Little Saigon

Chapter 17

They got to the Sherrington hotel in time for the first fight. He flashed his press pass at the door. The attendant checked his list and told Frye it wasn’t good anymore. Frye mumbled apologies, went to the ticket window, and came up with two ten-dollar seats way in the back.

The doorman took their tickets with a sigh.

“Where can I find Mr. Mack?”

“Never heard of him. Try the directory.”

On fight-night the ballroom houses the ring, and rows of chairs pressed all the way to the walls. Frye stepped inside. His stomach fluttered a bit, and he felt good at the lights and the ring and the ropes and the general carnival atmosphere. Cristobel took his arm.

He worked his way to the third-to-last row, from which the ring looked like a bright sugar cube. He checked his program. Stinson was in the white, out of Bakersfield; Avila in the red, out of Sonora, Mexico. At the bell they moved toward each other with the slowness of men wading through water.

Frye stood. “I’m going to find Mack.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sorry. I’ll be back in just a minute.”

He found the Elite listing in the lobby directory, and took an elevator to the eighth floor. Suite 816 was at the end of the hall, just across from the stairway. A small brass plaque said ELITE MANAGEMENT — PRIVATE. Frye knocked and waited; knocked again. The door was locked. He waited a moment longer, then headed back to the arena.

Cristobel smiled at him. “When you said a minute, you weren’t kidding. No dice?”

“None.”

He lifted his Bushnells and focused on the ring. Avila was a sinewy Latin, pesky, hard to hit. Stinson looked Irish, with heavy hands and thick calves. The kind of fighter who’ll run out of gas about the tenth, Frye guessed, if he hasn’t put his man away. But if he catches you with the right, you eat canvas. He’d seen Avila last year: The kid couldn’t be more than twenty.

He turned the binoculars ringside to see who’d gotten his old seat. It was Edison.

On one side of him was Lucia Parsons. On the other was Burke and his cowboy hat. Next to him was Paul DeCord. They all held gigantic beers.

Frye said nothing. He just looked through the binoculars and wondered what in hell his father was doing with Lucia Parsons and a man who kept spying on Bennett. He gave the glasses to Cristobel and looked down at the floor for a moment, thinking.

When he looked at the ring again, Stinson caught Avila with a right cross, then a left to the chin. Avila folded in the middle and plopped butt-first to the canvas. Frye could see he wouldn’t be getting up soon.

“Want to meet my dad?”

“A little early for that, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t know he’d be here tonight.”

She gathered up her purse and beer. “I didn’t know I would either. But why not?”

The ringside crowd thinned between bouts. Edison spotted him, blinked, then smiled. He gave Frye a Mafia bear hug and kiss, his standard public greeting. “The hell you doing here? And what’s this?”

Frye introduced Cristobel. Edison eyed her like a jeweler might a diamond. Frye was introduced to Lucia Parsons, who looked prettier and more substantial in real life than she was on TV. Burke grinned, said “Haw, Chuck,” and flagged the waitress to get Frye’s drink order. Paul DeCord remained in his seat, lost to his program.

“I didn’t know you covered these things anymore,” said Edison.

“I’m free-lancing tonight.”

“Gotta make a buck, I guess. You familiar with Lucia’s work?”

Frye regarded Lucia Parsons. Dark wavy hair, cut just above the shoulders. Green eyes, good skin. Conservative suit. Just enough jewelry to imply more at home.

“I heard your speech yesterday,” he said. “Are you planning another trip to Hanoi now?”

“We met our Phase-Three goal at that rally,” she said. “I’ll be going over again very soon.”

Frye noted that Lucia’s private voice was exactly like her public one: calm, confident, unassuming.

“I was impressed,” he said. “I’ll be even more impressed if you can get some solid proof that there are MIAs still alive over there.”

Lucia smiled. “You and the rest of the world. When Phase Four begins, I think a lot of people will be impressed, Chuck. But thank you. I’m a real fan of your articles, by the way. Your boxing pieces are actually superior to those in the Times.”

“Their only fight writer hates the sport. Papers don’t pay enough attention to boxing anyway.”

