Little Saigon

Chapter 4

“Take interstate five, Chuck. We’re not going to Los Angeles airport.”

They headed up the Santa Ana Freeway toward the city, late enough to miss the Monday morning traffic. The suburbs marched by, divisionless and vast. A blanket of tan smog hung ahead of them, while above it the sky gradually reasserted its blue.

Kim sat beside him with the air of someone awaiting diagnosis. She fingered a red handbag and stared straight ahead through dark glasses. She had smoked four cigarettes in a row and was now lighting her fifth. Every few minutes she turned to look behind them. “I could not sleep last night. All I could think of was Li.”

“Me, too. What’s in the case, Kim?”

She worked the combination and opened the top. Frye looked down at thirty odd cassette tapes, neatly arranged, surrounded by foam.

“What’s on them?”

“Li’s songs. Some messages to friends. News from the United States. Gossip from relatives.”

“Why not just mail them?”

Kim drew on the cigarette and looked at Frye. “Some places the mail cannot go.”

“Paris isn’t that far away.”

She locked the case and turned to stare back at the traffic again.

Frye looked out to the Los Angeles skyline: overpasses and buildings and palm trees floating in a warm, tangible light. “Did you see her before the show last night?”

“We ate dinner together.”

“How was she?”

“She was tired and anxious about her trip. She had no idea of what was to be.”

“Did anyone?”

Kim glanced behind them again. “There is always a feeling in Little Saigon that things may happen. You read the newspapers. There was the shooting last week. Before that, the fire. Robbery. There is activity.” She tossed the cigarette and drummed her fingers on the seat. “North of the city, take Highway Fourteen.”

“I’m wondering if it was someone who knew her. A friend. Someone she thought was a friend. bạn.”

Kim’s fingers stopped moving. She ran them through her long black hair. “That is possible, Chuck.”

Fast Burbank, he took Highway 14 to Palmdale. The traffic thinned, the air cleared, the high desert landscape was rugged, parched. It was hot. Frye felt his shirt sticking to his back, his legs damp against the seat.

“Where we going, Kim, Death Valley?”

“Go through Palmdale, all the way to Rosamond.”

Frye noted that the temperature needle of his car was creeping to the hot zone. He wiped his face and looked out to the flat, unforgiving desert.

State Highway 14, wide, fast and in good repair, took them north. It shimmered ahead of him and vanished in a clear, acrylic hallucination. A faded sign announced the next city: WELCOME TO ROSAMOND — GATEWAY TO PROGRESS. Rosamond Boulevard led them east. Five miles past the town, Kim guided him north on a wide dirt road. Then west on a smaller dirt road, marked by a rotting wood sign that said Sidewinder Mine. Two hundred yards later, the road ended in a sliding chain-link gate. Wind had driven tumbleweeds against the mesh. She got out into the heat, dug the keys from her purse, and opened the locks. The breeze caught her hair as she leaned into the gate and pushed it aside, loose brush and all. Frye proceeded. In the rearview, he watched her check the locks.

“One-half mile, then right,” she said. A slight smile crossed her face. “It’s very hot today, Chuck.”

The Cyclone rolled down the road, fan belts squeaking, gravel popping against the tires, a dusty cloud forming in its wake.

The Lower Mojave Airstrip was two swatches of bleached, cracked cement held together by liberal patchings of tar, a quonset hut hangar and one low square building that once might have been a terminal. The tower was boarded up. A sign slouched, its words faintly visible after years of sandstorms, vandals’ bullets, neglect. “Cheaper fares?”

Kim studied the place. “Better movies. Park by the tower.”

Human life materialized in the dust as Frye pulled close. A mechanic in overalls stood outside one of the huts. Two young men — both Vietnamese — stood on the far side of the tower and squinted Frye’s way. The door of the terminal opened, then shut. At the far end of one runway, Frye noted a Piper, an old Fokker replica, and an ancient transport prop. It was repainted a beige that blended with the desert around it. The words “Liberty Transport” were stenciled below the fuselage. The left cargo door was open and a ramp led up from the runway, where a dozen or so wooden crates waited for loading.

