Hoax

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  Jojola had also been surprised by the number of people still out at that time of night, which he figured had to be getting close to midnight local time. Only now they were happier, smiling and laughing, still in a hurry to get somewhere, still avoiding looking at anyone who was not with them, but now he assumed from their expressions they were off to bars or the arms of their lovers.

  Thinking about lovers was part of the reason he’d decided to go for a walk. He’d wondered how he would react to Marlene’s husband, admitting to himself that while he and she were only what they were, he might still be jealous. But he’d liked the man immediately, sensing a fortitude and strength. He is a warrior, too, though a reluctant one who does not yet understand the role he is playing in the grand workings of the world. Seeing him together with Marlene and how much they clearly adored each other made him long for something like that again with a woman, and he hoped it would be a woman like Marlene.

  • • •

  But now he had more serious matters to attend to. The man from the store was apparently stalking Lucy. Aware of some of the family’s turbulent history (not to mention having apparently found himself in the middle of another of their adventures) and knowing no good reason for a man to follow the girl, he decided to track them.

  At first he thought the man might just be a masher who had taken an interest in a young woman. But he soon realized that the man was too professional at the business of tracking without notice to simply be a pervert; he was hunting Lucy, and Jojola felt glad that habit had caused him to place his knife in its boot sheath.

  On the sidewalk, Jojola had no problem keeping up with the pair. But when they got to the subway station, he fumbled about trying to manipulate his Metro card in the turnstiles. Finally, an impatient New Yorker behind him reached over and took the card from his hand, flipped it around, and passed it through the machine. “Go,” the man urged. He turned to thank the man after he got through, but his benefactor didn’t even bother to acknowledge it.

  Jojola ran to the stairs in the direction he had seen Lucy and her tracker go. At the bottom, he hesitated when he spotted her standing next to the track; the man was twenty feet farther along the line. The train pulled up but he waited until the two got on board separate cars before running to catch yet another, arriving just as the door was closing—causing it to slide back open and a mechanical voice to warn against standing too close to the opening. He got several dirty looks for causing the delay.

  The ride was unsettling to Jojola, who didn’t like the idea of having been stuffed into a tin can and then rushed along at great speeds through a dark tunnel. His people believed that in the beginning of time, they had emerged from a hole that led to the center of the earth. But the thought didn’t make him feel any better and he was thankful when the train reached the end of the line and he got out and walked up the stairs into the open.

  As he continued to follow the pair, he was surprised when they reached what appeared to be a large park with big trees. He had begun to wonder if the entire island had been covered with buildings and streets. The air smelled better too, salty and wet, and he realized the ocean could not be too far away.

  However, he was soon alarmed as Lucy walked into the park and along a dimly lit path surrounded on either side by trees. He saw vagrants and other disreputable-looking sorts staring after her, though they seemed to shy away when Lucy’s stalker passed.

  As he moved, keeping to the trees and shadows as best he could, he kept estimating how long it would take him to reach Lucy if the man suddenly attacked her. The man seemed to be growing bolder, not bothering to stay out of sight. But then Jojola froze, aware that other shadows were now moving in the same direction as the three of them. They kept to the sides and filled in behind the man, as though protecting him. There are too many, he thought, but perhaps I can buy enough time for her to escape. It was vaguely disappointing to him to have come so far only to die in a park, but if that’s the way it was intended, he was ready to give a good accounting of himself. He paused long enough to retrieve his knife.

  Lucy reached a clear area surrounded by park benches and stopped. She seemed unsure of herself, but the man who was following now walked rapidly toward her.

  Jojola broke from his cover of the trees and swiftly closed in on the man. His target guards were too far out and had not seen that he was in their midst and now it was too late. He was moving so fast that he nearly missed the man’s hesitation and the slight dip of the shoulders before the man spun and slashed; but he saw the gleam of the knife that nearly eviscerated him.

