Martin Limon: Buddha's money

We'd spent most of the day at the CID office writing up our reports and getting new weapons issued and taking a series of ass-chewings from the First Sergeant. He was pissed that we'd let Herman escape, pissed that we'd been involved with a civilian demonstration, pissed that a civilian woman had been admitted to a military hospital.

I reminded him a couple of times that if we hadn't stopped Choi So-lan, the Buddhist nun, from torching herself last night, the entire country would've become engulfed in an armed revolt. As it was, the students were put down and the nun escaped alive.

This cut no ice with the First Sergeant. It was all the military regulations we'd broken that gave him a case of the ass-and the explaining he had to do to the Eighth Army honchos. He almost restricted us to compound while all our actions were being "reviewed," but we talked him out of it by mentioning that we had a rendezvous with Herman the German this afternoon.

He wanted to know where, because he was planning on sending at least a platoon of MPs to pick Herman up. If the First Sergeant and the Military Police handled it in their usual clumsy way, Herman would smell a trap and bolt and we might never see him again.

When we wouldn't spill, the First Sergeant gave in.

"But you'd better bring him back," he told us. "And I mean tonight. And I want him locked up in the MP Station. You got that?"

We said yeah about eighteen times and he finally let us go.

It was a gentle rain that was falling on Itaewon. Danbi, the Koreans call it. Sweet rain.

The thick cloud cover allowed only a filtered gray light to illuminate the village. Wind whistled through the alleys. But still, Itaewon smelled of roses, as if the pattering rain had washed away all its sins.

My body ached and I was cut and bruised all over. So was Ernie. But we could operate. Operate well enough to wrap this case up once and for all.

A foot sloshed into a puddle. I elbowed Ernie. "It's him."

Like a fat shadow, Herman slipped into the front door of the Virtuous Dragon Dumpling House.

"Let's go."

We hopped across mud islands and entered by pushing through the steam-covered glass door. All the tables were empty. It figured, on an afternoon like this. We pushed through the hanging beads back into the kitchen.

The same cook we'd seen before, the one who had sliced up Mi-ja's ear and stuffed it into boiled dumplings, stood behind a cutting board chopping away with a hatchet. His grandson sat on a stool listlessly shelling peas, his bike with the big tin delivery box parked outside. They both looked up as we entered.

"Where's Herman?"

The cook nodded toward the side of the building.

There was a large patio area, used during the dry season, covered with a wood-slat roof and protected from bugs by rusty metal screens.

Herman sat at the picnic table in the center of the patio. Rainwater dripped down his round skull. From beneath his damp coat he pulled out the M-16 he'd taken from the Korean soldier last night. He set the rifle flat on the table, pointing it at us.

"Keep your hands in plain view," he said.

Ernie and I both stopped. I held my palms out. "This isn't going to do you any good, Herman. You can't hide forever. Might as well come in with us and get it over with."

Ernie sat on one of the wooden benches and leaned back, his elbows propped on the table behind him. "Yeah. What the hell's the matter with you, Herman?"

"A lot of things are the matter with me," Herman said, "but I'm going to straighten them all out tonight."

"Oh, yeah?" Ernie wasn't buying it. "After a lifetime of fucking up, you're going to set it all straight in one night?"

Herman nodded.

Ernie blew breath between his lips. "This I have to see."

Herman rose and kept the rifle on us as he moved us back into the kitchen. He handed the boy a note. The boy slipped into his plastic poncho, went outside to his bike, and sped off splashing through the rain.

Herman turned to the cook and handed him a pile of Korean bills. "It'll only take a few minutes, ajjosi."

The man nodded, went out front, pulled all the shades, and put up his closed sign.

I started to become a trifle concerned. "You planning on shooting us, Herman?"

"Sit down against the wall." He pointed to a small bench. We sat. "Now pull your weapons out and hand 'em over."

"What the fuck?"

"Shut up, Ernie," Herman said.

With the M-16 pointed at him, Ernie shut up. He pulled out his. 45 and handed it butt first to Herman the German. Herman stuck the weapon in the thick leather belt enveloping his waist.

"What about yours?" Herman asked me.

"I'm not carrying."

Herman told me to stand. Holding the rifle with one hand, he frisked me with the other. Satisfied that I was telling the truth, he backed off and motioned for me to sit down.

"If you don't move," Herman said, "you won't get hurt."

It dawned on me what he was up to. "You want us as witnesses, is that it?"

"Sort of."

"What do you mean, sort of?"

"Well, you know how military guys are about ceremony. I'm no different from the rest."

Ernie guffawed. "I get it. What you really want, Herman, is a fucking honor guard."

"Yeah. I'm a veteran. I got the right."

Ernie started to rise. Herman lifted the M-16 and spoke softly. "But you'll be one dead honor guard trooper if you don't sit the fuck back down."

Ernie lowered himself slowly. "Okay, Herman. Okay."

Herman sat on the stool behind the cutting board, the hatchet in front of him. We waited in silence, all of us getting used to the situation.

"Who was the note for?" I asked.

"You know who."

"I do?"

"Sure you do. Think."

I thought.

Every player in our little drama had been accounted for. Little Mi-ja was dead. Ragyapa and his boys were being hunted by the KNPs, Lady Ahn was in the hospital. The Buddhist nun was reportedly back at her mountain temple. Pfc. Hatcher was locked in some dank Korean dungeon. The KNPs were still holding Sister Julie. There was only one person left.

"Your wife," I said. "Slicky Girl Nam."

"Now you got it."

Ernie let out a whoop. "Has she got a case of the ass at you, Herman! Even with that M-sixteen, you're going to need protection."

"She's the one who put the slicky boys on my ass," Herman said. "And she's the only one who can call them off."

"You're more afraid of them," I said, "than you are of Eighth Army or the Korean National Police."

Herman nodded.

Outside, the rain started to pick up.

Five minutes later, someone rapped on the door. The owner opened it, said "Oso oseiyo," and footsteps shuffled in.

Her head popped into the kitchen first. A wrinkled hand pulled off a broad-brimmed cap and a thick mane of gray and black hair cascaded to her shoulders. Slicky Girl Nam.

Her eyes were red with crying and blazed with rage.

"You son bitch!"

She charged.

Holding her small fists in the air, she smacked them into the side of Herman's head. His neck quivered, but other than that he hardly moved. She smacked him again and again and clutched his forehead with her claws, trying to pry his eyes out of his skull.

All the while, Herman kept the M-16 trained on me and Ernie, his finger on the trigger.

Ernie started to move. Herman snatched Slicky Girl Nam's wrist and ripped her fingers away from his eyeballs.

"Don't try it, Bascom," he said. Ernie sat back down.

Herman looked at Slicky Girl Nam. Her face was as twisted as a mask of the goddess of the underworld. "Not the eyes," he said. "That's the only place you have to leave alone."

When he let go of her wrists she started to pummel him again. She boxed his ears and punched his lips and smashed his nose. But she stayed away from his eyes.