The Wandering Ghost

14

The side of the cart scraped against brick then bounced over the cobbled lane, the lids of the earthenware jars rattling, and then another bump-presumably on the opposite side of the passageway- and then a groaning of wood and metal and finally, a crash. Earthenware smashing, vegetable matter and brine reeking of garlic and anchovies splashing onto the dirty stone roadway. The maid screeching, Korean men cursing. I imagined them hopping about, trying to keep their highly polished shoes away from the puddle reeking of fermented kimchee.

“Now,” Ernie said.

Ernie, then Jill and then I ducked through the small door. We turned right and the three of us barreled down the narrow alleyway.

One of the Korean men behind us shouted, “Yah!”

But we had a good lead on them and, I imagined, the maid was doing her best to block their passage with the cart. All the passageways were narrow, sometimes walled with brick, sometimes stone, occasionally thick wooden planks. Finally, we reached a wider alleyway and we knew we must be nearing a regular street. Koreans are used to living like this, with houses all jammed together. That’s why their interpersonal customs are so elaborate. If everybody follows the rules, it lessens the chance of someone getting on someone else’s nerves.

Usually.

Ernie was getting on my nerves now. He ran down one alley with plenty of space to maneuver-at least six feet on either side- with recessed doorways spaced every ten yards or so, reached the end of it, and then stopped. He stared at us, arms akimbo, palms open. Jill and I almost ran into him.

“What?” I said.

Ernie gazed around. “Dead end,” he said.

Around the corner, shoe leather pounded on stone.

Ernie reached for his. 45.

If the man who identified himself at Madame Chon’s front door as Agent Sohn was indeed an agent of the Korean CIA, that explained a lot. First, it explained why he had been monitoring my interrogation at the KNP station in TDC. He wasn’t interested in me or Pak Tong-i, the person I was suspected of murdering. But, he must’ve had information that the person I was after-Jill Matthewson-had somehow made contact with student protesters and, of greater significance, with people in power who might back them up. Insurrection, or a military coup, was never completely out of the question in South Korea. In the early sixties, the Syngman Rhee government had been overthrown because of rioting in the streets. Not just demonstrations by leftist students, but massive movements of the people-shopkeepers, laborers, educators, the works-and the pressure had been more than the corrupt regime could withstand. Later, the current President of Korea, Pak Chung-hee, had taken power via a military coup. No wonder his government was paranoid. To Americans, the Korean student protestors seemed harmless. But the Korean government took them seriously.

The KCIA used bribery and intimidation. If they offered you a stipend and you were poor, you’d accept it gladly. If you refused their money, they might explain that unless you played ball with them, your younger brother would never be accepted to university. People cooperated.

I knew now that the highest echelons of the Korean government were taking recent events in Tongduchon seriously. Very seriously indeed.

We were trapped, in a dead-end street lined with ten-foot-high walls made of stone. Then I heard shouts and the footsteps of the KCIA started toward us.

“Each of you take a door,” I shouted. “Push the button. Pound on it.”

At the end of the pedestrian walkway and on either side were thick wooden doors recessed in the stone walls. Koreans design their homes for security and don’t mess around. I pounded on the door nearest me, pushing the door buzzer next to the intercom speaker at the same time. Ernie pounded on another door and Jill still another.

No answer.

I couldn’t shout. The KCIA agents were only yards away from us, somewhere in the maze of little alleys. I didn’t want to make their job any easier. I was about to give up and try climbing the wall when Ernie hissed. His door had opened. He’d already stuck his foot inside so the frightened woman who peeked out around the wooden gate couldn’t slam it shut. Jill and I raced toward him. As we pushed through the gate I spoke in rapid Korean.

“Mianhamnida,” I told the woman. “We just want to pass through your yard and go out the back. Please show us the way.”

She was a petite Korean woman, maybe in her early thirties; her mouth hung open and her lower lip quivered. She’d opened her front gate to three giant, big-nosed, sweating foreigners. We entered a neat courtyard with a few shrubs, mostly paved with cement. As Jill closed the gate, I heard footsteps and shouts. They’d spotted us but the locked front gate would slow them down. I grabbed the frightened woman by the arm and steered her around the edge of her house, through the narrow passageway between the wall of the home and the side fence. The area in back was even smaller than the courtyard out front: the strong biting smell of an outdoor byonso; a discarded stove starting to rust; no back exit.

