"Who saw it?" I asked.
Still no answer. Ernie sloshed steaming water onto the Formica-covered table in front of him. Three astonished drivers sprang to their feet, slapping the steam rising from their trousers. As one, they all started cursing.
Ernie sloshed more water at the drivers. They kicked their chairs back and leapt out of the way.
"Who saw the men who took the woman?" I shouted.
A burly young driver stepped toward the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife from a wooden chopping block. An older, gray-haired man noticed him, turned back to me, and started to speak.
"It wasn't a car," he said.
I turned to him, waiting. Ernie stopped sloshing tea.
"It was a truck," the man said. "Three wheels. The back seemed to be loaded, but they shoved the woman in there."
"Was she struggling?"
"No. I thought she was asleep. Or drunk."
"Where did the truck go?"
"Down the hill." He jerked his thumb toward the nightclub district. "It was a blue truck."
That didn't narrow it down much. Almost every truck in Korea was either blue or green or gray.
"Did you see the license plate number?"
"No reason to look."
"What was the truck loaded with?"
"Garlic." The driver with the butcher knife pushed himself past some of his irate comrades, edging closer to Ernie. The gray-haired man noticed him and spoke again. "If you had arrived two minutes earlier, you might have caught them."
The guy with the knife lunged at Ernie. I shouted. Ernie swiveled and tossed the brass pot at him. Steaming water exploded into the air, splashing into the driver's face. He screamed.
I grabbed Ernie, shoved him forward, and kicked open the front door. We dashed out into the pelting rain. Behind us, a gaggle of drivers stood in the doorway, staring. But none of them looked too anxious to follow. They had lives to lead. Money to make. Families to support.
I hoped that the guy who received a faceful of tea wasn't hurt too badly.
Ernie turned back and flashed the drivers the finger.
"Dickheads," he said.
We searched the roads of Itaewon but there was no sign of a blue truck loaded with garlic.
And no sign of Lady Ahn.
25
I leaned over Staff Sergeant Riley's desk, breathing down the collar of his starched fatigue shirt.
"You must have something for me, Riley. Don't the Koreans keep goddamn records?"
Riley leaned away from me. "Back off, Sueno. Of course they keep records. Give me some breathing space and maybe I'll find something."
We were back in the CID office. Ever since Ragyapa and his thugs had taken Lady Ahn, I'd been badgering everyone-the KNPs, the MPs, even Sergeant Riley-to find me some sort of lead so I could nail those bastards.
Before Ernie and I left Itaewon, we'd stopped in the Police Station and questioned Captain Kim on his progress on the Mi-ja kidnapping case. He admitted there hadn't been much.
"Too much demo," he said. Demonstrations. "Ever since Buddhist nun beat up, whole country crazy."
The madness that was sweeping the country-and especially Itaewon-over the mugging of Choi So-lan, the Buddhist nun, had all Kim's cops working double shifts. Devotees bearing flower bouquets and a huge photo of the little nun dotted the Main Supply Route leading out of Eighth Army Headquarters. What with the occasional altercation between GI and demonstrator, and the nightly rallies, there was little time left to investigate the kidnapping of a little girl.
I filled out a police report on the abduction of Lady Ahn. Kim thanked me and filed it away.
"I want action on that!" I said.
Captain Kim nodded. "When I can. When I can."
Ernie had to pull me away.
Now, back at the CID office, Ernie was still working on keeping me calm. Talk about a switch. He poured two cups of coffee out of the metal urn and handed me one. I slurped it without tasting it.
A map of Seoul hung on the wall of the CID Admin office. Usually, I was fascinated by it. All the ancient palaces and gateways and temples. But today, it depressed me. A city of eight million people. How in the hell was I going to find Lady Ahn?
I shouldn't have let her stay alone. I should have known better. Either Ernie or I should've stayed with her. Or we should've brought her along.
Ernie slapped me on the back. He'd been peering at me.
"It's not your fault," he said.
"It is."
"No way. Those assholes were after the skull, not Lady Ahn. And they already had one hostage. Who would've thought they'd take her, too?"
His attempts to make me feel better didn't do any good. I sipped on a little more of the bitter coffee and then tossed the rest into the trash can.
Sergeant Riley slipped the pencil out from behind his ear and tapped the triangular eraser on a sheaf of papers.
"Here it is," he said. "I knew it was in here. The dope for the last two months on all foreigners entering Korea." Riley pushed his sleeves up along his skinny forearms. "Foreigners, most of them businessmen, broken down by nationality."
He started slashing Xs along the list.
"We can ignore all these Miguks." The Americans. "And all these pansies from Europe."
"Cross out the Japs, too," Ernie said.
"Right you are." Riley slashed vigorously. "Out with the Eastern dwarfs."
Riley claimed not to have any interest in Korean culture, other than chasing the business girls and guzzling rice wine. But he had somehow picked up all the cuss words-even a few I didn't know-and every racial epithet in the book.
"Now what we have left," Riley told us, "is a few from Africa.. " He slashed these out. "And a few more from South America." His pencil continued to work. "And that leaves a whole shitload from Indonesia and Taiwan and Malaysia and Singapore and-"
"Cross those out, too," I told him. Riley glanced up at me. I said, "Concentrate only on the states of Northeast Asia."
"Which are?"
"Mongolia, China, Manchuria, and the Soviet Union. Korea and Japan I've already eliminated."
Riley glanced back down at the paperwork. "Nothing from any of those places. The South Koreans don't issue visas to Communists. If these guys are from one of those countries, they must have phony passports."
"So this list isn't going to do me any good?"
Riley shrugged.
"Is this the only list they gave you?" I asked Riley. "Nothing else?"
"Well, there is one more thing." Riley slid a sheaf of paper out from the bottom of the pile. "The guy at Korean Customs told me I didn't really need it, but since I was paying him, I told him to throw it in anyway. By the way, you owe me forty thousand won."
Ernie's head jerked up. "Eighty bucks just for some lousy paperwork?"
"Hey. We didn't go through channels. My man was taking a risk."
"Shit," Ernie grumbled. "Take it out of petty cash."
"You find a way to fool the First Sergeant and I will."
"Don't worry," I said. "You'll get your money on payday."
That seemed to satisfy Sergeant Riley. He slapped the slender list on top of the other. 'You see why he didn't think you'd need it."
The title had been translated into crude English: Entry into Korea by Persons of Organizations Religious.
My heart beat harder. Even Ernie leaned closer.
A few minutes later, we knew how Ragyapa and his boys had entered Korea.
Using Riley's list of foreigners entering Korea, we figured that the most likely method of entry for Ragyapa and his thugs was by means of a convention that was being hosted here by the Pacific Rim Buddhist Association. About five thousand Buddhists from all over the world were attending. The festivities included elaborate ceremonies at some of the most holy Buddhist shrines on the peninsula. Worship and conferences were scheduled in many sites, and if anyone attended all the events, he'd have to spend over two months in Korea. The exact location of all the attendees was unknown even to the government. The honchos of the host organization, the Pacific Rim Buddhist Association, were the only ones with that data.