  Jojola’s back slash bought him enough time to launch a round-house kick that caught his opponent in the kidneys. If he’d had better footing and had not been caught off guard, he might have done more damage, but his opponent grunted and he knew it had hurt him. But then the man repaid him with his own kick, which caught him in the ribs as he was stabbing forward.

  Jojola heard other footsteps running up and knew he didn’t have much time. “Lucy, run!” he shouted as he dropped and swept his opponent’s feet out from under him, sending the man crashing onto his back. He was on the man and about to cut his throat when Lucy’s voice stopped him.

  “John! Tran! Stop it!” she screamed. When both men froze, she modulated her voice to calm them. “I don’t have many friends and certainly don’t need the two of you killing each other.”

  Jojola and Tran Do Vinh broke apart but kept their knives pointed at each other as a half-dozen other men surrounded them, all with guns pointed at the Indian. “He’s your friend?” the two men with the knives asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “No, please put the knives away and Tran, tell your men not to shoot.”

  Tran barked a quiet order in Vietnamese and the other men lowered their guns. He laughed. “This must be the air-conditioning repairman we saw loitering outside your home and then going in and never coming out. I am pleased to meet any friend of Lucy’s. My name is Tran Do Vinh.”

  “John Jojola.”

  Tran turned to Lucy, who spoke to him in Vienamese. “Em vui ve gap lai Anh.” She then hugged him as she turned to Jojola and said, “I told him…”

  “That it is good to see him again,” Jojola finished for her. “And you called him ‘older brother,’ Anh.”

  Lucy looked surprised. “You speak the language?”

  “No, not really,” he said. “I picked up a little when I was in country and recognized the formal greeting.”

  “I take it that you spent some time in my country,” Tran interjected.

  “Yes, 1968 to 1969,” Jojola said.

  “Ah, then you were with the imperialist American army,” Tran smiled.

  “The good guys in the white hats,” Jojola said. “I take it you were the bad guys with the black pajamas”

  “You mean, of course, the courageous Viet freedom fighters. But then, I guess one man’s freedom fighters are another man’s terrorists.”

  “Bullshit,” Jojola fired back.

  “Okay, okay,” Lucy said. “You two can relive the good old days some other time. I don’t have long before Mom and Dad will miss me.”

  Tran saluted her. “Then I am at your service. I received your emails with the prearranged signal that you are in danger. I take it, it is not a danger represented by this man who nearly managed to stick that…what do you Americans call them…oh yes, pig-sticker, between my ribs? So what is the danger, and how is your mother?”

  “She’s fine and I imagine enjoying the benefits of wedded bliss at this very moment; however, we’re really in it this time,” she said.

  “So your father has forgiven her for the ‘incident’ in West Virginia?” he asked.

  “I think it is more a matter of her forgiving herself,” Lucy replied. “All he wants is a nice normal family.”

  Tran blurted out a laugh. “He married the wrong woman then. But on to other subjects, do not tell me that the family of Karp and Ciampi have once again stirred the gods of war.”

&nb
sp; “ ’Fraid so,” Lucy said, and for the next thirty minutes gave him an overview of what was going on. When she finished, she sighed. “I love my church and the good it has done far outweighs the bad, but I also recognize that it has a long history of doing what its hierarchy believes is necessary to protect it. Along with the hornet’s nest my dad managed to kick, I’m worried that this time my family has taken on more than even my wondrously violent mother and valiant father can handle.”

  Tran nodded. “We were wondering,” he said. “My men noticed that in addition to the usual police protection, there have recently been men watching the building. They try to be discreet, but they are clumsy and obviously cops. But the regular guards do not know they are there, so I believed there was something fishy.”

  “I’m glad the guys in the store were watching out for Dad and the boys while we were gone,” Lucy said.

  Tran looked amused. “So you are aware that my cousin, Thien Le, is not just the proprietor of a restaurant supply store.”