Ernie didn’t hesitate. He hopped on top of the stove and climbed atop the fence. Then holding out his hand he helped Jill up, then me. I waved goodbye to the frightened woman and we hopped down into another alleyway.

We ran. This time I heard no footsteps. We’d lost them. But what would they do to Madame Chon and her maid? No time to think about that now. We had to hide. Jill had told us that the Samil demonstration was scheduled to start at noon tomorrow in front of Camp Casey’s main gate. It had become clear to me that the reason Colonel Han Kuk-chei had helped Jill Matthewson to escape from the Forest of Seven Clouds was because he wanted her in Tongduchon for this demonstration. He had some function for her. Would she speak again? Jill only had two more days until her thirty days of AWOL was up and she officially became a deserter. If she let that happen, she’d receive a general court-martial. For twenty-nine days of AWOL she’d only get a summary court-martial. As a returned AWOL, she’d face forfeiture of pay, restriction to compound, reduction in rank. Not good. But as a deserter, she’d face time in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas.

Ernie and I made our way to the bar district. We were like homing pigeons. We felt comfortable near business girls and booze. We passed the Black Cat Club and kept going. In an alley behind the Silver Dragon Nightclub, we paused to catch our breath. I looked back, thinking this would be a good time to talk to Jill about turning herself in somewhere safe before she became a deserter. I opened my mouth to speak.

She wasn’t there.

I went back and searched the alleyways. No dice. Ernie helped me and together we retraced our steps. No sign of Corporal Jill Matthewson.

“Why’d you let her go?” Ernie asked.

“I didn’t let her go. She just went.”

“Why?”

Ernie couldn’t figure it out. Neither could I. But maybe Corporal Jill Matthewson was on a mission.

Ernie and I found shelter in Ok-hi’s hooch. That night, after the ville patrol passed through the Silver Dragon Nightclub on their regular rounds, Ok-hi trotted up and told us that the coast was clear. About two minutes later, Ernie and I were sitting at the bar of the Silver Dragon, sipping on cold draft OB, exchanging theories as to where Jill Matthewson might have gone.

“She used us,” Ernie said. “Let us escort her back to Tongduchon so she could attend Mrs. Chon’s kut, and when she had no more use for us, she dumped us.”

The band on the Silver Dragon’s elevated stage hammered out a rock song. On the small dance floor, a battalion of voluptuous Korean business girls jitterbugged with one another. A handful of GIs lurked amongst cocktail tables, leering at the girls on the floor, nursing cheap drinks, generally acting like the Cheap Charlies they were.

If Ernie was right, and Jill had dumped us, we were up kimchee creek without a paddle. We were absent without leave, didn’t have enough evidence of 2nd ID’s black-marketing to force a prosecution, and the entire local military police corps was searching for us.

“I don’t think she used us,” I said finally.

Ernie stared at me as if I were dumb enough to play catch with mortar rounds.

“Then what?”

“She’s investigating.”

“Investigating what?”

“Investigating the murder of Private Marv Druwood.”

“On her own?”

“Yes. She can be more effective on her own. A couple of big ugly Eighth Army CID agents tagging along would make people nervous. Both Koreans and GIs.”

Ernie scoffed. “She’s probably back in Wondang by now. Her and Miss Kim Yong-ai, packing up and moving on. Probably on their way to Seoul where we’ll never find them. I’m telling you, Sueno, we’ve been had.”

“Maybe.”

We drank a couple more beers in silence. I knew what we had to do. Bust into Lieutenant Colonel Alcott’s office and grab his black- market records. But what if they weren’t there? What if he’d moved them? Even if we found them, without Jill Matthewson’s corroborating testimony our case would be weak. So weak that 8th Army might decide not to prosecute. Especially when we’d been granted no legal authority to bust into his office. But what was the alternative? We were toast here in Division. And if we caught the first train back to Seoul tomorrow, what would we have to show for our efforts? Nothing except four days of bad time on our records. And an Article 15 in our future for being AWOL. And fond memories of the murdered Marv Druwood and the murdered Pak Tong-i and the rape victim, Miss Kim Yong-ai. Maybe Ernie could write off Jill Matthewson, but I couldn’t. I simply could not believe that she’d cut out on us. There had to be a reason.

