Martin Limon: Buddha's money

"Hold baggage?"

Herman nodded.

I saw the connection now. An antique dealer with a particularly precious piece she wants to smuggle out of the country. The Korean Ministry of the Interior won't let dealers take some pieces out, especially the ones classified as national treasures. Maybe this jade skull Lady Ahn had was one of them. And even if she received Korean permission to ship it to the States, once it arrived at a U.S. port of entry, a fat customs duty would be slapped on it. Military hold baggage wasn't checked as closely. In fact, it's hardly checked at all. A cursory sniff for drugs and that's about it. The perfect way to ship a prize antique out of the country.

"And once this skull arrived in the States, Lady Ahn was going to buy it back?" I asked Herman.

He nodded. "With a nice markup."

"So you were getting ready to arrange the transfer," I surmised, "but before you received the piece some guys visited you and did this."

Herman nodded again.

"And when you couldn't produce this jade skull, they took Mi-ja."

Herman let his head droop.

"You ought to get a job, Herman," Ernie said. "Earn an honest living. Then this shit wouldn't happen to you."

Herman raised his head and glanced back and forth between us. "We have to get her back."

"No sweat," Ernie said. "We grab this jade bullshit from this chick with the big yubangs, hand it over to these tough boys, and they'll give you Mi-ja back."

"But I don't know where the jade is at."

Ernie shrugged. "So we'll find it."

A bell tinkled outside. I heard a kickstand snap open and click against the pavement. A Korean boy in black shorts and a damp T-shirt pushed through the small door in Herman's gate.

"Chunghua yori chapsuseiyo," he said in a singsong voice. Please eat Chinese food.

The boy trotted past us, carrying a large tin box slashed with red ideograms. My regular attendance at Korean language night classes allowed me to read it: The Virtuous Dragon Dumpling House. The boy set the box down on the wooden platform in front of the hooches, slid back the metal sides, and pulled out a large plate of steaming dumplings. As he laid out plastic bottles of soy sauce and vinegar and a few paper-wrapped pairs of wooden chopsticks, Slicky Girl Nam roused herself from her grief.

"Uri an sikkyoso," she said. We didn't order this.

"Sonmul," the boy said. A gift. "Ohton chingu sikkyosoyo." A friend ordered it for you.

Slicky Girl Nam nodded. One of the old women squatted near the plate, grabbed a small table, unfolded the legs, and started to arrange the chopsticks.

The boy splashed past us, ducked through the gate, and hopped on his bike. In a few seconds, I heard the swishing rubber of his tires wheeling away. I turned back to Herman.

"Tell me more about the guys who broke in here," I said.

"They were foreigners."

"Foreigners? Not Korean?"

"Right. But not Americans, either."

Ernie was growing impatient with the slow plodding of Herman's thought processes. "Then what the hell were they?"

Herman shrugged. "I don't know."

"What'd they look like?" I asked.

"Sort of like Koreans, but maybe darker. They all smelled funny, too."

"Like what?"

"Like maybe incense."

"How many of them were there?"

"Maybe a half dozen. I fought 'em but they hit me a few times." Herman rubbed his head.

Ernie was completely disgusted. He knew I had the patience to continue the questioning, so he strode over to the old women and the dumplings.

"Okay," I told Herman, "a half-dozen dark Asian men break in here, demand a jade skull, and when they don't get it they torture you and kidnap your adopted daughter. Is that what happened?"

"That's what happened. When they left I followed them, but I was still dizzy. I lost them in the alleys."

"How long did you search?"

"Almost an hour. Until I found you guys."

"You never saw any of these men before?"

"No."

"And you don't have any idea how to get in touch with them?"

He shook his head sadly.

"I think what we have to do, Herman," I put my hand on his shoulder, "is talk to this woman antique dealer you were working with. She should be able to give us some sort of lead."

A shriek filled my ears.

This one was high-pitched like the others, but male. I turned and saw Ernie sitting on the raised wooden floor, kicking back with his feet, trying to get away from the plate of dumplings as if he'd just seen the flickering tongue of a cobra. I ran over, Herman huffing right behind me.

One of the dumplings had been bitten in two. A sliver of meat lay next to it. The old women held their cupped fists to their mouths, looking like frightened schoolgirls. Slicky Girl Nam's mouth hung open. A croaking sound leaked out.

"What is it?" I asked.

Ernie pointed. "The dumplings. Look at the goddamn dumplings!"

I studied the plate more carefully. The sliver of meat was raw flesh. Curled.

I opened more dumplings, pulling back the soft, doughy crust. Each dumpling contained a similar sliver of flesh. Soon I had all the slivers in a pile in the center of the table and I realized that they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Using a pair of chopsticks, I twisted and turned until they formed an odd shape.

Brown and wrinkled, about the size of a silver dollar. A human ear. The ear of a little girl.

Slicky Girl Nam started to screech again. This time the old women joined her. So did Herman.

Ernie crept off behind the hooch and threw up.

I slumped down, staring at the tips of the chopsticks and then back at the ear. After a couple of minutes, I joined Ernie.

Mi-ja shivered in the cold chamber, her aching buttocks pressed atop the varnished wood plank floor. But none of it mattered now. The discomfort made no difference. All she could feel was the searing explosion of pain flaming from the side of her head. The side of her head where her ear had been sliced off.

How had it happened so quickly? Her life had been painful before, but nothing like this. Nothing like the nightmare that had befallen her without warning.

Across the room sat the man she had first seen in Mistress Nam's courtyard. He was naked now except for the white rag wound tightly about his head. His eyes were closed, and Mi-ja wondered if he wasn't asleep. But he couldn't be, because his legs were crossed and his back was ramrod straight.

She wriggled on the hard floor. As soon as she did, a bamboo rod snapped out of the darkness and bit into the flesh of her thigh. Mi-ja winced in pain but clamped her eyes tightly. She tried not to cry.

How long had she sat like this? It seemed like hours, ever since her ear had been sliced off. And every time she moved, the bamboo rod licked at her tender nerves like the flickering tongue of some ancient serpent.

Across the chamber, a supplicant knelt behind the man in the white rag. Mi-ja opened her eyelids ever so slightly and watched, fearing the bamboo rod but wary about what these men were about to do. The supplicant dipped his hand into a wooden bowl, brought his fingers out dripping with oil, and slowly rubbed the fluid over the bronze skin of the man in the turban.

Why were they doing this? Mi-ja knew about meditation, she knew about monks, but monks always wore gray robes and covered their bodies from neck to feet. These men seemed to enjoy their nakedness. And they seemed to enjoy caressing one another.

Mi-ja tried to push the pain of her severed ear out of her mind. She thought of the mountains. Of her home. Of her mother serving her every morning-when there was food. It was always the same fare: rice gruel, steamed mountain herbs, a sliver of mackerel flesh when her father's harvest was particularly grand. A simple breakfast, but hot and filling. Better than the nurungji, the burnt crust of rice at the bottom of the cooking pot, that she had to scrounge for in the home of Mistress Nam. The old woman never rose early but always slept late, her body reeking of perfume and sweat and cigarettes and rice wine. And if Mi-ja cooked for herself, the old hag would rouse herself and shriek out a tirade against wastefulness.