Moe Dexter wasn’t nearly as deft. He slammed on his brakes in time to avoid murdering the old woman, but then he laid into his horn, thereby insulting a respected elder. I turned in my seat to watch. Pedestrians started shouting at him. One kimchi cab driver got out of his car as if to confront the four burly Americans, and a truck loaded with garlic nosed in front of Dexter’s jeep. Dexter ignored the taunts, backed up, and then slammed his front fender into the side of the kimchi cab. He twisted the little vehicle out of the way, the driver screaming and cursing at him all the while. And then Dexter was after us again.
“About two hundred yards back,” I said.
“He’s still coming?”
“Still coming.”
Ernie turned right and entered the narrow road that passed through the heart of Itaewon, past the UN Club, the Lucky Lady Club, the Seven Club, and finally the King Club. He hung a left up Hooker Hill. We passed a few middle-aged housewives with huge bundles of laundry balanced on their heads. They weren’t too mobile carrying that much weight and with only a few feet of clearance on either side of the jeep, Ernie had to slow to give them time to get out of the way. When we reached the top of the hill, Ernie turned right up a gradual incline that was even narrower than the road running up Hooker Hill. I looked back and glimpsed Moe Dexter barreling uphill after us.
“He’s still coming?” Ernie asked.
“Still coming.”
We passed one alley leading back down to the nightclub district and then another. On this second one, Ernie turned right. Immediately, our pathway was blocked by about three dozen young women milling about in front of an establishment with a sign that said Hei Yong Mokyok-tang, Sea Dragon Bathhouse. Caressing both sides of the Korean words were two brightly painted mermaids, smiling past long blonde tresses.
Ernie could’ve avoided this alley, but he’d purposely slowed and inched forward into the crowd. Ernie tapped his horn playfully, waved at the girls, and blew kisses. Most of the girls carried metal pans containing soap and shampoo and other toiletries balanced against their hips. And they looked great. Their straight black hair was held up by metal clips, and many of them wore short pants with either T-shirts or pullover sweaters with no brassieres beneath, their full natural jiggle on fleshy display. Other than the bars and nightclubs themselves, the Sea Dragon Bathhouse was the main social gathering place for the Itaewon business girls. Here they could meet during the light of day, trade gossip, and catch up on which establishments were hiring waitresses or hostesses or barmaids and who amongst their exclusive clan had landed a rich boyfriend or, better yet, a GI who would marry them and carry them back to the Land of the Big PX. Still holding on to the steering wheel, Ernie leaned to his left, reached into his pocket, and pulled out an industrial-sized pack of ginseng gum. Quickly, he started handing out sticks to grasping hands.
Behind us, Moe Dexter and his MP cohort rounded the corner.
“Don’t let them through!” Ernie shouted. I repeated what he’d said in Korean, adding, “The MPs have arrested a Korean woman.”
As our jeep passed, the girls clustered helpfully behind us. Moe Dexter was honking his horn, but it wasn’t working. Angry business girls stood in front of his jeep and on the sides, taunting the MPs, shouting at them to go back to their compound. Pent-up rage at having been humiliated by members of law enforcement, of having always to show their updated VD cards, of being busted for selling the gifts GIs gave them on the black market-all of these emotions bubbled quickly into anger, and in this large gathering the business girls of Itaewon finally held the power. Cursing and red-faced, Moe slammed the palm of his big hand on the jeep’s horn and held it down, screaming at them to get out of the way. This seemed to make the girls even more determined. They pressed forward in front of the jeep, and Moe Dexter was forced by the growing crowd of female pulchritude to come to a complete halt.
At the bottom of the hill, we rounded the corner. Ernie stepped on it, and in a few seconds we’d reached the MSR. Ernie turned right and really let it rip, slamming on the brakes when he had to, giving it the gas when he could, showing the skills he’d developed during his years in Asia. Within seconds, we passed Hannam-dong and turned right until we reached Chamsu Bridge. Ernie crossed it heading south, and soon we were on the wide open roads running parallel to the Han River in the district known a Gangnam, literally River South. There were a few high-rise apartments along the waterfront but not many. Straw hatted farmers worked the fields that stretched on the long inland plains to distant hills. It was as if by just crossing the bridge, we’d been transported back in time. I even spotted a tired-looking ox pulling a plow.
I turned in my seat and studied the road behind us. From here, I had a clear view of Chamsu Bridge.
“No jeeps,” I said, turning back around.
“We lost ’em,”
“You lost them,” I said, “with the help of a few business girls.”
“I have always depended,” Ernie said, “on the kindness of business girls.”
We found Mr. Kill three stories below ground in the interrogation room of the Korean National Police headquarters. When he emerged, his tie was loose and his sleeves were rolled up. He looked exhausted.
“What do you want?” he said.
“The National Mental Health Sanatorium. What happened? Every patient there was arrested.”
“Not arrested,” he said. “They were just taken in for questioning.”
“Like the other witnesses were taken in for questioning?”
He shrugged.
“Have they been released yet?”
“Some of them.”
“How about the director, Doctor Hwang?”
“He’s been particularly uncooperative.”
“Why shouldn’t he be?” Ernie said. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
Mr. Kill looked down the hallway and then back at Ernie. “This isn’t the States. We do things the Korean way.” He pointed his forefinger at Ernie’s nose. “We do things our way.”
Ernie bristled. I stepped between them.
“Okay,” I said. “We can’t talk you into releasing these people but you can at least tell us what you’ve learned from them.”
“Not much. Other than they’re all a bunch of Communists.”
“You mean literally members of the Communist party?”
“No. I mean in the way they obstinately oppose the goals of President Pak Chung-hee.”
“That’s it?” Ernie said. “That’s why you’re holding them?”
Mr. Kill placed his hands on his hips and his face hardened. “How about your investigation? What have you found?”
“Not much,” Ernie said.
Mr. Kill nodded, as if that was the answer he expected. “So if you’ll excuse me.”
He returned to the interrogation room. We watched him go. Silently, we turned and trudged back up the steps.
“Nobody really seems to want to solve this thing,” Ernie said. “They’re just using the iron sickle murders as an excuse to resolve old grudges.”
“Mr. Kill could solve it if he wanted to,” I said. “He has all the resources of the Korean National Police at his disposal and yet he continues to concentrate on peripheral issues.”
“So what does that tell us?”
“It tells us that they want us, Eighth Army, to solve it.”
“Why?” Ernie asked.
“Because the KNPs don’t want to touch it.”
“And why would that be?”
“Because they’re afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“There’s only one thing in this world the Korean National Police are afraid of,” I said.
Ernie looked at me, waiting for the answer.
“Politics,” I said.
We passed the information desk in the main floor lobby. A few uniformed officers stared at us, and there was a lot or murmuring.