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Authors: Martin Limon
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also has a marriage packet in with Miss Pak Ok-suk, the woman who was killed the night before last out in Itaewon.”
Sturdivant’s sloe eyes closed and then opened slowly.
“Watkins. Watkins.” He thumbed through a box jammed with three-by-five index cards. “I don’t remember him. I should. There’s just so many of them.” He stopped riffling through the box and pulled out a card. “Here it is. Watkins, John B. And Miss Pak Ok-suk. The paperwork’s already been logged in, the interview conducted, and the packet briefed at the chief of staff meeting. It should be on its way to personnel.” He looked up at us. “If it’s not there already. For that you’ll have to check with PFC Hurchek.”
“Do you remember anything specific about your interview with Specialist Watkins and Miss Pak?”
“Oh God, no. There’s just so many I have to conduct. It seems like half of the young GIs who come to Korea are getting married. They’re just so impressionable. So easily fooled.” Chaplain Sturdivant shook his head. “You can’t believe some of the cases I’ve had. Just last week a young boy, twenty-one, was set to marry an old Korean business girl. Thirty-seven, she said. I wondered if the family register hadn’t been tampered with, because she looked older. And the report from the Korean National Police! She’s had seven abortions. Seven! When I told this young man about it, he didn’t even blink. He just said, ‘Oh yeah, she told me.’ Can you believe it.”
We believed it. Sturdivant went right on.
“When they got in here I did everything I could to slam her, make her ashamed of what she was doing, but do you think it had any effect? None. And the simpleminded trooper just sat through the whole thing with his mouth open. It had no effect on him. He’s going to take that hideous old creature home to his parents. To his mother! It just never ceases to amaze me. And we’ve got stacks of paperwork. Poor Hurchek has to stay here late at night just to make sure that all the packets get out to personnel in some sort of timely fashion.”
Sturdivant’s hands clenched one another; back and forth, back and forth. He sighed.
“And the command briefings. I usually take a whole box of packets over there, brief the chief of staff on the statistics, and show them some of the more unusual cases. I get more attention at my briefing than even your boss, the provost marshal, gets when he briefs the black-market statistics. Like when I told them about that thirty-seven-year-old whore. I asked her what her real age was and she said, ‘Me thirty-seven. No bullshit.’”
The chaplain paused, pleased with his anecdote. His grin fell when he saw me and Ernie just staring back. He sat up straighter. I got back to business.
“Would looking at the packet help jog your memory about Watkins and Miss Pak?”
“Miss? Why do you keep calling her Miss? As if she’s not just a business girl?”
Ernie leaned forward. “You know, Chaplain Sturdivant, with all due respect to your rank, you’re just about the tightest little asshole I’ve ever met.”
The chaplain turned red and stood up. So did Ernie. I grabbed my partner and walked him towards the door. “Thanks for your help, sir. We have all the information we need.”
Later that afternoon I slid in the side door of the chapel and found Hurchek alone in his office. He showed me the packet on Watkins and Miss Pak and I leafed through it quickly. There was a tag on it, a routing slip, with some scribbled initials. I asked him about it and he checked his log.
The packet had been signed out a week and a half ago and then returned a couple of days later. The signature was illegible but it had happened after the weekly command briefing. The recipient was someone on the Eighth Army staff.
As he was talking and checking the ledger, I wrote down the names of the people whose packets had been signed out during the last few months, the dates they were signed out, and the
Sturdivant’s sloe eyes closed and then opened slowly.
“Watkins. Watkins.” He thumbed through a box jammed with three-by-five index cards. “I don’t remember him. I should. There’s just so many of them.” He stopped riffling through the box and pulled out a card. “Here it is. Watkins, John B. And Miss Pak Ok-suk. The paperwork’s already been logged in, the interview conducted, and the packet briefed at the chief of staff meeting. It should be on its way to personnel.” He looked up at us. “If it’s not there already. For that you’ll have to check with PFC Hurchek.”
“Do you remember anything specific about your interview with Specialist Watkins and Miss Pak?”
“Oh God, no. There’s just so many I have to conduct. It seems like half of the young GIs who come to Korea are getting married. They’re just so impressionable. So easily fooled.” Chaplain Sturdivant shook his head. “You can’t believe some of the cases I’ve had. Just last week a young boy, twenty-one, was set to marry an old Korean business girl. Thirty-seven, she said. I wondered if the family register hadn’t been tampered with, because she looked older. And the report from the Korean National Police! She’s had seven abortions. Seven! When I told this young man about it, he didn’t even blink. He just said, ‘Oh yeah, she told me.’ Can you believe it.”
We believed it. Sturdivant went right on.
“When they got in here I did everything I could to slam her, make her ashamed of what she was doing, but do you think it had any effect? None. And the simpleminded trooper just sat through the whole thing with his mouth open. It had no effect on him. He’s going to take that hideous old creature home to his parents. To his mother! It just never ceases to amaze me. And we’ve got stacks of paperwork. Poor Hurchek has to stay here late at night just to make sure that all the packets get out to personnel in some sort of timely fashion.”
Sturdivant’s hands clenched one another; back and forth, back and forth. He sighed.
“And the command briefings. I usually take a whole box of packets over there, brief the chief of staff on the statistics, and show them some of the more unusual cases. I get more attention at my briefing than even your boss, the provost marshal, gets when he briefs the black-market statistics. Like when I told them about that thirty-seven-year-old whore. I asked her what her real age was and she said, ‘Me thirty-seven. No bullshit.’”
The chaplain paused, pleased with his anecdote. His grin fell when he saw me and Ernie just staring back. He sat up straighter. I got back to business.
“Would looking at the packet help jog your memory about Watkins and Miss Pak?”
“Miss? Why do you keep calling her Miss? As if she’s not just a business girl?”
Ernie leaned forward. “You know, Chaplain Sturdivant, with all due respect to your rank, you’re just about the tightest little asshole I’ve ever met.”
The chaplain turned red and stood up. So did Ernie. I grabbed my partner and walked him towards the door. “Thanks for your help, sir. We have all the information we need.”
Later that afternoon I slid in the side door of the chapel and found Hurchek alone in his office. He showed me the packet on Watkins and Miss Pak and I leafed through it quickly. There was a tag on it, a routing slip, with some scribbled initials. I asked him about it and he checked his log.
The packet had been signed out a week and a half ago and then returned a couple of days later. The signature was illegible but it had happened after the weekly command briefing. The recipient was someone on the Eighth Army staff.
As he was talking and checking the ledger, I wrote down the names of the people whose packets had been signed out during the last few months, the dates they were signed out, and the
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