Jade Lady Burning (28 page)

We were alone, there were no hooks or sharp edges on the walls, and we couldn’t hear any of the commotion going on outside.

Ernie turned toward me slowly.

“Nothing like a career in military law enforcement, eh, pal?”

I let my head wag.

“Fun, travel, and adventure.”

17

W
hen they released us, the first sergeant was waiting at the front desk looking as if he’d outlived his normal life span by about five hundred years.

“Don’t say it, Top,” Ernie said.

“I’m beyond words now.”

The desk sergeant had us sign some paperwork and we walked out to a green Army sedan with a Korean Army driver waiting behind the wheel. The morning was cold but bright and fresh, like a new chance on life. The first sergeant didn’t say anything until we got back to the CID Detachment.

The walk down the hallway resembled a funeral procession. Riley stared at us and when the phone rang he just lifted it off the receiver and set it back down. Miss Kim’s eyes were red and she fumbled with a well-worked handkerchief.

“Sit down, you guys.”

We took the same chairs we had sat in so many times while we received ass-chewings and braced ourselves for what was certainly going to be the El Primo of all time.

The first sergeant cleared his throat.

“The charges against Major General Bohler have been dropped.”

Ernie hissed through his teeth.

My stomach tried to swallow itself and maybe it was the lack of sleep but the world got green again for a moment.

Ernie was the first to be able to speak.

“How can they do that, Top? They haven’t had a chance to look at the evidence we got.”

“The commanding general saw the prints first thing this morning. He and Colonel Stoneheart were up at dawn going over them. The people from the judge advocate general’s office told him that it doesn’t prove anything as far as murder but only proves that he once had an affair with a young woman who looks somewhat like Miss Pak Ok-suk.”

The first sergeant held up his hands so Ernie would be quiet and he could finish.

“Even if we could prove that the woman was Pak Ok-suk, it still doesn’t prove that he killed her because apparently a number of men had formed sexual liaisons with her, and having been one of them doesn’t make you the killer.”

“But we have corroborating witnesses,” Ernie said. “Kimiko can put him there, at the scene, on the night of the murder.”

“A bar girl convicting a general? It won’t fly, Bascom. Her word won’t hold up in court. The CG reviewed all the evidence, along with Colonel Stoneheart and the Eighth Army judge advocate, and they came to the conclusion that the only thing to do was to get General Bohler out of the country right away so this thing doesn’t get blown out of proportion. The ROKs have agreed. They saw no reason to jeopardize our bilateral relations by going forward with such a flimsy case.”

The first sergeant walked over to the coffee urn, poured himself a cup of coffee, and came back to his desk. Neither Ernie nor I made a move.

“There is some good news to come out of all this, though. The ROKs have agreed to drop the charges against Spec-4 Johnny Watkins. He was freed this morning and is on his way back to Yongsan. They’re putting out the word to the Korean papers that subsequent investigation has shown the fire and resulting death to have been accidental. We’ve already booked Watkins on a flight back to the States this afternoon.”

“Getting rid of everybody involved,” Ernie said.

“That’s no way to look at it, Bascom. This is an ugly situation and now it’s over.” The first sergeant fidgeted in his chair. “The CG talked to Colonel Stoneheart about you two. He says to let you know what a good job you did and he’s proud of your tenacity in going after the case. And he’s sorry that you were held while we tried to unravel everything. I’ve been authorized to give you some time off, too, to sort of unwind.” The first sergeant stood up. “Take off the rest of today. That will give you a long weekend and then be back here Monday ready to go to work.”

He shook both our hands and we stumbled down the hall.

“Can you believe these assholes?” Ernie said.

“Yeah. I can believe ‘em. But they forgot one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I still have the negatives. Stashed in a safe place.” For five bucks, Judy would protect that roll of film as if it were gold bullion. “We make a few more prints, a cover letter, and I bet there’s a few congressmen around who’d love to ask some questions up at the Pentagon.”

“It means they’d shaft us,” Ernie said.

I shrugged. “I never wanted to be a first sergeant anyway.”

Ernie looked at me. “Me neither.”

Ernie dropped me off at the barracks and I got on the horn and after a few tries I got through to Ginger at the American Club. Her voice was flat as she told me that Miss Lim was in the hospital.

“Which one?”

“The Peik Sim Byongwon. Near East Gate.” She paused and I thought I could hear her swallowing. “Take care Georgie.”

I held the receiver away from me and then I dropped it and then I was out the door.

The receptionist in her crisp white uniform looked down the list of patients for people with the last name Lim.

“She’s young,” I said, “and beautiful.”

“Lim Hong-su, Lim Chong-kyu …” Finally she looked up at me. “Miss Lim Mi-hua, age twenty-nine, room 334.” The unblemished oval of her face was impassive. “That is in the trauma center,” she said.

An old woman in a heavy overcoat sat in a chair at the side of the bed. When she looked up at me, I could see through the dried tears and the wrinkles that she was Miss Lim’s mother.

“I am Georgie,” I said.

She stared at me for a long time, as if by looking she could somehow figure out how I had brought so much grief to her daughter.

Miss Lim was in traction. One arm broken, two legs. Bandages surrounded her face, a tube ran into her nostrils, and there were stitches along her forehead, her cheek, and her chin. Her eyes were puffed and closed.

I heard some murmuring down the hallway. The nurses had noticed the big American walking the ward. A dapper Korean man in rimless glasses and a white coat walked in.

“Good morning,” he said. “I am Doctor Ahn.”

We shook hands.

“Are you a friend of hers?” He nodded toward Miss Lim.

“Yes.”

“I am afraid the news is not good. Most of her hip has been shattered. She will not walk again.”

I looked at the doctor.

I looked at Miss Lim. She didn’t seem to be breathing. The big cold cement walls of the hospital closed in on me but I fought the blackness and somehow remained standing.

