Martin Limon: Mr. Kill

Kill did. He darted forward, like a mongoose tempting a cobra.

The blade flashed out but missed again. Kill darted in and then out, again and again. Parkwood kept missing but refused to chase, a smart move on his part. Within seconds, realizing that his gambit to get Parkwood to follow again wasn’t working, Kill stepped in so close to the blade that I held my breath. Even Ernie gasped.

The blade flashed out, slicing into Inspector Kill’s shoulder. Surprised, Parkwood stared after him. Kill gazed down. Crimson blood rushed out along the slice in his white shirt. Angry, Kill approached again but backed up more quickly this time. Parkwood was smiling now, enjoying the flush of this victory. He started to follow. Again, Kill led him into the water, back out of the water, the blade missing his body by only fractions of an inch, but Parkwood was committed now. His strength was leaving him; even in the misting rain, the perspiration poured freely off his forehead, and his arms and legs seemed to be getting heavy. That’s when Inspector Kill struck. Like a sudden flash of lightning in a dark night, he stood his ground when Parkwood came at him and plowed a right fist into Parkwood’s charging forehead.

Parkwood staggered. Kill backed up, allowing him room to fall, but Parkwood didn’t go down. He regained his footing and leaped at Kill, the blade slashing in front of him. Instead of backing up out of reach, Kill raised his left foot and slammed it into Parkwood’s face. They fell into the water, Kill on top, pummeling Parkwood-and then suddenly Parkwood was on top.

Involuntarily, all the KNPs took two steps forward. Then one of them shouted for everyone to maintain their positions. They did as they were told.

Parkwood bent over Kill, apparently with both hands wrapped around Inspector Kill’s neck, but I couldn’t be sure because Inspector Kill was fully underwater. And then suddenly, Parkwood leaped up as if he’d been electrocuted. When we saw the reason why, Ernie grunted. The sole of Kill’s foot had kicked straight up, ramming into Parkwood’s groin, lifting him into the air. Kill exploded out of the water now, his face a mask of rage. He leaped on Parkwood.

Suddenly, I knew what would happen. I knew what this was all about. I knew why Inspector Kill was called the best homicide investigator in Korea. I knew now that he not only solved the cases he’d been assigned to, but he also brought them to trial and brought them to judgment and brought them to execution. Like a Confucian scholar of old, a sage schooled in the Four Books and the Five Classics, that was his right. His right to be judge, jury, and executioner. His right as a chunja, a superior man.

I ran forward, shoving the two KNPs out of my way, shouting.

“Don’t! Don’t do it! Halt!”

I fumbled inside my jacket for my. 45, but the holster kept rising up with the pistol, not setting it free.

Mr. Kill leaned over Parkwood now, holding the larger man’s head underwater, the muscles on Kill’s forearms bulging with the strain. He didn’t hear me. He didn’t hear anything.

Finally, I freed the. 45 and fired a round into the air.

Kill looked up. Awareness entered his eyes. He looked down at his hands, as if realizing for the first time that they were underwater, as if realizing for the first time that they were clutching Parkwood’s throat. Quickly, he rose to his feet and stepped backward, away from Parkwood.

Parkwood didn’t move.

I shoved the. 45 back in my holster and splashed into the river. When I reached Parkwood, I shoved Kill out of the way and leaned down and pulled Parkwood’s heavy body toward shore. Ernie helped me. We finally laid him out on the moist sand, and I bent down and cleared his air passage while Ernie loosened his belt and pants. Then Ernie shoved down on his stomach. We turned him over and tried to get as much water out of his lungs as we could, but within seconds we had him flat on his back again and I breathed air into his mouth. His chest rose. I did this three times, and then Ernie pumped his stomach again and I breathed into his lungs three times more.

We did this for a long time.

The rain stopped.

Finally, red-tinted toenails stood in front of me. I looked up. It was Marnie Orville, the plastic shower curtain still wrapped around her shoulders.

“He’s dead, George,” she said. “Stop now. Stop, please.”

She was crying.

I looked down at Parkwood. Marnie was right. He was dead now. And he’d been dead for a long time.

Marnie Orville and Captain Freddy Ray Embry got back together.

After he heard what had happened, Freddy Ray rushed up to Seoul and told Marnie that he was sorry for all the things he’d done and he asked for another chance. For Casey’s sake, she told us, Marnie forgave him. They were remarried in a military chapel at Camp Henry with a bunch of Freddy Ray’s fellow officers wearing their dress blue uniforms and holding silver swords crossed overhead as the happy couple emerged from the chapel.

Casey was the flower girl.

Ernie studied the marriage photos and grinned. “I done good.”

“You done good?” I said. “You almost broke up their marriage forever.”

Ernie’s grin broadened. “You really don’t understand women, do you, Sueno? If it hadn’t been for me, Marnie never could’ve made Freddy Ray jealous and Casey would’ve had to grow up without her daddy.”

We were in the CID admin office. Staff Sergeant Riley was ignoring us, shuffling through the small mountain of paperwork that had built up while he was gone. I decided not to push it. If Ernie was happy with what he’d done, then let him be happy.

Miss Kim, meanwhile, had stopped typing on her hangul typewriter and stared at Ernie in utter astonishment.

The 8th Army honchos were also happy with what we’d done. For once. The Blue Train rapist had indeed turned out to be an American G.I.; but by the time that was fully revealed to the Korean public, the guy was already dead, and dead at the hands of a man, Inspector Gil Kwon-up, who was now a bigger national hero than ever. Of course, the official line was that Parkwood had been killed inadvertently while resisting arrest-and, in a way, that was true. If the guy had just given up and hadn’t insisted on waving that straight razor around, he’d still be with us today.

I wrote a letter to Specialist Vance’s mother, telling her what a wonderful man he’d been and telling her that even though I’d only worked with him briefly, he’d proven himself to be a courageous soldier and he’d died fighting.

Back on that beach on Cheju Island, Staff Sergeant Warnocki had tied a tourniquet around his own leg and dragged himself to the main road, where a Good Samaritan picked him up and rushed him to the nearest medical clinic. He fully recovered from his wounds and was now back training troops on the slopes of Mount Halla.

When he made his occasional appearance at the 8th Army officers’ club, Lieutenant Colonel Ambrose Q. Laurel was asked about the case, but the word was that he was reluctant to talk about our adventure at sea. He was ashamed that Parkwood had gotten away with as much as he did, right under the noses of his Special Forces troops. And maybe he was also ashamed that we’d had to be saved by the haenyo.

The Country Western All Stars returned to the States. I had intended to ask Shelly out for coffee, but, after returning from Taejon, I was so busy that somehow I never got the chance.

Martin Limon

Mr. Kill

Maybe it was what I’d seen on the banks of the Gapcheon River that made me change my mind about the fragment I’d given to Inspector Kill. Within twenty-four hours of leaving Taejon, I had already wrangled a chopper flight back to Hialeah Compound. I took a cab to the Pusan Police Station, and when I walked down the long hallway, nobody challenged me. The door to Inspector Kill’s temporary office was open. I entered and shut the door behind me. The safe was locked. It was an old safe, big and black, made in Germany, probably thirty or forty years old. A survivor of the Korean War and of World War II.