I peered into the bottom of my empty beer mug and searched for it. It wasn’t there. I switched to bourbon. Maybe that would help. It did. What had we been talking about just before the Korean men in suits barged into Madame Chon’s home? How to gain access to Camp Casey. As fugitives, we couldn’t waltz through the main gate anymore. Something told me that Jill had left us in order to tackle that problem.

Had she gone by herself onto the compound? Unlikely. She’d gone to seek help. Help that would assist us in gaining access to Camp Casey. I told this to Ernie. He admitted that it was possible, but he wasn’t optimistic that it was true.

The rock band had just stopped clanging when a hubbub broke out toward the back of the Silver Dragon, beyond the pool tables. People, both Korean business girls and American GIs, were crowding around someone, like fans begging for autographs. Some of the women squealed. GIs laughed.

I elbowed Ernie. “At zero-three-hundred. Altercation brewing.”

Ernie sat up and stared greedily toward the back door, ready to invest all his frustrations in a fight.

The crowd parted and someone walked through. A shiny black helmet bobbed and, for a second, Ernie and I prepared to run. MPs. And then I realized that there was only one. The helmet bobbed through the crowd until I could see strands of blonde hair peeking from beneath its edge, and suddenly a face that I recognized appeared: Corporal Jill Matthewson. Still surrounded by admirers, she strode out of the crowd onto the center of the dance floor. All of the Korean business girls gasped and cooed and “aahed.” Jill was outfitted in full MP regalia: spit-shined jump boots, pressed combat fatigues, embroidered leather armband, polished black helmet, canvas web belt cinched tightly around her trim waist, and finally a holstered. 45 caliber automatic pistol, her palm resting lightly on the hilt.

The business girls squealed and some began to applaud. And then, like an avalanche of flowers, they surrounded Jill. All of them giggling, laughing, patting her on the back and shaking hands, holding out two of theirs to clasp one of hers. Many of the business girls stepped back and bowed as she approached and then embraced her.

Ernie gazed at me, eyebrows raised.

What were these young Korean prostitutes so happy about?

I thought I knew. Finally, after all the decades of foreign men parading in and out of these bars and brothels and clubs, parading in and out of their lives, men who had no respect for women in general and Korean business girls in particular, finally, after all these years of suffering during and after the Korean War, here was a woman, a GI woman, and, better yet, an MP woman. Someone who would listen to them. Someone who could understand them. The business girls called her by name, “Jill! Jill!” warbling like a flock of doves.

Jill smiled and waved and embraced and shook hands and returned fond greetings with the good grace of a woman to royalty born. I had to remind myself that she was a fatherless Hoosier teenager who’d grown up in a trailer park. But tonight, at this moment, in the village of Tongduchon in the nightclub known as the Silver Dragon, she conducted herself like a queen.

When she approached the bar, I stood. She hugged me. I hugged her back.

Ernie slouched on his barstool. Jill stared down at him.

“You’re late,” Ernie said.

Jill grinned. “Had some work to do.”

“Like ironing your fatigues?”

“And other things.”

“Like what?”

Jill glanced around the Silver Dragon. “Not here. The ville patrol’s liable to double back. Outside. We’ll talk.”

It took her almost as long to walk out of the Silver Dragon as it had taken her to enter. And this time even the band members roused themselves and lined up to shake her hand, as if it were their last chance to meet face-to-face with someone famous.

Outside in the cold February wind, some of the luster faded from Jill’s face. The alley was lit by the yellowish glow of a street-lamp and a smattering of fluorescent rays that leaked out the back door of the Silver Dragon.

“Where you been all day?” Ernie asked.

“Making arrangements.”

“Arrangements for what?”

“For getting at Colonel Alcott’s records.”

I knew it. Ernie didn’t stop to congratulate me for my insight. He continued to question Jill. “What kind of arrangements?”

