No Good to Cry

by Andrew Lanh

  “No, he saved himself.”

  “She’s hoping you saved him.”

  “But I…”

  She held up her hand. “The boy is home safe. Thank God. But she’s worried what will happen.” She looked into my eyes. “Talk to me about him.”

  So I told her about the shooting, Khoa’s death. Diep’s capture. But also little Simon behind me, frightened, weeping.

  She nodded. “So he learns, that boy.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Oh yes, he learns. Now he witnessed that life is not a game. Chim bi ban nut gap canh cay cong cung so.”

  I didn’t understand. “A child who…” I stopped.

  She finished in English. “A child who is burned will always run from fire.”

  “I hope so, Grandma.”

  “But she’s worried. That goes without saying. She wakes up in the morning and she thinks of Simon. She has trouble talking to her husband because he is a little…”

  “Pig-headed,” I finished.

  She laughed. “A good man but fighting his own demons. The dark that stays inside him.” A sigh. “Because of Simon, he feels he’s failed as a father. It pulls him apart, making him more severe. He won’t ever say anything—you know Vietnamese men, silent, running away from emotions—but he’s ready to…shatter. And maybe…it’s up to you…maybe you can talk to him.” Her face reddened, her eyes flickering. “You understand what he went through. The horrors there. The horrors here. The old country.” Her voice got so low I had trouble hearing her. “This is a man who still cries out at night from his nightmares, his boyhood in the streets.” She stopped, out of breath.

  “He is hoping I can clear Simon’s name. I don’t know.”

  Her voice hardened. “Do you hear yourself, Rick? That’s not you talking. Of course, you can help.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You probably already know the answer.”

  “You think so?”

  She wagged a finger at me. “Lucy tells me you take no money for this. Like a good son of Vietnam. So that tells me you are looking with your heart as well as your head.” She tapped my temple. Her fingertip was warm to the touch.

  “I remember a saying from the little book my mother left with me in the orphanage. Ngay dai nhat cung phai qua di.”

  Even a long, long day will come to an end.

  “Your mother was a wise woman.”

  I felt a tugging at my heart. My mother—a vague image of a woman holding me, crying, letting go of me, sending me away. My mother, lost. Another country. Lost.

  A new land. America. This warm kitchen.

  I stared around the cluttered kitchen. On each wall a calendar, perhaps five in total, something I’d never understood in Asian kitchens. Chinese markets, Vietnamese restaurants, Korean gift shops, Laotian health stores. New Year’s gifts in the marketplace. This household of Catholic and Buddhism. A mother and a father, happy together. And Grandma in the center of it all, the moral heartbeat.

  “My mother,” I whispered.

  Grandma stared into my eyes. “I have something to say. Something that comes to me as I hear your story.”

  I waited. “I was hoping you would.”

  “Simon. The lost boy. You are convinced he has nothing to do with the street violence?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Without proof.”

  “Instinct?”

  “Maybe.”

  She sat back in her seat, watched me closely. “It seems to me, Rick, that you believe that young boy is innocent, but all your focus is on him. All your energy is on his story. You keep asking him to help you. You look to…him.”

  Feebly, I protested, “I have to. What else is there?”

  “But you already believe him innocent. Then he has nothing to do with the crime, yes? Maybe it is time to look at a world where he is not the center of your attention.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means this—is there anyone who wants him to be guilty? You tell me the two street crimes—maybe three—resemble the foolishness he did that got him sent away.”

  “Grandma, who would want to frame a young boy? It makes no sense.”

  She held up a finger. “Wait. Maybe not wants him to be guilty but—well, allows him to be guilty.” She glanced toward the counter where the vegetables sat, waiting for her touch. “The boy that everyone expects to be bad.”

  “I just don’t see it.” I sighed and remembered Jimmy’s remarks. “Jimmy told me something similar—others using the boy.”

  She stood up, smiled. “A great mind, that man. Think about it.”

  “Thank you.”

