glassware and the murmer of shuffling customers, both of us thinking about what Kimiko had said.
Miss Pak had been an excitable girl: alive, barely able to contain herself in anticipation of all the wonderful things that were bound to happen to her in life. Her eyes sparkled, according to Kimiko, and she loved to laugh uproariously, eyes wide, even at the mildest joke casually thrown out by some GI who was unaware that he was such a comedian.
She loved men and trusted them, and it was Kimiko who had set her straight. Get the money first. No matter what they say, no matter how much they like you, in the morning they will see things differently. And they’ll start thinking of how many days it is until payday and how much they could do with that ten or fifteen dollars’ worth of freshly minted Military Payment Certificates.
Miss Pak had listened but she’d faltered a couple of times, especially when the guy was young, like her, and made her laugh.
She was pretty, and when she strutted out on the dance floor with her short skirt and her tight blouse, all the men watched. There might be twenty girls on the floor but everyone kept their eyes on Miss Pak Ok-suk.
Kimiko had borrowed some pungent Korean cigarettes from the landlady and she told us about Miss Pak with a clinical detachment as the room filled with smoke. It was a purely professional analysis from an experienced observer.
Kimiko had contacts, and she felt that Miss Pak Ok-suk was wasting herself running from GI to GI in Itaewon when she was young enough and pretty enough to make some serious money. So Kimiko hooked her up with some of the older Americans around, the kind who don’t want to be seen running the ville in Itaewon, also a few rich Koreans and even the stray Japanese tourist. Miss Pak was making good money but, like so many young girls, she had to go and screw it all up.
She got hooked up with Johnny and they put in their marriage paperwork. Kimiko told her not to trust that. The whole process took six months or more and usually, after talking to his immediate supervisor, his commanding officer, the chaplain, the legal officer, and the personnel officer, and after whatever new hurdle the Army bureaucracy had cooked up, the young GI would change his mind.
Kimiko knew. She’d had marriage paperwork put in on her a half dozen times and it had never gone through. She told Miss Pak not to fall for it, but the girl had stuck with Johnny and this is how it turned out.
I asked her if she had seen Miss Pak on the night she died. She said she had. Briefly. She tried to talk her into going to one of the big hotels and finding a couple of rich tourists. Miss Pak refused. The last Kimiko had seen of her was when she left Miss Pak on the front steps of the Lucky Seven Club. She had no idea where she’d gone after that, back into the club, or elsewhere.
I was about halfway done with my BLT, and I was already finished with my cold glass of milk so I got another one. Ernie pushed his empty plate away, sipped on his coffee, and read the Stars amp; Stipes.
I wondered how much justice we’d done that girl. So far, we didn’t have much more than when we started. We knew that she’d been murdered, but exactly how, we still weren’t sure. The Korean medical examiner’s report had been vague. Asphyxiation. That could have been from strangling or from the smoke of the fire. And if it was from the fire she must have been knocked out or drugged or something. No one was too interested now that a GI was in custody. My guess was that the family had fallen under the wing of a lawyer who specialized in claims against the U.S. government.
No one had any particular interest in proving that Spec-4 John Watkins hadn’t been the one to commit the murder. Certainly not the family. They didn’t want to blow a bundle. And not the Korean National Police, who were glad that, once the GI suspect was turned over to them, they’d get the press off their backs. Even Eighth Army was ambivalent about the whole thing. With Spec-4 Watkins as the sacrificial lamb, their public-relations problem was solved and they could go back to business as usual.
Of course, maybe Johnny Watkins did kill her. I couldn’t be sure that he hadn’t, but it didn’t seem to fit. He just wasn’t mean enough. But who knows? I’m wrong about people more often than I’m right.
Then there was Kimiko. No one in Itaewon had known Miss Pak Ok-suk better than Kimiko. Not even Johnny. But why would she want to kill that young girl? Was she stepping on territory Kimiko considered to be her own? Or maybe it was jealousy engendered by years of bitterness and ridicule in the oldest and toughest of professions.
And why had those guys come looking for Kimiko? They had been after her for something. Only what? Kimiko didn’t appear to have any money at all. Or had she been squirreling away a little bit at a time over the years, with a big stash somewhere? Or maybe they were looking for something else.
Kimiko hadn’t seemed too concerned about the whole thing. She’d relaxed right away, as soon as they left, and she didn’t seem worried that they might come back.
The Korean National Police? They hadn’t gone at this case aggressively. Like Milt Gorman said, they must be protecting someone, or something.
Those two guys we’d seen this morning-were they members of the local syndicate? Sent by Mr. Kwok? If so, why? If Mr. Kwok wanted to kill one of the girls in Itaewon, he could do it a lot more efficiently than Miss Pak’s assailant had. Why would he want to ice some bar girl anyway? Even if Miss Pak was a little money machine, getting married and backing out of the business was routine in Itaewon. Hundreds of girls married GIs every year. No sweat, there were plenty of replacements.
I looked down at my plate and realize I had finished my BLT. I hadn’t tasted it. Not that there was much taste to an Army snack-bar sandwich.
I felt a chill. Or maybe it was just that I knew we had to go into the office and face the first sergeant.
“Where the bell have you two guys been?”
Ernie cracked his gum. “Doing what you told us to do, Top. Trying to get a line on who murdered Pak Ok- suk.”
“More evidence on Watkins?”
“We’re not so sure he did it.”
“Then who did?”
“We don’t know that either.”
“You got any evidence?”
“Nothing new.”
He looked at us long and hard. “Dicking off again, eh?” Neither of us moved. “Let the Watkins case be,” he said. “The Korean courts will take it from here.”
Ernie clicked his gum again, wandered over to the big coffee urn, and started fiddling with the cups and the spoons and the non-dairy creamer.
“There’s no reason in the world,” I said, “to think that Johnny Watkins murdered that girl.”
“Other than that he was going to marry her,” the first sergeant snarled, “and she was messing around with other guys.”
“I’m talking about physical evidence. Sure, maybe he had a motive. But we got no direct evidence putting him near the scene of the crime.”
“But we got no evidence putting him anywhere else, either. A strong motive and the lack of an alibi is enough for the Koreans.”
“Because the newspapers and the locals want blood?” I said.
“Yeah. But I wouldn’t worry about him too much. The judges are fair. They won’t give him too much time if they can’t pin it on him. And they’ll probably let him ease on out of jail quietly, after about eighteen months, and deport him back to the states.”
“And kick him out of the Army.”
“A general discharge. No sweat.” The first sergeant shrugged.
“And if all this happened to you and you were innocent?”
“I wouldn’t let it happen to me,” he said, softly.
The first sergeant leaned across his desk and picked up a manila folder. He probably wouldn’t; he was a very cautious guy. But you never know.
I rubbed my eyes. “And what about the real killer? What happens to him?”
“If it isn’t Watkins, the Korean police will find the real killer.”
Ernie snorted. Some of his swirling brown coffee splashed onto the counter and the dingy brown carpet below. The first sergeant waited while Ernie sopped it up with a brown paper towel, then started again.
