Buddha's Money (26 page)

"Worked up an appetite last night," he said.

I purposely picked a table next to a group of military retirees smoking and sipping coffee and bullshitting. Waiting for the next flight out of Korea.

We sat down, ate, and listened for a while. When they didn't mention Herman, I asked, "Anybody seen Herman the German around here lately?"

One guy with a bristly crew cut glanced over at me. "He was in here this morning. Didn't make his flight."

"So how is the old buzzard?"

"Seems okay. You know Herman. He don't talk much."

"I owe him a drink. Do you know where he's staying?"

"Out in the ville somewhere. That's all I know. He left right after the Space-A call. If I see him, I'll tell him you're looking for him."

"Don't bother," I said. "He already knows."

We gulped down our chow and left.

WHEN YOU WALK OUT OF THE MAIN GATE OF OSAN AIR BASE, you walk into GI heaven. The village of Songtan-up is a maze of narrow alleys lined with hotels and tailor shops and leather goods emporiums and bars and chophouses and nightclubs and brothels.

Just about anything a young man would ever want to buy is available here. The best part is that none of it is touted by Madison Avenue.

The monsoon rain had slowed to a drizzle. Just outside the gate, an enterprising Korean vendor huddled beneath an army-issue poncho, hawking flimsy umbrellas made of bamboo and plastic. I handed him a buck for two.

Ernie popped his open. "The good thing about these little pieces of shit," Ernie said, "is that they're disposable. Don't have to worry about forgetting them in some barroom."

We wandered down the narrow lane, checking out the shops. Most of the nightclubs were still shuttered and locked.

"Should we canvass the hotels?" Ernie asked.

"I guess we don't have much choice. But we're going to have to describe him to everyone. He won't be registering under his own name."

"At least Herman's easy to picture," Ernie said. "A bowling ball with blubbery lips."

"That's him. I'll try to figure out how to say that in Korean."

"You mean you don't know?"

"The word for 'blubbery' escapes me."

"You need to study harder, pal."

Ernie stopped in an open-front market and bought a couple of packs of the usual: ginseng gum. When we stepped outside, an old mama-san picked us up on her radar and started yanking on my sleeve, telling me she could introduce us to some "nice girls."

"We don't like nice girls," Ernie told her. "Only bad ones."

That didn't faze the old crone; she kept haranguing us. I was just about to push her out of the way when an explosion reverberated through the narrow alleys of Songtan-up.

"What was that?"

"A rifle shot," Ernie said. "Not far either."

Ernie shoved aside the persistent madam, and we ran toward the sound of the pop. Two more shots rang out.

"It's a fucking battle," Ernie said.

He fumbled for the .45 in his shoulder holster, pulled it out, and clanged back the charging handle.

THE SONGTAN CITY MARKET IS COMPOSED OF NOTHING MORE than a jumble of wooden stands covered with canvas. The stands occupy a spider's web of alleys in the heart of the city, and in their center is a circular intersection, the only open space in the market.

Huffing and puffing, we reached it in about two minutes. Ernie swiveled around, .45 at the ready, searching for a target.

A Korean National Policeman stood nearby, blowing shrilly on his whistle.

"Would you knock that shit off?" Ernie yelled.

The policeman ignored him.

An old woman wearing a white bandana huddled behind a pile of cabbages. I leaned toward her.

"Pardon me, Aunt. I am a policeman. Who was firing the gun?"

She pointed down one of the darker alleys. "I saw an American like you. Running."

"He went that way?"

"Yes."

"Why was he running?"

She clutched her elbows and shuddered. "Men were chasing him."

"American men or Koreans?"

"Neither. Some sort of foreigners."

I swirled my forefinger around my head. "Did one wear a turban?"

The wrinkles on the woman's face rose toward her forehead. "How did you know?"

I motioned to Ernie. We trotted into the alley.

30

ERNIE SAID THE SHOT WE HEARD WAS FROM A RIFLE, HE'D spent two tours in Vietnam and I wasn't going to argue with him.

