Japanese Imperial Army in Korea.
She didn’t mind so much, it didn’t hurt, and the next morning the old woman gave her a share of the money. It was more than Kimiko had ever seen in her life.
After that, she began to make her own friends, and have her own customers, men who would vie for her attention, and the jealousies of the other girls grew greater.
Then suddenly the war was over. The emperor had surrendered Japan. The cruel forty-year reign in Korea was ended. That day, the soldiers stopped coming to Itaewon. They stayed in their barracks, fortifying themselves for the vengeful onslaught of civilians that they expected before the Americans or the Russians could arrive. But the Koreans had no arms, and those of heroically rebellious spirit had died long ago.
The old woman brought all her girls together and gave them each some money and told them they must go. She could no longer afford to house and to feed them. Kimiko did not know what to do. That night there was a great fire and men ran through the streets yelling curses at the girls of Japanese quarter. They grabbed them by the hair and pulled them into the street, calling them traitors. The fire spread rapidly, and Kimiko put on her old clothes and bundled all her money and her few possessions into an old rag.
The village of Itaewon was reduced to charred rubble, and Kimiko was back on the streets of Seoul, where she stayed for five years, until war again came.
“During the war, not so bad,” Kimiko said. “I had to move a lot but there were many soldiers and they gave me food or soap or cigarettes. Other people were very hungry, but I did okay.”
“And after the Korean War, you came back to Seoul?”
Kimiko spat on the floor. “No. I was sick of Seoul people. Too cold heart. I stayed up in the country. North. In the Second Division.”
“What made you come back?”
“I got in some trouble. Went to the monkey house. So after, I come back here.”
By then she was too old to compete with the young girls farmed out to the Second Division area. Guts and sheer hustle could get you further in Seoul.
It was almost curfew. Nobody else was left in the club. I sent Kimiko home in a taxi and walked halfway back to camp before I hailed one myself.
9
When we gave our report on Lindbaugh, Ernie did most of the talking: “We sat in the parking lot behind the Officers’ Club while he got a steam job and a blow bath. Then he bought a bunch of groceries and a cock book and went back to his hooch.”
“What time did you end the surveillance?”
“Close to nine.”
Seven-thirty is close to nine-not very close, but close.
“Our man Kurtz,” the first sergeant said, “is keeping an eye on him during the day but I want you guys to hang loose in case Lindbaugh decides to go anywhere unusual. Tonight, be at his hooch before five. Stay with him at least until curfew. It’s Friday night so he might have someplace to go.”
So did we. But my stomach was churning too violently to mouth off.
The first sergeant rubbed a speck from the gleaming surface of his immaculate desk. “I want you out at the parking lot at KPA watching his sedan during the lunch hour and then back at his hooch before he gets off work. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What’s for chow?”
“Get out of here, Sueсo.”
We got up.
“Keep an eye on him, Bascom. He’s going to kill himself out there running the ville.”
Was I that obvious?
Ernie drove me back to the barracks. He said he’d be back at about ten-thirty to pick me up for the noon surveillance. I went to my room, took off my coat and tie, and lay down on my bunk. Carefully, so as not to wrinkle the synthetic material of my suit pants too much.
It was good to lie down. Mr. Yi, the houseboy, brought two pairs of glistening black low quarters into the room and placed one pair under my bunk and the other pair under the bunk of my roommate, Pederson.
Pederson worked rotating shifts at the communications center, had a lot of hobbies, and hung out mostly at the arts and crafts center. I didn’t see much of him. He was cagey, though. On the weekends he’d strap a camera over his shoulder, take a bus down to Ewha Women’s University on the outskirts of Seoul, and ask the best-looking young ladies he could find to take photos of him standing by a fountain. This often led to conversations in a coffee shop and occasionally much more.
Freebies.
Pederson was smart and also thrifty. He let them buy the coffee and didn’t bother to put any film in the camera.
I tried to go over the Pak Ok-suk case but it was a struggle. There were so many people involved. Something was missing but maybe whatever was, was only something that I had failed to notice. Maybe all the pieces were there but what was left out was my ability to put it all together.
I had yet to see a photograph of Miss Pak but I had acquired a picture of her in my mind. She was lovely, with soft round thighs and long black hair, and every time I thought of her she was dancing for me and smiling. I reached out to her and something shook me. My eyes popped open. Ernie.
‘Time to hat up, pal.”
I washed my face in the latrine and then we jumped in Ernie’s jeep and drove over to the KPA compound. We found a little parking spot in the shade of one of the big red-brick buildings and waited. Ernie looked me over.
“What’s happening, man?”
“Not much.”
“Did you spend the night with Kimiko?”
I turned and stared him down.
“We talked.”
‘That’s one worry off my mind,” Ernie said.
“What’d you do last night?”
“Hit a few bars. Then I went back to the compound. On the way in I checked Lindbaugh’s sedan. Cold. Hadn’t been moved.”
“And then you went back to the barracks?”
Ernie’s hands squeezed the bottom of the steering wheel. He looked straight ahead and for a moment I thought he hadn’t heard me.
“Naw. I went to see the Nurse.”
I let out a whoop. “I knew it! You can’t stay away.”
Ernie grinned a sheepish half-moon filled with well-brushed canines. “It’s the tears. They do it every time.”
We heard a door slam and a heavy rhythmic pounding as someone raced down the metal stairwell. Lindbaugh.
“Here he comes.”
Lindbaugh zigzagged his big frame through the parking lot, reached deep into his suit pocket for a wad of keys, and piled into the green Army sedan. He screeched off in a cloud of slush. Ernie started the jeep and we followed, about thirty yards behind at first. Steadily Ernie closed the gap to about ten. There were still two or three kimchi cabs between us at any given time as we threaded our way through the rushing flow of traffic.
Instead of turning right at the Camp Coiner intersection, Lindbaugh turned left, towards the sedate, leafy neighborhood of Huam-dong. About two blocks down the road he took another left into a narrow alley and parked. We continued up the main road, Ernie made a U-turn, doubled back, let me out just in front of the alley, and continued down the street, hung another U, and positioned himself across the street where he could see as far
