by Andrew Lanh
Darijo whispered, “We are Muslims who drink. We choose our laws carefully.” He smiled at us.
We dug in, Hank delirious with pleasure, Ahmed standing by the kitchen, arms folded as he watched us eat. A few customers straggled in, were seated away from us, and Almira scurried about.
“I gotta get to work,” Darijo said. He started to stand, nodding at us, glancing at his father. “I got to…”
“Darijo,” I said quickly, “one last question. Those audiotapes released to the public. Did you hear them?”
An unhappy face. “Like everybody I know is flooding Instagram with stuff, real crazy. Someone even put a music track behind those phone conversations. Star Wars.”
“But I wondered what you thought of that line Winslow said to Dustin. ‘You know where the body is.’ What did you think?”
“Yeah, everybody’s yapping about that.”
“It didn’t bother you?”
He bit his lip. “A little but, you know…” He looked off across the restaurant, nodded to a customer walking in. “Did you ever hear Winslow in class? I had his Social Problems. Did you ever hear that dumb expression—‘Where the bodies are buried.’ Like—secrets, hidden information. Winslow liked to use that phrase, you know. Talking about the hidden stories of American life, scandals, religious nuts and their…you know infidelities and transgressions. He always laughed and said—‘Hey, where the bodies are buried.’ It made us laugh. So, no, it didn’t bother me. Said differently, true, but I could sort of hear Winslow saying it. No real body, sirs. I don’t think he meant Dustin was hiding a body in the cellar or something.”
Politely, Darijo shook our hands, bowed, and backed off. His father walked us out the door, thanking us, inviting us back.
Outside, I started the car, turned on the heater. Light sleet had fallen, a thin coat of ice covering the windshield. While I scraped the front window, Hank worked the rear window, the two of us quiet.
Finally, waving his scraper in the air, Hank said, “This is a new wrinkle, right?”
“I have no idea what it all means.”
“That’s not the answer I want to hear from you.”
I chuckled. “I was assuming there was a real body.”
“Everybody was.” He shivered. “There could still be a body.”
“Hank, I…” I stopped, alarmed.
“What?”
“Quiet.”
There it was.
Ka-clunk ka-clunk. Faint yet undeniable, though fading away now.
“That sound.”
I stared up the avenue and Hank followed my gaze.
“Look.”
Turning a corner a few blocks away was a car with a white-primer side panel.
The noise disappeared, lost among the horn blowing, revved engines, screeching tires, and laughter from strollers on the sidewalk.
“Shotgun,” Hank yelled, hopping into the passenger seat.
I sailed across a lane of traffic, sped around a double-parked car, and turned down Capon Street. A few cars crept along, but not the one I wanted. I skirted past them. At the next corner I idled, searched left and right. Nothing. Another street. Nothing. I turned back toward the avenue and out of the corner of my eye I spotted a car pulling into a driveway.
“There,” Hank yelled, “that piece-of-shit car. I think…”
We pulled alongside the curb just as a young Spanish guy was opening the driver’s side. He spotted us staring and frowned.
“Not the car,” I said to Hank.
Yes, a heap of a car, with a makeshift front fender painted primer white. A dented back bumper. A Take No Prisoners sticker on the back window.
The young man ambled toward us. “Help you?”
Hank rolled down the window. “No,” he said politely.
“I didn’t think so.” He turned away.
I pulled back out into traffic.
“I swear it was the same car. Did you hear the…?”
“No,” Hank broke in. “But I saw the flash of a car.”
“What does this mean?” I wondered out loud.
Hank settled back, still craning his head left and right, watching the street, the experienced cop surveying the landscape. “What it means is that someone doesn’t want you snooping around. Someone is afraid you’re gonna find something out.”
“That’s just what I plan on doing.”
Hank pulled in his cheeks. “Even if it kills you.”
Chapter Twenty
Hank texted me during his late afternoon shift. I’d been stretched out on my sofa, my laptop balanced on my lap, as I jotted in notes about Dustin Trang. His text startled me, making me sit up so quickly that the laptop slid to the floor.
