Buddha's Money (25 page)

He was lying. Their testimony wouldn't do much good if he escaped and left the country. But that was a big if.

One of his thugs steadied the rocking boat by gripping the stone wall. Silently, the monk hopped up on the wall and crouched there.

Ernie had a good line on him. I wasn't worried. But there was no sense putting it off any longer. I had to level with Ragyapa, strike some sort of bargain.

"Your friend," I said. "Herman. The one who was working with you." I waited. No emotion showed in the shadows of Ragyapa's face. "He has disappeared."

The crouching thug straightened and took a few steps toward the bridge. Off to the side, I sensed movement in the shadows. Ernie. I didn't look in his direction.

"Tell your man to hold," I told Ragyapa.

Ragyapa barked something in an indecipherable tongue. The thug froze, shoulders hunched, glaring at me.

Ragyapa spoke again. "What is this about Herman?"

"Earlier this evening, he broke into our office on the compound. Through trickery, he managed to obtain the combination to our safe."

"And the jade skull?"

"It is gone. He took it with him."

The thug didn't seem to understand, but his body tensed and he stood up straighter, glancing back and forth between me and Ragyapa, waiting for instructions.

Ragyapa's voice lowered, sounding now like a cobra in an ancient tale. "Where is Herman now?"

"I don't know," I replied. "He has disappeared."

He barked a sharp invective. That was all the thug needed. With no further order from Ragyapa, he charged up the walkway leading to the bridge.

I reached under my coat for my pistol.

Just before the thug hit the bridge, Ernie stepped from the shadows and smacked him on the temple with the butt of his .45. Somehow the man spun away from the blow and kept spinning until he grabbed Ernie by the neck.

A shot rang out. Red flame rocketed into the air.

Ragyapa shouted out more orders. The boat emptied. Like a swarm of locusts, his men clambered onto shore.

Ernie and the thug were still struggling. I propped my outstretched elbows on the railing of the bridge and pointed the business end of my .38 revolver directly at Ragyapa's forehead.

"Call them off," I shouted. "Now!"

Ragyapa stared at me for a second. Then he barked another series of orders. His men stood still. Ernie and the first thug were locked in an embrace, Ernie pressing his .45 to the man's head, the thug with a tight grip on Ernie's neck. They were frozen. Like two wrestlers in midbattle.

"We can stand here and slaughter one another," I told Ragyapa, "or we can try to find a way to work this out."

Ragyapa breathed in sharply. "What do you suggest?" he asked.

"First, I need your assurance that Lady Ahn and Mi-ja are still alive and that they will stay alive."

He shrugged. "We have not killed them."

"What proof do you have?"

"I will give you proof when the time comes."

'You don't need both of them," I said. "Let one of them go"

Like a teacher studying a student, Ragyapa stared at me patiently for a moment, trying to decide if I was precocious or just noisy. "The child has already been freed."

"Where can we find her?"

"You will find her in good time. Enough of that. Now what of the jade?"

"I'm the only one who can catch Herman," I said. "You need to deal with me if you want the jade skull."

Slowly, Ragyapa nodded.

"Remember," I told him. "You will get nothing if Lady Ahn is killed."

"I will give you forty-eight hours," Ragyapa said. "By then, if you haven't found Herman, if you haven't recovered the jade skull, I will take it as a sign of bad faith and you will never see your fine lady again."

Forty-eight hours, I thought. Not much time. But he said that Mi-ja had been freed. That was progress. And I still had forty-eight hours to save Lady Ahn. If we were ever going to catch Herman, odds were that we would catch him early, in his first few frantic hours of trying to escape. If we didn't capture him early, we probably wouldn't capture him at all. The nightmare wasn't over yet but we'd passed the threshold of the full moon and still had hope.

"Done," I said. "Where will I meet you?"

He raised his forefinger into the night air. "That will remain my secret for the moment. I will notify you shortly before the meeting."

He didn't want to give us a chance to set up a police reception.

Ragyapa barked orders in his native tongue. The men on the shore hopped back into the boat. All except for the big thug still wrapped in an armlock with Ernie.

