barracks and waited until the firing of the cannon at 1700 hours that signified the close of 8th Army’s official business day. When all was clear, I changed my clothes and went over to the snack bar and ate some chow. I just wanted to be alone. Have time to think about the case. Have time to think about what happened to Miss Ku. About what happened to Cecil Whitcomb.

Whoever we were dealing with had wanted Cecil Whitcomb badly. He’d used Miss Ku and Eun-hi and me and Ernie, and using us, he’d accomplished his objective. It made sense that he had to entice Whitcomb off the compound. In the nature of army life, whether in the barracks or on the parade field or out running the ville with his buddies, Whitcomb would never be alone. That night out in Nam-daemun, he had been alone.

But why go to so much trouble in the first place? What was so important about Cecil Whitcomb, a part-time petty thief?

Why the killer wanted Miss Ku silenced was pretty clear. She knew who he was. She could identify him. She could testify against him in court. But not anymore.

The print shop owner knew who he was, too, but he was in less danger. From what we knew so far, there was no way Mr. Chong could link him to the murder of Cecil Whitcomb. So Chong was probably safe.

What about me? Was I safe? Was Ernie safe?

This guy knew who Ernie and I were, but we didn’t know who he was. He was following us. If we closed in on him, he’d probably attempt to take us out, too.

Who was he working for? For himself or for someone else? Was he working for the slicky boys?

We hadn’t heard from the slicky boys since the night they kidnapped us. I’d relayed a message that the secret of the location of their headquarters would remain safe with us. Had it worked?

Maybe.

I had no answers. Only questions that kept piling up, one after the other.

I felt for the. 38 beneath my jacket. Still there.

I studied the faces in the snack bar around me. A lot of them were familiar because I’d seen them around compound dozens of times. Nobody out of the ordinary. Nobody who looked as if he’d ruthlessly tortured and murdered a beautiful woman.

That’s another thing that bothered me. He’d tortured her. What information did she have that he didn’t already know? I thought about it for a long time, but came up with nothing.

When I finished the chow, I wandered around the compound. Walking. Thinking.

If God gave me a chance to redo some things in my life, I’d have a long list. Number one would be canceling out the conversation Ernie and I had with Cecil Whitcomb.

With the approach of night the temperature dropped, but still no threat of snow. Somehow, I found myself in front of the PX. Standing at the taxi stand was Strange. He spotted me and stepped out of line.

When he came near he pulled his cigarette holder out of his mouth.

“Had any strange lately?”

I ignored the question. “Have you got anything for me, Harvey?”

He glanced to either side. “Not here.”

“Okay. Where?”

He nodded toward the latrine. “Follow me.”

He waddled through the crowd and back into the PX, toward the hallway that led to the men’s room. I followed and pushed through the big wooden door. One guy stood in front of a urinal. Not Strange.

On the other side of the tiled wall was a row of commodes. Something hissed. I walked down to the last stall near the window and opened the door. Strange sat on the pot, pants up, staring down at a crumpled sheet of notebook paper.

“Four security violations in the last month,” he said.

His cigarette holder waggled from side to side in his mouth.

“You inspected J-two?” I asked. J-2 was the place where Whitcomb had stolen the typewriter.

“Yeah.”

The window above us was open and cold air billowed in like a small gray cloud. I was grateful for the fresh air.

“The violations wouldn’t have been caught at all without surprise inspections,” Strange continued. “They were small things. A safe left open during the workday while everyone was out of the room for a couple of minutes. A Top Secret cover sheet on a Secret document. Things like that. The only other thing I noticed was a couple of documents out of numerical order. Just slightly out of place. As if someone had been in a hurry and shoved it back into the file without checking the numbers. Not something many security clerks do. Finding an out-of-sequence document can be a bear. Take you all day. So you learn to be careful.” He shook his head. “That wouldn’t have bothered me at all if it wasn’t for the rumors I’ve been hearing.”

“What rumors?”

“Not violations, exactly. Just shit being tampered with. A guy down at Camp Market. He swears nobody but him touches his files, but when he comes in one morning, a couple of documents have been moved. He’d placed them in the file a certain way, flush up to the left side of the safe. In the morning, they were in the center.”

“You security guys are a meticulous lot.”

Strange ignored me. His cigarette holder quivered a little faster.

“Another guy at Army Support Command swears somebody came into his office. Dust that he leaves atop the filing cabinets on purpose was moved. Not much. Just like somebody had breathed on it.”

“So why didn’t he report it?”