But a rifle in Korea? There was total gun control in this country. Only the military and the police were allowed weapons, and the KNPs never used anything more than a sidearm. I thought of the M-l rifle that had been stolen from the Korean policeman in the alleys near the Temple of the Dream Buddha.

Ragyapa. It had to be. But could he know about this lead Ernie and I had received little more than an hour ago?

We crept through the market, Ernie on one side, me on the other. Both of us with our pistols drawn.

Gloom filtered through canvas awnings. The vendors had faded back into the damp shadows. Carts piled with giant turnips and crates of mackerel on ice stood unguarded.

We were close. Very close.

Ernie motioned for me to halt and take cover. I obeyed. He scurried forward to a position where he had a good view of an ancient wooden apartment building with a walkway around its second and third story. Laundry fluttered from lines strung out the windows. The smell of boiling kimchi and charcoal gas wafted through the air.

Ernie crouched and watched, lost in thought. The barrel of his .45 caressed his lips.

Perhaps Ragyapa's showing up wasn't as miraculous as it seemed. There were only a few major points of embarkation from the Republic of Korea. The civilian ones included the international airport at Kimpo near Seoul and the ferry way down south in Pusan. Kimpo would be easy enough to watch. The major U.S. military point of embarkation was where we were now. Osan Air Force Base. There were a couple more bases farther south but Osan would be the quickest and the cheapest for Herman to leave the country.

Ragyapa must've stationed a man here, near the main gate. If that's what happened, Ragyapa and his boys would've been waiting for Herman when he was bumped from the Stateside flight and emerged from the main gate of the base.

Was Herman already dead? Did Ragyapa have the jade skull?

If so, he'd have no reason to turn Lady Ahn over to us alive. She was a witness. He'd eliminate the danger. He'd kill her.

Suddenly, from inside the building, another shot rang out. Ernie'd had enough of waiting. So had I. We charged forward, Ernie motioning for me to circle around the building and cover the back exit.

He kicked in the front door.

Ernie's .45 fired twice.

The sound of gunfire close at hand is enough to uncoil the innards of most mortals. Criminals usually scatter at the unholy sound of it. They like it when they're the ones wielding the firepower, but when the hot lead is directed at them, they turn into jackrabbits fast enough.

All hell broke loose in the building. A couple of rifle shots blasted straight into the sky, women screamed, children began to wail. The whole wooden framework seemed to shake, and the footsteps from within reverberated like a herd of panicked musk-oxen.

Before I could reach the rear alley, something slammed against wood. Rounding the corner, I saw short legs and PX-bought brown oxfords disappearing over the back wall. Herman!

I shouted and took a step forward but as I did, a gaggle of men exploded out the door. One wore a turban. Ragyapa. He saw me and hollered something that I couldn't understand. Next to him a man swiveled, and a flash erupted from the barrel of an M-l rifle.

Something bit through the air above me. An angry bee moving at the speed of light.

I dived behind wooden crates stuffed with filth. Another bee bit into rotten lumber. Splinters erupted like a hive of tiny rockets.

My hand was shaking so badly, I could barely hold the .38. Somehow I pointed it forward, not having any idea where I was aiming, and pulled the trigger.

The recoil sobered me somewhat. I could hurt someone with this thing!

After that, all I heard were footsteps and shouts. A few seconds later, when I worked up the nerve to peer around a box of trash, Ragyapa's men were gone. In the distance, more KNP whistles shrilled.

Ernie erupted out the back door. Sweating. His head swiveling back and forth so fast I thought he was going to unscrew his skull.

He pointed the pistol at me.

"Don't shoot!" I said. "It's me."

Ernie took a deep breath and lowered the .45. "Where'd they go?"

"Down the alley. But don't worry about them now. The KNPs will be here any second. It's Herman we have to find."

Herman must still have the jade skull. If he didn't, Ragyapa wouldn't be chasing him.

