Buddha's money gsaeb-3

by Martin Limon

  Ernie once again pulled out his. 45. "So we go after her?"

  "Of course, we go after her. They'll kill her this time."

  "Why the hell is she so crazy about the damn skull? The money?"

  "It's more than that to her," I said. "It's the restoration of her family's honor. The restoration of her dignity."

  "And she's willing to get killed for shit like that?"

  Herman nodded vigorously. "Sure she is."

  Without hesitation, Ernie slapped him once again on his round skull. "What the hell do you know about it, shit-for-brains?"

  "Hey, I know a lot about that stuff."

  "You guys argue on your own time," I said. We had reached the mouth of the alley. "Ernie, you take the left. I'll take the right." We didn't have any handcuffs-I'd dropped them at the jeep-so all I could count on was Herman's sense of honor as a soldier to stay with us while we were engaged in combat with the enemy.

  "Herman," I said, "you protect our rear."

  He nodded.

  Ernie pointed his forefinger at him. "And remember, you're still our prisoner."

  "Don't sweat it," Herman said.

  We stepped into the darkness.

  36

  The alley was cool and damp and the walls loomed over us like moss-bearded gods. Murky water trickled through an open gutter, stinking of decayed flesh.

  Covering one another, Ernie and I rounded one corner and then the next. The sun had almost lowered and dark clouds shrouded the rising monsoon moon.

  When we rounded the third corner, we saw them. Ragyapa, Lady Ahn, and the thug with the M-l rifle. The thug aimed the rifle at Lady Ann's temple, cursing softly, his finger on the trigger. Ragyapa slumped on the cobbled lane, moaning, rubbing his lower leg, the jade skull plopped in a puddle in front of him.

  Ernie whispered. "She doesn't know it's not loaded."

  There was something I remembered vaguely from basic training, about the M-l rifle. Before I could voice my reservations, Ernie was on his feet, brandishing his. 45.

  "Freeze, assholes! And drop that rifle right now!"

  The rifleman whirled. The shot sizzled through the air and exploded in a cloud of dust in the stone wall two inches from Ernie's left ear.

  That's what I had been trying to remember. Even though you pull the magazine out, if the bolt is forward, there will still be one round in the chamber. Ernie hadn't remembered. Some combat veteran. But at least the guy had missed. Otherwise, Ernie would be an ex-combat veteran.

  No more bullets now. I leapt out of the shadows and charged.

  The thug trained his rifle on me, pulled the trigger, but didn't have time to hear the metallic click. I barreled into him going about thirty miles an hour. He collapsed backward and I didn't give him a chance. I landed full force on top of him, my knee jamming into his solar plexus. Air exploded from his puffed cheeks, and I pummeled his face and kept pummeling until he went limp under me.

  Then I turned on Ragyapa and kicked him in the leg. He howled. I kicked him again, then started punching, not caring anymore whether any of the monsters lived or died.

  Ernie pulled me off of him. "Easy, pal. Easy."

  Lady Ahn pressed against the wall, silent and wide-eyed. In the few seconds that the altercation lasted she had managed to grab the jade skull. Now she clutched it like an infant against her bosom.

  For some reason the sight of her cradling that skull made me angry. Even now, I'm not sure why.

  "Is that all you care about?" I yelled. "That goddamn skull?"

  Her eyes widened even more, reflecting moonlight across the smooth flesh of her face. And then I realized that she was looking over my shoulder and I turned. So did Ernie.

  Up the alley was a line of dark humps. Without any sound or hint of verbal signal, the humps rose, moved forward a few feet, and froze again. I wasn't sure if I'd imagined the movement. I turned and gazed at Ernie. He was just as confused as I was.

  He motioned with his hand for me to wait, and trotted forward to the pedestrian lane that intersected the alley. Seconds later he returned.

  "Troops." He whispered in my ear. "Combat soldiers. Not riot police. They're strung out all across the rise."

  For the first time, it dawned on me what was happening. "They're moving down toward the demonstrators."

  "You got that right," Ernie said. "And as quietly as death itself."

  "We've got to get out of here."

  "You fucking-A Tweety."

