by Jay Brandon
He plunged through the house. Table legs and bookshelves clutched at him. The air seemed to be thickening, as in a nightmare where forward motion becomes impossible. He had brought home the gun from the shop but he didn’t want to use it. Gunfire wasn’t part of his plans. Neither was anyone getting killed. That was what hobbled him. He didn’t want to kill the Saigon cowboys. He didn’t know their intentions.
His keys were still in his hand. He ran into the kitchen and unlocked the deadbolt on the back door. When he opened it Ham was standing there curiously. He had sensed the motion in the house and was quivering with eagerness to be part of whatever happened. Daniel ran toward the back fence with him. The dogs in the surrounding yards watched them curiously.
A minute later Daniel was back inside his house. It was quiet except for the sounds of his heart and breath. He felt the quiet extend throughout the neighborhood on this weekday afternoon. He felt like the last survivor of a silent holocaust. Children were in school, husbands and wives at work. Here and there along the block might be a sick adult home alone or a mother with very young children, but not in the houses near him, he knew.
He was startled by a knock at the door. That was the last thing he was expecting. The door exploding off its hinges he was prepared for, but this polite tapping made him jump.
He would be a fool to approach it.
But he did, hand stealing into his jacket pocket. If the door burst open now—
He crept up to it and peeked through the peephole. An exasperated sound escaped him and he yanked the door open.
“Thien! How the hell did you get here?”
“By the bus,” he said calmly.
That was barely possible. Daniel had stayed around the shop long enough for the boy to get well away before he had left, dragging the cowboys in his wake. Then he had veered and slalomed through downtown, leading them in circles before running away from them. If Thien had been lucky in his connections, there had been time for him to take a bus here. But he wouldn’t have put it past the boy to have hidden in the back floorboard of his car.
He stood on the porch with his hands folded in front of him, looking at him placidly, as if he had paid a formal call and were waiting to be invited in. Daniel looked at his unlined face. But there was something no longer childlike about Thien. He could have been a little old man wearing a child mask.
“You must be crazy,” Daniel said. “Don’t you know you could get killed?”
“Then we are both crazy,” Thien said.
My God, the kid thought it was an adventure.
“Go home,” Daniel said, taking Thien’s shoulder and trying to turn him around. The boy resisted without unfolding his hands. There was surprising strength in his thin body. “Get out of here—”
“You may need a translator.”
“I won’t! I just need you out of here! When those two get here—”
A metallic blue compact Ford pulled to a stop at the curb.
“Shit,” Daniel said. Only then did Thien turn. He looked at the two young Vietnamese emerging from the car. Even that left him unstartled. Daniel’s fingers were gripping his shoulder convulsively but he didn’t flinch.
“Get inside!”
Daniel pulled the boy in and turned him toward the back of the house. Daniel was still in the doorway. Turning his head so the Saigon cowboys could hear him, he shouted, “Call the police!”
That was roughly the phrase he had planned to use to set his scheme in motion, and it worked as he had planned. The two young men had hesitated, but at the threat of police they started running toward him. The scheme was working brilliantly, except that he hadn’t planned on having Thien in the middle of it. The boy was pattering softly toward the back door, looking back at him. The two Vietnamese thugs were young and strong and quick. Before Daniel could even turn they were halfway across the front yard toward him. Guns had appeared in their hands.
Daniel ran through the house. Thien was short and vulnerable and in his way. Behind them, the front door stood open.
As Daniel went out the back door with Thien he heard the Vietnamese come storming in the front. They were running flat-out now, they had lost all caution. Daniel stood on the edge of the backyard, looking around frantically for a hiding place, but as he knew—as he had planned—there was none. There were two trees in his backyard, but they were pines, two or three times as tall as the house. They were unclimbable, the lowest branches high over his head.
The overhang of the roof was much closer. With only a word or two Daniel linked his hands together and Thien stepped into them. Thien’s hands clutched at the edge and Daniel practically threw him up onto the roof.