  She motioned with her hand. “Come with me.”

  I followed her into the hallway, toward the back of the house. She opened the door to Hank’s bedroom and switched on the light. She walked in, motioning me to follow.

  “I don’t know if Hank would like…”

  She stopped me. “Of course he wouldn’t mind. You’re his brother.”

  She pointed to a Connecticut state trooper’s formal uniform hanging on a post. Pristine, sharp, the gray shirt with the royal blue epaulets with gold piping. A run of gold brass buttons down the front. The dark navy blue trousers with a crease so sharp it could be knifepoint. On the dresser the gray Stetson-style hat. A gold pin on the front that said “State Police.”

  Grandma pointed at it. “His pride,” she said, beaming.

  “It looks…chiseled.”

  “He irons and steams and fiddles with it. For him, it is a piece of art.”

  I laughed. “The ceremony is coming up.”

  “His pride,” she repeated, running her fingers over the fabric.

  “His mother worries.”

  She looked into my face. “I worry. Of course, I worry.” But she added, “But I understand that it’s the life he demands of himself. Duty, honor, service. Heroism is never ego. My grandson. My Hank. Number one son. I worry, too. But I understand that there is no other road for him to follow.”

  “Why are you showing me this, Grandma?”

  We stepped out of the bedroom and she clicked off the light. “Because you are a part of what makes him a man. He honors you because you honor him.”

  “But I worry, too.”

  Manhattan. Hell’s Kitchen. A gun to my head. My trigger finger. The bloody body. My rage, out of control.

  She wasn’t listening. Instead she mentioned Liz’s name, which surprised me. “He tells me she is helping young Hazel find her way.”

  “Yes. Another troubled Tran child.”

  She tossed her head back and forth. “Those children. A blessing and a curse. A family loses happiness when a child is lost.”

  “Liz is helping.”

  Grandma looked into my face. “A good wife to you.”

  “Grandma, you know that we’re divorced, Liz and I.”

  She waved her hand in my face. “That means nothing. A piece of paper…no matter.”

  I gave her a quick hug. “You know, Grandma, little Simon actually said the same thing to me—that Liz and I will always be married.”

  A quiet laugh. “Maybe that little boy is not as lost as people say. Buddha speaks to his heart.”

  “He’s a Catholic, I think.”

  “Everybody walks with Buddha, Rick.”

  I followed her back into the kitchen and was surprised to see Grandpa sitting at the table, sipping tea. He looked up and frowned. My heart sank. The last frontier in this Nguyen household, the last and most harrowing barrier. Grandpa, the man refused to speak to me.

  “Hello,” I said respectfully. “Ban co khoe khong?” How are you?

  He hesitated. For a moment he blew across the hot tea, then put the cup down. As I watched, he extended his hand. Surprised, I stared at it, the gnarly arthritic fingers, twisted.
In a barely croaked-out voice, he cleared his throat.

  “Hello,” he said slowly. “Chao mung bau.”

  Awkwardly, we shook hands.

  Behind him, already at the counter, her fingers running over reeds of lemongrass, Grandma was smiling.

  ***

  Back in my apartment, I reflected on Grandma’s words, although I also obsessed about Grandpa’s magnanimous gesture. I smiled to myself. Perhaps the axis of earth could shift. Perhaps snow could fall in August. Perhaps fate does surprise you with a happy ending. Ever since last year when I helped solve the murder of two of Grandma’s relatives, Hank had hinted that his grandfather admitted a begrudged respect for me. But in all my visits to the household, he’d never extended his hand. Until today.

  I liked that.

  Grandma’s chilling words: who knowingly would allow Simon and Frankie to take the blame? Allow—permit—maybe welcome. To abet—to encourage. Who?

  I made myself a cup of coffee, munched on a stale butter roll I’d left out on the counter that morning, and decided to play the video. Let’s go to the tape. That horrid line used on scandal TV. Cop shows. Let’s look at the tape. CSI: Everywhere. The muckraking reporters trailing after errant politicians. Let’s take a look at the video. The tape shows…

  The tapes. More than one.