“You don’t have a need to know.” She thrust back her shoulders. “Tomorrow, you’ll find out. Until then, I need your help.”

“Hey,” Ernie said, “who do you think’s running this show?”

After all, Jill was merely an MP Corporal still on her first tour in the Army. And an AWOL corporal at that. Ernie and I were 8th Army CID agents. Seasoned veterans. At least that’s the way we thought of ourselves.

Jill hooked her thumbs over the rim of her web belt, took a step closer to Ernie, and stared up at him. “In Division,” she said, thrusting a thumb at her chest, “I’m in charge. And if you want to find out who did a number on Private Marv Druwood, you’ll listen to me and do as I say.”

Ernie glared at her, dumbfounded, not sure what to do. If she’d been a man, he might’ve punched her. Jill swiveled away from Ernie and turned to me. “Ville patrol,” she said. “Weatherwax is on duty tonight. You two divert the attention of the KNP and the Korean MP so I can corner Weatherwax and get the info I need. Got it?”

“Got it,” I said.

“Let’s go.”

Jill turned and started trotting down the dark alley. We followed. She twisted through the narrow lanes as if she’d been through them many times before, occasionally pointing at a broken “turtle trap” and hollering at us to avoid stepping into the gaping hole. Ernie stayed a few feet behind, just close enough for me to hear him swearing under his breath, cursing all females. The narrow alley emerged onto a broader lane. Above us neon glared: a startled feline with red eyes. The Black Cat Club.

Ernie groaned. “Not again.”

Down the road, the ville patrol emerged from another night club. We crouched and Jill led us out of their line of sight and then around the back. The gate leading to the hooches behind the Black Cat was open. Ernie and I followed Jill past darkened rooms until we stood at the open back door of the club. The voice of James Brown wailed from the jukebox. Conversation and laughter floated out, on a roiling cloud of cigarette smoke.

Jill peeked into the back door then ducked back out.

“The ville patrol’s in,” she said. “When they come back here to search the men’s and women’s latrines, create a diversion.” She pulled her. 45. “While you keep them occupied, I’m going to have a little talk with my old friend, Staff Sergeant Weatherwax.”

Weatherwax was the man who’d shot at Ernie and me in the alleyways of Bongil-chon. Ernie and I wanted to interrogate him, too, but Jill knew all the MPs up here. She’d be able to spot lies easier than we could. Still, I was worried about her state of mind. Was she out to gather information or was she after revenge?

“Take it easy, Jill,” I told her. “All we want is information.”

“Right,” she said. “Right.”

Ernie interrupted. “Here they come.”

Two uniformed Korean men marched down the narrow hallway. The ROK Army MP shouted a warning and then pushed his way into the female latrine. The KNP followed. A black American MP I recognized as Staff Sergeant Weatherwax entered the men’s latrine. Ernie charged forward, plowing his way into the women’s latrine. I followed, standing just inside the door, ready to help if needed.

Behind me, Jill elbowed her way through the swinging door of the men’s latrine.

“Weikurei?” Ernie shouted. What’s the matter?

He was acting drunk. Staggering. The Korean cops stared at him, wide-eyed. Inside the open door of a stall, a young woman squatted over a porcelain-lined hole, her skirt up, terror filling her eyes.

“What’s the matter you?” Ernie said. “Why you come GI club?”

The KNP started to shove Ernie toward the hallway. Ernie spun away from him, staggering against the cement wall. Both of the Korean men turned on him.

I stepped forward. Smiling. Nodding. “My chingu,” I said, pointing at Ernie. My friend. “Taaksan stinko.” He’s very drunk.

The two cops let me step past them and grab Ernie. I started to pull him out of the latrine and into the hall but he resisted. I motioned for the Korean cops to help me. They did, pushing Ernie out the door and down the hallway toward the main ballroom of the Black Cat Club.

I could’ve maneuvered them into shoving Ernie out the back door but I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to search for Brandy again.

The reception we received wasn’t friendly. Two white GIs- drunk white GIs-wrestling with two Korean cops. Not exactly what the soul brothers of the Black Cat Club wanted to see while they were trying to relax and socialize. They reacted with hostility.

