I knew what he meant. Even though we were only some twenty miles north of Seoul as the crow flies, there was a mountain range between us and Seoul and smaller ranges of hills on either side of this valley. Few modern amenities existed back here. Telephone and electrical lines paralleled the road and that was about it. Gazing in any direction, one could imagine that he’d been transported back in time to the ancient kingdom known as the Land of the Morning Calm. The sun sank behind the hills to the west, darkening straw-thatched roofs.
There were few military installations in this valley. No U.S. bases and only one or two small ROK Army compounds specializing in communications. Although we were only fifteen or so miles south of the DMZ, we were tucked snugly between the two main invasion routes known as the Western Corridor and the Eastern Corridor. We were slipping into 2nd Infantry Division territory stealthily. And if the KNPs interviewed either one of our cab drivers, neither would be able to give them our entire route.
I still didn’t know how Brandy had hooked up with Staff Sergeant Riley. I asked and she told us.
“When you come look for me last night, taaksan trouble.” A lot of trouble. “All kimchee business girl, all GI soul brother, taaksan kul-laso.” Very angry. “Why I bring MP T-shirt Black Cat Club? they ask me. I say you not MP, you CID.”
I’m sure that calmed them down.
“So I go checky-checky KNP police station. Nobody outside. I wait. Pretty soon, GI car come. Not jeep. Not tank. Not big truck.”
“It was a sedan,” Ernie said.
“Right. So must be Eight Army. Skinny GI get out, crooked teeth, I go talk to him. He like me. He buy me drink before go in KNP station, pretty soon he tell me everything about you two guys, so I tell him I need to talk to you so he let me hide in back of GI car.”
“That’s Riley,” Ernie said. “Spills anything to a pretty face.”
“After a drink or two,” I added.
As we sped along the narrow country lane, we spoke freely, assuming that the driver couldn’t understand English. A safe assumption. The dark shadows of night continued to roll in and by the time we reached Bopwon-ni, the small town was bejeweled with shining light bulbs. No neon. But at the main intersection there was a teahouse and two-story beer hall. SSANG-YONG, the sign said, A Pair of Dragons. It portrayed two enormous reptiles entwined in battle. We ordered the driver to pull over, paid him, and climbed out of the cab.
Inside the beer hall, the odor of salted octopus assaulted our nostrils. It was a nice fishy smell, interlaced with the sharp tang of red pepper powder and raw nakji, squid, another specialty of the house. The three of us each ordered a mug of draft OB. We turned down the raw squid, which most of the other customers were pecking away at with their chopsticks. In order to save face, I instead ordered a plate of anju, dried cuttlefish with a pepper sauce dip and a couple dozen unhusked peanuts on the side. Koreans believe that it’s unhealthy to drink alcohol on an empty stomach and bar owners capitalize on this belief by overcharging for plates of sliced fruit and dried cuttlefish and other snacks. Not to mention the raw squid.
While we nibbled, I studied the crowd. Most of the heavy drinking was being done by Korean businessmen in suits. They had bottles of Scotch in the center of tables and were busy toasting one another, round glasses raised to red faces. At other tables there were young Koreans, college-age, sipping slowly on beer. And a few women in groups, none alone. At the pool tables, at least a dozen men in ROK Army fatigue uniforms. The patches on their left arms showed a globe with a lightning bolt running through it, which led me to believe that they were probably assigned to one of those communication compounds we’d passed.
Not a GI in sight. Nor a Korean business girl. The influence of foreigners had yet to defile the Pair of Dragons beer hall. Therefore, Ernie and I caught a lot of stares. But most of the gawking was reserved for Brandy. Not for her pulchritude. Here, in a Confucian society, she was stared at for her brazenness. For her huge Afro hairdo, for nonchalantly sitting with two foreign men, for guzzling draft beer rather than sipping something more ladylike, like a glass of pineapple juice or a cup of ginseng tea. She created quite a stir. After we finished our beers, I suggested we leave before one of the drunken Korean businessmen said something to her, she snapped back, and Ernie became involved.
To avoid trouble we had to keep moving.
Outside, we flagged down another cab. This one drove us east from Bopwon-ni, down dark country roads, through quiet straw-thatched farming villages. The three-quarter moon still loitered in a dark sky. Then, just as we all were about to become drowsy, we reached our first ROK Army checkpoint.
The driver slowed, turned off his headlights, and we stopped while armed Korean soldiers peered into the cab. Both of the young men did a double take when they saw Brandy but then they regained their stern expressions and demanded everyone’s ID. The cab driver fished out his license first and then Ernie and I showed our regular military ID cards-not our CID badges. Finally, Brandy handed over her Korean national identity card. I figured it would be unlikely that these two Korean soldiers, out here standing alone in the frigid night, would go to the trouble of notifying the 2nd Infantry Division of our presence. The ROK Army and the 2nd Infantry Division coordinated major troop movements at the Division level but they didn’t cooperate on day-to-day routine. As I suspected, the Korean soldiers barely glanced at our IDs before waving us on. What they were concerned with were North Korean commandos. Not a couple of GIs with a Korean woman who was marked both by her hairdo and by the company she kept, as a business girl.
After we drove on, I mentally started to list the people who might have a reason to murder Pak Tong-i. I started with Jill Matthewson. Would she have a motive? To retrieve her two thousand bucks? Maybe. To make sure that-if he knew where she was hiding-he wouldn’t reveal her secret? Maybe. How about the stripper, Kim Yong-ai? Maybe the same two motives. And maybe another one: Pak Tong-i had been instrumental in her degradation. He’d taken her to the mafia meeting and then done nothing to protect her from what Brandy described as gang rape. And the amulet that sat in my pocket indicated that Mr. Pak and Miss Kim had had a thing going. How could he allow his own girlfriend to be abused like that? Certainly Miss Kim had a motive.
How about someone in the 2nd Division Provost Marshal’s Office or the provost marshal himself? Pak Tong-i knew about the free black-market goods and the free women, and maybe someone had heard that one of Pak’s strippers had taken some photographs. Where were the photos now? With Kim Yong-ai, according to Brandy. But someone had searched Pak’s office. Were they looking for those photos? Were they willing to kill to obtain them? Or were they looking for the whereabouts of Corporal Jill Matthewson and Kim Yong-ai?
Maybe the Korean National Police had murdered Pak Tong-i. Maybe they’d been questioning him, asking him about the whereabouts of Kim Yong-ai or Corporal Jill Matthewson. Maybe he’d refused to tell them. Maybe.
I was using the term murder in its legal sense. I’m no doctor but it appeared to me that Pak Tong-i had died of a heart attack. Still, if an intruder broke into his office, frightened him, questioned him, maybe tortured him, and this had caused a weak heart to burst, then he would be responsible for his death. According to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it would be murder.
Maybe gangsters had murdered Pak Tong-i. Maybe he hadn’t turned the two thousand dollars over as promised. Maybe they came to collect and Pak no longer had the money or refused to pay.
Maybe the mystery man who’d witnessed my interrogation at the Tongduchon Police Station had murdered Pak Tong-i. Why? All he had told me was that powerful people were somehow involved in this case. Who they were or why they were involved? That, he failed to mention.