by Martin Limon
Buddha's money
( George Sueno and Ernie Bascom - 3 )
Martin Limon
Martin Limon
Buddha's Money
1
Three miniskirted business girls flitted around Ernie like butterflies bothering a bear. He pulled out a packet of ginseng gum, grinned, and passed out a few sticks.
Another business girl, her face as brightly painted as the flickering neon of Itaewon, trotted across the road. I recognized her. Her name was Sooki. She grabbed Ernie's arm and peered up at him.
"You MP, right?"
"CID," Ernie told her. "Criminal Investigation Division. Not MP."
"Same same," Sooki said.
"Not same same." Ernie pointed at his skull. "I use my brain. MPs just beat the hell out of everybody. And anyway, I'm working tonight. So don't bother me."
We were working, all right. The black market detail. Undercover. Wearing our running-the-ville outfits: blue jeans, sports shirts, sneakers, and black nylon jackets with golden dragons embroidered on the back. Trying to catch off-duty GIs trading PX liquor and cigarettes for the charms that only a beautiful young woman can provide.
Red lips mounded into a pout. Sooki slapped polished nails on her out-thrust hip and purred in the voice of a vixen. "MP, CID, all same same. Any GI slicky my ping-pong heart. No bullshit."
The other girls exploded into laughter and chomped on their gum, seeming more like children in a playground than women ready to sell their bodies to the highest bidder.
Through round-lensed glasses, Ernie's green eyes studied the painted business girl. His grin never faltered, just gradually widened at the upturned corners. He's like that. If you're half nuts, he's interested in you. But if you're a sober professional, he'd just as soon see you take a flying leap off the edge of the world.
We were in Itaewon, the red-light district that services American soldiers stationed at the headquarters of the Eighth United States Army in Korea. More than twenty years ago a cease-fire had been signed ending the Korean War but GIs have been here ever since. Thirty thousand of us. Protecting the wire. Staring across the Demilitarized Zone at the 700,000 stone-cold eyes of the North Korean People's Army.
My name is George Sueno. Me and my partner, Ernie Bascom, are agents for the Criminal Investigation Division in Seoul.
Prostitution is legal in Korea as long as you are eighteen years old and you register with the county health officials and you keep the stamps on your VD card up to date. Most of these girls looked as if they'd turned eighteen yesterday. Some of them still wore their hair straight, in short-cropped bangs, the cut required of every uniformed schoolgirl in the country.
Ernie and I were sent out to Itaewon to enforce rules that both of us thought were stupid. But being in the army kept Ernie off heroin-a habit he'd picked up in Vietnam- and kept me off the streets of East L.A. Not incidentally, being in the army also kept money in my pocket and a clean shirt on my back. From where I'd come-an orphan at the mercy of the Supervisors of Los Angeles County-it was a big step up.
Sooki grabbed Ernie's arm. He jerked it away.
"I told you, Sooki. Don't bother me. I'm taaksan busy."
"No way, GI. You come. You help. Something bad happen."
Ernie's brow crinkled. "What are you talking about, Sooki?"
In the center of the cobbled road, a few splats of rain pattered onto dirty slabs of stone. Dust and the odor of rust exploded into the air.
The humidity felt like a warm hand fondling me under my shirt. Cockroaches the size of a hitchhiker's thumb scurried out of stone gutters. In the fading twilight, I could still see dark clouds hovering in the distance.
It always strikes during July and August. A warm current boils up out of the South Pacific, slams into the shallow waters of the Yellow Sea, and fat clouds shove across the low-lying valleys of the Korea Peninsula.
Chol param, the Koreans call it. The seasonal winds. The monsoon.
"GI punch somebody," Sooki insisted. "Chogi." There.
She pointed up the dark hill behind the glittering nightclubs. Tin and cement and red tile roots covered hovels clustered together as tightly as chips on a poker table.
"Go tell the Military Police," I told her.
Her painted face swiveled. "No MP jeep in village now! They still on compound. GI beat somebody up. No have time wait MP!" She turned back to Ernie. "You come. You help. Bali bali" Hurry. "Somebody apo!"