"Call your friend off," Ragyapa said. "He has a gun to my man's head. Tell him to point the gun at the sky, my man will let him go, and we will be gone."

Ernie tilted the barrel of the .45 skyward. The thug snorted, stepped back, loosening his grip. He lowered his body and, like a leopard flipping an antelope, he swiveled and tossed Ernie head over heels into the air.

Ernie screamed and soared for a moment, flailing. He splashed into the rancid water below the Bridge of the Golden Tribute.

I pointed my .38 at the thug but didn't pull the trigger as he scampered down the edge of the canal and leapt onto the boat. Someone had already started up the engine and they were swinging in an arc, heading back up the canal the way they had come.

At the last moment, Ragyapa shouted up at me. 'You wanted proof that she is alive. Here it is!"

At first my eyes couldn't focus and then I saw it. He was clutching hair in his fist, a head dangling below it.

Lady Ahn.

I almost squeezed off a round but then I realized that there was a neck below the head and her body was attached below that. Her arms bound. Her face bruised, lips puffed and bloody.

The outboard motor roared and Ragyapa and his boys sped off down the canal.

If I shot now they would kill her. Instead, I reholstered the .38. The engine noise faded.

I ran down to the edge of the canal, lay on the ground, and reached out my hand to the sputtering Ernie.

"Son of a
bitch!"
he shouted, as he splashed and kicked his way toward the shore. I grabbed his hand and hoisted him over the rock ledge.

He still held on to the .45. I grabbed the barrel and pulled it gently out of his grip.

Frantically, Ernie slapped at his face and his jacket and his trousers.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" he said. "I'm swimming in
shit."

He smelled like a sewer.

"We'll get you cleaned up, pal. Sorry that happened."

"Next time I see those assholes," he groused. "I'm gonna jack me some Mongolian dude up. I'm gonna jack me up a whole lot of Mongolian dudes!"

28

DROPS OF WATER FROM THE LEAKING FAUCET SPLASHED ONTO Mi-ja's swollen tongue. It reeked of rust, but it had been a long time since she cared. All she knew was that her throat was burning dry.

Bound wrists throbbed beneath thick knots of hemp rope. Her left ear still ached, as if some evil beast had chewed it oft" just moments ago. Her sliced finger shot globules of pain up the length of her arm.

She hadn't eaten in three days. She was still alert enough to know she should be hungry, but the muscles enveloping her stomach were clenched in a tight ball that refused to relax or complain.

She heard footsteps.

As the wooden door of the bathroom creaked open, she pulled as far away from the sound as she could. The chains around her ankles rattled.

The door popped open. Mi-ja clenched her eyes tightly shut.

The man squatted in front of her.

She relaxed somewhat. He was the oiler, the man who had prepared her before taking her to the leader. At least he wasn't the cutter. At least she wouldn't lose another ear or a finger or a toe.

She noticed he didn't have the bottle of oil in his hand. Why was he here?

The man checked her chains and the hemp ropes binding her wrists. When he was satisfied that they were secure, he smiled.

To Mi-ja, the smile was nothing more than the grimace of a skeleton. A death's head.

The man reached into his tunic and pulled out a handful of straw. The smell of it was strangely comforting to Mi-ja. She remembered the animals on her father's farm. The small black goats that were raised for meat. The large ox of which her father was so proud. And she remembered the tears that welled up in his eyes the day he had taken the ox to the market to be sold.

Had he cried like that the day she had been sold? Mi-ja didn't remember. So many things were fading from memory now. She tried to remember her mother's smiling face. It wouldn't appear.

The man squatting in front of her slid a long straw out of his fist. He held it in front of Mi-ja and smiled again. He opened his mouth, mimicking what he wanted Mi-ja to do.

At first she hesitated, cringing, turning her face away.

The man waited patiently until she looked back at him. Then he slid a cup of water in front of her. He pointed to the water and then he pointed to the straw.

Mi-ja understood what he was trying to tell her. She could have the water, but then she would have to open her mouth and accept the straw.

What was this for? Why did these mute foreigners want her to eat straw?

Mi-ja stared at the water. It looked like everything she had always longed for. Slowly, she nodded her head.

