Buddha's Money (5 page)

7

HOOKER HILL IS THE NAME GIS HAVE GIVEN TO THE NARROW lane that stretches about forty yards, from the Lucky 7 Club on the main drag of Itaewon up to the Roundup Club on a rise overlooking the entire village. The pathway is lined with chophouses and hole-in-the-wall bars and wooden gates behind which lurk hooches jam-packed with Korean business girls. At night the women flood onto the street. Trap-door spiders searching for prey.

When business is slow, a GI with a pocketful of money is lucky to take two steps before one of the denizens of Hooker Hill latches onto him. Wrapped in a web of sensuality, most of the hapless GIs are quickly rugged back into the business girl's lair, there to be devoured at the spider lady's leisure.

Ernie and I didn't want to have anything to do with the women of Hooker Hill. Not now. Not when we were in a hurry. The problem was that it was a week before military payday, and although the rain had slowed somewhat, a steady drizzle was still keeping most GIs inside the cozy diyness of the nightclubs lining the main drag. As a result, Hooker Hill was so crowded with desperate business girls that a eunuch with an empty wallet would've had trouble wriggling past them.

Normally, Ernie enjoyed himself on this street, playing grab-ass with the girls, giving them eighteen reasons why he was broke and wouldn't be able to accommodate them. Tonight was different.

"Get your hands off me!" he bellowed.

The pack of girls just giggled.

"Ernie, why you go fast? You no want catch me?"

"No time," Ernie told them. "I have business to attend to."

Flesh slapped on flesh. "That's
my
crotch . . ."— Ernie's voice—". . . and I'll use it the way
I
want to."

I was making better progress: Keeping my face somber, my eyes focused on my destination, and straight-arming every overly made-up business girl who had the courage to approach me.

Herman had fallen behind in the alleys but now, here on Hooker Hill, he was making up for lost time. The girls backed out of his way, moving so quickly that it was like Moses parting the Red Sea.

All he needed was a long beard and a staff.

I had almost made it to the top of the hill when a business girl wearing tight blue jeans and a brightly striped knit sweater sprinted out of the crowd. I recognized her immediately. Sooki. She had changed clothes. Not an unusual thing for a busy business girl to do.

She bumped into me, twirled, and jammed a wad of stiff paper into my hand. I tried to grab her but missed and watched her escape down Hooker Hill.

Business girls hung on Ernie like fronds on a palm tree. Still, when I whistled he caught the signal and lunged for the darting Sooki. He grabbed her arm. She tried to wriggle free, but with Herman's help Ernie kept his grip on her and dragged her over and stood her in front of me.

I held the note under her nose.

"Who told you to deliver this to me?"

Sooki pouted. She scanned the heavily lined eyes in the crowd, apparently finding nothing there to be afraid of.

"Some guy," she told me. "A foreigner."

"From which country?"

"I don't know."

"Asia?"

"Yeah. Maybe. He look like a Korean."

I twirled my forefinger around my head. "Did he wear a turban?"

Her eyes widened. "How you know?"

"Did this guy also pay you to tell me and Ernie about the Buddhist nun?"

She shrugged. "Maybe."

Herman lunged forward. Ernie held him back. Sooki studied Herman's protruding lower lip and his clenched fists.

"Same guy," she told me.

"Where can I find him?"

"I don't know. He stop me in alley, told me to tell you about the little nun. Pay me five dollars GI money."

"And the second time?"

"Same." Sooki straightened her shoulders, glancing proudly at the curious business girls clustered around us. "But this time he pay me ten."

A sigh of appreciation arose from the women.

I kept interrogating Sooki, but it quickly became apparent that she knew nothing else. I pointed my finger at her nose. "If you're lying to me, I'll find you."

She slapped her painted nails on her hip. "No sweat, GI. Anytime you want to catch Sooki, can do easy. Only need this one."

She nibbed her thumb and forefinger together.