“Stay with me,” Kim said, pushing open her door against the growing wind.

Frye followed her to the two men by the tower. They spoke briefly in Vietnamese. The shorter man seemed to be indicating the Halliburton, then the terminal. Kim squared her sunglasses and led the way to the squat building. Inside was a counter, a desk, a clock, two chairs, about twelve hundred square feet of nothing, and the father of Miss Saigon Days. The last thing Frye remembered of him was the bulging shock on his face as Frye yanked him to the floor by his necktie. He now sat at the desk, in front of a small computer screen. “Thank you, Mr. Frye,” he said quietly. “You saved my life.”

“Any time.”

“My name is Tuy Xuan. It is pronounced swan — like the bird.”

“Chuck.”

Xuan looked at his screen, then at Kim, Frye heard the wind howl, then die, leaving only the low drone of the transport engines behind it. A stinkbug wobbled across the dust-caked linoleum.

“Has our friend been here?” she asked.

“No. But there’s no reason to wait. You are ready, Kim?”

She turned and kissed Frye on the cheek. “Thank you. I know your brother will want to talk to you soon.”

As I will to him, Frye thought.

Xuan was coming around the counter when his daughter appeared in the far recess of the empty terminal. Frye watched her approach: hair back in a ponytail, a yellow cotton dress, pumps. She carried a silver case, like Kim’s. She looked once at Frye and averted her eyes, just as she had at the Asian Wind. She brought the Halliburton to her father. They spoke in Vietnamese. Xuan opened the case — well away from Frye’s line of sight — touched something inside, then shut it and spun the lock. “Nha, this is Chuck Frye, the man who saved me.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m honored.”

“I didn’t do much but half choke him.”

“I read your articles before you left the newspaper,” Nha said.

Frye tried to catch her eyes with his, but they slid off of each other like magnets of the same polarity.

Xuan held open the door for Kim. A hot puff of air blew in. “Please wait here,” she said to Frye. “When the plane takes off, you can go. Nha will escort you to your car.”

She blushed, turned away and busied herself with the computer. The door slammed.

Frye went to the opaque, sand-scratched window and looked out. Kim’s hair swirled as she moved up the loading ramp with the silver cases. The wooden crates were gone. The two Vietnamese men closed the door behind her and pushed away the ramp. The pilot was obscured by headgear: All Frye could make out was his pale, Anglo nose and mouth. The overalled mechanic untied the ropes from the ground cleats, ran forward, and motioned the pilot toward the runway. A tumbleweed rolled across the tarmac and came to rest against the defunct tower. In the shimmering middle-distance, Frye could see the gaping entrance of the Sidewinder Mine — old struts leaning precariously, boulders covered by black spray-paint. When he turned, he caught Nha studying him. He smiled at her. “Paris, my ass,” he said.

Nha’s expression didn’t change. “Talk to Bennett.”

Like talking to a rock, he thought. “Pretty bad last night. You and your family okay?”

Nha nodded slightly. “Frightened. I stayed beneath a table with my hands over my head, holding one of my sisters.”

The droning of the plane engines rose to a higher key. Frye watched it crawl onto the runway and straighten into the wind. Tuy Xuan hustled across the tarmac and disappeared behind the tower. A moment later, Liberty Transport sped down the runway and lifted into the air, wings rocking, engines torquing, flaps extended.

Frye stepped outside with Nha. Her father joined them, a satisfied smile on his face. “Chuck, you have helped us. Would you honor our house for dinner tomorrow night? We all wish to thank you.”

Nha looked at him, then out to the runway where the cargo plane lessened into the vast blue sky.

“I’d like that,” he said. “What was in the crates?”

Xuan touched him lightly on the shoulder and smiled. Then his face stiffened and his eyes focused on something past Frye’s shoulder. He muttered something in Vietnamese. “Come in here,” he said, leading Frye and Nha back into the terminal building. Looking back over his shoulder, Frye could see the white car parked on a rise in the dirt road a hundred yards away. Someone was standing beside it. Xuan produced a pair of U.S. Government binoculars and kicked open the door. He gave the glasses to Frye.

