Little Saigon

Chapter 6

The fire was a bright, vascular thing, big flames roaring behind the windows. Frye skidded the Cyclone to a stop, and they jumped out. Eddie dodged two patrolmen and ran for his shop.

Detective John Minh materialized from the white Chevy that had followed them from Vo’s house. He drew his revolver, took a long look at Frye, then pointed the officers after Eddie. The firemen lifted the hose, sending a bright arc of water over the lamps and into the darkness.

The cops caught Eddie at the door of the store, then hustled back with the slender kid pinned between them. They were all soaked. Vo glared at Frye, then at Minh. “Dark Men,” he said.

As soon as they got a cuff on one of Eddie’s wrists, he broke away, and ran a zigzag pattern down the sidewalk. One cop drew down. One slipped in the water and fell.

Minh leveled his revolver and yelled for Eddie to stop.

Frye could see Vo look back over his shoulder, eyes big, legs pumping, the silver handcuff shining as it trailed and snapped behind him.

Before he was aware of deciding to, Frye took two steps forward and shoved Minh hard. To his left someone opened up, six shots in a frightful instant. Minh pistol-whipped Frye, sending him to his knees. Through his blaring vision, he saw Eddie make the corner and disappear.

When Frye finally caught up, Eddie was out of sight. The row of shops sat neatly, odd customers lifting themselves from the sidewalk, peeking from behind doors, scrambling for their cars. The cops were already dodging in and out of the stores, under the frantic direction of Minh, whose high-pitched shouting echoed through the plaza. The smell of gunpowder blew past Frye, then gave way to the hot stink of fire. He stood there, ears ringing, dizzy, waiting for them to drag Vo out, dead or alive.

Minh ran back and handcuffed Frye to a street lamp. He cinched the cuffs tight. “If you happen to get loose, I’ll shoot you.”

Frye watched them search. Echoes of last night, he thought: into one shop where nobody tells you anything, then onto the next where they tell you it again. His head throbbed where Minh’s pistol had hit him. A few drops of blood hit the sidewalk below. Minh sent three officers to the back of the building. Two more units skidded up, sirens on, lights whirling.

Five minutes dragged by. Frye watched. Like kids on an Easter egg hunt, he thought, but nobody’s finding anything. The cops went in, only to emerge moments later with grim expressions of wonder and defeat. When they’d tried every place that Eddie could possibly have gone, they gathered outside the jewelry store with an air of communal bewilderment, making notes, hypothesizing.

Minh finally marched from the Dream Reader’s door and waved his men back to their units. Frye watched him approach: short and slender, a perfectly cut suit, face pale and angry. He stopped a few feet away. “Simple answers. Why?”

“Why? How can you blow away a half-crazy kid who’s just had his store burned out? How the hell can you—”

“Shut up!” Minh backhanded him, quite hard. Drops of red flecked the lamp post. He told Frye his Miranda rights. “You’re under arrest for obstruction, aiding and abetting a fugitive, interfering with an investigation, tampering with a crime scene.”

Minh unfastened Frye from the light pole, then cinched the cuffs even tighter. He dragged Frye into the parking lot while a crowd of Vietnamese looked on. The flames in Eddie’s store were dying down.

They stopped at the white Chevy and Minh unlocked the trunk. He found a flashlight and flipped the top off a shallow cardboard box beside the spare tire. Li’s purple ao dai lay inside, covered by a dry-cleaning bag. Beside it were her silk trousers and one shoe. There were dark drops of something on the blouse, and it was torn. “We found an earring, too, and underwear.”

“Where?”

“Eddie Vo’s garage. This afternoon. Think about it while you’re counting the roaches in jail tonight.”

The police bagged his possessions and fingerprinted him at the Westminster station; the Sheriff’s deputies booked him and sprayed his ass for lice at Orange County Jail; the inmates whistled and offered to fuck him as he was led down the cellblock in blue overalls with the cuffs still so tight that his fingers bulged with pain. He looked at the taunting faces and doubted John Waters was really right when he wrote that everyone looked better under arrest. Sometime during the nightmare, he was allowed to call Bennett. After that, a burly doctor poked five stitches into the side of his forehead.

He lay on his cot and stared at the ceiling. The man in the bunk below gave him a chew of Skoal, then told him about the bum rap he’d gotten for aggravated assault. When the man began his fifth version of the same story, Frye told him to shut up and go to sleep. His other two cellmates kept to themselves, lying on their beds, faces to the wall.

He was exhausted. As he lay there, Frye conceded that this is probably just where he belonged. The best thing you can do is keep out of the way. It’s hard to believe, he thought, that I was close enough to Eddie Vo to strangle him, and I let him go.