“Climb over the top,” he said. “Jump down on the other side.” He had no time for further instructions. He was still standing next to the open back door himself.
A moment later the two Vietnamese came running through that door. One skidded to a stop but the other kept coming, toward Daniel who stood alone in the middle of the yard. The one who had stopped looked around suspiciously, but the other could see there was nothing to impede him. The American wasn’t even holding a gun. He was just standing there, looking frantic. Dogs barked in the surrounding yards, jumping up against the fences, but there was no dog in this yard.
The grass in the backyard was overgrown. The running Vietnamese stepped on a pinecone underfoot and lost his balance momentarily as it slithered out from under him, but then he ran on.
He wasn’t ten feet from Daniel when he pitched forward and slammed headfirst into the ground.
Daniel had no occasion to grin at how perfectly that had worked. That was one of the two traps he had arranged this morning when he realized others might come to the house after him. In the shin-high grass of the backyard he had strung a water hose, anchoring it with the tree trunks and croquet stakes. Hidden by the grass, he had counted on it tripping up anyone who ran too eagerly.
But only one of the men had gone for it. The other was still back near the door, his gun pointed in Daniel’s direction. The man was nodding slightly, congratulating himself on his foresight. He began walking slowly toward Daniel. And the other one was already up on his hands and knees, recovering from his fall. He hadn’t lost his gun either.
Daniel had lost hope that his other trap would work. He had counted on the men being disoriented when he sprang it, and preferably both of them being on the ground. The second man looked too grim and purposeful to be deterred by what Daniel had left. But he had nothing else. He yanked hard on the wire he held in his hand.
There were dogs barking in the yards on either side and the yard behind Daniel's. One of those dogs was Hamilton Burger. Daniel had lifted him over the fence into the yard behind theirs, where Rudolph, the fairy white dog, lived. Ham and Rudolph were both standing with their front paws up on that fence now, barking furiously. Ham was a big, fierce-looking dog, but against the guns Daniel had known the Vietnamese would be carrying he would have been no protection alone. But—
Daniel yanked on the wire and the fences fell down.
That’s how it looked to the two Vietnamese. Actually only one section fell out of each of the fences separating Daniel’s yard from the others. But those sections were enough. The dogs who had been barking ferociously and jumping against the fences suddenly found no obstruction between them and the intruders. They came racing toward the men from three directions, scrambling for traction, growling low in their throats.
This plan didn’t work as well as Daniel had hoped either, and again it was due to that one damned cautious Vietnamese. The other one, the eager one, had regained his feet but did just what Daniel wanted. His eyes grew wide and fearful at the sight of the charging dogs. He started backing up as fast as he could, and he tripped over another section of the hose. He went down harder, and this time he stayed down. There was a dismal thud as the back of his head hit the ground.
The other one stood his ground. He was still close enough to the house that he knew he could reach
the door if he had to retreat. The charging dogs weren’t as fearsome a sight to him as Daniel had hoped. One of the dogs, a big black Lab who had apparently seen a handgun before, refused to leave his own yard at all, even with a gaping hole in the fence confronting him. He stood there whining and indecisive.
Rudolph came bounding gleefully forward, but he stopped at the body of the fallen Vietnamese and nuzzled it curiously. That left only Ham and the dog next door still advancing on the other cowboy, and the dog next door was only a twenty-pound terrier, yapping fiercely but hardly life-threateningly. The standing Vietnamese ignored it and leveled his gun at Ham.
“NO!” Daniel screamed. He fumbled frantically at his pocket for his own gun. The Vietnamese glanced casually toward him but still had plenty of time to fire, and did.
The sound of the gunshot was not terribly loud, but it was unfamiliar. A sharp metallic crack ending with a solid beefy thump. Daniel screamed again. He ran forward and fell victim to his own trap. He tripped over the hose and went down, his gun’s muzzle jamming into the soft ground.