Working now. Dustin texted. Frantic. Letter suspended him from classes. Panic. Check out.
I texted back:
Suspended? What mean panic? Frantic?
His quick response:
I read between lines.
I typed back:
What do you want?
His answer:
Unlike him. He said sick of it all. Worried.
So was I. I dialed Dustin’s number, but the message said Out of Service.
I texted Hank:
Headed to Bristol now.
I dressed quickly, tried his cellphone one more time, then drove to Dustin’s home and pulled into the dark parking lot. No lights on in his home, though the apartment next door blazed with light. A group of men huddled by the front doorway, coatless, cigarettes bobbing in their mouths, a run of overlapping Spanish that ended when I approached the doorway. Suspicious, they eyed me, waiting. I nodded a hello, was ignored, and knocked discreetly on Dustin’s door. No answer, as I expected.
No one had washed off the graffiti—“KILLER” had dried to a dull dirty finish.
I knocked louder. Then I pounded. I leaned toward the barred window and yelled, “Dustin, open up. I know you’re home.”
“No, he ain’t,” one of the men said.
“You saw him leave?”
He didn’t answer.
“Nobody’s home. Go away.” Another man laughed as he said the words.
“I know he’s home.” I rapped my knuckles on the door.
Suddenly the door opened and Dustin stood in front of me. He peeked out, his hand gripping the door.
“Let me in.” I moved forward, forcing him to back up. He stepped aside and I walked past him into the dark room. “Could we have a little light, Dustin? I’m always fumbling in the dark when I visit you.”
“I like it that way.”
“What? Me fumbling in the dark?”
He didn’t answer but I found the light switch.
At that moment I saw his face. “Christ, Dustin, what happened?”
Nervous, he backed up, but his hand flew to his cheek, then covered his left eye. I grasped his shoulder and maneuvered him under the garish overhead light. An ugly black eye. A half-closed eye socket. His left cheek sported a silver-dollar-sized welt, bright crimson and raw. A speck of dried blood. His hair was standing on end, the coarse spiky stands electrified. No eyeglasses, which surprised me.
“Dustin, talk to me.”
He started coughing, bent over, and held his sides.
“I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“No, I’m all right.” He tried to back away. “Go away.”
“You’re not okay, dammit.”
His back to me. “It’s a couple bruises, that’s all.”
“Dustin…”
“No. Fuckin’ leave me alone.”
“Sit down,” I told him.
Strangely, he listened, sitting on the sofa, his hands folded in his lap, his head turned away from me. In the bathroom I found a face cloth, soaked it in hot water, wrung it out, and told Dustin to rest his head back. Quietl
y he obeyed, and I dabbed at the wounds. He winced, squirmed, but finally sat still. “Quite the shiner, Dustin. Tell me.”
“Nothing to tell.”
I stared into his small face. “Oh good, Dustin. One more story you won’t tell me. Everything is a goddamn secret with you.”
“Nobody’s business.”
I gripped his shoulder and he jerked back. “You’re wrong about that. It’s my business now.”
“What do you want?”
“You texted Hank. He was worried. I was worried. I am worried.”
He rubbed his eye with a finger. “Hank called you?”
“Yeah.”
That news seemed to please him because I saw the corners of his lips turn up slightly, a hint of a smile. “Nothing—shit. I got this letter from the college. They won’t let me back on campus next semester until the…you know, the matter is resolved.”
I dabbed at his cheek though he pushed my hand away. “Then you have to resolve the matter. To prove it—but you have to talk to me.”
“I don’t want to be suspended,” he said loudly. “I got nowhere to go anymore.” Panic. Frantic. I wondered how Hank, that state cop wunderkind, could detect such extreme reaction from an impersonal text on his cellphone. Maybe, I thought, it was generational. Hank was right—he could read between the lines.
“Okay, Dustin, I’ll work on that for you.”