Ernie tossed the foil wrapper of his ginseng gum into the gutter. "Who's hurt?"
"How you say?" Her face crinkled in concentration, searching for the English.
"Hankuk mallo," I told her. Say it in Korean.
"Deing deingi chung."
Clouds like bad dreams drifted across the silver face of the rising monsoon moon. Ernie pushed away from the damp stone wall he'd been leaning against.
"What'd she say?" he asked me. "Who's hurt?"
"A monk ringing a bell."
"A what?"
"A Buddhist monk."
The monks come to Itaewon to collect money for their temples. Usually during the day, when the GIs are still on compound. Although most of the denizens of Itaewon are pimps or whores or worse, many of them are still devout, and sacrificing some of their ill-gotten gains to the representative of the Maitreya Buddha will buy them credit in paradise. At least they hope so.
"Bali bali," Sooki insisted. Quickly. "You come."
Ernie zipped up his jacket. "We're good guys, Sueno. Can't let anybody kick the crap out of a Buddhist."
I didn't like it. We were on black market detail. Not village patrol. Still, Sooki was right. There were no other law enforcement officers in the area.
Like a quivering rainbow, a jumble of neon signs sparkled to life along Itaewon's main drag. Above us, in a symphony of black and purple, the monsoon night lowered.
"Okay," I said. "I guess we have no choice."
Sooki didn't hesitate but trotted off, her high heels clicking on the slick stone road. We followed her up the main drag of Itaewon, past the open-doored nightclubs blaring out versions of Stateside rock and roll.
When the girls on Hooker Hill swarmed around us, we straight-armed them and kept our sights on the gyrating butt of the little business girl devotee ahead. Sooki disappeared into a crack in the brick-and-stone walls.
As we ran, pellets of rain slammed onto my head and back. A dim glow emanated from behind oil-papered windows. The edges of tiled roofs leaned above us, sometimes blocking the light of the three-quarter moon.
Water reeking of urine leaked down the jagged stones that paved the walkway. Charcoal gas from the ondol, subterranean heating flues, elbowed out most of the breathable air.
Ernie's footsteps pounded ahead of me. Molars rhythmically ground on gum.
The faint remnants of a high-pitched scream drifted through the alley.
"What was that?" I called to Ernie.
"What was what?"
"Listen."
The narrow lane was lined with high walls topped with rusty barbed wire and shards of jagged glass. Then we heard it again. Another sound. This one a harsh bark. Male. A shout of rage.
Ernie chomped faster on his gum. "Sounds like somebody's getting their ass kicked."
Sooki didn't slow down.
The female scream again. Ernie heard this one clearly. He turned to me, his eyes blazing with glee.
"We're going to catch some asshole in the act," he said.
Ernie is always in search of something that will make his heart race and his blood bubble. I'm a little less crazy about the wild life. I face trouble when it comes, but I sure as shit don't look for it.
I reached into the pocket of my nylon jacket and gripped the roll of dimes I always carry w
ith me. It felt firm in my hand, adding heft to my knuckles.
Despite the rain and the mud and the darkening alleys, I felt almost cozy. Right at home. Back on the mean streets where I was born.
We rounded a corner. Up ahead, at a crossing alley, we heard it. Cursing, heavy breathing, the thud of flesh on flesh.
Ernie's sneakers splashed rainwater out of invisible puddles. I pulled the roll of dimes out of my pocket. Sooki found a corner and knelt down, doing her best to make herself small.
2
The man Mi-ja Burkowicz had been forced to call father crashed through the rickety wooden gate, stumbled across the courtyard, and bellowed her name.
"Mi-ja! Meikju kajiwa!" Bring me a beer!
Mi-ja remained frozen, squatting in front of a pan of laundry. After having worked all day, the muscles of her arms and shoulders quivered from exertion. Still, she pulled off her oversized plastic gloves, placed her hands on her knees, and shoved herself to a standing position.
"Yes, Father," the nine-year-old Mi-ja said in English.
For some reason, this big foreign man liked to holler his orders in Korean and have her answer in his strange American language.
