by Jay Brandon
But he knew who did have enough.
“No, I wouldn’t care to have a seat,” he said to the receptionist, and walked around her desk.
Behind him she was saying “Sir? Sir!”—her voice changing from puzzled to hostile in the space of two words.
He opened the heavy oaken door with the brass nameplate and saw Raymond Hecate reaching for his phone. The phone was buzzing frantically.
“That’s your receptionist telling you a wild-eyed intruder is bursting in.”
Hecate looked at him absolutely blankly. Then he picked up the phone and said, “No, that’s all right. I know.”
Then he came around the desk, all hearty joviality. “No sense scaring the help,” he said, extending his hand. “How are you doing, Danny? Have a seat, have a seat. What brings you downtown?”
Daniel extracted his hand from the larger man’s grip. “Carol,” he said simply.
Hecate looked blank again. But Daniel had known him just long enough to realize that Raymond Hecate’s blank looks didn’t mean no one was home. They meant Hecate had drawn back, mind racing through his options. Mentally he was a sprinter rather than a marathon man. He tended to find his first acceptable option and stop.
Daniel decided to help him along. “They haven’t contacted me again so I figure they must have talked to you.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Hecate asked. He had retreated behind his desk. Daniel was sitting in front of it
“If I knew that I’d have gone to the police by now,” he said.
Hecate looked relieved, but he probably didn’t realize it. He thought he was the master of his face, not realizing how often it turned transparent.
Daniel had been watching for that look of relief. Now he knew he was right.
“Do you know where she is?” he asked.
Hecate wasn’t giving up anything yet. He touched his tongue to his upper lip and said, “You mean she’s left you?”
“Hope springs eternal, right, Ray? No, I mean somebody took her. Somebody who called and told me to sit tight while they dealt with you.”
That was a lie but he was trusting Hecate wouldn’t know it. He was right. Hecate didn’t look relieved or blank again. He returned to bluff heartiness.
“Then why don’t you just do that, son?” He came out from behind the desk and put his hand on Daniel’s shoulder, drawing him up from the chair. This was certainly the first time Raymond Hecate had ever called him son. Daniel didn’t thrill to the sound. “This really doesn’t even involve you, you know. I’m sorry it’s had to worry you, but it’ll all be over soon and Carol’ll be back safe and—”
Daniel shrugged off Hecate’s hand and involuntarily glanced down at the top of his shoulder to see if it had left a stain. “You don’t understand. I am involved. Even if they don’t want anything from me. She’s my wife.”
Hecate was disconcerted. Having some pissant raise his voice to him when he was being charming was probably the most startling thing that had happened to him since the turn of the decade. “Now look, Dan. I know you’re upset. But there’s just nothing you can do about this. You’d be gettin’ in way over your head.”
Daniel was staring at him icily. “Like I did when I married her, right? But you’ve already tried to undo that and she wouldn’t have it.”
“I never—”
Daniel rode over him. “Maybe I’m not one of those preppie dinks you would have picked for her. One of those dull rich boys she had too much life and too much nerve to settle for. If you weren’t one of ’em yourself you’d’ve seen that.”
“You better watch your mouth, boy. I ain’t so old or worn out that I—” Hecate’s face had reddened right up to the roots of his hair.
“Listen.” Daniel leaned close into his face. He could feel the man’s breath coming hot and faster. “I worked my way up to pawnbroker. In the neighborhood I come from that was like minor royalty. It was like bank president. I can always go back to what I was. You and whoever has her better remember that.”
Hecate pushed him away. Just like kids on a schoolyard. If there’d been anybody in the room observant enough to see Daniel’s eyes narrow and his hands curl, he would have thought that Hecate had made a bad mistake. But Hecate himself was too headstrong. He didn’t notice anything but his own rage.
"You little wormy piece of shit! Do you think you have any place in this? You think you could do anything for her? This isn’t pawn tickets. This is about power. And you don’t figure in it.”
This was the breaking point. It was going to be tough to smile at each other across the Christmas turkey after this. Daniel was exhilarated. His nerves sang the way they had in those moments just before someone threw a punch.
“One way or another I will,” he said.
Hecate’s anger was still mounting. “You’ve already done enough, ” he shouted. “If she’d stuck to her own kind—” He abandoned that tack and stepped forward and poked a finger toward Daniel’s chest. “If you had the sense to get out of a losing proposition, she’d still be right here.”
Daniel waited. Hecate bit off whatever else he was going to say. He turned away and went back behind his desk. Daniel was sorry to see him back off.
“You have to let me help,” he said. “I don’t have your money, but—”
“This isn’t about money,” Hecate said. He sounded weary all of a sudden. Rage was more exhausting than a fast game of racquetball. His heart was beating him. “And there’s nothing you can do. Can you just take my word for that? They told you to stay out of it. Now I’m telling you too. If you fuck it up you’re only going to hurt her.”
Daniel stared at him, but Hecate wouldn’t even look back. He wasn’t going to get anything more here. He turned on his heel.
That roused Hecate. “You hear me, boy?” he called after his son-in-law. “Stay out of it.”