Sooki had been hired twice in the same night to carry a message to us. Maybe by sending us after the mugger of the little nun, this foreign man had been trying to get me and Ernie—the only two CID agents in Itaewon—out of the way. To divert our attention from Mi-ja's kidnapping. But he'd been fooled. Even though there'd been a riot outside the Itaewon Police Station, Herman the German had managed to break through to us.

Herman shoved his huge body in front of me.

"What the hell does the note say?"

I ignored Herman and scanned the dark skyline. Two-or three-story buildings. A few
yoguans,
Korean inns, hotbed operations for GIs and the girls they picked up. Most were apartments. Housing business girls and the families of those Koreans who did legitimate—or semilegitimate— work here in Itaewon.

Beyond the buildings, between drifting rain clouds, the tristudded belt of Orion glimmered with a faint glow, no match for the glare of the Itaewon neon. Still, the pale stars seemed somehow heroic. I swiveled slowly in a 360-degree turn, scanning high and low. The three-quarter moon was rising. No sign of observers. But they were there. We were being watched. I was sure we were.

Because I had stopped moving forward, the business girls pressed in on me, breathing their hot breath on my arms, clutching my elbows. I shrugged them off and unwrapped the note.

"What's it say?" Herman demanded.

I showed it to him.

"That's Chinese." Herman looked back and forth between me and the note. "I can't read it."

So many business girls had their arms laced around Ernie that he looked like a man towing an acrobatic troupe. "You couldn't read it anyway," Ernie told Herman, "even if it
was
in English."

The business girls giggled.

Herman just stared at Ernie. Amazed. Not by what Ernie had said but by the stunning fact that we wouldn't be able to read the note. Herman could only work on one problem at a time. Ernie's sarcasm couldn't break through.

"I can read the note," I said.

"You can?" Herman leaned over the paper, blocking my light.

"Yes." I pointed to the three characters at the top. "These are simple. The name of the district we're in: Itaewon."

Herman peered at the paper. So did Ernie.

"And this is the character for temple."

"Temple?" Herman said. "There's no temple in Itaewon."

"Then we'd better shit one," Ernie said.

Sooki stepped forward again. "Yeah. There's a temple in Itaewon. GI never go there. GI
babo."
Stupid. "GI don't know."

Herman grabbed her soft arms. "Where is it?"

Sooki leaned as far back as she could. "Sooki show you. But cost ten dollars."

The surrounding business girls cackled in glee. Herman backed off as if Sooki had suddenly become radioactive.

"There's one more thing that has me worried," I said.

"What?" Herman asked.

"The three characters down here on the bottom of the note."

"What do they say?"

"Oh bun hu."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means they've given us five minutes to get to the temple."

Herman let out a
whoof
of air. "We've already used three."

"Maybe four. We don't have time to be dicking around," I told Herman. "Pay her the ten dollars."

"I'm broke."

I couldn't believe it. Herman's daughter had just been kidnapped and the asshole was still trying to stiff me for a measly ten dollars. I reached in my pocket, dug out a wrinkled Military Payment Certificate, and slapped it in Sooki's hand. "Here. Let's go.
Bali bali!"
Quickly.

Sooki smiled, slipped the money in the top of her bra, then trotted off into one of the alleys that led off from the top of Hooker Hill.

Ernie flapped his arms like a flamingo preparing for flight. About three business girls fell back. They pouted and straightened their skirts.

Without hesitation, Herman rolled forward after Sooki. This time I kept score. He bowled over nine business girls. But didn't have time to try for the spare.

DURING THE WEEKDAYS, WHEN ALL OF THE GIS ARE ON COMpound, the Korean business girls have a life of their own. They gossip and play
huatu,
Korean flower cards; they visit the public bathhouses with their friends; they smoke cigarettes and eat chop. The fact that there was a temple in Itaewon shouldn't have surprised me. A place to worship Buddha would fit right into the business girls' routine.

