by Andrew Lanh
“Danny was at Tommy’s apartment the other day.”
That intrigued her, but she waved her hand in the air. “Well, he had to go, for old time’s sake. He missed the funeral. Susie must have pushed him. I know he stops in at Benny’s store now and then. Mary told me that. He’s not a bad boy, that Danny. He just tries a little too hard to please everyone. I haven’t seen him in—well, years. Before he went to Harvard.”
Hank was shaking his head, “You can’t make too much of that visit to Tommy’s, Rick.”
I talked to his mother. “Talk about the falling out with Tommy.”
His mother drew her lips into a thin line. “Of course, everyone remembers the drug thing with Tommy. In his senior year. My God, people in this community don’t forget anything.”
“But Tommy was caught with pot. How was Danny involved with that?”
Hank looked puzzled. “Yeah, Mom. I knew Tommy’d been picked up, but when I walked into the room those days, everybody shut up.”
She looked from Hank to me, suddenly hesitant to talk. “Hank doesn’t know the whole story. It was embarrassing to the family. Hank, you were what—thirteen or fourteen?”
“I knew about Tommy. I had ears. But people clammed up when I was around.”
His mother looked at him protectively. “It’s the world we live in. You had to be sheltered. Drugs everywhere. Still are, and guns, too.”
“Mom, I’m training to be a cop.”
“Don’t remind me.” She rolled her eyes.
I got the conversation back on track. “Mary, Tommy, prep school, drugs. Okay?”
His mother sighed, as though her words would take away any of Hank’s remaining innocence. “When Tommy was picked up in downtown Hartford with those drugs on him, the pot, Danny was there as his buddy, and was also picked up. The two were arrested.”
I looked at Hank. “That wasn’t in the police report.”
“Because of Larry Torcelli, doing a favor for Susie. He used his clout and money to end it all. Danny’s name never came up. A few quick phone calls.”
“Then what happened to Tommy? You mean Larry wouldn’t help the kid? My God, he was sending him to an expensive private school.”
“He wanted to. That was Benny’s doing. He didn’t want any favors. A matter of pride, of losing face. He didn’t want Tommy to go to jail, yeah, but they wanted to teach him a lesson. You know, tough love. Him, and Mary too. Larry got them a pricy attorney, true, and we all know that Larry made some phone calls, and Tommy got probation and nothing else. Thanks to a detective who took a liking to Benny and Mary.”
“And so Danny got off.”
“Bingo.” Hank drummed the table.
“Did Tommy think Danny turned on him?”
“Why?”
“He made some threats when he was busted—about a snitch.”
Hank was shaking his head. “That couldn’t be Danny. They were arrested together.”
“But,” his mother added, “it did end their friendship. Tommy didn’t talk to Danny for years, we heard. He thinks Danny should have stayed with him, the two together. But Larry wanted nothing to be on his golden boy’s record. He invested a lot of money in the poor boy, and when he invests money it’s, like, well, an investment. There has to be a payoff.”
Hank leaned into me. “They call it Harvard.”
“But Danny got a little independent after college. Larry planned for Danny to work at the dealerships, but Danny pulled away. I heard he even got sarcastic with Larry once or twice. I know it hurt Larry.”
“But Danny’s the success story of the bunch.”
“Yeah, Danny’s the golden boy. Especially since Jon, Larry’s own son, is the boy who never leaves school and maybe says five words a year to his father.”
“But shouldn’t Tommy resent his own father and mother?” Hank asked. “They’re the ones that made him go to court. Not Danny.”
She sighed. “He never blamed his mother, I know that. He blamed Benny. A father runs a Vietnamese household. You know that. To this day he claims he hates the man. He says his father ruined his life.”
“So he was okay with Mary?”
“Benny did the yelling. Mary just cried. She was afraid Tommy would sink into drug addiction like so many other Vietnamese kids in the neighborhood.”
“You know that, Rick.” Hank stressed the words. “Right?”