The bullet had gone into the ground, missing Ham, but it stopped him short nonetheless. He was a smart animal, he knew something dangerous had just happened. And though he was big and had a ferocious growl, he was no trained attack dog. At the sound of the shot he backed away, puzzled and whimpering. So did the terrier.
The Vietnamese smiled and wasted no more attention on them. He advanced slowly on Daniel, watching carefully where he placed his feet, and leveled his gun again. It was a real cowboy’s gun, a revolver. He cocked the hammer back. Daniel could only stare. His own gun was a useless lump of metal, mud clogging its barrel.
There was a sudden noise in the air like a buzzing bee. The Vietnamese put a hand to his cheek just as if a bee had stung him. That’s what it had felt like. He glared at Daniel, thinking the American had sprung one last trap, but Daniel looked as puzzled as he. Hope hadn’t appeared on his face either. He was still waiting to die.
There was another pain, this time on the back of the cowboy’s neck. There was a thump, gentle as a love pat, but it carried another sting. He turned curiously.
Daniel saw it before he did. Thien was still on the roof, throwing pinecones. The roof was always littered with them this time of year. They fell in bunches from the trees.
Pinecones are light and airy, but studded with pinpricks of wood. Stepping on one was painful. Being hit by one was worse.
The Saigon cowboy turned and caught Thien’s next pinecone full on the nose, blinding him for a second. But only a second. The pain was only a nuisance, nothing disabling. He could see again before Thien had time to re-arm himself. The boy was scrambling along the edge of the roof like a monkey, but he had no shelter, and he was little more than ten feet from the cowboy. He was an easy target. The man shouted something at him in Vietnamese, but when Thien ignored the order he raised his gun.
This time the thump on the man’s back was much heavier. It hit between his shoulder blades and made his chest arch forward and his hands fly up. His shot went harmlessly into the air.
Daniel had thrown the .45 automatic. As a firearm it was no longer any use at all, but as a projectile it was a fine size and weight for hurling. Daniel was back on his feet and barreling forward when the gun struck. The Vietnamese was turning but Daniel got there first, throwing himself into the man’s legs.
It would have been an illegal block, but it was a great tackle. The man went down in a heap. Daniel was on his feet again at once. He was exhilarated, blood racing through his limbs. The threat of death had brought him alive. Ham was bounding toward the fray again too, now that his master was directly threatened.
But the damned Vietnamese had never dropped his gun. Even while falling back he had only clutched it tighter. He was on his back now but he still had it. Daniel was standing over him but the dog was coming faster. The cowboy was deciding which to shoot first when the bundle came down on his head. At first Daniel thought Thien had thrown his clothes at him from the roof just above. But no, it was Thien himself, hurtling through the air. He landed with a thud on the man’s head and almost at once let out a howl himself.
Daniel snatched the gun from the Vietnamese’s nerveless fingers and picked Thien up. His howl had subsided. He was rubbing his arm fiercely.
“Hit my funny bone.” He moaned.
He had thumped it, it turned out, on the bridge of the cowboy’s nose. The man was out cold. For an instant Daniel felt like laughing hysterically, but the feeling died out before the laugh could rise in his throat. There was still ugly work to be done.
He gathered up the guns and went to repair the fences. He didn’t want neighbors coming by to make inquiries.
He tried to send Thien away but the boy wouldn’t go. When it became clear that Daniel’s only option was to push him out the front door and let him stand there knocking while he worked, Daniel let him stay, which turned out well.
Not only did the cowboys not speak English, they wouldn’t talk at all.
Daniel set up shop in the garage. The two men lay on the cold cement floor with their feet tied and their hands tied behind their backs, but their mouths ungagged.
“Tell them to scream if they like,” Daniel said to Thien. “No one will hear them. No one would help them if they did hear.”
He had no way of knowing if Thien was translating correctly. The boy’s piping teenage voice didn’t have the right threatening tone in any event. The men looked completely unmoved by whatever Thien imparted to them.
