The real estate agent had no idea.
I asked about Kim Yong-ai’s occupation.
Entertainer, he said.
What type of entertainer?
Apparently, there was no Korean word for it. Instead, he mimicked dancing and removing articles of apparel.
“Stripper,” Ernie said in English.
The real estate agent nodded his head vigorously.
At our request, the Korean National Police arrested Jill Matthewson’s landlady.
At the Tongduchon Police Station, she was more voluble. Yes, Kim Yong-ai was a stripper and, yes, she worked the GI bar district of Tongduchon. Yes, she had become good friends with Jill Matthewson and, during the day when they were both off duty, they talked for hours. The MP and the stripper. Both worked the night shift and they’d become fast friends. When Jill Matthewson left, she’d left with Kim Yong-ai.
Why hadn’t the landlady told us this? Jill and Miss Kim made her promise not to say anything. They knew the MPs would try to follow them and, she believed, there might be someone else following Kim Yong-ai also.
Who? She didn’t know. But she had the impression that Kim Yong-ai owed a lot of money. Paying her rent had been a struggle for the young stripper and sometimes she’d been so broke that she’d gone hungry. So hungry that the landlady had fed her from time to time.
Where had the two women gone? This was the question that the KNPs, with no regard for the landlady’s civil liberties, pounded home hour after hour. Finally, we realized that the landlady was telling the truth. She really didn’t know.
The stripper, Kim Yong-ai, and the military policewoman, Jill Matthewson, had disappeared together and they purposely had not told anyone where they were going.
Why? That was the question.
“At least she’s alive,” Ernie said.
It was early evening now; the sun had just gone down. We sat at the bar in a joint called the Silver Dragon Club, drinking cold draft OB, Oriental Brewery lager. It had taken a few hours to elicit the cooperation of the KNPs, and then a few more hours for them to conduct the interrogation. They’d taken their time. Watching the landlady cry hadn’t been easy, but sometimes a cop has to frighten people to pry information out of them. The Korean cops are experts at it.
“Maybe,” I said.
“What do you mean ‘maybe.’ Of course she’s all right. Jill Matthewson was healthy and strong when she packed up and left TDC, and she had a Korean friend by her side to help watch out for her.”
“A friend who owed money. And if this Miss Kim Yong-ai was so frightened that she had to disappear, who do you think she owed money to?”
“Kampei,” Ernie said. Gangsters.
“Exactly. So maybe Jill Matthewson isn’t so safe after all.”
A business girl wearing hot pants and a halter top came up and threw her arms around Ernie’s neck. Then the rock band started and more GIs flooded into the club. They’d just gotten off duty. I knew the routine. After work they hot-footed it over to the mess hall, wolfed down chow and then, after a quick shower, threw on their blue jeans and their sneakers and their nylon jackets. Finally, assuming their pass hadn’t been pulled, they flooded toward the main gate and out into the ville. Freedom.
The jackets they wore were made of black or dark blue nylon with a layer of cheap cotton for insulation. They were easily available at the stalls throughout Tongduchon and it seemed virtually mandatory for every GI to own one. On the back, the jackets were hand embroidered with one of three things: a flame-breathing dragon, a map of Korea, or a scantily clad Asian siren. Sometimes they crammed all three onto one jacket. Usually there was a motto beneath. Maybe the designation of their unit, like the “502nd Military Intelligence Battalion.” Or the dates of their tour, “June 1972-July 1973.” Or some stupid saying like, “When I die I know I’m going to heaven because I’ve already served my time in hell.”
To blend in, Ernie and I wore similar jackets. His featured a naked Asian woman being embraced by a fire- breathing dragon. The dates beneath touted his two tours in Vietnam. My jacket featured a map of Korea and the start and end dates of my first tour here. When we’d had them made, Ernie asked me why I didn’t buy something with a little more flare. I’m not sure why I didn’t. A time and a place seemed good enough to me.
