by Martin Limon
"It's not your fault," he said.
"It is."
"No way. Those assholes were after the skull, not Lady Ahn. And they already had one hostage. Who would've thought they'd take her, too?"
His attempts to make me feel better didn't do any good. I sipped on a little more of the bitter coffee and then tossed the rest into the trash can.
Sergeant Riley slipped the pencil out from behind his ear and tapped the triangular eraser on a sheaf of papers.
"Here it is," he said. "I knew it was in here. The dope for the last two months on all foreigners entering Korea." Riley pushed his sleeves up along his skinny forearms. "Foreigners, most of them businessmen, broken down by nationality."
He started slashing Xs along the list.
"We can ignore all these Miguks." The Americans. "And all these pansies from Europe."
"Cross out the Japs, too," Ernie said.
"Right you are." Riley slashed vigorously. "Out with the Eastern dwarfs."
Riley claimed not to have any interest in Korean culture, other than chasing the business girls and guzzling rice wine. But he had somehow picked up all the cuss words-even a few I didn't know-and every racial epithet in the book.
"Now what we have left," Riley told us, "is a few from Africa.. " He slashed these out. "And a few more from South America." His pencil continued to work. "And that leaves a whole shitload from Indonesia and Taiwan and Malaysia and Singapore and-"
"Cross those out, too," I told him. Riley glanced up at me. I said, "Concentrate only on the states of Northeast Asia."
"Which are?"
"Mongolia, China, Manchuria, and the Soviet Union. Korea and Japan I've already eliminated."
Riley glanced back down at the paperwork. "Nothing from any of those places. The South Koreans don't issue visas to Communists. If these guys are from one of those countries, they must have phony passports."
"So this list isn't going to do me any good?"
Riley shrugged.
"Is this the only list they gave you?" I asked Riley. "Nothing else?"
"Well, there is one more thing." Riley slid a sheaf of paper out from the bottom of the pile. "The guy at Korean Customs told me I didn't really need it, but since I was paying him, I told him to throw it in anyway. By the way, you owe me forty thousand won."
Ernie's head jerked up. "Eighty bucks just for some lousy paperwork?"
"Hey. We didn't go through channels. My man was taking a risk."
"Shit," Ernie grumbled. "Take it out of petty cash."
"You find a way to fool the First Sergeant and I will."
"Don't worry," I said. "You'll get your money on payday."
That seemed to satisfy Sergeant Riley. He slapped the slender list on top of the other. 'You see why he didn't think you'd need it."
The title had been translated into crude English: Entry into Korea by Persons of Organizations Religious.
My heart beat harder. Even Ernie leaned closer.
A few minutes later, we knew how Ragyapa and his boys had entered Korea.
Using Riley's list of foreigners entering Korea, we figured that the most likely method of entry for Ragyapa and his thugs was by means of a convention that was being hosted here by the Pacific Rim Buddhist Association. About five thousand Buddhists from all over the world were attending. The festivities included elaborate ceremonies at some of the most holy Buddhist shrines on the peninsula. Worship and conferences were scheduled in many sites, and if anyone attended all the events, he'd have to spend over two months in Korea. The exact location of all the attendees was unknown even to the government. The honchos of the host organization, the Pacific Rim Buddhist Association, were the only ones with that data.
"Where is this association located?" Ernie asked.
"Chong-ro," Riley answered. "Downtown Seoul."
Ernie lifted his eyebrows at me.
It took ten minutes to switch from the Eighth Army phone net to the civilian lines in Seoul. Once I got through, all I heard was a steady ringing.
I slammed the phone down. "No answer."
Ernie glanced at his watch. "Most of the world's already closed up shop and gone to Happy Hour."
"You want me to check with the KNP Liaison Officer?" Riley asked. "See if he can contact them?"
I thought about it. "Wouldn't do any good. Even if these Buddhists had a line on Ragyapa and his boys, they wouldn't be staying in the same hotel. They would've moved by now. Probably two or three times."