I nodded. I did know. In Hartford some teenaged Vietnamese boys joined loosely organized gangs and peddled drugs on street corners. Or became addicts themselves. These were dangerous boys who carried guns, dressed like rap-video thugs, spoke the hip-hop language their parents despaired of. In the Vietnamese community there were dozens of stories of such nouveau riche boys, barely twenty, cruising in BMWs and souped-up Jeeps, boys who bought three-family houses for their parents in the West End of Hartford, and sometimes did jail time for a year or so. The Vietnamese viewed them warily, and the first generation—the Boat People—feared the loss of a whole generation. Like so many others, Mary, principled, confused, was frightened of that world. She’d rather be poor than live off the ill-gotten profits from street drug sales. Profane and uncivil Vietnamese boys strutted by, tattoos on their arms and necks, crack vials in their pockets, gel-stick in their hair. It made sense to me now—Mary’s terror for her son. She wanted to save Tommy from that. And I suppose she did. But I bet she often reminded him of his folly.
“Has it gotten any better with Benny?” I asked her.
“Well, Tommy works in the store now.”
“So?” Hank wondered.
“So sometimes they even talk to each other. They share cigarettes and lottery tickets. They drink beer together. They go gambling at Foxwoods.”
Hank grinned. “Father’s Day rituals. It warms the heart.”
Grandma slapped him on the hand. “A fresh mouth will get you nowhere.”
Hank winked at Grandma who pretended she didn’t see.
Hank got serious. “You know, I still don’t understand why everything was kept from me. I was old enough to know about drugs then.”
Hank’s mother threw a sidelong glance at Grandma. “You were still young then, a boy. It was better that you not know some things.”
Grandma added, “There are still things it’s better you don’t know.”
“Like what?”
“It’s better that you don’t know.” Now Grandma winked at me.
***
On the drive home, the air conditioner blasting cold air on me, I thought about Hank. A year ago he sat in the front row of my Criminal Investigations course the first day of class. I’d noticed him when I walked in, the Vietnamese name and face, of course, but, more important, the casual posture in the chair, his long legs stretched out in front, his arms folded over his chest. A hard face, hostile—and I was bothered. For weeks he never spoke in class, ignored my questions to him, yet his exams and papers were generally good, well organized, and sometimes the best in the class. He would eventually earn a B from me. But he always glowered, arms crossed, his eyes narrow, hooded.
Once, leaving class, he dropped something, and by the time he retrieved it, he was alone in the room with me. “Hank, see you for a minute?”
He was uncomfortable. “Why?” He approached my desk.
“Have I offended you in some way?”
He looked surprised. “No.”
“You seem angry.”
He started to walk away.
“Hank.”
“Is there anything else?”
I sighed. “No.”
By midsemester I understood the problem. I was friendly with some other students, and one afternoon, having coffee with them in the cafeteria, I spotted Hank walking in, spotting us. He turned around and left. One of the guys grinned.
I nodded toward the departing Hank. “What’s
up?”
They looked at one another, shrugged collective shoulders.
“Come on.”
“Well, Prof,” said one of the group, a beefy ex-marine with a blond crew cut and a tattoo of a dagger on his neck, “he hates your guts.”
I was surprised. “But why?”
The guys looked at one another. No one said a word. “Well, what? For God’s sake.”
Finally one kid, a nineteen-year-old freshman, in a workout shirt and weightlifter pants, all cockiness in class, grinned. “He called you a mongrel.” He paused. “Sorry, Prof.”
“What?”
Suddenly it was clear to me. All over again. Bui doi. The mixed-bloods so hated by the Vietnamese.
Dust boy.
So Hank harbored that age-old Vietnamese dread of impurity. It made sense now.
Deliberately I ignored him, though that wasn’t possible. There was a faculty-student tennis competition, one of those embarrassing spectacles someone invariably dreams up, and I was signed up. The day before, realizing I was woefully out of practice, I drove to the college courts off Main Street, only to discover Hank Nguyen practicing. Alone. The two of us. I suggested we play, which we did. Silently.
