curfew police.
My tourist guide to Seoul informed me that the Bridge of the Golden Tribute was located on the outskirts of the city, near the Han River Estuary.
I thought about Herman the German, a man I thought I knew.
He was a lifer like so many others. Hanging around Itaewon, living off his army retirement check and the few dollars he could hustle off the black market. It was an easy life. No worries. No job. His only commitment was to take a free military flight back and forth to Japan every ninety days to renew his three-month Korean tourist visa. Piece of cake. Sit in the Military Airlift Command terminal, sip coffee, shoot the breeze with the other lifers. A mellow way to pass one's golden years.
But then he complicated things by marrying Slicky Girl Nam. She brought the hammer down on him. Demanded that he increase his black market activities, bring in more money. She watched his hours. Didn't let him stay out all night carousing the ville. Kept him away from the young business girls who would wink and crook their fingers and make off with a few of those retiree greenbacks.
Slicky Girl Nam wanted those dollars all to herself.
And maybe she felt that she needed more than just the force of her personality to keep Herman in line. Maybe she felt that what their little family needed was a child.
The result had been instant responsibility for Herman the German. A guy who for most of his life had only two responsibilities: to make military formations every morning and to show up in the pay line at the end of every month.
It was clear to me now. Herman had wanted the jade skull all along. Maybe he had fantasies of smuggling it out of the country, selling it on the illicit art market in New York or in Europe. Taking the money and never returning to Korea. Never black-marketing again. Never again seeing Slicky Girl Nam. Maybe he grew tired of being knuckled on the head every time he spoke, of being humiliated in public, of being berated by a woman whose only accomplishments lay in the realms of prostitution and thievery.
But how had it all worked? Why had Herman entrapped us in all this? Why had Ragyapa kidnapped Mi-ja? How many people were being double-crossed? What the hell was really going on here?
Ernie pulled up to Sodae-mun, the Great West Gate, the narrow stone edifice leading to the Bridge of the Golden Tribute.
'Where's the bridge?' he asked.
'Right at the next intersection,' I said. 'And at the third alley you come to, left for about a quarter mile.'
He gunned the engine, cutting off a kimchi cab and flipping the irate driver the bird.
This entire mess started when Lady Ahn approached Herman the German about smuggling the jade skull out of Korea. Had she told him she didn't have the skull yet? That she was just making preparations so she could move it quickly once the skull came into her possession? Maybe. Or more likely, Herman had guessed. Maybe she'd been vague about the exact dates. And Herman would need exact dates to set something up. GIs left Korea only under military orders. With precise 'will proceed' dates. Herman would have to know exactly when the skull would be available in order to set up someone to ship it out of the country for him.
When Lady Ahn couldn't give him a precise date, he'd known she didn't have the skull yet.
And then Ragyapa came onto the scene. Had he been following Lady Ahn? Yes. And when she approached Herman, Ragyapa waited until she was gone, then approached Herman himself.
I almost leapt out of my seat. That was it. Ragyapa and Herman were working together.
Ernie glanced over at me. 'What's wrong?'
I explained my suspicions. When I'd finished, he slammed the palm of his hand against the steering wheel. 'I'm going to waste me some goddamn Herman the German.'
The alley narrowed, two cabs tried to squeeze past us without slowing, and Ernie scraped by them, grinding his teeth.
I should have seen it earlier.
When we made the first rendezvous with Ragyapa, Herman had been willing to let me go upstairs alone. Even though he knew Mi-ja might be there.
Maybe he had been afraid. But there was more.
Ragyapa's thugs had been waiting for us when we arrived on the ferry in Ok-dong. How had they known we were there? By torturing the Widow Fifi Kang. But how had they known we'd gone to Taejon? Only a few people knew. One of them was Herman.
And the clincher was the fire at the yoguan. Ragyapa and his boys had known Lady Ahn was there. They took a chance that maybe she had the jade skull with her. They were wrong about that, but they were right about her whereabouts. Other than me and Ernie, only Herman knew where she had been staying.
Herman the German had been working with Ragyapa.
Why?
It was clear from our experiences on Bian-do that a foreigner like Ragyapa, even with the help of all his thugs, would never have been able to sail out to that hidden island and steal the jade skull from the monks on his own. Ragyapa must've realized that such a theft would take connections. Connections that only Lady Ahn could provide.
How much easier it would be to wait until she had stolen the jade skull, and then take it from her. And when best to grab it? When it came into the hands of Herman the German.
But why kidnap Mi-ja?
Maybe Ragyapa and Herman decided that Lady Ahn would need help. Koreans were certainly capable of helping her, but they all had connections in-country, debts to pay, families to support. Betrayal was a real possibility. The jade skull, once stolen from Bian-do, might never reach Herman the German. Or Ragyapa.
But who could help Lady Ahn? Who was trustworthy? Who had a reason to make sure that the skull reached the greedy hands of Herman the German?
GIs. No connections in-country. No families. No baggage of heavy indebtedness. And amongst GIs who had investigative experience? Who spoke the language? Who had CID badges that would help ward off the Korean police? Who was available right here in Itaewon, ready and waiting to be manipulated into a fool's errand?
The answer was simple: George Suefio and Ernie Bascom. At your service.
But they had to give us a reason to go along with such a dangerous mission. Money wouldn't be enough. Only one thing would be enough. Saving the life of a little girl. Saving the life of Mi-ja, Herman's own daughter.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. Herman had been working with Ragyapa all along. He had probably delivered Mi-ja to him. He had faked the anger at Lady Ahn in the subway, faked his hatred of Ragyapa and his thugs at the Temple of the Dream Buddha. But maybe there was one thing he hadn't faked. He hadn't faked his anguish at seeing her little ear sliced off and chopped up for dumplings.
I knew about the betrayal of children. When my mother died, my father took off and didn't return. Leaving me alone forever.
Had Herman been there when they'd chopped off Mi-ja's ear?
It was a question I was looking forward to asking him.
When the jade skull actually arrived in Seoul, I was the one who'd made the mistake of calling Herman. To lessen his anguish. To let him know that his nightmare-his daughter's nightmare-was almost over.
And what had he done in return? He'd notified Ragyapa of Lady Ahn's whereabouts.
Was it then that he decided to double-cross Ragyapa? Not to wait until we turned the jade skull over in exchange for Mi-ja, but to break into the CID office and steal the jade for himself?
Or was it Ragyapa who double-crossed Herman first? By snatching Lady Ahn at the yoguan? Ragyapa believed she had the jade skull with her. Herman would've been cut out of the deal if Ragyapa had managed to obtain the skull himself. Maybe it was the fire that made Herman decide to buy a few drinks for Staff Sergeant Riley, let him liquor himself up, and then steal the combination to the CID safe.
Double cross on top of double cross. Was that the ancient legacy of the jade drinking skull of Kublai Khan?
And now the skull was gone. Herman had it and he was running. And I was left with the rare honor of informing the murderous Ragyapa about that fact, while at the same time trying to keep Mi-ja and Lady Ahn alive.