I paced the room. Two sets of eyeballs following me.
"Besides," I said, "tonight is the full moon."
Ernie unwrapped a new stick of ginseng gum. "Our last chance to save Mi-ja."
Slicky girl Nam was in her glory. A dozen old women from the neighborhood had gathered at her hooch and everyone watched as she stood in the center of the courtyard and screamed at us.
"Where you been? Why you no find Mi-ja? Why you no bring jade skull?"
I held up both hands. "Calm down, Nam. We're here now. Where's Herman?"
"I don't know. That sonofabitch kara chogi." Gone away. "He here this afternoon but now he gone. I don't know where."
One of the women shuffled across the courtyard to check the charcoal. Using iron tongs, she pried open the cover. The fire glowed brightly. She let the metal lid clang shut.
The edge of the full moon peeked over a tile roof.
"There it is!" Nam screeched. "The moon! Pretty soon foreign assholes kill Mi-ja." She clutched my sleeve. "You do something!"
"We are going to do something," I told her. "When was the last time the kidnappers called you?"
"You know. When they told you to go to top of Hooker Hill."
"They'll be calling again tonight," I said, "to give us instructions. You wait here. Ernie and I will handle it."
Slicky Girl Nam clutched her bare arms and shivered.
At the pharmacy, Ernie and I passed a bottle of soju back and forth. I carried the. 38 under my jacket, Ernie had his. 45. Still, a little extra courage couldn't hurt.
I'd thought of having some sort of MP rapid-response team put at our disposal, but it wouldn't work. Wherever this rendezvous was going to be, Ragyapa would have lookouts. A bunch of clumsy cops barging in would be spotted for sure. We had no choice. Ernie and I had to handle the exchange ourselves.
"Where the hell did that goddamn Herman get off to?" Ernie asked.
"Don't know." I sipped on the soju. The fiery rice liquor burned all the way down.
"Maybe it's better without him," Ernie said. "If we took him along, there's no telling what he might do. The guy's totally unpredictable."
I stared at Ernie, trying to figure if he was joking. His expression seemed perfectly serious.
I handed him the bottle. As I did, the phone rang. I lost my grip and the soju crashed to the ground, liquor and crystal splashing everywhere.
"Shit!"
I snatched the phone off the hook. "Sueno."
"Midnight." It was the gravelly voice again. Ragyapa. "The Bridge of the Golden Tribute."
"Where's that?"
"You must find it."
It was already almost eleven. We had to drive back to the compound, pick up the skull, then make it to wherever in the hell this Bridge of the Golden Tribute was.
"I need more time."
"No more time! Midnight. Or the child dies."
The line went dead.
I opened the door of the admin office with my key and switched on the lights. In front of the safe, I turned to Ernie.
"Do you have the combination?"
"No. I thought you had it."
"Shit. I don't have it either." I glanced at the clock on the wall. "No sweat. We still have an hour until midnight. All we have to do is track down Riley. He has the combination."
"Right."
We locked the office back up and headed for the Lower Four Club.
We found Riley, all right. passed out in a puddle of bourbon. When I slapped him a couple of times, he rais
ed his head and groaned.
An old lifer at the bar named Kenny told us the story.
"Herman the German was in tonight. Paying for every round. Never seen him so generous."
"Which explains why Riley was putting it away."
"Sure," Kenny said. "He can't pass up a freebie."
I checked Riley's pockets, looking for his wallet. Ernie finally spotted it on the floor beneath the cocktail table. A couple of dollars' worth of Military Payment Certificates and his weapons card and photos of smiling Caucasian faces were strewn all over the filthy carpet. But no safe combination.
"Enough of this shit," Ernie said.
We dragged Riley into the latrine and stuck his head under the cold water faucet. Finally, he sputtered to life. "What the hell?"
I slapped his cheeks. Hard. "Gimme the combination to the safe!"
"What?"
I slapped him again, maybe a little harder than necessary. "The combination, Riley. What's the goddamned combination?"