Mi-ja shuffled in oversized slippers to the small refrigerator hooked to a buzzing electrical transformer. She reached in, grabbed one of the cold cans of beer, and brought it to the man who called himself her father.
His body was huge. Gross. Round as a summer melon. His cheeks bulged and his nose was bulbous. Shockingly bright blue eyes sat recessed in layers of red-veined flesh. He was hard to look at, Mi-ja thought, and he always reeked of sweat, but he was never cruel to her.
Mi-ja popped the top of the can, watched the frothing liquid bubble to the edges. She offered it to her foster father with both hands, bowing as she did so.
No, it wasn't this fat man who was cruel to her. It was his wife, Mistress Nam, the woman who had adopted Mi-ja and brought her here. She treated Mi-ja as a slave. Making her work all day while Mistress Nam was out with her friends smoking and gambling at huatu, the ancient Korean flower cards. At night, if she was sober, Mistress Nam would dress Mi-ja in the traditional chima-chogori-a gaudy flower-print dress that Mi-ja hated-and parade her around the homes of her neighbors, showing her off, pretending that she herself had given birth to such a fine-looking Korean female child.
But everyone knew it wasn't true. Behind her back, Mistress Nam was called Slicky Girl Nam. Which meant that she had been a thief before, and before that a business girl. A yang kalbo, a whore for the foreign troops. The troops who cling to the terrain of Korea like fleas on the hide of a mule.
As Father Burkowicz guzzled his beer, Mi-ja noticed that he had left the front gate open. An unusual occurrence. This area, this Itaewon, is the most dangerous district in Seoul. Right near the American army base, the Itaewon district has the highest crime rate in the city. Thieves congregate here because the Americans put their wealth on display at every opportunity. To be sure, rich Koreans have more money, but they aren't as foolish as the Americans. They pay armed guards to patrol high fences and protect their wealth with unremitting ferocity.
Before she could trot across the courtyard and slam shut the gate, Father Burkowicz glugged down the last of his beer. With his big hairy fist, he crushed the can into a prickly ball of tin.
"Do hana kajiwa," he said. Bring me another.
Mi-ja did as she was told, puzzled as to why he was drinking so fast. Although his appetite was enormous, she'd never seen him toss down beer so quickly. Was he trying to get drunk? Would he start screaming and crying as Mi-ja had seen him do before, when he'd guzzled too much rice wine?
The remaining daylight faded rapidly. Now the narrow alley outside the gateway was completely dark. Anyone could walk right in, Mi-ja thought. And if this big fat American who called himself her father was drunk, the local thieves could steal anything. How could Mi-ja stop them?
She wasn't worried about losing the household possessions. Mistress Nam and Father Burkowicz were rich and they were always buying and selling on the black market, increasing their wealth. But if some thief took anything, even the most inconsequential item, Mistress Nam would punish Mi-ja severely for not protecting it with her life. Mi-ja started for the gate.
Father Burkowicz reached out his big hand and clamped his clammy fingers around her forearm.
"Anjo," he said. Sit down.
He'd never ordered her to do this before. Nevertheless, Mi-ja had been trained in obedience since infancy. She folded a pleat in her woolen dress and sat on the narrow wooden porch. Father Burkowicz draped his heavy arm around her shoulders and hugged her close to his side.
Mi-ja cringed and shut her eyes. To lessen her fear, she thought of her real father. A farmer in the province of Kangwon-do. A poor man, but hardworking. He rented five tiny plots carved out of the side of Star Spirit Mountain. Every morning before dawn, her father was out working, trying to coax the rocky land to grow something valuable enough to sell in the county market fifteen li from their home. Always, it was the same story. A small crop bringing in little money. But the taxes remained high and every month there was the rent to pay.
Mi-ja's oldest brother, Wol-sok, had been stricken with a disease as an infant, a disease that left him without strength in his legs. He was no help in the fields. Her second brother, Wol-han, was frail and always coughing up blood. Still, he assisted his father as best he could. After the birth of the two sons, Mi-ja's mother had borne only girls. One, two, three, four of them. Until Mi-ja herself was born.
