conductor. “We’ll have to check all luggage,” I said in haste and in a state of near panic. Just then, the train jerked and the brakes hissed louder than ever.
We entered Marnie’s car. I sprinted forward. When I stopped, Ernie bumped into me. We both stared at an empty seat. I turned to the people around me.
“Where is she?” I asked.
In reply, I received a lot of blank looks. I repeated the question in Korean.
People shook their heads. They hadn’t been watching her. An elderly man stepped forward.
“I’m not sure where she went,” he told me. “But I noticed after you left that she searched in her daughter’s traveling bag. She pulled out a piece of paper, like a note, and unfolded it and read it. It was pink paper with a drawing on it for children. Shortly after that, she picked up her bag and left.”
The train shuddered to a halt. People started filing toward the doors. I wiped steam off the window and stared outside. No sign of the KNPs. Inspector Kill was probably farther back, keeping his men hidden, waiting for Parkwood to make a move. And then I saw her, carrying an overnight bag slung over her shoulder. Her head was down, and she moved through the crowd quickly.
“There she is!” I shouted.
Ernie peered out the window. “She’s alone.”
We ran toward the front of the car. A man in greasestained overalls was hurrying down the aisle toward us. He shouted at the conductor. We stopped. Apparently he was one of the engineers who worked up front.
“We heard about the missing child,” he said to the conductor, speaking rapid Korean. “I’m not sure what it means, but I thought I would tell you. When one of our young assistants came out back, just after we left Taegu, a foreigner slipped in with us up there. He smiled and acted very friendly and used sign language to indicate that he was interested in the engines and how we conducted our business. Occasionally people come up there and if they don’t cause too much trouble we let them watch. And also, he was a foreigner, and who knew how he’d react if we told him to leave. Maybe it was a mistake, but we let him stay.”
The conductor nodded. I wanted to tell the engineer to get to the point but knew that my interruption would only slow things down. The engineer continued.
“He stayed up there with us the entire ride. Finally, he came out, back here, and when he returned he pounded on the door and we let him back in. This time, he had a foreign girl with him and he acted like he wanted to show her the engine and the controls and such, but she seemed frightened and just stared at the ground. He laughed and tried to coax her into having fun, but she would have none of it. Finally, just before we pulled into Taejon, he opened the door, peeked outside, and then pulled the girl out with him, almost running.”
“Where did he go?” I asked.
“Onto the platform. After that, who knows?”
Outside, there was no sign of Marnie. And no sign of Parkwood, and no sign of Casey.
I went to the train station’s KNP office and asked for Inspector Kill; but instead of helping me contact him as I expected, the officers on duty acted strangely reluctant.
“What’s wrong?” I asked in Korean. “Inspector Kill said he’d be here, waiting, with police officers to help us.”
“He will be along,” one of them said.
More entreaties yielded no further information.
Ernie and I walked toward the center of the open lobby of the huge domed station. “What’s going on?” Ernie asked. “It’s almost as if they’re trying to help him.”
“Yeah. Parkwood with Casey in tow would’ve been easy to spot. Even by a rookie cop. They should’ve collared him before he took ten steps off the train.”
“How the hell did he pull it off?” Ernie asked.
“Parkwood suspected that we, or somebody, would be on the train searching for him. After he made it from Kuangju to Taegu, he bought a ticket; and shortly after boarding the train, he bullied his way into the engineer’s compartment.”
Americans have a strange power in Korea. People know that we helped them during the war, and they know that their self-defense and economic growth are dependent on American wealth and American military might, so they treat us with great tolerance. G.I. s are like 300-pound gorillas that wander into genteel front parlors. Everyone knows that the burly primate won’t cause too much trouble as long as he’s fed bananas, kept well diapered, and allowed to do whatever the hell he wants to do.
“So Parkwood waited up front until the train had almost reached Taejon,” Ernie said. “Then he came out, snatched Casey, and left a note of some kind for Marnie.”
“Right. While we were searching the train, she read the note, and it probably told her to meet him someplace and come alone.”
Ernie looked around. “So why in hell isn’t Inspector Kill here?”
Just as he said that, a squad of uniformed KNPs entered the front door of the station. Ahead of them, wearing a suit and a long brown raincoat, strode Inspector Gil Kwon-up.
Ernie crossed his arms and glared sullenly at Kill.
“Sorry I’m late, gentlemen,” Inspector Kill said when he reached us, but, strangely enough, he was smiling.
“Parkwood took off,” I told him, “with the little girl Casey and Marnie Orville, the mother, following. We don’t know where they are.”
“Why are you late?” Ernie asked.
“Unforeseen circumstances,” Kill said.
Ernie studied him. “So why are you so happy?”
“Because,” he said, “the stewardess on the Blue Train is a very observant and astute young woman.”
“What do you mean?”
“She found this, she gave it to the conductor, and the conductor gave it to one of our representatives.” Between his thumb and his forefinger, Kill was holding a folded piece of pink paper. “And now,” Kill said ceremoniously, “I present it to you.”
Ernie snatched the note out of his hand, unfolded it, read it, and handed it to me.
A fat-cheeked kitten smiled out of one corner. The note was scribbled in English: “Come alone. Casey’s with me. Bathhouse number three on the Gapcheon River.”
I handed the note back to Kill. “Where’s that?”
“A resort area, north of the city.”
“Do you have transportation?”
“Waiting,” he said, waving his arm toward the front of the station. “At your service.”
We hurried out of the station to a row of blue police vans.
The rain had let up a bit, just a heavy mist now, but the banks of the Gapcheon River were completely deserted. During the summer, refugees from the city of Taejon spend the day basking in the sun and frolicking in the cool waters of the rapidly flowing stream. A few miles north, the Gapcheon joins the much larger Geum River, which eventually makes its way to the Yellow Sea. The beach is long and flat with a gravel-like sand, and the water is choppy and fast-flowing but relatively shallow. A bather has to wade at least a hundred yards offshore until the water reaches six feet in depth.
Bathhouses are popular in Korean resort areas. The idea is to swim in the river or the lake and then take a hot shower and a steam bath and, if you can afford it, enjoy a full-body massage. Also, there are places to change your clothes and rent swimsuits if you didn’t bring one with you. It was in one of these establishments that Parkwood had set up his rendezvous.
Our convoy of a half-dozen police vehicles pulled up along the deserted road that paralleled the river, parked, and stopped. We stared at bathhouse number three. No movement. It appeared to be deserted.
Ernie started to get out of the car. Inspector Kill told him to stay.
“Why?” Ernie asked. “What are we waiting for?”
“For Parkwood to come out,” Inspector Kill replied.
“Come out? Marnie could be in there. He could be hurting her.”
Inspector Kill didn’t answer him. He just sat quietly in the front passenger seat. Ernie looked at me.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going in there.”
