"Where is this association located?" Ernie asked.
"Chong-ro," Riley answered. "Downtown Seoul."
Ernie lifted his eyebrows at me.
It took ten minutes to switch from the Eighth Army phone net to the civilian lines in Seoul. Once I got through, all I heard was a steady ringing.
I slammed the phone down. "No answer."
Ernie glanced at his watch. "Most of the world's already closed up shop and gone to Happy Hour."
"You want me to check with the KNP Liaison Officer?" Riley asked. "See if he can contact them?"
I thought about it. "Wouldn't do any good. Even if these Buddhists had a line on Ragyapa and his boys, they wouldn't be staying in the same hotel. They would've moved by now. Probably two or three times."
I paced the room. Two sets of eyeballs following me.
"Besides," I said, "tonight is the full moon."
Ernie unwrapped a new stick of ginseng gum. "Our last chance to save Mi-ja."
Slicky girl Nam was in her glory. A dozen old women from the neighborhood had gathered at her hooch and everyone watched as she stood in the center of the courtyard and screamed at us.
"Where you been? Why you no find Mi-ja? Why you no bring jade skull?"
I held up both hands. "Calm down, Nam. We're here now. Where's Herman?"
"I don't know. That sonofabitch kara chogi." Gone away. "He here this afternoon but now he gone. I don't know where."
One of the women shuffled across the courtyard to check the charcoal. Using iron tongs, she pried open the cover. The fire glowed brightly. She let the metal lid clang shut.
The edge of the full moon peeked over a tile roof.
"There it is!" Nam screeched. "The moon! Pretty soon foreign assholes kill Mi-ja." She clutched my sleeve. "You do something!"
"We are going to do something," I told her. "When was the last time the kidnappers called you?"
"You know. When they told you to go to top of Hooker Hill."
"They'll be calling again tonight," I said, "to give us instructions. You wait here. Ernie and I will handle it."
Slicky Girl Nam clutched her bare arms and shivered.
At the pharmacy, Ernie and I passed a bottle of soju back and forth. I carried the. 38 under my jacket, Ernie had his. 45. Still, a little extra courage couldn't hurt.
I'd thought of having some sort of MP rapid-response team put at our disposal, but it wouldn't work. Wherever this rendezvous was going to be, Ragyapa would have lookouts. A bunch of clumsy cops barging in would be spotted for sure. We had no choice. Ernie and I had to handle the exchange ourselves.
"Where the hell did that goddamn Herman get off to?" Ernie asked.
"Don't know." I sipped on the soju. The fiery rice liquor burned all the way down.
"Maybe it's better without him," Ernie said. "If we took him along, there's no telling what he might do. The guy's totally unpredictable."
I stared at Ernie, trying to figure if he was joking. His expression seemed perfectly serious.
I handed him the bottle. As I did, the phone rang. I lost my grip and the soju crashed to the ground, liquor and crystal splashing everywhere.
"Shit!"
I snatched the phone off the hook. "Sueno."
"Midnight." It was the gravelly voice again. Ragyapa. "The Bridge of the Golden Tribute."
"Where's that?"
"You must find it."
It was already almost eleven. We had to drive back to the compound, pick up the skull, then make it to wherever in the hell this Bridge of the Golden Tribute was.
"I need more time."
"No more time! Midnight. Or the child dies."
The line went dead.
I opened the door of the admin office with my key and switched on the lights. In front of the safe, I turned to Ernie.
"Do you have the combination?"
"No. I thought you had it."
"Shit. I don't have it either." I glanced at the clock on the wall. "No sweat. We still have an hour until midnight. All we have to do is track down Riley. He has the combination."
"Right."
We locked the office back up and headed for the Lower Four Club.
We found Riley, all right. passed out in a puddle of bourbon. When I slapped him a couple of times, he raised his head and groaned.
An old lifer at the bar named Kenny told us the story.
"Herman the German was in tonight. Paying for every round. Never seen him so generous."
"Which explains why Riley was putting it away."
"Sure," Kenny said. "He can't pass up a freebie."
I checked Riley's pockets, looking for his wallet. Ernie finally spotted it on the floor beneath the cocktail table. A couple of dollars' worth of Military Payment Certificates and his weapons card and photos of smiling Caucasian faces were strewn all over the filthy carpet. But no safe combination.
"Enough of this shit," Ernie said.
We dragged Riley into the latrine and stuck his head under the cold water faucet. Finally, he sputtered to life. "What the hell?"
I slapped his cheeks. Hard. "Gimme the combination to the safe!"
"What?"
I slapped him again, maybe a little harder than necessary. "The combination, Riley. What's the goddamned combination?"
"Okay," he said in a hurt voice. "Why didn't you say so?" He reached for his back pocket. "It's in my wallet."
"No, it's not," I said. "We already checked there."
"Okay, then. I remember it. Just give me a minute."
Ernie shoved him back toward the water faucet and Riley started to spout out the numbers. I memorized them as fast as he said them.
Ernie clicked in the tumblers and swung open the heavy door. We peered inside.
"Son of a bitch!" Ernie shouted.
The safe was empty.
I swore and slumped down on one of the straight-backed chairs.
Once again, as it had done so often before, the jade skull of Kublai Khan had vanished. But this time, I knew who had stolen it.
An old lifer and an infamous black marketeer. The man who'd treated Riley to so many drinks he'd passed out. The husband of Slicky Girl Nam. The father of the kidnapped Mi-ja. The man everyone in Itaewon knew well. Or thought they did.
Herman the German.
26
The first thing Ragyapa noticed was how large she was. How unlike other women. This creature known as Lady Ahn talked back when spoken to. And whenever someone made the mistake of letting one of her fists swing free, she punched the nearest of Ragyapa's disciples. Two of the monks had to struggle to twist her arms behind her back. They'd shackled her to the metal ring in the basement floor.
She looked like a woman-the small waist, the large breasts, the round hips-but she punched and spit like the most ferocious of men. A she-tiger. Not at all like the compliant little girl, Mi-ja.
Ragyapa wanted to meditate with this woman. The monks took off her clothes and oiled her down but as soon as they unbound her wrists she started fighting again. No matter how often she was beaten, she kept fighting back.
Was it because of her royal blood? Ragyapa doubted it. True royals have everything done for them-from birth until death-and are the most docile people in the world. No, it wasn't her lineage that caused this woman to be so arrogant. It was the way she'd been brought up.
That was it, Ragyapa decided. She was nothing more than a peasant who thought too highly of herself. Trying to teach her proper behavior would be a waste of time.
He imagined her in the lotus position, oiled down, sitting across from him. Naked. For some reason the vision didn't excite him. She was too big, too gross, too full of her own desires.