Martin Limon - Buddha's money

The woman broke into a broad grin, as if satisfied about something. "Ah," she said. "The good lady."

'is she here now?"

Her brow wrinkled. "Who are you?"

I showed her my badge. "Mipalkun honbyong." Eighth Army Military Police.

She gazed at the badge for a moment, then looked up. "What has she done?"

"Maybe nothing. We just want to talk to her."

"Not possible now. She left over an hour ago."

Herman's shoulders sagged.

"Did she say where she was going?" I asked.

"No."

"Show us her room."

It was upstairs on the third floor and just as fastidiously clean as the other rooms. It told me nothing.

"Show me the guest register."

Back at the counter, the woman pointed a finger at Lady Ann's signature. Ahn Myong-lan, it said. Ahn, one of the venerable family names in Korea, and Myong-lan, meaning Bright Orchid. Her Korean National Identification card number was there, too. I copied it down. Every place of lodging is required to record them. Place of residence: Taejon, a major city halfway down the peninsula. But no other address.

I looked at the innkeeper. "She must've said something about where she was going next."

"No. She kept to herself. She was out a lot."

"Doing what?"

"I don't know. But she never brought a man back with her."

"You called her 'the good lady.' Why?"

"Because she treated me, and everyone, as if we were servants."

"And she has a southern accent?"

"Yes. Cholla Namdo, I would think." South Cholla Province, two hundred miles away.

"But according to this she lives in Taejon, farther north than that."

'Yes. She received a couple of phone calls from there." The woman pointed to the heavy black telephone, which rested on a knitted pad.

"Who called her?"

"A woman."

"Did you get the name? Her address? A phone number?"

"No."

"But you must remember something."

"Yes. When the good lady talked to that Taejon woman she did not seem so arrogant. In fact, she called her 'onni.' And she even laughed."

Onni means older sister. But Korean women who are friends often refer to the older woman in the relationship as onni. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are actually related.

"What else did they talk about?"

"About old things. Buying. Selling."

"Antiques?"

"Yes. And the place where this Taejon woman was calling from sounded like a business. I heard a bell tinkling in the background, people talking. It didn't sound like a home."

So Lady Ahn was getting calls from an older woman who owns an antique shop in Taejon. It was something.

"When this Lady Ahn checked out, how did she act?"

"In a hurry. She came in and I heard her packing, getting ready to go. She called me from my cleaning to settle the bill."

"Did she say anything to you?"

"Not to me. But she caught a cab right across the street. He asked her where she was going."

"What did she answer?"

"Seoul yok." The Seoul train station.

Herman looked confused. Even though he'd lived in Seoul for years and knew a lot of words and phrases, his Korean was still not able to keep up with complicated sentences. Of course, neither was his English. I thanked the woman and we started down the flight of steps toward the front gate.

The owner stood at the top of the stairs, arms folded.

"There's one more thing," she said.

I turned. "What's that?"

"The entire time she was a guest here, there were men waiting across the street. After she left, they left."

"They were watching her?"

"No. I don't think they were watching her."

"Then what were they doing?"

"They were old men. Sages. Disciples of Confucius. I think they were worshiping her."

When we arrived back at the jeep, Ernie was cursing.

"Goddamn Happy Hour is over already," he told us. "By the time we get back, there won't even be one deviled egg left."

Herman checked his wristwatch. "Shit! I'm late."

"Late for what?" I asked.

"To change the charcoal. Nam will kill me if I let it go out."

The pressed charcoal briquettes of the ondol heating system have to be changed every few hours or the fire sputters and dies. It's an involved process to start it up again.

"You're pussy-whipped," Ernie said.

Herman didn't answer.

"We'll drop you off," I told Herman.

The rain kept up a determined drizzle and Ernie kept up his bitching, all the way back to Itaewon. Lady Ahn had escaped. She was our only connection to the jade skull and the jade skull was our only connection to Mi-ja. We had to keep searching. Taejon, where Lady Ahn's onni lived, was our best bet.

Ernie didn't know it yet, but he was going to miss out on a lot more than just a few chicken drumettes.

After grabbing some chow at the Eighth Army Snack Bar, we went straight back to the barracks, packed our overnight bags, and headed to the H-101 Helipad on Yongsan Compound South Post.

Now the rain was being whipped back and forth by wind gusts of up to eighty miles an hour. All flights other than emergency aircraft were canceled until further notice. I argued with the NCO in charge and flashed my badge and even threatened to call the Provost Marshal, but it did no good. No choppers were lifting off unless it was a life-or-death situation.

"There is some good news," the sergeant told us. "The weather's expected to break sometime tonight."

"And you'll put us on the first thing smoking?" I asked.

"You got it," he promised.

Resigned to our fate, Ernie and I grabbed a couple of cups of coffee and tried to make ourselves comfortable on the wooden benches in the tiny waiting room.

I leafed through a magazine. Ernie bitched about missing Happy Hour. We waited.

It was almost midnight, and I had started to doze off, when the Flight Control Sergeant shook me awake.

"Call for you."

Rubbing my eyes, I stumbled to the counter and grabbed the telephone. It was Herman. In the background I heard a woman shrieking. Slicky Girl Nam.

"We received another package," Herman said.

"From the kidnappers?"

'Yeah."

"What's it say?"

"It doesn't say nothing. It's a clipping from a newspaper or something. A picture of the full moon."

Nam was crying and gnashing her teeth so loudly in the background that I could barely hear Herman.

"They're reminding us of the deadline," I said. "That's it? There was nothing else in the package?"

"Something was wrapped in the paper."

My stomach started to churn. Herman's voice seemed eerily calm.

"What was it, Herman?"

"A part of a finger. Mi-ja's. Two knuckles' worth."

I heard something plop on wood. The phone line crackled. Slicky Girl Nam's wailing increased in volume. Herman came back on the line.

"Sorry," he said. "I dropped it."

I swallowed through a dry throat but managed to speak. "Have the KNPs come up with anything?"

"Nada. Not a goddamn thing."

"Keep a grip, Herman," I said. "Ernie and I are on our way to Taejon."

I hung up the phone.

Ernie was still stretched out on the wooden bench, his head propped up on his overnight bag, his hands laced across his stomach, snoring calmly. He slept with the clear conscience of a Catholic saint.

Three hours later the rain slowed and the wind stopped. I shook Ernie awake and the two of us clambered aboard a roaring Huey helicopter.

As we lifted into the sky, the stars emerged from behind drifting monsoon clouds. They sparkled brightly, as if each one had been polished by the hand of God.

Steel needles of agony shot up from Mi-ja's severed finger. The pain from her missing ear had long since settled into a pounding ache. Still, all these sensations had gradually spun into an unbreakable cocoon of misery. A cocoon Mi-ja was coming to accept.