Free The Iron Sickle by Martin Limon Page A

doors.
    Fan-driven air whooshed through the foyer. I inhaled deeply, catching the familiar odor that seemed to permeate every Korean office building: cheap burnt tobacco and fermented cabbage
kimchi
. The soles of our shoes clattered on a tiled floor. Behind a circular counter another cop sat along side a young female officer, her jet black hair cut in bangs. A sign above them said
Annei
, information.
    Off guard duty now, I hoped permanently, Ernie and I were wearing civilian clothes: namely the coat and tie that are required garb for all 8th Army CID agents. The idea was a cockeyed one. The honchos at 8th Army wanted us to wear civilian clothes so we could blend in, but they didn’t want us looking like slobs, so they required us to wear a coat and tie and have our slacks pressed and our shoes shined. In the early 1970s nobody wore a coat and tie—not unless they were either getting married or on their way to a funeral. That plus our short GI haircuts and our youthful demeanor meant we didn’t blend in with anybody. We might as well have had flashing neon signs attached to our foreheads saying “8th Army CID Agents. Make way!”
    I showed my badge to the two officers behind the counter and told them we were there to see Inspector Gil Kwon-up. The young woman’seyes widened slightly, and without answering she lifted a phone, pressed a couple of buttons, and then whispered into it urgently, swiveling away from us and covering her mouth with her small hand.
    “Cute,” Ernie said.
    The male cop’s eyes crinkled.
    “Easy, Ernie,” I said. “Don’t start making passes before we’ve even gotten through the door.”
    Ernie reached in his pocket, pulled out a stick of ginseng gum, unwrapped it, and stuck it in his mouth. “You worry too much, Sueño.”
    Finally, the young woman hung up the phone, turned, and gave me directions in broken English on how to reach the office of Inspector Gil Kwon-up, better known as Mr. Kill. I smiled and thanked her, and she stood and placed clasped hands in front of her blue skirt and bowed her head until her bangs hung straight down. Before we left, Ernie offered her a stick of ginseng gum, but she waved her flat palm negatively and backed away, her face turning red. The male cop glared at Ernie. Ernie shrugged and stuck the gum back in his pocket.
    On the way up the elevator, I said, “You embarrassed that girl.”
    “
Bull
. She loved every minute of it.”
    When we reached the sixth floor, we stepped into a tiled hallway. Typewriters clattered and uniformed officers scurried back and forth on what appeared to be extremely important missions. I was about to stop one of them to ask where I could find Inspector Gil Kwon-up when a gaggle of men in suits emerged from one of the doors and hurtled down the hallway toward us. The man in front I recognized: Inspector Gil himself.
    “You’re late,” he said. “Come on.”
    As he rushed past us, he used the American gesture of crooking his forefinger, indicating we should follow. We did. He didn’t take the elevator but rather headed for a door marked
Pisang-ku
, emergency exit. We trotted down six flights of stairs. At the bottom we emergedout of the back door of the building into a parking lot crammed with small blue Hyundai sedans. One of them rolled to a stop in front of us and the doors popped open. Mr. Kill gestured for Ernie and me to climb into the back seat. He sat up front, next to the driver. The driver was a female officer with a curly shag hairdo that just reached the collar of her blue blouse. Her flat upturned-brim cap sat snugly atop the cascade of black hair. Ernie was craning his neck to get a better look at her but she kept her eyes strictly on the road as we zoomed out of the parking lot and into the midst of the swirling Seoul traffic.
    “This is Officer Oh,” Inspector Gil said, without further explanation.
    She nodded but did not turn back to look at us.
    “Where are we going?” I asked.
    “Where else?” Gil