“You will?” His eyes got wide.
“Now,” I said, breathing in, “you tell me what happened.” I dabbed at the welt on his cheek that seemed to be turning a deeper shade of scarlet.
My phone beeped. A text from Hank:
If I got to use all 140 characters I will: talk to me.
I responded:
I’m here. Calm down.
“Hank?” Dustin said.
“He’s worried.” I waited a second. “Tell me.”
“Nothing to tell.”
“You’re bullshitting me, Dustin. I don’t like that.” I looked around. “Where’s your mother?”
He panicked, restless in the seat. “You can’t stay. Mom said you can’t come here anymore. She told you…” His words ran on, sputtered.
“I know what she told me. Tell me.” I waited a second. “Where is she?”
Nervously, he watched the front door. “She went to the Indian casino at Foxwoods. With Aunt Suong and Rosie. You know, Timmy’s wife. They go by bus from the center…They’re gonna be…Mom might come back any minute.” He pointed at the clock. “At suppertime. You gotta go.”
“I don’t care. I’m not leaving until you talk to me about what happened to your face. Who beat you up?”
“I wasn’t beat up.” He fumbled on a table for his eyeglasses, putting them on, and they rested crookedly on the bridge of his nose. The black eye now seemed more ominous.
“Tell me.” I grasped his shoulder and he froze. “Somebody from the neighborhood?” I waited. “Your brothers?” His body tightened.
“Timmy?”
“Shit no. That fat slob can’t get off the couch.”
I clicked my tongue. “Hollis.”
He didn’t answer but I knew. “Not here, right? He can’t come here. Where were you?” Silence. He couldn’t look me in the eye. “Uncle Binh’s?”
“Yeah, I…”
“But Hollis doesn’t talk to you. Ever.”
A phony laugh that went on too long. “He didn’t have to say anything, right?” His eyes kept going to the front door. “You gotta go. I don’t want trouble.”
“All right. I’ll leave.” I glanced toward the door. “You okay?”
He rushed to the front door and opened it. As I walked by him, I touched his shoulder, forcing him to stop moving. I leaned in, smelled his hot breath. “Dustin.” He shook off my hand, but as he closed the door behind me I heard a faraway mumble. “Thanks.”
One of the men lingering outside the other apartment took a drag on his cigarette and yelled to me. “I told you no one ain’t home.”
***
Standing outside Uncle Binh’s apartment door, the overhead lamp switched off, I grasped the knocker, but a screw came loose, the brass knocker slipping. Suddenly the door swung open, and I faced a surprised Timmy Trang. He switched on the outside light, and squinted. He was in the middle of a sentence. “Why the hell you don’t use your goddamn key…we expected you…” He stopped, a bewildered look on his face. “Shit, I thought you was my wife.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah, sure.” He made a face. “Like a party here tonight.”
That made little sense because the only other occupant of the room was Uncle Binh in his wheelchair in front of a large-screen TV that was playing a Vietnamese tape. A song-and-dance routine, slender Vietnamese beauties pirouetting across a stage in front of a large South Vietnamese flag. Timmy saw me looking. “Tet festival in San Diego.” He flicked his head to the side. “Pure crap, so far as I’m concerned.”
He grabbed the remote from the table and switched it off. The screen went black as Uncle Binh cursed him. “Lo dit.” Asshole.
Uncle Binh’s hands idly sifted through a stack of letters on an end table, a nervous gesture that caused the letters to flutter to the floor. Postmarks from Vietnam, I noticed. Scribbled addresses. Uncle Binh leaned over and reached for the letters. He scowled at Timmy. “Help me.”
Timmy ignored him, rolling his eyes. “Crap news from the homeland. “Khong gi ma am y.” Big deal.
An overheated room. Radiators popping on. Yet one of the windows was cracked open, a breeze drifting across my feet. The coffee table was filled with white cartons from a Chinese restaurant, paper plates with plastic forks and cheap chopsticks still in the red paper casing. I saw pork fried rice piled on one dish within reach of Uncle Binh. Lo mein spilled out of a white carton, tipped on its side. A splash of soy sauce drizzled on a napkin. A dish of General Tso’s chicken, florets of broccoli dotting the glossy meat.