Daniel rode down in the elevator feeling himself pulse. Other people got on and off but they seemed like robots, lacking body heat. The cool wind felt good when he passed through the lobby doors.
He had been cut out of this scheme by both sides. But they were wrong. They would have to deal with him.
He hadn’t expected Hecate to tell him anything outright but he had hoped that if he got him mad Hecate would let something slip. And he had. At least Daniel hoped so, because it was the only thing he had to go on.
If Carol had stayed with her own kind, Hecate had said. Daniel had taken that to mean his marriage. If Carol had stuck with her own kind and Daniel didn’t own the pawnshop she’d be safe now. Because what did Daniel and his business expose her to?
The Vietnamese.
Not the pawnshop itself but the neighborhood. And who ruled the neighborhood? Who would be ruthless enough to do this?
He had to find Tranh Van Khai. Daniel strode down the sidewalk to his car. He had a purpose. He might have to hurt someone to get to Khai, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t really care if he made a mistake.
Chapter 8
IN THE GARAGE
The house still felt forlorn. Worse than that, it was fragile. Daniel wasn’t sure why he went back there after his visit to Raymond Hecate’s office that morning. It was as if he wanted to pick up Carol’s scent again. He sat in the quiet living room and felt cold, hard thoughts. The immobility was good for him. It made things come clear.
It was Khai, of course. Carol wouldn’t have gone this way unless she had no choice. Khai was the one who left people no choice.
He knew what he had to do now but he needed a retreat. He might need a fallback position. This house was certainly no fortress. Wondering what he could do to fortify it, Daniel wandered into the kitchen and looked out the window. Ham was sleeping in the sun. He roused himself as soon as Daniel’s hand touched the doorknob. When Daniel stepped out the dog was all over him. Daniel rubbed his ears. Ham went bounding away joyfully. Rudolph, the furry white dog in the house behind Daniel’s, was standing at the fence barking and Ham stopped in front of him, on
ly the fence separating them. Ham and Rudolph had reached an accommodation long ago, but for the moment they forgot that. They pranced back and forth on stiff legs barking and growling at each other.
Their barking set off other dogs in the neighborhood. This was a suburban subdivision, where the crime most pervasively on people’s minds was burglary. Everyone had a dog. There were dogs in the yards on either side of Daniel’s too. They ran back and forth beside their own fences, barking and growling. Daniel stood watching them. He surveyed the domain of his backyard and thought about what equipment and tools he had in the garage.
After a few minutes he set to work.
She realized the house was swarming with Vietnamese. In two more visits by the window she had seen nothing else, including a blade-thin man who seemed to be their leader. Carol had seen him only once but the impression had been strong, both on her and on the lounging men on the porch who stood straight and silent when he passed.
She didn’t know how many she had seen because few were distinctive enough in appearance for her to tell them apart from her second-floor perspective. They made her skin crawl. Seeing them made her think she had been transported far away, out of her world into some place alien.
At first her new knowledge made her more fearful of the masked man who brought her meals. But she had seen his arms, she had studied his hands. He was white. The only other besides her in the whole house, as far as she had seen. He hadn’t said much to her, but he went out of his way to give her as much freedom of movement as possible. He always lingered longer than necessary, waiting to see if she had other requests. He kept reassuring her that she would be all right.
She realized now why he had to blindfold her to lead her to the bathroom. They didn’t want her to see that her captors were Vietnamese. That meant he was defying them by letting her sit near the window. She made sure to keep her head down so she wouldn’t betray him. She wondered what would happen to him if they knew.
Carol had begun to entertain the theory that the man in the mask was a captive himself. Of course he had more freedom than she, but perhaps not much more. She hadn’t seen him pass through the front gate. Maybe his presence there was as unwilling as her own.
Her world had narrowed down to that room, the view from that window. It had been days now. Her hope of rescue was beginning to dwindle. But at the same time her hope that she had an ally here inside the house was growing.
She looked forward to his visits.
This was taking too long, Loftus thought. He stood in the hall outside the bathroom door listening to her shower water fall. The droplets were trickling down her skin. Thin streams would course across her torso, sliding and turning. Her head was thrown back in pleasure at the contact. Her hands moved down her body, soap making them slick. She stroked herself with the only pleasure she knew these days.
Loftus had pulled off the mask but even without it he was sweating. He had thought about drilling a hole through the bathroom wall, but it was unnecessary: his imagination supplied all the details. His hand was on the doorknob. He thought, as he did every time, about opening it sooner than she expected. He pictured her startled look, her frozen pose.
But it wasn’t good enough. That was a twelve-year-old’s thrill. Loftus was contemplating much more. This is taking too goddamn long, he thought again. What do they expect, leaving me alone with her for days? The consequences were going to be on Khai’s head. And if it ruined Khai’s plans, who gave a shit? Loftus was ready to bolt this gook nest anyway. If she cooperated he might take her along. If not…
She knocked when she was ready. Steam moistened his skin when he opened the door. Hers was damp as well. Her hair was wet but combed, hanging straight to her shoulders. She stood straight and passive, the blindfold already in place. He took her arm and steered her out. She laid one hand on his. A door in the hallway opened and Loftus glared at the Vietnamese, who drew back.
