Little Saigon

by T. Jefferson Parker

  Loc steered the wagon north on Beach Boulevard, running a red light on the turn. At a break in the traffic, he turned left into Westminster Memorial Park. Frye looked out at the trees, the gently sloping grounds, the picnic tables, and barbecue stands.

  Loc pulled into a parking spot and killed the engine. “Let’s walk,” he said, reaching for the door.

  “Let’s stay right where we are,” said Frye.

  Loc turned back to Frye with a huge revolver in his left hand. He cocked it—Frye could hear each part moving into place, followed by the definitive, lower click of the trigger locking—and placed the barrel against Frye’s ear. “You don’t understand anything,” said Loc. “Now we will walk.”

  “A little fresh air might be nice.”

  Loc followed him out the passenger door, the gun pushed hard into Frye’s side. “That way.”

  They moved down a path, past the park’s restrooms. Frye’s legs felt like old wood. A young Vietnamese couple passed them, moving off the walkway when they recognized Loc. Frye could see a table and benches in the dim lights as they cut across the park toward the north end. When they got to the picnic area, Loc pushed him onto a bench. He stepped back and with one hand produced a cigarette and lighter. The other one stayed in the pocket of his coat. Frye watched the orange flame illuminate Loc’s thin, hard face.

  “Where is he?”

  “I told you, I don’t know. How long has he been gone?”

  Loc puffed on the cigarette. “Since Sunday. Where did you get his bracelets?”

  “They’re not his. Smith gave them to me.”

  “You are a friend of Smith?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “But you are a friend of Eddie Vo.”

  “No more than you are.”

  Loc stepped forward, grabbed Frye’s hair, and jerked back his head. The gun barrel found his neck. “Why did you go to him then?”

  Frye looked up at the fierce face. Loc’s flat-top seemed a foot and a half high. A cloud of smoke lowered into his eyes. Frye could feel his stitches yawning. He realized now that if he played his cards just right, Loc would kill him. “I was looking for Li Frye. I went to Stanley and found Eddie, too.”

  Loc cinched up on Frye’s hair. “What do you care about Li Frye?”

  “She’s my sister-in-law.”

  Loc stared down at him, cigarette dangling. He released Frye’s hair and stepped back. “You are Bennett Frye’s brother?”

  Frye nodded.

  “What’s this shit about a box I have?”

  Frye looked at Loc, wondering if this boy would give an inch. “Some friends saw you go into my house, Loc. Nice job—you creamed it pretty good. I don’t care about the house. I need the box back. It means a lot more to me than it does to you. Name your price.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Shit, Loc, you don’t even know?”

  “It was just a job, man.”

  “For Lawrence?”

  Loc studied him. “That’s right.”

  “Did you already give it to him?”

  Loc nodded.

  Frye groaned. That video tape keeps getting farther away, he thought.

  “What was in it, Frye?”

  “It was personal. It doesn’t mean anything to anybody, except me. And whoever in hell Lawrence is.” Frye looked out to the darkened park. An older couple walked a tiny dog down the sidewalk. “Nice job with the Christmas lights, Loc. A very festive approach to residential burglary.”

  “Christmas lights were the first thing about this country I liked. You’re really Li Frye’s brother-in-law?”

  “Really.” Frye watched Loc pocket the big weapon, then light another cigarette.

  “Man, I wouldn’t have ruined your house, if I knew that. I love Li Frye.”

  “Me too.”

  “Ever heard ‘Lost Mothers?’”

  “Of course I have.”

  “That’s my favorite.”

  “I’m glad you’re such a fan, Loc. It’s really doing me a lot of good.”

  Loc sat down on the bench. He called something toward the trees and his three friends materialized from the darkness. Frye turned to watch them approach.

  “I believe you, Frye. Now what do you know about Duc?”

  “I told you already. Nothing. The deal was that Lawrence would locate your brother, if you got that box for him?”

  Loc nodded. “Duc disappeared Sunday afternoon. He and another Dark Man went out. They missed a party I had on Sunday night. They did not come home. They missed work on Monday … and lunch. He never misses lunch. He is like a dog. If I don’t find him soon, he will do something. He can be talked into anything. He’s a fool.”

  “When did Lawrence talk to you?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. He came to the restaurant. He said that it was Ground Zero that took Li Frye, and my brother and my friend, too. He said Eddie Vo would kill them, but he could prevent that. But he wanted something in return. Something that would save Duc’s life. It was easy to get. And Lawrence promised that Duc would be free soon.”

  “That’s a pretty thin proposition, Loc.”

  “Lawrence wasn’t asking much, in return for what he promised. I knew right away that he was dangerous. What choice did I have?”

  “You could have gone to Minh.”

  “I don’t trust Minh. Then Duc would die and Li would be gone and it would be my fault. Li helped bring Duc over from the camps.”

