Little Saigon

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “You deal with him before?”

  “He’s new. He’s trying to be powerful. They say the cops here are different than in Vietnam. I don’t believe it. They’re all gangsters, just like in Saigon.”

  “How long have you been in the States?”

  “Ten years. I was in Saigon when the war ended. Then the camps in Thailand. That’s where Ground Zero started. I was six, and we were small thieves. Where were you, Frye?”

  “Flunking college.”

  They got off the freeway in Westminster. Eddie’s house was a mile from Saigon Plaza. When Frye turned onto Washington Street, Eddie leaned forward to stare at a white Chevy parked along the curb. Frye could see someone behind the wheel.

  “The Dark Men?” Frye asked.

  Vo shook his head, but continued staring as they passed.

  Eddie’s place was an old two-bedroom home with a dead lawn, a starving orange tree out front, and weeds everywhere.

  Frye pulled into the driveway, got out, and followed Eddie to the door. Vo looked again at the Chevrolet parked down the street but said nothing.

  The living room was furnished with thrift-shop stuff—nothing matched, or was less than a decade old. But Vo’s stereo was state-of-the-art: big flat speakers, a CD player, and a reel-to-reel. A poster of Eddie Van Halen hung crookedly on one wall.

  Vo stood for a moment, as if beholding his own home for the first time. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

  Frye looked into Eddie’s bedroom: a lamp, a pile of Vietnamese magazines and papers, a mattress on the floor with a sleeping bag tossed over it—one of the old thick ones with pheasants flying over red flannel.

  Eddie walked in, fingered some items on his dresser. “Someone’s been here,” he said. He shot back into the living room and peered through the drapes, then checked his door lock. “Loc, probably. I hate the Dark Men, no matter what Stanley Smith says.”

  Eddie went to the kitchen, produced a pistol from one of the cabinets, and waved Frye into the other bedroom.

  Frye’s face went cold. “Be careful with that thing, Eddie.”

  “I’m a great shot. You’re lucky you’re with me. Look at this.”

  Vo flipped on the light. The room was a temple of Li. Signed posters, an ao dai on a hanger nailed to the wall, about thirty snapshots crowded in a big frame, clippings from magazines, a collection of covers for albums Frye had never even seen, a blurred blowup of a photograph of Li and Eddie at the Asian Wind. There was a microphone with a card leaning against it that said “Li Frye’s microphone—4/7/88.”

  “This shit’s all hers,” Eddie said quietly. “I collected it over the last seven years. I got more in the closet.” He looked through the window and drew the drapes tightly closed.

  An icy little wave rippled down Frye’s back. “Nice.”

  “Beer?” Eddie tossed the gun on his bed.

  “Sure.”

  He went to the kitchen and came back with two cans. Frye watched Eddie contemplate the ao dai. Beneath the hardness of Vo’s face, he could see the worry.

  Frye noted a framed photo next to the snapshots, the only picture in the room that didn’t have Li in it. It was Eddie with his arm around another young man. Same height, same age. Eddie’s hair was gelled to perfection. The other’s was cut into a flat-top that must have been two inches high. They were the two happiest haircuts Frye had seen in years. They were made for each other. The boys smiled at the camera.

  “Loc,” said Eddie, staring at the picture.

  “So you were friends once.”

  “In the camps we survived. I came over first and formed Ground Zero. He came over later and joined me. Later, he split to form the Dark Men. He betrayed me. I will take down the picture when I feel like it.”

  “Is that who’s out there in the white Chevy?”

  “No.”

  “Who is?”

  “If I knew I wouldn’t be nervous, man.”

  They went to the living room and Eddie put on a Li Frye tape. “You’ve never heard this,” said Vo. “I made it myself.”

  Eddie went to the bedroom while Frye listened. A moment later he came back wearing fresh clothes, his hair carefully sculpted. He had the gun again. “I want you to take me to my store before we go to the cops. I want to lock up this piece, turn on my burglar alarm, and get some money to bribe my way out of jail. Man, you can’t trust nobody anymore. Not even the gang you used to be in.”

  As Frye steered the Cyclone down Eddie’s street, he watched in his rearview mirror as the Chevy pulled from the curb and followed. One block down, another car fell in between them. “Dark Men behind us, Eddie?”

