Martin Limon: Ping-Pong Heart

I patted her hand. She dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief. I’d known her for well over a year now. I occasionally bought her gifts from the PX: a flower, small bottles of hand lotion, the type of breath mints I knew she liked. I suppose I was trying to make amends for the sins of my investigative partner. When she didn’t continue, I said, “There’s something else bothering you.”

She laughed but stopped abruptly. “You notice things, don’t you, Geogie?”

“I try to.”

“There is something,” she said.

“What?”

“It’s nothing, really.” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “It’s just that when I walk home, after the cannon goes off, somebody keeps staring at me.”

Miss Kim was tall and slender and dressed well, which attracted a lot of attention on a compound full of horny GIs.

“Did he do anything?” I asked.

“Not exactly. While I’m heading toward the Main Gate, he follows me. And lately he’s been walking up right beside me and when no one else is listening, he says things. Rude things. I ignore him, but he keeps doing it.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Maybe two or three weeks now.”

“Describe him to me.”

She shook her head vehemently. “No. I don’t want trouble.”

The Korean War had ended some twenty years ago. Seoul had been completely crushed, and only now was the Korean economy beginning to recover. A job on the American Army compound was considered an excellent employment opportunity, with good pay and job security. Miss Kim was afraid to jeopardize that in any way.

Then she turned on the bench and stared at me. “Don’t do anything, Geogie. I can take care of it.”

“Has this guy followed you off compound?”

“No. He always stops just before we reach the Pedestrian Exit.”

“At Gate Five?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Where there are more people.”

She nodded, then reached out and squeezed my hand. “Thank you, though,” she said. Then she pointed at her nose. “I will take care of it.”

We walked back to the CID office. Before we entered, she stopped and faced me again. “Promise you won’t do anything?”

I nodded.

She smiled and trotted up the steps.

Before the cannon went off, Ernie and I found a hiding place amidst a grove of evergreen trees about twenty yards in front of the Pedestrian Exit at Gate Five. While we waited, just to pass the time, I needled him.

“You sure screwed up your chances with Miss Kim,” I said.

He shrugged. “There’s more fish in the Yellow Sea. Whole boatloads of them.”

“Not many like her.”

He peeked around his tree, grinning. “You sweet on her, Sueno?”

“Sure, I’m sweet on her. Who wouldn’t be? So are you, or you wouldn’t be standing here in the cold, waiting to punch the sonofabitch who’s been bothering her.”

Ernie unwrapped a stick of ginseng gum and popped it in his mouth. “Just out for a little fun,” he said.

Which was probably true. Ernie loved conflict. The only time I saw him grin from ear to ear was when people were butting heads or, better yet, swinging big roundhouse rights at one another.

At what the military likes to call close-of-business, exactly seventeen hundred hours-5 p.m. to civilians-the cannon went off. In front of the headquarters building, the Honor Guard was lowering the Korean, American, and United Nations flags. We both looked around. What we were supposed to do, what every soldier was supposed to do, was stand at the position of attention and salute the flag, even if it was so far away you couldn’t see it. Which was silly, but that’s the Army for you. In the distance, we heard the retreat bugle blasting out of tinny speakers. Since no one was watching, we didn’t bother to salute but remained slouched behind the pine trees. In less than a minute, the last notes of the electronic bugle subsided, and down the long row of brick buildings, doors opened and the first early-bird workers trotted down stone steps.

“Free at last,” Ernie said.

Within minutes, a line of mostly Korean employees formed at the Pedestrian Exit. We watched down the walkway that led toward the CID office. After three or four more minutes, Miss Kim appeared in the distance. Just two feet behind her right shoulder walked an American in civilian clothes.

“There’s the son of a biscuit,” Ernie said. Like a hunting dog, his nose was pointed toward his prey.

I studied the guy. He was young, like a GI, but he wore a cheap plaid suit, his face was narrow and pasty and his hair, reddish-blond and curly, was too long for Army regulation.

“Is he a civilian?” Ernie asked.

“Maybe.”

To get a better look, Ernie stepped out from behind his tree.

“Don’t let her see you,” I reminded him.

He waved me off. “Don’t worry, Sueno. I got it.” He ducked back into hiding.

Miss Kim was walking fast, clutching her handbag; her cloth coat buttoned tightly, her arms crossed in front of her chest. Her head was down, her face grim. The guy stared straight ahead, as if he weren’t talking to her directly but his mouth was moving, rapidly. His eyes were wide and glassy.

“He’s getting his rocks off,” Ernie said.

We were too far away to hear what he was saying, but gauging by Miss Kim’s reaction, it wasn’t good. The crowd surrounding them was of other Korean workers, and the guy appeared to be speaking softly enough that they couldn’t hear what he was saying. Only his intended audience, Miss Kim, was receiving the full benefit of his blather.

Just before crossing the road that led to the Pedestrian Exit, the guy peeled off. As I’d hoped, he headed away from Gate 5, toward Main Post, using the sidewalk that passed the Moyer Recreation Center and the Main PX. Miss Kim disappeared into the flow of employees heading into the single-file line at the Pedestrian Exit.

Ernie smiled broadly. The guy was heading toward us, still mumbling to himself. Ernie reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a set of brass knuckles.

“All mine,” Ernie said, grinning from ear to ear.

“Not out in the open,” I said. “Too many eyeballs.”

We let the guy walk a few yards past us, and then we both scurried out of the trees and hustled close behind him.

“You drop this?” Ernie said.

The guy stopped and turned, a confused look on his face. “Drop what?”

“This,” Ernie said, and stepped close and slammed an uppercut into his gut. Air erupted from his mouth. As he bent over, I grabbed his shoulders and straightened him out, then shoved him toward the shadows among the pine trees. Once safely behind lumber, Ernie slugged him again.

“Let’s see some ID,” Ernie said.

As the guy continued to grimace and clutch his stomach, I reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Ernie grabbed it from me and slid out our victim’s military identification card, handing it to me. Quickly, I used my notebook to jot down his name, rank, and service number. Fenton, Wilfred R., Specialist Four. Next, Ernie handed me the guy’s US Forces Korea Weapons Card. I read off the unit. “Five Oh First Military Intelligence Battalion. Headquarters Company.”

“The Five Oh Worst,” Ernie corrected and slugged the guy again. “Civilian clothes, hippie haircut. What are you, some kind of spook?”

“Counter-intel,” the guy said. Counterintelligence.

“Caught any North Korean spies lately?”

“A few.”

“Bull.” Ernie slugged him again. “All you’ve caught is the clap.”

When he recovered, Specialist Four Fenton pulled himself together enough to ask, “What’s this all about?”

“It’s about you harassing innocent women,” Ernie told him.