Li’s ao dai, spotted with blood. Her trousers. Her shoe. Her earring. That’s why Minh staked out Vo’s house. That’s why he didn’t take Eddie as soon as we got there. He was hoping Eddie and I would lead him to Li. Maybe he would have.

Instead, he’s gone.

Frye dozed off. Sometime after midnight a deputy led him to the checkout room. He got his clothes back. His money was still there.

He met his new lawyer, Mike Flaherty, dispatched by Bennett. Bennett himself didn’t show. Frye stepped outside into the cool early morning, and Flaherty led him to his Mercedes.

“Your brother wants to see you,” said Mike. “I’ll drive you back to your car.”

Bennett, Donnell Crawley, and Nguyen Hy were in the living room, each with a stack of handwritten notes in front of him. A.38 lay on the coffee table in front of Nguyen. Two men that Frye had never seen before were connecting a tape recorder to the telephone. Both wore suits, both studied him intently as he walked in. Crawley introduced them as Michelsen and Toibin, FBI. The windows were open and the night was warm.

Bennett looked at Frye briefly and told him to go out to Donnell’s cottage in the back.

Frye moved down the hallway, noting again the pictures, decorations, and awards. He stopped at the war photos — shots of his brother and Li at the Pink Night Club in Saigon. Benny with two good legs under him, looking fresh-faced and happy, a little giddy with war, a foreign land, romance. Li stood beside him, her hair wound monumentally upward in the prevailing Western mode, her face oddly girlish. It seems so long ago, he thought: it must seem like centuries to them. Then Bennett’s citations and awards, both military and civic — two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, the L.A. Times Orange Countian of the Year, the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce Helping Hand Citation — dozens more. Even a couple of new ones since the last time he’d looked. Benny, he thought, never happy unless he was the best.

Frye glanced into Bennett’s studio: bookshelves, a drafting table, and a model of the Laguna Paradiso development on a stand in the middle of the room. He looked at the tiny hillsides, the blue enamel water, the miniature boats in the marina, the homes, and stores.

The Laguna Paradiso, he thought, the biggest Frye Ranch project yet. Bennett’s baby. Edison’s parting shot.

He went through the utility room, then out to a back porch. A spotlight on the garage illuminated the yard — a brick patio, an awning, a good expanse of lawn. The hedges were neatly trimmed, the grass freshly mowed, the plants along one side perfectly spaced and tended. Donnell kept the grounds. Nestled at the far end, under a big orange tree, stood his cottage. Frye let himself in: a bed, a Formica table, a tiny television set. Ten years, he thought, and I’ve never been inside. He sat on the bed and waited, his stitches hurting and the lice spray making him smell like a pet hospital.

Bennett came in a few minutes later, braced himself on his fists and looked up at Frye.

“You all right?”

“I’m okay.”

“Get down here to my level, would you, Chuck?”

Frye knelt on the floor in front of his brother. Bennett’s eyes weren’t right. Even as a kid, he would get that look.

“Chuck, what were you doing?”

“Trying to help. See, Vo—”

“I see.”

Bennett’s fist slammed into his chest before Frye could react. His breath ripped out of him as if gaffed, something wailed in his ears, and Bennett toppled him over and fastened his thick hands around Frye’s throat.

Bennett’s face loomed over him. Pressure throbbed in his eyes. Two thumbs locked into position against his windpipe. The voice that came from the clenched mouth above him was hard and cool as the stainless of Minh’s revolver. “Never do that again. Never do anything I don’t tell you to do. Don’t move. Don’t think. Don’t breathe without my permission again. Ever.”

Frye believed he was nodding. Everything was red, just like when he was under the water, fighting for direction. The next thing he knew, he was gasping. The ceiling was turning from red to bright white, then back again. He could hear his breath — rapid on the exhale, deep on the inhale. He sat up dizzily and let the room spin around him. As soon as he caught his breath, he started coughing.

Bennett returned from Crawley’s kitchenette, pivoting on one hand, bearing a glass of water in the other. “Here, drink.”

Frye swatted away the glass, which shattered against a wall. When he stood over Bennett, he was as close as he’d ever gotten to kicking the living shit out of him. Bennett’s gaze was impartial, measured. Frye could already see the arc his foot would take, a short upward swing, off the floor, weight shifting, straight into Bennett’s jaw.

It was too easy.

It was too hard.

He sat back onto the bed.

“Good soldier, Chuck. Calm down. We’ve got business to do now and we need to do it right. Are you with me?”

Frye nodded, coughed again.

“First, tell me what in Christ’s name you were doing with Eddie Vo.”

Frye sputtered out the story.

“Any hint at all as to where he took her? Any?”

“Benny, I just thought he was crazy. He took me right back to his house. He didn’t act like a man who’d just kidnapped someone. He showed me his collection of Li stuff. He looked at a poster like it was really her. He’s nuts. He named himself for Eddie Van Halen, for God’s sake.”

