Buddha's money

"You sleep here." She pointed to the stuffed cotton mat in the center of the sarang-bang, the main room of the hooch. "I will sleep in the kitchen."

And she did. Unrolling a straw mat on the cement floor and covering herself with a comforter.

When she turned off the lights, I lay down. But I didn't sleep very well.

Ernie's and Fifi's giggling didn't bother me much. But later, when the Widow Kang started moaning-and then screaming-it became a little difficult to drift off into dreamland.

I listened intently but Lady Ahn didn't seem to move.

I couldn't even hear her breathe.

In the morning, Fifi Kang boiled a big brass pot of water and we took turns in the outside byonso using the toilet and washing up.

Ernie was the last to rise and emerged from the bedroom unshaven and red-eyed, buckling up his pants. Something fell out of his back pocket. The felt coin purse, the one the little nun had given him.

"You're pretty careless with that thing," I said.

"What thing?" Ernie asked.

"That felt purse on the floor."

He looked down. "Oh, that thing."

"We forgot to return it to the little nun."

"I guess we did," Ernie said wearily.

The contents had tumbled out and Ernie knelt and picked up the coins. He counted them out and smoothed the wrinkled bills.

"Buddha's money," he said. "All three thousand five hundred and eighty won of it."

Not even seven dollars U.S.

Something else was poking out of the felt purse. Ernie pried it loose from the felt and held it up to the light. The jade amulet.

Lady Ahn walked into the room at that moment and her mouth fell open. She was staring at the amulet. I snatched it from Ernie's hand and handed it to her.

She studied the smooth-bodied Maitreya Buddha, a deity as much revered here in Korea as any Catholic saint. The little figure was still perched on his lotus blossom and his face was still serene, but one foot stomped down on the supine figure of a snarling, long-fanged demon with six arms.

Lady Ahn snapped at Ernie.

"Where did you get this?"

Ernie scratched his tousled hair, his eyes still bleary, and looked at me.

"Where the hell did I get it, pal?"

"From the Buddhist nun. The one who was attacked in Itaewon."

"A nun was attacked?" Lady Ahn asked. Apparently, she hadn't been reading the newspapers much. It was the first time I'd seen her lose her composure.

"Yeah," Ernie said. "And a good thing we saved her, too, or that GI might've done a real number on her."

Fifi Kang, eyes wide, stepped forward and hugged Lady Ahn. She, too, stared at the amulet as if it were a scorpion about to snap.

Lady Ahn handed the amulet back to Ernie, an expression of defeat on her face. 'Tes," she murmured. "I understand now."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The Korean Buddhists, the followers of Maitreya, are searching for the jade skull. That's why that nun was in Itaewon. And she carried this amulet to protect her from the followers of Mahakala, the demon who is the lord of the Mongolian Buddhists." She shook her head. "The Mongolian Buddhists must be the ones who kidnapped Mi-ja. And the man who attacked your Buddhist nun must've been one of them."

"No way," Ernie said. "It was a GI who attacked her. We saw him, didn't we, pal?"

I nodded.

"Who you saw," Lady Ahn said, "was a Mongolian, and a follower of Mahakala, who is trying to discourage the Korean Buddhists from searching further for the jade skull."

"A follower of Mahakala?" Ernie asked. "That would be a first for a soul brother."

I didn't like him mocking Lady Ahn. I knew my feelings for her weren't helping me conduct an objective investigation. Still, I had to protect her.

"So maybe it wasn't a GI," I said. "It was raining. And it was dark."

Ernie snorted. I ignored him and turned to Lady Ahn. "Then a lot of people are after the skull?"

"Yes," Lady Ahn answered. "Many people. Some of them Mongolian followers of Mahakala, the Lord of the Demons. Arid some of them Korean followers of Maitreya, the Buddha of the Vision of the Future."

Ernie rubbed his chin. "In that case, I'd better shave."

After coffee, Lady Ahn busied herself packing her small suitcase. She'd made her decision.

"You will go with me," she told me. "So will he." She pointed at Ernie. "The Widow Kang will stay here."

Fifi didn't complain. She looked haggard after last night's session. Ernie sat cross-legged on the warm vinyl floor, smiling contentedly as Fifi stirred his coffee for him and ladled in more sugar. "So where we going?" he asked.

I already knew the answer but I let Lady Ahn say it. She stopped packing and turned and stared at him.

"To the Monastery of the Sleeping Dragon," she replied. "On the island of Bian-do. We're going to recover the jade skull of Kublai Khan."

"Why not?" Ernie lifted his coffee and sipped noisily. "I don't have anything else to do today."

Ernie admires a bold chick.

So do I.

"But first you must know this." Lady Ahn pulled a stiff piece of paper out of her handbag and tossed it on the floor between us. Ernie picked it up, frowned, then handed it to me. It was a photo. Of a mutilated body, neck slashed, lying spread-eagled on a rocky beach.

"What is this?" Ernie asked.

"A man," she answered. "A skilled commando."

"Yeah?"

"This man was the last person to reach the Monastery of the Sleeping Dragon and attempt to steal the jade skull."

Ernie set down his coffee, staring at it sourly, and spoke gruffly to the Widow Kang. 'There's not enough sugar in this."

Fifi hurriedly dumped in two more mounds of bleached granules.

I stared down at the grainy photo. The neck of the commando had been savagely ripped, his head almost completely sawed off.

I touched the mutilated ear in my pocket and tried not to think of Mi-ja-and what she must be suffering. I tried not to think of what might happen to her if we didn't save her before the moon became full.

15

It hadn't been easy to find a horse in the city of Seoul.

These people live together like packed rats, Ragyapa thought. Not like Mongols, who make their homes in yurts, felt tents, on the endless steppes and trackless mountains of his homeland, Mongolia.

It was past midnight curfew, and Ragyapa and his band of followers stood near a children's amusement park. The horse they'd found was only a pony, caged in a wooden pen. Nearby was the small carousel the pony pulled during the day, with smiling ducks and geese and swans for the children to ride on.

Ragyapa patted the little horse on the neck. Its brown eyes rolled up at him nervously.

What a paltry specimen, Ragyapa thought. Not much smaller than the Mongol ponies he had known all his life, but there was no strength in this animal. His legs were spindly and his haunch and forelimbs had no heft to them, not like the muscled creatures who ran wild across the upper plains of the Mongolian heartland.

Still, Ragyapa needed horseflesh and this creature would have to do.

Ragyapa climbed up on the back of the pony. The animal whinnied and staggered beneath his weight. A few of Ragyapa's men smiled at the horse's weakness but none of them laughed. Laughter is not the way of the nomad.

Ragyapa fondled the pony's mane, feeling along the vertebrae beneath the short hair. He pinched when he found the correct spot and felt the vein pulsing beneath his fingers. Deftly, Ragyapa unsheathed his gleaming blade and sliced a thin line through the horse's hide. He squeezed, forcing blood out, then bent and sucked the warm fluid into his mouth.

One of Ragyapa's disciples handed him a wooden bowl. When Ragyapa's mouth had filled with blood, he spit it into the bowl, and leaned down to suck out more.