Buddha's Money Page 6

  He rose and his mad eyes stared into mine.

  "Do you know why these lines were etched on my skull? Do you have any idea?"

  I realized that my mouth was open. I closed it.

  "These scars are a badge of honor,'" he continued, "designed to remind me that my mission in life is to find the jade skull! They were put there when I was a boy, by the monks who trained me. Monks who trained me for high position. Why me? Why the son of a common Mongol yak herder? Why should I be trained for high position? Because the monks had determined that inside here . . ." he pounded his gnarled fist on his chest. ". . . inside here resides a great soul. The reincarnated soul of a great man. The reincarnated soul of the emperor who had once owned the jade skull!"

  I suppose he mistook my stupefied expression for understanding. He lowered his voice, as if we were conspirators.

  "My name in this life is Ragyapa." He waved his hand dismissively. "Don't bother to write it down. You will find the name Ragyapa on no passport. It is my religious name only, not my official name. But centuries ago, while wearing a different body, I was known by the name of Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan and the Emperor of the entire Central Kingdom!"

  He laughed through yellowed teeth.

  Kublai Khan was a conqueror greater even than Napoleon. In addition to his native land of Mongolia, he ruled China and Burma and Vietnam and Korea and Tibet. He tried twice, without success, to invade Japan. The fact that this man called Ragyapa believed he was the reincarnated soul of Kublai Khan convinced me—beyond a doubt-that he was insane.

  "So you see," Ragyapa continued, "I am only trying to reclaim my own property. And regain the jade skull of Kublai Khan for its rightful owners, the people of Mongolia!"

  His eyes narrowed.

  "Many men have died for possession of this jade skull, Agent Sueño . . ." How did he know my name? Probably through Sooki. Or anybody else in the village, for that matter. Ernie and I were famous in Itaewon. ". . . and many more will die soon unless / gain possession of what is rightfully mine!" Once again, he thumped his fist on his chest. "The dead will include this undisciplined child, if you don't produce my jade skull for me."

  "I told you, I don't have it."

  "Then get it!"

  Ragyapa's voice roared so loudly that for a second I thought he had suddenly transformed himself into a beast of the jungle. The sound thundered, filling the room.

  "You have until the full moon," he told me. "If you do not turn the jade skull over to me by then, Agent Sueño, I will wring her scrawny neck. And each time I think you are not making progress in finding the jade skull, I will send her old hag of a mother another gift. Another gift such as the one she received in the plate of dumplings. Do you understand?"

  Rage made my arms start to quiver. Why not punch out this creep right now? He was only another nut case. As mad as any bum wandering the streets of East L.A. What was holding me back? Fear. Yes, that was it. Fear. And in my entire life only one thing had ever allowed me to overcome my fear. And that was rage. This man of such greed and such brutality, this man who could hurt a child who had never harmed anyone, was filling me with that rage now. I fought it back. If rage blinded me, I would act foolishly.

  "I understand," I said. "We will find your jade skull. But while I'm looking," I pointed at the cowering figure against the wall, "you will not mistreat this child. Do you understand me?"

  Before he could answer, something crashed through the oil-papered window. Something black. Something huge. A giant raven smashing into the chamber. Wood splintered everywhere.

  I knew what it was immediately. Ernie.

  I lunged at Ragyapa.

  It was my rage and my desire to free Mi-ja that made me move in on him so quickly. Still, his reflexes were those of a Siberian tiger. Something whizzed out of the darkness. Not his fists because I had my eyes on those. But his foot. Somehow I sensed it coming and twisted out of the way at the last moment. The toes slammed into me like blocks of iron, missing my crotch but ramming full force into my stomach.

  Air exploded out of me. I fell to the floor, clutching my stomach, floundering for breath like a giant catfish.

  Ernie was stunned by his crash through the window and crawled on all fours on the wood-slat floor. Ragyapa shuffled forward and kicked him hard in the ribs. Ernie let out a groan and rolled over.

  A herd of footsteps charged up the stairway. If any of them belonged to Herman, he'd be greatly outnumbered.