Burke tipped back his hat and shook his head slowly. “You can say that again, Chuck. It’s the only game around that amounts to much fun anymore. I read every one of your ditties. You gave a damn about the sport, and it showed.”

“Well, thanks.”

Burke took off his hat and smiled at Cristobel. Frye watched his eyes stray to her neck, then back up again. “Cristobel. Spanish name?”

“My father was German, my mother Mexican.”

“One helluva interesting combo,” said Burke.

Lucia was about to say something to Frye when three women closed in around her, offering their hands, introducing themselves.

Edison shook his head. “Everywhere she goes it’s like that. They mob her.”

How do you know? Frye thought.

“I got to thinking about your job, Chuck,” said Burke. “Your pop here filled me in. And I’ll be damned if I don’t know that Mack character. I come to so many of these fights, I couldn’t help but run across him. Tough little pecker. Didn’t surprise me at all he got his panties in a bunch like that.”

“I’d sure like to talk to him. That’s why I came.”

“Well, he’s here most of the time. Don’t see him tonight, though. Might try his office up on floor eight. Elite something.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Rollie?” Burke smiled, first at Frye, then at Cristobel “Shorter than you, gray hair, fifty or so. Just a regular sort of fella.”

“If you see him, tell him I’d really like to talk.”

“Sure enough.”

Lucia introduced Frye to Paul DeCord, who offered a friendly smile as they shook hands. Frye saw an alertness in the eyes, behind the glasses that sat crookedly on his nose. But there’s something about that face, Frye thought, that tells you it’s got nothing to hide. Not the same face he wore to his drops with Nguyen Hy. Or the one he brought to the Lower Mojave Airstrip.

“You’re a writer, I hear,” said Frye.

DeCord chuckled. “I’m doing some research on the refugee community for Health and Human Services. So I do my share of writing.”

“Photography, too?”

“Occasionally.”

Frye considered. “I guess you know Stanley Smith.”

“I’m familiar with his work. My own has a completely different focus.”

“Are you interested in the MIAs?”

DeCord looked over Frye’s shoulder, then refocused on his face. “On a personal level only. Burke and Lucia are just good friends. Are you?”

“At this point, Li’s my main MIA.”

“I can understand that,” said DeCord.

Frye watched his father watch Lucia. Something like pride showed on his face, something like dumb admiration. The last time Frye had seen Edison look that way, it was at his favorite spaniel.

Edison caught him, mid-study. He smiled, a little sheepishly.

“Take a walk with me, will you, Pop? We should talk.”

Frye excused himself from Cristobel, already the target of Burke Parsons’s attentions.

They left the ballroom and took the walkway toward the swimming pool. Edison held open the gate. The pool was huge and elaborately shaped, with deck chairs around it and a bunch of kids splashing in the shallow end. Frye watched branches of light and shadow spread and wobble along the bottom. Edison sat on a chaise lounge.

“Well, I guess that was one helluva scene you and Tuy Nha walked in on last night.”

“Right up there with the worst of them, Pop. Is there any more news about Li?”

Edison shook his head and loosened his necktie.

“Would you tell me if there was?”

His father looked at him, checked his watch. “I see what happens when you get involved in your brother’s business, son.”

“What do I have to do? Bring Li to Frye Island on a Rose Parade float?”

“You’d probably steer it into the bay.”

“And let her drown, like I let Debbie drown. Right?”

Edison stood up. “That’s horseshit, Chuck, Not me, not your mother, nobody ever said that.”

“It’s what you believed though, isn’t it?”

Edison stood before him, nose-to-nose. “What in hell’s wrong with you?”

“I’m locked out.”

“You’re nothing you haven’t asked for.”

“What I’m asking now is to be let back in.”

“You got off in Chicago, Chuck, and the train kept going to New York.”

Frye stepped back, looked out to the pool. “Who’s Paul DeCord? And don’t tell me he works for Health and Human Services. He’s taking pictures of Benny, visiting Minh, and sitting with you.”

Edison glared at him. “I just met the sonofabitch myself, son. He’s a friend of Lucia’s, and he’s a Fed researcher, for chrissakes. What do you mean, taking pictures of Benny?”