"Okay," he said in a hurt voice. "Why didn't you say so?" He reached for his back pocket. "It's in my wallet."
"No, it's not," I said. "We already checked there."
"Okay, then. I remember it. Just give me a minute."
Ernie shoved him back toward the water faucet and Riley started to spout out the numbers. I memorized them as fast as he said them.
Ernie clicked in the tumblers and swung open the heavy door. We peered inside.
"Son of a bitch!" Ernie shouted.
The safe was empty.
I swore and slumped down on one of the straight-backed chairs.
Once again, as it had done so often before, the jade skull of Kublai Khan had vanished. But this time, I knew who had stolen it.
An old lifer and an infamous black marketeer. The man who'd treated Riley to so many drinks he'd passed out. The husband of Slicky Girl Nam. The father of the kidnapped Mi-ja. The man everyone in Itaewon knew well. Or thought they did.
Herman the German.
26
The first thing Ragyapa noticed was how large she was. How unlike other women. This creature known as Lady Ahn talked back when spoken to. And whenever someone made the mistake of letting one of her fists swing free, she punched the nearest of Ragyapa's disciples. Two of the monks had to struggle to twist her arms behind her back. They'd shackled her to the metal ring in the basement floor.
She looked like a woman-the small waist, the large breasts, the round hips-but she punched and spit like the most ferocious of men. A she-tiger. Not at all like the compliant little girl, Mi-ja.
Ragyapa wanted to meditate with this woman. The monks took off her clothes and oiled her down but as soon as they unbound her wrists she started fighting again. No matter how often she was beaten, she kept fighting back.
Was it because of her royal blood? Ragyapa doubted it. True royals have everything done for them-from birth until death-and are the most docile people in the world. No, it wasn't her lineage that caused this woman to be so arrogant. It was the way she'd been brought up.
That was it, Ragyapa decided. She was nothing more than a peasant who thought too highly of herself. Trying to teach her proper behavior would be a waste of time.
He imagined her in the lotus position, oiled down, sitting across from him. Naked. For some reason the vision didn't excite him. She was too big, too gross, too full of her own desires.
No, the girl Mi-ja was much better. But she was growing weak.
Ragyapa ordered one more try with the big Korean woman. But this time, when the monks ripped off what little clothing she had left and pinned her down, she kicked one of them in the groin and bit into the ankle of another.
The men were enraged. They seldom meditated and had little control over their emotions. Should Ragyapa allow them to vent their foolish desires?
Ragyapa wavered for a moment, studying the woman called Lady Ahn. Her eyes flashed with hatred. Another foolish emotion. One that would take days-maybe weeks-to beat out of her.
No time for that, Ragyapa decided. In her present state, she held no interest for him.
Ragyapa flicked his wrist in a dismissive gesture. The two injured monks bowed deeply, showing their appreciation. When they dragged the big Korean woman away, she was still kicking and biting.
Later, while in silent meditation, Ragyapa heard her screams. All his disciples took their turns with her. Like a pack of beasts, Ragyapa thought, crawling all over her. His lips curled in disgust.
The monk in attendance rubbed oil on Ragyapa's body. Ragyapa thought of the little girl. Finally, he motioned with his finger.
Mi-ja was brought to him. She was as listless as a puppet whose strings have been cut. But she was breathing.
The monk laid her naked body at Ragyapa's feet.
Ragyapa gazed down at her for a long moment. Finally, he reached forward and began rubbing oil on her flesh, hoping the soothing sensation would bring her back to consciousness.
It didn't.
He was forced to use the hot needles.
27
Ernie whizzed through the late night traffic as if he had the entire transportation grid of Seoul preprogrammed into his brain. Headlights erupted from the dark, swerved, and disappeared behind us like swarms of fireflies. To our left was Seoul yok, the train station, with its huge Russian dome. Off to our right glittered the green lights of Namdae-mun, the Great South Gate.
I checked my watch. Twenty minutes to midnight. We had to hurry or the roads would be blocked by the curfew police.
