“What was the name again?” Beresford asked.
“Miss Kwon,” I replied. “At the King Club.”
PFC Wallings sat at the front desk, her back to us, fuming. Lieutenant Beresford didn’t ask her to retrieve the file. Instead, she walked over to a row of gray metal filing cabinets, rummaged through the green folders inside until she found what she was looking for. The complaint was a typed, onionskin sheet, three pages long. She disappeared down the hallway and two minutes later she returned with a photocopy.
“Here you are,” she said.
We thanked her. PFC Wallings was so angry that she rapped the heels of her combat boots rhythmically on the floor
Once we were outside the building, Ernie said, “Nuthouse.”
I didn’t argue.
In the Serious Incident Report concerning the Itaewon Massacre, Cort never revealed his thoughts on what might’ve happened to Moretti’s body. But despite being taken off the case, he continued to interview everyone he could locate with knowledge of the incident. Even the Buddhist nuns.
Once the Seven Dragons took over as the new landlords, the Buddhist nuns, and the orphans, were run out of Itaewon. Someone had written, in Korean, the name of the Buddhist order that the nuns belonged to. The same person also had written down the area of Kyongki Province where their nunnery was located. I could tell it was the same person because the note was still in the file and the handwriting matched perfectly. On a Sunday afternoon about a month after the Itaewon Massacre, Cort signed out a jeep from the 21 T Car motor pool, filled it with mogas and, using an army-issue map, drove out to a Buddhist temple known as the Temple of Constant Truth.
When the nuns greeted him, they were confused at first as to why a G.I. had driven all the way up to the slopes of Yongmun Mountain. Then, Cort showed them the black-and-white photograph he had retrieved from Moretti’s military personnel file. They understood immediately and soon Cort was sitting cross-legged on a warm floor drinking tea with a half-dozen, bald-headed female Buddhist nuns. He came to understand through sign language and some broken English that these nuns had been the cadre assigned to operate the Itaewon orphanage and take care of the children.
Cort asked them where the children were.
The nuns didn’t want to talk about it but some of them started crying and then apologized for their unseemly display of emotion. Cort assumed that because of lack of funds, the nuns had been forced to turn the kids over to one of the many international organizations which were actively saving children all over South Korea. Being a polite kind of guy, Cort didn’t press the issue. Instead, he sipped on his tea and waited for them to calm down.
Then Cort asked them about the night of the Itaewon Massacre.
6
We found Sergeant First Class Hilliard at the 8th Army NCO Club, sipping on a bourbon and Seven and dropping coins into a pinball machine. In the cocktail lounge, a Korean go-go girl danced on a well-lit stage to music blaring from a jukebox. G.I. s ate their lunch and drank beer, mostly ignoring her. As soon as Hilliard sensed our presence, he took his hands off the machine and turned slowly.
“Didn’t you get everything you want?”
“Not everything. I wanted to talk to you about this report.” I waved the copy of the three typed pages in front of him.
“Nothing to talk about,” Hilliard replied.
He turned back to the pinball machine and launched a metal ball into play. Lights lit up and bells clanged as the tiny silver sphere bounced back and forth. Finally, the ball slipped past Hilliard’s flippers and dropped, exhausted, into a dark hole. Hilliard was ready to launch another ball when Ernie placed his hand over Hilliard‘s knuckles.
“Talk to the man, Sarge,” Ernie said, leaning close. Then he grinned.
Hilliard turned again, anger flaring in his eyes. “I told you, there ain’t nothing to talk about.”
“You’re the one who filed this complaint,” I said.
“Yes. I filed it but on behalf of the brothers.”
“It’s your name as complainant.”
“Only because I was there at the time. They be racist out there at the King Club. They discriminate. When a black soldier want to talk to a woman, want to get to know her, she move away from you fast. Just ’cause you black. They be racist out there because the white G.I. taught the Korean woman how to be racist.” Now he was waggling his forefinger at us, preaching. “It ain’t enough that you racist yourself but you have to export it to every country you go to.”
Ernie rolled his eyes.
I kept my face impassive. Koreans are smart enough to form their own opinions about people and they don’t need any help from American G.I. s. Instead of arguing with him, I pointed at the report. “It says here that you requested Miss Kwon’s company and she refused. When you asked her why, she told you that it was because you were black.”
Hilliard thrust his shoulders back. “That’s what she said.”
I shook my head.
“Why you shaking your head?” Hilliard asked. “You calling me a liar?”
“Miss Kwon,” I replied, “doesn’t speak English.”
“How you know? You the one taught her to be racist?”
“I didn’t teach her nothing. She’s shy, just in from the country, she’s afraid of G.I. s. All G.I. s. Black or white.”
“She friendly enough with the white ones.”
Now we were getting down to it. Hilliard was jealous that Miss Kwon had been going with other G.I. s but not with him.
“Maybe they were kind to her,” I said. “Maybe they took it slow and easy.”
“Maybe they be white and maybe they told her if they saw her with a black man, they wouldn’t talk to her no more.”
“Maybe,” I said. He seemed surprised at me agreeing with him. I continued. “But maybe she’s also just a frightened young girl from the countryside and it takes time for her to get to know someone.”
“You trying to make this complaint go away. Well, it ain’t going to happen. Black G.I. s got a right to be treated like anybody else. Whether it be here on compound or out there in Itaewon. And the King Club is racist. Whites only. They might as well put up a sign. And this Miss Kwon, she going along with the program.” He crossed his arms, thinking it over. Then he said, “What makes the CID so interested in all this anyway?”
“I’m worried about putting Miss Kwon under too much pressure. Her family’s poor, she needs the job. She’s just trying to get by.”
Hilliard’s eyes narrowed. “Snake sent you, didn’t he?”
“Snake?” The name electrified me.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. You kissing his butt.” Hilliard was smiling now, sure he was on to something. “He sent you out here to make sure that my complaint don’t go through. To make sure that the King Club ain’t put off-limits for being racist.”
Hilliard slugged down the last of his bourbon and Seven, checked the coin return of the pinball machine to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, and then pulled his cap from his belt.
“You can tell Snake,” he said, “that if he wants this complaint pulled, he gonna have to deal with Q himself.” Q for Quinton, Hilliard’s first name. “And tell Snake not to send out anymore whitey CID agents to try to push this black man around.”
“You’re a moron, Hilliard,” Ernie said.
Once again, Hilliard waggled his forefinger at Ernie’s nose. “You mess with Q, you find out who be a moron.”
Ernie slapped his hand.
