I stuck the ledger under the fluorescent bulb beneath the bar and spread the note next to it. Ernie peered down.
“Aah,” he said. Even though he couldn’t read Korean hangul script, Ernie could see the resemblance to Brandy’s distinctive style. She’d been the one who had written the note that drew us to fish heaven. She’d set us up to be killed.
We could’ve continued our search for Brandy and when we found her we could’ve beaten the truth out of her. But our main mission was still to find Corporal Jill Matthewson. Ernie and I talked about it. Whoever had broken into Pak Tong-i’s office before us might’ve found a lead to Jill’s whereabouts and that meant, if they hadn’t already found her, they might do so at any moment. The whole purpose of my speaking at the demonstration was to obtain the cooperation of the students who had promised to lead me to Corporal Jill Matthewson. So we loitered in the northern end of Tongduchon near the little hooch they used as their hideout. But by late afternoon we realized that waiting any longer was useless. The KNPs had located the student leaders’ hideout. Ernie and I spotted them coming and made ourselves scarce. Within an hour, dozens of Korean cops would be swarming over the dilapidated little hooch, searching for clues that would allow them to prosecute the students under Korea’s voluminous antisedition laws.
Ernie and I retreated to the only other place where we might be able to make contact with the students. The residence of Madame Chon. No dice. The KNPs weren’t searching her home-out of respect for her wealth and connections-but they had stationed armed guards at her front gate.
“We’re up kimchee creek,” Ernie said. “Trapped in the Division area, no leads to Jill, no way to contact the student demonstrators. We’re right back where we started. Except worse.”
I didn’t have an answer for him. Not yet.
We sat in a Korean teahouse on the western edge of town, a half block from the MSR, the route that led from TDC to the Western Corridor. Not far from where Chon Un-suk had been run over.
“They have us both nailed for disobeying a direct order,” Ernie said. “To wit, returning to the Division area after being ordered to leave. And they’ve got you nailed for participating in a prohibited demonstration. It’s over. The best thing for us to do is police up my jeep and return to Seoul. Tomorrow morning we report to work and take our lumps.”
Ernie was saying it, and saying it forcefully, but I knew he didn’t believe it. Private Marvin Druwood was still dead. Corporal Jill Matthewson was still missing. We couldn’t leave now. We couldn’t let the bastards win.
A frail young Korean waiter in black pants, white shirt, and black bow tie offered another cup of overpriced instant coffee. We both declined. Bowing, he removed the porcelain cups from in front of us. After he walked away, I said, “He can’t wait for us to leave.”
“Him and everybody else in TDC.”
“Understandable,” I said. “We’re rocking their boat.”
“To hell with their boat.”
“Yeah. That’s what I say. If we find Jill, we find out why she left and how she managed to come up with two thousand dollars and, given what we’ve uncovered already, we might be able to put a case together.”
“Against who?”
“Against the Division honchos. The guys who run the mafia meetings. The guys who are black-marketing their butts off in TDC. The guys who covered up Marvin Druwood’s death.”
“How can we prove they’re black-marketing?” Ernie said. “All the evidence was destroyed in that fire out at the Turkey Farm.”
“Destroying evidence. That’s what’s gone on since we arrived. Destroying the evidence of how Private Druwood actually died, destroying the evidence of what those two young MPs were actually doing when they ran over Chon Un-suk, destroying the evidence of black-market activities that had been supporting the mafia meetings. It’s all about destroying evidence. You’re right, Ernie. And if we return to Seoul now and ‘take our lumps’ like you said, they’ll win. And Jill Matthewson better stay in hiding.”
“You don’t know that she has evidence that’ll help us. For all we know, she might be black-marketing herself. In it all the way up to her freckled nose.”
“Could be.”
He studied me, with that cagey look in his eye that he gets when he thinks he’s reading me like a book. “But you want to ask her, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Yes. I want to ask her.”
“So do I.” He inhaled the pungent, coffee-laced air and then let his breath out slowly. “Okay,” he said. “It’s still Sunday. We still have a few more hours. How do we find her?”
I called the waiter over and borrowed a stubby pencil and a sheet of brown pulpy paper. After spreading it on the tabletop, I drew a map. As I penciled in the names of towns and villages and rivers and mountain ranges, I realized that I knew more about this part of the country than I thought I did. It was a beautiful part of the world. With lush river valleys and craggy peaks and Buddhist temples and shrines to ancient patriarchs. And then I filled in the DMZ and the military base camps and then the brothels. Suddenly, my map looked as if it were breaking out in an adolescent rash.
Ernie and I barely fit into the seats.
The bus was designed for Koreans so each seat was narrow and legroom was nonexistent. We twisted and turned and, as best we could, folded our legs under the seats in front of us. The middle-aged men in suits and the young people in blue jeans and fancy jackets ignored us. But the old ladies who climbed aboard the bus with massive bundles balanced atop their heads couldn’t take their eyes off of us. Foreigners on a Korean bus! We might as well have been space aliens.
Within a few stops after Tongduchon, all seats were filled and the aisles were jammed full of countryfolk ferrying themselves and their children and their belongings-including a crate of chickens and even a small goat-from one village to another. We passed ROK Army compounds and a few military convoys, but along the way no one stopped us.
At one particularly bumpy stretch of road, Ernie felt compelled to rise and offer his seat to one of the country women who was having trouble keeping her balance in the aisle. I did the same and so we were stuck in the aisle on the swaying bus, our heads bowed because of the low ceiling. It was a long ride to Bopwon-ni, Legal Hall Village. Over an hour because of all the stops and all the loading and unloading of passengers and gear.
When we finally arrived, night had fallen. Ernie and I hopped off the bus and strode directly toward neon, into the Pair of Dragons beer hall, the same place we’d stopped last night on our way to TDC with Brandy. We marched to the bar and ordered two draft beers.
In Tongduchon, when Ernie said that we were right back where we started from, he was wrong. We had information. Quite a bit of it. All we had to do was collate it and make sense of it and then use it to formulate a plan of action.
What we knew for sure was that Corporal Jill Matthewson had left Tongduchon twenty-four days ago and, as far as we could tell, she’d never returned. That meant that wherever she was, her needs were being met. If she was dead, of course, those needs would be zero. If she was alive but being held captive, it would be up to her captors to meet her needs. Or not, as they saw fit. But if she was on her own and free-as I certainly hoped she was-she was meeting her own needs. That is, paying for a roof over her head and food and drink and a place to launder her clothes and bathe her body. To do that, she needed a job.
“So what kind of work can she do?” I asked Ernie.
“Law enforcement’s out.”
“You got that right.”
“And all the menial jobs,” he continued, “like being a waitress at a teahouse or washing dishes in a restaurant are out because Koreans take those jobs.”