testify and Ernie, especially, was looking forward to it.
'They have all those cute chicks taking dictation.'
The Korean prosecutor told us we didn't have to worry about Ragyapa getting off. 'The last Korean citizen tried for a major crime in Mongolia was given fifteen years.'
'What's that got to do with it?' I asked.
The prosecutor's eyes widened. 'We'd lose face if we gave one of their citizens any less.'
He had a good point.
That night Ernie and I hopped from one bar to another throughout Itaewon. Even though there was much laughter and many business girls and rock and roll blaring so loudly that it rattled my skull, I still could think of nothing other than Lady Ahn.
We sat at a cocktail table in the UN Club, a little candle flickering between us. Ernie slapped me on the shoulder. 'Get over it, pal. If she don't want you, she don't want you. There's plenty more.'
I nodded dumbly and sipped on my shot glass full of bourbon.
'I've made my decision,' I told Ernie.
'What's that?'
'Tomorrow we drive out to the jail in Suwon.'
'To see Slicky Girl Nam?'
'Right.'
'What the hell for?'
'There's still something missing.'
Ernie thought about that for a moment, sipped on his beer, and peered at me cagily. 'The jade skull of Kublai Khan,' he said.
I nodded. 'You got that right.'
Choi So-lan, the former nun, entered the club, found Ernie, and clung to him fiercely, warding off all the business girls. It would be a long night.
39
The monsoon rain had let up, the blue sky was clean, and blue jays chirped in the rustling elms that lined the road to Suwon. Ernie downshifted the jeep's engine as we pulled up to the chain-link fence surrounding the cement block walls of the Kyongki Provincial Prison.
When we entered the visiting room, Slicky Girl Nam was already sitting on the other side of a flimsy wooden partition. She wore a shapeless gray smock, her face was scrubbed clean, and her hair was tied back in a neat bun. We sat down on the splintered bench opposite her.
'How it hanging, GI?' she said.
She asked us if we had cigarettes, but neither one of us had brought any. A mistake. She pouted and looked away from us.
'We came to see how you were doing,' I said.
'Better if you bring GI tambei,' she said.
I handed her a five-dollar bill. 'Here. Buy some.'
She studied the bill, then stuck it in her brassiere beneath her smock. 'GI cigarettes better,' she said.
We chitchatted for a while, not wanting to come right out and say why we were here, which was to find out if Slicky Girl Nam knew anything about the whereabouts of the jade skull. After the death of Mi-ja, Herman had been frightened that his wife would try to take revenge. And he had been even more frightened of the slicky boys. But he had never wanted to cut Slicky Girl Nam in on the money he planned to make from the jade skull. Still, she might know something.
She asked me about Herman's funeral, and I did my best to try to make it seem better than it was. Ernie became restless and started fidgeting in his seat. I figured I'd better wrap this up.
'Did you search your hooch?' I asked Nam.
'For the skull?'
'Yeah.'
'Of course I search. I search everything. Nothing there.'
I noticed a smudge of charcoal on Nam's fingers.
'You have to change your own charcoal here?' I asked.
'Yes. No Herman anymore do it for me.'
She hacked out a laugh, and as I gazed into her dark eyes it hit me. The whole scheme. Herman's plan to get away with the jade skull of Kublai Khan.
I sat up and leaned toward Nam. Even Ernie noticed my excitement.
'The night Herman was killed,' I said, 'he was heading toward your hooch?'
Slicky Girl Nam thought about that. 'Maybe. He go that way.'
'When you received his note asking you to come to the Virtuous Dragon Dumpling House, you were at home, weren't you?'
'Yeah. I at home. We play huatu.' She slapped her hand down, mimicking the action of playing Korean flower cards.
'Was the floor warm?'
She gazed at me, puzzled. 'Of course it warm. After Herman run away, ajjima next door start change charcoal all the time.'
Her voice trailed off and her eyes widened. She stood up. So did I.
'You son bitch!' she hollered. 'You no can go. You no can go without Nam go with you!'
I motioned for Ernie. 'Time to head back to Seoul,' I said.
Ernie looked back and forth between me and Nam. 'What the hell's going on?'
'I'll tell you when we get in the jeep.'
Slicky Girl Nam started to climb across the counter. A female guard ran forward, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shoved her back.
'You no slicky from me!' Nam yelled. 'It mine. You got it? I put up with that Herman son bitch for too many years. It mine!'
Three guards had to hold Slicky Girl Nam down as we backed out of the room.
When we were on the road heading back toward Seoul, Emie swerved around a line of slow-moving buses. 'What the hell was Nam so worked up about?'
'About the jade skull,' I answered.
'I figured that much. But we still don't know where in the hell it is.'
'We do now.'
'How do you figure?'
I explained it to him.
One thing had always bugged me: Why had Herman boarded a military airplane at Osan Air Force Base with the jade skull in his carry-on luggage? Surely he knew that we would notify the Military Police in Japan or Okinawa or wherever his first stop was. Boarding the plane and arresting Herman and confiscating the jade skull would be a snap. Once he got on that plane, he was trapped.
But maybe he didn't have the skull.
Maybe he had ditched it somewhere and was carrying a soccer ball full of rocks, and if the MPs arrested him they'd find nothing illegal on him. Ernie and I would look foolish. Herman would be released, and the First Sergeant might not believe any of our theories concerning the whereabouts of the jade skull of Kublai Khan. Ernie and I might even come under suspicion for the theft ourselves.
Herman would be able to return to Seoul, wait until things calmed down, and smuggle the skull out of Korea at his leisure.