Bennett swung from one end of the little cottage to the other, then back to Frye.

“Next, what about Kim?”

“We ended up in Mojave. She got off. A guy named Paul DeCord took pictures of us from the road.”

“DeCord took pictures of you? Are you sure?”

“I think so. Who is he? And don’t tell me he’s a goddamned writer.”

Bennett shook his head. “How did Kim behave?”

“She was nervous. What was in those crates, Benny?”

“What did she tell you?”

“Damn it! What’s going on? She didn’t tell me anything.”

Bennett tapped his fingers on the floor, staring at Frye. “And what did you gather?”

“Kim isn’t going to Paris, and neither was Li. The music is going to Vietnam, and so are those crates. Li couldn’t take them, so Kim did. And Minh knew I took her to the airstrip. He knew. When I was leaving his office, Paul DeCord was walking in.”

Bennett nodded, looking down at the cottage floor. “Okay. Okay.”

Frye took a deep breath and got his right fist ready to slam into Bennett’s face if he had to. “What the hell is going on out there, Benny? What’s in those crates and how come Paul DeCord’s taking pictures and running to Minh?” Frye stood up and put about three feet between his brother and himself. “I watched the video. DeCord paying off Nguyen. What are you guys doing?”

Bennett looked long and hard into Frye’s eyes. But the spark of violence was gone, replaced by assessment, caution, control. “Chuck. Brother Chuck. I wish you’d just believe in me the way I believe in you.”

“What shit.”

Bennett’s face took on a softness now, the same expression he had last night at the Asian Wind when Li glided on stage and smiled into the lights. He climbed onto Donnell’s bed and leaned against the headboard. For a long moment he closed his eyes, breathing deeply. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet.

“It’s amazing how simple people can make simple things so complicated.” Bennett crossed his thick arms. “We’re trying to help people who don’t have a country anymore, Chuck. We send them recordings of Li’s music, because it feeds their hearts. It helps to keep them going. It reminds everyone over there of the way things used to be. They listen to it. The people in the refugee camps listen to it. The villagers listen to it. It’d be like us ending up in Vietnam, Chuck. What would you want to hear — our music, or theirs? But it’s not just music, Chuck. There are other voices on those tapes. A son’s birthday wishes to a father still in the camps. A wife’s love to a husband who never got out and lives under the Communists now, too afraid to move. Greetings. Gossip. News from the refugees here. Encouragement for those still over there. Plans for bringing them out. Li always felt like she wanted to help the ones who weren’t as lucky as she was. I always felt the same. Is that so hard for you to understand?”

Frye shook his head.

“You saw these crates. How long were they, Chuck, how many feet long?”

“Three, four.”

“They’re forty-inches long, exactly. What would fit in a case that size, Chuck? Be honest now, tell me what would fit perfectly in a forty-inch wooden crate?”

“Guns. Arms.”

“Ah, somehow I thought you’d say that. Arms, sure. But what about legs?”

Frye didn’t get it.

Bennett looked down, grasped one of his stumps in both hands and lifted it up. Frye looked at the dirty padding on the bottom, a kind of special wad that Li sewed into Bennett’s pants to protect the tender ends of his legs. “What do you see besides a stump?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s exactly what a lot of those people over there have to stand on. That’s why we send those crates over. Legs. They cost almost a thousand dollars apiece, but we buy a lot of them and get a good price. It’s not the hardware that costs so much, it’s the doctors you need to fit them and show those crippled people how to use the damned things. They’re better than nothing sometimes, Chuck. Believe me. Yeah, there are arms in there too, and feet and hands. There are hooks and crutches, bandages, antibiotics, pain killers, vitamins, cortisone, and enough tape to wrap everybody in the country from head to toe. Any of that meet with your approval?”

Frye nodded.

“I’m happy to hear that. Now, why am I giving you a tape of DeCord paying money to Nguyen? Simple, Chuck, part of the money for those supplies comes from DeCord, I’m just keeping the accounting clean. If it’s ever necessary — and I hope it won’t be — I need to be able to prove where it came from. There is a lot of money involved. You must understand that.”

“Where’s DeCord get it?”

“Foreign sources, Chuck. Sympathetic to a free Vietnam. It’s nobody’s business, especially yours, who those donors are.”

“Why’s DeCord taking pictures of the airstrip?”

Bennett’s gaze shifted past Frye to the window. He looked at the black pane as if trying to read an answer there. “I don’t know yet. That’s why the video is important. It’s insurance. That’s where you come in. That’s why I’m asking you to trust me now. That’s why I’m hoping and praying I can trust you to take care of it. Have you?”

“It’s safe.”

Bennett smiled. “Things are pretty simple, when you slow down and look at them correctly. Aren’t they?”

