Buddha's money

6

Herman and Ernie and I trudged up a short hill, the clang of unsyncopated rock music, the harsh barking of GIs, and the lilting laughter of business girls drifted through the walled lanes. Dok Yong Mandu Jip, the Virtuous Dragon Dumpling House, was stuck back in an alley in the maze behind the Itaewon bar district.

Flimsy glass panes rattled as Herman slammed open the sliding door.

Korean customers gazed up at us-openmouthed- from steaming bowls of noodles. With Ernie and me behind him, Herman must've looked as ominous as a Mongol horde.

We strode into the kitchen. It was tiny, with charred metal woks atop cement stoves filled with glowing charcoal. The odor of burning peanut oil seared into my nostrils. Half-moon dumplings sizzled in popping grease.

An old man looked up from the flames. Worry creased his wrinkled face.

"Koma oddiso?" I asked. Where's the boy?

The old man didn't answer. But his head turned slightly toward the back door.

The entire alley was a sea of mud. The boy stood next to his bicycle, tying his sheet-metal carrying box to the rack above the back tire. He swiveled when he heard our footsteps. The smooth, even features of his face bunched in terror. Stepping back, he held up his hands.

"Na kuriqu an hagosipposo!" I didn't want to do it!

Herman either didn't understand or didn't listen. He grabbed the boy by his narrow shoulders and slammed him up against the brick wall. As thick fingers clutched his neck, the boy started to croak. Rivulets of rain ran from his short black hair, puddled in his eyes, and streamed down his cheeks.

Ernie shoved Herman. "Let him down! George will interrogate him."

Herman hesitated, glaring. Finally, his fingers curled open and he eased the boy to the mud. I made Herman back up a few steps and then leaned over.

"Orini oddiso?" I asked the boy. Where's the child?

He answered in quavering Korean.

"I don't know of any child. All I know is that men came and forced my grandfather to make dumplings, using the meat they gave to us."

"Did you know what kind of meat that was?"

The boy shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know."

The shout came from behind us. "Manji-jima!" Don't touch him!

We all turned.

The old cook stood in the doorway, a huge meat cleaver in his hand, his face twisted like the mask of a demon.

Herman seemed not even to notice the cleaver. He sloshed forward through the mud, heading directly toward the cook. The old man raised the heavy chopper. Herman stopped.

"We've had enough!" the old man said in Korean. "This is the second time today foreigners have tormented us. No more!"

Herman stared at the old man and the blade. Then he suddenly lunged forward, ramming his big round head into the man's narrow chest. The blade slammed down, twisting in midair, thudding onto Herman's back.

The two men crashed back into the kitchen. Pots clattered onto cement, sizzling oil splashed against flesh, smoke and flames leapt up toward the ceiling.

The boy screamed.

"Christ, Herman!" Ernie yelled. He glanced toward me, a smile starting to curve across his lips. "That guy's crazier than I am."

We ran into the kitchen and pulled them apart. I grabbed an earthen jar of barley tea and poured it over the burning spots where hot oil had splattered onto their arms and necks. Using a can of flour, Ernie put out the small fire. In the serving area, all the tables and chairs were empty, customers vanished, plates of hot food abandoned.

We jerked the two combatants to their feet. Ernie had the old cook shoved up against the wall, his forearm pried beneath his wrinkled neck. Herman stood huffing and puffing, his eyes watery as if he was about to cry. In Korean, I yelled at the old man.

"Who were the men who brought the meat? Who told you to make the dumplings?"

The old man shook his head. "I don't know. Foreigners.

"Americans?"

"No. At first I thought they might be Japanese, but they spoke some strange language. Not Japanese."

The cook was old enough to have lived through the occupation of Korea that ended with the Japanese surrender at the close of World War II. He'd know if the foreigners were Japanese. They weren't.

"Had you ever seen these men before?"

"Never. It was as if they were demons who floated in on the monsoon clouds."

"From Asia then?"

"Maybe."

"How many of them were there?"

"Five. Maybe six."

"How did they talk to you? How did they tell you what they wanted done?"

"In GI talk."

"You understand English?"

"No. Just a few words. Mostly they pointed, gave me the meat. Made me make the dumplings."

"How did you know where to deliver them?"

"When the dumplings were finished, they took them, and took my grandson."

I turned to the boy and jabbed a thumb toward Herman.

