Silent Joe

by T. Jefferson Parker

  Sammy Nguyen, a young Vietnamese gangster charged with killing police officer during a traffic stop, lay on his bunk staring at a picture his girlfriend that we had allowed him to tape to the ceiling. He glanced toward the video camera like he knew I was watching, smiled, turned back to his picture of Bernadette. He's a bright guy, Sammy. Quiet for the most part, fairly polite, has his code of honor and sticks with it. He's high up the Vietnamese gang structure, probably has fifty guys under him.

  Will and Sammy had a history. They'd only met once, about two months before, in the Bamboo 33 nightclub. Will had gone there to help some of his Vietnamese friends. It was the club's grand opening, and owners wanted Will there to certify their importance, maybe get their pictures in the papers. Will had taken Mary Ann, driven them himself, that's why I wasn't there.

  The grand opening went fine, Will said, but this handsome hood named Sammy Nguyen and his girlfriend, Bernadette, kept approaching him with some chatter about opening a savings and loan in Little Saigon. Will said he'd get back to them and tried to steer away, but Sammy and Bernadette kept hanging around until Will took Mary Ann to another table.

  Next thing he knew, this Sammy cat was staring blankly at him. The gangsters call it a mad-dog, and you're supposed to show respect by looking away.

  Will knew the score. He was a deputy for twenty-plus years. So he mad-dogged Sammy back, digging down deep for the thoughts that let you keep a stare. He told me he thought about 'Nam and some friends of his who died there so jerks like Sammy could live here. But a lot of good people came here, too, and he wondered what that whole war was worth. Will said he kind of got lost in the thought and time passed. And the next he knew, Sammy had looked away. That meant Sammy still hadn't gotten his respect, and according to the rules of gangland, he was entitled to murder Will Trona in order to finally get some.

  Punk shit, was what Will had called it. He forgot about him until the next day, when Sammy Nguyen was arrested for allegedly gunning down a Westminster cop named Dennis Franklin. The shooting had taken place just a couple of hours after Will and Sammy talked at Bamboo 33.

  Will took it hard. He didn't know Franklin but he wondered if he'd talked to Sammy better that night, heard him out about the savings and loan idea, didn't mad-dog him, maybe the hood would have left Bamboo 33 in a hopeful mood rather than a murderous one.

  All Franklin had done to Sammy was pull him over for speeding on Bolsa Avenue. Will and Mary Ann contributed fifty thousand dollars to a trust for Franklin's widow and their two-year-old. The papers loved that, and wanted to know why the Tronas had singled out Dennis Franklin's family. Will said because he was a good cop, didn't mention what had happened between him and Sammy Nguyen.

  I left the guard station and walked to Sammy's cell. Dim lights, near silence, the hushed setting of a dream. The he-she's—men in various stages of gender reassignment—stared at me. Clarkson, a mass murderer of children, ignored me. I walked up behind the runner—a trusty—as he pushed Sammy's breakfast tray through the slot.

  "Hello, Deputy Joe. Sorry about your father."

  Jailhouse gossip travels at the speed of light.

  "Thank you."

  Sammy sat down with the tray across his knees, but he didn't look at the food. "I met him once, you know."

  I looked at him but said nothing. He'd shared this information before. "And he was insulting to me and Bernadette. I could have had killed for his behavior that night and been within my rights."

  "Yes, you told me that before. It's baby-like, Sammy, that kill thinking."

  Sammy thought about this for a moment. He took off his glasses set them on his pillow.

  "But I didn't. I had nothing to do with this."

  I believed him, because we'd been opening Sammy's incoming outgoing mail since his arrest. I knew he was directing gang business through Bernadette. She was his lieutenant as well as his woman, and told her everything in those letters. Sammy was inside on a murder rap, all right, but he was up to his elbows in gun trafficking, fraud, home invasion; and stolen goods. He'd never once mentioned Will, or the insult, in any his letters. If he let a contract on Will, he'd have done it through the mail with his woman.

  It amazes me that a guy as bright and suspicious as Sammy wouldn’t think that his mail was being read.