Ernie bumped into a group of GIs standing with their arms around Korean business girls. Drinks splashed out of cups. Men cursed. They shoved Ernie and he reeled toward me.

As I held him, I whispered in his ear. “Brandy’s here.”

Ernie sobered. The show was over. Jill had yet to emerge from the men’s latrine. Apparently, she was still having her heart-to-heart talk with Staff Sergeant Weatherwax.

Brandy stood wide-eyed behind the bar, glancing this way and that, searching for a means of escape. The last time we’d seen her she’d spent the early evening in a yoguan with Ernie, and then he’d almost been killed at fish heaven by a rifle round aimed his way.

Ernie lunged toward her, ramming into two GIs sitting on stools at the bar. They shouted. Ernie leaned across the bar, stretching out his hand, but Brandy ducked, barely escaping his grasp. She broke for the end of the bar, but I was already moving. I would’ve cut her off easily but by now all eyes in the club were on us. Curtis Mayfield was moaning sweetly from the jukebox. Two men blocked me. I plowed into them; they reeled backward. I’d reached the end of the bar but Brandy kept moving, heading for the front door. In two steps I would’ve had her but a punch to my ribcage threw me off stride and then three more bodies plowed into me. I punched back. As I did so, I heard the big double front doors open and then slam shut. I tried to move forward but more screaming bodies were in my way. Ernie was behind me now, cursing and punching and kicking, and for the first time I stopped worrying about Brandy escaping and started worrying about surviving.

I was just about to grab a chair and hit somebody when the blast of a pistol shot filled the room, followed immediately by an explosion of glass and metal accompanied by electrical sparks and the screeching halt of Curtis Mayfield’s smooth falsetto. Corporal Jill Matthewson stood at the back of the room, holding her. 45 in front of her with both hands gripped firmly around the hilt.

“Make a hole!” she shouted.

She moved forward through the crowd until she reached Ernie and me and together the three of us backed toward the front door. The mumbling started again. Cursing now about the jukebox and screaming invective from the old woman behind the bar. But before anyone could retaliate, we were out the door, down the steps, and running.

“What’d Weatherwax tell you?”

We were running through dark alleys, heading northwest, away from the TDC bar district.

“Never mind about that now,” Jill told me. “You saw Brandy? Right?”

“Yes. She hightailed it out the door before we could stop her.”

“Have you ever been to her hooch? Either of you?”

I glanced at Ernie. He shook his head negatively.

“No,” I said.

“Then she’ll think she’s safe there. She didn’t see me.”

“You know where Brandy lives?”

“I sure do.”

After a couple more blocks we slowed to a walk, all three of us breathing heavily. Since Ernie and I were wearing civilian clothes, we scouted out front, watching for KNP patrols. Jill led us to a district of TDC very close to the area Ernie and I had recently become familiar with.

“The Turkey Farm,” Ernie said.

Jill nodded. “Convenient for black-marketing.”

“Brandy was into black-marketing?” I asked.

Jill nodded again. “Up to her pretty little neck.” She held out her hand. “Quiet now. We’re getting close.”

It was a nice hooch. Old but well kept up, with bright blue tile on the roof that must’ve been recently replaced. Moonlight shone down into an immaculately clean courtyard with a metal-handled water pump in the center and neatly tended bushes and a row of earthen kimchee jars.

Ernie and I balanced on top of the ten-foot-high cement-block wall, gingerly placing our hands so as to avoid shards of jagged glass sticking out of plaster. With her. 45 pointing at the moon, Jill Matthewson stood in front of the main gate, waiting for us to jump down and open it for her.

“You see any movement?” Ernie asked.

“No.”

All the hooches were dark.

“She’s in there,” Ernie said.

“How do you know?”

“I smell her. Brandy’s close and she’s overwhelming.”

Actually, I thought Ernie might be right. Not about how he sensed her but about the fact that Brandy must be home. There were shoes lined up in front of the hooch, women’s shoes spangled with sequins. But they weren’t neatly aligned. One pair lay on its side, as if it had been rapidly kicked off. And earlier, as we had approached the main gate down a dark alley, I thought I’d glimpsed a dimming of light. As if someone was listening and when they’d heard the tromp of combat boots, they’d clicked off the electric light. A lace curtain breathed in and out inside the hooch, pulsating through the narrow opening left by the partially closed sliding door.

