Martin Limon: The Iron Sickle

“What did he do then?”

“He reached in his pocket and set one thousand won on the counter. Too much money. He only owed me six hundred.”

“Did he wait for his change?”

“No. He stood up, opened the flap, peeked outside, and walked off without a word.”

“What was he wearing?”

“An overcoat. And beneath that a suit.”

“Mrs. Lee, do you remember if he was carrying anything?”

She puzzled for a moment over the question. “No. No briefcase. A lot of the men who wear suits carry briefcases. Sometimes they drink too much soju and leave the briefcases beneath my cart. Then I have to search it and call them. What a headache.”

“Was he carrying anything else?”

“Yes. Under his overcoat. I thought he might have been holding papers. Something he was trying to keep dry.”

“But you never saw what it was?”

“No. But I remember now. He was still holding it when he left my cart.”

“When did you hear the screams?”

“They weren’t screams exactly. More like grunts. And curses.”

“Was it his voice?”

“I’m not sure. He never talked.”

“How did he order the dubu-jigei and the soju ?”

“I offered,” she said, “holding up a bowl with a ladle.” She demonstrated. “He nodded. Then I set a tumbler in front of him, and he didn’t object. He poured the soju himself from the bottle on the counter.”

“But the grunts and the curses,” I said, “how soon did they start after he left your cart?”

“Almost immediately,” she said.

So the man with the deformed lip had stepped outside the rain-soaked flaps of the pochang macha and attacked Collingsworth and Kwon as they walked away. Could they have heard his footsteps approaching? Probably not. Not in this rain.

I stared at the canvas-covered body. The highly polished combat boots lay twisted at an odd angle. Half filled with water, the MP helmet lay tilted in a puddle of mud.

The small van of the 8th Army Coroner pulled up just a few feet away. The coroner climbed out and surveyed the scene, then pulled back the canvas and grimaced. He knelt and made a few checks, then stood, shaking his head.

Ernie helped him load the body into the back of the van.

I asked Mrs. Lee a few more questions, but she didn’t seem to have any other information. I thanked her, handed her my card, and told her to call me if she thought of anything else, though I knew she probably never would, especially since it takes up to twenty minutes to be switched from the Seoul civilian phone lines to the 8th Army Yongsan Compound telephone exchange.

I was about to leave when she grabbed my arm. I turned.

“There is one more thing,” she said. I waited. “When he walked out of my cart, it was the first time I noticed.”

“What?”

“He walked funny.”

“He limped?”

“Not exactly. He didn’t favor one side over the other. Nothing like that. It was strange, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. He walked quickly but carefully, as if every step caused him pain. Like a barefoot man walking on glass.”

I stared at her, waiting for more, but that was it. I thanked her again and walked toward the coroner’s van, examining the ground as I did, noticing most of the blood had already been washed away by the rain.

Ernie turned to me. “Sharp instrument,” he said. “Sliced across the front of the neck, so deep Collingsworth never had a chance.”

“And the Korean?”

Ernie lifted a fiberglass helmet. The entire back section had been caved in. “Blunt trauma to the rear of the head. Knocked down. Stunned. Then as he was falling, our man apparently swung the sickle at Collingsworth and caught him across the throat.”

“Quick work,” I said.

“Expert work,” Ernie added. “This guy’s had a lot of practice.”

I described to Ernie what the pochang macha proprietress had told me, concluding with his funny walk.

“Maybe he’s got an extra sickle up his butt,” Ernie said.

When the coroner’s van drove away, the half dozen or so KNPs ordered the crowd of gawkers to disperse. Mostly they were people who lived in the immediate neighborhood, and they all scurried away quickly in order to avoid being cited for a curfew violation. The lone investigator from the Itaewon Police Station was a sergeant of intermediate rank who had called the ambulance for the injured ROK MP, surveyed the scene, and taken a few notes. Afterward, without bothering to consult with us, he’d returned to the warm confines of the Itaewon Police Station.

“What about the two guys drinking soju?” Ernie asked.

“Disappeared,” I said, “according to Mrs. Lee. She doesn’t know who they are or how to get in touch with them.”

“Do you believe her?”

I shrugged. “Yeah. This was only her second night in this area. It’s unlikely she’s developed any regulars yet.”

We studied the dark shuttered doorways and the narrow alley that led toward the canvas-covered stalls of the Itaewon Market. Everything was locked but in a few hours, before dawn, farmers and vendors would appear, deals would be cut, and eventually the wooden stalls would be loaded with peaks of glimmering Napa cabbage, piles of white-fleshed Korean turnips, and schools of iced mackerel fresh from the Han River Estuary that emptied into the Yellow Sea.

“What?” Ernie asked.

“I was just thinking. Why here?”

Ernie shrugged. “It’s Itaewon. Close to the ville. Plenty of American victims to choose from.”

“Why Americans?”

“To spread terror. To show us that he can strike anywhere, on or off compound. Even against an armed MP who’s trained to be alert.”

“And he was careful not to cut the Korean MP.”

“Just like at the Claims Office. Americans only. No Koreans killed, which is why that KNP investigator got out of here so quickly.”

“Which way did he go?” I asked.

“The KNP?”

“No, not him, the man with the iron sickle. After knocking out the Korean MP and almost slicing the head off of the American, which way did he go?”

Ernie turned slowly in a three hundred and sixty degree arc, studying the surroundings of the now-dark pochang macha . “Down that alley,” he said, pointing into the long narrow darkness that led toward the center of the Itaewon Market.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s where I would go. Did you bring your flashlight?”

“Of course.” Ernie patted the side of his field jacket.

“Let’s go then.”

“After you, professor,” he said.

Ernie was always needling me about the long hours I spent studying the Korean language. But it paid off. Tonight I’d been able to interview the proprietress of the pochang macha without having to wait for the English translation of the KNP report, a report that would have been self-serving and possibly full of flat-out lies. I pulled my flashlight out of my pocket, checked to see it was working, and led the way into long shadows.

Somehow the man with the iron sickle had bluffed his way onto Yongsan Compound, maybe with a fake ID, maybe with a stolen ID; we hadn’t figured that part out yet. But out here, at a pochang macha on the edge of Itaewon, he wouldn’t need to go to any such trouble. He’d known about the ville patrol, and he’d known that at least one of the MPs would be an American. Had he followed them earlier? Stalked them? Picked out his victim? Almost certainly. He couldn’t have made such a clean, precise attack if he hadn’t. So that meant someone in the area might’ve noticed him. But even if we found a witness, would it do us any good? We still wouldn’t know who he was or where he came from or even what his motive was. We’d still be groping in the dark.