  Whistles shrilled through the night. The KNPs. They were downstairs. Ragyapa and his Mongolian thugs would be trapped.

  I still couldn't breathe. I tried to rise. It wasn't working.

  Ragyapa snatched up Mi-ja, shuffled through the darkness, and pushed on something that creaked and let out a groan. Suddenly starlight streamed through a rectangle in the temple wall.

  As the herd of men trampled over me, I raised myself up and took a swing at one of them but all my efforts got me was a thump on the side of the head. I fell back down.

  Ernie was on his feet now, bouncing around like a marionette, throwing jabs and neat combinations. One of the thugs noticed, stepped inside his punch, and elbowed him neatly in the throat. Ernie crashed to the floor.

  I heard more footsteps downstairs. Boots. Maybe it was Sooki who'd notified them. Whoever it was, the KNPs would save us. I was sure they would.

  I tried to crawl toward Mi-ja. If I could hold her, protect her, maybe I could keep these foreign thugs off of her until we were rescued.

  But when I looked up, she was gone.

  A large plank had been laid down outside of the rectangular hatchway in the side of the pagoda. I dragged myself along the floor until I could see that the splintered board reached to the top of the stone wall, more than twenty feet across a dark chasm.

  Ragyapa scurried across the plank, holding Mi-ja under his arm.

  I bellowed in anger. None of the thugs even looked back. One by one, they tiptoed across the narrow causeway.

  We had been so close. Why hadn't I brought my .38 to Itaewon tonight? We never carried arms on the black market detail, but if I'd only made an exception this one time. I wanted to blow their brains out. Each one of those arrogant bastards.

  Still, I admired their planning. A wooden plank through a secret opening in an ancient Buddhist temple.

  No way I could've picked up on that one.

  Soon, all of Ragyapa's thugs had crossed to the safety of the stone wall. I heard gruff cursing in Korean and then the cops started upstairs. I crawled toward the plank.

  If I could just hold it, I thought, so the KNPs could use the plank to cross the chasm and chase those Mongols down. We could get Mi-ja back.

  Still barely able to move, I slithered closer to the edge, reached out with both hands, and grabbed on to the plank. At that moment, two thugs atop the stone wall gave it a mighty tug. I held on as tightly as I could but the wood slid through my grip. A splinter needled my skin and, as they pulled, sliced deeper into my flesh.

  I screamed.

  The plank slid through my fingers, tearing my flesh, and fell into the chasm, clattering to the cobbled road below. The last of the dark figures leapt off the far side of the stone wall and disappeared.

  Ernie crawled over to me, clutching his side. Perspiration streamed off his forehead.

  "Was that her? Was that Mi-ja?" he asked me.

  I watched drops of blood squeeze past the splinter in my hand. "That was her."

  Ernie spat into the night. "Next time, I'll blow me some asshole's brain out. Right through that pile of rags he calls a turban."

  8

  BLOOD FROM THE FIRST SERGEANT'S NECK RAN UP THE VEINS behind his jaw, reached his gray sidewalls, and began to pulse.

  "Kidnapping? And you didn't report it?"

  Ernie shrugged. "Herman the German didn't want us to."

  "Herman the who?"

  "Herman the German. An old retired lifer."

  The First Sergeant of the Criminal Investigation Div
ision paced around his desk, reached the coffee counter, and fumbled with a thick porcelain mug. He was a thick-shouldered man and always wore his dress green uniform to work, unlike Ernie and me, who were required to wear civilian coats and ties during regular duty hours. We both sat in straight-backed army-issue chairs. The ones we always sat in when we received our ass-chewings.

  The First Sergeant returned to his desk, placed the half- full coffee mug in the center of the immaculately white blotter, and leaned toward us.

  "A Korean National Policeman was injured! Hospitalized with a severe concussion. His M-one rifle was stolen." The First Sergeant shook his head, not sure whether the injured man or the lost weapon was more important.