  I played the ten-second video of the Little Saigon incident and then played it against the one produced by my own amateur acting troop, Gracie Patroni, director. Something was starting to click. The anomaly of movement. Something there. Yes.

  The tape from the first crime—the death of Ralph. Jimmy stumbling into traffic.

  Nothing.

  Then I logged onto my computer, brought up YouTube, and found that rap video from SaigonSez. I’d watched it over and over, the gangsta stances, the in-your-face menace. Simon as thug. Frankie as thug. Worse, the bleak outlook on life. The dead-end philosophy. In the name of the devil. But oddly it always struck me now as the product of two half-baked wannabes dressing up for an amateur hour in a suburban school hall. Yet…there was a message there, perhaps not the one they might glibly proclaim.

  I watched it again.

  A teenaged fatalistic vision. The raw power of boys exalting evil. Celebrating the vainglorious ego of Satan. No good to cry. This is the way the world is, and it isn’t pretty. Only evil lasts forever. Shakespeare: the evil that men do lives after them. The good is buried with the dead. Don’t cry. No good to cry.

  Simon and Frankie as Elizabethan troubadours on a dark landscape.

  In the name of the devil

  (awright you go to hell)

  In the name of the devil

  (awright I’ll go to hell)

  Did they describe themselves?

  Boys with black and hooded heads

  Cool and classy in the street

  You and me—no good to cry

  Only Satan lives forever.

  I found myself thinking back to my literature classes. John Milton: Satan thundering after exile from heaven—better to rule in hell rather than serve in heaven.

  What fresh hell is this?

  Forbidden streets ain’t got no map

  Nowhere to run when you awake

  A civics lesson, no less—bloodbath in Afghanistan.

  Little Simon watching CNN and taking notes? What would Wolf Blitzer say?

  I scrolled down the page. The number of “likes” had increased in a few days to 11,732. Who were these online viewers? Young kids? Disgruntled grownups? How did young folks navigate social media and discover SaigonSez? Lost Vietnamese immigrants pining in the Diaspora for a city that no longer existed? Sai Gon. Saigon.

  Sez.

  But there were fifty-seven “dislikes.”

  I skimmed through the comments:

  You boyz is all there is…You nail it.

  This is a masterpiece. Somebody got real talent rap lyric telling.

  I put this on my MP3 player and it plays thru my schoolday.

  You got anymore raps? Upload.

  SaigonSez a lot to me.

  Yet some were negative, even strident:

  What the hell you talkin about.

  White boyz cant rap or jump and Asians too.

  Find Jesus and cut the crap.

  You sound like boys that kill for the hell of it. Awright then you can go to hell for all I care.

  …Boys that kill for the hell of it…

  Go to hell…

  Awright…

  The lines stopped me cold. I found myself playing and replaying the video. I reread the comments. Then I saw something. I scrolled up and down. I sat up, startled. Why hadn’t I seen it before? How had I missed it?

  I returned to my laptop and played the ten-second video from Little Saigon.

  Over and over.

  Sunlight on a city sidewalk, late in the afternoon.

  Suddenly I had an idea of what had happened.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  I called Hank to tell him my idea, and his long silence convinced me that I’d hit on a real possibility.

  “But there’s no proof,” he protested. “And it’s a little preposterous.”

  “But possible?”

  As we spoke, I was pacing my rooms, antsy, manic. I straightened a picture on the wall, decided it had to be moved. Then I changed my mind. I looked out the front window at the street. A cloudy day, windswept. It started to rain, a driving spring shower, and a girl from Miss Porter’s ran for shelter. I peered through the rain-splattered window, and my mind riveted to that cloudy ten-second video. So much revealed in so short a tape. Yes. An awful epiphany. There, hidden under all that brilliant sunlight.

  “Yes.” Hank sucked in his breath.

