CHAPTER 20

I knew we were back in Yongsan Garrison because every street corner held a grinning clergyman handing out literature to everybody who passed. The preachers’ brigade was all decked out in clerical garb, and in a few places gaggles of clean-cut soldiers and their wives were huddled around listening earnestly to whatever drivel the holy men were putting out. The American culture war had arrived full force in Korea.

There was a long table in the middle of the lobby, and my new friend Preacher Prick stood sternly behind it, overseeing three other preachers who were seated like a royal triumvirate, with high stacks of holy literature piled around them. He gave me a mealy look and I shot him a surly salute.

I went to my room and called Katherine in her office and asked her to meet me in the bar. She said she needed thirty minutes, so I decided to occupy myself watching CNN.

Another of those odious talk shows was on. There were four obnoxious, noisy journalists crowded around a table, yelling and interrupting one another. The overheated topic du jour was Thomas Whitehall and the trial. We were six days out and the journalists were trying to predict who would win and what were the costs of victory for either side.

A bald-headed, fat tout kept screaming that anything less than the death sentence would be a monstrous injustice. That was the word he kept using, “monstrous,” to re-cue the viewers to the revolting nature of the crime. Another guy, looking glamorous in a thousand dollar suit and horn-rimmed glasses, kept mumbling that “don’t ask, don’t tell” was bankrupt. The third guy was apparently the only one with a military background – having spent three or four years hiding out in the National Guard during the Vietnam War. He found five or six ways to say the military was a manly business and no place for queers and pansies. A woman with a horsey face, no makeup, and long, unkempt graying hair kept trying to say it didn’t matter whether Whitehall was guilty, that all gays shouldn’t be tarred with the same ugly brush, but she barely got a word in edgewise. The men shouted her down every time she parted her lips.

I was instantly reminded of Imelda’s edict that homophobia was a guy thing. Maybe it was, I realized. You never hear women using epithets like “fags” or “fudge-packers” or “dykes.” Maybe this was another of those “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” things.

My idle thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a hard knock at the door. I was expecting Katherine, so I swung it open wide and Wham! a fist crashed into my nose. I saw blackness and felt an electric shock that went straight to my brain. I flew backward and landed on my ass. A body launched through the air and crashed down hard on top of me.

I tried shoving and rolling away, but it was no use. Whoever was straddling and pummeling me had at least fifty pounds of advantage and complete surprise in his favor. I finally straightened my fingers and got a clean shot at his throat. He flipped backward and rolled off, writhing and gurgling.

I wiped at the blood gushing from my nose down my lips and chin and sat up to look at my attacker. Son of a bitch! Colonel Mack Janson, General Spears’s legal adviser, was grasping his throat, eyes bulging, face crimson, struggling desperately to force air down his windpipe. The fight was out of him, so I got up and went into the bathroom. I grabbed a nice white face towel, soaked it in cold water, and held it against my nose. In an instant, the towel was no longer white.

When I walked back out, Janson was on his knees, and while he wasn’t breathing real well, he was getting enough air that he wasn’t going to die.

“You bastard,” he croaked. “I’ll fuck you for this.”

I shook my head. “What are you, some kind of stupid recording? What the hell’s your problem?”

“I don’t like you, Drummond.”

“I know,” I said. “That why you hit me?”

His speech was coming back now. “You had no business bothering the minister. You had no business going to his house.”

He reached over to the minibar and pulled himself up to his feet. He was glaring at me with as much hatred as I’ve ever seen in a man’s eyes. “You’re a disgrace to the JAG Corps. And the Army. That poor man and his wife have been through enough. You should’ve left them alone.”

“I did what I needed to do.”

“And what was that, Drummond? Why were you nosing around the minister’s house?”

“None of your business.”

“I’m making it my business. I live here and it’s part of my job to help maintain this alliance.”

“Too damn bad.”

His glare got more choleric. “Do I need to remind you, Drummond, that I’m a colonel and you’re a major?”

“Up yours,” I said. “You trashed your authority when you punched me.”

“What were you doing?” he persisted. “Looking for evidence the kid was gay? Did you actually enter their home for such a disgraceful purpose?”

“No, I went for a cup of tea.”

“I’m warning you, Drummond, leave their son alone. Bad enough the poor kid got murdered… then the disgusting things they did to him afterward. Don’t you add to their pain.”

“It’s none of your damned business,” I told him again.

“No decent gentleman would even think of it.”

“I’m not a gentleman, I’m a lawyer,” I replied. “Now get the hell out of my room. And if you ever try to hit me again, I’ll break both your legs.”

Janson was much bigger than me, but he had a fairly big paunch, and what he didn’t know was that when I was back in the outfit I’d been fairly well trained to break bones. I could see he thought I was making an empty threat, and for a fraction of an instant, I think he considered hitting me again. I actually hoped he’d try. I wanted to kick his ass. On the other hand, maybe he was tougher than I gave him credit for, and it was me who was going to end up a bloody mess. Christ, that would’ve sucked.

Anyway, he spun around and went out the door. Of course, he couldn’t resist announcing again, “I swear I’ll fuck you for this, Drummond. You’ll see.”

I was starting to think there were only twenty words in the man’s vocabulary and “fuck” was half of them.

I inspected myself in the mirror. The bleeding had stopped, but my nose was red and starting to swell up. I looked like a drunk on a binge. I changed into a fresh shirt and headed downstairs to the bar.

Katherine was already seated at her same table beside the jukebox when I came in. That same song about where all the cowboys had gone was playing again. This couldn’t be coincidence – it had to be her who kept putting it on. Odd thing that – a lesbian obsessed with where all the cowboys went. Whatever happened to the Village People and Melissa Etheridge?

She had a beer and it was half empty. She stared at my face as I sat down. “What happened to your nose?”

“It was what we call a soldier’s fight.”

“And what’s a soldier’s fight?”

“One of those ones where there’s no rank, no rules, no apologies.”

“Why are you men so childish?”

So much for sympathy from my co-counsel.

“Look, all I did was open the door to my room and boom! I got hit in the nose. Guess who the assailant was.”

“Knowing your forte for making friends, I’m surprised there wasn’t a line at your door.”

“It was Janson,” I said, for once ignoring her gibes. “He was pissed as hell.”

“Over what?”

“I went over to Minister Lee’s house.”

“You what?”

“Remember how Whitehall told Bales he had the only key to his apartment?”

“Yeah?”

“He lied. I went to see him yesterday. He told me he gave a key to Lee several months ago. I went looking for it.”

She gave me a dubious look. “And the minister let you in?”

“Yeah, actually. He’s quite a gentleman. Besides, I lied about what I was looking for.”