The Wandering Ghost (17 page)

“Maybe. But maybe Brandy lives there.”

Brandy, the buxom bartender at the Black Cat Club.

“You asked for her address earlier,” Ernie said. “They wouldn’t give it to you.”

“Maybe it’s because she lives right there. On the premises.”

Ernie snorted, unconvinced. “Well, the Black Cat Club is safer than standing out here all night,” he said. “Which way?”

I pointed right. Together we slouched through the shadows.

The back of the Black Cat Club was as dark and as silent as a Yi Dynasty tomb. The double-doored wooden gate was barred from within and the stone wall protecting the back courtyard was topped with shards of broken glass embedded in cement.

“Looks like they don’t welcome visitors,” Ernie said.

“At least Koreans don’t keep a big dog behind the wall,” I said. “Our choice is to pound on the gate and make a racket until someone wakes up and comes out to talk to us, or else climb the fence.”

“Raising a racket doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

The curfew police could pass by at any time. And if we made too much noise, a neighbor with a phone—although phones were rare in Tongduchon—might call and turn us in. Better to climb the fence. I cupped my hands in front of me. Ernie didn’t hesitate. He stepped into my cupped hands and I hoisted him over the wall. Once inside, Ernie opened the small door in the large metal gate. I ducked through and he shut the door behind me.

It was your typical Korean courtyard lined with maybe eight hooches, sliding oil-papered doors facing inward, earthenware kimchee jars against the walls, and a rusty water spigot in the center of the courtyard with a plastic pail hanging from the valve. More hooches on the other side and then, I supposed, the back door of the Black Cat Club. We were about to slip past the hooches when the sound of human voices—harsh whispers—floated across tile roofs. Ernie waved his hand to signal danger and we crouched.

“Somebody’s awake.”

That didn’t seem too surprising to me what with the noise we’d made climbing the wall and opening the front gate.

“I have to convince them not to call the police,” I said.

Ernie nodded. I edged through a passageway between the line of hooches and the stone wall, then emerged into another open area that led to a door with a brightly painted wooden sign bearing a picture of a black cat. I was about to reach for the handle when the back door of the Black Cat Club burst open. Ten men emerged, all of them in various stages of undress, some with silver picks wedged in their hair, others with silk stockings knotted tightly over their skulls. Moonlight glistened off black flesh. Lips twisted into scowls. Cudgels were raised: a baseball bat, a pump handle, an army-issue entrenching tool.

“Hold it!” Ernie shouted.

He stood behind me, his .45 out, pointing at the group of men.

“What you doing here?” one of the men asked. “T-shirts ain’t allowed.”

A few of the men guffawed. None of them seemed concerned about Ernie’s .45.

“Looking for Brandy,” I said. “We need to talk to her.”

“People need a lot of shit,” the same man said. “Don’t mean they get it.”

He was one of the tallest of the men and, clearly, their leader. I was trying to think of a way to talk my way out of this confrontation but there were a lot of hard feelings between black GIs and white GIs. In the early seventies, the good fellowship of the civil rights movement had long been forgotten. Black GIs no longer waited patiently for the white power structure of the U.S. Army to reform. They were fighting back. Demanding equal promotions, an equal shot at choice assignments. Actually, I agreed with them. But there was a whole other element of the black experience—aside from the legitimate aspirations—that I, as a cop, had to deal with. The draft had been stopped a couple of years ago. To fill the ranks the army had lowered enlistment standards and young men with juvenile records a mile long—and even adult felony convictions—were being allowed to join up. The thinking was that the strict discipline of military life would straighten them out. Any MP could have told the geniuses at the Pentagon that they were wrong. Instead of going straight, career criminals continued their nefarious ways inside the ranks of the U.S. Army. That didn’t mean that all the GIs standing in front of me were criminals. But you could bet that some of them were. And those few were the ones who would urge on their fellow soldiers to do things they wouldn’t normally do. Like, for instance, beat the crap out of two 8th Army CID agents.

More black GIs appeared in the courtyard behind us. Ernie swiveled, arms extended, his .45 rotating as if on a gun turret.

“Look,” I said, “we just want to talk to Brandy for a few minutes. That’s all. Then we’ll be on our way.”