  “I told you, Frye. I don’t know.”

  Saigon Plaza was Monday-night quiet. The rows of street lamps sent their glow over the parking lot, the marble lions at the entrance, the big archway. As always, colored flyers lay scattered across the asphalt.

  But as soon as Frye turned in, he saw the fire units outside Ground Zero Records, the police cars, the little crowd huddled to one side. Two men in yellow, legs spread, supported a hose heaving white rapids of water into Eddie’s burning store.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE FIRE WAS A BRIGHT, VASCULAR THING, BIG flames roaring behind the windows. Frye skidded the Cyclone to a stop, and they jumped out. Eddie dodged two patrolmen and ran for his shop.

  Detective John Minh materialized from the white Chevy that had followed them from Vo’s house. He drew his revolver, took a long look at Frye, then pointed the officers after Eddie. The firemen lifted the hose, sending a bright arc of water over the lamps and into the darkness.

  The cops caught Eddie at the door of the store, then hustled back with the slender kid pinned between them. They were all soaked. Vo glared at Frye, then at Minh. “Dark Men,” he said.

  As soon as they got a cuff on one of Eddie’s wrists, he broke away, and ran a zigzag pattern down the sidewalk. One cop drew down. One slipped in the water and fell.

  Minh leveled his revolver and yelled for Eddie to stop.

  Frye could see Vo look back over his shoulder, eyes big, legs pumping, the silver handcuff shining as it trailed and snapped behind him.

  Before he was aware of deciding to, Frye took two steps forward and shoved Minh hard. To his left someone opened up, six shots in a frightful instant. Minh pistol-whipped Frye, sending him to his knees. Through his blaring vision, he saw Eddie make the corner and disappear.

  When Frye finally caught up, Eddie was out of sight. The row of shops sat neatly, odd customers lifting themselves from the sidewalk, peeking from behind doors, scrambling for their cars. The cops were already dodging in and out of the stores, under the frantic direction of Minh, whose high-pitched shouting echoed through the plaza. The smell of gunpowder blew past Frye, then gave way to the hot stink of fire. He stood there, ears ringing, dizzy, waiting for them to drag Vo out, dead or alive.

  Minh ran back and handcuffed Frye to a street lamp. He cinched the cuffs tight. “If you happen to get loose, I’ll shoot you.”

  Frye watched them search. Echoes of last night, he thought: into one shop where nobody tells you anything, then onto the next where they tell you it again. His head throbbed where Minh’s pistol had hit him. A few drops of blood hit the sidewalk below. Minh sent three officers to the back of the building. Two more units skidded up, sirens on, lights whirling.

  Five minutes dragged by. Frye watched. Like kids on an Easter egg hunt, he thought, but nobody’s finding anything. The cops went in, only to emerge moments later with grim expressions of wonder and defeat. When they’d tried every place that Eddie could possibly have gone, they gathered outside the jewelry store with an air of communal bewilderment, making notes, hypothesizing.

  Minh finally marched from the Dream Reader’s door and waved his men back to their units. Frye watched him approach: short and slender, a perfectly cut suit, face pale and angry. He stopped a few feet away. “Simple answers. Why?”

  “Why? How can you blow away a half-crazy kid who�
��s just had his store burned out? How the hell can you—”

  “Shut up!” Minh backhanded him, quite hard. Drops of red flecked the lamp post. He told Frye his Miranda rights. “You’re under arrest for obstruction, aiding and abetting a fugitive, interfering with an investigation, tampering with a crime scene.”

  Minh unfastened Frye from the light pole, then cinched the cuffs even tighter. He dragged Frye into the parking lot while a crowd of Vietnamese looked on. The flames in Eddie’s store were dying down.

  They stopped at the white Chevy and Minh unlocked the trunk. He found a flashlight and flipped the top off a shallow cardboard box beside the spare tire. Li’s purple ao dai lay inside, covered by a dry-cleaning bag. Beside it were her silk trousers and one shoe. There were dark drops of something on the blouse, and it was torn. “We found an earring, too, and underwear.”

  “Where?”

  “Eddie Vo’s garage. This afternoon. Think about it while you’re counting the roaches in jail tonight.”

