Martin Limon - G. I. Bones

“What the hell we doing up here, Sueno?”

“Looking for likely burial spots,” I said.

“Like a needle in a freaking haystack?”

“Maybe not.”

“I don’t have time for this. I have people to see and things to do.”

Ernie started walking down the hill, away from the temple.

I watched him go. It wasn’t like him to leave while we were in the middle of an investigation but this wasn’t an official investigation- not yet-so I couldn’t really blame him.

“Stay out of trouble,” I shouted after him.

Without looking back, Ernie waved his hand in the air. As if on cue, snowflakes began to pelt the roof above me; I turned back to my work.

After searching the temple and finding nothing, I started back down the hill toward the bright lights of Itaewon proper. The snow was falling a little thicker now and started to stick in the mud beneath my feet, creating a sheet of white lace. In two weeks we’d experience Daehan, the big cold; traditionally, the coldest day of the winter. So far this year, the weather had been unseasonably warm. It looked like that was about to change.

I sat in front of Doc Yong’s desk, a warm earthenware cup of barley tea in my hands. She stared at me with a black-eyed intensity that I found so enticing.

“What have you found?” she asked.

She wore a white lab coat and a stethoscope hung from her neck. Outside in the waiting room a few pregnant women and a half-dozen business girls waited patiently for her attention. Each month, the business girls of Itaewon invaded Doc Yong’s clinic to be inspected for venereal disease and, if they passed, their “VD card” was stamped with red ink and they were good for another month. The clinic was mostly funded by American dollars, which was why Doc Yong cooperated so closely with 8th Army health officials.

“Why is it so important to you, Doc,” I asked, “this business about Mori Di? Sure, Auntie Mee helps you with the girls. Helps them keep a positive outlook on life. I understand that. But you know and I know that Auntie Mee hasn’t been visited by the ghost of Mori Di nor by the ghost of anybody. She wants me to find his bones because she’s nuts. But you’re not. So why are you backing her up?”

Doctor Yong In-ja studied me as if I were a patient with curious symptoms. I loved the square shape of her face, the high cheekbones, the unblemished skin. But mostly I loved the full richness of her lips. Unrouged. No slime slathered on her face. Just flesh. Just woman.

She must’ve read my thoughts for her eyes shifted. She took her elbows off her desk and sat back in her wooden chair.

“I understand your concern,” she said. She thought for a moment, composing herself, and then started once again. “The women I work with, especially the business girls, are mostly uneducated and mostly from rural areas. If Auntie Mee says she’s being bothered by the ghost of a dead American, the word spreads quickly and, in no time, they believe it. And they all believe that this ghost will cause trouble in Itaewon. Bad luck. That adds to their depression. Depression leads to despair. Despair leads to illness or, worse, suicide. As a physician, I must try to prevent that.”

Suicide was a fairly common event amongst the business girls of Itaewon. The Korean government didn’t allow Doc Yong, or anybody, to keep statistics-not officially. But those of us who worked out here knew that at least three or four girls per year died by their own hands.

“But even if I locate the bones of Mori Di,” I said, “and have them shipped back to the States, the business girls and Auntie Mee will just find something more to be depressed about.”

“Yes. Of course. It’s always something.” She leaned toward me. “Someone’s been complaining about Miss Kwon,” Doc Yong continued. “An American G.I.”

“A G.I. complaining about Miss Kwon?”

“Yes.”

I was flabbergasted. Even before Doc Yong introduced me to Miss Kwon, I’d taken note of her while Ernie and I worked our regular rounds. She was a hostess at the King Club: a small, cute, country girl with chubby cheeks who kept to herself. Why would any G.I. complain about her?

“What sort of complaint?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. But the owner is concerned and there’s even talk that Miss Kwon might lose her job. Not that losing that kind of work would be bad for her but I know the pressure these girls are under. She needs the money. Otherwise, where will she go? What will she do?” Doc Yong shook her head. “You can’t believe what these girls go through. Many of them are the sole support of their families, putting their younger brothers and sisters through school.”

Yes, I could imagine what they went through but I didn’t interrupt.

Doc Yong stared into my eyes. “Will you look into it?”

How could I say no? I nodded. She smiled, reached out, and squeezed my hand.

On the way out of the clinic, the women in the waiting room stared at me. But all I could feel was the warmth where Doc Yong’s hand had touched mine.

Although I’d questioned Doc Yong’s motives for searching for the remains of Technical Sergeant Flo Moretti, I was beginning to develop motives of my own. Moretti had been murdered. Cort, the on-the-scene investigator, had strong suspicions as to who had murdered him but the body had gone missing and, after that, Cort had been hampered by both the Korean and the 8th Army powers that be. At the time, right after the war, Korea was still in turmoil. There was even talk that the Communists might make a comeback. In fact, the starving Korean populace would’ve followed just about anyone who promised to put food in their bellies and into those of their children. So the South Korean government and 8th Army wanted to squash, as quickly as possible, any sort of incident that portended discord between the U.S. and Korea, including the incident known as the Itaewon Massacre.

But those days were long gone and Ernie and I were new to the case-fresh eyes looking at the evidence. I was beginning to wonder if, in addition to finding his bones, we couldn’t breathe life back into the search for the killer of Mori Di.

After all, Moretti had been a man of principle. A man who’d traveled thousands of miles from his hometown in New Jersey to a country on the far side of the world. He’d put everything on the line, including his life, to help people he didn’t know. And, as Ernie said so succinctly, Tech Sergeant Moretti had been a fellow G.I.

That, in itself, was enough to keep us investigating.

Starting on the morning after the assault on Moretti, Cort had interviewed everybody he could find-both G.I. s and Koreans- who’d been present the night of the Itaewon Massacre. The evening had started routinely enough. The Buddhist nuns fed about a hundred people-men, women, children, and old folks-from the soup kitchen set up behind Moretti’s headquarters building. Moretti had overseen the food preparation, taken inventory personally, and prepared the next day’s ration order for the driver whose turn it was to make the pickup. Then he’d listened while the nuns told him about the various things that were needed for the orphans, including more diapers, soap, and textbooks for the older children who would be starting school as soon as the first one in the area reopened in February.

Where Moretti planned to find this stuff, Cort didn’t know but he’d found entries concerning these items in Moretti’s loose-leaf notebook.

What changed Moretti’s routine that night was a group of business girls banging on the front door of his headquarters. According to their breathless report, another business girl, a friend of theirs, had been beaten up. She was laying in an alley just off the main drag, bleeding profusely.