My tourist guide to Seoul informed me that the Bridge of the Golden Tribute was located on the outskirts of the city, near the Han River Estuary.
I thought about Herman the German, a man I thought I knew.
He was a lifer like so many others. Hanging around Itaewon, living off his army retirement check and the few dollars he could hustle off the black market. It was an easy life. No worries. No job. His only commitment was to take a free military flight back and forth to Japan every ninety days to renew his three-month Korean tourist visa. Piece of cake. Sit in the Military Airlift Command terminal, sip coffee, shoot the breeze with the other lifers. A mellow way to pass one's golden years.
But then he complicated things by marrying Slicky Girl Nam. She brought the hammer down on him. Demanded that he increase his black market activities, bring in more money. She watched his hours. Didn't let him stay out all night carousing the ville. Kept him away from the young business girls who would wink and crook their fingers and make off with a few of those retiree greenbacks.
Slicky Girl Nam wanted those dollars all to herself.
And maybe she felt that she needed more than just the force of her personality to keep Herman in line. Maybe she felt that what their little family needed was a child.
The result had been instant responsibility for Herman the German. A guy who for most of his life had only two responsibilities: to make military formations every morning and to show up in the pay line at the end of every month.
It was clear to me now. Herman had wanted the jade skull all along. Maybe he had fantasies of smuggling it out of the country, selling it on the illicit art market in New York or in Europe. Taking the money and never returning to Korea. Never black-marketing again. Never again seeing Slicky Girl Nam. Maybe he grew tired of being knuckled on the head every time he spoke, of being humiliated in public, of being berated by a woman whose only accomplishments lay in the realms of prostitution and thievery.
But how had it all worked? Why had Herman entrapped us in all this? Why had Ragyapa kidnapped Mi-ja? How many people were being double-crossed? What the hell was really going on here?
Ernie pulled up to Sodae-mun, the Great West Gate, the narrow stone edifice leading to the Bridge of the Golden Tribute.
"Where's the bridge?" he asked.
"Right at the next intersection," I said. "And at the third alley you come to, left for about a quarter mile."
He gunned the engine, cutting off a kimchi cab and
flipping the irate driver the bird.
This entire mess started when Lady Ahn approached Herman the German about smuggling the jade skull out of Korea. Had she told him she didn't have the skull yet? That she was just making preparations so she could move it quickly once the skull came into her possession? Maybe. Or more likely, Herman had guessed. Maybe she'd been vague about the exact dates. And Herman would need exact dates to set something up. GIs left Korea only under military orders. With precise "will proceed" dates. Herman would have to know exactly when the skull would be available in order to set up someone to ship it out of the country for him.
When Lady Ahn couldn't give him a precise date, he'd known she didn't have the skull yet.
And then Ragyapa came onto the scene. Had he been following Lady Ahn? Yes. And when she approached Herman, Ragyapa waited until she was gone, then approached Herman himself.
I almost leapt out of my seat. That was it. Ragyapa and Herman were working together.
Ernie glanced over at me. "What's wrong?"
I explained my suspicions. When I'd finished, he slammed the palm of his hand against the steering wheel. "I'm going to waste me some goddamn Herman the German."
The alley narrowed, two cabs tried to squeeze past us without slowing, and Ernie scraped by them, grinding his teeth.
I should have seen it earlier.
When we made the first rendezvous with Ragyapa, Herman had been willing to let me go upstairs alone. Even though he knew Mi-ja might be there.
Maybe he had been afraid. But there was more.
Ragyapa's thugs had been waiting for us when we arrived on the ferry in Ok-dong. How had they known we were there? By torturing the Widow Fifi Kang. But how had they known we'd gone to Taejon? Only a few people knew. One of them was Herman.
And the clincher was the fire at the yoguan. Ragyapa and his boys had known Lady Ahn was there. They took a chance that maybe she had the jade skull with her. They were wrong about that, but they were right about her whereabouts. Other than me and Ernie, only Herman knew where she had been staying.
Herman the German had been working with Ragyapa.