  I glanced at Ragyapa and his thug. Both were hurt badly. When this riot was over, the Korean police would pick them up and probably deport them for being involved in the demonstration. I didn't want that to happen. Not until we could have them properly charged.

  I searched their bodies hurriedly and found two passports. Both from Hong Kong, but both men had what seemed to be Mongolian names. I tucked the passports in my back pocket. Once I turned them over to the KNP Liaison, along with my report of their crimes, Ragyapa and his man would be locked up-and deported only if they were very lucky.

  "Let's move," I told Ernie.

  Lady Ahn had been listening to us. "Where?" she asked. "If we go downhill, we'll be with the demonstrators. It will be madness once the soldiers attack. Even being American won't save you."

  "She's right," Ernie said. "We have to go uphill and slip past them somehow."

  "All right," I said. "Let's do it."

  "Where's Herman?" Ernie asked.

  "Don't know," I said. "No time now."

  Somehow Lady Ahn kept up with us, clutching the jade skull like life itself. When we reached a small pathway, Ernie checked both ways. The dark humps were still up ahead of us about twenty yards. We turned down the pathway, scurrying forward, looking for a place to hide. But there was nothing. Nothing but jagged stone walls and thick wooden gates shoved flush up against them. In the distance I heard movement. Gravel crunching. A long line of sound moving steadily toward us like a slowly cresting wave.

  "They're coming down," Ernie said. "Hit it!"

  He flattened himself facedown in the gutter against the wall. Lady Ahn and I crouched as best we could behind a wooden crate stuffed with rotting melon rinds. The biting aroma made me think of wine, somehow. Or champagne.

  I had it all: a beautiful woman, moonlight, naturally fermented vino.

  Soldiers in combat gear, holding bayoneted assault rifles at port arms, filed down toward the big intersection in front of Guanghua-mun. A few broke off from the main line and trotted down our alley.

  There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. I wrapped Lady Ahn's face under my arms and bent over her, pressing my lips into the nape of her neck.

  The soldiers weren't fooled. I heard the footsteps stop right in front of us. Slowly, I looked up.

  His face was a mosaic of rock-hard planes of stone, slashed with camouflage paint. A metal combat helmet shadowed narrow eyes. His body was lean and he wore combat gear that sat on him as comfortably as if he'd worn it all his life. Moonlight glistened off a patch on his left shoulder. A white stallion rising on a blue background. The ROK Army White Horse Division.

  Judging from the number of soldiers I saw stretching down the long pathway, they must've pulled a battalion strength-maybe a brigade-off the Demilitarized Zone just to teach these demonstrators a lesson.

  The soldier didn't smile. He had only two stripes on his sleeve. A sergeant joined him. Soon an officer was sent for. A captain, upset by the intrusion.

  I showed him my identification and started to speak in Korean.

  "We are investigators for Eighth Army and-"

  The captain slapped the badge out of my hand. "Sikkuro!" Shut up!

  Ernie stepped forward. "Who the hell do you think you are, Charley?"

  A soldier jabbed a bayonet into Ernie's stomach, stopping just before breaking the skin, and backed him up against the wall. Ernie held his hands up and stared cross-eyed at the gleaming blade. Another soldier searched Ernie and took away his. 45, holding it in the air, showing it to the off
icer. They found my. 38 and the officer took that, too.

  The officer barked a command. "You two stay here. And guard them."

  Before I could speak again, the captain swiveled and stomped away to rejoin his troops. Soon, their footsteps faded and we stood alone with the two impassive soldiers.

  In Korean, one of them started to speak to Lady Ahn.

  "Is it true their dicks are as big as trees?"

  She kept her head down. Not answering. The soldier kicked her lightly with his combat boot. "Come on. Stand up. We want to see what a foreign whore looks like."

  Both soldiers laughed. Ernie bristled. The soldier pressed the bayonet deeper against his skin.

  "Come on. I said stand up!" He pulled Lady Ahn to her feet. She pulled her shoulder away and stared at him, her face a mask of hatred.

  "Aiyaa," the soldier said. "Prime meat. And you sell yourself for the Yankee dollar?"

  I launched myself at him but he had been expecting the move and sidestepped me, ramming the butt of his rifle into my stomach.