“You know about the medical supplies Bennett sends over?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, DeCord’s documenting it. What I’m telling you now is to be careful what you say. I don’t know who the hell this guy is, and neither do you.”

Edison shook his head, the same way he did twenty years ago when Frye had started up the family station wagon and driven it through the garage door. He checked his watch. “I don’t want to miss the main event. Heavyweights.”

“Where’s Mom tonight?”

“She canceled last minute, Chuck. Wasn’t feeling up to it.”

“What are you doing here?”

Edison looked at him, a long cool stare. “Lucia’s a major investor in the Paradiso, and this is a chance to talk strategy. I’ve got better things to be doing right now, but we made the date a month ago. You have a problem with that?”

“Yeah. You got my old seat. It’s the best one in the house.”

Edison turned and walked back through the gate, letting it slam behind him.

In the main event, a Nigerian heavyweight lost a close decision to a big kid from San Diego. The Nigerian left the ring in a tiger-print robe. Frye was certain that no tigers lived in Nigeria. He watched the boy from San Diego parade around the ring after, toothlessly demanding Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson would knock you out before you got off your stool, Frye thought. He watched through the binoculars, but the fight seemed less compelling than Lucia, Burke, DeCord, and Edison. Just after the ninth round, they left their seats and trailed up the aisle. His father walked closely behind Lucia, and Frye thought: He looks like a dog.

“You got quiet after that walk with your dad,” said Cristobel.

“You don’t have much leverage on the topic of quiet.”

“That’s pretty romantic for a first date.”

“You want a romance, buy one at the market.”

“You can be a real prick, can’t you?”

“It’s genetic. Come on, I want to see if Rollie Dean Mack is up in his suite now.”

They took the elevator to the eighth floor. Frye led her around the corner and down the long hallway. He knocked, tried the door, and knocked again.

“Not your night with this Mack guy,” Cristobel said.

They had just started for the elevator when Frye heard Edison’s laughter booming up the stairwell behind them. He stopped and peered around the corner. Lucia Parsons climbed the last few steps, Edison behind her. They made their way to the Elite Management suite and Lucia opened the door with a key. She took Edison by the arm and led him in.

“Not what you wanted to see, exactly?”

“No.”

“Maybe it’s not what it looks like.”

“Nothing much is these days.”

“Let’s go home, Chuck.”

They walked along the beach near Cristobel’s old blue apartment. The moon hovered through the palms of Heisler Park and the black water was smooth and glittery. Close to shore, waves dissipated into phosphorous-purple suds.

Cristobel held his hand. “Is there another way to find this Mack character?” she asked.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“I know it’s none of my business, but maybe you ought to try something different. A different paper, maybe. Let that Mack guy have his way and just get yourself a better job. You know, like play in a bigger league.”

“I got some résumés out, but it’s tough when all the publishers know what happened. He made me look bad.”

“Is that the only place he works? I mean, doesn’t Elite Management have an office or something else somewhere?”

“Newport. He’s never in. The girl who works there said she’d call me if he ever shows.”

They walked north, toward Rockpile. Frye watched a steady stream of cars heading out of the city, climbing the grade on Coast Highway.

“Let me know if I can help,” she said. “I’m good at résumés.”

“It just really pisses me off.”

“Your dad and Lucia?”

“Not so much Lucia, just... the whole thing.”

“I take it there’s some space between you.”

“A whole lot of it. I guess it’s been getting wider the last few years. Talking to him — it’s like trying to yell across an ocean to someone.”

“Have you done what you can to get through?”

“I suppose I could have stayed closer. More involved. I just kind of spun out for a while, lost contact. I’ve never been interested in the family business. That’s all Bennett and Dad now. Maybe Pop took it a lot more personal than I did.”

“Well, when a father works hard, he likes to share it. If you had better things to do, maybe he felt... like you didn’t need him.”

They walked up the zigzag stairway to the park. The path was lined with rosebushes and the grass was trimmed neatly around them. Frye led her to the gazebo that looks to the west. “I got married here,” he said.

“That’s nice.”