I thanked the doctor and walked out of the room.

Miss Lim’s mother had never taken her eyes off me.

After I retrieved the film from Judy and paid her five bucks, Riley used his lunch hour to help us print more photos. He had a lot of experience in photography. Ernie and I fidgeted outside the darkroom. Finally Riley poked his head out.

“Did you guys do something unusual to the chemical bath when you were developing these prints?”

We shrugged.

“Well, the negatives have gone funny. Come in and take a look.”

We went into the darkroom and, after our eyes adjusted, he held up one of the wet photographs. A big halo emanated from Miss Pak’s head and from General Bohler’s and they were bright enough to leave barely a trace of facial features. That was the best print. All the others were totally ruined.

“You guys need a little work on your lab techniques.”

“Yeah,” Ernie said. “We need a little work on a lot of things.”

“Where is the first set of prints you made? You can just make more from those.”

“We turned them over to the provost marshal’s office.”

“History, huh?” Riley said.

“I’m sure they’ll have an honored spot in the Eighth Army archives.”

“Where’s that?”

“The incinerator.”

“Hey!” Riley said. “One piece of good news—the initials of the party who signed out the marriage packets?”

“Yeah?” I said. “Who?”

“Bohler’s secretary.”

The first thing I did was go back to my room and get a whole lot of sleep. Or at least I tried to. The houseboys kept bustling around the barracks, making a lot of noise, and my head kept popping off the pillow with a new thought of how I should have handled the case. A couple of times I shuffled down the hallway in my shorts and shower shoes and bought myself a can of Falstaff out of the big PX vending machine. Finally I gave it up and took a shower, shaved, and got dressed.

I went to the ville.

The reason for all the changes at the Korean Procurement Agency was that General Bohler had been using his influence to get new companies, under the auspices of Mr. Kwok, the lucrative Eighth Army contracts that had routinely been going to another group of entrepreneurs. Lindbaugh had been the facilitator for this at KPA, and since he was in the right place at the right time— and willing to go along with the program—he made a lot of money. Bohler, meanwhile, got what he wanted—an organization headed by Mr. Kwok that would do his bidding. If he spotted a woman he wanted, he got her, and I could only guess what other sorts of services were provided.

For some reason he got a perverse pleasure out of coercing young women who were about to marry servicemen from his own command into doing his sexual bidding. Maybe he made his choices from the photos and something interesting he saw in the marriage packets. Maybe it was just the safety of medically screened brides-to-be. However he made his choices, the women I knew about were exceptionally beautiful.

Li Jin-ai looked good even in the poor-quality black-and-white photograph in her marriage paperwork. The Nurse was a knockout and, of course, there was Miss Pak. Probably there had been others.

The ville on this late Friday afternoon was subdued. No hustle. No bustle. Just the smell of fish and fresh vegetables from the Itaewon market and the feeling that bars and whores and Gls were as inevitable and eternal as the slow changing of the seasons.

The early-morning sun had melted some of the ice but now the sky was overcast again and a slight wind had picked up and the ice on the roadway had refrozen into a smoother, slicker consistency. I slipped two times trudging up the hill to Itaewon.

The doors of the American Club were barred and locked. The King Club was open. Instead of my usual beer, I had a straight shot of Korean-made bourbon. It was rough but I held it and then I had another. The stuff can grow on you.

The jukebox spun out some good sounds and a couple of girls at one of the tables were giggling and looking at me and trying to get up the courage to talk to me or hoping that, better yet, I would talk to them. The place was warm and cozy and, as the bourbon started to seep into my body, I wondered what I was worried about. I told myself that I had no reason to feel anxious.

I wished that Miss Pak Ok-suk were here, to dance for me, in her tight blouse and miniskirt. But the Jade Lady was relegated to my dreams.

Freezing air burst into the room, trailing a bustling little woman, hair in disarray, eyes wide. She spotted the two girls at the table in front of me, sat down, and immediately launched into breathless exposition.

Something had happened. Something big.

I tried to pick out the words but she was running them all together and waving her hands for emphasis. The girls ignored their Cokes and sat with their mouths open, all their attention focused on the ranting woman. The young man behind the bar and the adolescent girl who was the daytime cashier also stopped what they were doing and listened.

I managed to pick out a couple of words. Something about her apartment. Her landlady. And then I realized what it was. Her rent had been raised. That’s all. Nothing serious. It didn’t affect me in any way. But I also realized what I had been so anxious about all day and if I hadn’t been so tired and so nervous and now so drunk, I might have realized it a long time ago.

Kimiko.

I finished my bourbon and headed toward the door.

Snow had begun to fall. Very lightly. It was a rough climb heading up the hill toward Kimiko’s hooch because the road was slick and the fresh snowflakes were not making it any easier. The long gray stone walls loomed ahead of me. For some reason the gate to Kimiko’s hooch seemed farther up the road than it had been before, farther from the main road and farther from the pulsating life of Itaewon. But that was impossible. Gates in stone walls don’t move. It had to be my imagination, or the cheap bourbon.

When I reached the gate, the rusted metal swung back easily at my touch. I clanged it shut behind me, making sure the latch caught.

It seemed that no one was home. All the hooches were closed and shuttered. The burned-out hooch, Miss Pak’s hooch, was still blackened and charred. Fresh petals of snow landed on the scorched wood, as if to mock the ruins, and then melted—disappeared.

I almost turned around and walked out, but something made me decide to check Kimiko’s room. An obsessive sense of detail that the Army had drilled into me. Someday I would get rid of it. I hoped. As I crossed the courtyard, I made the only footsteps in an untouched field of white. The door to Kimiko’s hooch seemed to be stuck but I pulled and it rattled and then the door slid back.