But what surprised me most was that I didn't know about it. Maybe none of them wanted to tell a GI about their secret temple. I didn't blame them. We Americans have a habit of ruining everything that's good.

Sooki wound through the alleys like an expert. I wasn't sure if we could trust her, but with only a minute or two until our rendezvous, I had no choice but to take a chance on her. I didn't have to explain this to Ernie. He was alert. Watching for a trap.

Up here above Itaewon the lanes became even narrower and darker. Even the clangs of rock and roll from the main drag faded into silence. All I heard was heavy breathing and our footsteps sloshing through the mud.

Finally, Sooki stopped and crouched at the corner of a tall stone wall. I squatted down next to her and she pointed, whispering. "The Dream Buddha," she said. "That's His temple."

"The Dream Buddha?"

"Yes. We call him Maitreya."

I'd read about Maitreya. The Buddha of the Vision of the Coming Age. A Buddha who has not even been born yet in his human form but who still manages to help mortals in the here and now. It makes sense when you think about it. All Buddhas are eternal. Neither the future nor the past is a barrier to their will.

Ernie and Herman crouched next to us, breathing heavily. I peered around the wall.

It was a small pagodalike temple. Made of wood, painted blue, with red and gold filigree along the tile of the layered roofs. A few candles shone inside, illuminating a gold-plated Buddha. His enigmatic smile beamed out at the world. The odor of incense wafted through the gentle rain.

"Nobody's there," Ernie told me.

"They're here," I answered. "Somewhere."

Herman motioned for us to keep quiet. "Listen," he said.

We heard creaking in the pagoda. Up high. Through the mist I saw another stone wall, looming behind the pagoda, almost as high as the highest roof.

"Somebody's up there," Herman said.

"Sounds like it," I answered. "Okay. They want us in the temple, so we go in the temple. Me and Herman. Ernie, do you think you could work your way around behind?"

Ernie chomped on his ginseng gum. "Can do easy."

"Good. That'll give us an extra measure of safety if they try anything."

A high-pitched moan sliced through the rain.

We all froze, looking toward the top of the temple. Sooki shivered, rubbing her bare arms. She stood. "Sooki go now."

Herman grabbed her elbow and yanked her back down. "If you mess us up," he told her, "I'll come looking for you. You
alia?"
You understand?

Sooki swallowed and slowly nodded her head.

"Good." Herman released his grip and Sooki rose and trotted down the dark lane.

Ernie waited until her footsteps faded. "Scared the shit out of her, Herm baby." There was admiration in his voice.

Herman grunted.

"Come on," I said. "Let's get this show on the road."

"Right." Ernie scurried off through one of the side alleys, happy as a drunkard in a saki factory. There was nothing like the prospect of violence to brighten up his outlook on life.

Ernie'd spent two tours in Vietnam. Driving trucks and hiding in bunkers from rocket attacks and buying vials of heroin from the snot-nosed boys who sold it through the wire. And he'd run the ville there, too. But Vietnam was a lot more dangerous than Itaewon. Bar girls turning tricks at night and selling military secrets in the morning. Still, Ernie loved it. The lying, the hatred, the intensity.

When I asked him about the Vietnam War he said, "There will never be another sweet one like that."

After Ernie's footsteps faded, I slapped Herman on the shoulder. "Looks like you and me are going to have to talk to these assholes."

Even in the darkness, I could see that Herman's features were bunched into wrinkles of worry.

"Follow my lead," I told him. "But if you see a chance to grab Mi-ja, take it. Better to have her and to fight for her—no matter what happens—than to let them keep her."

Herman nodded. "What if they have guns?"

"Not likely. They're foreigners."

In Korea, gun control is absolute. No nonsense like the bad guys have guns but the good guys don't. No way. In Korea, nobody has guns. No one except the Korean National Police and the military. And each weapon is tightly accounted for, from manufacture to dismantling. No black market for guns exists in Korea. And if anybody tried to start one and was caught, the sentence would be death.