Mr. Kill (15 page)

For Ernie, this was good. Like many G.I.s who’d served a tour in Vietnam, he’d developed a drug habit. And after two tours, the habit had become an addiction. Being assigned to Korea, however, had saved him from that habit. Heroin wasn’t available. Even if it had been, Ernie was heroically fighting off the urge to use the stuff, replacing it with a drug that was not only approved, but even encouraged, by the honchos of the 8th United States Army: alcohol. In the Class VI store on compound, a quart of Gilbey’s gin could be purchased for ninety-nine cents, Johnnie Walker Red for less than four dollars. Regular-priced drinks in the NCO Club used to be fifteen cents for a can of beer, twenty-five cents for a highball. Both prices had recently been raised to thirty-five cents, causing an uproar among people like Staff Sergeant Riley and other aficionados of the distilled and brewed arts. At happy hour, however, which was held daily, the price of either a beer or a shot of liquor dropped to a dime. With these kind of prices, who could afford not to drink? Certainly not me, and
certainly
not Ernie. As long as I’d known him, Ernie had been completely over his heroin habit. Or at least that’s how it had seemed until we burst into room 307 and found Specialist Four Nicholas Q. Weyworth spread-eagled on his sleeping mat on the warm ondol floor of the Five Star Yoguan.

Ernie sniffed the air. Later, he told me he could smell it.

Mr. Kill checked Weyworth’s neck. Still a pulse. Still breathing.

Near Weyworth’s sleeping mat, a red cylinder lay on the floor. Weyworth moaned. He seemed to be coming to. At least we wouldn’t have to carry him out. I knelt to examine the cylinder, already knowing what it was: the fire extinguisher. Apparently, as stoned as Weyworth had been, he still maintained the presence of mind to want a fire extinguisher nearby. I was about to raise myself back to my feet when Ernie shouted.

“Drop!”

I did. Letting myself go completely, I collapsed facedown onto the floor. Behind me Weyworth wrestled with blankets, and just inches above my head something heavy whooshed through the air. With a jarring thud, it smashed into wood. Ernie and Kill leaped on Weyworth. He screamed. They struggled. I looked up and saw an ax, a short-handled firefighting ax, wedged into the wall just inches above where my head would’ve been. An ax that we later found fit perfectly into the empty brackets in the fire-extinguisher case. Savagely, Ernie punched Weyworth one, two, then three times. He lay still.

I rose to my feet, straightening myself out.

After Weyworth had been taken away, the Korean National Police inspector found recently used drug paraphernalia. The KNP lab confirmed that traces of Weyworth’s blood were on the needle and smudges of the illicit drug were in the syringe. Specialist Four Nicholas Q. Weyworth—whatever else he had done or not done—was now, formally, toast.

Kill handled the interrogation. Ernie and I spent most of the day watching through a two-way mirror. A listless Weyworth admitted moving contraband for the Greek sailors, items highly prized in the world of Chinese medicine—antler horn from Siberian caribou, powder from the tusk of the African rhinoceros, and paws from the carcasses of the Asian tree bear—all items long since banned from use as legitimate herbal remedies.

Kill patiently unraveled the facts. The Greek sailors smuggled the items into the Port of Pusan. Weyworth, as an American G.I., was valuable to them because he could travel throughout the country without attracting suspicion. Also, the Greek sailors seldom had time to leave their ships. Weyworth’s job was to transport the goods north to Seoul and deliver them to dealers there, who would in turn provide them to local Chinese herbalists. Weyworth brought the payment back and turned it over to the sailors. In addition to a share of the money, Weyworth accepted heroin as part of his wages. This was convenient for the Greek sailors because they visited ports where heroin was plentiful and cheap. A good deal all around. Everyone profited. Except for the endangered animals—and the sick people who bought this stuff thinking it would actually cure them.

By mid-afternoon, Weyworth was sober enough to stand in a lineup. Once he did, the woman who’d sold the purse to the Blue Train rapist and the cab driver who’d driven the rapist to the Shindae Tourist Hotel were brought in. Independently, they both confirmed what we’d already surmised: Specialist Four Nicholas Q. Weyworth was
not
the Blue Train rapist. Rape and heroin addiction are two vices that don’t usually go together.

Ernie blew out his breath. “So, who else we got?”

I crossed my arms and leaned back as best I could on the straight-backed wooden chair. “Pruchert,” I said.

“Pruchert?” Ernie asked. “He spent the last few days meditating in that cave.”

“With who?”

“Huh?”

“With who? Who else was in that cave to keep an eye on him?”

