Buddha's money

32

Panting and swearing, we dragged Herman up to the roof of the 7 Club. All the way, he kept swiveling his head, searching for the slicky boys, convinced they were about to pounce.

Actually, he was safe with us. I knew Herbalist So, the King of the Slicky Boys, and I also knew that So wouldn't get rough with Eighth Army CID agents except as a last resort. The slicky boys were patient enough to wait until they found Herman alone.

Why were they after him? That seemed clear. Slicky Girl Nam, one of their own, had decided to take her revenge on her husband, Herman the German, for the death of her adopted daughter, Mi-ja.

The rain was coming down hard now but the red tile roof of the fake pagoda atop the 7 Club protected us from its fury. We sat Herman down on a bench. I snatched the leather bag from his grasp and propped it in a corner.

Herman looked up at us, confused as to why we were so angry. Ernie didn't say anything and before I could stop him, he crashed a right cross into Herman's face.

Herman cried out. Blood spurted from above his eye. Ernie punched him again.

"You son of a bitch! Your own daughter! I oughta kill you!"

I grabbed Ernie, held him. Herman didn't try to fight back, he just reached for his eye.

"Easy, Ernie. Easy."

Ernie stared glassily at Herman. I'd seen him like this before. Ernie was about to go berserk. Only one way to stop it.

'Take deep breaths," I told him. "With your nose. Concentrate on loosening the muscles of your neck. Let them relax. That's it. Now your arms. Okay, better." I slapped him on the cheek and peered into his eyes. 'You okay now?"

Ernie spoke through gritted teeth. "Get that guy talking and get him talking quick."

I turned back to Herman. "You heard the man. Spill it, Herman. Everything."

"Fuck you guys."

Ernie exploded. He punched Herman and punched him again. I'd stop him for a second but then he'd wriggle free and lay another roundhouse on Herman's skull. Through it all Herman remained sitting, only occasionally covering his head. A reflex action. Other than that, he made no attempt to defend himself.

Finally, his knuckles raw, Ernie stopped punching and started reading Herman off. "You let them cut off your own daughter's ear! Then her finger. Kept her away from her mother for days. And then you let them stuff straw down her throat. Can you imagine dying like that? You're a dog, Herman. A fucking dogl"

Ernie's shouts became hoarse. The monsoon rain poured down. Nobody downstairs could hear us, no one down in the street, no one in the buildings surrounding us.

When it seemed that Ernie's explosion was over, I spoke again to Herman.

"You ready now, First Sergeant, Retired? You ready to tell us what the fuck really happened?"

Slowly, Herman nodded his head. Droplets of blood splattered to the wet cement floor. "I'm ready," he said.

"And don't leave anything out," Ernie growled.

"I didn't know what the jade antique was at first. Something valuable, sure. Lady Ahn told me that. But I didn't know how valuable. Not until Ragyapa found me."

"How did he find you?"

"I don't know. Probably just asking the antique dealers in Seoul. They must've given him the word that Lady Ahn was planning on working with me. That's when he approached me."

Herman wiped a clot of blood from his eyebrow. "Ragyapa flew to Korea all the way from Hong Kong. He used to live in Mongolia, but not anymore. Because of the Commies."

Herman's eyes flashed up briefly. I wondered if he wanted approval for his grasp of international affairs. When he saw our faces, his lids drooped once again.

"Ragyapa told me that the jade was a carving of a head and it was owned by some old dude. Koobel Can or something like that."

"Kublai Khan," I said.

"Yeah. And it had been lost for centuries until some monks found it, and now Lady Ahn was going to swipe it from them,"

Apparently, Herman didn't realize that the main value of the jade skull was that it was carved with a map of the whereabouts of the Tomb of Genghis Khan. I wasn't going to educate him. Instead, I asked a question. "Why didn't Ragyapa steal the jade skull from the monks himself?"

"He said it was protected by some mean mothers. Lady Ahn had an in, she was related to one of the monks or something."

"So it would be easier to wait until she stole the skull and then turned it over to you?"

"Right. We'd take it from her and split the profit. My end was going to be five thousand dollars."

Herman waited for us to whisde. Neither one of us did. He sighed.

"So I said, okay. Why not? But the problem was that Ragyapa didn't think Lady Ahn was going to be able to pull off the theft by herself. She needed help. If some Koreans helped her, it wouldn't take them long to realize how valuable the skull was. They'd rip her off before we had a chance." He glanced up at us again. "That's where you two guys came in."

"Why us?"

Herman shrugged. "You speak the language. You're good investigators. And you're honest."

I didn't thank him for the compliments. We'd screwed this case up so badly that I didn't think compliments were in order. Especially from Herman.

"But you needed a reason for us to help her," I prodded.

"Right. Ragyapa came up with it. Pretend that Mi-ja had been kidnapped."

Ernie couldn't stand it any longer. His fists clenched. "So you turned your little girl over to a criminal?"

Herman pleaded with his moist eyes. "He was working with me."

"And what about the ear, you dickhead?"

Ernie was becoming angry again. I patted him on the shoulder and leaned him back up against the railing of the pagoda.

"The ear was Ragyapa's idea," Herman answered. "I didn't like it, but he said it would really get you guys motivated to find the skull and free Mi-ja."

