hovels like this one. All jammed together in an intricate, impenetrable patchwork.
Ernie knew what I was thinking. 'There was no way, pal,' he said. 'No way we could've found them.'
I grunted and swung a foot at the dog. He ducked.
The landlady was a wrinkled woman with two gray teeth drooping from purple gums.
'They go,' she said. 'Long time ago. They go.'
I wheedled the exact date out of her. A long time ago turned out to be one week. Yes, she said, the little girl was with them. Still alive.
Of course they didn't leave any forwarding address.
We searched their rooms. Three of them. No kitchen. No bathrooms except for the byonso out by the front gate. The quarters were filthy. One room reeked of urine. A pee pot must've been spilled. Empty soda pop bottles and torn plastic wrappings with Korean lettering on them were scattered everywhere. Junk-food Buddhists.
Ernie and I squatted on the wood-slat floor and examined every piece of trash. Herman stood at the entranceway, eyes moist.
When we were through, we had nothing. No leads. No idea where Ragyapa and his thugs might've gone.
I stared at Herman. The unspoken question made him nervous.
'I don't know where they went. They didn't tell me nothing.'
'What else do you know about them? Did they have associates? Koreans they talked to? Women?'
Herman shook his head. 'No women. No Koreans.' Slowly something dawned on him. 'Only those other Buddhists.'
'What other Buddhists?'
'Ragyapa talked about them one time. About how true believers in Buddha have friends everywhere. Even here in Korea.'
'Why 'even in Korea'?' I asked. 'Everybody knows there are plenty of Buddhists in Korea.'
'But not his kind. Ragyapa and these guys, they were weird.'
'Weird in what way?'
'Not like other people. Not like other Buddhists. A lot of little doodads that they carried around.'
'Like what?'
'Like rattles. With strings on them.'
Prayer wheels.
'And they were always joking,' Herman said. 'Laughing. Even drinking. They didn't seem like Buddhists to me.'
'What'd they seem like?'
'Gangsters.'
Ernie stepped through the rubble and rapped his knuckles upside Herman's head. 'You left your kid with gangsters?'
Herman spread his fingers. 'Hey. They said she'd be safe.'
Ernie rapped him again.
Outside, I spent thirty minutes with the landlady, but she gave me nothing. Ragyapa and his boys had paid their rent in advance, stayed mostly in their rooms, and left without warning.
If she knew anything else, she wasn't telling.
At a stone-lined alley nearby, we stopped at a red-lacquered shrine. Emie and Herman waited outside while I slipped off my shoes, dropped an offering into a bronze pot, picked up three sticks of incense, and held them above my forehead. As I knelt and bowed to the gilded Buddha, I wondered if the Catholic saints of my youth were looking down upon me. If they were, I hoped it wasn't with loathing. I had enough people pissed off at me.
After replacing the incense in the embossed holder, I spoke in soft Korean to the monk seated cross-legged next to the bronze offering pot.
'Foreigners,' I said. 'From Mongolia. If they were followers of the Buddha, would they not have their own temples?'
The monk sat silent, eyes closed, and for a moment I thought he hadn't heard me. Or hadn't understood.
'Of course they would,' the monk said in clear English.
I was startled, but recovered quickly. 'Where would they go to worship?'
'There is only one temple in Seoul that follows the way of the Mongols. Same as the Tibetans, you know. Too much clanging of cymbals, too much ceremony, too many spangled costumes.' The monk swiveled his bald head. 'Don't you agree?'
'I wouldn't know.'
'Yes, of course. Well, take it from me. They are much too ostentatious.'
I was glad I hadn't sent Herman in. He wouldn't have understood this monk's English. Too ostentatious.
'Where can I find this temple?' I asked.
'You wish to worship in their way?'
'No. I am searching for someone.'
'Ah, yes. Aren't we all?'
The monk gave me the directions. Bulguang-ni, a district outside the old stone walls of the city.
'The kings of the Yi dynasty didn't want them to conduct their business inside the walls of Seoul,' the monk said. 'Much too unseemly. All their goings-on.'
'What types of goings-on?'
'Ugly things. Sacrifices. Orgies. Consorting with demons. The Mongols only just left barbarity, you know. If you can say they ever left it at all.'
I dropped another coin in the bronze pot. It clattered loudly in the stillness.
'American money,' the monk said. 'Solid.'
He smiled as I left.
The jeep engine purred through the outskirts of Seoul, Ernie winding expertly through the thinning traffic. Herman sat in back, elbows draped over his thick knees.
During the ride, I ran it down-the way I saw the case-for Herman and Ernie. What it boiled down to is that by hiring Sister Julie and Hatcher to attack the Buddhist nun, Ragyapa had tried to create a diversion, a diversion that had two purposes. First, to divert the attention of Eighth Army. And, second and more important, to divert the attention of those powerful clerics who controlled the vast network of Buddhist organizations in Korea.
Since ancient times there had been many sects of Buddhism in constant competition with one another. One of the main divisions is between the Buddhists of Tibet and Mongolia, who believe in much elaborate religious display, and their more sedate brothers in China and Korea and Japan.
When Ragyapa arrived in Korea, he must've realized that the Buddhists in power here in Korea would never let him steal the jade skull, not if they understood its true value. Of course, the artifact had only recently come to light, after being forgotten for a number of centuries. Now was the time to strike, before it became common knowledge that the skull contained a map to the riches in the Tomb of Genghis Khan.
When Ragyapa's inquiries led him to Lady Ahn, he realized she was the ideal person to steal the jade skull from the monks of Bian-do. She had her own motives. She, of course, would be blamed for the theft. After that, if he stole the jade from her, he would be able to escape from Korea before the local Buddhists realized that the jade skull had fallen into the hands of a competing Buddhist sect.
There were two ways to do that. Keep the theft of the jade skull a secret, which was probably impossible. Or, better yet, keep the Korean Buddhist hierarchy preoccupied with an apparently bigger problem.
The bigger problem he'd invented was the vicious attack on a Buddhist nun by an American serviceman. And Ernie and I had fallen right into his plan.
The attack on the nun served another function, too. The demonstrations it ignited kept Eighth Army busy. Not all of our attention was focused on the kidnapping of Mi-ja. We'd pay enough attention to help Lady Ahn with the theft of the jade skull, but by the time Ragyapa took possession of the skull, Eighth Army would be in an uproar over the protests that would be sweeping the country.