  “Puleeze, with all the comings and goings at night,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Only my dad is that naive. I’m sure my mother knows as well that it’s yet another lair of the bandit chief Tran Do Vinh.”

  “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “I would have guessed it might be obvious. But your family needs such constant attention, it only made good economic sense to move one of my operations closer. Besides, who would believe that there would be an antiquities smuggling operation going on, literally right under the nose of the New York district attorney. It is a wonderful irony. Anyway, I think your family is safe while in the building. No one can gain access through my part of the property, and even if they get to the loft, they will have to deal with that hellhound, Gog, your mother and”—here he laughed again—“let us not forget Zak. He may be the most dangerous of you all.”

  “That’s what we’re afraid of,” Lucy acknowledged. “So will you help me make sure they all stay safe?”

  “What’s in it for me and my men?” Tran asked. “After all, I am a crime boss and must keep up appearances and bring in the loot, or the younger men will think I’ve grown soft and think they can challenge me for leadership of our association. And that could be dangerous to me or them.”

  “Well, Ahn, you can tell them that we will arrange some sort of protection fee from my mother’s foundation,” she said. “But you will do it because even a bandit chief knows when to stand up to evil.”

  “Are not good and evil also in the eye of the beholder?” he asked, “John and I were on two different sides of a war, each side believing it was good and the other evil. It is easier to kill a man when you have convinced yourself he is some sort of demon. Isn’t that right, John?”

  Jojola looked at him and replied, “Perhaps in Vietnam it wasn’t always so easy to tell the difference, although there is only one man from those times who I have demonized in my mind. But I think in this case, the line is drawn a little more clearly.”

  “Yes, but the youth today…my young men do not fight for causes, they fight for money and sometimes revenge.” Tran shrugged.

  “But you will fight for the love of my mother,” Lucy told him. “The others will be paid if necessary.”

  “Good,” Tran said with a smile. “Then we have a deal. And I will have a new experience, going to war for love. Now it is time to get you home before your mother comes and finds me.”

  Tran gave a hand signal and his men melted back into the trees, forming a ring around the two men and the young woman as they walked back to the street where a long black limousine waited. They drove to Crosby and Grand, with the bandit and Lucy catching up since they last saw each other two years earlier in West Virginia.

  When they arrived, Lucy popped out of the car while Jojola shook Tran’s hand. “Someday we will have to sit down and talk about your time in my country,” the latter said.

  “Perhaps,” Jojola said, “though most of my memories from there are not good ones.”

  “I have both good and bad,” Tran said. “I used to have a family there, but they were murdered by the South Vietnamese government.”

  “And I used to have friends there, my best friend as well,” Jojola replied. “But they were murdered by the Vietcong.”

  “Ah, again there is that ‘eye of the beholder’ thing again,” Tran said. “Is it murder when it is committed during a war?”

  “It depends,” Jojola said. “But let’s leave it for our next conversation.” He closed the door and entered the building with Lucy.

  Tran sat for a moment watching the pair disappear behind the door. His thoughts were interrupted by the driver, an older man, who turned around and asked, “Are you ready to go, Cop?”

  “Cop?” Tran said. “That is not a name I go by anymore. It belongs to another time. Please do not use it again. But yes, I am ready to go.”

  31

  ALEJANDRO GARCIA WAITED ON THE EAST BALCONY OF Grand Central Station for the woman to appear. She said she’d be entering from the Vanderbilt Avenue side and his vantage gave him an excellent view of those doors, as well as allowing him to survey the huge lobby for signs of danger.

  At five in the morning, the station was fairly quiet. A few people milled around the information kiosk in the center, pairs of police officers joked with men in army uniforms carrying M-16s—a new sight in New York since 9/11—some business types trying to beat the bosses in to work, and a large bearded man in a plaid shirt lounging over by the subway shuttle tunnel, probably one of the many nomadic homeless who lived in the tunnels and stations.