He looked down the ragged cliff to the rocks below, shining with ocean spray. The water hissed up the sand toward them, stopped just short, then receded.

“Miss her?”

“Yeah.”

“Going to patch it up?”

“I don’t think it’s patchable.”

“Things end. Things start.”

“There was a lot of damage. I wonder why we beat up on the people we love so much.”

“Our cages are too small.”

They sat on a bench by a cypress tree. Cristobel lay her head on Frye’s shoulder. For a while he thought she was dozing.

“It was a little over a year ago when it happened,” she said quietly. “Went to a party, had a fight with a man, and stormed out. I was a little drunk. Three blocks to walk in Long Beach — that was all. Next thing I knew, it was four men, a gun, and a car.”

Frye heard the waves crashing below.

“They took me out to a field. When it was over, I remember lying there and looking up at this big oil thing going up and down. One of those giant grasshoppers. It smelled bad. I hurt and I was freezing cold. I got my things back on and started walking, I found this workman in a shed. Big fat guy, smoking a cigar. He wrapped me up in some big towels and put me on a cot. The cops came and did their thing.”

“And they caught them?”

“Two hours later. They put one away and the others walked. The trial was bad. I felt unclean, and that made it worse. I got up to four showers a day, but they didn’t help. You can’t wash your mind with soap and water. Not a day goes by, not an hour, when I don’t think about lying there with the oil machine pumping away over me. I wake up and the first thing I wonder is: Am I going to make it through this day without re-living that night again? Funny, because as soon as you ask that, you’ve already failed. And I swear, Chuck, I swear I’ve seen those other three. They’re in the same car — an old Chevy — and they cruise Coast Highway in front of my apartment. I’ve seen them three times in the last month. I’m sure of it.”

“You tell the cops?”

“They say there’s no law against driving Coast Highway. They think I’m paranoid. The funny part is, I am.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“So if I’m weird, please bear with me a little. If you don’t want to, I don’t blame you. But if you buy the ticket, you ought to know what the ride’s like.”

They stood for a while on the sand below her apartment. Frye held her close and could feel her heart beating against his chest. Her hair smelled like rain. Her mouth found his, and she was more assured now, eager. She put both her hands on his face and locked him in. She sucked out his breath. Frye gave her all he had. A moment later she was walking up the stairs toward her door. Frye stood and waited, but she never looked back.

Bennett was sitting on his couch when Frye walked in. Donnell Crawley stood in the corner, looking at one of Frye’s surfboards. “Your security stinks, little brother. No wonder my tape got stolen.”

“I told you I’m sorry about that—”

“Forget the tape, Chuck. We’ve got bigger problems now. I played a hunch on the black hood the gunman was wearing. I checked the yardgoods stores in town and found a lady who’d sold a piece of black cotton to a man, eight days ago. She was terrified. Donnell leaned on her a little. She’d seen the guy before. Twenty years before, near Nha Trang. He was Dac Cong — Communist Special Forces.”

“Jesus.”

“Pop got Wiggins to let her view the body. Bingo. It was the same guy who bought the fabric.”

“From Vietnam to San Francisco to Little Saigon. One of Thach’s men?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. The FBI’s doing a background check on him but it will take a while. They’re not in any goddamned hurry to share with us.”

Crawley sat down with Bennett. Frye went to the window and looked out. The traffic on Laguna Canyon Road hissed along, tourists heading inland with genuine Laguna art. “I talked to Wiggins about Thach. The colonel’s a prisoner in his own apartment right now. His bosses don’t trust him.”

“I got the same intelligence.”

“Do you believe it?”

“No. But my sources need a few days to look into it.”

“Wiggins talked down the whole Hanoi angle anyway.”

“No one in the government will listen to that, Chuck. Not with Lucia Parsons getting Hanoi friendly enough to talk about POWs. Not with a city full of refugees ready to panic at the mention of his name. They want to be real sure before that can of worms gets opened.”

“Do you really think he’s behind it?”

“I don’t have any proof either. It’s easy for people to make it look that way.”

“Why do that?”

“Terror is a tool. I learned that well enough.”

Frye considered this. “Has she called again, Benny?”