Ernie thought about it. “Okay. So maybe he slipped out.”

“Yeah. And maybe he walked down that mountain to that little village we saw down there, the one with that joint called the Chonhuang Teahouse.”

“He could have,” Ernie said cautiously.

“And from there, he could’ve caught a cab.”

“A cab to where?”

“East Taegu or Pusan. A place where he could catch the Blue Train.”

Ernie thought about it. “Awfully expensive.”

“A cave’s a good place to conserve your pay.”

“And Pruchert’s head was scratched,” Ernie added. “A wicked slice.”

“That it was.”

“I figured when I saw it that it was from shaving his head.”

“Could be. But we don’t know exactly when he shaved his head.”

Ernie thought about that too. “Was the rapist wearing a hat?

“Not that anybody’s testified. But everyone has said that his hair was short, dark, giving the impression of being curly.”

“A tight cap,” Ernie said. “If they weren’t paying attention, it might’ve seemed like short hair when they looked back on it.”

“Maybe.”

“So maybe we should talk to him again.”

“Maybe we should.”

Our sedan had been retrieved by Inspector Kill’s minions. It was mid-morning now and Ernie and I were both completely exhausted. We told Inspector Kill that we were going to Hialeah Compound to gas up the sedan and maybe catch some shut-eye. Later, we’d interrogate another G.I. whom we had questions about.

“Between the first attack and the second,” Kill told us, “the rapist waited less than a week. If he continues this pattern, we have two or three days to catch him, at the most.”

We nodded. Rest didn’t seem so important when he put it that way.

At the front gate of Hialeah Compound, a bored-looking MP opened the chain-link fence, rolling it back on its iron wheels. Before waving us through, he approached us.

“You Sueño? The CID guy?”

“Yeah.”

“Norris wants to talk to you.”

“Who?”

“Sergeant Norris. He’s at the MP station. Says its important.”

First, we topped off at the fuel point. Military training: always be ready to embark if an alert is called. Once the tank was full of mo-gas, we returned to the MP station. I found Norris in the briefing room, waiting to start his shift.

“Remember that merchant marine?” he said. “The one who was asking about you? The one who wanted to talk to you?”

“I remember,” I said.

“I was down at the Port of Pusan earlier today and I checked. His ship is due in tonight. About two in the morning.”

“You think he’s on it?”

Norris shrugged. “Don’t know. These guys move around a lot.”

Still, he gave me the name of the sailor and the name of the ship. He was called Arkadus. The ship was the
Star
of Tirana.

Before I walked out, Norris said, “Watch yourself with these guys.”

“Why?” I asked, turning. “Because they all carry knives?”

“Not just that. They play mind games. Like in chess. They always seem to be a few moves ahead of you.”

“I’ve played a little chess myself.”

“Maybe. But they play for keeps, these guys. It’s all they have in life. The hustle. They either hustle or die. And if you try to stop them, you’d better get them before they get you.”

I touched my forehead in a mock salute. Then I turned and walked out the door.

After some chow and some rest, Ernie and I made our way north. By the time we arrived at the Dochung Temple, it was already mid-afternoon. The monks were surprised to see us. The one who could speak English stepped in front of his brethren, a puzzled look on his face.

“Is Pruchert still in his cave?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“We have to talk to him.”

“It is very bad to disturb him during meditation. And twice in two days.” The monk shook his head sadly.

“Show us. Please. It is very important.”

The monk stared at us for a while and finally turned and strolled across the courtyard. We followed. At the side of the temple, the monk picked up an old-fashioned lantern made of green metal that I thought might be brass. He lit the wick, and when the light began to shine, he turned to Ernie and me and said, “Come.”

Shadows crept up the sides of the mountain. When we passed near steep cliffs, I understood why the monk had brought the lantern. In some of these crevasses, it was already night. The pathway was narrow and well trod, and many of the rocks had been splashed with black-ink Chinese characters. I could read a few of them. They referred to “the path” and “eternal” and “the Buddha,” although I couldn’t read enough of them to decipher any complete sentences. The path continued to rise steeply, so steeply that we had to steady ourselves using the handholds that someone had thoughtfully provided. The monk moved quickly, like a mountain goat, but I soon realized that he was placing his feet in well-worn steps that he’d unconsciously memorized. Ernie and I started mimicking his every move, and our speed increased. We reached a plateau where dozens of small cave entrances were arrayed before us. Incense floated out of many of them, and in a few the dim glow of charcoal fires could be seen, sometimes illuminating a golden figurine. The monk found another path and continued up the side of the mountain. Here the trail branched off through thick brush in dozens of tributaries. Each one, apparently, had a cave, or a few caves, at the end. I wondered how the monk kept all this straight; but just as I was about to ask him, he stopped on a narrow rock shelf and pointed.

