Slicky Boys (8 page)

The bed was neatly made and the equipment display looked exactly like all the others. Still, we went through it carefully. We were looking for anything. Notes, items hidden away, drugs. We found nothing. The last thing left to check was the padlocked double wall locker. I pointed to it.

“Can you open this?”

The Sergeant Major pulled a big ring of keys out of his pocket. The metal doors squeaked open. Unlike the rest of the room, the inside of Whitcomb’s locker was splashed with color. The white and red tunics of his dress uniforms. A few civilian shirts and pants. Everything was meticulously neat. We checked it all. The razor blades, the soap, the aftershave. Ernie even sniffed the tooth powder. He was the expert on drugs and if any of it was any good he’d pocket it. He put the tooth powder back.

The big thing that we were all ignoring, saving until last, was the thing that had shocked us initially when we opened the locker. On the bottom, atop some neatly folded winter fatigue blouses, sat a brand-new electric typewriter.

None of us said anything. We knew it couldn’t belong to Whitcomb. It was the big heavy-duty type bought by the U.S. Government. Even if Whitcomb wanted a typewriter of his own he would’ve bought one of the compact, lightweight models out of the PX. This was a monster.

When we’d checked everything else and come up with nothing, I pulled the typewriter out of the locker and looked it over carefully. In indelible ink was a supply number: 49-103. Whatever that meant. I jotted it down in my notebook, along with the serial number.

I stood up and looked at the Sergeant Major.

“Do you have any idea where this came from?”

He seemed genuinely surprised. And upset. “No idea.”

He provided a list of Whitcomb’s best buddies and promised to send a copy of the personnel records over to Riley at our Admin Office right away.

“What sort of guy was he, Sergeant Major?”

“Quiet fellow. Kept to himself. We never expected anything of this sort. Not at all.”

Ernie checked under the bunk, rattled the springs noisily, stood up, and turned to the Sergeant Major.

“How well did you really know Whitcomb?”

The Sergeant Major’s face flushed red.

“Not very, I’m afraid.”

We thanked him and walked out.

At the Headquarters Supply Room we had to throw our weight around a bit and flash our badges a couple of times, but finally we persuaded an overweight Staff Sergeant to check the records on an electric typewriter with supply number 49-103.

It was tough for him to bend over but he finally found the supply folder in the bottom drawer of a dusty filing cabinet.

“Here it is,” he said. “Checked out three months ago to the office of the Special Logistics Coordinator. J-two.”

We told him to take good care of the file and left.

The J-2 operation was in a large building right next to 8th Army Headquarters. The “J” stands for joint, since what is commonly referred to as 8th Army is actually a joint staff composed of the United Nations Command, U.S. Forces Korea, and the 8th United States Army itself.

The
“2”
stands for the same thing it stands for on every army organization chart: Intelligence.

Captain Burlingame was an air force officer and wore his fatigue blouse loose around his waist. His eyes had bags under them, his skin was soft, and lightly greased black hair hung over his forehead like a batch of spreading hay. He sipped on one of those heavy-duty coffee mugs embossed with a replica of an F-4 Phantom roaring off into the sunset.

“We did have a break-in,” he told us. “About a week ago.”

“Eight days ago,” I said. “To be exact.”

Burlingame checked his calendar. “Right.”

Ernie and I sat in his office, Ernie fidgeting as usual. Cramped spaces and symbols of authority always made Ernie uncomfortable.

“The MP report said you lost one typewriter and two small jars of freeze-dried coffee.”

“That’s right. I’d bought them at the PX the day before.”

“Who locks up at night?”

“I do. I always do.”

The padlock on the office door was pretty flimsy. Not much trouble for someone with the proper tools to pop it open. Other than scratches, the lock hadn’t even been damaged, according to the MP report.

“This isn’t a secure building, then?”

“Not the whole building. Just the basement.”

“What do you keep down there?”

The captain lifted one eyebrow higher than the other and gave me a wry smile. “Do you have a need-to-know?”