A few of the doors of the hooches slid open. Women appeared, Korean women. Some with Afro hairdos, most wearing silk see-through robes. All of them skinny. None voluptuous enough to be Brandy.

A propeller twirled through the air. I tried to dodge it but it clipped my shoulder and clattered to the flagstone steps below. A
mongdungi
, a wooden stick used to beat dirt out of wet clothing.

The women jeered.

The guy in front of me raised his baseball bat. Ernie swiveled, fired the .45, and the bat splintered into a thousand shards. Women screamed. Ernie shouted, “Get down!”

The men standing in the doorway of the Black Cat Club cursed and took cover in the courtyard.

“Come on!” Ernie said. “Enough of this bullshit!”

We ran past the splintered baseball bat, through the back door of the Black Cat Club, past the
byonso
, until we reached the main ballroom. A fluorescent bulb beneath the bar provided the only light. Keeping the .45 rotating, Ernie made his way to the door. He grabbed the iron handle and pulled. Locked. Barred from the inside.

“Hurry,” he said.

I stepped past him, fiddled with the latches, and finally lifted a long metal rod. The door creaked open. A cold breeze drifted through the open crack.

Black men stood at the back exit, glaring.

“Tell Brandy,” Ernie said, “that we’re sorry we missed her.”

With that, he fired the .45 into the rafters above the men’s heads. They scattered. We pushed through the front door of the Black Cat Club and scampered out into the deserted streets of the Tongduchon bar district.

The gunfire had alerted the Korean National Police. Whistles shrilled and jeep engines roared, all zeroing in on the Black Cat Club. Ernie and I raced through back alleys.

“Why’d you have to shoot?” I asked.

Ernie answered as if I were nuts. “We have to maintain respect.”

“I was talking to them,” I said. “We could’ve worked something out.”

“Bull. We’d broken into their hooch. The law was on the brothers’ side for once. They were going to do what they do best. Kick the crap out of a couple of T-shirts.”

Ernie had a dim view of human nature. Maybe he was right. There was a reason that 8th Army CID issued us .45s and it wasn’t because people were reasonable. We rounded a corner and off to our left, from another alley, came the sound of a herd of footsteps stampeding toward the Black Cat Club. We hid in the shadows and watched.

On the main drag of the bar district, Korean cops, holding billy clubs at port arms, trotted in military formation.

“Dozens of ’em,” Ernie whispered.

Going to the Black Cat Club hadn’t done us any good. Instead of finding either Brandy or refuge, we’d called down the fury of Korean officialdom. We crouched in the dark alley, sweating, breathing hard, trying to calm down.

When the footsteps passed, Ernie said, “Where to now?”

“There are some brothels next to the bars. Maybe we can sneak into one and find some business girl who’ll take us in.”

Ernie didn’t have a better idea.

We reached the main street of the Tongduchon bar district, about a long block east of where we’d seen the platoon of cops. A joint called the Seven Star Club loomed across the street from us. If the back doors were open, we might be able to gain access to the building and climb the stairs to the hooches above. No lights shined in any of the windows but it was the only plan I had. If we could hide until morning, we’d be able to reenter the compound amid the mass of GIs returning to Camp Casey. No one would be able to connect us with either the break-in at Kimchee Entertainment or the disturbance at the Black Cat Club.

I stared at the empty street, calculating our odds of avoiding the KNPs until dawn.

“Maybe we should stay here,” I said.

“The patrols will be by eventually,” Ernie replied, “as soon as they figure out what happened at the Black Cat Club. Besides, there’re warm hooches in the Seven Star Club and pee pots and business girls. All the comforts of civilization.”

Ernie was right. We had to chance it. I looked both ways. All quiet. I waved for Ernie and together we slouched across the road.

Looking back, I should’ve realized that the Korean National Police would figure out where we’d go next. The bar district. Where else would American GIs be welcomed in the middle of the night? Where else would a couple of miscreants like Ernie and me seek refuge? So when we stood behind the Seven Star Club, pleased with ourselves for having sneaked across the main drag, trying to decide whether to open the back door or climb through a window, suddenly, as if materializing out of the dark mist, KNPs converged on us from both ends of the alley.

