by Jay Brandon
“Adios,” the boy said as he went out the door. Daniel didn’t laugh. He continued to stare out at the street but his eyes glazed after a while. His hand was on the phone. The street scene was like one of those old beer signs where the same canoe passes the same island again and again, moving but unchanging. A little while later his attention was caught by Thien’s reappearance. He was coming out of the pawnshop across the street. He remembered that Linh’s wife was missing too. Linh had been waiting for word of her as long as Daniel had. But more patiently? He was still open for business. Vietnamese customers came and went.
Daniel picked up the phone. It was answered on the second ring with a Vietnamese word. “Let me talk to her,” he said.
Khai made a phone call of his own. Loftus and Chui both tried to talk him out of it. The whole point, they said, was that everything would operate clocklike now without any intervention from them, without their exposing themselves further. Khai was amused to see that his two lieutenants found it distasteful to be on the same side of the argument.
“What we need to worry about is this pawnbroker,” Loftus said. “Even if things go smooth he’s going to fuck us up.”
“That is what I am taking care of,” Khai said.
“But you don’t have to do it. Let me—”
“Yes, let him—” Chui began. “That’s what he’s good for, to have an American here—”
Khai waved them both out of his study. The truth was he was simply tired of inaction. He wanted to take a hand.
“Mr. Hecate,” he said a minute later, after having claimed to be someone else. “I thought we had an agreement.”
There was a pause. But Hecate seemed to have been expecting a call of this nature. “Who are you?”
“I am someone who does not have much time. I simply called to ask, do we still have an agreement or should I make other arrangements?”
“Look,” Hecate said, plunging into that stream of bullying that always flowed close to the surface of his personality, “you just hold your horses. What you asked for isn’t as easy as going to the bank and making a withdrawal, you know. I’m getting there.”
“If it was easy anyone could do it,” Khai said. “But I came to you. I thought you had the ability.”
“You’d better worry about your own ass. If anything happens to her—”
“I have had this tiresome conversation already,” Khai interrupted. “Which reminds me of the other purpose of my call. Part of our agreement was that you would keep others from interfering. I’m afraid you—”
“What others? I haven’t—”
“Your son-in-law is becoming a nuisance. He is a tiny cog but a troublesome one, because he doesn’t know what’s going on. You must rein him in.”
There was a longer pause. Hecate’s voice when it came was quieter. The anger had descended again into the undertone. It made him sound sullen. “He won’t listen to me. Believe me, if I talked to him it would only make things worse.”
“Then you must do something else about him.” Khai’s voice was clipped. Clearly he sounded like a man who was discovering that he was talking to the wrong person.
There was a longer pause. Hecate said, “You talk like this is my problem.”
This time the pause was from Khai’s end. “I see,” he finally said.
“What d’ya want, my blessing? I don’t give a shit about him. I only care about—”
“I will remember that,” Khai said, and hung up.
If he thought that would upset Raymond Hecate, he didn’t know his man. Hecate put the receiver down with a trace of satisfaction. This could work out swell, he thought. Carol back, a new ally, and no more pawnbroker son-in-law. Worse things could happen. Carol would be upset at the senseless tragedy but she’d get over it. Daddy would see to that.
He lumbered out of his office to put in a personal appearance at police headquarters. Maybe that would speed things up.
One of the other detectives asked Rybek, “You don’t have enough unsolved cases, you have to keep working on a solved one?”
Rybek answered, “You have so much shit to spare, you have to give me some?” Someone laughed but most of them paid no attention. Rybek’s growl was familiar background, like the buzz of the fluorescent lights. He went on talking as if someone had expressed interest.
“Her husband says she’s back but nobody else’s seen her. What does that say to you?”
“They’re having a long reunion.”
“He’s back in his shop but she’s not back at work. Nobody answers the phone at the house. And there’s blood on the floor of his garage.”
“You must know a real easy judge if you got a warrant to find that out.”
“Wind blew the door open while I was standing there,” Rybek said. He was looking distastefully at the mounds of paperwork on his desk. If he was stupid enough to write down half the things he had to do to bust cases, some other idiot would be sitting at that desk by morning. And it really made a huge difference to the world, didn’t it?
Not that anybody was still listening, but he said aloud, “Better make a couple of calls first just in case. If she’s really back then somebody else’s seen her, right? “Right?”
Now here was one for a scrapbook. A sight he’d never expected to see: Jennifer Hardesty walking into his pawnshop. For a moment it didn’t even look strange; he simply thought he must be somewhere else. But the bell that tinkled as the door opened was his shop bell, and Jennifer had to veer around his display counter as she strode toward him. She ignored the surroundings. Daniel rose automatically to his feet. Jennifer marched right up to him, so close he could see tiny flecks of mascara clinging to her eyelashes. He didn’t offer a greeting. Neither of them pretended her appearance there was a commonplace.
“Where’s Carol?” Jennifer said. “She hasn’t been to work this week and her parents haven’t seen her.”
“Not here” was all he got out.
“If she’d just left you I’m the first one she would’ve called.”