Strange looked up at me wide-eyed, as if I were mad.

“And have a bunch of outsiders tampering with our files? We in security handle our own properties. Don’t need a bunch of ham-handed MP’s stomping around.” He thought about that for a minute. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

Somebody new entered the latrine. We were quiet until he urinated and left.

“That pig didn’t even wash his hands.” Strange scowled.

“Some people,” I said. “So tell me what happens. You security NCO’s get together sometimes and compare notes. And if you find something suspicious going on you investigate it yourself?”

“Dick Tracy.”

“So what’ve you found out so far?”

“Nada. Zilch. Not a goddamn thing. But we’re keeping our eyes open.”

“If somebody did break into those files, how would they do it?”

“Not from one of us, that’s for sure.”

I waited.

“All of our combinations have to be backed up. In case we’re killed in the line of duty or smothered from muff diving or something. There’s always a security officer.”

The words “security officer” came out as if they were something unclean.

“Usually a young lieutenant assigned to keep an eye on an experienced security noncom. A young dick who doesn’t know shit about security.”

“So the security officer might’ve compromised the combinations?”

“Who else?”

“I don’t know. There’s no other way?”

“Had to be those young shitheads.”

“But compromising each one of them, at all those different compounds…” I shook my head. “Sort of difficult, isn’t it?”

“Only way. It couldn’t have been experienced NCO’s.”

“I see you’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“Sure have.”

“Keep your ears open. Watch the security reports. If you hear anything else, especially about Captain Burlingame at J-two, let us know right away.”

Strange nodded.

“Also, can you find out what the subject was of the documents that were tampered with at J-two?”

Strange looked at me from beneath raised eyebrows. “Do you have a need-to-know?”

“I might. In an investigation you’re never quite sure what you need to know.”

He lowered his eyes. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good. Can I buy you a beer?”

“No. No beer.” His cigarette lighter waggled. “Had any strange lately?”

He was persistent, that’s for sure.

“Not much. Only a couple of sisters out in Itaewon.”

“Yeah?”

“Both of them skinny. Listen, I’d tell you all about it but I have to get out there.”

“Pity.”

“I’ll fill you in completely next time we talk.”

“That’ll be soon?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

I left Strange in the latrine. As I walked out, the door to the commode creaked shut.

What with all the running around on the Whitcomb case, Ernie and I had fallen seriously behind on our black market detail paperwork. I wandered back to the CID office. It was dark now and cold, but when I strode down the familiar creaking hallways, there was still warmth left in the old brick building.

I turned on the lamp over Riley’s desk, rummaged around for some typing paper and some carbon, and went to work.

It was quiet here. Relaxing. Sometimes I enjoyed working late. It gave me time to think. Time to review details that I might’ve missed early on.

But no matter how much I tried to concentrate on the black market paperwork, I couldn’t keep my mind off the Whitcomb murder. And the murder of Miss Ku.

I wondered about what Strange had told me. About a bunch of paranoid security clerks losing sleep because a folder had been misfiled or a rat had knocked some dust off a safe. Security guys were a bunch of kooks. Every one of them weird in some way, and Strange was the weirdest of them all.

Still, there could be something to it. They were sensitive to these things. But what did it have to do with the Whitcomb case? Probably nothing. Cecil had gone to J-2 to swipe a typewriter. That’s all.

I shoved it out of my mind and continued typing the reports on the black-marketeers we’d arrested.

After a while, I fixed myself a cup of coffee and sat down in a vinyl chair in the break area. Maybe I nodded off for a few minutes, I’m not sure, but what brought me fully awake was the sound of footsteps.

They seemed to be coming from down the hallway. I pulled the. 38 out of the shoulder holster.

Holding the short barrel in front of my nose, I crouched forward through the doorway and out into the hall. Nobody. I squatted, listening.

More sounds. Something creaked. Not in the hallway, but down the stairway that led into the cellar.

I didn’t remember the last time I’d been down there. Maybe the time we shuffled some furniture around the offices. There was nothing down there now but a big old cast-iron coal furnace and some supplies that the cleaning crew used.

Staying close to the wall so the old floorboards wouldn’t squeak as much, I walked to the front of the stairway and listened again.

No sound now.

Whoever was down there must’ve heard me.

If it was one of the janitors working late, the light would be on. But it was dark down there. As dark as the night that embraced the ghosts of Cecil Whitcomb and Miss Ku.

I reminded myself that I had the revolver. It was loaded. Five shots. I stepped down the stairway.

