Buddha's money

23

Samgakji in the afternoon is like a ghost town, saloons and muddy streets. Upturned red tile roofs. A skinny old man pushing a cart down the center of the road, lifting a dirty canvas sheet, hoisting a shimmering blue block of ice into one of the gin joints.

The front door of the Black Cat Club was locked, so we walked around to the back. A beaded curtain led into a narrow hallway bordered by the latrines. Inside the main room, metal chairs were turned upside down on round cocktail tables. A boy swabbed the cement floor, the odor of disinfectant bubbling in the air. An old woman sat beneath a bent lamp, studying the wrinkled pages of a ledger as if they were bamboo tablets carried across the Himalayas by a Buddhist scholar.

When we walked into the bar, the woman glanced up.

"Ajjima, tangsin yogi ei junim ieyo?" Aunt, are you the owner here?

She nodded her wrinkled face. Ernie wandered through the Forest of upturned chairs in the ballroom, hands in his jacket pockets, checking for an enemy ambush.

The boy stared at us for a while, but when he saw that we weren't going to cause any trouble he went back to his mopping.

I propped my elbows on the bar and spoke to the old woman. "My partner and me," I said, "are looking for a business girl called Sister Julie."

The old woman didn't flinch, as if she'd been expecting my question. She answered immediately.

"I remember her. But she gone now. Quit work. Two days no come back."

"Where'd she go?"

She waved her hand. "Business girl come. Business girl go. Nobody know where."

I turned to Ernie and translated. "She says Sister Julie left two days ago."

Ernie strode toward the bar. "I believe her. Absolutely. Just for the hell of it, though, how about we check upstairs?"

"Capital idea."

We started toward the narrow wooden staircase when we heard the click of footsteps descending. First appeared a shapely high-heeled foot. Long legs sheathed in black leotards followed. Then round hips, a narrow waist, and a frilly white blouse filled out with extra helpings of female pulchritude.

Her face was a slightly flared oval, her skin smooth as a dark olive, lips full, hair glossy black, curled tightly, exploding straight out from the skull.

She moved like a cobra ready to strike.

Ernie sucked in his breath.

She reached the bottom of the stairs, turned, and sashayed across the ballroom floor toward us, staring right into my eyes.

Brother Andrew was right, she appeared to be half white. The eyes were blue. As blue as light gleaming from a block of glacial ice.

We couldn't move. Even Ernie kept his mouth shut. She stopped a few feet from me. Her scent enveloped us in a cloying hug.

"You look for Sister Julie?" she asked.

I nodded.

She ran red-tipped fingers from her waist down toward her thighs, stuck out her hip, and sneered.

"You lucky today, T-shirt," she said. "Sister Julie be here."

Her accent was perfect. The ultimate soul sister.

"Where's Hatcher?" I asked.

Her lined eyes widened into mock innocence. "I don't know. I no see. Two, maybe three days."

She breathed in and breathed out, letting us enjoy the full magnificence of her warm brown flesh.

Ernie looked but shook it off. He slipped behind Sister Julie and stepped quietly up the stairs.

Sister Julie spun her head. "Where he go?"

"He has to use the byonso."

"Byonso downstairs."

I shrugged. "He'll find it eventually. Why'd you hook up with Bro Hatch?"

"He hook up with me. All man want to hook up with Sister Julie."

I didn't argue with that. "Why'd you choose him?"

"He big. Strong. Before, I have 'nother boyfriend. Bro Oscar. He be fine dude, but not strong like Bro Hatch."

"What happened?"

Sister Julie allowed herself a smile. "Bro Hatch knuckle sandwich with Bro Oscar."

"Who won?"

"Be cool, T-shirt. You know who won."

Sister Julie looked and talked and moved like an American black woman. Close enough, anyway, for being seven thousand miles away from the nearest American ghetto. Smears of dark makeup clung to the folds of her neck just above the collarbone.

Under the dim barroom light, once she was fully made up, cooing into the ear of some lonely black GI, who would know the difference? Who would care?

If this woman wanted to be black, the soul brothers would allow her to be black.

Not an attitude shared by their white compatriots.

I had trouble keeping my eyes off her low-cut blouse. With an effort, I gazed into her eyes, shocked again by the startling clarity of their blue light.

"You're half American, aren't you?"

She shrugged her elegant shoulders. "So what?"

"But not half black. Half white."

"The white rapist been doing evil to black women for long time."

The line was memorized. Like propaganda.

"I'm not a T-shirt," I said. "I'm Mexican. And nobody in my family ever raped anybody."

"So?"