He was aggressive and wild on the courts. There was no stopping him. I played—or tried to play—a cool, calculated game, all rhythm and theory. It drove Hank crazy. Twice he lost his temper but turned away, biting his lip. An hour later, exhausted, we played a final game that was rough, long, and bitter. I hated the smug look on his face, that haughty superiority I’d seen in one Vietnamese guy too many. I played fiercely, but he countered me point for point. Thirty all. Back and forth. Until, at last, with more luck than talent, I smashed a deliberate, rhapsodic ball into his hesitant backhand and it landed a foot inside the line. I won.
He was furious. I waited by the net, expecting him to say something. When he walked by me, he actually sneered.
“Hank.” I reached out and touched his shoulder, trying to stop him.
The effect was electric. He turned, his eyes wide with anger as he shoved me, his hand pushing against my shoulder. Surprised, I dropped back, but when I straightened myself, he pushed again. “Fuck off, half-breed,” he muttered. “Du ma may bui doi.” Fuck you. Damn you. “Do chet tiet.”
A stupid scene, and it immediately got worse. I yelled back at him, also falling into Vietnamese. “Di cho khac choi.” Get lost. The hell with you. Suddenly we were pushing at each other, like clumsy wrestlers. I hated the little shit, and within seconds we were rolling on the ground, jabbing at each other, our bodies tight.
But it ended almost as quickly as it began, the two of us falling apart, each toppling onto our backs, away from each other. I was breathing hard.
Finally I sat up. “Why do you hate me?”
He didn’t answer.
I got up. “You’re a waste of time,” I shouted.
The next day he came to my office, a little sheepishly, and we finally had the talk we should have had long before. He said he realized that he didn’t hate me—he just wanted to. Throughout the semester he liked my class, sort of liked me, liked my humor, my way of dealing with students. And the night before, nursing his wounds, he’d come to realize that his venom—and his father’s and grandfather’s long-standing and knee-jerk attitudes toward the bui doi—had made him despise me from the outset.
“I’ve never doubted their words. Until now.” Suddenly, overnight, it all seemed so irrational to him. “I heard it ever since I was a little boy.”
I smiled. “I’m a dust boy.”
He looked down. “I’m sorry.”
So began the friendship, awkward at first, as Hank transcended his family’s parochial views, and, ultimately, integrated me into his household. Early on he insisted Grandma would adore me. That was true. Now Grandma and even his mother—but never the intractable grandfather nor father—looked forward to my visits, and, oddest of all, I was family. Sort of—at least sometimes. Hank’s family. Set adrift in America, the dust boy had found his Vietnamese family, with all the idiosyncrasies I would have had in my biological family, had I ever had one. It didn’t matter. Hank, now a young man, was my brother.
Being with him always made me happy.
And that night, pulling my car into the lot behind my apartment, I found myself smiling. Out loud I said into the leaden, humid air, “Hank, you’re one of the winners.”
Chapter Twelve
The next night everyone ended up at my apartment. Jimmy stopped over unexpectedly at seven, claiming he had to drop off some official papers in nearby Unionville, and it was his idea to order a pizza. He carried in two six-packs of Budweiser, because, as he said, “People like you can be counted on to have vodka and scotch, but usually don’t stock up on the essentials.” As the aroma of tomato and cheese and garlic wafted up the staircase, Gracie drifted into my kitchen where, acting surprised to see Jimmy, she said she’d come just for one slice. She had to watch her figure and twirled a bit, a little awkwardly, as if she were auditioning for some geriatric Rockette reunion. Jimmy grinned through it all like Bart Simpson at a peep show.
Then Hank and Liz showed up, the two bumping into each other on the sidewalk. We first heard their syrupy giggling in the hallway, and Jimmy rolled his eyes. Liz and Hank were fond of each other, and sometimes Liz could made Hank stammer in ways that amused all of us. If Jimmy became Bart Simpson, Hank became one of the gooey babies running amok in the candy aisle at Food Mart.