“I’m interrupting dinner?” I said to Timmy.
“We’re done.”
He shuffled to the sofa, plopped down. Dressed in a denim shirt pulled out of his trousers, washed a few too many times because the country-western design was faded, it was also tight on his fat belly. A button undone so that worm-white flesh peeped through. His hand found the spot and scratched it.
“What?” he said, watching me. At that moment his phone rang—a loud ringtone that played the theme from The Godfather—and he mumbled an answer, then said to Uncle Binh, “The bus is downtown. Rosie lost fifty fucking bucks.” He frowned. “That’s old news.” To me he said, “They’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“I want to know what happened to Dustin. Why was he beat up?”
Timmy acted surprised by that news, turning to Uncle Binh with a confused look, adding, “What the fuck’s he talking about?”
“I just came from his apartment. He’s been roughed up.”
Uncle Binh was twitching in his seat. A gurgling sound escaped his throat. “Earlier…” he began.
“What the hell?” From Timmy. A bead of perspiration on his brow. “Man, I don’t know…”
I heard banging from the back of the apartment, the sound of a toilet flushing, then the kitchen light snapped on. Hollis walked into the room.
“Well, well, well. The cops are in town.”
“I’m not a cop.”
“You look like one.”
“Thanks.”
“You gotta gun on you?” His eyes looked me up and down.
“Yeah, and it’s registered. How about yours?”
“I can’t carry no gun. As you well know. I ain’t gonna go back to jail.”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t have one.”
A smirk as he walked into the room and sat in a chair. “I’m law-abiding.”
He was a sharp co
ntrast to his round brother—woefully skinny, shorter, wiry, stringy muscular arms. A white T-shirt that revealed a bony chest. A shaved head that revealed a phrenologist’s orgiastic dreamscape: bumps and moon ridges and scar tissue. Green and red tattoos across his neck. The hollow gaunt face of a druggie—those wide vacant eyes. He sat with his right arm cradling his left and rocked back and forth. All of a sudden a smile on his face—whatever he’d done in that bathroom kicking in, softening the edges of his crankiness.
“Why’d you hit your brother?”
He made a jack o’ lantern face, mocking. “He’s a little prissy college fag.”
“You beat him up. Why?”
“If you gotta know, he walks in here and sees me and freaks out and Uncle Binh tells him to leave and I say ‘Get the fuck out’ and he says ‘Fuck you’ to me.”
“So you hit him?”
“Wouldn’t anybody? He’s a little shit who disses the world and then acts like a pussy.”
“Leave him alone.”
He mimicked me in a high falsetto voice. “‘Leave him alone.’ Yeah, sure. He’s your little fuck buddy, right?”
“Jesus Christ.” From Timmy, looking toward the front door.
Uncle Binh broke in, his voice quivering. “Hiep, no. Stop this.” In Vietnamese: “Lam on.” Please.
Hollis shot at him, “You’re the one talking about how he disgraced the fuckin’ family. Even your beloved minister, that fat fuck Simms, shocked you at the service, and you couldn’t shut up about those insults.”
Binh dropped his eyes. “Our family pride.”
“Hah!” Hollis bellowed. “Family pride. Do you look around your world, old man? Yeah, he’s bringing fame to this family. The TV is fuckin’ filled with his dumb-ass face.”
Timmy cleared his throat but said nothing.
Hollis pointed a finger at me. “That boy is a waste of space on this earth, always has been, fucked up the family the day he was born, and everybody in the goddamn family knows it.” A deadly grin. “And I’m called the bad boy of the family ‘cause I do a little time for making a living. He walks in here and is all up-in-my-face. He’s lucky he got off with a few black-and-blue marks. When they haul his ass to prison, he’s gonna know what a beating is really like.”