I will break the back of this long, midwinter night,
Folding it double, cold beneath my spring quilt,
That I may draw out the night, should my love return.
Had the woman in the red chima-jeogori been forced to write this, or had she done so for personal reasons and kept it a secret? Had the killer forced her to write this, or had he written it himself? I wasn’t sure. The poem expressed loneliness, certainly, and longing and desire. And the hope that, by the sheer force of emotion, a person could change the inexorable flow of time.
Miss Hwang hadn’t been able to break the back of time; she’d met the inevitable end of her night in the frozen flow of the Sonyu River. I kept making notes, pondering the poem’s beauty, recalling what it had been like when that garlic truck barreled toward me-how frightened I’d been.
The phone rang.
Startled, I went to grab it. It was the one on Miss Kim’s desk.
“Hello?” I said, forgetting for a moment the proper way to answer a military phone.
“George.”
It was Captain Prevault.
“How’d you find me?” I asked.
“I called the barracks, Ernie told me you weren’t there. What are you doing?”
I glanced at the ancient poem. “Would you believe me if I said I was reading poetry?”
“You,” she said, “I’d believe.”
“Is it safe to come over?”
“It’s never safe. But come over anyway.”
– 10-
The next morning, after leaving Captain Prevault’s quarters before dawn, I returned to the barracks to catch a little more shut-eye and ended up arriving at the CID office a few minutes late. Lieutenant Mendelson left us an urgent message saying that she wanted to talk to us before the Threets court-martial tomorrow. We figured that she mostly wanted to make sure we hadn’t come up with anything new, which we hadn’t, so we didn’t bother calling her back. Staff Sergeant Riley wanted to know where we were off to, but we figured the less the honchos knew, the better.
We drove the jeep over to the 21 T Car motor pool and gassed up. Then we backed it into the garage and Ernie convinced a Korean mechanic to check the lube order. While we waited, we entered the operations office, Ernie flashed the high sign at the dispatcher’s desk, and we continued on back to the windowed cubicle of the warrant officer-in-charge, Chief Milton, who was on the phone, as was his wont.
“Okay, Colonel,” he said. “Got it. Eagles plus six.” He jotted something in a leather notebook in front of him and set down the phone and looked up at us.
“George,” he said. “Ernie. What can I do for you?”
Chief Warrant Officer Milton ran not only the operational arm of the 21st Transportation Car Company, but also the most exclusive bookmaking operation in 8th Army. His clients included some of the highest-ranking officers in the command, and it was even rumored that the US ambassador occasionally put down a bet. Making book here in the motor pool was convenient because Milton could pay drivers to pick up cash from the losers and deliver fat envelopes to winners. We didn’t bother to bust him because it wouldn’t do any good. He had too many connections with the highest muckety-mucks in 8th Army. Besides, betting on football was something all red-blooded American males did. It wasn’t seen as a crime. As a matter of fact, if a soldier didn’t take an interest in pro football, he’d be written off as either effeminate or, worse yet, downright unpatriotic. Personally, I found the spectacle of a bunch of overpaid brutes banging into one another less than interesting. As a child, I’d played football and greatly enjoyed it. But in high school, when the adults got involved and tried to turn it into a religion, for me, it lost its charm.
We sat in chairs opposite the chief’s desk. He stared at us quizzically, perhaps sensing that we weren’t our usual calm, collected selves.
“I heard about the shit somebody tried to pull over in Samgakji,” he said. He stared at the bandage on my head. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. We need information.”
He toyed with a pencil. “How can I help you?”
“The poker game at the Far East District Compound,” Ernie said. “Ever been there?”
“Nice operation. Very professional. A lot of big-shot Koreans happy to get away from the KNPs.”
“Afraid they’ll get busted?” I asked.
“No. Those arrests you see on TV are only for show. Usually, the KNPs are paid off and nobody’s the wiser. People only get busted when they don’t pay up. On compound, a high roller only has to worry about the four-percent rake. Life is easy.”
“Do you join the game often?”
“No. Poker’s not my thing.”
“You’re not much of a gambler, are you, Chief?”
“I work too hard for my money.”
Running a book wasn’t gambling. The odds were set by how much money was coming in on either side of a bet. Regardless of which team won or lost, the smart bookmaker always made his vig, the cut, which amounted to about 10 percent.
“The Far East game’s closed down,” I said.
He lifted an eyebrow. “It is?”
“Yes. We were there last night.”
“Why’d they close it?”
“We’re not sure yet. But we believe somebody’s nervous about something more than gambling.”
“Who runs the game?” Ernie asked.
The chief shrugged. “I don’t want to mention any names, but for years it’s been like an institution. A way for the civilians running the compound to socialize with the movers and shakers who get things done. Contractors, financiers, people like that. They like to relax like anyone else.”
“But somebody’s making a lot of money.”
The chief shrugged again, doing his best to distance himself from whatever was happening at the Far East District Compound. “The money’s parceled out,” he said, “to the Korean help, to the GIs who look the other way, even for landscaping to make the compound look more beautiful. Some of it even goes to an orphanage.”
“Sounds like a charity.”
“For years it’s been harmless.”
“How about the women brought in as hostesses?”
“There used to be a couple of gals to serve the drinks and the food. Nice-looking gals.”
“Did they provide other services?”
“Not that I knew of. People were there to gamble. If they wanted to get laid, they’d go to a whorehouse.”
“So you hadn’t heard anything about the game coming under new management?”
“No.”
The phone rang. The chief raised his finger and lifted the receiver. “Motor pool,” he said. After listening to a muffled voice on the other end, he covered the receiver and said, “I have to take this.”
Ernie and I rose, thanked the chief, and left.
Outside, in front of the maintenance garage, Ernie asked, “Should we arrest Campione? Sweat him?”
“He’s sweating now,” I replied. “Besides, something tells me he might not know much. Just because he or some of his pals were taking a cut from a poker game, that doesn’t mean he knows about the sale of a kisaeng.”
“It went on right beneath his nose.”
“Right. But maybe he didn’t want to know. And even if he does know, he won’t say anything. Not right away.”
“Like only if it’s part of a plea bargain, which could take a long time to set up.”