"The bastards
shot
at me!" Ernie said.

I stood up, dusting off my trousers. "You shot at them, too."

"But I'm a
good
guy."

"Sure you are, Ernie." I glanced at the damage the M-l had done to the wood-slat wall and the crates. "I don't think that guy's zeroed his weapon."

Ernie examined the trajectory. "No. If he had, Uncle Snaps would've had to cough up all thirty thousand bucks of your Serviceman's Group Life Insurance."

The whistles of the KNPs grew louder. We didn't have time to spend all morning explaining to them what had happened.

Ernie helped me over the wall Herman had climbed. From the top, I pulled him over.

WITH THE KNPS ALERTED AND SWARMING AROUND THE VILlage, Ragyapa would be cautious. If Ragyapa got locked up for possession of an illegal rifle, Herman would be sure to make good his escape with the skull.

But that didn't mean Ragyapa would give up. His boys were out there somewhere, searching for Herman.

After climbing the wall, we checked with the owner of the hooch in front. He pointed us away from the market. As we moved down the cobbled lanes, I stopped and asked every pedestrian and shop owner and street vendor I saw if they'd seen Herman. I used the description Ernie had given me. A human bowling ball, probably sweating by now and breathing hard.

It wasn't as if Herman the German was easy to miss. Almost everyone noticed him. They kept pointing us north, away from the market, away from the main gate of Osan Air Force Base.

Finally, we emerged from the alleys onto a main road. Across the street was the Songtan bus station. Nothing more than a half-acre blacktop area with a tin shack on the side for selling tickets.

As we darted across the street, dodging honking kimchi cabs, we scanned the crowd awaiting transportation.

I pushed my way to the front of the line. The ticket office wasn't much larger than a coffin. I leaned over and spoke through the little glass window to the sales clerk. She was surly and didn't remember anything about a foreigner buying a ticket. When I flashed my badge and pressed her, she told me she never looked at faces, only hands and change. Did you see any fat, pale hands with tufts of brown hair on them? No.

A dirty-faced girl with long black braids stood next to Ernie, holding a box of chewing gum and candy in her soiled fingers. They were haggling over the price of a double pack of ginseng gum.

The girl turned to me, probably hoping for another sale. I asked her about Herman. When I called him a bowling ball, she covered white teeth with dirty fingers.

"Oh, yes," she said, "the bowling ball man just got on a bus."

"Which bus?"

"Number nine. Already go."

"Where does number nine go?"

"I don't know. I never ride bus."

Ernie pulled a wad of gum out of his mouth. "Hey, this stuff is stale."

"No," the girl said, bowing. "It is very good gum. Number one."

"Shit." Ernie tossed the pack back to her, his face sour. The girl snatched the gum and slipped it carefully into her pocket.

We started to walk away. I had to find out more about bus number nine. The girl ran after us and tugged on my sleeve.

"Hey, I talk to you, you supposed to buy gum!"

I handed her a hundred won coin—about twenty cents—and shrugged her off.

A brown-skinned man in a gray coat and a gray cap stood near the street waving a red banner, guiding the buses in and out of the lot.

I asked him about bus number nine.

"Yes. It goes to Chon-an."

"Express?"

"No. Many stops."

"How many?"

"Three. Maybe four."

"Did you see a foreigner get on?"

"Yes. Bus driver laugh. Say he take two seats."

THE ROAD FROM OSAN TO CHON-AN IS PEACEFUL, A SPARSELY traveled two-lane highway frequented only by buses or open-topped tractors or the occasional country kimchi cab. Green rice fields spread out on either side of us, and the ribbon of blacktop was lined with quivering juniper trees. Villages appeared intermittently: straw-thatched roofs, women pounding laundry by a stream, farmers threshing grain in the open air.

None of this idyllic setting cut much ice with Ernie.

"I'm gonna
pound
that fucking Herman."

"Easy, Ernie."