“In there,” he said.

It was a four-foot-high opening that was just wide enough for a man to crawl through. The monk handed me the lantern and said, “Go.” Then he swiveled on his leather sandals and quickly trotted back down the trail.

Ernie stepped forward and peered into the cave. “Nothing,” he said. It was completely dark in there.

I stood next to him and breathed deeply. “No smell of incense.”

“Maybe he ran out,” Ernie said.

“After a few days, I suppose so.”

“Must be cold as hell at night.”

“I suppose so.”

We stood in front of the cave. Stalling. Without admitting it to one another, we were both hoping that Pruchert would hear us and come out of the cave on his own. When he didn’t, I looked around. The sun was going down quickly now and Chonhuang Mountain would soon be in total darkness.

“I’ll go in first,” I said.

“No,” Ernie replied. “I’ll go in first. You hold the lantern and stay right behind me.”

“Okay.

He crouched and entered the darkness.

10

N
ational Geographic
sometimes runs articles about the mysteries of the underground world, the caves and rivers and lakes that human eyes have never seen. The photographs are beautiful and the caverns they depict breathtaking, but spelunking was not a pastime that I thought would ever appeal to me. Crawling through the moist dirt in this narrow tunnel, holding a flickering lantern in front of me, was anything but my idea of fun. After about ten yards, Ernie scrambled forward. We emerged into a tomblike cavern. I held the lantern aloft.

To our right, atop a stone shelf about four feet high, was an indentation large enough to hold a seated man. We climbed up on the shelf. I poked the lantern into the room-like space. Straw mats had been arranged carefully on the dirt floor, and above them a bronze effigy of the Maitreya Buddha sat serenely on a stone pedestal. Sticks of burnt incense drooped out of a bronze holder. Ernie and I checked the rest of the chamber. There were no exits except the way we’d entered.

“The son of a biscuit took off,” Ernie said.

“Wouldn’t you?”

Ernie spit on the dirt floor. “I wouldn’t come in here in the first place. Not unless I had to.”

“Careful, Ernie. This is a holy place.”

Ernie nodded toward the carved Buddha. “Sorry,” he said.

As fast as we could, we crawled back out of the tunnel.

We pushed through the bead curtain covering the front door of the Chonhuang Teahouse.

“This is more like it,” Ernie said. “Our kind of joint.”

The problem was that they didn’t want to let us in. A middle-aged man stood at the end of a short hallway, waving his palm at us negatively. “
Migun andei
,” he said. G.I.s not allowed.

“What’d he say?” Ernie asked me, incredulously staring down at the little man.

“He says American soldiers aren’t allowed.”

“Is he out of his freaking mind?”

Ernie reached out and shoved the man aside.

We paraded into the main room, which was mostly booths and a small serving counter, illuminated by the pink shaded light of table lamps. We wandered toward the back and used their bathroom to clean up. When we seated ourselves at a corner booth, we looked fairly presentable—we’d batted most of the dust off our trousers—and, better yet, there were two pretty hostesses waiting for us. Three or four of the other booths were occupied by middle-aged Korean gentlemen, all of them smoking and being served coffee or tea by attractive young ladies. The elderly man who’d tried to stop us from entering puttered around behind the serving counter, shooting us evil stares. The Korean customers didn’t acknowledge our existence. The hostesses assigned to us, however, had no choice.

“Anyonghaseiyo,” one of them said to me, bowing.

I acknowledged the greeting, and, after she asked me what we wanted to drink, I told her coffee for both of us. Out of a stainless-steel pot, she poured boiling water into two porcelain cups filled with Maxwell House instant. She stirred the concoction with a slender spoon and then offered sugar and cream. I took neither. Ernie took two heaping spoonfuls of granulated sugar. Neither of the hostesses spoke English, so I took the conversational lead.

“The Chonhuang Teahouse is very famous,” I said.

“Famous?” The hostess seated next to me opened her eyes wide.

“A G.I. who I know, Robert Pruchert, told me about this place. He said the women who work here are very beautiful.”

It wasn’t such a long shot that Pruchert, after he made good his escape from the monastery, would stop here. This village, known as Chonhuang-ni, was by far the closest village to the temple. And the Chonhuang Teahouse was the only place in the tiny settlement that had a public toilet. The only place where somebody like Corporal Robert Pruchert could clean up after a long walk, and the only place where he could buy a cup of coffee or something to eat before bargaining with a cab driver to drive him the hell out of here. Still, when I mentioned his name, both girls stared at me blankly. I persisted.