Hank walked in behind her, and he was telling her how he’d quit his job at the Chinese restaurant, an act of liberation from slavery and family exploitation that Liz applauded. I worried what Hank’s dad would say about this latest move. There’d be an explosion, and not a pretty one. His father, a Calvinistic soul, bred in the rigid discipline of Saigon streets, was not one to be trifled with.
“I thought I’d surprise you,” Liz said. “But obviously everyone else had the same idea.”
And it was a surprise. As much as Liz and I had remained friends, our meetings were always for dinners, for lunches, even at her office. She’d been to my apartment a few times, usually running in, dropping something off, and then fleeing the iceberg that was her former husband. Her apartment was across town, an expensive condo, one of the sleek modern ones built to look like late Victorian houses, with wraparound front porches that no one ever sat on for fear that neighbors might think them working class.
Jimmy spoke. “I was in the neighborhood, too.”
Liz gave him a peck on the cheek. “I knew there’d be pizza here. In the golden age of our marriage, in old little New York, there was always pizza and Chinese food in every corner of the apartment.”
“And Nathan’s hot dogs,” I added.
Liz settled into my overstuffed sofa that had become even more threadbare since she last saw it. Hank allowed himself to be interrogated about his leaving his chop-chop job and his future life as a Connecticut state trooper.
“I will be the only Vietnamese state trooper,” he declared. “That scares me.”
Jimmy started spouting old cop wisdom and Reader’s Digest advice for success and achievement, but Hank was more interested in the attention of Gracie and Liz, who both flattered and teased and generally made him feel like the only person in the room. For a second—and I hate to admit this—I was jealous of the rhapsodic attention thrown his way, but I squelched the pettiness, or I tried to. Good-looking, confident, happy with his life, Hank exuded a robust charm, a kind of unselfconscious manliness that I didn’t think I’d ever had in my whole life. American-born, a male in a Vietnamese household, fully entitled to primacy in the world at home and abroad, Hank never for a second questioned his masculine power in the universe.
Liz was babbling to Gracie, “Can you imagine how great he’s going to look in a Connecticut state trooper’s uniform?”
Gracie was about to coo a stic
ky response, which I interrupted. “Can we end this meeting of the Hank Nguyen Fan Club?”
Jimmy looked at me with one of those chummy old-boy glances—narrowed eyes and slight jerking of the head—that suggested women were just plain nutty. Hank was a boy. Didn’t they realize that there were two real men in the room? One experienced and a bit world-weary? The other a little untutored and raw-boned but nevertheless carrying a State of Connecticut private investigator’s license.
Eventually the chat moved into the story of Mary, as I knew it would.
“Are you going to talk to the young Spanish kid who was shot in the leg?” Liz asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t think I can take this out of the Vietnamese community. I’m still tracking Mary’s movements. And getting nowhere.”
“And besides,” Jimmy declared even though he was gnawing on a chunk of pizza, “these kids don’t even talk to the police.”
“So you may never know,” Gracie said, drawing the last of a beer, upturning the bottle.
“The secret is to get inside the mind of Mary on that last day,” I concluded.
“So how do you do that?” From Liz.
“I’m gonna work my way through the kids. Maybe Danny. And Benny. But especially Molly. Mary was the most unlikely person to be murdered, but innocent people get murdered every day. The only thing that makes this out of the ordinary is the place she was shot.”
“And that’s why,” emphasized Hank, “it has to be looked at.”
“But logically she could have made a mistake,” Jimmy said. “Goodwin Square is ten or so blocks from Little Saigon and Benny’s market.”
“Yet that’s really a world away,” said Liz. “You know how city neighborhoods are. The boundaries shift so quickly, good neighborhood to bad. Look at Manhattan.”
“Why didn’t she carry a cell phone?” Hank wondered.
Jimmy smirked. “Not everyone has phones, son. People of a certain age…”
Hank frowned. “Not so, Jimmy. Everyone has a cell phone.”