“In this case, yes.”

“Classified documents. We’re an intelligence operation.”

“No guards?”

“We have guards at the gates. And guards who make sweeps through the buildings at intervals during the night. That’s it.”

“Then the downstairs area must be pretty secure.”

“It is. Like a vault.”

“Besides you, who has a key to the office?”

“Nobody. Except the supply officer.”

“Do you ever loan your key to anyone?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Maybe that nice-looking Korean secretary likes to come in late and get some work done.”

Burlingame scowled. “What is it you’re implying? Miss Ahn is honest. Been with us a long time.”

“I’m not implying anything. Just asking questions.”

He sipped on his coffee again.

Actually I was trying to rattle his cage, provoke him into saying something unguarded. He’d seemed nervous since we’d walked in. A normal enough reaction to CID agents. But Burlingame was an intelligence officer. An educated man. He should’ve realized that he had nothing to worry about.

“Before the break-in, or after it, what did you notice that was unusual?”

“Nothing. Everything pretty much routine. Except our typewriter was gone and I had to hustle a replacement. And we had to buy coffee from the snack bar because my ration for the month had been used up,”

“Do you always use your entire ration?”

“Hell, no. Are you accusing me of black-marketing?” I didn’t answer. His face flushed red. “I don’t like your attitude very much.”

Ernie rose from his chair. “A man is dead, Captain. Somebody didn’t like
his
attitude very much either.”

Ernie stepped over to the hot water pot, grabbed the half-empty jar of freeze-dried coffee, and unscrewed the lid. He licked his finger, dipped it in, and tasted the chunky grounds. Moving his mouth, he savored them for a moment.

“He’s clean,” Ernie said.

Captain Burlihgame’s jaw fell open. “Now you’re accusing me of using illegal drugs?”

Ernie shrugged. “If the shoe fits, wear it.”

The captain rose to his feet and pointed his forefinger at Ernie.

“You’ll take that back. Right now, Mister. You have no reason to be casting aspersions on a superior officer.”

“I’ll cast any goddamn thing I want.”

The interview was over.

I stood up, grabbed Ernie by the elbow, and yanked him toward the door. He shrugged off my grip and walked out on his own. As we left, Captain Burlingame followed us into the hallway. He stood watching us, hands on his hips.

I pulled Ernie outside into the cold air.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“The guy pissed me off. More concerned about whether or not we were accusing him of anything than if we find the guy who sliced up Whitcomb.”

We walked rapidly through the redbrick buildings of the 8th Army complex. The snow had let up, for the moment anyway. Naked elms swayed in the breeze like arthritic claws, scratching at the cold sky.

“Give him a break, Ernie,” I said. “Most people get nervous when CID agents ask them questions. They start worrying about their own positions. About how they’re going to look.”

“Yeah? Well, hell with them.. I’m tired of that piddly shit.”

When Ernie kicked in the door at Suk-ja’s hooch I’d figured he was just having fun. Now I realized that this case was already getting to him. He was pissed that our stupidity in delivering a note and not asking enough questions had somehow contributed to the death of Cecil Whitcomb.

So was I.

We had a list of names. Cecil’s buddies. I wanted to find out about the real life of Lance Corporal Cecil Whitcomb.

But there was somebody I needed to talk to first. The man who knew more about Gl’s than they sometimes knew about themselves.

The houseboy.

We slipped in a side door of the Honor Guard barracks and walked down the long hallway. Each room housed eight to fourteen soldiers, broken down by squads. The building was quiet now in the midafternoon. Most of the houseboys were finishing up the last of their laundry, and the soldiers were out in the motor pool or on the parade field. Maintenance and training, the story of a dogface’s life.

We slipped into Whitcomb’s room and waited. A few minutes later a thin Korean man in baggy fatigue pants and a loose T-shirt shuffled down the hallway, his rubber sandals slapping the cement floor. When he entered the room and saw us, his tired eyes widened slightly. Other than that, his square, craggy face showed no hint of surprise.