OB draft is what the Silver Dragon served; it came from a venerable brewery in Korea that had supposedly been established by Germans just after the turn of the century. The business girl hanging off Ernie’s neck was named Ok-hi. She was tall and buxom and besides the hot pants and halter top wore black leather boots that enveloped her thick calves all the way to the knee. She had a girlfriend and a few minutes later I was introduced to Ji-yon, who called herself Jeannie. Jeannie was slender, willowy compared to full-figured Ok-hi, and her personality was polite and reserved. She told me she was from the southern province of Cholla-namdo. Ernie and I continued to drink the draft Oriental Brewery lager and we bought the girls drinks. They seemed fascinated by us. We were from Seoul, not “Cheap Charlies” like the Division GIs. Ernie winked and said, “Wait until they get to know me better.”
Even amidst the mad swirl of women and booze and rock and roll, I continued to think about the case. I wanted to explain to Ernie that I thought the death of Private Druwood hadn’t happened the way Colonel Alcott and Mr. Bufford said. And I wanted to speculate with him about the various reasons that Jill Matthewson might’ve decided to go AWOL. If we could figure out her motive, maybe that would help us break a lead. But Ernie was too busy with Ok-hi. Instead, I asked Jeannie who booked entertainment in Tongduchon. She was helpful and when the band took a break, Jeannie introduced me to their leader, a young Korean man with straight black hair hanging over his ears. He was surprised that I could speak Korean and after a little hesitation, he gave me the name and address of his booking agent.
Ernie and I put away about a six pack each. Ok-hi suggested that the four of us adjourn to a chop house and have something to eat. Drinking on an empty stomach, the Koreans believe, is bad for the health. Ernie and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so we readily agreed. The girls asked us what type of food we wanted. Neither Ernie nor I could tolerate the Miguk-style chicken houses or hamburger joints that infested the bar district. The chow in those joints was routinely horrible and sometimes caused dysentery. We told them we wanted Korean food. The girls left and returned wearing warm coats and the four of us paraded onto the main drag of Tongduchon.
The Division GIs were drunk now. Raucous crowds of them shoved their way from bar to bar: the Oasis Club, the 007 Club, the Players Club, the Kimchee Club. Rock and roll erupted from open double doors and young Korean women stood outside, trying to coax GIs into their establishments.
The narrow walkways were jammed with pedestrians: American GIs, Korean business girls, old ladies in shawls pushing wooden carts laden with bean curd soup, even the occasional uniformed student humping a backpack, trying to make her way home without being molested. Ernie breathed deeply, savoring the aroma of diesel and garlic and stale beer. A smile crossed his chops and I knew what he was thinking. The ville! Life! A beautiful woman clinging to his arm. How could it be better than this?
As we walked, Ok-hi chattered happily, using the combination of broken English and Korean that passes as the lingua franca in every GI village in Korea.
“Ok-hi taaksan ipo. Kujiyo?” Ok-hi’s very pretty. Isn’t she?
“So-so.” Ernie replied.
Ok-hi pinched him. “You number ten GI.”
Number ten: the worst. As opposed to number one: the best.
“Kuenchana,” Ernie replied. It doesn’t matter.
But after we’d passed a few bars, Ernie was no longer listening to Ok-hi. Instead, his eyes began to dart from side to side. Whenever he swerved in the flow of the pedestrian traffic, he glanced back. Surreptitiously. Jeannie walked casually next to me, not noticing what I was noticing. Ernie had spotted someone-or something-behind us. I didn’t swivel my head to look. That would’ve tipped whoever was following us that we were on to him. Instead, I watched Ernie. Over the months we’d worked together, we’d developed hand signals for simple instructions like “danger” or “let’s go” or “you first.” They’d helped in tight situations, but Ernie wasn’t flashing me any signals. And he wasn’t happy. As we wound through the crowded alleys of Tongduchon, Ernie seemed to become more agitated.