The man was leaning against a white Lincoln, apparently at ease. A camera with a huge lens lay on the hood of the car beside him. Frye recognized him immediately, half expecting him to step forward with a briefcase full of money, as he had so often for Nguyen Hy. Red hair and mustache, polo shirt, thick arms and neck. Red Mustache lifted his camera again. Frye shrank back into the doorway. Xuan and Nha were talking again in Vietnamese. The camera lowered; Red Mustache got back into his town car. Xuan dialed the telephone.

“Who is he?”

“A writer... and a former friend,” said Nha.

“He doesn’t look like a writer. Who does he work for?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, ‘former friend’?”

“Attitudes change,” Nha said. “Sometimes quickly.”

“What was in the crates?”

“Food and clothing for the camps in Thailand.”

Frye watched as the Lincoln backed down the road, rose over the hillock, and vanished.

“Vo couldn’t have done it.” Frye was looking at the oddly androgynous face of Detective John Minh. Minh had an office in Detectives, a desk buried in reports and Vietnamese business directories, a poster of Li on one wall, and a phone that kept ringing.

“Why not?”

Frye explained again how he’d seen him, sitting in the car.

Minh studied him. “He disappeared before the shooting, according to ten witnesses. No one saw him after, except for you. You were speeding past his car in the parking lot?”

“Not exactly speeding.”

“But you were looking through two windshields, late at night, driving?”

“I told you that.”

“You were certainly thinking of other things, weren’t you? Your heart was pounding. Your ears were ringing. But you now claim to identify a man you had seen exactly once before in your life?”

“That’s true.”

“We know he left before the shooting. We know it was his car used in the getaway. We went to his home to question him this morning, and he ran away. Why? He hasn’t gone to his record store all day. He’s a fugitive. He could easily have planned it and watched the execution. Did you ever think of that? Did you ever think that you may have seen his brother, or a friend who looked like him? How many Vietnamese gang boys have hair like that? A dozen at least, maybe more. Don’t sit there and tell me who did it, and who didn’t. It insults me and makes me angry.”

“I saw him.”

Minh smiled bitterly. “It doesn’t change anything right now. We need to find him, either way. Do you have anything useful for me?”

“The gunman had mud on his shoes. Gray. Dried.”

Minh nodded and checked his watch. “It’s in the CSI report. It wasn’t hard to notice, Chuck.”

“I took a walk downtown late last night. I remembered a few things I didn’t tell you before. First, two of the gunmen wore ski masks. The one who got shot had a hood, with the eye holes cut out. Looked homemade. Second, the one who dragged her out had on a pair of red tennis shoes. High tops.”

“We didn’t know that.”

“And the hooded guy grabbed the wrong woman. He went for one of the backup singers first. Then he helped drag Li off, jumped back on stage and started shooting. That’s strange.”

“Why strange?”

“Who in Little Saigon wouldn’t know Li?”

Minh brought out a tape recorder, nodding. “That’s true. Tell me again, exactly what you saw.”

Frye made his second deposition in two days. His account was interrupted by three phone calls and a visit from the chief, who told Minh that the press conference was set for seven o’clock. He looked at Frye with sleep-starved eyes, and tossed a stack of afternoon papers on Minh’s desk. “We got the search warrant ten minutes ago, Detective.”

Minh looked pleased.

“Press is hot on this one, John,” he said. “Do your best to cool them off. We’ve had half the department in Little Saigon the last ten hours, and I don’t want that fact unpublicized.” He walked away, sighing, checking his watch.

Minh regarded Frye placidly. He tapped his pen against the desk. He looked at the poster of Li, then back to Frye. “Did Kim get into the sky okay?”

“Huh?”

“Kim, the woman you drove to the airstrip this morning. You know, the airstrip out by the old Sidewinder Mine.”

