When it came our turn, Lady Ahn went first, followed by me and then Ernie right behind. The fat policeman pointed at Lady Ahn's bag. He told her to drop it on the counter.
Ernie stepped forward. "Wait just a minute, honcho," he said. "I saw that little lady in front of us and you let her squirt on by without so much as a howdy-do."
The fat policeman stared at him blankly, not understanding a word he said. Ernie leaned forward, jabbing his forefinger into the palm of his open hand.
"You have to understand here, chingu. Us Miguk people, we don't put up with this kind of treatment. No, sir."
Ernie pounded on his chest like a gorilla from the Congo.
"I'm an American, you alia? Born and bred in the U.S.A. No, sir. We don't put up with this type of treatment. We're here defending your country and we demand to be treated with some serious respect!"
The line behind us came to a complete halt. People craned their necks to see what was going on and still kept shoving forward. Soon, some of them started to yell.
"I want to see your boss!" Ernie roared. "I want to see your honcho and I want to see him right now!"
The Korean National Policeman was still confused, not sure what was going on. Most people just followed his orders. He wasn't used to some big-nosed foreigner shouting loud English at him.
Other cops yelled at him to keep the line moving. Someone in an office behind the counter with its big plate-glass window finally noticed the commotion. A man dressed in a neady pressed khaki uniform under a brass-braided cap strolled out.
The same officer who had waved us through when we boarded the ferry two days ago.
When the officer saw Ernie, his face crinkled as if he'd bitten into a sour persimmon. The KNP looked at him for instruction.
"Migun itjiyo?" the honcho shouted. Aren't they GIs?
"Net." The fat cop nodded. "Migun ieiyo." Yes. They're GIs.
The honcho impatiently waved his hand. "Kurum ka. Bali ka!" Then let them go.
The KNP waved us forward. Ernie glared at the cop for a moment, shifted his bag on his shoulder, thrust out his chest, and sashayed past the inspection counter.
Lady Ahn and I stayed right with him.
On the main drag of Ok-dong, we stopped in a noodle shop and ordered three bowls of meiun-tang. Spicy noodle soup, the broth flavored with a few tiny clams and the head of a mackerel.
Lady Ahn slurped delicately on her noodles. I asked Ernie about the college chicks he'd met on the ferry.
"They're from some university out near Suwon. They gave me their phone numbers, but I don't think I'll call them."
"Why not?"
"Because they only want to go out with me one at a time."
"So?"
"When I meet 'em in a group, I want them to stay in a group. All the way into the sack."
Lady Ann's cheeks turned pink. I changed the subject.
"Looks like rain," I said.
A few drops slapped against the pavement.
"Yes," Lady Ahn said. "We must hurry."
We paid the bill, shouldered our bags, and trooped through the narrow pathways of Ok-dong, heading for the bus station.
Looking back on it, there were signs I should've Noticed. The local villagers didn't stare at us, as they would normally when encountering foreigners. Instead, they turned their heads away.
Men loitered near wooden carts, squatting and exchanging cigarettes. Nobody loiters in Korea. Especially not in a remote fishing village, where scratching out a living is a full-time occupation.
And the leather-faced monk on Bian Island had warned us. Other people were after the jade skull.
The reek of salted flesh filled the air, mingling with a dry mist of sawdust kicked up by our feet.
We had decided to take a shortcut through the Ok-dong market.
Ahead, huge glass tanks swarmed with fish. On either side, damp wooden stalls wriggled with purple-veined squid and piles of reddish crabs pinching madly into nothingness. Above us, a sea of canvas blocked the sky.
Two men stepped out from behind glass tanks. Three more appeared behind us.
All wore the loose pantaloons and soiled vests of farmers. But in their hands each man held a short heavy club or the wickedly curved sickle used for harvesting grain.
They were sunburned men and not Koreans. I knew right away who they were. Mongols. Ragyapa's thugs.
I pushed Lady Ahn behind me until her back was pressed against a stall crawling with crustaceans. Ernie dropped his bag, unzipped it, and started scratching through it frantically.
Searching for the AK-47.
19
Shorts and socks erupted into the air. but no matter how many of them he tossed out of the bag, Ernie still couldn't pry out the AK-47. As the five men closed in, I snatched up a handful of slimy squid and flung it at them. They backed up for a second, covering their eyes. But when the limp flesh flopped into the mud, they bared their teeth in sinister grins.
I didn't have a weapon. No clubs, no tree branches, no loose rocks lying about. I braced myself, prepared to use my fists and my feet and, if necessary, my teeth.
Ernie tugged and cursed and started to rip the leather bag apart.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Lady Ahn slide behind the crab stall.
Ernie had the AK-47 out of the bag now and was fumbling with the ammunition clip, holding it upside down, twisting it, trying to ram it home.
One of the men near the fish tank raised his sickle, let out a blood-curdling scream, and charged.
The world started to tilt. For an instant I felt as if I was suffering from vertigo. Then I realized that it was the glass fish tank, slowly toppling over.
Before the man with the sickle could reach us, a tsunami of water and fins exploded out of the top of the tank. The wave crashed onto his back, followed by glass and metal rods and about a jillion shimmering sardines. The attacker was swallowed up in the deluge.
Lady Ahn stood behind the tank, still shoving, her face glowing with rage.
The men behind us closed in.
I grabbed a handful of crab, flung it, and hopped forward, kicking with the upturned toe of my sneakers. A swooshing club missed my forehead by an inch. My foot caught rib, the man grunted, and I followed with a left jab. The punch landed on his chin.
Something slammed into my arm. Fire exploded from my elbow to my shoulder blade. The canvas above me swirled madly. I remember punching and gouging, but I'm not sure who all this fury was aimed at.
Again something rammed into my back. I realized it was one of the stalls. It was flattened, and I was lying on top of it. Crabs pinched my neck.
Above me a sickle whistled through the air. I rolled. The curved blade slammed into the dust.
And then a blast filled the air. An unmistakable rat-a-tat-tat and a sinus-cleansing burst of gunsmoke.
Suddenly Ernie stood above me, his face red, cords bulging in his neck, screaming, spraying the poles and canvas rooftops of the market with a stream of lethal AK-47 pellets.
Just as suddenly as it began, the firing stopped. Ernie's hand reached down, I grabbed it, and he yanked me to my feet.
"Out of ammo," he said. "Let's un-ass the area."
"By all means," I said.
Amidst the splintered stalls and tattered canvas and flopping fish, Lady Ahn appeared at my side. I grabbed her and pulled her close.
"Let's go!"
We ran out of the market, away from the bus station, through the narrow pathways of Ok-dong. Not sure where in the hell we were going.
Near the edge of the town, where the vast expanse of green rice paddies began, we finally stopped, panting for breath.
"Did I lay it on 'em, pal? Or what?" Ernie yelled.
Lady Ahn peered around nervously, at the rickety shacks behind fences of splintered slats and rusted chicken wire.