  After Ragyapa and his thugs escaped from the Temple of the Dream Buddha last night, Ernie and I caught holy hell from Captain Kim, the Commander of the Itaewon Police Station. When Kim was given the report about the shenanigans at the Virtuous Dragon Dumpling House, he figured it was me and Ernie. And when he discovered that an abduction was underway in his precinct, he was incensed that he hadn't been informed. Later, he followed the wide swath we had left up Hooker Hill and, with a few of his men, surrounded the Temple of the Dream Buddha. Somehow, before the foreign thugs escaped, they managed to surprise one of Kim's men in an alley, beat him, and steal his M-l rifle.

  The Korean National Police were on the case now— with a vengeance—crawling all over Herman the German and Slicky Girl Nam. With one of their own hurt, the KNPs had a particularly strong reason to bring the foreign kidnappers to justice.

  "Eighth Army is catching hell from the ROK Government." The First Sergeant stared into our eyes, searching for something, not finding it. "And you aren't authorized to keep the kidnapping of a military dependent secret, no matter what the reason."

  "Mi-ja is not a military dependent," Ernie said. "The adoption wasn't legal. Slicky Girl Nam just bought the kid from some poor farm family who couldn't afford to feed her anymore. Herman never got her a military ID card."

  The First Sergeant slammed the desktop. Murky fluid erupted from the mug.

  "I don't give a damn! When something as important as a kidnapping happens and you become involved, you report it, Sergeant Bascom. You understand me? You report it!"

  Ernie didn't seem in any way fazed by the First Sergeant's hollering. He sat back in his chair, legs crossed, coat open, as calm as a deacon in a private pew.

  "Look, Top," Ernie said, picking lint from his pants leg, "have you been to the one-two-one Evac lately?"

  "What the hell are you talking about, Bascom?"

  "About your blood pressure. You really ought to have it checked."

  The First Sergeant's knuckles whitened around the coffee mug. "Listen, Bascom. You, too, Suefio. Don't you two worry about my goddamn blood pressure. You just do your jobs. And when there's a kidnapping, you report it. You understand me?"

  Ernie looked over at me. "Did you jot that down, George?"

  I had a small notebook out, notes I'd taken on the case. I ignored Ernie's remark and gazed into the First Sergeant's gray eyes.

  "We had reason to believe," I said, "that they'd murder the little girl if the Korean National Police were notified." I held up my hand before the First Sergeant could interrupt. After returning to the barracks last night, I had carved out the splinter in my palm and patched and medicated the wound as best I could, but it still ached with a dull throb. "You're right. I realize now that with KNP help we might've been able to rescue the girl last night. But we'll never know for sure. Too many cops, and the kidnappers might not've shown themselves. Anyway, that's over now. Herman's filed a formal complaint at the Itaewon Police Station."

  My businesslike tone of voice seemed to calm the First Sergeant somewhat. Ernie slouched in his seat. He knew what I was doing. Ruining his fun. He loved nothing better than to antagonize the First Sergeant. Like poking a dragon in its lair.

  "What's your next move on the case?" the First Sergeant asked.

  I was a little surprised by the question. Usually, the First Sergeant tries to control every aspect of our investigations. This time, he apparently realized that he would only get in our way. All the principals, other than Herman the German, were Koreans or Third Country Nationals. The First Sergeant couldn't speak Korean, didn't know anything more about the country than what he learned on the military base, and once he was out in the Korean villages, he had no more idea of how to proceed than the Man in the moon. Ernie and I, however, had proven our ability to work off-post. I spoke Korean. Ernie had an almost instant rapport with people of any nationality—when he chose to. We were the best investigative team the First Sergeant had. And he knew it.

  And the pressure was on him. The honchos at the Eighth Army head shed were raising hell. Now that the word was out that a military dependent—even an unofficial one—had been kidnapped, the howls for revenge were rising. The secret fear of every American colonel and hotshot diplomat is that some sneaky Korean will some day swipe their child. It had never happened before, but now something close to it had happened.

  The American community in Korea wanted blood.

  And that wasn't the only case Eighth Army was barking about.

  The First Sergeant reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a Korean newspaper, unfolded it, and slapped it down on his desk in front of us.

  "Anybody here look familiar, Bascom?"

