The Ville Rat

– 9-

“What a waste of garlic,” Ernie said.

Ernie and I occasionally frequented a joint in Itaewon that specialized in dengsim gui, roast flank steak. The thinly sliced meat was placed on a brazier in the center of the table and side dishes were served-cabbage kimchi and diced turnip in hot sauce and small saucer-sized plates of fresh garlic. Most people roasted a clove or two to add flavor to the meat, but Ernie emptied the plate onto the grill and popped the burnt garlic into his mouth like peanuts, washing them down with shot glasses of soju rice liquor, and before we’d finished our meal Ernie’d polished off two or three plates of garlic, much to the surprise of our waitress.

The next day, Ernie would show up at the CID detachment in his neatly pressed uniform, clean shaven, shoes polished, hair combed-looking like the squared-away soldier in a recruiting poster-but as he paraded around the office, people would start sniffing the air. “What’s that smell?” someone would say. Oblivious, Ernie went about his business, caring not one whit that his pores were emitting the odor of the pungent herb he’d so gleefully consumed the night before.

Which explained his current air of bereavement. The garlic truck was a burnt-out shell.

“How do you know this is the right truck?” I asked.

Mr. Kill guided us around to the front. A singed license plate matching the one Ernie had snagged was still legible. About twenty yards away, across a beach of rough pebbles, the Han River flowed serenely. We were about two hundred yards north of the Chamsu Bridge in an area that at night would be dark and isolated. Someone had poured gasoline onto the truck, set it on fire, and hoofed it back to the main road where a confederate presumably stood by to whisk the arsonist away. In which direction? Into the heart of the city of Seoul, or south across the bridge to the Seoul-Pusan Expressway that could carry them almost anywhere in country? We had no way of knowing.

“Will you find the owner of the truck?” I asked.

“We already have,” Mr. Kill told me. “A produce shipping company. One of their oldest and most reliable drivers was waylaid after picking up a load of garlic. Two toughs he’d never seen before threatened him with a knife and dropped him far in the countryside. He had to walk back to civilization, but even then he was too frightened to report the theft to the police.”

“But he’s talking now?”

“We convinced him.”

“Do you believe his story?”

“Yes, he’s a family man who’d have nothing to gain by murdering an American CID agent.”

“Glad to hear it,” Ernie said. “Can he identify the thieves?”

“He’s with the sketch artist now. But they stuck a knife to his throat. He was too panicked to be very observant.”

I knew Mr. Kill would do everything possible to glean any clues this truck might yield, but we both knew that he’d probably hit a dead end. The guys who’d tried to kill us seemed professional. It was unlikely we’d find them soon.

Mr. Kill read my thoughts. “I have another lead,” he said. “Remember the calligraphy we found in Miss Hwang’s sleeve?”

Miss Hwang. We knew the victim’s name now. A nice name. Probably not her real name, but a nice name nevertheless.

“I remember,” I said.

“We’ve been talking to teachers of calligraphy. Most are private and give lessons in their home, but there aren’t many anymore. It’s a dying art.”

“One of them knew Miss Hwang?” Ernie asked.

“No. Better than that. One of them, Calligrapher Noh, gave lessons to an American.”

“There must be plenty of Americans who study calligraphy,” I said.

“Not many. And certainly not many who are GIs. Come, I’ll let you talk to Noh.”

Mr. Kill hopped into the front seat of his sedan, Officer Oh driving. Ernie and I followed in the jeep.

The road wound up one of the oldest and most crowded hills in Seoul, near Chongun-dong, just below the ramparts of the ancient stone wall built to protect the capital city during the Chosun Dynasty. The homes up here were tightly packed, hidden behind wood or brick walls, with narrow lanes just wide enough for a wooden pushcart. Officer Oh parked her sedan, blocking most of the road, and Ernie edged his jeep up tightly behind her. We climbed out and trudged up flagstone steps the last few yards. At an indentation in the stone wall, Mr. Kill stopped and pressed a button. An intercom buzzed and soon a voice said, “Nugu-seiyo?” Who is it?

