Martin Limon - Slicky Boys

I started to sweat, trying to control the shaking of my hand. It wasn’t working.

On the other side of the pier, Ernie seemed relaxed. He’d killed a man last night. He was ready to kill another today.

Behind us, the admiral’s voice barked. I glanced back. Where the pier met the shore, a row of Korean MP’s had taken firing positions.

“Put the gun down,” I told Commander Goh. “You’ve hurt enough people.”

He shook his head.

“My daughter is dead, my wife is dead. What else do I have to live for?”

I had no answer for him.

He reached the end of the pier.

Wisps of sulphur drifted out of the mouth of the turtle’s head on the bow of the spike-backed boat. Medieval chemical warfare. The turtle boat glided quickly through the water, along the length of the pier, the pointed end of its prow aimed straight at the Japanese junk beyond the breakers.

When the turtle boat pulled even with us, Commander Goh stopped at the wooden railing and glanced back along the pier. He pointed the Luger at me. Ernie knelt, bracing his pistol with both hands.

“Drop it!” he shouted.

Commander Goh kept his eyes on me. “Admiral Yi Sun Shin died at sea,” he said. “Aboard his command ship. Shot through the heart by a Japanese arrow. I too am a sailor. I will not rot in prison. I will die at sea.”

Sulphur gas billowed into the air. The turtle boat crashed through the waves below us.

I’m not sure, but it seemed as if Commander Goh flashed me a half-smile. He turned, tossed his gun into the sea, and, spreading his arms, leapt gracefully off the edge of the pier.

Ernie and I sprinted forward. Footsteps pounded behind us.

I reached the edge first. Down below, spread-eagled on the iron shell of the turtle boat, sprawled Commander Goh. A metal spike stuck wickedly out of his back. Blood streamed down his black coat and pants.

His arms and legs still kicked. A beetle pinned by a tack. He coughed, blood flooded out of his mouth, he stiffened his body one last time, and lay still.

The turtle boat continued its headlong charge through history and the waves. Sulphur still exploded out of its mouth in a great yellow cloud.

When it rammed the Japanese junk, the sound of ripping lumber tore through the sea air. On the shore, civilians and sailors cheered.

The turtle boat plunged ever deeper into the junk, seawater rushing into the open gash. As one, the line of oars started churning backward and the boat strained to withdraw. As it did so it rocked from side to side. Commander Goh’s bloodied body slid off the metal spike.

The corpse tore free and slithered down the hull into the choppy gray waters of the Yellow Sea.

A cold wind swept across the broad expanse of the Han River.

We stood in the National Graveyard of the Republic of Korea; the sky above was placid and clear, as if even the spirits of the ancients were hovering in solemn observance. A military honor guard in crisply pressed white slacks and green tunics fired a volley into the air.

Slowly, the corpse of Ma Jin-ryul, the career slicky boy, was lowered into the frozen earth.

I had pitched a bitch back at CID Headquarters and forced the ROK Liaison to listen to me. Finally, because he had helped stanch a potentially disastrous rupture in military security, and because he was a veteran of the Korean War, the Korean government had consented to give Slicky Boy Ma a burial with full honors.

Kuang-sok stood at my side, his ten-year-old face as unmoved as one of the stone statues that guarded the great archway that led into the cemetery. He didn’t appreciate this honor now, but I hoped that when he was older he’d treasure the memory. His foster father, who had been denied respect while he was alive, had finally received the respect he’d been due.

After the casket was lowered, workmen stepped forward and hurled shovelfuls of earth onto the flag-draped coffin.

Kuang-sok and I walked down the hill. Halfway to the bottom, his fingers curled around mine.

I searched my notes of the case and found the name and address of Cecil Whitcomb’s mother. It took me most of the day to write a letter to her. In the first few drafts I told the truth about how Ernie and I had taken money to lure her son to his death. But each time I hesitated before putting it into an envelope, drank some coffee, and looked at what I’d written again. It didn’t make sense to burden this woman I didn’t know with all these painful things. It didn’t make sense to burden myself. It wouldn’t do any good. I scratched out sentences and paragraphs and the letter kept getting smaller. At the end of the day it was so short it might’ve been one of those prefabricated cards people buy in the PX. Before Happy Hour I looked at the draft one more time, tore it up, and threw it in the trash.

Ernie’s spleen healed up okay and he pressured the doc into giving him a complete rundown on how the damage would effect his drinking.

“You have to stop,” the doctor told him.

“Stop drinking?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, Doc. Give me the real story. Not the propaganda.”

“Your spleen will never again function at peak efficiency, Bascom. Alcohol could do tremendous damage.”

“But it’s the liver and the pancreas that process the poison.”

That’s Ernie. Leave it to him to argue with a guy who spent six years in medical school.

The doctor ran some impressive-sounding words past him and did his best, but in the end Ernie remained unconvinced. The next time he went to Itaewon-with me and Riley along to watch out for him-he slammed home as many shots of soju as he ever had before.

Same old Ernie.

Unless somebody mentioned the Nurse.

Ajjima, the Nurse’s landlady, couldn’t rent the Nurse’s old hooch. People were afraid of her ghost. I don’t believe in that stuff. I carry plenty of ghosts around inside me but I don’t believe in the ones on the outside. I rented the room and told Kuang-sok he could stay there.

He moved his father’s old furniture over and I visited three or four times a week and brought him food from the commissary on post. But it wasn’t working.

Ajjima pulled me aside one day and told me that the boy wanted to go to an orphanage.

“Why didn’t he tell me that himself?” I asked.

“He embarrassed,” she said. “Maybe you feel bad.”

She was right. It did make me feel bad. But I made the arrangements, and the next weekend we loaded up all his stuff in a truck Ernie borrowed from 21 T-Car and carted Kuang-sok out to a Catholic orphanage past Kimpo.

After Ernie and I unloaded everything, I went into the office and made a substantial contribution to the orphanage. About half my monthly paycheck. The Korean priest was grateful and told me that he didn’t expect Kuang-sok to be here long. A healthy young boy like him should get adopted and go overseas within a matter of months.

Outside, Kuang-sok bowed to Ernie and me, but he turned and walked away with the priest without bothering to thank us.

Ernie started up the truck. “You figure he blames us for the death of his father?”

“Sure he does,” I said. “Don’t you?”

“Naw. Not me. I blame Shipton.”

He swung the truck down the dirt road until we hooked up with the main highway and sped back to Seoul.

I wished, sometimes, that I could accept things as easily as Ernie. But I still saw Mr. Ma’s face when he realized that Shipton’s knife had sliced into his back. And I saw the Nurse. And I saw Miss Ku. And sometimes I even saw Cecil Whitcomb.