Lady Ahn thoroughly, possibly arrest her for trying to smuggle a valuable national treasure out of the country, and help Herman get his daughter back.
Everything would be under control.
I tried to push through the growing crowd, ready to help Ernie hold on to Lady Ahn.
A broad-shouldered Korean man in a business suit stepped out of the throng and shoved Ernie. Instead of just taking it and concentrating on doing his job, Ernie swiveled on the man, bristling, ready to throw a punch. Lady Ahn took advantage of the interruption and made a break for it. I yelled.
'Ernie! She's getting away!'
Ernie slammed past the Korean man and lunged for Lady Ahn, but she turned and swiped at his face with her nails. Ernie was expecting it: He raised his forearm just in time to ward off the red razors.
Lady Ahn stepped forward, embraced him, then kneed him in the balls.
Like a deflating balloon, air exploded out of Ernie. He bent over, blue-faced, cheeks bulging, green eyes threatening to pop out of his head.
I ran forward. Lady Ahn sprinted away.
Whistles and pedestrians converged on us from every direction. Lady Ahn was still screaming as she ran: 'Salam sollyol Salam sollyo!'
Two more Korean men stepped out of the crowd and lowered themselves like rugby players. I was running full speed, hemmed in on either side, and couldn't make a turn or come to a stop fast enough. As I crashed into the men, they rose up and head-butted me. I knocked them down, but sprawled on the floor after them.
I scrambled to my feet, breathing hard. But I was only fast enough to see Lady Ahn's blue raincoat fading into the sea of sneakers and handbags and leather jackets.
Behind me, a pack of Korean police were arresting the struggling Herman. Piling on. Finally, one of them managed to snap the handcuffs on first one big hairy wrist and then the other. Soon they had him down and stood over him like a tribe of Eskimos surrounding a blood-soaked polar bear.
I trotted away from them, through the catacombs of the shopping maze, trying to catch my breath. At a few stalls I stopped and asked the proprietors if they'd seen a tall woman in a blue raincoat. Each time they looked at me as if I were mad.
Finally, I found my way outside and stood in the drizzling rain. The afternoon overcast revealed nothing but tired commuters, their heads bowed, trudging through monsoon mist.
I ran back and forth between the alleys. Searching. Finding nothing.
No blue raincoat.
No tall woman.
No beautiful Lady Ahn.
10
After flashing my Eighth Army CID badge, I pleaded with the KNPs not to arrest Herman. They took us to the Mukyo-dong Police Station, unlocked Herman's handcuffs, and made him sign a statement accepting full blame for the incident. What finally convinced them not to arrest him, however, was that the victim, Lady Ahn, had disappeared without filing a complaint.
When we left the police station, Ernie bopped Herman on the head. 'Why don't you learn to act like a civilized human being, Herman? Always attacking people. What are you, some kind of a caveman?'
Talk about the critic being guilty of the crime.
Standing on the busy sidewalk, Herman seemed oblivious to the sting of Ernie's knuckles. Flesh crinkled on his sloping forehead. 'What'll we do now?'
'We'll find Lady Ahn,' I said.
'How?' Herman asked. 'I don't have any way to contact her.'
'She found you once, didn't she?'
'Yes.'
'Then we can find her.'
Herman looked up at Emie, puzzled. Ernie slapped Herman on the shoulder. 'Believe him,' he said. 'George Sueno can sniff out a kimchi jar in a field of garlic. He's Mexico's answer to Sherlock Holmes. Maybe not a very good answer, but an answer nevertheless.'
Herman stared at Ernie, still confused.
The drizzle turned into a steady patter. I grabbed Herman's arm and walked him toward the jeep.
'Where are we going?' he asked.
'To meet some of your partners in crime,' I answered, 'and ask them a few questions.'
We spent the afternoon in downtown Seoul, talking to various antique dealers. The way I figured it, when Lady Ahn went looking for an American who would be able to ship a valuable antique to the States, she would've talked to Korean businessmen in the trade. The only ones able to guide her to the right man. Namely, Herman the German.
Once we found the dealer who had tipped her off to Herman, we could backtrack from there.
If we found her, I could get a better handle on what was so valuable about the skull. Once I understood that, I might be able to understand what would bring men thousands of miles from Mongolia to Korea to lay claim to a piece of carved jade. And why. And knowing why could lead to us finding them.
First I had to know more about Herman's business. He was reluctant to tell us-a couple of CID agents-since his business was mainly illegal. After Ernie rapped him on the skull a couple of times, however, he opened up.
Herman and Slicky Girl Nam had been running a thriving black market business for years. Buy the duty-free goods in the PX and the commissary on-post, sell it to the Koreans off-post. Double your money. But that hadn't been enough.
In Itaewon, a lot of shops catering to international tourists had started to spring up over the last few years. The shops specialized in name-brand products-sneakers and jackets and blue jeans-that were produced here but shipped overseas to be sold at inflated prices. Since Itaewon purchased factory-direct, the goods cost about half what you'd pay for them in America or in Europe. Itaewon also specialized in brassware, handcrafted leather goods, and, more to the point, antiques.
In recent years, so many ancient chests and vases and statuettes had disappeared from Korean estates that the government had started to clamp down. Many shipments were turned back, the owners fined-even jailed. Certain items, such as handcrafted celadon vases, couldn't be shipped out of the country at all. The translucent green pottery was considered irreplaceable and as such, a treasured national artifact.
But household goods shipped out of the country by United States military and diplomatic personnel were never inspected by ROK customs personnel. Only by GIs deputized as U.S. Customs agents. For the most part, these inspectors were either incompetent, lazy, corrupt, or all three. And they definitely weren't worried about stopping Korean national treasures from leaving Korea.
Therefore, if you wanted to ship a valuable antique out of the country, placing it in a GI's household goods shipment was the safest-and cheapest-way to go.
That's where Herman came in.
Somewhere along the line some smart Korean antique dealer had contacted him and asked him to set up an outbound shipment. Herman had agreed, contacted a GI on his way out of the country, and a price was set for him to ship the item in his household goods. Later, the Korean dealer would have somebody in the States contact the GI and retrieve the smuggled item-and ship it on to the ultimate buyer in the States or Europe or Saudi Arabia.
Everybody made out. The GI was paid for his trouble, half in cash up front, half when the shipment arrived in the States. Herman raked off a percentage. And the antique dealer didn't have to worry about being arrested by the Korean Ministry of the Interior.
Word spread. If you wanted something shipped out of country, Herman the German was the man to contact.
Through the overcast monsoon afternoon, Ernie and Herman and I moved from antique dealer to antique
