Martin Limon: Ping-Pong Heart

“I’m not harassing anyone.”

“What’d you just say to that woman you were walking next to?”

“What woman?”

Ernie slugged him again.

Fenton pressed his forearm against his rib. “I didn’t say anything to her.” Ernie pulled his fist back and Fenton flinched and said, “Nothing bad anyway.”

Ernie let loose the punch.

“What the hell do you want ?” Fenton said.

Ernie straightened him out and turned him toward me. I was six inches taller than him but leaned down close to his face, letting hot breath blast into his eyes. “We want you to stop pestering women who don’t want anything to do with you. Maybe that’s how you get your kicks, Fenton, but you’re through doing it on this compound. No more,” I said, pointing my forefinger at his nose. “You got that?”

He turned away.

Ernie shoved him against a tree. “Answer the man.”

“I got it,” Fenton replied sullenly.

“You better.”

Ernie slugged him again, then took Fenton’s wallet, turned it upside down, and pulled open the flaps. Calling cards and Military Payment Certificates and photographs fluttered toward the mud. Fenton leaned against a tree, arms folded firmly across his stomach. I tossed his military ID and weapons card into the mud with the rest of his documents.

Before we walked away, Ernie slapped him across the right cheek, gently. As we left, we heard Fenton spitting up something, maybe blood. When we were almost out of earshot he started to curse. Softly at first, then more loudly.

“I’ll get you for this,” he said.

“Like I’m worried about that, twerp,” Ernie muttered.

“I’m with the Five Oh First MI!” Fenton ranted. “We’re not called the Five Oh Worst for nothing.”

Ernie rolled his eyes again. As we rounded the corner, leaving Fenton behind, Ernie waggled his forearms, pretending to shake. “I’m petrified,” he said.

“We never lose!” Fenton shouted from the distance.

Black hair cascaded to bare shoulders, partially covering the smooth contours of a face whitened by powder. The voice was husky, inviting; laced, I imagined, with the sweet scent of booze. She made him laugh. Then she leaned in closer and said, “You slicky my ping-pong heart.”

In GI slang, “slicky” means to steal.

Ernie and I were hunkered in the shadows of the UN Club in the nightclub district of Itaewon, nursing our beers, peering through swirling clouds of smoke, admiring the line of bull being laid down by this gorgeous woman sitting on a barstool about twenty feet from us. Her mark was a young GI-half looped-with a pocketful of cash from yesterday’s end-of-month payday.

The band clanged back to life. Ernie shoved aside his beer and spoke through the din. “The only thing she wants to slicky,” he said, “is this guy’s wallet.”

The guy and the gal were deep in conversation now, their noses almost touching. It was negotiation time; her revealing how much an all-nighter would set him back, him asking how close her place was. She called him Johnny. His hand slipped to her knee. Apparently, they’d come to an agreement. Standing, they both put on their winter coats; she grabbed her spangled handbag, and together they paraded out the front door of the UN Club.

Seeing her face in the glare of the overhead floodlight left no doubt in my mind. The woman was Miss Jo Kyong-ja, whom Major Schultz had identified in the District Health records at the Itaewon Police Station. Johnny was a GI. I could tell from his short haircut and his evident youth, but also, out here in the red light district of Itaewon, there was little else he could be.

The Korean government had designated this area as open to “tourists” only. That is, Korean civilians were not allowed in, unless they worked in one of the bars or nightclubs. I suppose the idea was to protect their morals. Foreigners other than those in the US military were almost nonexistent. The tourism industry was anemic, and the few who did jet into the formerly war-torn country of Korea stayed wisely in downtown Seoul, taking air-conditioned tourist buses to visit the restored palaces and ancient Buddhist temples. Visiting businessmen, other than the Japanese, were still rare, and in either case they stayed in the hotels in Seoul that catered to their specific needs. Besides, it was dangerous down here. Muggings and knife fights weren’t uncommon, although both the Korean government and the US military tried to pretend that American GIs would never participate in such naughtiness.

The Koreans catered to the Americans because they were still terrified of the North Korean Communist threat. They’d lost over two million people during the Korean War and were hoping US military would keep them safe from such a thing ever happening again.

After the double doors swung shut, Ernie and I waited about half a heartbeat. Then we followed. Our job was to get a statement from her, and get a statement we would. Outside, business girls lined the road, peering through beaded curtains, cooing for GIs to join them. Neon pulsed. Rock music blared from every bar and nightclub.

Miss Jo Kyong-ja was a shapely woman, wearing high heels with a tight black dress hemmed to about two inches above the knee, covered by an even shorter faux-fur coat. I couldn’t see in the dim light, but her flesh must’ve been goosebumped. Snow from last week’s storm still crusted the edges of upturned tile roofs.

“Nice legs,” Ernie said.

Johnny was taller than her by about two inches, and once she took off her heels, he’d be taller still. She was about five-four, I figured, maybe -five, and didn’t top one-twenty. He would be about one-forty-five. Mentally, I was writing the report I knew I’d have to turn in tomorrow. I pulled my collar up. Not so much to look like a gumshoe, but to keep the frost from biting at my neck.

The joyous couple passed the Lucky Lady Club and were briefly illuminated by flashing red neon. Before my eyes could adjust, they disappeared into a side alley.

“Itaewon Market,” Ernie said. “I’ll go around the long way.”

I nodded and he took off at a jog.

I followed them, away from the brightly lit nightclub district and into the province of night. Brick and cement-block walls lined a narrow pedestrian lane. In the homes behind, single bulbs burned, pots clanged, women pulled dried clothing off laundry lines, old men hacked phlegm. Waste water ran through a narrow channel, blasting my nostrils with the sting of ammonia. I hopped deftly from side to side, crossing the flow.

Around a bend, I spotted Miss Jo and the young GI again, moving faster now, maybe aware that we were following. The pathway twisted and turned and finally let out into an open area surrounding a venerable oak. They passed wooden benches, climbed a flight of stone steps and stopped. Miss Jo pounded on a wooden gate.

“ Na ya !” she said. It’s me.

A few seconds later, a small door in the large wooden gate opened. The two lovers ducked through. Ernie appeared out of a side alley.

“Is this the place Major Schultz described?”

“Yes,” I said, double-checking the notepad I carried in my pocket. “He didn’t have the exact address, but he said it was just off the circle with the old oak.”

“So we have our woman,” Ernie said.

“Yep,” I replied, staring at the closed gate. “How are we going to get in?”

“Knock,” Ernie said.

I shrugged. “That’s one way.”

We walked to the gate and Ernie slammed his fist onto the top of the splintered surface.

“ Kyongchal !” he shouted. Police! One of the few Korean words he knew. That and “ Meikju olma-yo ?” How much for a beer?