  "Did you see it happen?"

  "Yes. Five men."

  "That's a contract, Joe."

  "That's what it looked like."

  "Were you close?"

  "The fog was bad. They all wore long coats, collars up. The leader tall."

  Suspicion spread across Sammy's wide, guileful face. I routinely lie to Sammy and the other inmates—some lies too big to be believed, other small to even sound untrue. If the inmates get only the truth, they'll strip it off you like piranha. You need some bluff to keep them back. You need a rap. That's what they use on us and that's what they get from us.

  So even when you tell them the truth, like I was doing, they assume you're lying. In jail, not even the truth sounds true.

  "The Cobra Kings," said Sammy. "They wear long coats, dress good. Not predictable, Joe, because their blood is mixed. Vietnamese and American. Vietnamese and black American. Vietnamese and Mexican American GI's fucky-fucky and out comes—what do the newspapers call them, 'children of the war'? Mutts. Everybody hates them. They grow up, they find each other, make a gang in Saigon. Everybody still hates them. So they come here, land of the free. All that."

  "Friends of yours?"

  He shook his head no.

  "The shooter knew Will by name," I said. "But I don't think Will knew him."

  He smiled a flash of straight white teeth.

  "Your father, maybe he had some friends that aren't so good for him. That happens in politics. People help you, but they're not good for you."

  "That's not exactly news."

  The smile again, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. "You see the shooter's face, Joe?"

  "Hard to see."

  At this, Sammy's face was all cynicism and doubt. "You heard him say your father's name, but you didn't see his face?"

  "Fog," I said.

  He studied me, guessing my levels of treachery. I was happy to let him do that. Something like victory crossed his face and I wanted him to have it.

  "I heard three guys got stepped on. One still alive. You do that?"

  I nodded. "Two."

  "How did it feel?"

  "Not bad. Compared to watching my father die."

  "You ever kill before?"

  "No."

  "This is sad, Joe. A very sad development. Who shot the other two?"

  "The Tall One tried to thin the witness list."

  Sammy considered. "Bad leadership. Very cold. Very Cobra King. I'd guess it was the money, though, Joe—less people to split it with."

  "There was a girl," I said.

  "What girl?"

  "Savannah."

  "Did they step on her, too?"

  "No. Do you know her?"

  "I do not."

  "Something on a girl named Savannah would help me, Sammy. Maybe in connection with someone named Alex. No last name on either."

  Sammy registers emotions convincingly and clearly, like an actor. I’ve watched him during interviews and visitations and he's a master of surprise, outrage, innocence, threat. He loves exaggeration.

  But when he wants to give nothing away his cunning face bee depthless and mute as a daisy. You can't see anything at all behind matter how hard you look. That's what he gave me.

  Then Sammy's blank look broke into a frankly optimistic expression.

  "You get my rat trap yet?"

  "You can't have a rat trap."

  "I've got a huge rat in here. He comes and goes whenever he wants. Through the ducts."

  We do have our share of rats, mice and cockroaches. But I thought he wanted the trap for something else, though I'm not sure what. Sammy likes gadgets, tools. In a cell search last week we found a pair of canine clippers, brand-new,
still in the package. They're the kind with the sharp blade that slides through the oval hole, and the heavy curved handles for power. He could make a good shank out of them, but I don't think he had anything that lowly in mind. Sammy isn't just a punk—Will wrong about that. He's something more intelligent and more dangerous and far less predictable.

  Like I said, we've got stops on all of Sammy Nguyen's mail, incoming and outgoing, so the clippers didn't come through the post office. Sammy might have got them from Frankie Dilsey, in the adjacent cell, or in the day room. Maybe in the exercise pen, which is on the roof of the building. Or maybe from one of the guards. He also might have gotten them from a visitor, or his lawyer, which could get him disbarred, .I stared into Sammy Nguyen's dark eyes as he stared back into mine. His temper is well known. Not counting officer Dennis Franklin, our homicide detectives suspect Sammy Nguyen of personally carrying out eight murders. Seven are considered to be gangland business. The other was a young man they think was moving in on Bernadette Lee, shot three times in the face in a Garden Grove parking lot.