He would put her on the bed, probably, for now. He liked her handcuffed to the bed, but he also liked to release her so he could see her move. He wished she had something sexier than those jeans and blouse. She must be tired of the dirty clothes by now. Maybe he could suggest she give them to him to wash. She could stay naked under the covers until his return. Maybe he would suggest that right now. And maybe he wouldn’t leave her room for a while.
Carol felt again that sense of vulnerability as he guided her, sightless, down the hall. She stayed close to him. When she heard the door close behind them she sighed with relief. Like being home again. She waited for him to tell her she could move. Gratefully she raised her hands to the back of her neck.
When she took off the blindfold she gasped. He had removed his mask.
“Have you heard of a man named Tranh Van Khai?” Daniel said musingly, almost to himself.
Concentration kept Thien’s head from jerking at the sound of the name. He turned slowly. “Of course,” he said. “Everyone has.”
That confirmed what Daniel suspected but had recently been denied to his face. He had just completed a short tour of the block around the pawnshop. Some of the merchants recognized him, but their faces went blank again when he asked his question. The Vietnamese waiter who had originally told Daniel about Khai had vanished, and no one else would even admit to having heard of the gang leader.
“Where does he live?” Daniel asked Thien casually, as if they were only exchanging neighborhood gossip.
“No one knows,” Thien said solemnly.
“What?” Daniel looked closely at the boy. He had thought everyone else was lying to him, but he didn’t expect it from Thien. There was a glaze over the boy’s features. If he was lying he was lying, there was nothing Daniel could do about it. But Thien’s next words convinced him, after Daniel said, “He doesn’t give parties, people don’t go to his house for—for…?”
“No one knows,” Thien repeated. “He does not entertain. He has messengers for anything else. People do not go to his home. Or if they do they do not return.” Thien looked across the street at Linh’s pawnshop. It was dark that afternoon.
They both fell silent. Thien was the first to notice the length of the silence. He looked at Daniel, who was lost in thought.
After long minutes Daniel returned to the world. He realized what he was staring at through the plate-glass window of the shop. The two Saigon cowboys were back at their post across the street. The two who had accompanied him on his trip around the block without ever drawing closer and without ever turning away. Earlier he had noticed the restaurateur to whom he was speaking glance past him and shake his head all the more emphatically. The cowboys leaned against the wall now, knife-edged, casually confident of their dangerousness.
Of course someone knew where Khai lived. And someone would tell him.
“He is going to the police.”
The cowboys whirled, startled. Thien had come up behind them. One immediately pinned him to the wall. “You want to die?”
“He is going to the police,” Thien repeated calmly, and indicated with his head. “The American. He has decided Khai has his wife and he can’t find her himself, so he is going to go to the police and let them find Khai’s house.”
“Is he on the phone?” the taller man hissed, turning to survey the shop.
“He won’t telephone,” Thien said. The shorter man had loosened his grip, and Thien pulled away. “They put him off on the telephone before. He is going to go to the station and find the police detective he knows is working on the disappearance. The pawnbroker wants to go with him when he looks for Khai.”
Khai’s men talked to each other in low, hurried tones. They were not original thinkers, but luckily their instructions covered this eventuality. The taller one noticed Thien listening. He pushed the boy.
“Go away.”
“Remember I told you,” Thien said. “Without me you wouldn’t have known.” He paused a moment longer. “You will need a car.”
“Think we need your guidance?” the shorter one sh
outed, starting toward him.
The other pulled him back. “Get the car,” he said.
Thien’s smile disappeared as soon as he turned his back on them. He hurried away.
It was the first of December. Christmas decorations were up downtown, green wreaths in a city that stayed mostly green through the winter anyway. The tinsel was drab in the daylight. To Daniel it looked like failed American voodoo, a pitiful attempt to ward off the current recession. Shoppers didn’t come downtown any more.
Traffic was heavy, though. That was a constant. The Saigon cowboys in their metallic blue compact Ford had fallen three cars behind Daniel’s brown Toyota, but they still had him in sight. Daniel turned onto Franklin and headed for the freeway. Behind him the Vietnamese didn’t make the light. They turned anyway, through a blare of horns. Daniel’s window was down. The air was crisp and a wind was beginning to stir. He heard the tinkle of bells and flags snapping on their staffs. His scalp was tingling. He turned again. This time he was the one running the red light, in front of a wave of cars. The Vietnamese had to stop for that. One of them was leaning out his window, keeping Daniel’s car in sight. He didn’t care about that, he just wanted distance between them. He needed time to complete his preparations, begun this morning. He was headed home, and he assumed the Vietnamese knew where he lived. He was counting on it. He was counting on their continuing to follow him even after it was clear he wasn’t going to the police station.
He beat them to his house, but he didn’t know by how long. He parked in his own driveway and leaped out. The afternoon was still sunny but the wind was stronger now. A cold front was blowing in; leaves hung suspended in the air, caught in the conflicting currents. Daniel raced inside his house, slamming the door behind him but not locking it.