“Mr. Yim?”

He nodded. I had gotten the name from the Sergeant Major. I showed him my identification.

“I am Agent Sueño and this is my partner, Agent Bascom. We’re here to ask you a few questions about Cecil Whitcomb.”

He nodded again, dropped the bundle of underwear he was carrying on one of the neatly made bunks, and sat on a footlocker facing us.

“How long have you worked for him?”

“Since he got here. Three months ago.”

His English was well pronounced. Hardly an accent. I knew he’d never gone to high school—probably not even middle school—or he wouldn’t be working here. He’d picked it up from the GI’s over the years. Intelligence radiated from his calm face. When I first arrived in Korea, I wondered why men such as this would settle for low positions. I learned later that after the Korean War, having work of any kind was a great accomplishment. Even cleaning up after rowdy young foreigners. At that time, the rowdy young foreigners were the only people with money.

“Tell me about Whitcomb,” I said.

Mr. Yim raised and lowered his thin shoulders. “He is a GI. Like all the rest.”

“But he’s British. Not American.”

“Same same.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

“Sometimes he go Itaewon. With friends. Maybe he catch girl. I don’t know.”

“No VD?”

“No.”

So Whitcomb never caught the clap. Otherwise Mr. Yim would’ve seen evidence of the drip—clotted green pus—in his shorts.

“Did he sleep here every night?”

“Yes. Every night.”

His dark brow crinkled.

“What is it?” I asked.

“He sleep here every night but sometime he come late.”

“Was he in bed when you arrived to work?”

“Not always.”

“What time do you report in?”

“Five o’clock.”

The curfew runs from midnight until four
A.M.
, and the MP’s routinely open the compound gates for Korean workers at five o’clock in the morning. Houseboys have to report in early so they can shine the boots and shoes of their GI charges before reveille.

“Where did he go late at night? Out to Itaewon?”

“No.”

That surprised me.

“How do you know?”

“Because of clothes. When I come in he not in bunk. Bunk no messed up. He down in shower, washey washey. On his bunk is clothes.”

“What kind of clothes?”

“Strange clothes.”

“Can you show me?”

Mr. Yim got up and walked to Whitcomb’s footlocker. He opened it and rummaged through the rolled underwear and socks and towels. He pulled out three items: a pair of dark dungarees, a black pullover turtleneck sweater, and soft-soled, navy blue shoes made of an elastic-type canvas material.

Ernie looked at me. We’d gone through everything while the Sergeant Major was here, but these items of clothing hadn’t meant anything to us at the time. Now, when they were displayed together like this, they seemed a little more ominous.

“Maybe he made his own bunk,” I said. “And wore these clothes out to Itaewon.”

“No.” Mr. Yim said it firmly. “He no make own bunk. And he no sleep. He
taaksan
tired.”

Very tired.

“How often did this happen?”

“Two, maybe three times each month.”

“Near payday?”

He shook his head. “Anytime.”

Mr. Yim seemed lucid, calm, smart, sober. An excellent witness, except that I knew from experience that houseboys were so low on the social scale that nobody took their testimony seriously.

But I did. So did Ernie.

“What else can you tell us about Whitcomb?”

“No more. He
potong
GI.”

A regular soldier.

“Who killed him?”

Mr. Yim’s eyes widened. “Maybe gangster.”

“Gangsters?”

He nodded. “In Namdaemun many gangster.”

“Do you know any?”

He shook his head vehemently.

We talked for a while longer but Mr. Yim didn’t have much more to offer. His life was an endless chain of shining shoes, washing laundry, ironing fatigues, and putting up with GI bullshit. Cecil Whitcomb had been just one more link in those loops of iron that weighed heavily on his soul.

On the way out, Ernie offered him a stick of gum but Mr. Yim refused. Instead, he went back to sorting the folded underwear and placing each item in the proper footlocker.

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