Little Saigon

Chapter 5

Frye took the San Diego freeway south. He watched clouds coloring above the tan hills, a herd of cattle raising silent dust, a magnificent smog-charged day atmospherically impossible in another age.

He got off at El Toro Road and wound through the south county pastureland. Islands of new homes floated on the dry hills. Half of these are Edison’s, he thought: Rancho Cay, The Oaks, Club Niguel. Nickel and dime stuff for the Frye Ranch — under two hundred grand apiece.

Off La Paz Road, the Ziggurat loomed into view, a Mesopotamian extravagance built by Rockwell, then never used. The offices were now let to various organizations: IRS, Federal Records, the university. The lofty pyramidal structure stood out against the hillocks with a hallucinogenic air, a temple waiting for worshippers.

The parking lot was a continent of asphalt, with a few cars clustered near the entrance. Frye parked and went in, heading for the elevator.

A wall plaque outside 341 read DR. STANLEY SMITH — DIRECTOR — CENTER FOR ASIAN COOPERATION. The reception room was cluttered with bookshelves, but no receptionist was in sight. Behind the closed door to the office came the muffled sound of a woman’s voice.

Frye opened the door and stepped in. A man at a desk was nodding to a woman who sat across from him. She was talking fast, in Vietnamese. A tape recorder sat between them, reels moving. Smith was fifty-ish, plump, balding. He wore a pink polo shirt and a gold chain. His cheeks were rosy and his eyes a pale, sad blue. Frye sensed an unsuccessful boyhood here. Smith raised a finger to the woman, drove it downward to punch off the tape recorder, then smiled. “You must be Chuck Frye?”

Frye nodded.

Smith spoke to the woman in Vietnamese. She turned to Frye and smiled. She was gaunt, early seventies, he guessed, her long gray hair trailing over a dark leather face, her teeth stained dark from betel juice. He sat down. Smith introduced her as Bakh.

“You know where Li Frye is?” she asked.

“Not yet,” he said.

Frye surveyed the office: big messy desk, file cabinets, an old wooden wardrobe, a poster of Li on one wall, a gruesome photographic blowup of a man’s face beside it. There was another door beside the wardrobe, closed and plastered with fifties travel posters of Vietnam.

“Last night’s event is absolutely ominous,” said Smith. “There are no other words. The police told me nothing this morning, except that they want Eddie Vo. Have they any substantial leads, anything to go on except that poor frightened boy?”

“I’d be the last to know.”

“Ah... I understand.”

Frye looked again at the horrible portrait, noting that its subject wore sunglasses. “What do you do here, Doctor?”

Smith looked around with an air of pride. “I’m a professor, and Little Saigon is my area of expertise. My current project is for the Vietnamese archive — collecting oral stories and translating them for publication.” He went on for a moment about his work-in-progress. It dealt with the “acculturation process” of the refugees, the “impact of cinema and television on the youth,” and the “problems of village culture meeting mass culture in this crazy melting pot we call America.” The book would be called By War Displaced: A Modern Narrative of the Vietnamese Refugee.

“Sounds good. What I’d really like to talk to you about is Li’s kidnapping, Dr. Smith.”

“I imagine.” He rose and politely guided Bakh from the room, chatting all the time in Vietnamese. A moment later he returned and sat down again.

“This kidnapping has tragic proportions... may I call you Chuck? Li Frye has done so much for her people. She deals with the Thais, getting refugees out of the camps and into the States. Her music, of course, is a great inspiration. In some circles, as I’m sure you know, she is called the Voice of Freedom.”

“Who would want to take her?”

Smith pursed his lips. “That’s just it, Chuck. No one I can think of in the Vietnamese community would do that. The young respect her. The old adore her. In my opinion, we are looking at economics here, not politics. Your brother is rich. The kidnappers will want money.”

“What about the gangs? They might respect her, but they’d love to get their hands on ransom money.”

Smith shook his head. “The youth gangs of Little Saigon are much exaggerated by the press. They are a loose structure, with no formal organization or ‘turf,’ as we see in the Hispanic and black gangs. They form, extort money or sometimes commit robbery, then break up, disappear, and form again. By all indications, Chuck, this could hardly be a gang crime. Automatic weapons? The organization and planning that went into it? The target itself? No. The police are on the wrong track, in my opinion.”

“What about organized crime?”

