No matter how many years I spent in Asia I would never get used to the number of gorgeous women who were forced to work in dumps like ASCOM City.
We rolled through the alleys. Rock and roll blared from darkened nightclubs, brightly manicured fingers clutched at us as we passed. Finally we found the Blue Dragon. From the outside it appeared to be one of the larger clubs, and it sat in one of the most crowded and brightly lit alleys. I figured we were approximately in the center of the red-light district known as ASCOM City.
We pushed through the beaded curtain, and thirty set of blinking eyelashes followed us as we stepped carefully through the multicolored darkness to the bar. The place was mostly empty, just a few GIs at tables in desultory conversation with a couple of the girls. An old woman approached and brought us a couple of cold beers, and then a pair of mini-skirted girls materialized out of the darkness. They became a little standoffish when I mentioned Miss Yu Kyong-hui, but they swore they hadn’t seen her for two nights. “Two nights?”
“Yes,” one of the girls said. “She wasn’t here last night. And the night before that she went out early with a GI, but she never came back.”
“Did Miss Yu have a boyfriend?”
“Yes. But she finished with him about a month ago.”
“Why?”
The girl shrugged her slim bare shoulders. Ebony hair cascaded around them and glistened in the gyrating light.
“Maybe not enough money. I don’t know.”
“This GI who took her out night before last, do you know him?”
“No.”
“What did he look like?”
She conferred with the other girl, they chatted, and soon some of the other girls had gathered around and were offering their opinions. Finally, the girl I had been talking to turned back to me and said in English, “We don’t know what he looked like. Just GI, that’s all.”
The old woman brought another couple of wets, and Ernie gave one of the girls some money and sent her out to buy dried squid and peanuts. The girl I had been talking to was named Miss Kwon, she was from Taegu, and she had high hopes of becoming a secretary some day. For the rest of the night we drank and feasted, and when curfew came, I put away all thought of going back to Seoul.
After pounding on a small wooden door for five minutes, I managed to wake up Ernie. It took him about thirty more seconds to get his clothes on, and we promised the girls we’d be back and bundled out the door into the cold Korean morning.
Ernie looked up at the sky. “Oh, good,” he said. “It’s cloudy.”
A sharp wind whipped particles of grit into my face.
“What time is it?”
Ernie checked his watch. “Ten thirty.”
I groaned.
We showered at the post gymnasium and then paid for shaves at the PX barber shop. By then it was almost noon, so we went over to the NCO Club and ate lunch. By the time we arrived at the 8th Army Printing Plant it was already past one o’clock.
“Maybe we ought to call the first sergeant,” Ernie said.
“With no news? Let’s wait a little longer.”
The 8th Army Printing Plant was a huge, thick-walled building, so brightly whitewashed that it hurt my eyes. The Japanese Imperial Army had built the compound that we call ASCOM and they must’ve kept a lot of valuables on hand because the whole place was like a fortress.
We walked into the admin office and flashed our identification, and it wasn’t long before we had the plant manager, an American civilian, buzzing around us.
“Corporal Austin is one of our most reliable employees,” he said. “I can’t imagine what could be wrong.”
“Maybe nothing,” I said. “We just want to talk to him.”
Austin was at his printing press, ink smeared on his fingers and a folded newspaper covering his head.
He was almost as tall as me, but lanky, and muscles stood out on his arms, pulsating in almost as steady a rhythm as the machinery behind him. He stared at us with intelligent brown eyes.
“It’s about your bookmaking operation,” I said.
He said nothing.
“How much was Rodney VonEric into you for?”
He didn’t move. The only change in his face was moisture that appeared in his eyes. Finally, he made his decision. He answered.
“Over fifteen hundred dollars,” he said.
Ernie whistled.
“But I didn’t kill him.”
“Where were you Saturday night?”
“Out.”
“Where?”
“I go hiking sometimes. Through the Korean countryside.” He waved an ink-stained hand. “It’s very peaceful out there, once you get away from the city.”
“Where did you stay?”
“In a grove of trees.”
I stared at him.
“I take my rucksack and a few C rations. When it’s cold enough I take my sleeping bag.”
“Was anybody with you?”
“No.”
“Did anybody see you leave?”
“I doubt it. Most of the guys in the barracks were already out in the ville. You know how they are.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
Apparently the civilian manager had taken it upon himself to call the MP station because just then he walked in with Lieutenant Crane at his side. Crane started snapping questions, and Austin told him the same story. Crane turned to me.
“Why didn’t you notify me?” he said. “This case belongs under our jurisdiction.”
Ernie piped up. “You weren’t doing nothing.”
Crane glared at him and then turned back to Austin. He took a green walkie-talkie off his belt and fiddled with it until it beeped. Thirty seconds later, two MPs came into the printing plant at a brisk walk.
Crane looked at Austin. “You’re under arrest. Clean off your hands and step over here against the wall.”
Austin did as he was told, and soon the MPs had him trussed up and Crane entered into a feverish conversation with the plant manager.
We left. I was happy to be outside in the fresh air and away from the noise of the churning machinery.
Back at the Blue Dragon Club we sat at a table nursing a couple of wets, waiting for Miss Kwon and her girlfriends to come back from the bathhouse. When they came in, they were wearing only T-shirts and short pants and had towels wrapped around their hair, and their clean, fresh faces bubbled with laughter. When they saw us, they surrounded our table.
Miss Kwon said, “You come back.”
“Sure,” Ernie said. “We’re not number ten GIs. We came back to say goodbye.”
They went upstairs to change, we ordered another round of beers, and Miss Kwon was the first one back.
I fiddled with my wallet, looking for the first sergeant’s number, thinking of calling him so we wouldn’t get in too much trouble. The photograph of the GI I had found in Yu Kyong-hui’s hooch fell out. Miss Kwon snatched it up.
“Where you get this?”
“From Miss Yu’s hooch.”
“She taaksan crazy about this GI. He’s infantry, but he was stationed here before. He almost married Miss Yu, but he ran out of time to get an extension and had to go back to the States.”
“Well, she kept his picture for a long time.”
“Not so long. Maybe two years. She still gets letters from him, and she told everybody that he got orders and he will be coming back soon.”
“If she was waiting for him to come back to Korea, why would she leave here so suddenly?”
Miss Kwon shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Then it clicked. The whole thing. I slammed my palm on the table. Ernie jumped.
“What the …”
“We’ve been idiots, Ernie. If VonEric needed money to pay off gambling debts, where would he get it?”
“Well …”
“Sure. I’m going to call the first sergeant right now and let him know that we’re going to be here a while longer. We have some paperwork to do.”
Ernie frowned. While I was on the phone behind the bar trying to get through to Seoul, he made sure to finish all the beer.
Word of our snooping would spread quickly, so I waited until Waitz was off duty to start going through the records of the Army Support Command Replacement Detachment. I compared some of the entries to the notes I had pilfered from VonEric’s desk. As we went over the assignments for the last few months, Ernie started to see the pattern.