  In another hour, he knew the concourses would begin to fill with commuters arriving on the Hudson railroad line, as well as those making subway connections to disperse throughout the island of Manhattan. An hour after that, the place would be packed. But he’d chosen this time to meet with Marlene Ciampi because it would be easier to spot someone if she was followed.

  If she is, I walk, he thought as he looked up at the ceiling. When he was a child, his grandmother used to bring him there for something free to do. She’d point up at the blue dome and show him how the twinkling lights outlined the mythological people and creatures that had been drawn up there. “They’re called constellations, hijo, and each has a story. The stars look just like that, only brighter and prettier and there are millions more of them, in the real world away from the city.” She’d tell him some story from her childhood in Puerto Rico, “where the air was clean and so clear that you could see the stars reflected in the ocean when we walked along the beach.”

  As he wondered what it would be like to see stars like that it struck him how much he missed her. She had always brought such balance to his life, had saved him from the anger that might have consumed him. They hadn’t caught the man who knocked her down, but it no longer made him angry. The guy was probably a junkie and didn’t intend to kill her, just feed his disease, which sooner or later would kill him anyway. Hating him wasn’t worth his time.

  When he considered time, Alejandro had spent a great deal of it in the past few weeks thinking about his future. He loved writing poetry and setting it to music, but he realized that making it in the business was a long shot and wondered if the compromises he’d be required to make to get noticed by record company executives were worth it. He knew that he wanted to write, and had the idea of writing a book. About a gangbanger who turns out to be the hero by taking on the system. The idea made him laugh out loud, as that, too, made him think of his grandmother, who had always encouraged him to dream. But it also made him sad and angry, as any such book would also have to deal with the murder of Francisco Apodaca. In that case, they did intend to kill and now they’re going to pay.

  • • •

  Alejandro had come by the No Prosecution files almost by accident. He’d been told to move some filing cabinets into a courtroom that was being used for storage while the building was cleaned up after the bombing. One of the small filing cabinets had popped open when he tweaked his back and dropped it a
little hard. He was going to slide the drawer back closed when two words stamped in big red letters on the outside of one of the files caught his attention. No Prosecution.

  Curious, he looked inside and began to read the letter attached to the front of the other papers. It was a letter addressed to then-district attorney Jack Keegan, essentially saying that allegations brought to the Archdiocese of New York against a priest for sexually assaulting a young boy “appear to be unfounded.” The letter writer noted that to limit the liability of the archdiocese against any future lawsuits, payments had been made to the victim and his family totaling $830,000 to settle the matter out of court. “However, a review by this firm of the material contained with this letter leads us to believe that no prosecution for criminal charges is warranted.” The letter was signed by a lawyer, someone even a former gang member from Spanish Harlem would know by name: Andrew Kane.

  As he’d read the letter, Alejandro felt a chill go up his spine and his stomach knotted. The accused priest’s name started with a G; with dread he flipped through the files until he reached the letter L…for Lichner. There were actually three files under Hans Lichner but he quickly found one with the slash mark and the name Garcia.

  With trembling hands he looked at the letter on the outside of the other material. “The accuser is eight years old and his allegations cannot be substantiated…he may be trying to get attention from his parents who have drug-and alcohol-related issues.” His parents had settled for fifty thousand dollars—sold me out for nickels and dimes, he thought—in exchange for signing papers agreeing not to bring suit “against the archdiocese as an entity, or its clergy and staff” and, of course, were sworn to confidentiality.

  “No prosecution of criminal charges is warranted at this time.” Nothing for taking a frightened little boy to Central Park—a little boy who’d been taught to trust priests without question—and raping him. Alejandro had no doubts that Lichner had intended to kill him afterward, too, but fortunately a young couple had come along, looking for a secluded spot for their own amorous intentions, which chased the priest off. But no criminal charges were warranted and his parents had taken the money—his dad disappearing with most of it one day, his mother using the rest to feed her habit until her trust fund finally killed her.