Martin Limon: The Ville Rat

“She run,” she said, pointing out the door toward the main drag of Sonyu-ri.

“Running away from someone?” Ernie asked.

“I don’t know. Just run. Then she go down alley across the street.”

“Toward the river?”

She nodded.

“Where’d she come from?” I asked.

“I no see. But somebody say she at main gate. MP say she gotta karra chogi .” Go away.

“She was at the front gate of Camp Pelham and the gate guards told her to leave?” I repeated.

The barmaid nodded.

“Why was she running?” Ernie asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe somebody chase.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Nobody know.”

“Had anyone ever seen her before?”

“No. I no hear.”

“And the dress,” I said, “the chima-jeogori , does anybody in Sonyu-ri wear those kind of dresses?”

“On chuseok ,” she said. Korean Thanksgiving holiday.

“But in the bars,” I continued, “or in any of the nightclubs. Do any of the girls normally wear that kind of clothes?”

She shook her head vehemently. “Not in Sonyu-ri. Any GI around here, they like hot pants, miniskirt. Maybe in Munsan. Korean soldier there. Maybe somebody there dress up like kisaeng , real nice. But not in Sonyu-ri.”

Kisaeng were Korean female entertainers, a group that had faded in relevance since the advent of the profession in ancient Korean kingdoms. While modern kisaeng houses were often a front for prostitution, true kisaeng were high-class and expensive, not something likely to exist in a low-rent GI village like Sonyu-ri. Munsan was a larger city, about two miles away on the far side of the MSR, and since it was closer to the Imjin River and closer to the Demilitarized Zone, it was surrounded by dozens of ROK Army compounds. But the Lady of the Ice had been carrying a snippet of poetry in her sleeve. In classical times, kisaeng were educated women-musicians and performers-and some of the most famous sijo poetry had been written by them. I tried to relate all this to the current circumstances, but I didn’t get very far. Why would a high-class kisaeng wearing only her outer garments be running through the low-rent streets of a GI village?

“So nobody knew her,” Ernie said, “or knew why she was running through Sonyu-ri?”

“No. Nobody know.”

“And now,” he asked, “now that everybody knows she’s dead, isn’t anyone talking?”

“KNP ask anybody,” she said, waving her hand to indicate the entire village of Sonyu-ri. “Nobody see nothing.”

“How do you know that?”

“In Sonyu-ri,” she said, lighting up another Turtle Boat cigarette, “nobody never see nothing.”

I left her a tip-one thousand won , about two bucks-and told her how to get in touch with me if she heard anything. The money disappeared.

On the way out, Ernie said, “That was a waste of won .”

“You don’t think she’ll ever call?”

“Not a chance in hell.”

The MP at the front gate of Camp Pelham was ready for us.

“No, I don’t talk to rear-echelon motherfuckers, and no , I wasn’t on duty last night, and no, I didn’t see nothing .”

He stood tall with his hands on his hips, a .45 in a polished black leather holster hanging from his web belt. The embroidered name tag on his fatigue blouse said Austin. His rank insignia was Specialist Four.

“You wanna talk to somebody,” he continued, “you head your rear-echelon butts right over there to the head shed and talk to Lieutenant Phillips. He’s the officer on duty tonight.”

A contract-hire gate guard, a middle-aged Korean man in a khaki uniform, stood behind the MP, his face turned away from us. I spoke to him in Korean.

“Ajjosi, ohjokei ku yoja boasso-yo?” Uncle, did you see that woman last night?

He didn’t answer, or even turn his head our way.

The sound of the Korean language seemed to enrage the MP.

“None of that shit!” Specialist Austin held out his palm as if stopping traffic. “No Korean around here. You wanna talk to somebody in the Second Division, you speaky English, you arra ?” You understand? “You don’t talk to my man here.”

“Was he on duty last night?” Ernie asked.

“None of your freaking business.”

Ernie stepped up close to Specialist Austin. They were nose to nose.

“A woman’s dead, Austin. Found almost naked in the frozen Sonyu River. If you were on duty last night, you talked to her, only minutes before she died.”

“I didn’t talk to nobody.”

Ernie stepped around him, reached into the open window of the guard shack and snatched a clipboard off a nail. Austin shoved him, but before he could get his hands on the clipboard, Ernie tossed it back to me.

I twisted it and held it up to the light of the huge overhead bulb. Quickly, I scanned the dates on the left and found Austin’s name and read the name right above it. As he was unsnapping his holster, I tossed the clipboard back to Austin. He caught it on the fly.

“Groverly,” I said. “Buck sergeant. He was on duty last night. Where can I find him?”

By this time, Austin had stepped away from Ernie, tossed the clipboard clattering back into the guard shack, and the business end of his .45 appeared in front of him.

“Back off!” he screamed. “Back off or I’ll fire, by God!”

Ernie and I both raised our hands and stepped away from the gate. As we did so, the Korean guard appeared at Austin’s side. In the reflected light, I read his brass nameplate.

We backed away into the darkness, Austin still swearing. Once safely around the corner of the nearest building, we trotted away. No sense waiting around to see if he called an MP patrol to come after us. He probably wouldn’t though. It would be embarrassing to admit that two unarmed guys from 8th Army had snatched his clipboard away from him. GIs can be relentless in their teasing. Austin probably wouldn’t want to give them the opening. We slowed to a brisk walk.

“You got the name?” Ernie said.

“Yeah. And the name of the Korean gate guard.”

“What is it?”

“Kim.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

A third of the country was named Kim. Another third was named Park or Lee.

“No,” I said, “but it’s a start.”

After lying low for a while and downing a couple of shots of soju, Korean rice liquor, we set off through the narrow alley Angela had pointed to, heading for the banks of the Sonyu River.

There were no lights down here, and as we walked single file down the muddy lane we kept our hands on the grease-stained bricks on either side of us. Finally, we emerged onto the runway that paralleled the river. Moonlight reflected off the frozen expanse. To our left, about fifty yards away, the glare of floodlights illuminated the flat bridge leading into Camp Pelham.

“The MPs patrol back here?” Ernie asked.

I shrugged. “That’s what the business girls tell me.”

“They should know,” Ernie said.

We wrapped our coats tighter around our shivering bodies and settled back to wait.

The MPs emerged from the darkness beneath the bridge.

There were three of them. Black helmets glistened, reflecting rays from the Camp Pelham floodlights.

“No ROK Army,” Ernie whispered.

In Seoul, 8th Army always has a Korean MP and an American MP patrol together, usually accompanied by a representative of the Korean National Police. The idea is that whatever miscreant they might come across-be he Korean military, American military, or civilian-one of the cops would have jurisdiction over him. Apparently, here at Division, they didn’t worry about such niceties.