Martin Limon: The Ville Rat

“Like I said, nobody’s messing with anybody.”

“Then why don’t you take your honky-ass selves outta this place where you ain’t wanted?”

Like a brown missile, a beer bottle flew past my ear. It missed me and smashed into the face of the guy talking. Ernie shot past me on my left and rammed the heavy barstool into the raised forearms of the guy who’d thrown the bottle. I leapt forward and jerked a pool cue from the hands of one of the surprised GIs and started swinging. The two guys still standing backed off. The few other customers in the bar just stared.

“Where’s Brandy live?” I shouted back at the barmaid.

She fiddled with the locks behind the bar and said in Korean, “Out back. I’ll show you.”

The three enforcers of racial purity didn’t follow.

Brandy slid back the oil-papered door and stared at us in surprise. Her hair still radiated from her head in a dark bouffant Afro, but her eyes were even wider than I remembered. Since we’d last seen her, she must’ve handed over more of her hard-earned money to a plastic surgeon.

“Geogie,” she said. “Ernie. Long time no see, short time how you been?”

“Yeah, long time, Brandy. You still sexy.”

She struck a pose with her hand on her hip and said, “Gotta be.” Then her round face turned serious. “You look Ville Rat.”

“Yes,” I answered. “Is he still here?”

“No. He go.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. But he say you gotta go someplace.”

“Where’s that?”

“Inchon.”

“Inchon? Where in Inchon?”

“I don’t know. Anyplace. He say you figure it out.”

“Inchon’s a big city,” I said.

Brandy nodded. “No soul brothers there.”

“So the Ville Rat won’t be able to sell Colt 45.”

She nodded again.

“So what’s special about Inchon?” Ernie asked.

“How I know?” Brandy was impatient now, fiddling with a pack of PX-purchased cigarettes. “You go find out.” She waved her hand dismissively.

A group of black GIs burst out of the back of the Black Cat Club. They glared at us ominously. Three of them held pool cues and one held a blood-soaked handkerchief to his nose.

“Thanks for the info, Brandy,” I said.

“Ain’t no bag,” she replied.

Ernie and I hustled out the back gate.

“Inchon,” Ernie said.

“That’s what Brandy says.”

“But why would the Ville Rat want to go there? Like Brandy said, there’s no black GIs stationed in Inchon.”

“Hardly any GIs at all. Just that small transportation unit.”

We were driving through country roads. The sky was overcast, and streams of water and mud occasionally crossed the blacktop. Ernie slowed when we passed through villages lined with brick homes thatched with straw.

“This road will get us to the Western Corridor,” he said. “I take the Reunification Highway south from there, but what’s the best way after that?”

“Before we hit Seoul, we turn right toward Wondang.”

“More country roads,” Ernie said.

“Maybe. But we’ll miss the outskirts of the city. Less traffic.”

Ernie sped around a cart piled with turnips. A tired horse shied away, his grey-streaked rump whipped listlessly by an old man in a broad-brimmed hat.

“How does the Ville Rat expect us to track down a single hideout in Inchon?”

“I guess he thinks we’ll figure it out.”

“Why’s he being so secretive?”

“If everything collapses, he doesn’t want to be fingered as the guy who blew the whistle on the Central Locker Fund operation.”

“You mean if our investigation collapses because Eighth Army doesn’t take these allegations seriously.”

“It could happen.”

“And the same crooks would be back in charge of the Non-Appropriated Fund.”

“They’re in charge now.”

“But a woman’s life is at stake.”

“According to Mr. Kill, other women have disappeared and nobody’s done anything about it.”

“We didn’t know.”

“Somebody knew.”

“And that’s who the Ville Rat’s afraid of.”

“Right. They could turn on him next.”

“Not if we catch them.”

“No. But the Ville Rat’s hedging his bets.”

“You think he’ll be here?”

“Not a chance. If we take down Demoray, the Ville Rat will want to be as far away as he can.”

“Inchon is a big city. Where do we look?”

“The port,” I said. “Where the booze comes in.”

Ernie nodded. Made sense to him.

Like so many complexes in the Republic of Korea, the main row of warehouses along the Port of Inchon had been constructed by the Japanese. That is, during the colonial period, the warehouses were designed and built under their auspices, although I’m sure the bulk of the labor force was Korean. For over a mile, two- and three-story brick warehouses lined the wharf. All of them had at one time been occupied by the US Army. Inchon was the main port for bringing in supplies to the city of Seoul during and after the Korean War. However, in recent years, a four-lane highway had been built to the much larger Port of Pusan and the transshipment point had changed. Consequently, most of the warehouses in Inchon had been turned over to the Korean government. They in turn had parceled them out to private Korean enterprises. As such, the warehouses run by the US military were down to about a half dozen, all of them huddled on the northern end near the buildings housing the 71st Transportation Company.

Ernie and I cruised down the row of buildings.

“Demoray wouldn’t want to operate too close to the military,” I said.

“But he has to be near the warehouse that processes the shipments for the Non-Appropriated Fund.”

On our way to Inchon, the sun had set into the Yellow Sea and small red bulbs glowed atop the double doors of the brick warehouses that stretched away for almost a mile.

“So which one?” Ernie asked.

“Can’t read the signs from here,” I said.

Ernie pulled up to the gateway. The Korean contact guard pretended to read our emergency dispatch, but I don’t think he understood the jumble of red stamps and printing. I flashed my CID badge and told him impatiently that we only needed to park somewhere safe for a few minutes. Relieved to hear Korean, and to be given an excuse for letting us in if he needed one, he waved us through.

Ernie parked the jeep out of sight behind a wooden trash bin. He padlocked the steering wheel and, with my trusty flashlight in my pocket, we got out to walk. Mostly, we stayed in the shadows reading the signs, searching for something that indicated we’d be near either 8th Army Non-Appropriated Funds or the operations of the Central Locker Fund. But not all of the warehouses were clearly marked. The signs were old and faded, and I was beginning to believe that they hadn’t been updated in quite a while.

A night watchman approached us. When he came closer, I could see in the glow of one of the red bulbs that he was Korean. I could also see that an M1 rifle was slung over his right arm. I greeted him and asked, “Where are the Eighth Army warehouses?”

We could’ve flashed our CID badges and probably been all right, but we didn’t even need to do that. American officers had become so much a part of the daily working life of Koreans over the years that most of them never questioned our motives. He pointed toward the end of the row. I thanked him and nodded slightly, and he returned my nod and continued his rounds. Between the warehouses and the wharf was a long expanse of about twenty yards of blacktop. Canvas-covered pallets were laid out like square checkers on a board. Ernie started pulling up the canvas and checking the writing on the boxes underneath. Finally, he stopped and called me over.