  Even as I curled over, I was angry at myself for reacting with pure emotion. For lunging at him, for leaving my midsection open. It was the move of an amateur. Now I was useless. I clutched myself and rolled up in a ball on the ground.

  The soldier shoved Lady Ahn up against the wall, ripped open her blouse, and fumbled for her breasts.

  "I found it!" he said. He pinched Lady Ahn's nipple cruelly, causing her to cry out in pain. "Large and brown from these foreigners sucking on it. It would make a good souvenir of our trip to Seoul, would it not?"

  The other soldier laughed and barked his approval.

  "Then let us take it with us." He lowered his bayonet and ran the sharp edge along Lady Ahn's pale flesh.

  Once troops are turned loose on demonstrators there are no controls. They can do anything. Foreign reporters will know nothing about it. The whole thing will be hushed up by the government. But the students will know what happened. And demonstrations will subside for months-maybe years-afterward.

  I tried to stand. Pain shot through my body. As if a two-by-four was sticking into my gut.

  Ernie struggled but settled down when the other soldier nudged the bayonet deeper into his belly.

  Lady Ahn seemed unafraid. With a sudden move, she twisted her body and raised her hands to scratch at the soldier. He was too fast for her. He shoved a powerful forearm under her throat. Slowly, he brought the tip of the bayonet closer to her bruised brown nipple.

  It was as if a cannonball dropped from the sky. I couldn't see anything clearly but somehow I knew, just from the large round shape. Herman the German had leapt off the top of the wall.

  The soldier who had been groping Lady Ahn was now nothing but a crumpled, groaning mass beneath Herman's girth. The soldier with the bayonet in Ernie's gut turned at the noise, and Ernie reacted like a pissed-off tomcat. He punched and clawed at the guy, not giving him a chance to jab with his weapon. Lady Ahn pounded on him, too, and soon they had the soldier on the ground, hammering his skull into sawdust.

  I crawled over and grabbed Ernie's feet. And Lady Ahn's. "Enough. Enough!"

  They stopped pummeling the soldier.

  Herman helped me to my feet. The pain was ebbing now. I was starting to breathe normally.

  Lady Ahn covered herself as best she could with her tattered blouse. The jade skull was snuggled once again beneath her bosom.

  "Let's get the fuck out of here," Herman said.

  Herman bent over and snatched up one of the M-16 rifles. As we approached the next alley, I heard a rumbling sound.

  "Armored vehicles," Ernie said. "We have to cross the next alley in front of them or the convoy will block our path."

  We started to sprint, Herman huffing like a freight train. Before we reached the alley, the black front of the armored vehicle appeared. We were only a few feet away, but we weren't going to make it. Trash lay strewn around the pathway and Lady Ahn stumbled on something, I think the wreckage of a wooden crate. She tripped and sprawled forward, letting go of the jade, and crashed face-first into the mud.

  The armored vehicle rolled slowly downhill.

  Lady Ahn bounced back up almost immediately, gazing forward, screaming.

  The jade skull skittered across the slick pathway like a soccer ball heading for the goal. It rolled in front of the armored vehicle, bounced, hit the metal floorboard, rolled again, and stopped just beneath the clattering treads.

  In seconds it would be crushed.

  Lady Ahn wailed and charged forward. I tried to stop her, but the smooth flesh of her forearm slipped out of my grip. When she reached the front of the armored vehicle, she dived, scrabbling forward, almost there.

  We heard a crunching sound and saw what seemed to be a puff of green dust. And then a scream.

  Lightning flashed. Thunder. And then a wall of rain hammered down.

  My eyes were momentarily blinded by the lightning but then I focused. The long row of treads ground heavily across Lady Ahn's leg.

  Only when the vehicle passed could we pull Lady Ahn out of the path of the next armored vehicle rattling down the lane.

  A tiny sea of green gravel swirled in the running rainwater. It began to trickle like the tail of a comet into the dark gutter. I reached forward and grabbed a handful. The remains of the jade skull of Kublai Khan sifted through my fingers like the dust of a giant emerald.

  The armored vehicle stopped. The hatch opened. Soldiers started to climb out.