“She’s watching us,” I whispered.

“Yeah. And we make good targets perched up here.”

With that, Ernie hopped down into the courtyard, hitting the ground and rolling as he did so. I kept my eyes riveted on the door. Movement? Or was it my imagination? As Ernie hurried to unbolt the front gate, I leaped down into the courtyard, jarring my knees and ankles, rolling, and quickly coming to a squatting position. The sliding door that a second ago had been partially open was now completely shut.

I ran forward, keeping my head down.

When I reached the low wooden porch in front of the hooch, I leaned forward, grabbed the sliding door, and pulled. It trembled but didn’t open. Inside, a metal lock rattled.

Ernie and Jill ran up behind me.

“Someone’s in there,” I said. “They just locked the door.”

Ernie stepped past me and kicked the door in. Oil paper and fragile wooden latticework shattered. He reached in, unlatched the door, and ripped it off its hinges.

Jill Matthewson shone her flashlight inside.

Ernie and I entered, he found the overhead bulb and switched it on. The entire room was bathed in light. No Brandy. An expensive armoire with mother-of-pearl inlay, silk-encased comforters folded in a corner, a hand-painted porcelain pee pot, a dressing table with a mirror and various lotions and cosmetics. No sign of anything masculine. This, I guessed, was Brandy’s refuge from the world of GIs.

But these observations were made primarily to avoid focusing on the first thing I’d seen. It sat in a corner by itself, still partially encased in wood framing, cradled atop straw, glowing like an endless sky of blue and green. Chon Hak Byong. The Thousand Crane Vase.

I kneeled and examined it. The flock of white cranes floated into the celadon sky, their black eyes pointed toward heaven. Except for one, on the upper bulge of the vase. His eyes stared straight out. Straight into the eyes of the observer. And this crane’s feet were deformed. Deformed into a shape that appeared to be a Chinese character: bok. Good luck. Very probably the name of the artist. I was sure this magnificent piece of art was the same vase that had been stolen by gangsters from the burning inferno of the grain warehouse just yards from here in the heart of the Turkey Farm.

Wood bumped against stone.

“Out back,” Ernie shouted.

He ran out the front door and zipped around the edge of the hooch. I continued deeper into the dwelling, into the cement-floored kitchen and exited a side door. The three of us-Jill, Ernie, and myself-met at the narrow opening between the back of the hooch and the cement-block wall. Brandy stood atop a short ladder, trying to get a handhold on the top of the glass-covered wall. Jill shone her flashlight on Brandy’s cute round butt.

Brandy turned, her shoulders slumped, and she gingerly retreated down the ladder. Staring at the three of us she said, “Ain’t no bag, man.”

A few minutes later, the four of us sat in a circle on the floor of her comfortable hooch, under the glow of a bright electric bulb, facing one another. The story Brandy told us was interesting and, I had to assume, laced with lies.

She claimed to be holding the Thousand Crane Vase for a friend. Who was this friend? She wasn’t at liberty to say. She knew nothing about the fire at the grain warehouse in the center of the Turkey Farm other than that she’d heard about it and it was a great tragedy, but she had no idea how such a thing had happened. And also, she was unaware that the Thousand Crane Vase had been stolen by gangsters. She thought that it might’ve been a different vase. When I pointed out to her that it was the same vase and I explained why, she thought that her friend must’ve been very careless in paying good money for a vase that had been stolen.

“How much did he pay?” Jill asked.

Brandy shrugged. “I know nothing about these things.”

Ernie asked her about mulkogi chonguk, fish heaven.

Brandy seemed shocked that we’d been shot at. “Who would do such a thing?” she asked.

I pointed out to her that she probably knew exactly who, since her handwriting matched the writing on the phony note that had set up the appointment. Now she seemed offended. It couldn’t be her handwriting, she claimed, since she hardly knew how to write.

Finally, Jill questioned her about Marv Druwood.

Brandy had no idea about who was at the grain warehouse that night or what had happened to Private Marvin Druwood.