“Not nec—”
“You bastard, I tried to tell her. I told her—”
“You told her what? That if she married me she’d get murdered? What?”
Jennifer didn’t flinch back. Her eyes narrowed. “If you’ve hurt her,” she said, “you don’t have to worry about prison. I’ll see you dead.”
Daniel hadn’t stepped back either, so they were almost nose to nose now. “Jennifer,” he said, “you are the least of my worries.”
His voice was very flat but it conveyed something to her. She stepped back and studied his face. “What’s happened?” she finally asked.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Did she take a trip? Maybe she just wanted to be alone.”
“Yes, she went away.”
Jennifer was wearing a bright blue, padded ski jacket that made her look bulky, but it wasn’t snapped shut. When she put her fists on her hips the jacket pulled open in front to reveal the thermal undershirt she wore underneath. He could see the points of her nipples pressing against the fabric. Her cheeks were glowing from the wind outside. She passed a hand through her hair, leaving it spikier than before. “What happened between you?” Jennifer asked. “Was it a bad fight?” But she was pretending now. She knew it was worse than that. “A cop called me,” she said wonderingly.
He nodded without surprise, as if he’d arranged for the call himself. Jennifer continued to study his face. “Where is she?” she asked, no longer angry. He shook his head.
Jennifer’s anger was a defense. With it gone she looked scared. She also seemed aware of where she was for the first time. She looked out the window at Little Vietnam, the Asian faces, the jagged characters of their writing. She and Daniel could have been the only white people in a foreign country. Jennifer wrapped her arms around herself. “Why do you stay in this spooky place?” she asked.
Daniel didn’t answer. They were both looking out the window. Daniel saw two or three Vietnamese glan
cing curiously toward the shop. It was Jennifer they were watching. Daniel was an oddity in the neighborhood, but a familiar oddity. The short-haired white woman in the bright blue jacket was a curiosity. Jennifer was aware of their furtive glances. She turned away, almost shivering.
“Have you hired a detective?”
He shook his head.
“You must need money.” Briskly she opened the purse hanging from her shoulder and took out a checkbook and pen. She sounded authoritative again. “I’ll give you a thousand, you call me when you need more.”
“I don’t need any, Jennifer.”
She hadn’t started writing yet but her pen was poised. She was staring at him almost angrily. “She’s my friend.”
Daniel spoke gently. He was grateful for the offer. “It wouldn’t help,” he said.
Jennifer was faltering again, the frightened look creeping back. “It’s no weakness to take my money. Money can do a lot. Hire guards, buy people back ...” Daniel just shook his head. “What can help then?” she asked.
“Go home, Jennifer. Go have a good lunch somewhere.” His tone wasn’t sarcastic.
She capped her gold pen and looked out the window again. Her voice grew stronger but it was like reheated leftovers. “If it’s you who did it I will get you.”
He nodded agreement. “She’ll want to call you when she gets back,” he said. They looked out the window together for a long silent moment. “I’ll walk you back to your car,” he finally said.
Jennifer shook her head. “Think I’ll do some shopping while I’m here. I’m running pitifully low on rattan.” She still had her checkbook in her hand. “They’re not so damn foreign. I see an American Express sign across the street.” She snapped her jacket closed. “I’m telling you, money helps,” she said in parting. But she didn’t renew her offer.
They kept up the routine, but the Vietnamese knew their cover had been blown when Daniel came calling. It was no longer essential to keep themselves hidden from Carol. When Loftus took her down the hall now he left off the blindfold, and sometimes there were men in the hall, watching. That’s what she hated. Now that they could let her see them it meant they could also see her. She was a kind of ghost, visible but insubstantial. They couldn’t touch her. But she could feel herself fading into solidity. Their hands clenched in her presence. Their eyes were sharp as hooks. She wanted to cover herself.
She was like a princess in a fairy tale, but with malevolent servants. They couldn’t hurt her but their desires were clear. They were held back by a fragile spell that was dissipating. Carol could feel her protection ebbing away. When the phone rang the men would look guilty, as if they’d been caught at something dirty.
They weren’t yellow. That was another false stereotype. They were brown, some of them dark as Mexicans. Nor were they all short. Carol was five feet six. Half the Vietnamese were at least that tall. Khai was only a few inches taller than Carol, but so thin that from a distance he looked like a very tall man.
She didn’t see much of Khai. She might have found it reassuring to have him talk to her, but he avoided her like a pet that would have to be destroyed soon. She saw him occasionally at the end of a corridor, disappearing to another floor. Only once he came into her room and stared at her for long minutes, without speaking. His gaze was clinical. Carol knew he wasn’t thinking about her. He was thinking about Daniel. He was wondering what a man would do for a woman like her. Under his stare she pressed herself taller. She remained as silent as he. She refused to beg. No attachment formed, not a glimmer of human contact.
Some of the other men obviously studied her. Loftus was no longer the only one to enter her room. Sometimes they brought food; sometimes they came to take her to the phone. Their expressions ranged from sly to angry to thoughtful. There was not much difference among the expressions. At first Carol glared back at them, but after a while she just tried to ignore them. She was grateful for at least the pseudoprivacy of her room. She had a view of one glass skyscraper through the bare tree branches. It was beginning to look like a dream spire, something that existed only in her memory. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever been inside that particular building.
