I read over the complaint. Routine. Korean businessmen were turning in bids on U.S. government contracts. Okay so far. But the Americans required three bids from three different companies on each contract. The businessman making the bid, of course, already had a connection with one of the Korean career bureaucrats within KPA so he knew exactly how much money was budgeted for a particular project. What he did was get three different stationery letterheads and put in three bids, ostensibly from different companies, and each signed by a different executive, with all three bids hovering right at or just below the budgeted appropriation.
The bidding was open to competitors, but through the network of Korean power brokers they would be warned off if they seriously tried to butt in. It was a syndicate, in effect, milking the American government. Nothing new. They’d been doing it for years.
And the work they did was not shoddy. It was efficiently produced and, for the most part, brought in on time. That’s why the U.S. Army lived with the system. It got results. Of course, they still went through the charade of all the regulatory purchasing requirements. The Koreans didn’t mind this. They liked paperwork: It produced jobs. And they understood the need to save face. Over the years there’d been a number of attempts to reform the system but in the end the Koreans had always patted the petulant American reformer on the head as he headed back to the States.
The American who was complaining this time only knew that someone was turning in three bids under three different cover companies and that the guy was buddies with one of the Koreans in the agency who let out the contracts. He saw only what looked like corruption to him. He didn’t see the cultural machinery that had evolved over four thousand years that kept disputes to a minimum and allowed for the smooth running of a society.
I had no plans to explain all this stuff to the bean counter or to the first sergeant. I would just keep my mouth shut and go through the motions, which was all, I figured, Eighth Army really wanted me to do. Mainly, I wanted to get back to the murder of Miss Pak Ok-suk and I didn’t need to waste a lot of time on some silly diversion.
The first sergeant plodded down the hallway in his big wingtips and peeked in the door of the Admin Section.
“Bascom. Sueсo. Come on down to my office.”
Miss Kim stopped her typing and gave Ernie a goodbye look. He got up, adjusted the buttons on his jacket, and marched down the hallway after the first sergeant. I followed.
In his office, the first sergeant introduced us to Mr. Tom Kurtz. We all sat down: the first sergeant behind his desk, me and Ernie sort of off to the side, looking at Mr. Kurtz, seated in front.
“What can we do for you, Mr. Kurtz?” the first sergeant said.
“I thought Inspectors Burrows and Slabem would be here.”
‘They’re on a high-priority case and I’m afraid I couldn’t pull them off it.”
“Ah, well. They were so helpful and so concerned about getting to the bottom of the corruption at KPA.”
Kurtz was young, like maybe just out of college, with curly brown hair and a tailored blue suit covering his frail body. He kept pushing his glasses back up his pug nose.
He bent forward, as if to confide in us. “You know I can’t stand working with people who aren’t totally honest. I don’t know how Eighth Army could have allowed the situation to deteriorate so much. I’ve recommended that a few of the people who work for me be fired, but all that happens is they get transferred, sometimes into better jobs, and the people who take their places are no better than the ones that left.”
Kurtz sat up in his chair. “But I’m not here to complain. Not this time. I’m here to thank you for all your help. Since I put in my complaints and your investigation started, things have really changed for the better at the Korean Procurement Agency.”
I had been starting to doze off but this woke me up. A little anyway.
“For the first time we’re getting real competition during the bidding for contracts. Just last week an entirely new company won a major contract to build a recreation center at Camp Carroll down in Waegwan. And it wasn’t just one of those shifting-letterhead deals either. I met the man who got the contract. He was delighted to be doing work, for the first time, for the U.S. government. What convinced me that the whole thing wasn’t some sort of sham was how upset my Korean employees were at the whole thing. And that’s not the only contract that has gone to new vendors. The winds of change are sweeping through KPA and I have you gentlemen to thank for it.”
“Just doing our job,” the first sergeant said. “You played a big role in this, too, Mr. Kurtz.”
The first sergeant didn’t want all the blame.
“No, no, no.” Mr. Kurtz waved off the compliment. “It’s you fellows. And especially Inspector Burrows and Inspector Slabem. Please give them my thanks.”
“Write them a letter of appreciation, for inclusion in their personnel folders.”
“I’ll do that, said Kurtz enthusiastically.
That’s Top. Always looking out for his troops-when it doesn’t cost him anything.
Kurtz got up, we shook hands all the way around, and he left.
Ernie and I stood, grinning.
“What was all that?” I said.
“I haven’t a clue. Go on,” Top said. “Get out of here. Get back to work.”
We clomped down the hallway. Ernie was chuckling but all I could think about was that there must be something terribly wrong at the Korean Procurement Agency. All that money wouldn’t have slipped away without a fight.
But that worry belonged to Burrows and Slabem. I put it out of my mind and tried to figure how I could find the elusive Kimiko, as we drove off toward the ville.
Itaewon during the daytime is sleepy and wonderful. We found a back alley parking spot for the jeep, Ernie chained the steering wheel, and we wandered up the street, past the shuttered shops, the noodle stands, and the black gaping maws of the few clubs that had their doors open this early.
An old woman accosted us. “You want nice girl?”
“No thanks, mama-san. I only want bad girls. Nice girls always make me feel guilty afterwards.”
We pushed past her and headed up the hill towards the hooch where Pak Ok-suk had been murdered. The burnt-out room was surrounded by white police tape.
The landlady squatted in front of a large pan filled with laundry, occasionally reaching up to the rusty old pump handle to draw more water.
“Anyongbaseiyo,” I said.
She looked at us, took off her rubber gloves, and stood up.
“We’re looking for Kimiko.”
The woman twisted her head towards Kimiko’s room. “She hasn’t come back.”
I walked towards the room. The woman followed. Ernie stayed back, next to the gate.
I slid back the paper-covered latticework door. There was a small plastic armoire in one corner, some rolled- up bed mats, and a six-inch-high makeup table with a small mirror and about twenty pounds of multicolored goop in various bottles. I took off my shoes, entered, and rummaged around. There were a few dresses hanging next to a couple of empty hangers. No wallet. No money. A few spaces on the makeup table were vacant, as if some small jars of this or that had been plucked up. I turned to the landlady.
“She hasn’t been back?”
“No.”
“Not since Captain Kim talked to her?”
“No.”
I put my shoes back on and thanked her. Ernie and I bent over as we ducked through the small door in the gate.
Kimiko had disappeared after being interrogated by the chief of the Itaewon Police Box concerning the murder of Pak Ok-suk. She had added nothing to Captain Kim’s investigation and she had not been identified as a suspect. And she still wasn‘t, as far as I knew. Why had she taken off? Maybe because she had information that she didn’t want to divulge. Also, why had Captain Kim allowed her to go? Maybe because he, too, didn’t want any information she had to be divulged.
Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe she knew nothing and had merely gotten spooked and left the ville to ply her trade elsewhere. Maybe.
We walked up the hill towards the Roundup. If anybody knew where to find Kimiko it would be Milt