“No word. Nothing, The FBI ran the voice print yesterday and it was definitely Li on the phone.”

“What about the other voice?”

“Male Oriental, middle-age. Not a native speaker. That’s all they could say.”

“Benny, I read the story that Li told Smith. About Lam and you and her. Three bottles of French champagne on your... picnics. And three bottles of champagne on her stand in the dressing room.”

Bennett heaved off the couch and swung over to Frye. “Get down here, Chuck. Get down to my level.”

“No way.”

Bennett glared up at him. “I’m going to tell you something. These stumps I’m standing on aren’t the worst thing I brought home from Nam. The worst is up in my head, and that’s just where I’m going to keep it. You can’t pry into me. Don’t even try. The war is nobody’s business but my own. Not yours, not Pop’s... nobody’s. Someone’s fucking with my head, Chuck, Don’t you start, too.”

“They’re trying to make you remember Lam, aren’t they?”

Frye could sense Bennett, navigating his own fury now. Bennett stepped back and stared up. He spoke softly. “That’s exactly what they’re trying to do. What they don’t know is that I remember him all the time, every day of my life. I don’t forget traitors: Ever.”

Bennett lurched over to Crawley, who produced a Colt .45. Bennett brought it over to Frye and held it out. “If Thach is behind this, you might need a friend. I got Donnell and more FBI than I can stomach hanging around my house. Now you’ve got this. The clip’s full, no round in the chamber, and the safety’s on. You know how to use it?”

“Pop showed me a long time ago.”

“Well, the Colt .45 hasn’t changed in fifty years. It shoots straight and slow, and hits like an elephant. Keep it close, watch your back and don’t spend any more time in Little Saigon than you have to.”

Frye took the heavy weapon. What mass has more finality? he thought. A tumor? A gravestone? “Thanks, I guess.”

Bennett swung toward the door, stopped, then exhaled long and slow. He turned back to Frye with a curious look of pain and disappointment. “Wiggins finally caught up with Eddie Vo. About an hour ago.”

“Where’d they find him?”

“Trying to get into his house. He pulled a gun, and they shot him six times on his front porch.”

Frye leaned against his broken stereo speaker. “Eddie Vo was just a mixed-up kid.”

“Wiggins talks like he just got Joe Bonanno. The FBI’s happy now — they’ve got their prime suspect. Be careful, Chuck.”

Crawley waited for Bennett to pivot past him. “Good night, Chuck. Anything not right, you call me. I be here fast as I can.”

Frye got a flashlight and went into the cave. He dug through some old boxes and finally found the little pair of stereo speakers that he’d outgrown years ago but couldn’t bring himself to toss.

In the living room, he hooked them up to his receiver and put on Li’s Lost Mothers.

The sound wasn’t great, but the music came through anyway. He read the translation of “Tunnel Song.”

Frye looked at the fresh traces of mud on the floor, on his shoes. From the cave, he thought. From the cave.

Suddenly, obviously, like a shade being removed from his eyes, he knew where they had taken her.

And he knew where Eddie had gone.

And he knew where Duc had gone.

Mud in the middle of August.

He called information and got her number. The Dream Reader answered on the ninth ring. She sounded sleepy. Frye said he’d just had a bad nightmare and demanded an emergency reading. She said it would cost twice as much this late. They agreed on midnight.

The Westminster police wouldn’t give him Minh’s home number. After pleading with the watch commander, Frye left his own, then hung up and waited on a callback.

It took less than a minute. Minh was calling from Eddie Vo’s house.

“Detective, I know you’d rather see me in jail than talk to me on the phone, but I know where they took Li. And I know where Eddie Vo went after I let him get away.”

“Tell me where, exactly.”

“I can’t. It might take some finding. But I’ll take you there if I can. You game?”

“Yes, I’m game.”

“Meet me at the Dream Reader’s in twenty minutes.”

He rang off, dialed the prefix to Bennett’s number, then hesitated. What if I’m wrong? What if I’m right and it doesn’t amount to jack? Okay, brother, I’ll stay out of your head. I’ll do it your way.

He locked up and walked outside to the Cyclone, tapping the flashlight against his leg.