  I thought of the shooter in the fog and wondered if Sammy could have let a contract on Will some other way than in a letter to Bernadette. Sammy got fifteen minutes a day on one of the Mod J pay phones—maybe he used that.

  Then the voice inside my head again, just a taunting whisper: you killed him you killed him you killed him . . .

  I could have stepped through the bars of the cell and forced the truth out of Sammy—if he had any truth in him. He was a clever man and a murderer, but he wouldn't stand a chance against me.

  Whatever I got from him would be unconstitutional and not evidentiary, but a courtroom wouldn't be the point. I could arrange with the other deputies here so that no one would ever know what really happened in Sammy's cell, or why. Those things occur, though more rarely than you might think.

  But inside my mind I climbed up and got to the quiet spot and I looked out of it and told myself that if I wasn't smart enough to figure out a guy like Sammy, then maybe I shouldn't be a deputy in the first place.

  Like he'd been reading my thoughts, Sammy smiled and opened his hands, palms up. "I'm sorry your father got shot, Joe. This girl, Savannah—maybe I can find something out. You get me that trap, I'll see what I can do."

  In the briefing room I heated up one of the breakfast sandwiches I keep frozen in the refrigerator. While the microwave groaned I stared down at the floor. Tears fell from my eyes and I could feel them on my cheeks and on my big scar, where tears always feel cooler, and in my mind the fog started rolling in again, trying to choke off the noise.

  I had had enough.

  You killed him you killed him you . . .

  Through the clamor, I tried to think. And this is what I came up with: I didn't think Sammy was behind what happened. I didn't think that Sammy knew this was going to go down. I think it surprised him as much as it did Will.

  The real surprise was Savannah. I could tell by his empty look when first asked about her that Sammy was hiding something. Something didn't want to give me right away. Something that might be value me.

  I didn't get it. A sweet young girl sees terrible things, she runs into the night, and a guy like Sammy Nguyen wants to parlay her for new rattrap.

  You tell me about human nature. I give up.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lunchtime in the Men's Central Jail mess hall, two hundred fifty inmates and three guards armed with nothing but pepper spray to keep the order. I stood with my back to one wall and watched the men walk in. The rules are: single file, hands in your pockets, seat yourself left to right at the next available table, no talking until you sit down with your tray. No talking with inmates at other tables.

  It's quiet. Most of these guys can get along. Anyone who can't is put into protective custody in Module J, or given administrative segregation in Mod F, and they eat in their cells. Still, this is where the trouble happens if it's going to happen. The violence is usually quick. Nobody sees anything.

  Last week one of the young Mexicans shanked a big black man— earning respect. The blacks will retaliate somehow, someday. If there's big violence in the air—the kind that trickles down from San Quentin or Pelican Bay—we guards can feel it. It gets even quieter than usual. Inmates do odd little things that are out of character for them: a glutton doesn't eat his food; an amiable guy goes froggy on you; nobody wants to use the shower or the day room. So we know something is going down, just by the feel of the place.

  The inmates get fifteen minutes to eat and file out. Eyes usually down.

  Laceless, jail-issue sneakers slapping quietly on the floor. They turn their pockets inside out when they pass the guard.

  In the mess hall the inmates travel in self-segregated gangs known as cars. We're a "brown" jail—predominantly Latin. We've got two Latin cars—one for citizens, and one for illegal’s. Then there's the Asian car, the black car. The white car is called the "wood" car. Wood is short for peckerwood. The driver is the guy in the back of each car. He's the heavy, the leader. If we've got a problem with someone, we'll go to that heavy, let him establish some discipline. Otherwise we'll punish the whole car. In jail, peer pressure can be intense.

  I made it through lunch before Sergeant Delano told me to go home and stay home.

  "The shrinks will be in touch with you, Joe—the Deputy-Involved Shooting people. That's Sergeant Mehring and Norm Zussman. Don’t worry about it, you did the right thing. They're not out to get you. Besides, you look like you could use some rest."