"How did you know where he lives?"

"I didn't." The boy's lips started to tremble. I turned back to Ernie.

"Let the old man down," I said. "But keep an eye on the hatchet."

Ernie reluctantly released his hold on the cook and even helped him straighten his grease-splattered tunic. A sense of hope entered the boy's dark eyes. Herman breathed more heavily. The boy tensed again.

"If you didn't know where this man lived," I asked him, gesturing toward Herman, "how did you know where to deliver the dumplings?"

"They went with me."

"All of them?"

"Just one. The one with the thing wrapped around his head." The boy swirled his forefinger in a circle above his skull.

"The thing? A hat?"

"No. Rags."

A turban, I thought, but I didn't know the Korean word.

"So this man with the rags on his head guided you to the home and ordered you to deliver the dumplings?"

"Yes. And he waited outside while I delivered them."

I translated for Ernie. His eyes widened slightly. Mi-ja's kidnappers-at least one of them-had been close. Very close.

"Did he pay you?" I asked the boy.

"No." The boy seemed surprised.

"Then why'd you do it?"

"They were going to hurt my grandfather."

At that, the old man rolled up his sleeves. His underarm was lined with cigarette burns, the same type of wounds the kidnappers had branded on Herman.

Out front, the door slammed open. We heard voices. Korean voices. Men.

"KNPs," Herman whispered. "Let's get out of here."

I was reluctant. The Korean National Police would interrogate the dumpling house owner and his grandson thoroughly. They might learn something we hadn't. Something useful.

Herman yanked on my arm. "Come on," he urged. "Those guys'll kill Mi-ja if I don't keep the Korean police out of this."

I allowed him to pull me through the back door of the kitchen. Ernie followed.

In a few seconds, we were lost in the catacombs of Itaewon. A police whistle sliced through the rainy night.

When we reached Herman's Hooch, Slicky Girl Nam was holding her hair out to the sides of her head with splayed fingers. Screaming. Her eyes were glazed. A teenaged girl stood next to her. Cringing.

Herman strode up to his wife and shouted, "Nam!"

When she didn't stop screaming, he slapped her with his fat, rough hand.

The flesh of Nam's face shook and she looked up at Herman, surprised.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Chonhua," she answered. Telephone.

Herman looked at the girl. She wore a black skirt and white blouse and black tunic. A middle-school uniform. Her glossy hair was in braids. The girl motioned toward the gate. All of us, including Slicky Girl Nam, followed her outside.

"She's the daughter of the pharmacist on the corner," Herman explained to Ernie and me. "That's where the phone is."

A red telephone was hooked onto a pole beneath the awning in front of a wooden shack with a big red sign in front that said "Yak." Medicine. The receiver was off the hook. It dangled on its metal cord.

Slicky Girl Nam held her fists to her mouth, staring at the phone as if it were about to explode. Herman's face was a round mask of worry.

"You'd better answer it," I told him.

Ernie strode toward the plate glass window and began studying the rows of medications. Even though he'd kicked the heroin habit, he couldn't give up his hobby-pharmaceuticals — altogether.

Herman snatched up the dangling receiver. "Hello?"

He held the phone away from his ear. A shrill wail erupted from the mouthpiece. A little girl's voice, screeching in pain.

Slicky Girl Nam backed up as if she'd heard a demon from hell. Herman stiffened his arm, holding an asp by the neck. Ernie stopped studying the medications and squinted at the phone, probably trying to decide whether or not to punch it into submission.

I grabbed the receiver from Herman's hand.

"Hello?" I said in English. "Hello?"

The voice that answered sounded as if it were ground out by metal gears.

"I will give you five minutes…" it said. The English was clear but thickly accented. But an accent I couldn't place. "… to climb to the top of Hooker Hill. Someone has been paid to give you a message. Do not bother her. She knows nothing. If policemen are following you, the fat man's daughter will be killed."

As I listened, a blade of ice slid along my spine. The words were pronounced precisely, like a mortician expressing condolences to a bereaved family. The accent seemed Asian but didn't sound like anything I had ever heard. Not in East L.A., anyway. And not in Seoul.

I shouted into the receiver. "We can work something out. I know you want the jade skull, but-"

The line clicked and went dead.

Herman and Ernie stared at me.

"What'd he say?" Ernie asked.

"We have five minutes to get to the top of Hooker Hill."