“Arrangements for what?”
“For getting at Colonel Alcott’s records.”
I knew it. Ernie didn’t stop to congratulate me for my insight. He continued to question Jill. “What kind of arrangements?”
“You don’t have a need to know.” She thrust back her shoulders. “Tomorrow, you’ll find out. Until then, I need your help.”
“Hey,” Ernie said, “who do you think’s running this show?”
After all, Jill was merely an MP Corporal still on her first tour in the Army. And an AWOL corporal at that. Ernie and I were 8th Army CID agents. Seasoned veterans. At least that’s the way we thought of ourselves.
Jill hooked her thumbs over the rim of her web belt, took a step closer to Ernie, and stared up at him. “In Division,” she said, thrusting a thumb at her chest, “I’m in charge. And if you want to find out who did a number on Private Marv Druwood, you’ll listen to me and do as I say.”
Ernie glared at her, dumbfounded, not sure what to do. If she’d been a man, he might’ve punched her. Jill swiveled away from Ernie and turned to me. “Ville patrol,” she said. “Weatherwax is on duty tonight. You two divert the attention of the KNP and the Korean MP so I can corner Weatherwax and get the info I need. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said.
“Let’s go.”
Jill turned and started trotting down the dark alley. We followed. She twisted through the narrow lanes as if she’d been through them many times before, occasionally pointing at a broken “turtle trap” and hollering at us to avoid stepping into the gaping hole. Ernie stayed a few feet behind, just close enough for me to hear him swearing under his breath, cursing all females. The narrow alley emerged onto a broader lane. Above us neon glared: a startled feline with red eyes. The Black Cat Club.
Ernie groaned. “Not again.”
Down the road, the ville patrol emerged from another night club. We crouched and Jill led us out of their line of sight and then around the back. The gate leading to the hooches behind the Black Cat was open. Ernie and I followed Jill past darkened rooms until we stood at the open back door of the club. The voice of James Brown wailed from the jukebox. Conversation and laughter floated out, on a roiling cloud of cigarette smoke.
Jill peeked into the back door then ducked back out.
“The ville patrol’s in,” she said. “When they come back here to search the men’s and women’s latrines, create a diversion.” She pulled her. 45. “While you keep them occupied, I’m going to have a little talk with my old friend, Staff Sergeant Weatherwax.”
Weatherwax was the man who’d shot at Ernie and me in the alleyways of Bongil-chon. Ernie and I wanted to interrogate him, too, but Jill knew all the MPs up here. She’d be able to spot lies easier than we could. Still, I was worried about her state of mind. Was she out to gather information or was she after revenge?
“Take it easy, Jill,” I told her. “All we want is information.”
“Right,” she said. “Right.”
Ernie interrupted. “Here they come.”
Two uniformed Korean men marched down the narrow hallway. The ROK Army MP shouted a warning and then pushed his way into the female latrine. The KNP followed. A black American MP I recognized as Staff Sergeant Weatherwax entered the men’s latrine. Ernie charged forward, plowing his way into the women’s latrine. I followed, standing just inside the door, ready to help if needed.
Behind me, Jill elbowed her way through the swinging door of the men’s latrine.
“Weikurei?” Ernie shouted. What’s the matter?
He was acting drunk. Staggering. The Korean cops stared at him, wide-eyed. Inside the open door of a stall, a young woman squatted over a porcelain-lined hole, her skirt up, terror filling her eyes.
“What’s the matter you?” Ernie said. “Why you come GI club?”
The KNP started to shove Ernie toward the hallway. Ernie spun away from him, staggering against the cement wall. Both of the Korean men turned on him.
I stepped forward. Smiling. Nodding. “My chingu,” I said, pointing at Ernie. My friend. “Taaksan stinko.” He’s very drunk.
The two cops let me step past them and grab Ernie. I started to pull him out of the latrine and into the hall but he resisted. I motioned for the Korean cops to help me. They did, pushing Ernie out the door and down the hallway toward the main ballroom of the Black Cat Club.
I could’ve maneuvered them into shoving Ernie out the back door but I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to search for Brandy again.
The reception we received wasn’t friendly. Two white GIs- drunk white GIs-wrestling with two Korean cops. Not exactly what the soul brothers of the Black Cat Club wanted to see while they were trying to relax and socialize. They reacted with hostility.
Ernie bumped into a group of GIs standing with their arms around Korean business girls. Drinks splashed out of cups. Men cursed. They shoved Ernie and he reeled toward me.
As I held him, I whispered in his ear. “Brandy’s here.”
Ernie sobered. The show was over. Jill had yet to emerge from the men’s latrine. Apparently, she was still having her heart-to-heart talk with Staff Sergeant Weatherwax.
Brandy stood wide-eyed behind the bar, glancing this way and that, searching for a means of escape. The last time we’d seen her she’d spent the early evening in a yoguan with Ernie, and then he’d almost been killed at fish heaven by a rifle round aimed his way.
Ernie lunged toward her, ramming into two GIs sitting on stools at the bar. They shouted. Ernie leaned across the bar, stretching out his hand, but Brandy ducked, barely escaping his grasp. She broke for the end of the bar, but I was already moving. I would’ve cut her off easily but by now all eyes in the club were on us. Curtis Mayfield was moaning sweetly from the jukebox. Two men blocked me. I plowed into them; they reeled backward. I’d reached the end of the bar but Brandy kept moving, heading for the front door. In two steps I would’ve had her but a punch to my ribcage threw me off stride and then three more bodies plowed into me. I punched back. As I did so, I heard the big double front doors open and then slam shut. I tried to move forward but more screaming bodies were in my way. Ernie was behind me now, cursing and punching and kicking, and for the first time I stopped worrying about Brandy escaping and started worrying about surviving.
I was just about to grab a chair and hit somebody when the blast of a pistol shot filled the room, followed immediately by an explosion of glass and metal accompanied by electrical sparks and the screeching halt of Curtis Mayfield’s smooth falsetto. Corporal Jill Matthewson stood at the back of the room, holding her. 45 in front of her with both hands gripped firmly around the hilt.
“Make a hole!” she shouted.
She moved forward through the crowd until she reached Ernie and me and together the three of us backed toward the front door. The mumbling started again. Cursing now about the jukebox and screaming invective from the old woman behind the bar. But before anyone could retaliate, we were out the door, down the steps, and running.
“What’d Weatherwax tell you?”
We were running through dark alleys, heading northwest, away from the TDC bar district.
“Never mind about that now,” Jill told me. “You saw Brandy? Right?”
“Yes. She hightailed it out the door before we could stop her.”
“Have you ever been to her hooch? Either of you?”
I glanced at Ernie. He shook his head negatively.
“No,” I said.
“Then she’ll think she’s safe there. She didn’t see me.”
“You know where Brandy lives?”
“I sure do.”
After a couple more blocks we slowed to a walk, all three of us breathing heavily. Since Ernie and I were wearing civilian clothes, we scouted out front, watching for KNP patrols. Jill led us to a district of TDC very close to the area Ernie and I had recently become familiar with.
“The Turkey Farm,” Ernie said.
Jill nodded. “Convenient for black-marketing.”
