“Ask, what name? Tall skinny MP.”
“White GI?”
She nodded.
“Bufford?”
“Yeah. That him.”
“He was here that day?”
“Yes.”
“Was he the one who pushed Druwood off the roof?”
“Nobody push Druwood.”
“Then how’d he fall?”
“He no fall. He jump.”
“Why’d he jump?”
The Turkey Lady shrugged. “Everybody say he sad. Sad because his yobo karra chogi.” His yobo ran away.
“Who was his yobo?” I asked.
“Not Korean,” the Turkey Lady told us. “His yobo MP woman.”
Ernie and I looked at one another. Even Ok-hi paused in sipping her beer.
“How do you know this?” Ernie asked.
“Every MP all the time say,” the Turkey Lady replied. “Everybody laugh at him. Say his yobo no want him no more.”
GIs are relentless when they find a weak spot. They’ll peck at it until it bleeds and then festers, until poison starts to flow in the blood. Was it because Druwood couldn’t stand the ridicule that he’d jumped? Or had he fought back and in a tussle lost his balance? Or had someone deliberately decided to eliminate him? I asked a few more questions of the Turkey Lady but she didn’t know the answers. Which MPs had been on the roof when Druwood went over? She couldn’t provide any names nor any descriptions. “MP all same-same,” she told us. The only one she remembered specifically was Warrant Officer One Fred Bufford. Why him? Because as the ranking man-the honcho- the other MPs deferred to him.
A Confucian trait. Always be aware of who’s the boss, for purposes of survival. Nunchi, the Koreans call it. The ability to read your superiors, be aware of which way the wind blows, and react appropriately.
“Check this out,” Ernie said.
On the southern wall, behind a line of large earthenware kim-chee jars, Ernie pointed at splintered wood. I shined the flashlight on it. Using a handkerchief, Ernie bent down and picked up a piece. The leg of a wooden stool. Broken. We knelt and examined some more of the pieces. Brown stains on the jagged edges.
“Blood,” Ernie said.
“Maybe.”
Evidence of a fight? We left the broken shards the way we’d found them.
Ernie and I stared at one another, unsure of what to do. In Seoul, we’d notify the CID Detachment, which would notify the Korean National Police Liaison Office and in minutes a team of KNP forensic technicians would be up here trying to determine if a crime had been committed. Trying to determine if Druwood had been murdered. But this was Tongduchon. This was Division. To notify the provost marshal and the local KNPs would be to notify the same people who’d not only hauled Druwood’s body off to the obstacle course and dumped it there but also the same people who tolerated this huge black-market operation.
“We have to report all this to Eighth Army,” I said.
Ernie frowned. “They’ll just notify Division of what we suspect, Division will take pains to eliminate evidence, and we’ll be back where we started.”
Ernie was probably right. Our reputation at 8th Army was that of two troublemakers. And if there’s one thing high-ranking military officers hate, it’s troublemakers. Although they’d never admit it, they’d much prefer to have all this evidence we’d gathered pulverized by explosives. Besides, Ernie and I had not yet accomplished what we’d come up here for. We had not yet found Corporal Jill Matthewson. And tonight, after curfew, we were going to make our most daring stab yet at finding a lead as to her whereabouts.
Ok-hi hissed for our attention. Her shapely butt was propped on the back ledge of the wall surrounding the roof. Ernie and I trotted over to look. Below, a bunch of guys were entering the back of the warehouse. Not MPs. They weren’t big enough. Koreans. There were about a half dozen of them, all thin young men about the same size, moving stealthily. Like cats
“Kampei,” Ernie said.
Gangsters.
The Turkey Lady stood up, flicked her cigarette away, and said, “Ganmani issoba.” Wait here. Then she ran back toward the ladder and climbed down quickly.
I stared at the moon, at the evidence surrounding me, and then down at the stone heitei snarling upwards, glaring into my eyes. Daring me to act.
7
Ernie wanted to confront the kampei. I didn’t see why. We were here to gather information about the death of Private Marvin Z. Druwood. We definitely weren’t here to start a hassle with a local gang of hoodlums. Whatever was going on downstairs, I was sure the Turkey Lady could handle it. At least I was sure until voices were raised in anger and then something smashed against a wall. Pellets pinged off hard surfaces, reminding me of only one thing: a broken abacus.
Ernie rushed downstairs. I followed, Ok-hi right behind me.
It took us a few seconds to lift the trapdoor and then clamber down the old wooden ladder. Then we ran down the hallway toward the open door of the office. As we did so, I spotted the cherry-girl room looking larger now because it was completely empty. Is that what the kampei had come for? The Thousand Crane Vase? Maybe it wasn’t a reproduction but the real thing, a genuine antique from the Koryo Dynasty. Of course it had looked real to me all along but when it comes to art, what do I know? When Ok-hi and I rushed inside the office, Ernie was already kneeling over the Turkey Lady. She was alive but the top of her skull had been partially pulped by a blunt instrument. The drawers of her desk and her file cabinets had been ripped open and the contents dumped on the floor. Not as if someone was looking for something, but as if they just wanted to destroy.
Ok-hi squealed when she entered the office but ran forward and shoved Ernie out of the way. She bent over the Turkey Lady and examined her for injuries. “Ahn chugo,” she told us. Not dead. Still breathing.
Ernie and I rushed toward the stairwell. At the top we stopped. There was a smell that we both recognized: mogas. The cheap, poorly refined gasoline that the U.S. Army uses to power most of its motor vehicles. A cloud filled the stairwell. Not like the wispy cotton clouds that led the white, painted cranes heavenward but a solid, pungent cloud, like a mechanic’s fist punching its way into the hallway.
I suppose Ernie and I both expected what was coming next but still it filled me with irrational terror. As we stood there breathing in the odor of cheap gas, a ball of reddish light burst upward from downstairs, along with the whooshing sound of oxygen being sucked into the mouth of a monster. And then a blinding rush of black smoke. We both stepped back.
Panic overwhelmed me. In a flash, I calculated how fast this old wooden building would burn as gasoline- fueled flames gnawed hungrily at dry lumber. Fire grows not gradually but exponentially. Even if Ernie and I ran straight for the exit, we still might not make it out of this old brothel alive. If we went back for Ok-hi and the Turkey Lady, our chances of survival were virtually nil. There was no time to think about it, no time to confer. No time to weigh our options.
We ran back into the office.
Ernie grabbed Ok-hi, jerked her upright, and shoved her toward the door. Then we each grabbed one of the Turkey Lady’s sandal-covered feet and dragged her into the hallway. Her body and then her head hit the molding in the corridor, but we didn’t even slow down. We ran toward the stairwell. Ok-hi understood our panic now. We took two steps at a time, not caring if the back of the Turkey Lady’s skull struck the cement steps. She probably wouldn’t