“He is studying at the Dochung Temple,” I told them. “He shaved his head. He wants to become a Buddhist monk.”

One of them smiled and placed both her slender hands in front of her mouth. “Oh,” she said. “Bob-bi.”

“Yes,” I replied. “That’s right. Bobby. Bobby Pruchert.”

They exchanged words and then they both turned back to me and started chattering happily. Bobby had come in here more than once, always wearing his russet-colored Buddhist robes, which is why the owner, Mr. Roh, allowed him to come in, because Mr. Roh was devout and would never deny entry to a monk of the Dochung Temple.

“Why doesn’t Mr. Roh usually allow G.I.s?” Ernie asked.

I translated the question. The girls almost cheerfully explained that in the past G.I.s passing through in convoys had occasionally stopped and used the latrine and made a mess. They’d ordered Oscar—the Korean-made sparkling burgundy—or brought in their own
soju
and gotten drunk and argued with the regular customers.

“Too much trouble,” one of the girls said, summing up the entire American experience.

I turned the conversation back to Pruchert.

He came in here wearing his robes, the girls told me, but he always brought a bag slung over his shoulder. He’d go into the bathroom and change into civilian clothes, and then he was very polite and kind to the girls and he’d order a plate of pork fried rice; and when he was finished, the cab driver would come and take him away.

“
The
cab driver?” I asked.

“Yes,” the girls replied. There was only one in town, the same man who even now was sitting outside in his hack.

“Where did Bobby go?” I asked.

The same place every time, one of the girls told me. They knew because Kwok the cab driver bragged about the large fare he was paid.

Ernie was leaning forward now, his coffee finished, catching much of what was being said.

“And where was that?” he asked in English.

I translated.

The girls answered in unison.

“Taegu,” they told us. “Bobby always went to Taegu.”

“Where in Taegu?” I asked.

At that, they shrugged their slender shoulders. We’d finished our coffee and exhausted the totality of their knowledge concerning Corporal Robert R. Pruchert. I slipped them a thousand-won note, thanked them, and left.

Kwok, the cab driver, made me bargain for his information.

“Business is not good,” he told me in Korean. “Nobody takes a cab anymore. Rich man has his own car now. Not like before. G.I. no come no more. Maybe sometimes I carry pigs or chickens from one village to next. That’s it.”

“What about Pruchert?” I asked him. “Bobby Pruchert.”

“The monk?”

I nodded.

“He all the time go same place.”

That’s when we haggled over a price, settling on four thousand won. I handed him the money.

“He go to Taegu.”

“The train station?”

Kwok’s eyes widened. “No. Never go train station.”

“Then where?”

“
Mekju
house,” he said. “G.I. mekju house.”
Mekju
is beer.

“Where is this mekju house?” I asked.

“Outside G.I. compound.”

There was more than one American compound in Taegu: Camp Henry, Camp Walker, and, equidistant between them, an aviation compound.

“Which one?” I asked.

Kwok scratched his head. “I don’t know. I forget how you say.”

“What district of Taegu is it in?”

That he knew. “
Namgu
,” he said.

Namgu
means the southern ward. With a map, I should be able to figure out which compound it was. But outside of both Camps Henry and Walker there were dozens of joints catering to G.I.s.

“What was the name of the mekju house?” I asked.

Again Kwok scratched his head, and when he was done with that he rubbed his chin. I handed him another thousand-won note. He grinned and stuffed it in his shirt pocket.

“
Migun Chonguk
,” he said.

“Did it have an American name?”

“Maybe. But I couldn’t read it.”

It is common for nightclubs or chophouses catering to G.I.s to have two names; one in English, the other in Korean. Often, the two names have no relationship to one another. I didn’t bother to thank Mr. Kwok. He’d been well compensated for his trouble. In fact, he’d been paid too much. Five thousand won was the equivalent of ten US dollars.

As we walked away, Ernie said, “He held you up.”

“At least we know where Pruchert went.”

“Maybe. Unless he’s lying to us.”

“He’d better not be.”

“Why? What could you do to him?”

I didn’t answer.

“You’re not the type,” Ernie said, “to come back and punch him in the nose.”

We climbed in the sedan and Ernie started the engine. He’d been intrigued by his own question and wouldn’t let it go. We pulled out on the two-lane highway and Ernie peeled off down the road, anxious to reach Taegu before we caught the brunt of the late-afternoon traffic.

“So if it turns out that this cab driver, Kwok, is lying to us, what are you going to do?”