Sometimes a Vietnamese escorted her to and from the bathroom. There was no lock on the door and if she took too long they would rattle the handle. Once as she stepped out of the shower the door opened and a rat-faced man stuck his head inside. Carol froze. She was half covered by a towel, but he stared at her as if he could see through it. There was a cold wind through the open door that tightened her flesh. The rat-faced man stepped inside. Carol took a deep breath and before she could scream he stepped back out, leaving the door ajar. Carol lunged across the room and slammed it The sound echoed through the old mansion as if it were empty.
John Loftus had somewhere found other clothes for her. Her primary outfit was a green warmup suit, because it was soft and warmer than anything else he had given her. It had been made for a smaller woman, or perhaps a man. The elastic bands on the bottoms of the pants legs rode up her calves; the jacket fit tightly across her bust. That’s what she was wearing as the rat-faced man escorted her back from the bathroom. They were walking side by side. He wasn’t looking at her. When they reached her room and she turned aside to open the door he ran his hand across her ass, quickly but not furtively; the contact was firm. Carol gasped and jumped aside. He was already walking away. That was as far as he went that time. But she felt her protective spell slip another notch. He was testing its limits.
The ringing telephone was her lifeline. Its sound meant imaginary release. She could picture the outside world now only when she heard Daniel’s voice. She always asked where he was calling from, and she saw him there. She could almost see herself beside him. If too many hours passed between calls her world narrowed down to the old mansion. She thought herself forgotten, or Daniel dead. Khai after all was planning something. That much was clear. Daniel was her anchor in the real world, and they were doing their best to erase him.
But she didn’t cry when he called. She tried to sound cheerful for him. Saying his name was as close as she came to crying out. “Daniel”—and he understood. “I’m still here,” he would say. That was what she wanted to hear. That meant more than his assurance that she would be released soon. In the silences between their sentences she could hear murderers creeping toward him.
“They haven’t hurt me,” she said. She didn’t mention the rat-faced man’s stare or his touch. “I’m fine,” she lied. But when they said good-bye and the line went dead she closed her eyes tightly, trying to hold on to the contact. A hand touched her arm and the outside world dissolved again.
She and John Loftus had exchanged few words, but she thought their looks significant. He was usually scowling, not at her, she thought, but at the thought of her domination by the Vietnamese. When he looked directly at her his expression softened. “Don’t let ’em worry you,” he muttered once. She nodded.
The old Vietnamese woman who had been captured at the same time as Carol was still alive in the house as well. For a few days she seemed to have been forgotten. Now that they were allowed to see Carol but not to touch her, some of the men had turned their attention to the other captive woman instead. Khai apparently gave her no thought; the men were free to do what they liked. Sometimes they left the door of the woman’s room open so that if Carol passed in the hall she could look in and see them. The rat-faced man leered at Carol as he stood over the Vietnamese woman, daring Carol to intervene. She hesitated between going in and rushing back to her own room with her hands over her ears. The rat-faced man, still grinning, bent and pulled his pants down. Carol fled.
The first night after Daniel’s visit she sat huddled in her chair looking out the window at the grounds of the estate. She was staring at the spot where she’d seen Daniel holding Khai. Daniel had come that far and gotten away safely. If she could reach the same spot...
But she remembered the dogs. It was almost the same spot where she had seen t
hem attack the tramp with killing fury. The dogs had been somewhere else when Daniel came, maybe penned up for some reason— maybe inside the house, being fed. She had no idea where they were now. She couldn’t see them, but neither had the tramp until they were on him.
Her captor seemed to have sensed her fear of the dogs. He had been neglectful about handcuffing her today.
Carol’s gaze traveled to the porch below her to the right. She saw the glow of a cigarette. Gradually she could make out the shape of a lounging man. Was he just taking a break outside or was he posted there? She was stupid. Of course they’d have guards.
There was bright moonlight. It made her own room very dark by contrast. When the door opened and closed again she couldn’t see who had come in. She turned and stared, but the blackness was too thick. At the same time she realized she was spotlighted in the moon-brightened window. She moved aside, toward the bed.
“What do you want? The phone?”
She could hear breathing, across the room. Then it stopped, and she couldn’t tell where he was.
“I’ll kill you,” she said. In that moment she thought she could do it. Hook his eyes with her nails, bring her knee up into his crotch—
But he was behind her, not in front. When his arms closed around her it was so tightly she lost her breath. Her hands were useless claws at her sides. She could feel him pressed against her the full length of her back and legs. A scream stuck in her throat. She bent forward at the waist, trying to break away. Her face came down on the bed and he pressed her down into it. One hand on her neck, with the other he reached inside her warmup jacket.
His grip on her neck had slackened. She twisted aside, fell on her back, and swung her legs up, kicking him in the side of the head. He wasn’t hurt badly enough though. He grabbed her legs and held them there, high over her head. She could feel him again, now pressing his legs against the backs of hers.