"So nothing. Why don't you like white GIs?"

"Before I work T-shirt club. White GI all the time bother me. All the time want to touch jiji." One hand slithered up toward a breast. "All the time no want to pay. Complain about Korea all the time. Act like little boy. I no like."

"And it's better here in Samgakji?"

"Black GI like Sister Julie. Sister Julie like them."

"And your white father, he left you?"

Sister Julie's eyes flared with anger. "Of course he leave me! And my mother. And my brother. You think I work here if my daddy take care of me?"

One of the rules of interrogation is to keep the conversation moving in one direction, preferably an emotional one, then switch directions when your subject least expects it. Sister Julie was about to slash my face with her crimson nails. Time to change direction and spring the question.

"Why did you tell Hatcher to beat up that nun?"

For the first time creases appeared on her brow. "What you talk about, T-shirt?"

"I'm talking about how you took Bro Hatch out to Itaewon and told him about all the money the Buddhist nun would collect from the business girls. The nun's purse would be full, you told him. And she's just a small woman. No Korean thief would ever touch a nun. Easy money, you told him."

Her eyes crinkled in anger. "You got a big mouth, T-shirt. Too damn big."

Something crashed upstairs. A door slamming shut. Or slamming open. I heard a grunt. Pounding footsteps and then Ernie hollering. Cursing.

Sister Julie's hand was back on her hip and she was smiling again.

"Sounds like some white boy be getting his ass kicked."

I grabbed her shoulders. "Hatcher's upstairs," I said. "You lied!"

"What lie?" She smiled even more broadly. "Maybe he come back. Looking for Sister Julie."

I shoved her away and ran up the stairs.

Metal clanged on metal, something else crashed, and I heard the wrenching, ripping sound of wood splintering like toothpicks.

Ernie lay flat on his butt, a flimsy wooden door beneath him. The latticework paneling fronting someone's bedroom had been smashed open. Tattered strips of oiled paper fluttered like the tentacles of a squashed squid.

Ernie shook his head, still dazed, a disoriented look in his eyes. I stretched out my hand to help him to his feet.

"Let me refresh your memory," I told him. "You were looking for Hatcher. All hell broke loose and somebody shoved you through that wall."

Suddenly, Ernie came back to his senses. His head whipped back and forth. "Come on!"

He sprinted down the hallway and shot down a stairway that emerged onto the alley running behind the Black Cat Club.

Walls made of stone and wood and ancient lumber lined the gloom. Water trickled down the center of a cobbled lane, reeking of human waste. But no sign of Hatcher.

Ernie glanced around, turned completely, and then looked up. I followed his eyes.

Like a huge bird, something floated from the rooftop of the Black Cat Club over to the red brick of the next building. With a great thump, the raven landed.

"He went upstairs," Ernie said.

We ran into the back door of the brick building next to the Black Cat Club.

It was a series of hooches. A nightclub downstairs. Broad cement hallways and rooms full of business girls upstairs. One woman wore shorts and a light green T-shirt and was bent over filling a pail of water from a rusty spigot. Ernie almost plowed into her.

"How do we get to the roof?" he shouted.

The girl turned, her face pocked, her eyes wide. "Mullah gu?" What did you say?

"Shit!" Ernie tore off down the corridor. At the end he found a stairway and charged up, taking three steps at a time. I followed.

The stairway narrowed and ended at a wooden door. Ernie kicked it open.

Out on the roof, the skyline of Samgakji was visible. Tile-roofed hooches clustered around the main drag of bars and chophouses and yoguans. In the distance were the neat manicured lawns of ROK Army Headquarters and beyond that, the Eighth United States Army. Behind us, vibrating with the low rumble of the endlessly charging herd of kimchi cabs and three-wheeled trucks, loomed the elevated traffic circle for which Samgakji was famous.

We were three stories up. Since this was a skyscraper- by Samgakji standards-our view of the village was unobstructed. I circled the ramparts, scanning the streets below. No Hatcher.

The sky was overcast, no rain, but dark clouds on the horizon, cavorting with the jagged peaks north of Seoul.

Ernie shouted, pointing, leaning over the edge. "Got him! The son of a bitch took the damn fire escape!"

Before I could try to reason with him, Ernie was rappelling down the creaking metal ladder like a monkey on his way to a coconut feed.

Whenever we're after a suspect, and we have the full weight and authority of military law enforcement behind us, Ernie is joyous. Knowing that at the least sign of resistance he'll be able to vent all the violence that is constantly bubbling inside of him. And that no matter how badly he mauls the hapless victim, the honchos at Eighth Army will back him up. The honchos aren't particularly in love with all that Stateside civil liberties stuff, anyway.