“I’ll tell Kill.”

Ernie turned his attention back to the road, satisfied with my answer. “Right,” he said. “That would do it.”

What we both knew, without talking about it, was that if we told Inspector Kill that someone had information that might lead to the Blue Train rapist, and that person had lied to us, they’d be spending quite a few uncomfortable hours sweating it out in a Korean National Police interrogation room. Ernie and I wouldn’t have to lift a finger.

Ernie was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “Who do you suppose is on this ‘checklist’?”

We both knew that whoever it was might not have much time left to keep on breathing.

“So far,” I said, “the only people who’ve been on the list have been two Korean women with children.”

“On trains,” Ernie added.

“Yes. Passengers on the Blue Train.”

“So you think he’ll stick with that?”

“Maybe not. The KNPs have increased their presence not only on the Blue Train but also on local lines with both uniformed officers and plainclothes. Whoever this guy is, he’ll probably figure that out.”

“So he’ll branch out?”

“Maybe.”

“To what?”

“Don’t know,” I replied. “It depends on what his obsessions are.”

“Obsessions?”

“Yeah. Obsessions.”

“That could be anything,” he said.

“You’re right. That’s why the best bet is to catch him. Then he can tell us himself what his obsessions are.”

“That should be fun listening to.”

Ernie slowed at a railroad crossing but after checking that no train was coming, stepped on the gas again. We bounced across the tracks. On the far side, he said, “So, what was the name again of that mekju house?”

“Migun Chonguk.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You don’t know? Here, break it down. The first word is
migun
. What does that mean?”

Ernie thought about it a moment. “G.I.,” he said.

“Right. Literally, ‘American soldier.’ And what does
chonguk
mean?”

Ernie thought about this one a little longer. Finally he gave up. “I’ve heard the word. It’s just not coming to me right now.”

“It means ‘heaven,’” I told him. “Literally, ‘heavenly country.’”

Ernie slammed the sedan in low gear, slowed for a truck ahead of us, and when the road was clear, he slid the automatic shift back into drive and sped around the slow-moving truck.

“I get it now,” he said. “This signal site refugee, pretending to be a Buddhist monk, sneaks away from the monastery, stops in the Chonhuang Teahouse for a little refreshment and female companionship, and then he takes a cab ride all the way to G.I. heaven.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Why did he go to all that trouble?” Ernie asked. “Why not just check out on leave from the Horang-ni signal site, catch a ride to Hialeah Compound, and then take the bus to Taegu?”

“Alibi,” I said. “He was trying to establish one that might hold up.”

Ernie nodded, thinking it over. “As if we’re going to believe that he was meditating for ten days.” Then he chuckled. “G.I. Heaven. This place, I’ve got to see.”

*  *  *

It turned out that the district of Taegu that the cab driver, Kwok, told me about was the same district in which the U.S. Army’s 19th Support Group headquarters at Camp Henry was located.

“We finally caught a break,” Ernie said.

“What do you mean?”

“Camp Henry is where Marnie and the girls are playing tonight.”

After finishing up their performances near the Demilitarized Zone, the Country Western All Stars had been systematically working their way south. Last night Waegwan, tonight Camp Henry.

The Korean countryside is beautiful this time of year, with trees covered in red and brown and yellow, distant mountains capped with white, and miles of rice paddies dotted with piled straw. But we were both tired of driving all over hell and gone, and sick of taking leaks on the side of the road, finding nothing to eat other than a bowl of hot broth from a roadside noodle stand.

Camp Henry was about three miles south of the East Taegu Train Station, the place where Pruchert might have bought a ticket and climbed aboard the Blue Train. Ernie drove slowly through town, following my directions as I studied our army-issue map. Old ladies hustled across streets with huge piles of pressed laundry atop their heads. Children in school uniforms marched across intersections in military-like formations, finally heading home after their long school day. Empty three-wheeled trucks made their way back to the countryside, and taxicabs with their top lights on cruised slowly by, searching for passengers heading home after the end of the workday.

Ernie rolled down the window. “Garlic,” he said. “The whole city reeks of it.”

“A lot of agriculture around here,” I told him. “Pork bellies, rice, cabbage, garlic. It’s what makes the world go round.”

The front gate of Camp Henry was protected by a guard shack and a stern-looking American MP. We continued past the gate and then turned around, drove back past the gate again, and turned east across the railroad tracks. There were a few nightclubs we could see from the main road: the Princess Club, the Pussycat Lounge, the Half Moon Eatery. But most of the joints lurked back in the narrow pedestrian alleyways inaccessible by car.