“It’s just kind of embarrassing to be the last one to find out what your own brother’s doing.”

“I had to bullshit you a little, Chuck. The longer you thought she was going to Paris, the better. Chuck, what Li does — what we do — is outside official channels. It isn’t illegal, but sometimes it isn’t approved, either. There are some uncharted areas out there, and that’s where we work. But we have to keep things quiet.”

Frye got up, paced the tiny guest house, looked out the window to the back yard. I had Eddie Vo in choking distance. And I let him get away. “I’m sorry about Eddie. I was just trying to do something... something goddamned right for a change.”

“I know you were.”

Frye sat down on the bed. “I’m sick of being a liability to my own family, but you punch me again, I’m going to tear you apart. I mean it.”

Bennett reached out and touched Frye’s head, near the stitches, then placed his hand gently on his neck. “No one believes that, unless it’s you. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t blame yourself for Debbie. It wasn’t your fault. I know that, even if you don’t.”

“I don’t want to talk about her, Bennett.”

Bennett looked down to the floor, ran his fingers through his thick dark hair. “Can’t you just understand, Chuck, that there’s some things you can’t do anything about? You can’t do anything about our sister. You can’t do anything about Li.”

“I can. I will.”

“You’re right. You can keep an eye on that tape I gave you. You can find out about John Minh. You can help me out when I need you, Chuck, I need you to be there for me.”

Frye looked at his brother. Somewhere just behind the skin, just inside those dark blue eyes, he could see Debbie: her spirit, her face, her blood. “I can’t do nothing, Benny. Don’t ask me to sit there again and do nothing.”

“Then tell me what you found out about John Minh.”

He told him everything.

Back in the living room he sat with Crawley and Nguyen, organizing the notes that Hy’s people had collected. Michelsen and Toibin looked on. One hundred and fifteen interviews, and basically it all boiled down to nothing.

Edison called and Bennett put the telephone speaker on. The sound-activated tape recorder started up.

Edison cursed the slowness of the FBI for a moment, then presented Pat Arbuckle’s first solid lead: He’d found a young lady who’d seen Eddie Vo’s car arrive outside the Dream Reader Sunday night. Inside were three men — she didn’t know them — and Li. According to the witness, Li wasn’t struggling at all, but standing up straight, head high, apparently part of a fortune-telling excursion. Arbuckle had determined that two of the men had stayed quite close to her. “With a gun to her back is my guess,” said Edison.

“Her blouse was torn and she only had one shoe,” said Bennett. “Didn’t the lady think that was unusual?”

“Apparently not. Maybe they gave Li a coat.”

“But they didn’t go into the Dream Reader?”

“The lady didn’t bother to watch them. They must have been switching cars, before they delivered her to Vo.”

“Did Arbuckle lean on the fat madam?” Bennett asked.

“Affirmative. But she really must not have seen them. Chuck out of jail yet?”

“He’s here. He’s okay.”

“I talked to the D.A. five minutes ago. He’ll drop the charges if I ride him hard enough. Tell Chuck to do us all a favor and stay the hell out of this mess from now on.”

Bennett hung up.

A minute later the phone rang again. Bennett punched the speaker button. The tape recorder started up. “Bennett Frye.”

A short pause. Then a quiet, distorted voice that sounded long distance, even though the connection was flawless. “I know. Hello, bạn. I have a greeting for you.”

Bennett turned up the speaker. Crawley stood. Nguyen straightened and checked his watch. Michelson and Toibin rose together and moved toward the phone.

Frye’s stomach tightened.

The next voice was Li’s. She was sobbing. “I love you, Benny. I’m all right. You’re number one. I am being taken care of.”

Bennett leaned toward the phone, hands out, as if to embrace the machine, the voice. “Li. Li!”

“Benny, I love you.”

The line went dead. He swung off the couch and started pacing the room. When he stopped, an odd smile came to his face, as if he were finally realizing something he’d overlooked too long. “She’s alive,” he said. “She’s alive.”

Frye felt a huge weight being lifted, a weight that, on some deep level, he had already prepared himself to carry for the rest of his life. All he could do was smile.

For a brief moment, they all looked at the phone again.

“She’s alive!”

Michelsen had already placed the cassette in its plastic box and headed out the door with it.

The cave-house was totaled. He just stood there in the doorway, his finger still on the light switch, his heart pounding like a dryer with a load of tennis shoes. Television crashed from its stand, stereo speakers ripped apart, couch cushions slashed open, wetsuits and surfboards everywhere, surfing posters crumpled and tossed to the floor, coffee table overturned, guitar smashed, lamps crushed, rug bunched and tossed in a corner, Linda’s oak credenza toppled and its doors pulled off. You name it, Frye thought, and it’s wrecked.

His hands were shaking. He didn’t have to look very hard to know that the videotape was gone.