Hatcher, though, was a hard case. If Ernie ran head first into him alone, he might be ground into dust before I had a chance to help. And, if we lost Hatcher, the nun would burn herself to death.

I reached the edge of the roof and peered down. Hatcher had dropped the last few feet to the alleyway, hit, rolled, bounced to his feet, and was sprinting toward the neon-decorated heart of the ville.

Ernie was already halfway down the fire escape. Rusty bolts creaked under the strain. Figuring they wouldn't hold my weight, too, I ran back to the stairwell.

Bounding down the steps, I made pretty good time and when I burst through the nightclub downstairs, hit the front door, and emerged on the street, I could still see Hatcher rounding a corner about two blocks down the road. Ernie was a few yards behind him.

In front of the Black Cat Club, Sister Julie, the owner, and the boy with the mop stood watching.

I ran down the street, twisted down a couple of alleys. Up ahead, metal clanged, canvas tore, water splashed, and voices were raised in a cacophony of cursing.

What I saw first was a pochang-macha, a cart that sells soup and dried cuttlefish and soju, tipped over on its side. A rubber wheel spun madly. Feet stuck up in the air. Two men rolled in the mud, punching one another.

Ernie and Hatcher. Kicking and gouging. And Ernie was getting the worst of it.

The owner of the cart, a woman with a bright pink knit cap pulled down over her ears, stood with her hands splayed at the side of her head. Screaming.

Without thinking, I was on Bro Hatch. Punching, mauling, slamming my kneecap into ribs as sturdy as tree branches. I rolled on the ground seeing only grunting flesh and sweaty male bodies.

Ernie's sneakers scraped against gravel. I realized that he had pulled away. Now it was only me and Bro Hatch grappling with one another, rolling on the ground.

As we twirled, I saw a large heavy black pan lift in the air. I never saw it fall. Bro Hatch tugged and whipped me over, and I felt the iron slam into my back. I went limp.

Bro Hatch managed to pull a fist out of somewhere and ram it into my jaw. I almost laughed. Not much power for such a big guy but, of course, he wasn't able to launch his best punch while wrestling on the muddy streets of Samgakji.

The black pan orbited above us and slammed to earth once again. This time it found its mark. I heard a bong and felt it reverberating through the thick skull pressed against my shoulder. The pan raised again and crashed once again into bone.

This time, Hatcher's bloodshot eyes rolled back. He lay still.

As Ernie fumbled with the handcuffs attached to the back of his belt, I unwrapped bearlike arms from around me and raised myself unsteadily to my feet. I inventoried the damage. A few more cuts. A few more bruises. Nothing serious.

After the world stopped spinning, I gazed down at Bro Hatch.

He lay on the ground, his hands cuffed securely behind the small of his back, gnashing his teeth, cursing.

Ernie checked the snugness of the cuffs, straightened, and grinned.

"This is one seriously bad dude," he said.

I nodded, still trying to slow my breathing.

We hoisted Hatcher to his feet and walked him through the village back toward the Black Cat Club.

I checked my jaw. Not busted. A little bruised. It would heal.

Business girls in shorts and workmen carting crates of Oriental Beer into nightclubs gaped as we passed by. Sister Julie swayed her round butt out into the center of the street and stood with her hands on her hips.

"You think you take Bro Hatch?" She sneered at us. "No way."

Hatcher was still groggy, his head lolling between his massive shoulders. Ernie shoved Sister Julie out of the way.

"We got him and we're taking him in," he said.

"He make you pay later," Sister Julie smirked, following close at our heels. "When he get out of monkey house, he punch lights out on two T-shirts."

"We'll risk it," I said.

Hatcher submitted meekly as we shoved him into the backseat of the jeep.

Ernie trotted over to an open storefront, dropped a ten-won coin into the public phone, and dialed the number for the Eighth Army Military Police Desk Sergeant. It took a while for the Korean operator to connect the call to the on-post military phone exchange, but finally Ernie got through.

"Suspect in custody," he said. "Private First Class Hatcher, Ignatius Q."

Even from this distance, I heard shouting on the other end of the phone line.

"No," Ernie said. "No problem at all. Piece of rice cake."

A small crowd began to gather around the jeep, staring curiously. All Koreans. GIs were on compound at this time of the duty day. Working. At night, arresting Bro Hatch amidst a teeming mob of half-drunk soul brothers would've been impossible.