  I waited for that one word: yes.

  As I was hanging up my phone, my land line rang. My mind elsewhere, I picked up the phone absently.

  “Ardolino here.” The grumpy voice waited. “You there?”

  I focused. “Yes.”

  “It’s polite to say hello, you know. Were you raised in a barn?”

  “What is it, Detective?”

  He made a gulping sound, then swore. “These goddamn lids don’t stay on a cup, you know. Like that old lady, I should sue McDonald’s for millions. Then I wouldn’t have to be calling you with news.”

  “You don’t sound happy. Let me guess—good news for me?”

  “Dream on.” Another slurping sound. “Well, I guess it is. We got hold of this surveillance video from this Pinkberry place where Hazel Tran said she was with your boys. Time of day, etcetera, etcetera. As it turns out, there they are, Hazel and criminal-at-large Simon, merrily chugalugging milk shakes without a care in the world.”

  “They’re kids,” I told him. “They should have a world without cares.”

  “I believe in giving kids a dose of reality right off the bat.”

  “Scare them straight?”

  A forced laugh. “That way life ain’t gonna take them off guard later on in life.”

  “Is that how you raised your kids, Detective?”

  The sound of gulping. “Whatever happened to my kids was the result of my wife hiding them from the truth.”

  “Why’d you call?” I asked. “An apology?”

  “Well, Simon and weasel Frankie—yes, even Frankie makes a guest appearance at Pinkberry. Christ, in my day no boy would never walk into a place called Pinkberry.”

  “They also didn’t have frozen yogurt in your day.”

  A snarky laugh. “Yeah, like I’m one day older than water, Lam boy.”

  I broke in, content. “So the boys couldn’t have been the culprits in Little Saigon.”

  “No, they couldn’t. Not that episode. I mean, they ain’t off scot-free from the other two—the ones that resulted in someone buying final lunc
h. But most likely not.”

  “Good news, then.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I could hear him getting ready to hang up, his voice moving away from the receiver.

  “Hold on, Detective,” I yelled into the phone.

  He barked into the phone. “Yeah? More pleasant conversation? I guess you don’t get to talk to cheerful souls like me on a regular basis.”

  “Listen, Detective. I have a theory of what happened.” I could hear him bring the phone closer to his mouth. “Hear me out. Okay?”

  “This better be good.”

  I hesitated. “It’s a conversation I really don’t want to have. It’s…sad…”

  He cut in. “For Christ’s sake, just tell me.”

  I sat down on the sofa. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

  Slowly, point by point, without any interruption from Ardolino—except now and a muttered “yeah, yeah, shit”—I outlined my theory, why I’d come to have it, what I needed from him.

  “I don’t think I can—”

  A sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “C’mon, Detective.”

  “But…all right.” He stopped. “I’ll call you back in a few hours. I’ll make a couple calls. This better not be a wild goose chase, Lam.”

  “I’m on to something.”

  “Maybe. Give me three hours. Tops.” The line went dead.

  ***

  Ardolino was a man of his word. Three hours later, almost to the second, my phone jangled, and his smoker’s cough took up the first few seconds. I waited. A monstrous, phlegmatic bark. He muttered, “Jesus H. Christ.” Then, abruptly, “Lam?”

  “What did you find out?” I held my breath.

  “You were right on the money, Lam.”

  I slapped my hand on the table. “I knew it.”

  “Don’t get too cocky. It ain’t a nice character trait. But, yeah, the house of cards collapsed. All the pieces fitting in. Little Simon and his Neanderthal buddy Frankie get to bother a few more of my days.”

  Then, wound up, he filled me in on what had transpired during that three-hour block of time: back-and-forth telephone calls, checking in with forensics, interrogation, and finally capitulation. Ardolino related the information piecemeal, with stammered gaps as he checked his notes. Consultations with superiors, faxes ignored, at one point a nasty call from a lawyer. But he persisted in the probe. A bulldog, driven, once he was convinced that I was right.