All of the children worked as hard as they could, but there was never enough money. And never enough food.
When the matchmaker had come to their village, Mi-ja assumed that it was to find a husband for one of her older sisters. Instead, the wizened old woman had told of a rich lady in Seoul, with a fabulously wealthy foreign husband, a lady who was unable herself to bear children. Her only wish was to have a daughter that she could call her own.
That had been a year ago.
When Mi-ja left the village with the matchmaker, her father covered his eyes with his big hands and cried. Only Mother's face, of all those in her family, didn't crinkle in grief. Mi-ja could still see it. Gray as ashes. Unmoving. As if the flesh had been exhumed from a grave.
Tin clattered on rock. An empty beer can rolled across the cobbled courtyard. Saliva dripped from the lips of Father Burkowicz. Mi-ja swiveled in time to spot a row of shadows entering swiftly through the open gate. Men. Not Americans. Koreans, she thought. But then she looked again.
They were darker than Koreans and their cheekbones were not as pronounced. Their eyes were cruel and underlined with scars. Foreigners, she thought. What kind, she had no idea.
Soon, six of the men filled the small courtyard. The head of one of them, the tallest, was wrapped in a long strip of linen. This man stepped in front of Mi-ja and slipped a knife from his belt.
The wicked blade glinted in the harsh light streaming from the bulb that dangled in the kitchen. The turbaned man stuck the sharp tip beneath Mi-ja's nose. She straightened her back, lifting her head as high as she could, but dared not breathe.
Slowly, the man's full lips pulled back, revealing yellow blocks of teeth.
Father Burkowicz rose to his feet. The invaders stepped toward him. Mi-ja closed her eyes.
Everything happened fast then. She heard the sharp bark of command, raised voices.
Wood splintered.
Porcelain cracked.
Then she was pulled to her feet, across the courtyard, and into the darkness of the streets.
3
Captain Kim, the commander of the Itaewon Police Station, strode into the interrogation room. His blazing eyes pinned me and Ernie and then the gathered policemen with darts of barbed brass. Kim was a stout man, bronze-skinned, with muscular arms and shoulders and a face that could melt granite. It was the first time I'd seen him in civilian clothes-loose slacks and a bright blue sports shirt. His officers had probably called h
im from home.
In the center of the bare room, keeping her eyes tightly shut, sat a tiny woman wrapped in gray robes. Minute black stubbles dotted the naked flesh of her skull. Across her temple, a cruel purple welt was gradually beginning to bulge. Blood dripped in a thin line from the corner of her mouth.
Ernie was a little bruised up himself but he grabbed some tissue paper, stepped toward the woman and, his face crinkled in concern, dabbed at the red trickle.
Kim barked an order and one of the policemen hustled over to a first-aid cabinet and rummaged around. When the policeman found what he was looking for, he returned to the bald nun, cracked open a capsule, and waved it in front of the woman's nose. Her face crinkled, her head jerked back, and her eyes popped open.
The first thing she saw was Ernie.
Her mouth opened and she let out a scream. So loud it rattled the windows; a roar of anger rose from the crowd outside. The policemen all looked at us accusingly.
Who were we, two foreigners, to upset this virtuous Bride of Buddha?
After Sooki had led us into the catacombs of the Itaewon alleys, we heard screams and scuffling. Somehow, in the dark, we crashed headlong into a mugger in the act of attacking his victim. Ernie lost his footing on the slick cobbled pathway, then so did I. Still, before I went down, I managed to lay a left hook into the culprit's rib cage. Bone crunched beneath flesh. I was sure of it.
He was a big man and definitely knew how to handle himself in a fight. What with Ernie flailing around beneath me and it being so dark and Sooki screaming and me still trying to regain my footing, he landed a few punches and managed to slip away. I followed him through the Itaewon alleys but it was no use. He disappeared in the maze.
The only thing I could say for sure was that the perpetrator was well above average height and weight and probably a black man. Therefore, he was almost certainly a GI. The number of blacks in Korea who aren't GIs is not worth considering.