“Gậy Trúc? The Bamboo Cane? Now they are a possibility. Several of the top leaders have been seen in Little Saigon in the last six months. I’ve personally identified two of them.”

“How good are they at kidnapping?”

Smith glanced casually to the closed door, then looked at Frye. “With organized, professional criminals, seeing the leaves on top always implies the roots below. In my opinion, it’s conceivable that Gậy Trúc knew about the kidnapping, perhaps was involved.”

“Where can I find them?”

Smith shook his head, pressed his lips tight, and leaned forward in his chair. Again, he looked at the door, then back to Frye. “I certainly wouldn’t tell you where, Chuck. They wouldn’t be there now, for one thing. And for another, these are very dangerous men. Besides, I’m not making accusations, I’m outlining possibilities.”

“Minh says that you’re... popular with the refugee boys.”

Smith blushed a little. “I take that as a compliment. I have an affinity with them. They are a gentle race, so misunderstood and so confused in this new country. I myself feel misunderstood at times, feel... outside the mainstream. Many of them had no childhood. In some sense, we are kindred souls.”

“When’s the last time you saw Eddie Vo?”

Smith adjusted himself behind the desk and looked at Frye. “Three days ago. Are you looking for him, too? like the police?”

“No. I know he didn’t do the job on Li. He was in the parking lot.”

Smith looked at Frye incredulously, blushing again, his eyes widening. “You saw him outside the cabaret?”

“That’s right.”

Dr. Smith smiled. “Ah... then the police have no solid reason to suspect him. Chuck, this makes me very happy. Eddie Vo is such a... mixed-up kid. He’s terrified.”

“How do you know, if you haven’t seen him in three days?”

Smith swallowed hard, pursed his lips again. “I know him well enough to understand what he’s going through. He disappeared, right? He knows the police are after him. He is afraid. That’s all I meant. But if you saw him outside the Asian Wind... it means he’s innocent.”

Frye looked at Smith, who looked down at his desk.

“Where is he?”

Smith looked up again, feigning surprise. “I... are you willing to tell the police he was outside?”

“I already have.”

“Then Eddie really has nothing to fear?”

“They want to question him.”

Smith sighed, then cast Frye a furtive glance. “This is an impossible situation. I really... don’t have the disposition to do this.”

“Do what?”

Smith stood, blushing again, brows furrowed. “This is stupid. He must talk to the police and clear himself.” He walked to the door, unlocked it with a key, and swung it open.

Eddie Vo sat in the other room, his feet up on a desk, hair still gelled into a top-heavy Elvis kind of deal, reading People magazine.

“Come out here, Eddie. I won’t lie for you any more. We have a witness.”

“Fuck you,” he said. He glared at Frye. “Fuck you, too.”

Frye looked at him. High cheekbones, smooth dark skin, eyes deeply set and suspicious, their narrowness less epicanthic than fearful. Something like the Vietcong lieutenant in the famous news photo, with the pistol at his head and the first breeze of death blowing through his hair. Frye regarded Eddie Vo with some wonder: These people are harder than us.

“I remember you from the show, man,” Eddie said.

“Li’s married to my brother.”

“I know that. I know everything about her, except where she is. I split before it went down, man. I’m innocent.”

Smith implored Vo to turn himself in, bear the interrogation and clear his name. Eddie listened with a glacial look on his face.

“If you go to the police, it will look good for you,” Smith continued. “If you make them find you, it can only be bad.”

Eddie stood up, walked past them into the main office and looked out the window. He sat down and looked over at Frye. “With him?”

“You don’t have a car, Eddie. He can take you back home to change your clothes, then to the police. It’s your only choice, really. The police will look until they find you.”

“They’ll shoot me. When they came to my house, they had their guns out. So I ran.”

“American police are not gangsters, Eddie.”

“I watch TV. I know what they do.”

It took Smith another ten minutes to convince Eddie to ride back to Little Saigon with Frye, and turn himself in for questioning. Frye saw that Vo, despite his petulance, was bright enough to know that his professor was right. Smith finally sighed and sat back in his chair. “I feel a lot better now. Please, Eddie, tell them you came to me after the police did. Say, noon. I don’t want to be arrested for harboring a fugitive.”

“I’ll lie. I’m good at lying.” Eddie stood up, went to Smith’s wardrobe and threw open the doors. Frye could see the clothes inside: black leather vests and jackets, studded pants and belts.