Hanging up the phone, Ernie strode back, poked his head into the back of the jeep, and grabbed Hatcher's limp paw. Immediately, Hatcher jerked his hand away. But not before Ernie spotted the tooth marks on his knuckle where the little nun had chomped into him during the attack. Ernie leaned into Hatcher's face.

"There ain't no way out of it, blood. We know everything about it. We got the word from the litde nun out in Itaewon herself."

Hatcher's head had apparently stopped ringing. He looked up at Ernie.

"You ain't got shit."

His expression was sullen, wary, and I had the impression that the lines on his still-youthful face were set there in stone at a very early age. But no matter how much he'd been pushed around when he was a child, nobody was pushing Ignatius Q. Hatcher around now. Not without a fight. He was a big man, no question about that, and must've spent a lot of time lifting weights. Even in defeat, he let out a palpable air of menace, an aura of violence that glowed around his bulky shoulders.

Ernie ignored it. He wasn't much into auras.

"Sure we do," Ernie told him. "We have the bite marks on your fist and the identification from the nun and the eyewitness testimony of my partner here. He saw you running away."

"Don't mean nothing."

Ernie jerked his thumb over his shoulder, toward the sullen Sister Julie. "And we even have the word from the woman who was there when you beat up the nun."

Hatcher's head jerked back. "Sister Julie won't tell you shit."

Ernie was an expert interrogator. Hatcher had just confirmed that Sister Julie was a witness to the crime. Not even for a second did Ernie allow himself an expression of triumph.

Ernie had been purposely speaking low and rapidly, so Sister Julie wouldn't be able to hear all he said. But she heard her name. With red-tipped claws, she grabbed his arm.

"What you say about Sister Julie?"

Ernie swiveled on her. "Why'd you take him to Itaewon?"

Red lips pulled back from white teeth. "I no take."

"He says you did."

She peered into the canvas-covered back of the jeep.

I spoke up. "Spill it all, Hatcher. The more you hold back, the more the whole weight of this thing is going to fall on you. If you don't tell us about everyone who was involved, they'll walk away free. Laughing at you for taking the entire hit by yourself."

Hatcher turned his red eyes on Sister Julie. "You tell him about that man who made us do it," he said. "You tell him."

Ernie kept his eyes riveted on Sister Julie. "Who was this guy?"

She shrugged creamy shoulders. "Some guy."

"What'd he tell you to do?"

She looked back and forth between us and then gazed at the glaring visage of Bro Hatch. She swallowed.

"He told us to go to Itaewon. A little nun works out there, collecting money for temple. Business girl, you know, they like to give lots of money to Buddha. Maybe help next life."

"And you don't?"

"Not Sister Julie. No way. I no chump."

Hatcher growled. "Tell him about the guy."

'Yeah. He say he want us to rob Buddhist nun. Take all money. Korean slicky boy, they taaksan believe Buddha. Don't want to take her money. So maybe this nun, she have a lot of money."

"But you never found out because we showed up?"

"Yeah." A puzzled look crossed Sister Julie's face. "How you get there so fast?"

"Good police work," Ernie answered. "Why'd you do what this guy told you to do?"

"Usual reason."

"What's that?"

"He pay me."

Bro Hatcher lunged forward off the canvas seat but was stopped by the metal roll bars. "You never told me that! How much did that fuck pay you?"

Sister Julie backed away, covering her fright by twisting her lips in a tight sneer. "Be cool, Bro. Most tick I was gonna tell you."

"How much?" Hatcher roared.

"Twenty thousand won."

About forty bucks. For beating up an innocent servant of Buddha. And Hatcher was only angry because he hadn't received his share.

Ernie shoved him backward against the seat. "Shut up unless I ask you a question."

Hatcher stared at him sullenly. Ernie turned back to Sister Julie.

"This guy, was he an American or a Korean?"

"Not American. Not Korean." She waved her hand. "Some outside guy."

"Outside guy?"

'Yeah. Foreigner."

"Which country?"

"I don't know. He look like Korean, only maybe he out in sun too much."

A chill ran through my body. Without thinking I stepped forward, looming over Sister Julie.

"What did he wear, this guy?"

She stared up at me. Her sneer disappeared. "Chump-change clothes. Like he farmer or something."

I reached for the top of my skull. "And on his head…"

"Yes. He wear something wrapped around." She twirled her finger around her exploding hairstyle. "Like kullei."

"Like a rag? Wrapped around his head?"

"Yes."

A sunburnt Asian man wearing a turban. I turned to Ernie.

"Sounds familiar," he said.

"Sure does."

I turned back to Sister Julie. "What was his name?"

