Martin Limon: The Ville Rat

“Huh?” Ernie said.

I thought about it for a moment. “Rocked,” I said, “not stoned. Someone is rocking the boat.”

“Yes,” Mr. Kill said, snapping his fingers. “That’s what I meant. Someone higher in the organization is very unhappy because someone lower is rocking the boat.”

“As in, leaving Miss Hwang’s body by the banks of the Sonyu River,” Ernie said.

“Yes. And unhappy because that event could lead to other revelations.”

I recapped for him what we knew about the sale of malt liquor in the GI villages and about the man we were calling the Ville Rat.

“You have his name?”

“Yes.” I gave it to him, along with his date of separation from the army. Mr. Kill jotted it down. From now on, the KNPs would be on the lookout for him.

“When a criminal operation is running well,” Mr. Kill said, slipping his notebook back into his jacket, “my experience has been that it is almost always tripped up by either greed or the foolishness of those operating it.”

“Or by passion,” I said.

“Yes, passion,” he agreed.

“A passion like calligraphy.”

“Yes. Calligraphy and beautiful women.”

Officer Oh shuffled in her seat, but tightened her grip on the steering wheel and continued to guide us expertly through the mid-afternoon Seoul traffic.

The interrogation room of the Dongbu Police Station was packed with khaki-clad cops. In the center were three Korean men, all of them kneeling, all of them with their hands cuffed behind their backs. Perspiration dripped from their foreheads, creating puddles that soaked their knees. Inspector Kill cleared the room until there was only me, him, and Ernie standing next to the three criminals. Gruffly, he told them to repeat their testimony. The one with the least amount of blood dripping from his mouth spoke. His Korean was guttural and full of slang, but I understood the gist of what he said. The little kisaeng had been hunted down and recovered as an example to the other girls that escape was futile. She’d been punished, and then she’d been sold to the same foreigner who’d purchased Miss Hwang, the one who was almost undoubtedly responsible for her violent death near the Sonyu River.

“Why,” I asked, “had she been sold to this man?”

“As punishment,” the criminal said.

“Punishment because he’s a foreigner?” I asked.

“No. Punishment because of what he does to the girls.”

“And what is that?”

“No one’s sure but, so far, they’ve all ended up dead.”

“All?”

“Yes, there were others.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know.” Mr. Kill kicked him. “Seven, maybe eight,” the man said.

“And why weren’t their bodies found?”

“Usually, he disposes of them carefully. The one in Sonyu-ri was smart. She sensed what was coming and tried to run away.”

What he said was true-Miss Hwang had been smart. Very smart. But not smart enough to survive.

Mr. Kill pressured him for the name of the foreigner, for a description, but no matter how rough the interrogation got, the three men claimed they hadn’t seen him. The transaction was conducted by an intermediary. We tried to find out who that was, but the men were apparently lifelong criminals who wanted to continue to live. They wouldn’t spill.

Finally, Mr. Kill had them taken from the room.

“They don’t know who the foreigner is.”

“No,” Mr. Kill agreed. “They’re merely thugs. When negotiations are conducted, they are not around.”

Ernie chomped on his ginseng gum; upset, I believed, by the rough KNP interrogation but unwilling to admit it. “What are you going to do with those guys?” he asked.

“They’ll be charged.”

“With human trafficking?”

“Probably not.”

The Korean government wasn’t happy with admitting what happened to some of the impoverished women of their country. Mr. Kill was obviously uncomfortable with where the conversation was going, but oblivious, Ernie pressed on.

“So what will they be charged with?”

“Assault, probably.”

“On who?”

“On a police officer.”

“They assaulted a police officer?”

Mr. Kill held out his fist. “They bruised our knuckles, didn’t they?”

On the drive back to Yongsan Compound, we discussed who the foreigner could be.

“Not the Ville Rat,” I said. “He never would’ve exposed himself to us if he was involved.”

“Or thrown that can of Colt 45 at the taxi,” Ernie added.

“But he did mention another man to you,” Inspector Kill said.

“I mentioned him, actually. He seems a likely suspect. He runs the Central Locker Fund, so he must know about the extra smuggling that is being done off the books, and he’s been here in Korea since the fifties.”

“Long enough to become interested in calligraphy,” Mr. Kill added.

“Yes. And kisaeng .”

“It doesn’t take long to become interested in kisaeng ,” Ernie said.

Officer Oh drove silently, although it seemed to me that the muscles in the back of her neck were tense. Maybe it was the careening traffic. She honked her horn and swerved around a pivoting taxicab.

“Whoever’s been profiting from this Central Locker Fund scam,” I said, “must’ve made tons of money. Enough to buy whatever he wants.”

“Including women,” Mr. Kill said.

“Yes, including women.”

Officer Oh slammed on the brakes. We all jerked forward. The brake lights of a taxicab glowed red just millimeters in front of our front bumper. Officer Oh turned to Inspector Kill sheepishly and said, “Mianhamnida.” I’m sorry.

I noticed she didn’t apologize to me or Ernie.

Ernie and I knew we were facing a mountain of trouble. The audit of all 8th Army Non-Appropriated Funds, including the Central Locker Fund, had been closed without serious anomalies. The Department of the Army Civilians who ran the funds, including Mr. Wilbur M. Robinson Sr., were firmly entrenched in their jobs, some of them having been here for decades. They had money, contacts in the private sector, and influence with both 8th Army and the Korean government. Rick Mills himself, it was said, lived in a mansion in an old part of Seoul; a part of the city that hadn’t been totally destroyed by the Korean War.

We needed inside information. Ernie called Strange. He met us just after evening chow at the 8th Army snack bar.

“Don’t ask me if I’ve had any strange lately,” Ernie said, pointing his finger at Strange’s nose. “I’m in no mood for it.”

We were both feeling the stress, not only of the Threets court-martial fiasco but also of the vested interests we were about to go up against. We were close to something and it wasn’t going to be pretty. On the other hand, we had to move fast, very fast, because the life of the little kisaeng was hanging in the balance. She’d been a sweet child, harmless, and I suppose Ernie and I were both affected by the thought of what some men were capable of doing to the innocent. We’d seen evidence of that on the banks of the Sonyu River.

I brought a tray with two cups of coffee and one mug of hot chocolate, with two marshmallows, the way Strange liked it. As he pulled the steaming concoction close, Strange smirked, enjoying being the center of attention and maybe enjoying our desperation even more.

As he slurped the first marshmallow down his gullet, I leaned toward him. “What do you know about Rick Mills?”

“Mr. Brainiac. Survived the soap-opera politics of Eighth Army all these years. Still sitting pretty.”

“He’s rich?”

“Like King Midas. Retired from the army as master sergeant fifteen years ago, now he’s a GS-freaking-fourteen, pulling down big bucks. Just after the war, he and his Korean wife bought a mansion on half a hillside and paid soybeans for it. Now it’s worth a fortune. Smart yobo . She built on the extra land and rents out apartments.”