Without warning, Jill leaned forward and slapped Brandy.

Her full cheeks quivered and then turned red; she held the side of her face. I expected tears to well up but instead Brandy’s eyes spit venom.

“You know who was there,” Jill said. “Otis told you.”

Otis. Sergeant First Class Otis. The desk sergeant who’d confided in me about the Turkey Farm and hinted at irregularities in both the disposal of Marv Druwood’s body and in the 2nd ID provost marshal’s ration control procedures.

“Otis, he no want you,” Brandy said. “He want me.” She jabbed her thumb between pendulous breasts.

Jill’s face turned crimson. “You little bitch. You know who killed Marv. You know!”

Jill flung herself on Brandy and the two of them rolled on the floor for a moment, scratching and butting heads, until Ernie and I ripped them apart. Ernie held Brandy while I escorted Jill outside the hooch. In the courtyard, Jill straightened her uniform. Inside, Brandy nursed cuts and bruises. We confiscated the Thousand Crane Vase. Brandy cursed as we left and swore revenge. Actually, we should’ve arrested her. But as fugitives ourselves, what were we going to do with her? We couldn’t turn her over to the 2nd ID MPs nor to the Korean cops because they’d arrest us at the same time.

As we stalked through dark alleys, I wanted to ask Jill about Sergeant First Class Otis and his role in all this. Jill knew more than she was telling me. But she was fuming, and I knew this was the wrong time.

When we reached the bar district, we paused. Ernie and I set down the vase. It was heavier than it looked. The time was half past eleven. In thirty minutes, curfew would start. Jill told us to hide the vase at Ok-hi’s hooch at the Silver Dragon. Tomorrow, we’d meet up and then enter Camp Casey and take possession of Lieutenant Colonel Alcott’s ration control records.

“How?” Ernie asked.

“How what?” Jill replied.

She was still distracted by her confrontation with Brandy.

“How in the hell are we going to bust onto the compound and confiscate the records?”

Jill waved her palm in the air. “Not to worry. I’ll take care of that.” She started to leave. “See you tomorrow.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

She smiled. “You don’t have a need to know.”

“Where will we meet you?” Ernie asked.

“At the same place everyone’s going to be tomorrow,” Jill said, walking away into the darkness.

“Where’s that?” Ernie hollered.

“At the demonstration.”

After she left, I realized that she still hadn’t revealed what she’d learned from Staff Sergeant Weatherwax.

“Looks like we’re back where we started.”

After sleeping late the next morning, Ernie and I once again sat on the floor of Ok-hi’s hooch, a room on the third story above the Silver Dragon Nightclub. The Thousand Crane Vase stood alone in a corner. Ok-hi, as happy to see us as ever, served us tea on a foot-high varnished brown table, then switched the radio to AFKN, the Armed Forces Korean Network. There was nothing on the news about student demonstrations or the KCIA or the murder of Pak Tong-i. Nor about the death of Private Marvin Druwood nor about two 8th Army CID agents gone berserk north of Seoul. Plenty about the latest shenanigans in Washington and, of course, plenty of sports.

“Not back where we started,” I told Ernie. “We know what we have to do next. Bust a bunch a black-marketing field grade officers.”

“If we find the proof.”

“Jill will help us find the proof.”

“How?”

“She told us where to find the proof. In Colonel Alcott’s safe in his quarters. And she promised us that we’d be able to bust onto the compound.”

“Over some MPs’ dead bodies.”

Ernie and I sat silent for a moment, both pondering the implications of what he’d just said. Was today’s demonstration going to be violent? I mean truly violent? Not just a few stones thrown by overexcited students. But arms, Molotov cocktails, explosives? Ok- hi told us that most of the business girls had gone to the bathhouse early today because they’d heard about the student demonstration and they expected it to be bigger than any of those Tongduchon had seen in the past. I asked her why.

Her eyes widened, as if the answer was obvious.

“Chon Un-suk-i die,” she said. “GI supposed to go monkey house. Instead, GI go stateside. Everybody taaksan kullasso.” Everybody very angry.