Inspector Kill identified himself and another, louder buzz sounded as we pushed our way through the gate into a well-tended garden. On the far side of the garden, an elderly man in traditional white pantaloons and a blue silk vest waited for us on the raised porch. Inspector Kill bowed to Calligrapher Noh and the man bowed back, but his timing was off. I realized he was blind, relying on the white cane in his hand for both support and navigation. We slipped off our shoes and stepped up on the varnished wooden floor. The man, hearing our approach, turned and led us down a short hallway. At the end, he slid back an oil-papered door and we entered what appeared to be the study of a scholar from the thirteenth century. The floor was warm and covered with layers of rice paper. The old calligrapher lowered himself behind a mother-of-pearl writing desk that stood only about two feet high. Waving his cane, he motioned for us to sit opposite him on the flat seat cushions provided. Behind him were shelves stuffed with scrolls and codices and even a few bound books, all of them dusty, as if they hadn’t been touched in years. He had a wispy grey beard and wrinkled eyes that, though sightless, smiled at us.

Ernie leaned toward Mr. Kill and said, “He can’t see at all?”

“Some. Light and shadow. But in his youth, when he could see, he was a very famous calligrapher, so students still seek him out.”

After a few pleasantries, Calligrapher Noh said in Korean, “You want to know about the American.” Mr. Kill said yes and the old scholar began to talk.

It was somewhat less than a year ago that the man appeared at his front gate. He just knocked on the door and said something in English that the scholar didn’t understand. Calligrapher Noh called his niece on the phone because she’d studied English in school and the American told her he wanted to become a student of calligraphy. Tuition was agreed upon, and from that day forward the American showed up every Tuesday night, spent an hour taking instruction, and left an envelope of money after each lesson. Apparently, the old scholar’s niece would come over every morning, count the money, and made sure it was deposited in his bank along with the tuition from his other students.

“Did your niece,” Mr. Kill asked, “or any of your other students ever see this American?”

“Never. He dealt only with me. As a student, he wasn’t bad. He paid attention to technique, ink preparation, paper quality, maintenance of the writing brush, and he was obsessed with the details of stroke order and the proper grip.” The old man frowned.

“But there was something about him,” I said, interrupting. “Something that worried you.”

“Yes. He was obsessive, which can be good, but isn’t good when carried too far. When I criticized the first characters he attempted, he became angry, asked me how I could know they were wrong if I could not see them.”

“How could you know?” Inspector Kill asked gently.

“From the sound of the brush on the paper, whether he was pressing too hard or too lightly, allowing too much ink to sink into the parchment, and by the amount of time he spent turning the brush at a curve or when blotting a stop.”

“If he didn’t trust your instruction,” I asked, “why did he come to you?”

“I asked him the same thing.”

“He could speak Korean?”

“No. Mostly I taught by demonstrating to him, holding his hand, making sure the grip was correct, and listening. He had potential, but after the third or fourth lesson, when I realized that he lacked the patience to become a true artist, I called my niece. She spoke to him and translated my words.”

“What did he do?”

“He said nothing. Just set the phone down, sat still for a long time, and left.”

“He quit?”

“Yes.”

“Did he pay you for the last lesson?”

“Yes. The next day, my niece told me that he’d paid double.”

“So money was no problem for him?”

“No.”

“How did you know he was a soldier?”

“At the entranceway, when he took off his shoes, I heard the heavy clump of combat boots. And on his first visit, he brought me a gift.”

As was customary for Korean students when they first visited a teacher. He slid it across the writing desk. A bottle of imported Hennessey cognac.

Ernie lifted and examined it. “No customs stamp,” he said. “No import duty paid. Straight out of the Class Six.”

“If we encounter this man,” I asked the old scholar, “how will we be able to identify him?”

“Well, I can’t tell you what he looks like, other than I believe he’s tall and thin from the sound of his footsteps and the way he moved carefully through the house, but what most set him apart for me was his silence.”

“Silence?”

“Yes. Whenever I corrected him, by guiding his hand or showing him the correct technique, he would sit very still for a long time. So long I almost wondered if he’d managed to slip away. I heard him sliding his fingers across his face or his head, and then finally, after I’d almost forgotten what we’d been doing, he would reach out and, as if nothing had happened, we’d start over.”

“Silence?” I said.

“Yes, prolonged silence. The silence of a man trying very hard to control himself.”

“Do you have any idea why he struggled so much to maintain control?”

“Yes. It’s subtle, but I noticed an odd difference in the way he handled the inkstone and the brush.”

“What do you mean?”

“When he used his left hand, his motions were fluid. His right hand, the one I guided for his brush strokes, was capable but not as capable as his left.”

“How could you tell?”

“The motions were slower, more hesitant. More studied.”