Ernie elbowed me. “Don’t look now.”

I looked anyway. They wore riot-gear helmets and held three-foot-long wooden batons. About a dozen of them plugged each end of the alley.

Ernie reached for his .45.

I grabbed him, wrapped him in a bear hug, and held on. He realized the wisdom of what I was doing and didn’t struggle. Without further incident, the Korean National Police took us into custody.

8

T
orture is a relative term.

A person can consider himself to be undergoing torture simply by being denied something he craves. Cigarettes for a smoker. Caffeine for a coffee drinker. Take me for instance. I started drinking coffee during my first tour in Korea in the middle of the frigid winter. Now it’s a habit. Every day on the way to work I stop at the 8th Army snack bar and guzzle two mugs of steaming hot coffee that’s brewed in huge stainless steel urns. Then and only then do I feel ready to face the day.

Korean cops don’t drink coffee. Too expensive. Usually, they have a pot of barley tea brewing somewhere in the station. The lieutenants and other higher-ups might brew a pot of green tea on hot plates behind their desks. But no java. And even if there had been coffee available, the KNPs wouldn’t have offered me any. Nor Ernie, who kept raising hell and cussing them out.

I tried to reason with my interrogator. He wasn’t a bad guy, actually. Captain Ma was his name and he was a friendly cop with a skinny, chain-smoking body and a wrinkled, smiling face that, since it was always grinning, was totally unreadable. I couldn’t tell if he was about to honor me with an award for lifetime achievement or slice out my spleen. I sat on a wooden chair, barefoot, wearing only a T-shirt and pants. The rest of my clothing had been taken from me. Also, in case I forgot to mention it, my wrists were handcuffed behind my back. Tightly. Part of the torture.

No bamboo beneath the fingernails. Not yet.

Without having talked it over, Ernie and I arrived at the same alibi. Of course we were separated immediately after our arrest and were not allowed to communicate in any way—a basic tenet of Interrogation 101. But the fact that our stories dovetailed wasn’t miraculous. It made sense if you understood the first rule of lying: Stick with the truth, until it becomes inconvenient. Then say as little as possible.

So we each told the KNPs the same story. We were in Tongduchon searching for leads on the disappearance of Corporal Jill Matthewson and, in particular, we were searching for a woman known as Brandy, a bartender at the Black Cat Club. Why had we been out after curfew? Because we weren’t able to find her before curfew.

Why had we fired a weapon at the Black Cat Club? Simply to convince a few local citizens not to interfere with an ongoing police investigation.

Then the big question: Had we been in the western district of Tongduchon earlier this evening, at the office of a man known as Pak Tong-i? This is where the truth became inconvenient. We both answered no.

Had we ever talked to Mr. Pak? I didn’t know. The name didn’t ring a bell.

Had we ever visited the office of Kimchee Entertainment? I couldn’t be sure. I’d have to review my notes. And on it went like this. No violence. Only the threat of it. While Captain Ma grinned, another cop paced the room, cussing in vulgar Korean and slamming his black leather–gloved fist into his open palm.

Of course the Korean cops weren’t stupid. They’d spotted two foreigners at the scene of the Pak Tong-i murder and they knew those two foreigners were most likely me and my partner, Ernie Bascom. But they also knew that the body of Pak Tong-i was as cold as a KNP’s heart. He’d been dead for hours and it wasn’t likely that we’d have hung around that long if we were the ones who had murdered him. That’s why Ernie and I could afford to stonewall. Eventually, they’d realize they had no evidence against us and they’d let us go. Discharging a firearm within city limits and being out after curfew were crimes for normal citizens but not for law enforcement officers. Still, the KNPs wanted whatever information we had and they wanted it badly.

But I’d developed a certain level of skepticism since I’d arrived in Tongduchon. I wasn’t sure who was responsible for the disappearance of Corporal Jill Matthewson or the stripper, Kim Yong-ai, nor for Pak Tong-i’s death, for that matter. Until I knew more, I didn’t feel like trusting anyone.

Captain Ma, under the Status of Forces Agreement between the United States and the Republic of Korea, was required to notify the 2nd Division MP duty officer concerning our arrest. That much he promised. Nothing more.

