Martin Limon: G. I. Bones

But the biggest brouhaha was with the Koreans.

Captain Kim had no choice but to reopen the investigation into the death of Technical Sergeant Flo Moretti. At the KNP medical facility in Seoul, a complete forensic examination of the bones was conducted. The conclusions were much the same as I’d drawn when I’d first seen the bones in the basement of the Grand Ole Opry Club. Flo Moretti had been tortured and then he’d been bricked up behind those cold walls while still alive. He’d been bound and gagged and within days he died of hunger and dehydration.

A tough way to go.

The Korean newspapers made much of it, and recapped the good that had been done in the postwar era by 8th Army’s reconstruction projects throughout the country.

Another thing that the Korean investigation pointed out was the Buddhist overtones of the way Moretti had been killed. In ancient times, people were executed by strangulation or by having heavy weights piled atop them or even by having foul things shoved down their throats so they couldn’t breathe, but blood was not shed. Whoever murdered Moretti probably had that in mind. They’d left him there to die on his own, not having the nerve to end his suffering and do him the favor of cutting his throat as somebody had done for Two Bellies.

Snake was charged with the murder of Mori Di. So were Jimmy Pak and the two other surviving charter members of the Seven Dragons. They did what all good gangsters do: they said nothing and hired good lawyers. As a result, their interrogation by the Korean National Police was brief and they were released on their own recognizance. The investigation into Moretti’s death promised to drag on for months.

Meanwhile, I started thinking of how different the follow-up murders were. The throat of Two Bellies had been expertly sliced, while Horsehead and Water Doggy had been hacked wildly by at least three blades. Auntie Mee, meanwhile, like Mori Di had been killed without bloodshed.

I wanted to talk to Doc Yong but she’d disappeared. According to the Yongsan Health Clinic, she’d resigned her job and moved with no forwarding address. Ernie and I checked her apartment. Empty. We talked to the landlady and she was just as surprised as we were. Without giving notice, Doc Yong had moved out all her stuff and left without so much as a goodbye.

I talked once again to the friends of Two Bellies. They’d told us previously that just prior to her death, someone had been following Two Bellies. I thought now I knew who that someone was. I confronted them with my suspicion.

The women looked away from me. “Maybe,” one of them said.

“Two Bellies caught her following?”

“No.” The huatu-playing women all shook their heads. “Daytime, Miss Kwon come look for Two Bellies. Together they talk. Whisper, we no can hear. Argue about something. Later that night, Two Bellies go out alone, never come back.”

I asked them why they hadn’t told me this before.

One of them set down her still-burning cigarette and in her whiskey-shredded voice said, “You no ask.”

I was walking through a dark Itaewon alley, pondering that information, when a short figure stepped out of the darkness.

“Geogi,” she said.

The amber light of a streetlamp shone on her unblemished face. Doc Yong.

We embraced.

“She’s using you again,” Ernie said.

We were sitting at the 8th Army snack bar. It was lunch hour and the place was packed with G.I. s in uniform and a smattering of 8th Army civilians. I sipped hot coffee while a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich grew cold in front of me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean you’re doing everything you can to keep her out of the Mori Di murder investigation.”

“It’s not my investigation,” I said. “It belongs to the KNPs. Besides, she was just a kid when Mori Di was murdered.” Ernie sighed with exasperation. “You know what I mean. The murders of Two Bellies and Horsehead and Water Doggy. It’s obvious.”

“It’s not obvious.”

“It is.”

Ernie went on to explain what he meant.

When Doc Yong took me to see the fortune teller, Auntie Mee, she hoped to give me a reason to search for the bones of Mori Di. She did. And when I found them she hoped that turning them over to the Korean National Police would cause the Seven Dragons to be investigated for murder. Why had she involved me rather than looking for the bones herself? Because if a Korean found them, the KNPs could easily hush up the entire affair. But if an official of the 8th United States Army presented them with the remains of an American G.I., official action would be compulsory.

Ernie was convinced that the two men and three women who’d murdered Horsehead and Water Doggy were orphans of the Itaewon Massacre. Probably in league with Doc Yong. Reluctantly, I conceded that he was probably right.

“And about Auntie Mee,” Ernie said. “She was killed in a Buddhist manner, probably ordered by Snake.”

“Why?”

“Revenge for Two Bellies. And a warning to whoever had the bones not to let them see the light of day.”

Still, that didn’t explain why someone had murdered Two Bellies. Ernie set down his coffee cup and took a deep breath.

“No hitting,” he said.

I promised I wouldn’t.

“The slice across the throat was expertly done,” Ernie said. “Like a doctor with a scalpel.”

I surprised him; I remained calm. In fact, I picked up my BLT and took a huge bite. He waited patiently while I chewed and finally swallowed.

“I thought of that,” I said.

“And?”

“It doesn’t make sense. If she wanted the bones of Mori Di revealed, why would she kill Two Bellies and then hide the bones again?”

Ernie crinkled his brow. “I don’t know.” Then he looked up at me. I sat calmly, waiting. “You son of a bitch.”

“What?”

“You know, don’t you?”

“Know what?”

“You know who murdered Two Bellies and why they did it.” I shrugged.

“You’re holding out on me.”

I shrugged again. “I have theories.”

“But you’re not sharing them with Captain Kim.”

“No reason to share them with him.”

“But you’re going to share them with Doc Yong.”

I shook my head negatively. “Actually,” I said, “I’m waiting for her to share them with me.”

Hilliard was incensed.

“What the hell you mean, coming over here at oh-dark-thirty in the morning and rousting me out of my crib?”

Actually, it wasn’t his crib. It was the room rented in a brothel behind the King Club by our favorite peg-legged business girl, Miss Kwon.

Ernie told Hilliard to go back into the hooch and keep quiet, which he did, grumbling to himself all the while. Wearing a cotton robe, Miss Kwon stepped into sandals and shuffled out onto the cement balcony where we could talk beneath the light of the moon. I pointed at her name on the nunnery’s list of orphans.

“Who are the others?” I said. “The women and the men.”

She started to cry. But after a few minutes, she started talking

It all made sense. Doc Yong was trying to keep Miss Kwon out of harm’s way so the actual killing of Horsehead and Water Doggy had been done by people, now grown, who had once been orphans on the Buddhist nun’s list. One man was a cab driver, the other a house painter. They were accompanied by a female chestnut vendor and two other women. Auntie Mee’s real name was also on the list of orphans. She had been one of the oldest of the children brought to the nunnery after the Itaewon Massacre and she’d been one of the first to leave. When Auntie Mee saw Doc Yong and the others return to Itaewon and take up jobs around town, she knew that something was up.

I finished questioning Miss Kwon. Then I told her what I suspected. She became hysterical. Hilliard rushed out of the room. Ernie held him back. I put my arm around Miss Kwon and whispered Korean in her ear. “Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s our secret.” Then I told her to return to her room.