“So you believe this man was originally left-handed?”

“Yes. Once when he was having trouble with a stop and a slash to the right, I told him to try it with his other hand, his left.” The old calligrapher clasped his narrow fingers, clutching them briefly at the memory. “This was the longest silence of all. I thought he would explode.”

“So you think he was abused as a child because he was left-handed?”

The old calligrapher thought about my question. “Probably for much more than that. I thought of him as a cripple.”

“A physical cripple?”

“No, physically he’s quite capable. I thought of him as an emotional cripple. One of the most emotionally crippled people I’ve ever encountered.”

A light shone in the guard shack of the main gate of the Far East District Compound. The small base had served as the headquarters for the US Army’s Corps of Engineers in Korea since the end of the Korean War. It was nestled amidst high-rise buildings in downtown Seoul, only a few blocks from the massive Dongdaemun shopping district.

We’d said our goodbyes to Inspector Kill and Officer Oh and made our way here alone. Ernie drove up to the gate and a bored guard emerged from the shack. He wasn’t an MP, just a GI with the rank of buck sergeant with a leather armband hanging from his left shoulder that read duty nco. Stitched above the lettering was the red and white cloverleaf patch of the 8th United States Army.

Ernie showed him our dispatch.

“CID? What the hell do you guys want?”

His name tag said campione. He was slightly overweight, his uniform was slovenly, and he could’ve used a shave before he started the night shift.

“What we want,” Ernie said, “is none of your freaking business.”

Campione’s eyes narrowed. “We have a squared-away compound here,” he said, “and if I remember correctly, a complete inventory was just conducted by a couple of you guys.”

He was right; I recalled the purportedly award-winning audit by Agents Burrows and Slabem.

“Yeah,” Ernie said. “So what?”

“So you got no business messing with the Far East Compound again.”

This was too much. Ernie climbed out of the driver’s seat. I stepped out of the passenger’s seat and walked around to the front of the jeep.

“Who in the hell do you think you are?” Ernie said. “The freaking provost marshal of the Far East Compound?” Campione backed up half a step. Ernie leaned in closer. “Open the goddamn gate. It ain’t up to you where we go and where we don’t go.”

“We’re not part of Eighth Army,” Campione protested.

“The hell you’re not!”

“We run a tight little compound here and we don’t need this shit.”

“I don’t care what you need or don’t need,” Ernie told him.

I stepped into the guard shack and pulled a handle that released the crossing bar. Ernie swiveled away from Campione, jumped back in the jeep, shifted it into gear, and rolled across the threshold. I jogged to the side of the jeep and jumped in. As we drove onto the compound, Campione glared at us for a moment, then hurried back into the guard shack, lifted the phone, and started dialing.

“He’s calling reinforcements,” I said.

“Screw them,” Ernie said, still fuming. “A bunch of freaking supply clerks trying to tell us where we can and can’t go.”

Trees lined the road, fronting well-tended lawns. Behind them were yellow bulbs illuminating signs that labeled the stone and brick buildings: logistics planning; 34th supply and maintenance battalion; shipping and import control; highway and bridge construction. The compound was a square about a half-mile on each side; we cruised around in the jeep, not quite sure what we were looking for.

“Cushy assignment,” Ernie said. “Looks like a college campus.”

We rolled past a well-lit sign that said: far east district compound club, all ranks welcome. They weren’t big enough to have their own officers’ club, and besides, to the best of my knowledge, the handful of officers assigned to the Far East District Compound were quartered five miles away on Yongsan South Post and commuted here every day. They would mostly use the 8th Army officers’ club. There was only one barracks on the Far East Compound, a two-story cement-block building housing about three dozen enlisted men. What must’ve been half of them stood on the broad cement steps in front of the club, searching the night, staring in our direction. One of them pointed.

“Looks like Campione alerted his buddies.”

“Yeah, and they don’t like strangers,” I said.

Ernie snorted.

We continued to cruise through the compound, searching for a warehouse with a back entrance that might match what the little kisaeng had described. The place where a late-night poker game had been held; where several young girls had been trucked in against their will and one-a talented calligraphist who called herself Miss Hwang, her real name perhaps lost indefinitely once her corpse turned up on the banks of the Sonyu River some twenty-five miles north of here-had been purchased by an American.

“How about that?” Ernie said, pointing.

The sign out front read: central locker fund, far east compound annex.