Through the entire interrogation a third man sat in a chair behind me, off to my left, observing. The foul odor of his cigarette smoke permeated my nostrils. Kobukson, I figured. Turtle Boat brand. I couldn’t see him clearly; he was careful to avoid my line of sight, but using peripheral vision, I formed a picture of him. Korean. Older, maybe mid to late forties. Wearing civvies. Jacket and tie, overcoat, even a cloth porkpie hat that he kept on the table next to him. He smoked occasionally, only half as much as Captain Ma, and he held his cigarettes in some sort of holder. Plastic? Ivory? I couldn’t tell. He wore gloves that he slipped on and off. He gave the impression of a man who performed every movement, even the tiniest act, with precision.

Captain Ma and the other cop in the interrogation room ignored him. For them, he wasn’t there. And for his part, the mystery man didn’t say a word.

Just after dawn, representatives from the 2nd Infantry Division arrived. August personages both: Lieutenant Colonel Stanley X. Alcott, the 2nd ID Provost Marshal and Military Police Investigator, Warrant Officer One Fred Bufford. Colonel Alcott shook hands all the way around—but not with me—and grinned a lot. Warrant Officer Bufford stood awkwardly in a corner, shaking hands with no one, studying me.

I sat up as straight as possible in my chair—as straight as the handcuffs would allow—and thrust my shoulders back as far as they would go. As I did so I checked my peripheral vision. The mystery man had disappeared.

Colonel Alcott peered at me. “What the hell did you
do
, Sueño?”

I didn’t feel like answering. Colonel Alcott should’ve demanded that I be released from my handcuffs immediately. I was a U.S. military investigator, innocent until proven guilty—under American jurisprudence anyway—and the benefit of the doubt should’ve been automatic. Instead, Alcott was busy glad-handing with the KNPs, ignoring me, showing them by inference that they could do with me whatever the hell they pleased.

Although I was tempted to show my disdain for Colonel Alcott by refusing to answer him, finally, I piped up.

“I didn’t
do
anything,” I replied. “My partner and I were out after curfew trying to track down a lead.”

“But you fired your weapon.”

“Only when someone attempted to interfere with our investigation.”

Bufford, leaning against the wall, could no longer contain himself. He pointed a bony finger at me.

“You were in west Tongduchon,” he said. “A man was murdered out there.”

I stared directly at him. “Your ass,” I growled.

That shut him up. Colonel Alcott shook his round head. “Sueño, your attitude is not good.”

“Take these handcuffs off me,” I said. “My attitude will make a miraculous recovery.”

Colonel Alcott continued to shake his head. “Unfortunately,” he said, “that’s not my decision to make.”

“The hell,” I said. “If you vouch for me, these Korean cops would release me in a heartbeat. And my partner, too.”

Colonel Alcott responded with a tone of exaggerated reasonableness. “But how well do I know you? You and Agent Bascom are sent up here to the Division area of operations, supposedly to search for Corporal Matthewson, but you end up investigating god knows what. What am I supposed to tell the KNPs? You’re up here doing something but I don’t know what it is, and you’re out after curfew and weapons are fired and a man turns up murdered and I’m supposed to risk the prestige of the Second Infantry Division to have you released? Based on what?”

“Based on you could call the Eighth Army provost marshal. He’d order it.”

“Ah, yes. The Eighth Army provost marshal. That will be done. As soon as the Division chief of staff is fully briefed.”

“When will that be?”

“Don’t be impertinent.” For the first time since I’d known him, the round, pleasant face of Colonel Stanley X. Alcott flushed red. “You don’t hurry the Second Infantry Division. We have procedures. We observe protocol. Maybe something you and that Agent What’s-His-Name . . .”

“Bascom,” Bufford said.

“Yes. Agent Bascom. Maybe you two don’t know what it is to follow procedures but up here in Division we have procedures, and we’re damn sure going to adhere to them.”

Through the entire conversation, Captain Ma kept puffing on his cigarette, smiling, amused that people who appeared to him so foreign could hold such a long conversation. He reminded me of a zoologist observing baboons.