  "Pick her up! Carry her!" Herman shouted. "I'll cover you!"

  Herman waved the M-16 he'd taken from the soldier he'd squashed.

  Ernie and I did as we were told. We started trundling Lady Ahn away from the armored vehicle. Herman let go a burst of fire. The soldiers hopped back into the armored vehicle and slammed the lid shut.

  At the top of the hill, I looked back down at the intersection in front of Guanghua-mun. Even up here we could hear the gunfire and the screams. The students were surrounded. The soldiers of the White Horse Division were cutting through them like hot bayonets through lard.

  "I told you the government would get pissed off," Herman said.

  Ernie slapped his head. "Shut the fuck up, will you?"

  Lady Ahn's leg was mangled and bleeding badly. But she wasn't whimpering. I whipped off my belt and used it as a tourniquet. When I tightened it, she winced at the pain but didn't cry out. She seemed lost in a world of misery, and I don't think it had anything to do with her leg.

  We wandered through alleys until we reached a section of Seoul where life was still somewhat normal. Waving the M-16, Herman stopped a cab. The terrified driver skidded to a halt. Ernie and I loaded Lady Ahn aboard and climbed in after her. There wasn't room for Herman.

  "Report to the MP Station," Ernie told Herman. 'You're still in my custody."

  "Not the MP Station," Herman said. "I have some things to take care of first."

  "I said the MP Station!"

  Herman leveled the M-16. Ernie gazed into the barrel.

  "Okay," Ernie said. "Maybe I was a little hasty. Where would you like to surrender?"

  To my surprise, Herman answered.

  "Itaewon. Tomorrow afternoon. Four o'clock."

  Ernie nodded. "Sure. Any particular spot?"

  'Yeah. The Virtuous Dragon Dumpling House, where they chopped up Mi-ja's ear. And come alone. You and George. No one else."

  Ernie looked at him quizzically. "Okay, Herm baby. You got it."

  I told the driver to take us to Yongsan Compound. "And bali bali!" Hurry.

  The nervous driver nodded, sweat dripping from his nose. He jammed the kimchi cab into gear.

  Lady Ahn's blood trickled through my fingers.

  37

  Ernie held out his shiny new. 45 and let the monsoon rain splash off of it.

  "Damn thing's too new," he complained. "No rust on it."

  We stood under a storefront awning in Itaewon, across the street from the Virtuous Dragon Dumpling House.


  "They're not supposed to have rust on them," I said. "It causes them to jam."

  "An old wives' tale," Ernie said. "You have to work a weapon in, let it get dirty and muddy so all the gears mesh right."

  "Pistols don't have gears."

  Ernie stared at me. "That's the problem with you, George. You take all this technical shit too seriously."

  I ignored him and studied the front of the Dumpling House. So far, Herman hadn't entered. If he kept his word, he should be here any minute.

  Last night, when we arrived at the front gate of Yongsan Compound, the MPs wouldn't let us through with an "unauthorized civilian" in the cab. I told them to go fuck themselves and forced the driver to take us to the 121 Evacuation Hospital anyway.

  The emergency room nurse was also reluctant. But once she took a look at Lady Ahn's wounds, she went ahead and started working on her.

  The doctors were worried that they might have to amputate Lady Ahn's leg. The decision would be made tonight. Luckily, they hadn't spared the sedatives, because Lady Ahn was still more distraught about losing the jade skull than about losing any part of her body.

  We'd spent most of the day at the CID office writing up our reports and getting new weapons issued and taking a series of ass-chewings from the First Sergeant. He was pissed that we'd let Herman escape, pissed that we'd been involved with a civilian demonstration, pissed that a civilian woman had been admitted to a military hospital.

  I reminded him a couple of times that if we hadn't stopped Choi So-lan, the Buddhist nun, from torching herself last night, the entire country would've become engulfed in an armed revolt. As it was, the students were put down and the nun escaped alive.

  This cut no ice with the First Sergeant. It was all the military regulations we'd broken that gave him a case of the ass-and the explaining he had to do to the Eighth Army honchos. He almost restricted us to compound while all our actions were being "reviewed," but we talked him out of it by mentioning that we had a rendezvous with Herman the German this afternoon.