  The police bagged his possessions and fingerprinted him at the Westminster station; the Sheriff’s deputies booked him and sprayed his ass for lice at Orange County Jail; the inmates whistled and offered to fuck him as he was led down the cellblock in blue overalls with the cuffs still so tight that his fingers bulged with pain. He looked at the taunting faces and doubted John Waters was really right when he wrote that everyone looked better under arrest. Sometime during the nightmare, he was allowed to call Bennett. After that, a burly doctor poked five stitches into the side of his forehead.

  He lay on his cot and stared at the ceiling. The man in the bunk below gave him a chew of Skoal, then told him about the bum rap he’d gotten for aggravated assault. When the man began his fifth version of the same story, Frye told him to shut up and go to sleep. His other two cellmates kept to themselves, lying on their beds, faces to the wall.

  He was exhausted. As he lay there, Frye conceded that this is probably just where he belonged. The best thing you can do is keep out of the way. It’s hard to believe, he thought, that I was close enough to Eddie Vo to strangle him, and I let him go.

  Li’s ao dai, spotted with blood. Her trousers. Her shoe. Her earring. That’s why Minh staked out Vo’s house. That’s why he didn’t take Eddie as soon as we got there. He was hoping Eddie and I would lead him to Li. Maybe he would have.

  Instead, he’s gone.

  Frye dozed off. Sometime after midnight a deputy led him to the checkout room. He got his clothes back. His money was still there.

  He met his new lawyer, Mike Flaherty, dispatched by Bennett. Bennett himself didn’t show. Frye stepped outside into the cool early morning, and Flaherty led him to his Mercedes.

  “Your brother wants to see you,” said Mike. “I’ll drive you back to your car.”

  Bennett, Donnell Crawley, and Nguyen Hy were in the living room, each with a stack of handwritten notes in front of him. A .38 lay on the coffee table in front of Nguyen. Two men that Frye had never seen before were connecting a tape recorder to the telephone. Both wore suits, both studied him intently as he walked in. Crawley introduced them as Michelsen and Toibin, FBI. The windows were open and the night was warm.

  Bennett looked at Frye briefly and told him to go out to Donnell’s cottage in the back.

  Frye moved down the hallway, noting again the pictures, decorations, and awards. He stopped at the war photos—shots of his brother and Li at the Pink Night Club in Saigon. Benny with two good legs under him, looking fresh-faced and happy, a little giddy with war, a foreign land, romance. Li stood beside him, her hair wound monumentally upward in the prevailing Western mode, her face oddly girlish. It seems so long ago, he thought: it must seem like centuries to them. Then Bennett’s citations and awards, both military and civic—two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, the L.A. Times Orange Countian of the Year, the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce Helping Hand Citation—dozens more. Even a couple of new ones since the last time he’d looked. Benny, he thought, never happy unless he was the best.

  Frye glanced into Bennett’s studio: bookshelves, a drafting table, and a model of the Laguna Paradiso development on a stand in the middle of the room. He looked at the tiny hillsides, the blue enamel water, the miniature boats in the marina, the homes, and stores.

  The Laguna Paradiso, he thought, the biggest Frye Ranch project yet. Bennett’s baby. Edison’s parting shot.

  He went through the utility room, then out to a back porch. A spotlight on the garage illuminated the yard—a brick patio, an awning, a good expanse of lawn. The hedges were neatly trimmed, the grass freshly mowed, the plants along one side perfectly spaced and tended. Donnell kept the grounds. Nestled at the far end, under a big orange tree, stood his cottage. Frye let himself in: a bed, a Formica table, a tiny television set. Ten years, he thought, and I’ve never been inside. He sat on the bed and waited, his stitches hurting and the lice spray making him smell like a pet hospital.

  Bennett came in a few minutes later, braced himself on his fists and looked up at Frye.

  “You all right?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Get down here to my level, would you, Chuck?”

  Frye knelt on the floor in front of his brother. Bennett’s eyes weren’t right. Even as a kid, he would get that look.

  “Chuck, what were you doing?”

  “Trying to help. See, Vo—”

  “I see.”

  Bennett’s fist slammed into his chest before Frye could react. His breath ripped out of him as if gaffed, something wailed in his ears, and Bennett toppled him over and fastened his thick hands around Frye’s throat.