We drove around back. There was indeed a back entrance. Ernie parked the jeep.

“How are we going to get in?” I asked.

Ernie reached in his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys.

“Where’d you get those?”

“From Strange. They’re the extra set of keys kept by the Eighth Army staff duty officer.”

I shone my flashlight at the thick steel ring. A metal tag was imprinted with the words far east district compound. It was a large ring holding about three dozen keys of various shape and age. Some had cryptic numbers and letters scratched on or written in permanent marker, and others had paper tags Scotch-taped to them. I shone the flashlight steady on the lock on the back door while Ernie knelt and methodically tried each key. About halfway through the ring, the door popped open. Ernie turned the handle and shoved it forward as the heavy door creaked open.

“Class Six Heaven,” Ernie said and shone his flashlight into the darkness.

Before I closed the door behind us, I peered outside at the small asphalt parking area. No movement. Beyond the walls of the compound, traffic purred, lights in tall buildings blinked on and off, and the pulsing life of the massive city of Seoul beat with the steady rhythm of a prehistoric beast; a beast ready to reach down and chomp us with its yellow fangs.

I closed the door.

“Over here,” Ernie shouted.

We strolled past pyramids of cardboard cases of beer and soda, then long rows of all types of liquor-gin, vodka, scotch, bourbon, rum-arrayed neatly on ten-foot-high metal racks. After a short section of brandy and liqueur was the wine, and behind everything was an accounting office near the huge roll-up metal door that opened onto the loading dock.

I followed the sound of Ernie’s voice, off to the side past the latrine and a supply cabinet for mops, brooms, and cleaning supplies. Finally I found him by a cement door with another padlock on it.

“Air-raid shelter,” Ernie said. “You grab a case of booze, run downstairs with some dolly, and wait for the shooting to stop.”

“Great way to survive World War Three.”

It was a weak joke, but with some truth to it. Many observers thought that the Korean peninsula was a prime candidate for the starting point for World War III. After all, Korea was a country bitterly divided between the Communist north and the capitalist south, and was surrounded by three great powers: Red China, the Soviet Union, and Japan. And the most powerful country in the world, the United States, was heavily committed to the defense of South Korea, not only stationing 50,000 US troops here, but also sending squadrons of Air Force bombers on patrol out of Okinawa and Guam and keeping the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet in Japan and in the waters nearby. Meanwhile, of course, we had plenty of booze and party girls-to soothe our worried brows.

Once again, I aimed my flashlight while Ernie knelt and studied the lock. He touched it, heard something rattle, and then gently pulled the hasp away from the wall.

“It’s phony,” he said. “Just here for show.”

He grabbed the metal handle of the door and tugged. It didn’t move. “Stuck,” he said. He braced himself and pulled with two hands. The heavy door slowly slid open, swinging in a ponderous arc, cement scraping on cement. Ernie reached inside and fumbled along the wall until he found a switch. Below, down a short flight of steps, a weak yellow bulb switched on, glowing inside a metal mesh cage.

“Prop the door open with something,” Ernie said.

I stepped toward the nearest rack, hoisted a case of triple sec from its shelf and set it on the floor up against the open door.

Clutching his flashlight, Ernie led the way.

The stairway turned back on itself. Down one more flight, Ernie found another light switch. This time, an overhead fluorescent bulb sputtered and blinked to life, exposing a large room. It was square, about ten yards on each side, and empty for the most part. Tile flooring had been swept clean. Cement walls, no windows, but what appeared to be ventilation fans overhead. On the far wall was a large steel sink, like those found in restaurant kitchens, and two faucets, one of them dripping patiently as if waiting for us.

In the unlit corners, Ernie’s flashlight found large slabs of varnished lumber leaning against the wall.

“What the hell is this?”

“Dividers,” I said. “Hinged. You can separate the room with these. Maybe make a kitchen area over here, a serving area over there.”

“No chairs,” Ernie said.

But he was wrong about that. In a far corner, covered by a sheet, was a stack of straight-backed banquet chairs. I pulled the sheet off.

“Okay,” Ernie said. “Plenty of beer and booze. Chairs. A place to make snacks in. What about a table?”

That’s what was missing: a poker table. But why would anyone move one, unless they were trying to cover their tracks?

We searched. No table. But in a corner near a trash can, Ernie found shards of splintered wood. He picked up one of the pieces. Hanging from its edge, apparently glued, were a few strands of something green. Ernie fondled the material. “Felt,” he said.

