had only made her desire more rabid.
She made her decision. She must cooperate if she was going to be given anything more to drink.
She opened her mouth wide and said 'aah.'
The man slid the single strand of straw down Mi-ja's throat. He waited, making sure that she didn't gag. When he was satisfied, he reached down, picked up another dry twig, and slid it carefully down the throat of the helpless little girl.
After a small clump was in place, the man splashed a little more water down Mi-ja's throat.
Moisture seeped into the straw. It started to expand.
29
The next morning I was the first one into the CID OFfice. I sat at Riley's desk, sipping on a steaming cup of snack bar coffee, riffling through the blotter reports. No word at all on Herman the German.
Last night, on the way back from the Bridge of the Golden Tribute, Ernie and I had stopped at the MP Station. We started making calls, woke up a lot of duty officers- both Korean and American-but before we were through, managed to put out a description of Herman the German and a detention order for him at every port of embarkation in the country.
There are no land exits from the Republic of Korea, except by way of the Demilitarized Zone-and trying to walk across the heavily mined DMZ is suicide. The officials at every other possible escape route, whether by air or by sea, had now been alerted to collar Herman the German as soon as he showed himself.
It took us a few hours and it was exhausting work at that time of night, but we had him. Herman was bottled up like a genie in a magic kingdom. And he wouldn't escape. Not in this lifetime.
The slack-jowled face of a hungover Sergeant Riley peeked around the doorjamb. 'What the hell you doing in this early?'
'Trying to develop a lead on Herman the German.'
Riley's stiffly pressed khakis crackled with starch. 'Good. That lowlife ought to be locked up just for having bought me all those drinks.'
'You don't remember, do you?'
Riley gazed at me, trying to focus. 'Remember what?'
'Herman stole the combination to the CID safe from you last night. And then he stole the jade skull.'
Thin lips tightened around crooked teeth. 'Can I have my desk back now?'
'Sure, Sarge. Looks like you could use a little rest.'
Riley sat down on the creaking wooden chair and started shuffling stacks of paperwork from one corner to another. 'Jade skull. Stolen. All right. I get it. So have you found it yet?'
'We're working on it.'
'How about that little girl?'
'Still in hostile custody.'
'And the big girl?'
'Her, too.'
Riley let his hands flop tq the desk. 'You and Ernie aren't doing very well on this case, are you?'
'Not very.'
'Better get your ass in gear before the First Sergeant chomps it off.'
'I need to talk to him this morning.'
'About what?'
'About turning over Hatcher to the ROKs.'
Riley's eyes widened. 'Don't be messing with him about that. The Eighth Army honchos have a case of the big ass about all these demonstrations. They say they're going to hold on to Hatcher as long as they want to and not be bullied into turning him over by a bunch of long-haired jerk-off students.'
'Bullied? How can a thirty-thousand-man field army, with access to all the weapons in the United States arsenal, be bullied by anybody?'
Riley ignored the question. But the more I thought about it the more I figured he was probably right. The Eighth Army generals would see the demonstrations that way. Radicals trying to push them around. Everybody, no matter how much power they have, always thinks they're being picked on.
'Besides,' I told Riley, 'those students aren't jerk-offs.'
'Of course they are. What are you, some kinda Communist?'
I took a deep breath. Time to make it official. 'If Eighth Army doesn't turn Hatcher over to the Koreans before tomorrow afternoon, that nun he attacked is going to burn herself to death in downtown Seoul. In front of Buddha and everybody.'
'How do you know this?'
'She told me.'
'Christ, Sueno! If that little broad toasts herself, it'll start a goddamn insurrection.'
'Just like those monks who burned themselves in Saigon,' I said. 'The government fell because of it.'
'Have you reported this to Top?'
'No. That's why I want to talk to him this morning.'
Riley stood up, confused, as if he wanted to go somewhere but wasn't quite sure where. 'Yeah. You better talk to Top. Right away. You better.'
I sat in a straight-backed chair across from Riley's desk and continued to sip my coffee. The ball was rolling now. We'd see where it went. But before I could fully savor the turd I'd dropped into Eighth Army's punch bowl, Ernie stormed into the office, red-faced.
'Come on, damn it. The jeep's outside.'
I set my coffee down. 'What is it?'
'Disturbance in Itaewon.'
Wails of anguish echoed down the abandoned pathway of Hooker Hill. At the top of the rise, we wound through narrow alleys until we reached the Temple of the Dream Buddha. Thick wooden double doors were ajar. A gleaming gold Buddha gazed calmly down on Slicky Girl Nam. She was hunched over what looked like a pile of rags.
Outside stood a red-robed monk, a Korean National Policeman, and a half dozen business girls roused by Slicky Girl Nam's screams. The women wore shorts and T-shirts, their arms were crossed across their breasts, and the flesh of their faces looked wrinkled and naked in the gray morning light.
The young policeman glanced at me suspiciously. He was probably planted here to protect the site until his superiors arrived. I flashed him my CID badge, which relaxed him a little.
In the middle of the pagoda, on the varnished wooden floor, lay the small unmoving body of Mi-ja Burkowicz, the adopted daughter of Herman the German and Slicky Girl Nam. Nam rocked back and forth on her knees, moaning as if someone was poking a hot poker into her guts.
Ernie flipped back the edge of his coat, clutched his waist, and swiveled his head, purposely looking away from the motionless child. 'Shit!' he said.
That about summed it up.
I stepped forward into the pagoda and knelt to examine the girl.
'You no touch!'
Slicky Girl Nam's twisted face was red, as if the tears pouring from her eyes were hot steam. 'You no touch!' she screeched.
I nodded and slowly moved around the girl. I could see that one ear was gone. But otherwise, from where I stood, she appeared to be uncut and unbruised. She wore red cotton pants and a matching blouse sequined with the faces of smiling rabbits.
I was searching for the cause of death. There was no blood. No mortal wounds. No marks around her neck. Then I saw them. The line of bruises around her wrists. And the single strand of straw sticking out of her
