“About what?”
He turned to study me. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
“So what’d you think about what those Signal Corps twerps had to say?”
“I think they’re telling the truth. They took the Blue Train from Taegu to Seoul two days before Mrs. Oh was raped.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Oh. The woman who was raped on the Blue Train.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“And everybody on their team has been present for duty every day. There’s no way one of them was on that train.”
“So scratch them off your list.”
“Already done.”
“So, now what?”
“We could work on the black-market detail like Riley told us to.”
“Get serious.”
Ernie hated working the black-market detail. The job consisted of lurking outside the Yongsan Compound commissary and waiting for a Korean dependent wife to come outside with a load of black-market items-Tang, instant coffee, soluble creamer, imported bananas, frozen oxtail-and follow her to the ville and bust her when she sold the duty-free goods to a black-market mama-san. A crummy job. A job that was supposedly designed to protect Korean industries from having to compete with cheap, imported tax-free American goods, but a job that was really designed to keep as many Korean yobos out of the commissary and PX as possible.
Ernie hated the black-market detail, and so did I.
“Where to, then?” Ernie asked.
“Colonel Brace said the Blue Train rapist was a Korean problem,” I replied. Ernie nodded. I continued, “I agree with him. So let’s go have a talk with the Koreans.”
“The KNP Liaison Office?”
“The same.”
When we hit the bottom of Namsan, Ernie stepped on the gas and wound his way expertly through the midmorning Seoul traffic.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ernie asked. “The Provost Marshal’s going to be pissed.”
“Do you know any other way of finding the guy who raped that woman?”
“Maybe the KNPs will find him.”
“Like hell,” I said.
“Yeah,” Ernie agreed. “Like hell.”
The Korean police didn’t have access to US Army military compounds. They wouldn’t have a chance of finding him.
When we rolled up to the front gate of Yongsan Compound, an MP was waiting for us.
“You Sueno?”
After I nodded, he turned to Ernie. “You Bascom?”
“Right.”
“Better get your butts out to the Crown Hotel. Like now.”
“What happened?” Ernie asked.
“Something about a USO show and a bunch of hysterical round-eyes.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“Hell if I know. Go find out.”
The MP stood away from the jeep. Ernie performed a neat U, floored the gas pedal, and screeched off into the Seoul traffic.
4
The Crown Hotel is on the main supply route, just a half mile west of the G.I. red-light district known as Itaewon. Probably Marnie Orville and the rest of the girls of the Country Western All Stars didn’t know how close to the center of action they actually were, and they wouldn’t know unless somebody showed them. So far, there hadn’t been time. A blue Hyundai sedan of the Korean National Police sat in front of the hotel, warning light flashing.
Ernie squealed up to the front door, turned off the engine, and we both jumped out of the jeep, showing our badges to the two young cops guarding the front door.
“Odi?” I asked. Where?
He told me the third floor.
We ran past milling hotel staff and ran up the carpeted stairway three steps at a time. In the long hallway, a half dozen doors were open. Marnie Orville stood in front of one of them, screaming at a Korean policeman. Ernie rushed toward her, holding up both his hands.
“Marnie,” he said. “We’re here. What’s going on?”
She swiveled on him, her blonde hair in sleep-ruffled disarray, blue eyes blazing with anger. With one hand she held a bathrobe closed over her full-figured body. With her other hand she kept pointing at the confused cop.
“This son of a biscuit keeps claiming that he doesn’t understand English.”
“Marnie,” I said, “he probably doesn’t. You’re not in Austin anymore. Tell us what happened.”
She took a deep breath, stopped pointing, and used the extra hand to tighten her robe. “Prudence, you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine, Marnie.”
The other woman crossed the hallway and they embraced.
Now all the women were in the hallway, in various states of undress, and the lone Korean cop seemed overwhelmed by the sheer volume of Caucasian femininity. I showed him my badge and told him that we’d take the report. He nodded enthusiastically, scurried down the hallway, and disappeared into the stairwell.
Marnie spoke first.
“I saw him standing right there.” She pointed at the vase on a table that stood next to the door to Prudence’s room. As she did so, her robe swung open, revealing magnificently curved white flesh. She grabbed the flap and retightened it. “He was kneeling, as if he was looking through the keyhole. But he was doing more than that. He was fiddling with the door handle in some way.”
“In what way?” Ernie asked.
“As if he had some sort of tool in his hand,” Marnie said. “Although I couldn’t see it.”
“You were looking through the peephole of your door?” I asked.
“Yes. I thought I’d heard something, like maybe a room-service cart or something, but I knew nobody had ordered anything because we were all planning on going to breakfast together.”
“What did the guy look like?” Ernie asked.
“I only saw his back.”
We continued to question her, about whether he’d been American or Korean, how tall he was, what type of clothing he was wearing, but all Marnie knew was that the clothing was dark and his hair was dark and when she screamed he must’ve taken off because when she built up the courage to look back outside, he was gone.
The Korean staff was not any more helpful. Reluctantly, the manager admitted that there’d been quite a bit of thievery lately, but such a brazen attempt at burglary was something they rarely saw. The KNPs were less tentative. The Crown Hotel, and all the lodging establishments in the Itaewon area, were meccas for thieves. American women, who were assumed to be rich, would be a tempting target.
On one thing all the staff agreed: even from down here in the lobby, they easily heard Marnie Orville’s scream.
“She has a fine set of lungs,” Ernie said.