The man held the cup aloft, tilted it, and allowed a little water to splash onto Mi-ja's teeth. She tasted the wonderful wetness of it.

The man set the cup down. Then he held up the stiff piece of straw.

Mi-ja glanced again at the half-full cup of water. She was still dying of thirst. That little splash of moisture had only made her desire more rabid.

She made her decision. She must cooperate if she was going to be given anything more to drink.

She opened her mouth wide and said "aah."

The man slid the single strand of straw down Mi-ja's throat. He waited, making sure that she didn't gag. When he was satisfied, he reached down, picked up another dry twig, and slid it carefully down the throat of the helpless little girl.

After a small clump was in place, the man splashed a little more water down Mi-ja's throat.

Moisture seeped into the straw. It started to expand.

29

THE NEXT MORNING I WAS THE FIRST ONE INTO THE CID OFfice. I sat at Riley's desk, sipping on a steaming cup of snack bar coffee, riffling through the blotter reports. No word at all on Herman the German.

Last night, on the way back from the Bridge of the Golden Tribute, Ernie and I had stopped at the MP Station. We started making calls, woke up a lot of duty officers— both Korean and American—but before we were through, managed to put out a description of Herman the German and a detention order for him at every port of embarkation in the country.

There are no land exits from the Republic of Korea, except by way of the Demilitarized Zone—and trying to walk across the heavily mined DMZ is suicide. The officials at every other possible escape route, whether by air or by sea, had now been alerted to collar Herman the German as soon as he showed himself.

It took us a few hours and it was exhausting work at that time of night, but we had him. Herman was bottled up like a genie in a magic kingdom. And he wouldn't escape. Not in this lifetime.

The slack-jowled face of a hungover Sergeant Riley peeked around the doorjamb. "What the hell you doing in this early?"

"Trying to develop a lead on Herman the German."

Riley's stiffly pressed khakis crackled with starch. "Good. That lowlife ought to be locked up just for having bought me all those drinks."

"You don't remember, do you?"

Riley gazed at me, trying to focus. "Remember what?"

"Herman stole the combination to the CID safe from you last night. And then he stole the jade skull."

Thin lips tightened around crooked teeth. "Can I have my desk back now?"

"Sure, Sarge. Looks like you could use a little rest."

Riley sat down on the creaking wooden chair and started shuffling stacks of paperwork from one corner to another. "Jade skull. Stolen. All right. I get it. So have you found it yet?"

"We're working on it."

"How about that little girl?"

"Still in hostile custody."

"And the big girl?"

"Her, too."

Riley let his hands flop tq the desk. "You and Ernie aren't doing very well on this case, are you?"

"Not very."

"Better get your ass in gear before the First Sergeant chomps it off."

"I need to talk to him this morning."

"About what?"

"About turning over Hatcher to the ROKs."

Riley's eyes widened. "Don't be messing with him about that. The Eighth Army honchos have a case of the big ass about all these demonstrations. They say they're going to hold on to Hatcher as long as they want to and not be bullied into turning him over by a bunch of long-haired jerk-off students."

"Bullied? How can a thirty-thousand-man field army, with access to all the weapons in the United States arsenal, be bullied by anybody?"

Riley ignored the question. But the more I thought about it the more I figured he was probably right. The Eighth Army generals would see the demonstrations that way. Radicals trying to push them around. Everybody, no matter how much power they have, always thinks they're being picked on.

"Besides," I told Riley, "those students aren't jerk-offs."

"Of course they are. What are you, some kinda Communist?"

I took a deep breath. Time to make it official. "If Eighth Army doesn't turn Hatcher over to the Koreans before tomorrow afternoon, that nun he attacked is going to burn herself to death in downtown Seoul. In front of Buddha and everybody."

"How do you know this?"

"She told me."

"Christ, Sueño! If that little broad toasts herself, it'll start a goddamn insurrection."

"Just like those monks who burned themselves in Saigon," I said. "The government fell because of it."

"Have you reported this to Top?"

"No. That's why I want to talk to him this morning."

Riley stood up, confused, as if he wanted to go somewhere but wasn't quite sure where. "Yeah. You better talk to Top. Right away. You better."