  The photo was grainy, but the image was unmistakable. Ernie. Manhandling the business girl who had tried to claw his eyes out last night. Behind him, I emerged from the black and white shadows, carrying the little nun. We looked like pirates preoccupied with rape and pillage. The headline said it all: GI ATTACKS BUDDHIST NUN.

  Nothing else was on the front page. Only feature stories about the riot that followed and the outraged reaction from the Temple of the Celestial Void, the little nun's home base. And a short bio of Choi So-lan. Who she was. How she came to be a Bride of Buddha.

  "It hasn't hit the television yet," the First Sergeant said. In Korea, the government doesn't allow the TV stations to start broadcasting until five P.M., after the end of the working day. "But it will tonight, and then Eighth Army's going to be in a world of waste."

  Ernie spread his fingers. "A little bad publicity, Top. We've been through it before."

  "Why were you attacking that whore?"

  "I wasn't. She was attacking me."

  "Sure. And now that she has this photo to back her up, she'll probably file a charge against you and try to settle for big bucks."

  "No way, Top."

  The First Sergeant raised his gray eyebrows. "Why not?"

  "She's an Itaewon business girl. They all love me. That was her method of showing affection."

  "My ass. The Community Affairs Officer at Eighth Army's about to shit a brick over this. He and the Commanding General want you both to stay away from cameras. You got that?" The First Sergeant turned to me. "What do you have so far, Sueño, on the mugging of that nun?"

  "We spotted the perpetrator, but didn't get a positive ID on him because of the poor lighting. I do suspect, however, that he might be reporting into sick call for a broken rib."

  I held up my left fist. Ernie guffawed.

  The First Sergeant jotted a note. "I'll have somebody check with the medical command. Anything else?"

  "And you might also have them check on a damaged finger," I told him. "The nun claims she chomped down on him pretty hard. Drew blood."

  "Will do," the First Sergeant said. This is what he liked. Crisp police work. What I added to my report brought a frown back to his face.

  "The perpetrator appeared to be a black GI," I said.

  "Shit! That makes it more complicated."

  Ernie's eyes shone at the First Sergeant's discomfort. "Why's that, Top?"

  The First Sergeant either didn't notice Ernie's enjoyment or didn't care. He lowered his head, still talking but lost in thought.

  "Because the CG has been trying to improve race relations in the comma
nd. This will just complicate things."

  "Why?" Ernie asked. "She was a Korean nun, not a white nun."

  "Still, some of the blacks might think we're just pinning it on them."

  "Meaning we have to arrest somebody?"

  "The Korean government is demanding it."

  "Whether it's the right guy or not?"

  The First Sergeant looked up. "I didn't say that! Of course, it has to be the right guy."

  Ernie grinned. "Sure it does, Top."

  The First Sergeant pointed his finger at Ernie. "Don't go twisting my words, Bascom."

  Ernie spread his hands. "I didn't. I just repeated them."

  I stood up. Action's the only way to stop their bickering. "We have two hot cases. Which one do you want us to start with?"

  "Neither," the First Sergeant answered.

  "Neither?"

  "That's right. The mugger of the Buddhist nun will be a snap to pick up. Ask a few questions in the barracks, check with the medical clinics, somebody will pop."

  I wasn't so sure about that. Amongst the black troops of Eighth Army, the distrust of the CID ran deep. Especially with some of the ham-handed methods most of the agents used: Just ask questions of some GI, while all his buddies are watching. Ernie and I went more direct. We gathered evidence of lawbreaking on somebody and then forced them to tell us what we needed. Snitching or the stockade, that's what it came down to. They always chose snitching.

  The First Sergeant had no such doubts, however. He tapped a ballpoint pen on the top of his desk.

  "It's this kidnapping that has me worried," he said. "But the KNPs are on it now and you can bet they'll do a thorough job. Anyway, it falls under their jurisdiction since the victim is a Korean citizen."

  "They won't turn jurisdiction over to us?"

  "Not on your life. Not after the anti-GI feeling these newspaper headlines are causing. Still, the head shed wants us to assist in any way we can."