Ernie seemed to have been listening to my thoughts. “The Division MPs must know there’s going to be a demonstration,” he said. “They’ll be prepared for anything.”

Ok-hi tilted her head. At first I thought it was to show off the hoop earrings she was wearing. Then I realized she was listening to something. Something faint and far away.

“You go,” she said finally.

“What?”

“You go compound. Alert.”

Ernie switched off the radio. The wail of a siren, coming from the direction of Camp Casey. Alert. All GIs were to report back to the compound.

“You’re right,” I told Ernie. “They are taking this demonstration seriously.”

Thirty minutes later, Ernie and I stood on the roof of the Silver Dragon Nightclub watching tanks, two-and-a-half ton trucks, and armored vehicles-by the dozens-roll out of the front gate of Camp Casey.

“Move out,” Ernie said. “Division wide.”

A Division-wide move-out alert meant everyone goes to the field, even the headquarters staff, as if an actual war had broken out. Still, since an alert is only training and not war, some people would be left behind to guard and maintain the compound. Even though all MPs in the Division area are considered to be combat MPs-that is, they can assume a combat role if actual hostilities break out-you could bet that enough MPs would remain behind to protect the compound from the student demonstrators. Even now, we could see bunches of MPs milling around the towering MP statue in front of the Provost Marshal’s Office, slipping on their riot-control helmets, playing grab ass, donning their protective vests.

“Probably glad they don’t have to go to the field,” Ernie said.

Field duty-days and even weeks in the rain and the mud- grows old fast. Still, it seemed odd to me that a move-out alert had been called only an hour before a well-publicized student demonstration was to begin. Who had called the alert? Eighth Army? The United Nations Command in Seoul? I had no way of knowing. Maybe someone thought that calling an alert at such a time would replicate real-world situations and therefore provide realistic training. After all, war can break out anytime, even when it’s inconvenient. Maybe. But I didn’t believe it. My mistrust of coincidence made me think that something was up. Maybe something bigger than anyone imagined.

More troop transports full of infantry soldiers rolled out of the main gate of Camp Casey, followed by heavy artillery pieces and jeeps and commo vehicles and mess trucks and vehicles of all shapes and descriptions.

“Look.” Ernie pointed down the MSR about a mile at a gas station near the outskirts of town. Buses pulled in. Vans, taxicabs, all sorts of civilian conveyances. Students wearing black armbands and carrying picket signs written in both English and Korean were starting to gather. A steady stream of vehicles snaked down the MSR, heading toward Tongduchon. As we watched, the crowd grew larger. To the west about three blocks, at Tonduchon Station, the local train from Seoul pulled in. When it stopped, like a centipede shedding eggs, a jillion students popped out of the ten or so cars. Leaders with megaphones formed them into groups, shouting instructions, handing out black armbands and signs.

“Christ,” Ernie said, “half of Seoul is coming up here.”

“And a train is due every thirty minutes.”

“They’re really serious. Not like that paltry little group last time.”

We went back downstairs. Ok-hi fed us: steamed rice, kimchee, bowls of dubu jigei, spiced bean curd soup. She also found us two strips of white cloth that she helped us tie around our heads. Then, while we kneeled in front of her, she used red paint-mimicking blood-to write in hangul the name Chon Un-suk. Thus outfitted, Ernie and I thanked Ok-hi and, though she tried to refuse, I paid her for her time and the food and the effort she’d expended to help us. She promised to guard the Thousand Crane Vase with her life.

Ernie and I bounced out into the street, keeping a wary eye out for both the MPs and the KNPs. It was easy enough to avoid them. The Korean National Police were preoccupied with protecting the TDC police station and with setting up an assault position near the railroad tracks across from Camp Casey’s main gate. The American MPs were on compound, bracing for trouble.

Ernie and I slipped through a narrow alley between the bar district and the Main Supply Route. Once on the MSR, we strolled casually into the stream of protestors shouting and marching toward the main gate of Camp Casey. Picket signs saying YANKEE GO HOME and JUSTICE FOR CHON UN-SUK competed with the dozens of black-edged blowups of the deceased middle-school girl. Soon, the stream we were in joined other streams and, as we approached the line of MPs guarding the main gate, we became part of a mighty river.