The garage was dim. There was one light at the far end, over the washing machine, rather than directly overhead. There were openwork beams above. An aluminum ladder hung on one wall. There was a workbench in the comer, and the hammers and saws hanging on pegs above it gave the place the vague but appropriate look of a torture chamber. Daniel needed a fire of glowing coals with a branding iron heating in it. He already felt a little absurd. He tried to keep his mind on Carol.
“All I want is Khai’s address. They’ll tell it to me sooner or later, so they might as well do it now while they’re undamaged.”
He saw a flicker in the eyes of the man who had almost shot him. Khai’s name had done that. Otherwise his expression stayed flat.
The other one, the one who had gone down on the back of his head, still looked dazed. He didn’t appear to be paying attention at all. Daniel stood over him until the man looked up, then he dropped to his knees on the man’s chest. The cowboy’s eyes brightened.
Thien translated, more than one sentence. Daniel held the man’s eyes as the boy spoke. This one wasn’t so good at the neutral expression. His eyes widened.
“Understand?” Daniel said again. No reaction. He slapped the man’s face twice, forehand and backhand.
“Understand?”
The man nodded. The back of his head thumped the cement floor lightly.
Daniel was getting mad. That was lucky. It would make things easier.
“Just the address,” he said, speaking so intently he thought the cowboy could understand. Thien spoke quietly in the background. The man turned to look at him and Daniel slapped him again. “Just the address,” he repeated. The man nodded again but didn’t speak until Daniel raised his hand, clenched into a fist.
“He says he doesn’t know it,” Thien said quietly.
Daniel stood up. His face was suddenly hot. He kicked the man in the side. It wasn’t a hard kick, just an attention-getter, but the man groaned and rolled onto his side. Daniel used his foot to roll him back onto his back, put his foot into the man’s stomach, and leaned a little weight on it. “Try again,” he said.
The man gasped, tried to speak, and started choking instead. Daniel eased up on the pressure. He kept his foot in place, though. When the man began to get his breath back, Daniel leaned down again.
“Of course you know. And you know you’ll tell me.”
The man’s eyes were pleading. “He says Khai would kill him,” Thien said.
“What can he do to you worse than what I will?” That was the wrong question, though. When Thien translated it it caused the man’s attention to wander. Daniel drew it back with another kick, but the man looked less fearful now. Of Daniel.
Daniel kicked him again, leaving him gasping. Behind his back, the other Saigon cowboy was speaking to Thien. Daniel left the one he was working on.
“What did this one say?”
“Nothing,” said Thien, but there was a touch of color in his cheeks. He was sitting on an overturned bucket in a corner of the garage. The boy glared at the taller of the cowboys, who was staring daggers back at him. Daniel stood between them.
“You are in no position to threaten anyone,” Daniel said. Thien’s voice translated. It seemed he added something of his own.
Daniel continued: “The smarter one of you will tell me what I want to know, because that’s the one who’ll live.”
The man just stared up at him; not cockily, not calculating; just waiting to endure. Daniel was starting to feel frustrated.
He let the man watch him while he walked slowly to the workbench and selected a screwdriver from several mounted on pegs on the wall. The one he finally chose had a straight edge and a heavy yellow plastic handle. He walked back to the taller Vietnamese, holding the screwdriver by the blade and thumping the handle into his other palm.
He knelt, holding it like a short sword now, the blade close to the man’s eyes. The blood that had erupted from the man’s nose when Thien landed on him had dried on his upper lip now into an ugly brown mess. It made the man’s face look even less flexible. He didn’t flinch away from the screwdriver’s blade. Slowly Daniel lowered the tip until it touched the man’s cheek. He trailed it slowly along the skin until he reached an ear. Still the man didn’t jerk his head away.
I would be wetting my pants at this point, Daniel thought. The anger had seeped out of him. He felt disgusted with himself.