"He did it to his own little girl. He let them take Mi-ja. Just so he could wrap his grubby paws around that damn skull."

"We don't know that for sure yet."

Ernie swerved the jeep around a slow-moving bus. "Now you're sounding like one of those lawyers over at JAG."

I checked the number of the bus. Not number nine. We'd be lucky if we caught up with it before it reached Chon-an. But Ernie was trying like hell. He held the speedometer at a steady eighty kilometers.

"Watch out!"

A thin man in gray tunic and pantaloons, back bent, hands clasped behind his back, sauntered across the road ahead of us.

Ernie slammed on the brakes, downshifted, and, once he was around the old man, gunned the engine and slammed it back into high gear.

"These pedestrians wouldn't last long in Seoul," he grumbled.

The sky was clearing. Monsoon clouds floated northward. In the fields, white cranes stepped gingerly through green rice shoots, searching for amphibians.

WE HAD REACHED THE OUTSKIRTS OF CHON-AN WHEN I SPOTted omething rumbling ahead of us.

"That's it. Bus number nine."

Black diesel smoke spewed from the rear exhaust.

"I'll cut it off," Ernie said.

"Okay. But let's not get crushed beneath the wheels."

Ernie pulled up alongside the bus driver, leaning on his horn. I held my badge up and waved for him to pull over. The suspicious-eyed driver glared, turned his eyes back straight ahead, and kept rolling.

"Son of a bitch won't listen to us," Ernie said.

"We don't have any jurisdiction out here," I said. "He knows that."

"Fuck jurisdiction!"

Ernie jerked the steering wheel to the right: The little jeep slammed into the front bumper of the bus. Sparks flew. Metal grated on metal. The driver above us cursed and honked his horn. Ernie swerved over again, bumping harder this time, grinding paint and metal off the side of bus number nine.

Faces gawked at us out the side windows. Ernie pulled in front of the bus and slammed on his brakes. We were bumped from behind.

"He's gonna run us over."

"No, he won't," Ernie said. "Killing foreigners causes too much paperwork."

Ernie was right. Gradually, the bus slowed, pulled over to the side, and came to a stop.

Before we could climb out of the jeep, the bus driver was already out of the door: red-faced, waving his hands, cursing. Spittle erupted from his mouth like water from a spigot.

He charged Ernie. I thrust my body between them.

The driver kept raving, cursing Ernie for being a reckless driver, and I held up my hands, bowing and apologizing profusely.

Ernie acted as if the driver didn't even exist. He pulled his .45, stepped around us, and climbed up into the bus. There were a couple of screams when the passengers saw the gun, but for the most part they took it well.

Ernie emerged from the bus about thirty seconds later.

"He's not here."

I started to question the driver about a foreigner, but he ignored my questions and kept ranting about what a fool Ernie was. I didn't bother to translate any of it. Ernie just crossed his arms, the big .45 still clutched in his fist, and smirked.

I boarded the bus. The stewardess was a young girl of about sixteen with a red jacket and a helmet of black hair. I asked her if there had been a foreigner on this bus.

"Oh, yes," she said. "He took up two seats."

"Where did he get off?"

"In Pyongtaek."

I should've figured that. Pyongtaek was only a few miles from the village of Anjong-ri, which sits outside the big army helicopter base at Camp Humphreys. When he was in trouble, Herman always gravitated toward the military.' He probably felt safer there.

"Was he carrying a bag?"

"Yes. He clutched it very tightly to his tummy."

"How big was the bag?"

"Round and big. Like his tummy."

I thanked the girl and apologized to the passengers for the inconvenience. They sat dumb, used to being pushed around by policemen.

The driver was still cursing, but he directed his invective everywhere but at Ernie. He was clearly intimidated. Either by Ernie's hard stare or by the .45.

Probably both.

We climbed back into the jeep.

"Where to?"

"Turn around," I said. "Last known sighting of Herman the German: Pyongtaek."