I sat in a straight-backed chair across from Riley's desk and continued to sip my coffee. The ball was rolling now. We'd see where it went. But before I could fully savor the turd I'd dropped into Eighth Army's punch bowl, Ernie stormed into the office, red-faced.

"Come on, damn it. The jeep's outside."

I set my coffee down. "What is it?"

"Disturbance in Itaewon."

WAILS OF ANGUISH ECHOED DOWN THE ABANDONED PATHWAY of Hooker Hill. At the top of the rise, we wound through narrow alleys until we reached the Temple of the Dream Buddha. Thick wooden double doors were ajar. A gleaming gold Buddha gazed calmly down on Slicky Girl Nam. She was hunched over what looked like a pile of rags.

Outside stood a red-robed monk, a Korean National Policeman, and a half dozen business girls roused by Slicky Girl Nam's screams. The women wore shorts and T-shirts, their arms were crossed across their breasts, and the flesh of their faces looked wrinkled and naked in the gray morning light.

The young policeman glanced at me suspiciously. He was probably planted here to protect the site until his superiors arrived. I flashed him my CID badge, which relaxed him a little.

In the middle of the pagoda, on the varnished wooden floor, lay the small unmoving body of Mi-ja Burkowicz, the adopted daughter of Herman the German and Slicky Girl Nam. Nam rocked back and forth on her knees, moaning as if someone was poking a hot poker into her guts.

Ernie flipped back the edge of his coat, clutched his waist, and swiveled his head, purposely looking away from the motionless child. "Shit!" he said.

That about summed it up.

I stepped forward into the pagoda and knelt to examine the girl.

"You no
touch!"

Slicky Girl Nam's twisted face was red, as if the tears pouring from her eyes were hot steam. "You no
touch!"
she screeched.

I nodded and slowly moved around the girl. I could see that one ear was gone. But otherwise, from where I stood, she appeared to be uncut and unbruised. She wore red cotton pants and a matching blouse sequined with the faces of smiling rabbits.

I was searching for the cause of death. There was no blood. No mortal wounds. No marks around her neck. Then I saw them. The line of bruises around her wrists. And the single strand of straw sticking out of her nose.

I leaned over and peered inside the nostrils. Both were blocked with green hay. The bastards had suffocated her.

As if to confirm what I was thinking, Slicky Girl Nam reached out her wrinkled hand and touched the smooth flesh of Mi-ja's cheek. The child's pink lips parted slightly. Inside, her mouth and throat were also stuffed with straw.

Why kill Mi-ja this way? And then I remembered that Ragyapa was a Buddhist—or at least a member of some odd, perverted sect of Buddhism—and Buddhists must respect all living things. In Tibet, when it is time to slaughter a yak, they stuff straw down its throat and nose and let it choke to death. The animal suffocates, killing itself. So the owner won't be blamed for the sin of murdering another living creature.

But why kill Mi-ja now? Why, when I had told Ragyapa I would do everything I could to catch Herman and recover the skull?

But I knew the answer. Ragyapa had given us until the full moon to produce the jade skull, or Mi-ja would die. We hadn't made that deadline. He wanted to make sure that I believed he meant business.

He still had one more hostage, Lady Ahn, and his message was clear. If we didn't find the skull within the next thirty-six hours, Lady Ahn would suffer the same cruel death little Mi-ja had.

I knelt and spoke as gently as I could to Slicky Girl Nam. "We have to find Herman."

She looked at me blankly, waiting for an explanation.

"Last night," I said, "we were supposed to exchange the jade skull for Mi-ja. But it was stolen out of the CID safe. We couldn't make the exchange. We believe Herman stole the skull."

The flat muscles of her face writhed like a basket of pythons. Her rage-filled eyes spit fire. "That
pyongsin
stole jade skull?"

"He's not a cripple," I said. "He has the skull and he's running."

Slicky Girl Nam screamed a series of curses that thundered through the Temple of the Dream Buddha. "When I catch, I cut that son-bitch balls off!"

I stood up. Ernie clicked on his gum, shaking his head, no mirth in his eyes.

