Gorman.
Gorman had been living in Korea since returning from a tour in Vietnam. He and his Korean Army buddy had set up a couple of small joints on the outskirts of Itaewon, expanded their operation, sold them, and used the money to renovate an old building and open the biggest country and western club in Korea, right in the heart of Itaewon. On the side, Gorman did a little import and export, but most of his money came from selling the beer and the hoopla and the little taste of home to the lonely country boys from the States. Most of the CID agents assumed that he was crooked. I knew he wasn’t. He was one of the most honest men I’d ever met.
The Roundup was dark and it took our eyes a while to adjust. We heard the slap of playing cards before we could see them.
The little girl behind the bar stopped her cleaning long enough to serve us a couple of beers. We wandered over to the table. It was Milt Gorman and three other old reprobates, Army retirees with nothing better to do on a Wednesday afternoon than play pinochle for a penny a point, ten cents a set. All four men were riffling through their cards and crinkling their eyes. Pinochle gets expensive at those prices.
“George! Ernie!” Gorman looked back to his cards. “What brings you enforcers of the law out to ltaewon at this hour of the day? And drinking on duty yet.”
We sat down at a couple of bar stools near the card table. Beer, sandwiches, and ashtrays competed for space with the stacked playing cards and the score sheet next to Gorman’s elbow.
I said, “We came to talk to you, Milt.”
“Shoot! What can I help you with?”
A young woman shuffled out of the latrine. She emptied the ashtrays, checked the beer bottles, and asked everyone if they wanted another. She got a couple of grunts in reply and, carrying the refuse, scurried off to the bar. She had a nice tight little figure and wore the brief blue uniform of the waitresses at the Roundup. Must be nice to afford such attractive help for your personal card games.
I waited until the woman disappeared behind the bar.
“I’m looking for Kimiko.”
Milt snorted. The other old guys looked up from their cards, mildly interested.
“You want what?” Milt said.
“Kimiko.”
He took a sip of his beer. “You and Ernie can do better than that. Unless you’re getting into perversions that are just not becoming to men as young as you two. For these old farts”-Milt waved his arm around the table-“1 could understand. But not you guys.”
“We’re not looking to get laid, Milt. We’re looking for information-concerning the murder.”
All four lowered their cards and the table got quiet.
Milt spoke: “And you think Kimiko might have it?”
“She knew her. Worked with her, you might say. And she lived right next door to the hooch where the murder took place.”
“Haven’t the KNPs already checked her out?”
“Yes, they have.” I was going to be patient but I wasn’t going to go away. Ernie sipped his beer and kept his eye on the door and the young waitress who was refilling the beer order.
Milt sighed, put his cards down, and got up from the table amidst a round of grumbling. “Come on over here, George. We got to talk.”
I followed Milt through the rows of tables and across the small dance floor. At the far wall, he ducked through a small door that led into the deejay’s room and I popped through after him. The sky was suddenly purple, and the universe was full of small blinking lights. Milt fondled the headphones and looked away from me. Otherwise we’d have been belly to belly. How could that deejay stand working in here eight hours a night, spinning that cowboy crap?
“George, the last few weeks have been some of the craziest I’ve seen since I’ve been in Itaewon. Somebody’s trying to muscle in. I don’t know who, but all the Korean bar owners are nervous.”
I paused to think about it. “What about the guys the bar owners pay for protection?” I said.
“They’ve been pretty calm so far. But they’ve got to be on edge, too. They don’t want to be replaced, any more than the bar owners do.”
“Who’s trying to replace them?”
“I don’t know for sure. Some sort of consortium, with connections of its own. I’ve never met any of them, thank God, but the one name I’ve heard bandied about is Kwok.
“Kwok?”
“Yeah. Mr. Kwok.”
“He’s leading the move on Itaewon7”
“As far as I can tell.”
“How about you, Milt? Are you all right?”
“Yeah. No sweat. I’m small potatoes. And an American to boot. Besides, my partner’s family has its own pull around here. We’ll be all right.”
“What’s all this have to do with the murder?” I said.
“I’m not sure. All I know is the gossip I hear from the Koreans. The word is that the police aren’t going after the case as hard as they usually do. They’re not too anxious to find out who really killed that little girl.”
“Why?”
Milt shrugged. “Somebody is lacking enthusiasm.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Maybe somebody involved in what’s going down around here.”
I shook my head. “How did this little girl, just in from the country, get caught up in all this shit?”
“Hell if I know, George. The citizens out here don’t really want to talk about it. And they’re not too excited about hanging a GI for it. I know the Korean papers and TV are playing that up big, and the general populace is all pissed off about it, but here in Itaewon people know better.”
“We’ve arrested a GI for the murder.”
“I heard,” he said.
‘That didn’t take long.”
“Out here, nothing takes long.”
I handed Milt my card, paid for by the U.S. government. I wouldn’t shell out any of my paltry paycheck for that sort of stuff.
“If you need help, Milt, call me.”
“From what I hear about you and Ernie, you’re not in the office much.”
“Leave a message.”
On the way back to the compound I briefed Ernie on what Milt had told me. We were both quiet. First a young girl had been hideously murdered, maybe by a GI, and the Korean police hadn’t gone after it in full force. Then the decades-old networks that had been formed to maximize profits from U.S. Army contracts had begun to break up and be replaced with new ones. Now somebody with muscle was putting a move on ltaewon, going after the millions of dollars that flowed through the village every year from booze, women, and black marketeering.
And then there was Miss Pak, an innocent who hadn’t understood such things. Of course, Ernie and I didn’t understand them either.
We zigzagged through the traffic and finally popped through the gate and into the relative calm of the Eighth Army Compound. It was an oasis, like a piece of Kansas in the middle of a bustling metropolis.
“You know what I wish, pal?” Ernie said.
“No. What’s that?”
“I wish things weren’t getting so interesting.”
7
The first sergeant had already finished his report on the interrogation of Johnny Watkins and the frightened