At the first landing, I groped for a light switch. My fingers stumbled on it. I nipped the switch.

Nothing.

Somebody’d cut off the lights.

Not good.

Maybe if Ernie were here we would’ve charged down headfirst, kicked some ass, and taken names. But I was alone. And the only light in the building was a faint glimmer from the fluorescent bulb back in the Admin Office. If something went wrong, I had no backup.

I took a step backward, scanning with my eyes into the darkness.

“Dreamer.”

It was just a whisper but it rushed through my body like a jolt of lightning.

I stood perfectly still, barely breathing. Wondering if I’d imagined it. The voice had been deep. And raspy. As if the inner lining of the throat was made of sandpaper.

It must’ve been my imagination. Nerves getting to me. Causing me to hear things. Psychosomatic.

I took another step backward.

“Dreamer.”

My name, Sueno, means dream in Spanish.

It wasn’t my imagination. It was real. Someone-or something-lurked down there in the darkness.

“Don’t go,” the voice said. “I came here to talk to you.”

It was a flat drawl. American, no doubt. Southern, probably.

I tried to make my voice sound as steady and as firm as I could. “Who are you?”

“Who am I? That’s a cop question. I thought you could do better than that, Dreamer.”

The words slithered out of the void. The ramblings of an ancient serpent.

“What do you want?” I asked.

There was a long pause. “You.”

My eyes darted through the darkness, hoping to discern one shadow from another. I didn’t move. I was fairly safe here. If he tried to come at me, he’d have to climb the wooden steps and I’d hear him before I saw him. If he had a gun, he probably had a bead on me right now. Moving wouldn’t do any good.

“You were at the Tiger Lady’s this morning,” he said. “I saw you. Strutting around like the buffoon you are. And that partner of yours. Bascom. Never has there been a bigger fool. I’ll gut him some day, with my little blade.”

I had to pry more information out of him. Keep him talking. If I fell for his insults, I’d lose my concentration and I’d learn nothing.

“You killed Cecil Whitcomb,” I said.

Rocks clattered. He was near the coal bin. I turned slowly, raised my gun in that direction.

“It was necessary,” the whisper said.

“Why?” I asked. “Why was it necessary.”

He barked a short, brutal laugh. “You don’t fool me, Dreamer. I know what you two did to Miss Ku. Tortured her. Let her bleed. Let her scream. And then killed her slowly.”

“It wasn’t us who killed her,” I said.

“Didn’t want to get your hands dirty? So maybe you turned her over to the KNP’s. Same difference. Still, you’re responsible. You’re the ones who found her. You’re the ones who betrayed her.”

“We didn’t betray anyone,” I said. “You paid Miss Ku to give us that note. Then you killed Cecil Whitcomb when he went to Namdaemun. We went after Miss Ku because we’re after you.”

“So now you found me.”

I heard shuffling over coal, moving to my left. I followed the sound with the barrel of my gun.

“There’s plenty of room down here,” the whisper said. “Come on down. I don’t have a pistol, I don’t even have a knife. Leave your. 38 on the landing. It’ll be a fair fight.”

“Like the one you gave Cecil Whitcomb?”

“Sure. Just like that. But you’re bigger than him and you think you’re tough.”

Down the hallway, a door slammed. I jerked back, my finger twitching on the trigger.

I wasn’t sure but I thought I heard a hissing sound down below.

Footsteps clomped down the corridor. They were coming at me from two directions. Out of the darkness of the cellar something flew at me. I leapt back, twisting the gun barrel skyward, and fired.

The explosion of the shot reverberated in the stone-lined cellar.

Too late, I realized what had been thrown at me. A piece of coal. It rolled back down the steps.

The footsteps in the corridor started running, heading this way now. I crawled out into the hallway and aimed my revolver at the oncoming shadow. Moonlight drifting in through the doorway glinted off the barrel of his gun. My finger found the trigger.

The dark figure stopped suddenly.

“Sueno!”

“Top!”

“What the hell you doing shooting off your damn weapon in the goddamn building?”

“There’s somebody in the cellar.”

“Who?”

“The guy who killed Whitcomb.”

The First Sergeant froze for a second, then turned his pistol toward the stairway and stepped past me.

“Wait!” I said. “There’s no light.”

He started down the stairs, but stopped and turned back. “You still have bullets in that thing?”

“Plenty.”

The First Sergeant trotted off to his office and returned with a heavy-duty flashlight. Covering each other, we crouched our way down the darkened steps.