Frye just sat there, feeling stupid. He felt his ears turning red. “Is this one of those deals where I tell you everything and you don’t tell me jack?”

Minh switched off the recorder and offered a thin smile. “What did you come here to find out?”

“Was the dead guy a local?”

“We haven’t decided yet. It’s difficult. So many of the refugees don’t carry proper identification.”

“Eddie Vo’s friend talked about Stanley last night. Stanley who?”

“Smith. He’s connected to the university, popular with the gang boys. He’s one of those academics who thinks he knows everything — useful at times. We’ve already questioned him.”

Frye hesitated. “Then yeah... she got into the sky okay.”

“With the usual assortment of tapes?”

“I don’t know how usual they were.”

Minh considered. “Your brother is a difficult man to deal with. He offers us little; his answers are short and often unsatisfactory. He behaves, in my opinion, like a man with things to hide.”

I’ve got things going backwards here, thought Frye. Find out what you can about John Minh. “I wouldn’t know.”

The detective dumped his pad and pen, answered the phone, listened, and hung up. He scribbled something on his blotter.

“What’s lại cái?”

“Homosexual.”

“What about the writing on the mirror?”

Minh’s pale-blue eyes narrowed. “That’s tampering with a police investigation.”

“I didn’t touch it.”

“You were a reporter once? That’s about what I’d expect from one of you.”

“I go with my strengths.”

“How would you like to take them to jail with you?”

Minh leaned back in his chair, an expression of appraisal on his face. He answered his phone, listened again, said he would be right there. “You don’t spend much time in Little Saigon, Frye. I know, because I do. I’m there. This is the situation. Everything in Little Saigon can be dangerous, every whisper and every move. People get shot for saying the wrong thing. There is much extortion and robbery. My personal opinion is that you should stay out of the affairs of the Vietnamese. My American half tells me you’re a nice guy. My Vietnamese half tells me that you are easily taken advantage of. If you have something to prove, you should prove it somewhere else. The best thing you can do for Li is to keep out of the way of my investigation.”

I’ve heard that before, Frye thought. He rose, feeling impaled by Minh’s sixth sense, glad to be free of his calmly prodding eyes. “My sister-in-law got kidnapped, and my brother’s hurting bad. Sucker or not, I’m going to do what I can to get her back. I learned a long time ago what happens when you do nothing.”

Minh stood. “I appreciate your coming here. If you have more information, please come again. It’s possible that I might be able to pass certain things back in your direction. I find your brother almost impossible to deal with, but you are not like him. We both want the same thing here.”

Frye stepped into the hallway. The man waiting to see Minh stood up and took a briefcase from beside the chair. He was bigger than he looked in the video, or through the binoculars at Lower Mojave Airstrip. He walked past Frye like he wasn’t there.

When Red Mustache was inside Minh’s office, Frye came back down the hallway, took a seat, bent down, untied his shoe and listened.

“Paul DeCord.”

“John Minh. You have about two minutes.”

“I have as long as I need, Detective.”

Minh’s hand appeared from the doorway. Frye didn’t bother to look up. The door closed. He finished with his shoelace, stood and walked out.

From a pay phone at the station he called his brother’s house and got nothing. Bennett’s secretary at work said he hadn’t been in all day. Hyla said he’d left at four.

Ronald Billingham was underwhelmed to see Frye walk into the Ledger offices. The editor eyed him from his glass-encased office. Frye grabbed a fresh copy of the day’s paper. The reporters acknowledged him with caution: such is the aura of the once-employed. Fingers tapped keyboards, monitors offered their dull green glows, a wire machine chattered in the one corner. Frye waved like a politician to no one in particular, then ducked into the morgue. He was halfway through the MASTER CHORALE — MUDWRESTLING file when Carole Burton burst in, all silk and perfume. She gave him a robust hug.

“Ronald’s going to kick you right out,” she said.

“I know.”

“Sure is good to see you, Chuck. How’s the family taking it?”