Smith looked from the wardrobe to Frye, his pink cheeks going a shade brighter. “Thank you. I’m glad you came.” He reached into his desk and brought out a thick manuscript. “You might like to read a draft of my book. There is a section told to me by Li. Any comments you have might be useful. I’m aiming for a lay audience.”

“I want these!” said Eddie. His back was to Frye.

Frye took the padded envelope and thanked the professor. He looked again at the chilling portrait. It looked less like a man’s face than some special effect. What’s so compelling about the horrid, he wondered, and why does the horrid wear sunglasses? “What’s that?”

Smith appraised the face. “Colonel Thach. It is proper that his name rhymes with ‘attack.’ He’s part of Hanoi’s Internal Security force. He is in charge of crushing the tiny pockets of rebellion in Vietnam. I thought his ruined face was the perfect counterpoint to Li’s beauty.”

“What happened to him?”

“Some say napalm, some say white phosphorus. Some say he was left to die and that rats... partook of his flesh. He spent years in the tunnels around Saigon, so his eyes are ruined. He must wear dark glasses in daylight.”

Eddie slammed the wardrobe shut. “Man, these are cool!” He made two fists and held out his arms, brandishing two new silver-studded bracelets on each wrist.

Exactly like the dead gunman’s at the Asian Wind, thought Frye. He looked from Eddie back to Smith. “You give away a lot of those?”

“Oh, of course. Gifts of goodwill. Would you like a set?”

“Did you give away any recently?”

Smith considered. “Well, yes. To some friends of Eddie’s, in fact.”

Vo stared sullenly at Smith. “The Dark Men aren’t my friends, Stanley. Get your facts right.”

“Loc was practically a brother to you for ten years.”

“I hate him. I hate you. Let’s go, Frye, I’m sick of this place.”

“Thanks for the book,” Chuck said.

“You’re welcome. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a set of bracelets?”

“Gee, I really would.”

Smith nodded, then went to the wardrobe and pulled out a pair. Frye took them. “Thanks for everything.”

“Tell me what you think of the manuscript.” Smith rose and placed a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, but Vo turned away and walked out.

Eddie was at the radio of the Cyclone before Frye even got the engine started. He pushed the knobs, found a Pretenders song, turned it up loud, and started tapping the dashboard. “I love music, man. That’s where I got my name. After Eddie Van Halen.”

“What’s wrong with your real one?”

“It’s Dung, man. How come you don’t have a tape deck? You poor or something?”

“Guess so.”

Frye headed back down the 405 freeway while the sunset gathered above the hills, turning the exit signs to mirrors of gold. Vo lit a cigarette and stared out the window.

“What do the cops want?” he asked.

“They want Li.”

“I don’t have her! I’m innocent of all things. Hell, man. Shit.”

“Where’d you polish up your English?”

“UC Irvine. My grades were bad, so I dropped out and opened the record store. I was getting Cs. This country doesn’t like Vietnamese who get fucking Cs. You’re not smart, or a beauty queen like that Tuy girl, you’re just a gook.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“You don’t know about shit, Frye.”

“I know I saw you in the parking lot after the shooting. What were you doing in that station wagon?”

Vo looked at him, then blew a mouthful of smoke out the window. “Getting a new tape, man. The one I had got all tangled up. I took my friends for protection. I love Li Frye, man. I’m her biggest fan. I got a lot of her stuff. I wrote her love letters, but I knew she’d never write back.”

Just one night with her in my bed. I wouldn’t be a brother.

“Did you know something like this would happen?”

Vo glanced at him. “No.”

“The gunman who was killed had the same bracelets that Smith just gave us. Who is this Loc guy?”

Vo looked at him again, turned down the radio. “He’s just a punk I used to know. But Loc would never touch Li Frye. He knows I would kill him if he did. I am her official protector from the gangs. Ground Zero is devoted to her.”

What I need from Minh, thought Frye, is a positive ID on the gunman. “What do you know about John Minh?”

“That he’s a cop and you can’t trust cops. Especially the ones that don’t wear uniforms. They’re all gangsters, like me.”

“You deal with him before?”

“He’s new. He’s trying to be powerful. They say the cops here are different than in Vietnam. I don’t believe it. They’re all gangsters, just like in Saigon.”

“How long have you been in the States?”

