Free G.I. Bones by Martin Limon

quickly and, in no time, they believe it. And they all believe that this ghost will cause trouble in Itaewon. Bad luck. That adds to their depression. Depression leads to despair. Despair leads to illness or, worse, suicide. As a physician, I must try to prevent that.”
    Suicide was a fairly common event amongst the business girls of Itaewon. The Korean government didn’t allow Doc Yong, or anybody, to keep statistics—not officially. But those of us who worked out here knew that at least three or four girls per year died by their own hands.
    “But even if I locate the bones of Mori Di,” I said, “and have them shipped back to the States, the business girls and Auntie Mee will just find something more to be depressed about.”
    “Yes. Of course. It’s always something.” She leaned toward me. “Someone’s been complaining about Miss Kwon,” Doc Yong continued. “An American G.I.”
    “A G.I. complaining about Miss Kwon?”
    “Yes.”
    I was flabbergasted. Even before Doc Yong introduced me to Miss Kwon, I’d taken note of her while Ernie and I worked our regular rounds. She was a hostess at the King Club: a small, cute, country girl with chubby cheeks who kept to herself. Why would any G.I. complain about her?
    “What sort of complaint?” I asked.
    “I’m not sure. But the owner is concerned and there’s even talk that Miss Kwon might lose her job. Not that losing that kind of work would be bad for her but I know the pressure these girls are under. She needs the money. Otherwise, where will she go? What will she do?” Doc Yong shook her head. “You can’t believe what these girls go through. Many of them are the sole support of their families, putting their younger brothers and sisters through school.”
    Yes, I could imagine what they went through but I didn’t interrupt.
    Doc Yong stared into my eyes. “Will you look into it?”
    How could I say no? I nodded. She smiled, reached out, and squeezed my hand.
    On the way out of the clinic, the women in the waiting room stared at me. But all I could feel was the warmth where Doc Yong’s hand had touched mine.
    Although I’d questioned Doc Yong’s motives for searching for the remains of Technical Sergeant Flo Moretti, I was beginning to develop motives of my own. Moretti had been murdered. Cort, the on-the-scene investigator, had strong suspicions as to who had murdered him but the body had gone missing and, after that, Cort had been hampered by both the Korean and the 8th Army powers that be. At the time, right after the war, Korea was still in turmoil. There was even talk that the Communists might make a comeback. In fact, the starving Korean populace would’ve followed just about anyone who promised to put food in their bellies and into those of their children. So the South Korean government and 8th Army wanted to squash, as quickly as possible, any sort of incident that portended discord between the U.S. and Korea, including the incident known as the Itaewon Massacre.
    But those days were long gone and Ernie and I were new to the case—fresh eyes looking at the evidence. I was beginning to wonder if, in addition to finding his bones, we couldn’t breathe life back into the search for the killer of Mori Di.
    After all, Moretti had been a man of principle. A man who’d traveled thousands of miles from his hometown in New Jersey to a country on the far side of the world. He’d put everything on the line, including his life, to help people he didn’t know. And, as Ernie said so succinctly, Tech Sergeant Moretti had been a fellow G.I.
    That, in itself, was enough to keep us investigating.
    Starting on the morning after the assault on Moretti, Cort had interviewed everybody he could find—both G.I.s and Koreans— who’d been present the night of the Itaewon Massacre. The evening had started routinely enough. The Buddhist nuns fed about a hundred people—men, women, children, and old folks—from the soup kitchen set up behind Moretti’s