“Oh, just fine.” He slipped Minh’s clip file into his morning paper and folded it shut.

“Good God, I didn’t just see that,” Carole said.

“See what, Carole?”

Billingham strode in, shook Frye’s hand, and asked him to leave. He was a soft, fungoid man who always seemed ashamed of himself, especially when he smiled. He made the most of his minor authority. “You don’t have any business here, Chuck. I’m sorry.” Billingham reddened, looked down.

“As am I. I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to say hello.”

“To the morgue?”

“The memories still run deep.”

“Would you give one of our reporters a comment about last night?”

“No.”

“Get out.”

“Can do. ‘Bye, Carole.”

Billingham watched him leave with a proprietary air, victory written all over his face.

Frye drove down Bolsa and parked a block from Saigon Plaza. So, he thought: Paul DeCord hands Nguyen Hy a briefcase full of money, and DeCord goes to Minh. Who is it, then, that I’m hiding evidence from? DeCord, Minh — or both?

Benny knew the cops would come to his home sooner or later. FBI too. If the payoffs are illegal, that explains why I’ve got the tape. Then where’d the money come from? And where is it going? Maybe Paul DeCord got burned. He wants his money back. But he wouldn’t go to Minh if the payoffs weren’t legit. Did Nguyen rip him off?

The afternoon had begun to cool. He stopped to consider two marble lions, white, snarling, and heavy-manned, guarding the plaza entrance. Each stood on a black marble pedestal, with one paw resting on a ball. Behind them were four thick red columns supporting the elaborately crenulated archway. Two Vietnamese women hustled by, pushing a cart, then paused to read a CELEBRATE SAIGON DAYS banner hanging from a balcony. Outside the Bồng Lai Seafood Company, a rubber-booted worker hosed pungent, unspecific waste into a drain. In the window of Tǎng Fashions, a woman arranged a red silk dress on a mannequin. Two uniformed police came from the store and headed into the next one.

Outside Tǎi Lại Donuts and Hot Food, two more cops confronted a group of gang boys. Words were passed. A bulky officer spun one kid around, then handcuffed and pushed him into the back of his black-and-white. A man in a rumpled suit appeared from nowhere with a camera and started snapping pictures. The other cop moved in. Frye saw a press pass flash, watched the officer muscle the photographer off the sidewalk. The photog kept shooting. Give ’em hell, Frye thought. It’s all front-page stuff.

As if there wasn’t enough of it already. He stood in front of the news rack and read the headlines through the smudgy plastic: VIET SINGER KIDNAPPED IN ‘MINSTER NIGHT CLUB... CABARET SHOOTOUT LEAVES ONE DEAD... POP SINGER TAKEN AT GUNPOINT...

There were pictures of Li, pictures of the Asian Wind, pictures of Bennett hobbling out with Donnell Crawley behind him. He bought copies of everything and took them to Paris Cafe, where he sat outside and ate a heaping plateful of chicken and noodles. Looking out to the plaza, he saw another team of policemen going door-to-door. A network news crew was taping outside the Buddhist pagoda, a colorful establishing shot.

Did Arbuckle crack the Dream Reader? Apply pressure... The best thing you can do is just stay out of my investigation... Paris, my ass... Everything in Little Saigon can be dangerous...

He slipped out Minh’s clip file and read the articles. The Ledger reporter on the Westminster beat was Rick Ford. Rick had an in-depth interview with Minh, a “day in the life of” ride-along deal, even a “detective at home” article. Rick Ford, Frye thought, is a good reporter.

Minh had joined the Westminster force just one year ago. He went through training at the L.A. Sheriff’s Academy, graduating high in his class. He was born in Saigon to an American employee of the CIA and a Vietnamese woman from a diplomatic family. During the war, he was commissioned, made lieutenant, and served in Intelligence Corps. He was evacuated during the fall, with his wife. They now lived in Westminster. During the eleven years since leaving Vietnam and joining the Westminster PD, he had earned a bachelor’s degree from Cal State Los Angeles, worked a series of odd jobs. His parents settled in Washington, D.C., where his father now worked for a political study “consortium.”