The 2nd Infantry Division chief of staff would be briefed in an hour or two at the daily staff meeting. Then the decision would be made to inform 8th Army about our arrest and then the 8th Army provost marshal would discuss the situation with the 8th Army commander and finally—hopefully—word would be sent down to request transfer of custody from the KNPs to the 2nd Infantry Division.

That gave the smiling Captain Ma, puffing serenely on a cigarette, many hours to mess with me.

It was midafternoon by the time the doors of my jail cell clanged open.

Two KNP recruits, their khaki uniforms pressed to glistening creases, entered the cell, handcuffed me again, and walked me down a long, wood-floored corridor and upstairs into another interrogation room.

This time Captain Ma wasn’t there. Instead, the mystery man entered, a middle-aged man in jacket and tie and overcoat and porkpie hat and, what I could see now, were goatskin gloves on either hand. He sat down on the chair opposite mine.

“
Mian-hamnida
,” he said. “I’m sorry. The KNPs have treated you very badly.”

His face was full, not fat, with fleshy cheeks that bobbed when he shook his head. He lit up a cigarette. I was right. The brand was Kobukson and the holder was made of ivory. Or faux ivory.

“Are you a cop?” I asked.

“Not exactly.”

His English—what I’d heard of it so far—was perfect. No hesitation in answering me, each word pronounced crisply, precisely. This wasn’t your usual KNP.

“Then what exactly are you?”

“First, let’s have those handcuffs removed.”

He barked a command and the two young KNPs who’d escorted me into the interrogation room burst through the door. He barked more commands and my hands were freed.

“The rest of my clothes?” I asked. “And my identification?”

“Soon. Someone’s arrived from Eighth Army to fetch you.”

Fetch?
This guy’s English was becoming more impressive by the minute.

“Who?” I asked.

“In time.” He blew smoke in the air from his Turtle boat cigarette. “Now is my time.”

His first grammatical failing.

“What do you want to talk to me about?” I asked.

“About Corporal Matthewson.”

I tried to hide the surprise on my face.

“We believe she’s become a deserter,” he said.

Deserter.
A loaded word. Technically, Corporal Jill Matthewson would begin to be carried on the 2nd Division books as a deserter as soon as she had been absent without leave for thirty days. One week from today. This is standard procedure. But this mystery man was calling her a deserter right now. To classify Corporal Matthewson as a deserter before the thirty days were up, you needed knowledge of her intent, her intent to desert. But I ignored the word
deserter
for a moment.

“Who,” I asked, “is ‘we’?”

He waved his cigarette in the air. “Unimportant. What’s important is that we have reason to believe that you will be opposed, and opposed quite forcefully, if you continue your search for Corporal Matthewson.”

“Are you warning me to stop?”

“Not at all. This is just one cop to another. There are dangerous people involved and I feel it is only fair to warn you that this is not your usual—how you say?—fender bender.”

“Not your usual missing person’s case.”

“Exactly.”

His big Asian face beamed, satisfied that I was beginning to understand. I felt like a disciple of Confucius who’d just realized the importance of filial piety.

“But you don’t want me to stop looking for her,” I said.

He shrugged. “That’s up to you. And your superiors.”

“Are you looking for her?”

He shrugged again.

“Will you try to stop me?”

This time he didn’t move. Instead, he puffed on his cigarette and studied me through the smoke. A long silence passed between us.

“We’ve heard of you,” he said. “We Koreans are always impressed when a foreigner takes the time to learn our language, to understand our culture. You’re respected. Maybe not your partner, but you. That’s why I’m warning you.”

He allowed his cigarette to drop to the wood-slat floor. He hoisted himself from his chair and stomped on the burning butt.

“Go back to Seoul,” he said. “You’ll live longer.”

“You guys look like shit.”

The man who stood in the reception area of the Tongduchon Police Station was Staff Sergeant Riley, the Administrative NCO of the 8th Army Criminal Investigation Division. He was even thinner than most of the Korean cops and his frail body seemed lost in the starched material of his fatigue uniform. His teeth were crooked and he wore his black hair just a little longer than regulation. During the duty day he greased it down and combed it straight back but at night, when the work day was done, he wore it in a rakish pompadour, like some has-been fifties rock star.