  "Can't I come to work, sir?"

  "You're on a paid leave, Joe. Take it. Go to the beach. Date a girl fishing."

  "I'd rather work."

  The fact of the matter was that I didn't have anything better to do work. The jail was my world, just as Hillview had been my world until Will Trona took me out of it.

  "Go."

  So I didn't fight it. I was so tired I could hardly get myself to parking lot. The voice inside started to mock me, but even my conscience was too tired to keep it up.

  I just put one foot in front of the other and told myself that Will was dead, but life would go on, life would go on, life would go on.

  When I finally got to Will's car one of the FBI guys from the Federal Building was standing there looking at the BMW. His name was Steve Marchant. Thirty-five, maybe, slender but strong.

  "I wish I could work this homicide," he said.

  "Anaheim PD's got it."

  "Wrong—it's yours now. Birch and Ouderkirk have it. The sheriff prevailed because you're one of their own."

  I didn't know what to say. I wondered how it would go, to have my fellow deputies investigating the murder of my father. Rick Birch in the homicide detail had a great reputation. I'd met him—he was old and weathered and smart. I didn't know Ouderkirk.

  "Joe, this the girl you saw last night with Will?"

  He palmed a wallet-sized school picture at me. Held it low and kind of secretively, like he was trying to sell me something he'd stolen.

  Easy enough to answer, though.

  "Yeah," I said. "That's Savannah."

  "Bingo," he said, pocketing the photo. "Describe her clothing to me."

  I did. "Is she okay, Steve?"

  "She's missing."

  "What can you tell me about her?"

  "Absolutely nothing. Just watch any network news at five-thirty."

  "But she's all right?"

  "News at five-thirty. That's all I can do for you."

  He stepped up closer to me, looked into my eyes. "Joe, did you see the shooter last night?"

  "Not well."

  "Don't let it get to you, Joe. You can't be everywhere, see everything. Hang tough. We'll get that puke and lay him down for a hotshot up in Quentin."

  "Thanks, sir. I appreciate that."

  "Be at my office, eight tomorrow morning, all right? You'll know why after the news. I'm going to ask for everything you remember about that girl, at least twice."

  I called my mother fro
m the car. Her voice sounded stronger but I could hear the thick catch of grief in it. "Will, Jr. and Glenn are coming into Orange County in an hour, Joe. Their families later."

  "I'll pick them up, Mom."

  "I'm already on my way."

  "I'll meet you by the statue."

  She gave me the airlines and arrival times, told me she loved me and hung up.

  I met her by the statue of John Wayne, a huge bronze likeness of the actor in his cowboy getup, full stride. I hugged her and she collapsed in my arms, sobbing. I'd heard her cry before, but never like that: big quivering heaves that seemed to come all the way up from her feet. I led her over to a bench, where some considerate people moved so we could sit down.

  When she was in control of herself she looked me in the eyes, ran her hands over my face and asked me how I was. She's the only person world I allow to do that—touch both sides of my face. I told her I was fine and we both respected that lie enough to stand and find our way to Jr.'s arrival gate.

  An hour later the four of us, in two cars, drove past the news crews and cameras and then up the long shaded driveway of our old home in Tustin hills. We stood on the front porch while Mom dug out her key. I smelled the eucalyptus and the roses that she had always tended with devotion. I looked at the old redwood door with the window in it and realized that it was the same door that had opened to me twenty years ago, welcoming me to the dreamiest, happiest days of my life. A home.

  But when I walked in I felt like I was in a parody of happiness, a spoof on dreams coming true. Will's home, but no Will.

  I shut the door behind me and looked at my brothers and my mother and I couldn't meet their eyes.

  You killed him you killed him you killed him.

  "I didn't kill him," I said.

  "What's that supposed to mean, Joe?" asked Will, Jr. He put his arm on my shoulder and walked me into the living room.

  I don't remember a lot about the next two hours, except that they among the worst of my life.

  Home. I moved my Mustang out of the garage and parked Will's BMW inside. Left the windows down. Sat there for a minute, wondering.