All fine and dandy, Frye thought, but how had Minh gone from officer to detective in less than a year?

He found a pay phone and called the Ledger.

“Easy,” said Rick Ford. “The department wanted to show him off. Call it extra equal opportunity. Vietnamese cops are tough to find, so Minh shot right up the ladder when they put him in Little Saigon. He’s the only guy on the whole force who speaks a word of Vietnamese.”

“What do the other cops think of him?”

“Not much.”

“That’s what I gathered from Duncan.”

“He’s gotten a lot of press. They’re jealous. He’s not a bad cop, I don’t think. He’s just kind of over his head. Why?”

“Just curious.”

“I would be too, if he was working that kidnapping. How’s your brother taking it?”

“He’s concerned.”

“Shit, Frye, I could have guessed that much. How about the FBI? Rumor has it some high-powered team is on its way from Washington.”

“That’s news to me.”

“I could go for an eyewitness description of what came down last night.”

“That’s my exclusive.”

“Got a new job?”

“I’m working on it. One more thing, Rick. Did you get the feeling that Minh keeps in contact with his dad?”

“He said he did.”

“Thanks, Rick.”

Frye went back to his table and read Minh’s file again. Why doesn’t Benny trust him? Does Benny trust anyone?

Suddenly, he felt his scalp tighten and a jittery flash of nerves run up his back as he heard Li’s voice, lilting and echo-ridden, passing through the atmosphere of the plaza.

It hit Frye like a ten-foot wave at Rockpile. He could see her standing in the spotlights, smiling down at Bennett. He could see her that last time at Frye Island, when she stooped in the flowerbed and placed the marigolds in the holes, then flattened herself against the ground when a car backfired coming onto the bridge. He could see her that first time, standing in the hallway outside Bennett’s room at the San Diego Naval Hospital while staff and patients strode widely around and pretended to ignore her. She hadn’t lowered her eyes one bit when Frye introduced himself, but looked straight at him and said: “I am Kieu Li — your brother’s wife. Beg pardon, man, but I faint.” She had, crumpling into his arms as her purse slid from her shoulder, a Coke clunked from her hand, and her hair — the longest, blackest hair Frye had ever seen — spilled across his elbow and dragged through the bubbles before he could hoist her to his chest and carry her outside. He could see her that one Christmas, playing a lovely version of “Fire and Rain” on the old D-28 that Bennett had given her, with the capo way up on the fifth fret to accompany her high and flawless voice. He could see her studying the television with intensity, adding to her English with ease, trying out words on him like “reparations,” “documentary,” and “amortization.” She had been horrified to learn that, according to all the major networks, the same word applied both to the item you wiped your face with at dinner, and the one used — as she put it — to “defeat” menstrual flow.

He could see her in the recording sessions he’d watched, earphone to her head as she stood in the booth and did her takes, time and time again. Twenty, thirty versions of the same song, and she never lost her composure, never lost her drive. He could see her at his parents’ parties, elegant but demure, the kind of person who draws interest like a magnet draws steel. He could see her as a girl just over from Vietnam, then as a woman of style and class, and as he did so, she seemed to grow from one to the other in a single brief second.

Sitting in the late afternoon sun of Little Saigon, he could see her face as she looked up at him the day he’d told her Linda had left him and said simply, “Forgive her.”

Li.

Five phone calls later he had gotten the office number for Dr. Stanley Smith, UCI Professor of Social Ecology. The professor answered his own phone. His voice was soft, rounded.

“Why do you want to talk to me?”

“The cops say you know everything.”

He could hear Smith’s flattered chuckle.

“I’m afraid, Mr. Frye, that this isn’t a good time for me at all. No, not at all.”

“Last night wasn’t a good time for my sister-in-law to get kidnapped either.”

Smith paused. “No. I wouldn’t think so. I... can make just a few minutes for you. I’m working off campus, at the Ziggurat building. Floor three, room three-forty-one.”