“By then,” I said, “it might be too late.”
Ernie studied me, his eyes squinted. I explained.
Whoever had snuffed Pak Tong-i at the office of Kimchee Entertainment in Tongduchon most likely had obtained an excellent lead on the whereabouts of Corporal Jill Matthewson by stealing Pak’s file on the stripper Kim Yong-ai. Chances were good that the file contained either her new address or the location of her new job or some other information that could lead to Kim Yong-ai and, from there, to Jill Matthewson. Maybe they’d already found her. Maybe they were still looking. But after a fitful night’s sleep, an idea had come to me. I explained it to Ernie.
“Camp Howze,” I told Ernie. “We check there. They’ll know if someone’s been looking for Jill. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
Ernie cursed but in the end he started up the jeep and, when we hit Tong-il Lo, he turned north.
Camp Howze clung to the edge of a steep hill, overlooking the squalor of Bongil-chon. The morning fog had started to lift but the entire GI village looked raunchy and raw. Unlit neon signs advertised nightclubs: the SEXY LADY and the SOUL BROTHER and the PINK PUSSYCAT. Above the village, rows of Quonset huts perched on a craggy ridge looking down on the fertile invasion route of the Western Corridor. Other than the fur-capped guards at the gate, there seemed to be no life on Camp Howze. And no life in the ville. And no kisaeng houses.
Two MPs manned the guard shack at the front gate. Ernie drove up to them and, as I’d instructed, turned the jeep around and kept the engine running, prepared for a quick getaway. I hopped out of the front seat.
I flashed my CID badge to the MP but within milliseconds I’d folded it and stuck it back inside my jacket.
“Bufford,” I told the MP. “MPI Warrant Officer from Camp Casey. He been around?”
The MP look surprised, almost as if I’d woken him up. There wasn’t much traffic here at the main gate of Camp Howze. Only an occasional jeep or army deuce-and-a-half and no civilian traffic at all. It wasn’t allowed.
The MP glanced back at another MP sitting at a wooden field table reading a comic book. There were a stack of alert notifications next to his elbow but they looked untouched. One of them, I figured, mentioned me and Ernie. Out here, at this sleepy little outpost, who really paid attention to such things?
“Jonesy?” the MP asked. “You ever heard of some investigator from Casey named Bufford?”
Jonesy looked up from the dog-eared comic. “The one with the big nose? Skinny?”
“That’s the one,” I said.
“He’s been living out here,” Jonesy replied, disgust filling his voice. “Him and that sidekick of his. What’s the name? Earwax?”
“Weatherwax,” I said.
“Yeah. He’s an arrogant asshole, too.”
“Why do you say that?”
“They always want Camp Howze MPs to do their legwork for them. They’re hunting some big important fugitive, according to them.”
“They say who?”
“How would I know? They don’t tell me nothing. I work the gate.”
“Is Bufford still here?”
The MP shrugged. “Ain’t my day to watch him.”
I thanked the two MPs, told them to take it easy, and ran back to the jeep. Before either MP had a chance to give us much thought, Ernie and I were zooming toward Tongil-lo. After I briefed him, Ernie started honking his horn, forcing kimchee cabs to swerve out of our way. We understood now that speed was everything. And compared with the fact that Corporal Jill Matthewson was being hunted-now-by Mr. Fred Bufford and Staff Sergeant Weatherwax, our bureaucratic troubles with 8th Army really didn’t mean much.
I only hoped we weren’t too late.
We started our search by heading toward Seoul. I wanted to locate on my map every kisaeng house between Seoul and the DMZ and since we were closest to Seoul, it was easier to start on the southern end. However, after five minutes of driving, Ernie and I reached the dragon’s teeth, the rows of concrete monoliths that were designed to stop the North Korean communist armored divisions from invading Seoul. This marked the southernmost edge of the 2nd Division area of operations. Ahead, about a hundred yards away, stood the concrete bunker that was the Division checkpoint in the Western Corridor, manned by American MPs and Korean honbyong.
Ernie pulled over to the side of the road. “We don’t want to go there,” he said.
“No, we don’t.”
He waited until the traffic cleared and performed a U-turn on Reunification Road. We were heading back north and now I knew for sure that the first kisaeng houses north of Seoul were in Byokjie. When we reached the Byokjie intersection, we turned east on the road heading toward Uijongbu. It took us about a half hour to finish mapping the few remaining kisaeng houses in the area. All of them were shuttered and closed but I was able to read their names on the signposts. None of them were called the Forest of Seven Clouds, or anything close to it.
We returned to Tongil-lo, turned right, and continued north toward the Demilitarized Zone. After passing Bong-il Chon again, we were able to mark the positions of about a half-dozen more kisaeng houses along the road, none of which was named the Forest of Seven Clouds. We came to the turnoff for Kumchon. Kumchon is the largest town between Seoul and Munsan, and the county seat of Paju, the agricultural county through which we were now traveling. We’d reached about halfway along our planned route.
“There must be plenty of kisaeng houses over there,” Ernie said.
“Must be. Let’s try it.”
To be fair, Ernie and I were using the term kisaeng very loosely. During the Yi Dynasty, girls of intelligence and beauty were taken from their families and taught the gentle arts: calligraphy, the playing of musical instruments, dancing, drumming, even how to write a form of short lyric poetry called sijo. Once trained, they were sent off to the royal or provincial courts to entertain aristocracy. Sometimes they were even transported to remote military outposts. The advantage they received over normal women was education. The disadvantage was that they were forced to leave their families and never marry; their lives were unbearably lonely. Some of the greatest Korean poetry has come from kisaeng, usually dealing with longing and loss.
The women we were seeing in the modern, so-called kisaeng houses were, for the most part, poorly educated country girls. And their work was only one step above that of common prostitutes. Still, they were called kisaeng, women of skill, and that gave them status. A rock upon which to rebuild their pride.
The town of Kumchon sat two kilometers west of Tongil-lo. Already we’d seen two or three signs pointing up gravel roads that led into the hills, advertising establishments with elaborate Chinese characters in their names. Characters like “dream” and “cloud” and “flower” and “palace” and “peony.” Kisaeng houses all. But not the one we were looking for.
When we reached the outskirts of Kumchon, Ernie slowed the jeep to about five miles an hour. A two-lane road passed through the center of town. Shops framed of weathered wood lined either side of the road and farmers pushed carts laden with sacks of grain or piled high with glimmering winter cabbage. Old men in jade-colored vests and billowing white pantaloons, holding canes and wearing the traditional Korean horsehair stovepipe hat, strolled unconcerned across the road, expecting vehicular traffic to make way for their venerable personages. It did. Even impatient young truck drivers refused to honk their horns at the elderly. The entire city of Kumchon reeked of fresh produce and raw earth.
“Like going back in time,” Ernie said.
On the shops, handwritten signs advertised their wares: hot noodle eateries, fishmongers, silk merchants, porcelain vendors, even a little shop with a glowing acetylene torch advertising ironworks. One of the names of the shops was slashed with red Chinese characters: Kongju Miyongsil. Princess Beauty Shop. It caught my eye: