He kept staring at the Buddha. The slanted eyes gazed back at him, the unfathomable smile drifting toward him, causing him to quiver. What’s happening to you? he asked himself. And then, to the Buddha, get off me, leave me alone. I mean it. I’m warning you, Chinaman.

Chinaman—

He said it aloud, “Chinaman—Chinaman—”

Putting the gun under his belt, he stepped close to the Buddha and used both hands to inspect the bronze head, the neck, the shoulders. The metal surface was smooth and remained smooth as his fingers covered every inch of the statue’s chest. Then he examined the belly, and peering very close, he detected an extremely narrow line, thin as a hair, and then another hair-thin line, and a third and a fourth, all the lines connecting so that they formed a wide rectangle that covered most of the belly. Then he knew what that was, and he knew what he had to look for next, saying to himself, it’s a panel arrangement. To slide the panel open, you gotta find the thingamajig that releases the lock.

On both sides of the slightly curved rectangle there were several rows of small spherical adornments, resembling carbuncle gems. There were twenty on each side. He began testing them, one by one, pushing and pulling, attempting to turn them as though they were knobs. His head rested against the bronze belly, like a safecracker leaning against a safe and listening for the slightest sound of mechanical reaction. The bronze protrusions on the left side offered nothing. He wiped his sweating hands on his trousers and then resumed the testing on the other side. There was no mechanical reaction, no sound at all until he came to the nineteenth sphere. He was pushing it with his thumb when he heard a tiny noise, a click. He pushed it again and there was a louder click. Then he was able to turn the sphere and he turned it slowly counterclockwise and sensed that something was sliding into place. Then he heard the emphatic clanking noise that told him the lock was released.

His fingertips applied pressure to the panel, and it slid upward so that there was a rectangular opening in the belly of the Buddha. He looked in and saw the stacks of money.

For a long while he just stood there and looked. Then he reached in and took out one of the stacks. It was held together with rubber bands. It was very thick, mostly thousand-dollar bills. He counted it and it came to a little more than a hundred thousand dollars. He took out a few more stacks of bills and they were all a little over or a little under a hundred thousand dollars.