Martin Limon - Buddha's money

"Maybe he's found him now."

We shoved our way through the thickening, screaming crowd. The riot police behind us were in a panic, breaking ranks. Big armored vehicles, water hoses spraying, inched backward.

By the time we reached the jeep it was engulfed in a sea of people who were rocking it rhythmically back and forth. The nun shouted at one of the bystanders.

"What happened?"

"Some dog-faced American hit one of our demonstrators. A woman."

"Is she hurt badly?"

"They've taken her to a hospital."

People were ripping the canvas off the top of the jeep. Herman was inside, handcuffed to the roll bar, like a fleshy morsel inside a clam. He was screaming.

Ernie pulled out his. 45. "They're messing with our prisoner."

I grabbed him. "Damn, Ernie. You're going to get us killed."

He swiveled on me. "They're going to kill himl"

I had no answer for that.

Choi So-lan shoved between us. "I will talk to them."

Before we could stop her, she plowed forward into the mob, head down, and burrowed her way to the front of the jeep. Holding her gasoline-soaked robes, she clambered up on what was left of the hood and waved her slender arms over her head.

"Listen to me, good people!" she called. The crowd continued to roar. "Listen to me!"

Gradually, a few heads turned. People elbowed one another, pointed.

"You all know who I am. I am Choi So-lan!"

A murmur went through the crowd, the name repeated from person to person. As the student demonstrators recognized her they stopped rocking the jeep.

"I am the woman who would be sacrificed today!"

The roar started to subside, the calls for vengeance against the foreign lout died down. Not everyone was paying attention, however. One man called for death to the big noses. Others shouted their approval. But people started to shush them, many wanted to hear what the famous nun had to say. The jeep's rusty springs gave out a final squeak. At last, the crowd quieted.

"The Americans have turned over my attacker to the authorities!"

A cheer went up from the demonstrators.

The nun pointed at the huddled mass of flesh in the jeep. "This born-of-a-dog foreigner must be punished." Another cheer went up. She raised her voice as high as it would go. "But not like this! He must be put in jail and tried for his crimes. Let not the foreigners say that we Koreans are barbaric. Let them not say that we tore a man to pieces without a trial!"

She pointed to the young men nearest the jeep. "You there, stand back! Allow the proper authorities to take this man into custody."

I grabbed the handcuff keys from Ernie and darted for- ward through the crowd. Leaning my body across the jeep, I unlocked Herman's cuffs, keeping my head down, hoping that at least some of the people in the back of the crowd wouldn't realize that I was an American.

"Keep your face down," I whispered to Herman, "and follow me. Don't say anything."

"I didn't mean to hit that girl-"

"Don't say anything, goddamn it, Herman. If they hear English it will just remind them that we're foreigners."

I jerked him out of the seat, threw my arm protectively around his shoulders, and, both of us bending low at the waist, we crouched our way through the crowd.

At just that moment a group of students managed to overcome the crew of one of the armored vehicles. Standing atop it, hollering, they turned the vehicle toward the line of riot police and started spraying them with water from their own hose.

A cheer roared from the crowd. A knot of students hoisted the little nun on their shoulders and swept her toward the site of this momentous victory.

Ernie joined Herman and me as we hurried through the crowd. "These kids think they're tough shit, but they're going to get their butts kicked," Ernie said. "They're just pissing off the man."

"Yeah," Herman said. "They ought to calm down."

Ernie slapped the side of Herman's head. "What about you, moron! Driving that jeep while it was still chained."

"I had to catch Ragyapa."

"But you didn't. Did you?"

"I came close. I clipped him a couple of times. And after I hit that girl he ran over here. Toward that yoguan."

It was the same yoguan where the M-l shooter had hidden and fired on me. While Ernie and Herman were arguing, I'd been scanning the crowd, searching for some sign of Ragyapa. Some sign of Lady Ahn.

It was Ernie who spotted them first. "Over there. Up the alley."

They were under a lamppost. Lady Ahn on Ragyapa's back, clawing him like an enraged lioness.

"She's kicking his butt." Ernie's voice was filled with admiration.

"She ought to," Herman said. "By the time I got through with him, he could barely walk."

I sprinted forward, but my progress was excruciatingly slow. I had to push through tightly packed clumps of shoving students. I felt as if I were running through glue.

Another figure appeared in the light of the lamppost. A man. Holding a rifle.

"I thought you took care of him!" I shouted.

"Shot him in the arm," Ernie replied. "I didn't want to execute him."

"What about the damn rifle?"

"I took the magazine out."

But Lady Ahn didn't know that. The wounded Mongolian thug pointed the muzzle of the M-l rifle into Lady Ahn's face. She stopped clawing and backed off, gasping for breath. Ragyapa hoisted himself to his feet. He started hobbling up the alley, clutching the jade skull. His hired gun covered his retreat.

"They're getting away," Ernie said. "With the jade skull."

"Let 'em go," I said. "Who gives a shit about it?"

Lady Ahn stood motionless, breathing heavily. Then she stepped up the hill into the darkness, after Ragyapa and the man with the M-l rifle. After the skull.

"She's got balls," Herman said.

We finally shoved our way past the last of the demonstrators. The riot police were in total flight now. Their ranks had been broken. Many of them lay wounded and bleeding on the ground, their helmets and shields and batons scattered everywhere.

I felt sorry for them. Sure, they were the symbols of oppression. But in reality they were just a bunch of farmers, beaten up by a bunch of rich students. No one in the government, until now, realized how much rage the assault on the Buddhist nun had released. And no one had been able to predict that the riot police would be outnumbered ten to one.

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.

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.