“Ten years. I was in Saigon when the war ended. Then the camps in Thailand. That’s where Ground Zero started. I was six, and we were small thieves. Where were you, Frye?”

“Flunking college.”

They got off the freeway in Westminster. Eddie’s house was a mile from Saigon Plaza. When Frye turned onto Washington Street, Eddie leaned forward to stare at a white Chevy parked along the curb. Frye could see someone behind the wheel.

“The Dark Men?” Frye asked.

Vo shook his head, but continued staring as they passed.

Eddie’s place was an old two-bedroom home with a dead lawn, a starving orange tree out front, and weeds everywhere.

Frye pulled into the driveway, got out, and followed Eddie to the door. Vo looked again at the Chevrolet parked down the street but said nothing.

The living room was furnished with thrift-shop stuff — nothing matched, or was less than a decade old. But Vo’s stereo was state-of-the-art: big flat speakers, a CD player, and a reel-to-reel. A poster of Eddie Van Halen hung crookedly on one wall.

Vo stood for a moment, as if beholding his own home for the first time. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

Frye looked into Eddie’s bedroom: a lamp, a pile of Vietnamese magazines and papers, a mattress on the floor with a sleeping bag tossed over it — one of the old thick ones with pheasants flying over red flannel.

Eddie walked in, fingered some items on his dresser. “Someone’s been here,” he said. He shot back into the living room and peered through the drapes, then checked his door lock. “Loc, probably. I hate the Dark Men, no matter what Stanley Smith says.”

Eddie went to the kitchen, produced a pistol from one of the cabinets, and waved Frye into the other bedroom.

Frye’s face went cold. “Be careful with that thing, Eddie.”

“I’m a great shot. You’re lucky you’re with me. Look at this.”

Vo flipped on the light. The room was a temple of Li. Signed posters, an ao dai on a hanger nailed to the wall, about thirty snapshots crowded in a big frame, clippings from magazines, a collection of covers for albums Frye had never even seen, a blurred blowup of a photograph of Li and Eddie at the Asian Wind. There was a microphone with a card leaning against it that said “Li Frye’s microphone — 4/7/88.”

“This shit’s all hers,” Eddie said quietly. “I collected it over the last seven years. I got more in the closet.” He looked through the window and drew the drapes tightly closed.

An icy little wave rippled down Frye’s back. “Nice.”

“Beer?” Eddie tossed the gun on his bed.

“Sure.”

He went to the kitchen and came back with two cans. Frye watched Eddie contemplate the ao dai. Beneath the hardness of Vo’s face, he could see the worry.

Frye noted a framed photo next to the snapshots, the only picture in the room that didn’t have Li in it. It was Eddie with his arm around another young man. Same height, same age. Eddie’s hair was gelled to perfection. The other’s was cut into a flat-top that must have been two inches high. They were the two happiest haircuts Frye had seen in years. They were made for each other. The boys smiled at the camera.

“Loc,” said Eddie, staring at the picture.

“So you were friends once.”

“In the camps we survived. I came over first and formed Ground Zero. He came over later and joined me. Later, he split to form the Dark Men. He betrayed me. I will take down the picture when I feel like it.”

“Is that who’s out there in the white Chevy?”

“No.”

“Who is?”

“If I knew I wouldn’t be nervous, man.”

They went to the living room and Eddie put on a Li Frye tape. “You’ve never heard this,” said Vo. “I made it myself.”

Eddie went to the bedroom while Frye listened. A moment later he came back wearing fresh clothes, his hair carefully sculpted. He had the gun again. “I want you to take me to my store before we go to the cops. I want to lock up this piece, turn on my burglar alarm, and get some money to bribe my way out of jail. Man, you can’t trust nobody anymore. Not even the gang you used to be in.”

As Frye steered the Cyclone down Eddie’s street, he watched in his rearview mirror as the Chevy pulled from the curb and followed. One block down, another car fell in between them. “Dark Men behind us, Eddie?”

“I told you, Frye. I don’t know.”

Saigon Plaza was Monday-night quiet. The rows of street lamps sent their glow over the parking lot, the marble lions at the entrance, the big archway. As always, colored flyers lay scattered across the asphalt.

But as soon as Frye turned in, he saw the fire units outside Ground Zero Records, the police cars, the little crowd huddled to one side. Two men in yellow, legs spread, supported a hose heaving white rapids of water into Eddie’s burning store.