"That it did," I said. "Did Ragyapa do the cutting?"

"No way," Herman said. "He's a Buddhist."

"So who did?"

"I did it. The razor was real sharp. She didn't feel much."

Like an enraged jaguar, Ernie leapt across the pagoda. He smashed Herman upside the head, knocked him off the bench, and started kicking. Herman yelped and curled into a fetal ball. Ernie kicked the toe of his shoe into Herman's spine about three times before I could react. Using all my strength, I pulled Ernie off.

After I got them both calmed down, I sat Herman back up on the bench.

"Sorry for the interruption, Herman." I glanced back at Ernie. "It won't happen again."

Ernie leaned on the railing of the open-air pagoda, glaring at Herman, breathing hard.

Herman's peeved eyes glanced at him a couple of times and then turned back to me.

"I had to do it," Herman said. "It was the only way I was ever going to earn that kind of money. I did it for Mi-ja."

I let that one sit for a while. When Ernie didn't jump, I asked, "How so?"

"I was going to put the whole five grand in a certificate of deposit. For her college education." When he saw we weren't buying it, he kept talking. "They have fake ears nowadays. I've seen 'em at the One-two-one Evac. Or when she got older she could just wear her hair long. But how else was she going to get an education? My retirement check is three hundred bucks a month. I clear maybe four or five hundred more on the black market. Me and Nam were never going to come up with the kind of dough she'd need for college."

The rain kept falling.

"What about the finger, Herman?"

He let his head hang. "That hurt her more." A tiny serpent of drool slipped from his lips. "But it was only a little finger. She'd still be able to write and all that."

"Just get on with the fucking story," Ernie snarled. "Just get on with it."

Herman looked at me. I nodded.

"So you guys fell for it. And you went after Lady Ahn just like we hoped. And you helped her steal the jade skull. And when you returned back to Seoul you called me and told me you had it. I let Ragyapa know."

Now it was my turn to explode. I gripped the railing of the pagoda tightly, until the tendons in my arms felt as if they were going to snap. I relaxed, took a deep breath, and spoke as calmly as I could.

"And with that knowledge, Ragyapa attacked Lady Ahn in the yoguan?"

"Yeah. The son of a bitch double-crossed me. We were supposed to go up there together. Instead, the fire in the yoguan starts and I'm still waiting on a street corner with my thumb up my ass. He and his boys went alone. If she'd had the skull, Ragyapa would've kept it for himself."

"So when I told you the jade skull was locked in a safe place…"

"I figured you meant the CID safe and there was no choice but to grab it."

"What about Mi-ja?" Ernie snarled. "When you took off with the jade, you weren't thinking about her education then, were you?"

"That was a mistake," Herman said. "I guess the money got to me. But I didn't think Ragyapa would kill her. I mean, he's a Buddhist, you know. They're not supposed to kill anybody."

"Neither are Christians."

Herman stared at me blankly, not quite able to compute that one.

"How'd you find out that Mi-ja was murdered?" I asked.

"The lifers at the MAC terminal at Osan. That's all anyone was talking about."

"But you boarded that flight to the States anyway."

"I wasn't thinking clearly."

"You just wanted to make your getaway with the skull. And now you realize that's not possible."

"No. It's not."

"I'm glad you finally realize all this shit, Herman." I paced in a circle around the pagoda. "Once you make a full confession, you'll feel better. Probably won't even be slapped with much time in the monkey house. Koreans are lenient with foreigners. Especially former military."

"I'm not turning myself in."

Ernie bristled. "The hell you're not."

"I want to be there when you exchange the skull for Lady Ahn. I want to talk to Ragyapa one more time. About how he double-crossed me. About what he did to Mi-ja."

"Afraid that's not possible, Herman," I said. "You'll be in custody. Ernie and I will take the jade skull and make the exchange with Ragyapa for Lady Ahn."

"Not without me, you won't."

"Shit," Ernie said. "How the hell you going to stop us? We got the skull. We're going to kick your fat ass into jail. What the hell you going to do about it?"

Ernie snatched up Herman's leather bag and unzipped it. His eyes widened as he reached in and pulled out the heavy sphere inside.

It wasn't the jade skull of Kublai Khan. It was a patchwork of black and white pentagons. A soccer ball. Cut open.

I grabbed it and turned it upside down. Rocks clattered to the cement slab.

'You don't think I'd carry anything around as valuable as the skull, do you?" Herman asked. "I have it hidden in a safe place. So we got a deal? We go after Ragyapa and his Mongols together?"

Ernie's teeth sounded like iron spikes grinding on stone. I steadied him with the back of my hand.

We had no choice. Beating Herman wouldn't do any good. He'd proven he was impervious to pain. Cooperating with Herman the German, the only man in the world who knew the whereabouts of the jade skull of Kublai Khan, was the only way we were going to save Lady Ahn.

Even Ernie realized it. The grinding of his teeth slowly subsided.

I spoke first. "All right, Herman," I said. "We have a deal."

"Only one more thing," Herman answered. "You both stay near me, to protect me from the slicky boys. And you definitely don't tell Slicky Girl Nam where I am. After what happened to Mi-ja, she'll be out looking for me. With a knife. To cut my balls off."

"If she don't," Ernie promised, "I will."