“Then there’s more,” I said.

“Outside?”

We hurried upstairs, turning off the lights and closing the doors behind us. On the far side of the asphalt lot, a row of metal drums sat atop a long wooden pallet; standard trash disposal at 8th Army. Every few days, a truck full of Korean workmen came by, hoisted the cans up and dumped the trash into the back of the truck. Primitive, but at least it provided jobs.

Using our flashlights, Ernie and I searched each of the drums. At the far end, one was full of nothing but shards and plenty of ripped green felt. Ernie pointed to one of the chunks of varnished wood.

“Corners. It was probably in the shape of an octagon. A gutter for chips, green felt on the inside.”

“A poker table,” I said. “But why’d they chop it up?”

“And recently, too,” Ernie said. “They must pick this trash up at least twice a week.”

For years I’d been seeing trash trucks winding their way through various military compounds in Korea, never paying them much mind.

“So whoever chopped up this poker table did it today. Or maybe yesterday.”

“Why?” Ernie asked. “What set them off? They could’ve been having poker games in that room for years.”

“And whoever was hosting them was making serious money.”

The usual house rake was one chip out of every twenty-five. That was a fat 4 percent of every dollar bet, and in a typical high-stakes game, thousands of dollars would cross the green felt, with the house pocketing big money.

Gambling was illegal in Korea, except in the handful of casinos the government has authorized for tourists only. Private games were strictly prohibited. Korean television news is full of stories of locals being busted for illegal gambling and perp-walked in front of the klieg lights. But here on the Far East District Compound, conveniently located in the heart of downtown Seoul, the Korean National Police had no jurisdiction. The only law enforcement we’d seen so far in this little enclave of Americana was Sergeant Campione with his duty nco armband.

“This might’ve been going on for years,” Ernie said.

I stared at the shards. “So why stop now?”

Footsteps scraped on asphalt. We turned. Across the lot, approaching through the harsh rays of the overhead floodlight, a group of men approached. One of them was Campione, apparently off duty now, wearing baggy blue jeans and a sweatshirt with a drawing of a bulldog and the words northern new jersey state stenciled beneath the canine’s drooping jowls.

There were ten men behind him, all of them looking grim. But what most caught my attention was what Campione held in his hand: a short-handled axe, its blade glistening in the harsh light.

I stared fixedly at the axe blade, but shook off my fear. When you’re outnumbered and outgunned, the best strategy is to go for the bluff.

“Sergeant Campione,” I said, as the men approached. “Good. I was just about to go looking for you.”

I pulled my CID badge out of my pocket and held it over my head in the glare of the floodlight. Showing a confidence I didn’t feel, I strode toward the men, raising my voice. “I’m Agent Sueno of the Eighth Army Criminal Investigation Division. This is my partner, Agent Bascom. I’m glad you’re gathered here, because all of you are going to have to be interviewed.”

The men stopped. I glanced at the axe. Campione still clutched it tightly in his grip.

“You’ve got no right,” he said. “This is the Far East District Compound, not Eighth Army. You’ve got no right to mess with us.”

I slipped my badge back into my pocket and held both hands up. “I know what you’re thinking. One inspection just finished, and now another. But we’re going to keep this one short and sweet. All we want to know is who was involved with the illegal gambling that was going on here. That’s all. After we know that, we’ll leave you alone.”

The men glanced at one another, murmuring sullenly.

“What game?” Campione said. “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

From the darkness behind me, something large flew out of the night. It arched toward Campione and then crashed in front of his feet.

“How about this, Campione?” Ernie shouted.

Everyone stared at the chunk of wood that had just landed on asphalt. It was a corner chunk of the poker table, with a clear indentation for holding chips and what amounted to almost a square yard of green felt.

Ernie stepped forward. “You should’ve chopped finer,” he said, gesturing toward Campione’s axe.

A voice in the crowd said, “Why don’t you get off our compound?”

Another voice said, “Yeah.” And then a chorus joined in, cursing us and moving forward en masse. Ernie and I backed up. Somebody picked up the chunk of wood and lobbed it into the air. It landed with a thump on the hood of Ernie’s jeep.

That did it.

He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a .45 automatic. He brought the charging handle back with a clang. Before I could stop him, he fired a round into the air. The men leapt back. He leveled the weapon.

“You first, Campione. Drop the axe!”