Captain Kim, the commander of the Itaewon Police Station, strode into the Temple of the Dream Buddha surrounded by his entourage. He stopped and glared at Ernie and me. "You two again. Every time there is a death in my precinct, you two seem to be nearby."

I didn't translate that into English. I was afraid Ernie would pop him. Instead, I stepped back and let Captain Kim take charge of the investigation.

It took four cops to pry Slicky Girl Nam away from Mi-ja.

WHEN WE RETURNED TO THE OFFICE, RILEY HAD ME LINED UP for three appointments. One with the First Sergeant, one with the Eighth Army Provost Marshal, and one with the Judge Advocate General's Office. They all wanted precise details concerning the upcoming plans of the little nun and the Buddhist hierarchy.

Luckily, they were so busy chattering amongst themselves about this new information, that they didn't have time to talk to me right away.

"You'll see them when they're ready for you," Riley told me.

Typical. Military commanders always start formulating their plans before they have all the facts.

While we were waiting we didn't twiddle our thumbs. Ernie made calls to the American side and I made calls to the Koreans, asking if anyone at the points of embarkation had encountered anyone matching the description of Herman the German.

He had only completed his third call when Ernie slammed down the phone. "Osan. The Space Available list. One guy signed up early this morning for a flight Stateside. Name: First Sergeant Herman R. Burkowicz, Retired."

I grabbed my coat.

"Where the hell do you guys think you're going?" Riley yelled.

"To collar a bad guy," I called back.

"But the honchos want to talk about this nun."

"You already know everything I know. If they don't turn Pfc. Hatcher over to the Korean authorities, she's going to kill herself tomorrow afternoon in downtown Seoul at the Gate of the Transformation of Light."

"They'll court-martial you if you don't show up for this shit," Riley hollered.

"What are they gonna do?" Ernie asked. "Send him to Korea?"

We ran outside to the jeep.

As we rolled out of the main gate of Yongsan Compound we swerved into the madly careening traffic of the Main Supply Route. Thunder cracked. A flash of lightning sliced the sky.

"Looks like we're due for a little drizzle."

As soon as the words left Ernie's mouth, a whole world of water gushed out of the black heavens.

DRAPED IN HIS BLUE RAIN SLICKER, THE SECURITY GUARD waved us through the main gate of Osan Air Force Base. We followed the signs to the passenger terminal of the Military Airlift Command, parked the jeep, and ran inside.

The building contained only one large waiting room, latrines, and a snack bar off to the side. Before we talked to anybody, Ernie and I spread out and searched for Herman the German.

Ernie met me back at the Space-A counter. "No dice."

"I didn't think so," I said. "He wouldn't wait here where he could be easily spotted."

I flashed my badge to the Technical Sergeant at the counter. She was slender and her uniform had been well tailored and her complexion was like light cocoa butter. I gave her Herman's name. She thumbed through the onionskin sheets on her clipboard.

"He was here this morning," she said. "Signed up for Space-A and was issued a seat on the flight that left about a half hour ago."

"Damn!" Ernie said.

She kept licking her thumb and studying the manifest. "But he was bumped. Some ground-pounder from the Second Division showed up at the last minute with emergency leave orders. We had to pull Burkowicz off the flight."

"You mean he's still here in-country?"

"Sure is. Mad as hell when we pulled him off. Cursing about his rights as a retired service member."

"What rights?" Ernie asked.

She smiled. "None that I know of. Retirees have no rights unless there's space available. And their priority comes right after cats and dogs."

"We called last night from Eighth Army CID," I said. "I thought you people were going to arrest Burkowicz if he showed up."

She shrugged. "Don't ask me. You'll have to check with the Security Detachment. They're down the hall."

"Never mind," I said.

Despite all our efforts, if there had been enough seats on that flight this morning, Herman would be on his way to the States with the precious jade skull of Kublai Khan stashed in a bag beneath his feet. So much for military efficiency.

I asked the Tech Sergeant one more question. "Are there any more flights leaving today?"

"None until tomorrow morning."

"Thanks."

I smiled at her but she didn't smile back. She was too busy looking at Ernie.

We grabbed a couple of trays at the small snack bar. I ordered a BLT, Emie had a ham and cheese omelette with a side of hash browns.