Still, if the provost marshal did find out that Ernie had violated his orders, I would say that for safety reasons I’d needed Ernie’s backup. It’s against 8th Army policy to come so far away from Seoul, so far from American MP protection, without backup. And I would say that due to the immediacy of the requirement I didn’t have time to request someone else. Ernie was available, I used him. The ploy wouldn’t work, of course. The provost marshal wouldn’t buy it and we’d both be in hot water but at least it was some sort of excuse we could hang on to. But Ernie wasn’t complaining. He knew that finding Moretti’s remains and solving this twenty-year-old mystery was more important than any temporary discomfort we might suffer. And anyway we were used to being in hot water. We’d bathed in that tub before, so often our skin was wrinkled.
Dozens of tiny feet beat on dirt. Reedy voices bleated. Over a low ridge, furry creatures stampeded our way. Goats. Tiny ones. Cute, with little horns, like the small porcelain bulls they used to sell at curio shops in East L.A. But these hoofed animals were alive and covered with shaggy black fur. They floated toward us like a moving blanket. We stood and then a straw hat appeared over the ridge and beneath the hat, a man. He was tall, long-legged, gawky. His face was still in shadow but as he came toward us he waved a ten-foot-long staff back and forth in the air, gently tapping the tiny goats on their sides and hindquarters, keeping them moving forward in a loose formation. He reached a low fenced area twenty yards from the shed where we were waiting, opened the gate, and herded his charges inside. Once the last reluctant kid was induced to enter the pen, he latched it shut, and stood for a moment staring down at the ground, as if in prayer. Then he roused himself from his reverie and started toward us.
As he did so, the shadows lifted from his face. Gross features emerged. A long nose, full lips, bronze-fleshed cheeks that had to be shaved every day. Finally, Ernie and I were staring into a pair of deep-set blue eyes surrounded by a map of wrinkles. They were intelligent eyes, knowing, watchful.
I knew who he was.
“Cort,” I said, stepping forward and holding out my hand.
16
Cort seemed unsurprised to see us. Although I couldn’t say the same about Ernie and me, I realized now what had happened. Who was it who had told me earlier in the investigation that Cort never left? Whoever it was, they’d been right. Occasionally a G.I. will terminate his time in the service but not return to the States. It takes special permission from the military and, of course, the G.I. must obtain a passport from the State Department and some sort of visa from the host government. But if he accomplishes all that, he is not required to take the “Freedom Bird” back to the good old U.S.A. He can stay right here in Korea.
Apparently, that’s what Cort had done.
And how had he made a living all these years? He’d become a monk.
Cort set his ten-foot staff aside, sat down on the wooden bench opposite us, and pulled off his straw hat. He was totally bald. And although his body looked strong, he was rail thin, probably from years of living on unhusked rice and fermented cabbage and boiled bean curd. He stared at us, a slightly amused smile on his lips, and then he said, “Tell me everything.”
I started from the beginning, leaving nothing out. Cort listened patiently without interrupting. So patiently that I wondered if he was actually concentrating on what I was saying. There was a faraway look in his eye, a relaxed posture to his body, and a steady rhythm to his breathing. He was meditating, I finally realized. Something he probably did three or four times a day here.
I told Cort about my trip to Auntie Mee’s home and her complaints about the spirit of Mori Di and her prediction about the fate of Miss Kwon if the bones weren’t found soon. And then I told him about the new SIR warehouse on Yongsan compound and finding Moretti’s Serious Incident Report and about everything that had happened since then: the murder of Two Bellies, the murder of Horsehead, the silken rope enveloping Auntie Mee’s throat, and the chopped-up corpse of Water Doggy.
When I was through, Cort became alert and started asking questions. He picked apart our entire investigation. He trusted no one and questioned every assumption.
Ernie finally became angry. “You weren’t there,” he told Cort. “Why’re you putting down everything my partner says?”
“Not putting it down,” Cort replied. “Only plunging in. Searching for the deeper meaning.”
Ernie snorted. “Snake offed Mori Di when he was first taking over Itaewon and to cover up his crime, twenty years later he murders Two Bellies and then Auntie Mee. A few of these orphans, meanwhile, take their revenge on Horsehead and Water Doggy. That’s all there is to it.”
“Maybe,” Cort replied.
“No ‘maybe’ about it.”
I knew what Ernie was doing. He was deliberately trying to throw Cort off stride and make him angry. Maybe in his anger he’d reveal something that he wouldn’t otherwise disclose. But Cort remained calm. Maybe it was his Buddhist training, or the years of patiently herding goats on the side of Yongmun. If anything, he seemed vaguely amused.
Cort asked us if we’d interviewed every orphan on the list. “They have a motive for murder,” Cort agreed. We told him that there wasn’t time. He insisted that we should. He was certain that by interviewing these people, putting pressure on them, leads would open up.
I told him again about Doc Yong and I explained that we didn’t have the time to track these people down and coax information out of them.
Cort said, “Snake could cause much harm to the people on that list.”
“Yes,” I said. “But I’ll have to deal with that later, after Doc Yong is free.”
Cort asked if I’d looked at this case from a Buddhist perspective. I said I hadn’t. Cort explained that bricking up Moretti, while he was still alive, was a very Buddhist thing to do. Not sanctioned by their religious precepts, of course. But they’re taught not to spill blood. Butchers, for example, are looked down upon, eating meat is discouraged, and a Buddhist criminal who wanted to rid himself of a G.I. named Moretti might very well leave him gagged and bound in a small room and then brick him up, alive, and leave him to die. That way, there’d be no blood on his hands to stain his karma.
Ernie and I stared at Cort as if he were nuts. Maybe he’d been here too long. But on the other hand, maybe he was right. A devout Buddhist criminal was a possibility I hadn’t considered.
“That would corroborate what you’ve already assumed,” Cort said. “That Snake or his thugs also murdered the woman you call Auntie Mee. A very Buddhist type of killing. But it wouldn’t explain the murder of Two Bellies.”
“Maybe they were in a hurry,” Ernie said.
Cort looked at Ernie, who sat quiet and grim, and then back at me. He said, “Try not to kill. You’ll set yourselves back. That would delay you from finally attaining nirvana.”
Ernie rolled his eyes.
“You don’t agree?” Cort asked.
“I attain nirvana,” Ernie said, “almost every Saturday night.”
As Ernie drove the jeep back to Seoul, I kept glancing at the photograph of the handsome Korean woman standing proudly beside Moretti. The more I stared at her face-the high cheekbones, the full lips, the penetrating gaze-the more I was infatuated with her looks. Was she the reason Moretti had thrown in his lot with the impoverished refugees flooding into Itaewon? What had become of her? Maybe she was still alive somewhere, walking around, waiting for Ernie and me to find her and ask her the questions that she’d been longing to answer for twenty years.
I sat in the passenger’s seat, comparing the family names on Mori Di’s list of people who’d turned over heirlooms to the nun’s list of orphans. Except for three, all the family names were the same. Only a half dozen of the thirty-six names were accompanied by addresses. Some of the addresses were fairly old, the nun had warned us, so they might not still be valid.