When Campione didn’t respond, Ernie fired a round past his head, the lethal slug zinging into the night and exploding on the high brick wall about ten yards away. Some of the men crouched.

“Stay where you are!” Ernie shouted, but by now the discipline of the mob had broken and individual GIs were slinking off into the shadows. Soon they were running. Campione stood alone now, the axe fallen to the asphalt, holding his open palms off to the side of his head.

Ernie leveled the pistol at him.

“Ernie,” I said.

“I’m tired of this shit,” Ernie shouted. “First they try to run you over with a garlic truck, then they send this fat slob to come at us with a freaking axe. It stops now!”

“Ernie,” I said.

He breathed deeply, sighed over the .45, and then, taking another deep breath, lowered the pistol until it pointed at the ground.

“Did you run that poker game, Campione?” I said.

“No way. None of us enlisted men are allowed in there.”

I stepped toward him. “But you knew about it?”

“I didn’t know about nothing.”

“But you knew about the girls being brought in. You saw them, when they were driven through the gate.” He shuffled nervously. “And somebody told you to chop up that poker table. And you did what you were told.”

His face flushed red. “Okay, so we got it good here. No duty other than our regular jobs and gate guard. None of that military horseshit.”

“Good enough that you were willing to chase us off,” Ernie said, “with an axe.”

Campione looked away.

“How much did you make from the poker game?” I asked.

“We didn’t make nothing.” Campione’s eyes were moist, burning into mine. “Who do you think runs this compound? A sergeant E-5? No chance. The DACs run this freaking compound.”

Department of the Army Civilians.

“Like who?” I asked.

“Like I don’t know. There’s Mister this and Mister that and they pretty much keep to themselves. We’re the worker drones, you know, us and the Koreans. And at night they leave us alone except for one or two things that go on in the offices or in the Central Locker Fund warehouse, and it ain’t none of our business, you understand.”

“Bull,” Ernie said. “You’re getting your cut. That’s why you tried to chase us away. You know the deal. Keep the bosses safe and they’ll take care of you.”

For once, he didn’t have a smart-mouth answer. I motioned to Campione to get lost. He did, moving quickly for such a big man.

I told Ernie I’d drive. He didn’t object. Still holding his weapon, he climbed in the passenger side. I grabbed the big chunk of splintered poker table and tossed it into the backseat. Maybe it would come in handy as evidence, or at least we could use it to put pressure on somebody. Then I slid in behind the steering wheel, started the engine, shoved it into gear, and drove slowly out of the Far East District Compound.

I dropped Ernie off at the barracks and kept the jeep, taking a drive through the dark 8th Army compound. A moonlit smattering of snow guided my way. The CID office was abandoned this time of night, with only a yellow firelight glowing over the front door. I used my key to let myself in and walked down the long hallway to the admin office. Inside, I switched on a green lamp over the wooden field table I usually used to write my reports, but this time I set the typewriter aside. From my inner pocket, I pulled out the poem Mr. Kill had given to me. It was the complete text, in both Korean and English, of a poem done in the three-line lyric sijo style by Hwang Ji-ni, one of the most famous kisaeng of the sixteenth century. A fragment of the poem had been found in the sleeve of the murdered kisaeng up in Sonyu-ri.

I will break the back of this long, midwinter night,

Folding it double, cold beneath my spring quilt,

That I may draw out the night, should my love return.

Had the woman in the red chima-jeogori been forced to write this, or had she done so for personal reasons and kept it a secret? Had the killer forced her to write this, or had he written it himself? I wasn’t sure. The poem expressed loneliness, certainly, and longing and desire. And the hope that, by the sheer force of emotion, a person could change the inexorable flow of time.

Miss Hwang hadn’t been able to break the back of time; she’d met the inevitable end of her night in the frozen flow of the Sonyu River. I kept making notes, pondering the poem’s beauty, recalling what it had been like when that garlic truck barreled toward me-how frightened I’d been.

The phone rang.

Startled, I went to grab it. It was the one on Miss Kim’s desk.

“Hello?” I said, forgetting for a moment the proper way to answer a military phone.

“George.”

It was Captain Prevault.

“How’d you find me?” I asked.

“I called the barracks, Ernie told me you weren’t there. What are you doing?”

I glanced at the ancient poem. “Would you believe me if I said I was reading poetry?”

“You,” she said, “I’d believe.”

“Is it safe to come over?”

“It’s never safe. But come over anyway.”