  Bennett’s face loomed over him. Pressure throbbed in his eyes. Two thumbs locked into position against his windpipe. The voice that came from the clenched mouth above him was hard and cool as the stainless of Minh’s revolver. “Never do that again. Never do anything I don’t tell you to do. Don’t move. Don’t think. Don’t breathe without my permission again. Ever.”

  Frye believed he was nodding. Everything was red, just like when he was under the water, fighting for direction. The next thing he knew, he was gasping. The ceiling was turning from red to bright white, then back again. He could hear his breath—rapid on the exhale, deep on the inhale. He sat up dizzily and let the room spin around him. As soon as he caught his breath, he started coughing.

  Bennett returned from Crawley’s kitchenette, pivoting on one hand, bearing a glass of water in the other. “Here, drink.”

  Frye swatted away the glass, which shattered against a wall. When he stood over Bennett, he was as close as he’d ever gotten to kicking the living shit out of him. Bennett’s gaze was impartial, measured. Frye could already see the arc his foot would take, a short upward swing, off the floor, weight shifting, straight into Bennett’s jaw.

  It was too easy.

  It was too hard.

  He sat back onto the bed.

  “Good soldier, Chuck. Calm down. We’ve got business to do now and we need to do it right. Are you with me?”

  Frye nodded, coughed again.

  “First, tell me what in Christ’s name you were doing with Eddie Vo.”

  Frye sputtered out the story.

  “Any hint at all as to where he took her? Any?”

  “Benny, I just thought he was crazy. He took me right back to his house. He didn’t act like a man who’d just kidnapped someone. He showed me his collection of Li stuff. He looked at a poster like it was really her. He’s nuts. He named himself for Eddie Van Halen, for God’s sake.”

  Bennett swung from one end of the little cottage to the other, then back to Frye.

  “Next, what about Kim?”

  “We ended up in Mojave. She got off. A guy named Paul DeCord took pictures of us from the road.”

  “DeCord took pictures of you? Are you sure?”

  “I think so. Who is he? And don’t tell me he’s a goddamned writer.”

  Bennett shook his head. “How did Kim behave?”

  “She was nervou
s. What was in those crates, Benny?”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Damn it! What’s going on? She didn’t tell me anything.”

  Bennett tapped his fingers on the floor, staring at Frye. “And what did you gather?”

  “Kim isn’t going to Paris, and neither was Li. The music is going to Vietnam, and so are those crates. Li couldn’t take them, so Kim did. And Minh knew I took her to the airstrip. He knew. When I was leaving his office, Paul DeCord was walking in.”

  Bennett nodded, looking down at the cottage floor. “Okay. Okay.”

  Frye took a deep breath and got his right fist ready to slam into Bennett’s face if he had to. “What the hell is going on out there, Benny? What’s in those crates and how come Paul DeCord’s taking pictures and running to Minh?” Frye stood up and put about three feet between his brother and himself. “I watched the video. DeCord paying off Nguyen. What are you guys doing?”

  Bennett looked long and hard into Frye’s eyes. But the spark of violence was gone, replaced by assessment, caution, control. “Chuck. Brother Chuck. I wish you’d just believe in me the way I believe in you.”

  “What shit.”

  Bennett’s face took on a softness now, the same expression he had last night at the Asian Wind when Li glided on stage and smiled into the lights. He climbed onto Donnell’s bed and leaned against the headboard. For a long moment he closed his eyes, breathing deeply. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet.

  “It’s amazing how simple people can make simple things so complicated.” Bennett crossed his thick arms. “We’re trying to help people who don’t have a country anymore, Chuck. We send them recordings of Li’s music, because it feeds their hearts. It helps to keep them going. It reminds everyone over there of the way things used to be. They listen to it. The people in the refugee camps listen to it. The villagers listen to it. It’d be like us ending up in Vietnam, Chuck. What would you want to hear—our music, or theirs? But it’s not just music, Chuck. There are other voices on those tapes. A son’s birthday wishes to a father still in the camps. A wife’s love to a husband who never got out and lives under the Communists now, too afraid to move. Greetings. Gossip. News from the refugees here. Encouragement for those still over there. Plans for bringing them out. Li always felt like she wanted to help the ones who weren’t as lucky as she was. I always felt the same. Is that so hard for you to understand?”