"Rag something." She frowned and then snapped her fingers. "Ragyapa. That was it."

The man who had paid Sister Julie to convince Bro Hatch to attack and rob the little nun was Ragyapa. The same man who had kidnapped Herman's daughter Mi-ja.

When the MPs arrived, Sister Julie hugged Bro Hatch and kissed him and told him that she wouldn't let any other man touch her while he was gone. After the MPs drove away with Bro Hatch, Ernie grabbed Sister Julie by the soft flesh of her upper arm.

"You're right about not letting any other man touch you while he's gone." She tried to tug away from him but he held tight. "Unless it's a KNP," he said.

We turned Sister Julie over to the Korean National Police for her collusion in the mugging of the Buddhist nun. We filed charges and filled out a report and asked her a few more questions. When we left the little Samgakji Police Station she was still cursing, waving a red-tipped finger, promising to get even with us.

Ernie's molars clicked on a new stick of gum. "Righteous sister," he said. "Especially when she's angry."

Using Sister Julie as his go-between, Ragyapa had put Bro Hatch up to attacking the Buddhist nun. He had even paid Sooki to inform Ernie and me.

Why had he done this?

To divert our attention? Probably. But more important, to divert the attention of the entire United States Army. With riots against our presence in Korea sweeping the country, we'd be less worried about some kidnapped Korean orphan and an old jade skull that had been lost for centuries.

But was that it? To divert our attention? Or was there some other reason?

Maybe he also wanted to divert the attention of the other Buddhists in the country. The Buddhists who the little nun represented.

If that was his intention, he had succeeded admirably.

Nobody noticed us when we sauntered into the MP station. Now that the Provost Marshal had Pfc. Ignatius Q. Hatcher in custody, they had no time to acknowledge the two CID agents who'd made the arrest. Typical bureaucrats. Basking in the glory of somebody else's hard work.

Ernie stood in the hallway, watching the shimmering blue water bottle glug. Inside an oak-paneled office, the Provost Marshal and the First Sergeant and Lieutenant Roh from the ROK Liaison Office hashed out Pfc. Hatcher's future.

"The Korean government demands custody of Hatcher," Lieutenant Roh said. "Right now."

"You're out of bounds, Lieutenant," the Provost Marshal answered. "There are clear procedures to be followed, outlined in the Status of Forces Agreement, when a U.S. serviceman is to be turned over to ROK authorities."

"You have the power to waive those procedures," Lieutenant Roh insisted. "In this case you must."

"We must do what is in the interest of the United States Government."

Ernie glanced over at me, raising his eyebrows. I leaned toward him and whispered. "The Eighth Army honchos must be pissed about all the demonstrations. Maybe the Korean police didn't crack down fast enough. Maybe some colonel caught a rotten egg in his puss."

"If they hold Hatcher," Ernie said, "there will be more demonstrations."

"Maybe the Provost Marshal doesn't give a damn."

Outside of the MP Station, a crowd of Koreans had gathered in front of the main gate. MPs and a chain-link fence held them back. A few were chanting anti-American slogans, trying to encourage everyone to join in. Somehow they already knew we had the nun's attacker in custody.

A rock whistled through the air, launched high into the gray monsoon sky. Ernie watched it soar, reach the top of its arc, and sail down and clatter harmlessly against the blacktop in front of us.

"Incoming," he said.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Prepare for heavy swells."

We exited the compound by a side gate where no demonstrators had yet gathered. Crossing quickly over the big stone block that composed the sidewalk, we reached the jumbled stalls and shops of Itaewon. Leather bags and sneakers and jackets hung from wooden rafters in mad disarray. Signs touting espresso shops and beer halls peeked out of the swirling collage, punctuated by an occasional obstetrics clinic promising help for venereal disease or pregnancy.

"There it is again," Ernie said. "The smell."

I knew what he was talking about. The aroma of spiced cabbage fermenting in earthen pots. Raked earth, damp from the monsoon rain. Bubbling septic tanks waiting to be drained. Perforated charcoal briquettes, smoldering out their last red gasp.

I breathed in deeply. "What's that?" I asked.

"What's what?"

"Smoke."

"Charcoal?"

"No," I said. "More than that."

I gazed above the skyline, about a half mile ahead to the bar district. A steady plume of black smoke rose into the gray sky, like a signal from Apache renegades.

"Something's on fire," I said.

Ernie and I started to trot. Tongues of flame flickered into the sky.

"The yoguan," I shouted. "It's on fire!"

"Which one?"

"The one we were in this morning. The one where we stashed Lady Ahn."