  Frye watched Loc toss his cigarette. The boy seemed to diminish into his big black coat. What Frye saw now was a scared, skinny kid—a hundred and thirty pounds of anxiety under a wild haircut. “How did you get the box to Lawrence?”

  Loc eyed him sullenly. “No.”

  “Where is he? I need that thing real bad.”

  “Lawrence said that Duc would die if I talked.”

  “When was he supposed to get Duc free from Eddie?”

  Loc sighed and looked down. “This morning.”

  “Then you got screwed, Loc.”

  Frye stood up. Loc’s friends sprang back, hands moving inside their jackets. Loc snapped something at them and they edged away.

  “Loc, you know Eddie. If he even has Duc and Li, where would he keep them?”

  Loc shook his head. “I’ve looked everywhere I know. Twice. Now Eddie has vanished, too.”

  “Do you really think Eddie arranged the kidnapping? Do you think he could have done it?”

  “Eddie is crazy enough to do anything. Minh would have him now, if not for you.”

  If not for me, Frye thought. “If we can find Lawrence, maybe he can lead us to Duc. And Li.”

  “He’d kill you. I could see it in his eyes.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Tall as you, but stronger. Dark hair and mustache. Very handsome, like a movie star without the smile.”

  “Where can I find him, Loc?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Frye sat back down. “Okay, you won’t go to Minh because you don’t trust him. What are you going to do?”

  “I was going to ask General Dien. He is the most powerful man in Little Saigon.”

  “And?”

  “He is … not to be trusted.”

  “And what’s happening to Duc while you wait? Or to Li Frye?”

  Loc stood glowering above him. “You insult me.”

  “I’m trying to get my box back, for chrissakes. If I can find Lawrence, I can get it. Maybe he doesn’t know squat about your brother and Li, but maybe he does. It’s worth a try, isn’t it? He used you, Loc. Use him back.”

  The look in Loc’s eyes was half terror and half hope. He looked at his friends, then back to Frye. “You will help me find my brother.”

  “I need Lawrence.”

  “I put the box in a brown grocery bag, as he told me. I brought it to the restroom here and left it. I got in my car and drove away. But I drove to another place and watched with binoculars. A few minutes later, a limousine arrived. It was Genera
l Dien’s. I am sure of it. Then a man went to the bathroom. When he left I went in and the bag was gone.”

  “Did you see the general?”

  “No.”

  “What time?”

  “I delivered the box yesterday night. A few hours after I broke into your house.”

  “Did Lawrence put you up to burning out Ground Zero Records, too?”

  “No, That was my own idea. Frye, I would not have disturbed your house if I knew it belonged to Li’s relative.”

  “Where can I get a hold of you?”

  “Call the restaurant. They will know.”

  They took the same path back to Loc’s station wagon. The other Dark Men vanished into the trees. Loc dropped off Frye a block from Pho Dinh.

  Frye leaned into the window. “Was Duc wearing a pair of red tennis shoes on Sunday?”

  Loc nodded. “I bought them for him. Who cares?”

  “One of the kidnappers wore the same thing.”

  Loc glared up at Frye. “Duc is a fool, but he wouldn’t hurt Li.”

  “Where was he going when he disappeared on Sunday?”

  “To see the Dream Reader.”

  “About what?”

  Loc shrugged and lit a cigarette.

  So, Frye thought, someone else went near the Dream Reader and never came back.

  Like Li and her two escorts.

  Like Eddie.

  Like how?

  Michelsen and Toibin were sitting in a car outside Bennett’s house when Frye drove up. Crawley was in the living room, sitting by the telephone. “He’s at the office, Chuck. Be home in an hour. You can wait here until he’s back.”

  “This can’t wait.”

  Frye was scrutinized by the FBI men as he went back to his car and started it up.

  The commercial division of the Frye Ranch Company had been moved to Westminster at Bennett’s insistence, to the displeasure of Edison. The suites were on Bolsa, in the Cal-Asia Building, a block from the heart of Little Saigon. Frye parked, looking at the huge glass facade. A fountain gurgled in front of the main entrance, surrounded by pine trees carefully pruned to offer an oriental bonsai effect. He could see the shops and restaurants through the glass walls. Bennett’s van was in the space reserved for it.

  He took the stairs to the Frye Ranch lobby on the third floor. Almost eight, he thought, but still bustling like always. Bennett was notorious for working his people late and paying them well. Erin, the receptionist, looked at Frye while she talked to one caller, punched another call through, and tried to get to still another blinking light at her switchboard.

  He nodded in sympathy and walked past her. The property management suite still hummed with activity. Middle management types cruised past with the long strides of the indispensable. As he walked past Development—Industrial/Commercial, Frye noted three shirtsleeved architects hovering over a drawing that was spread out on a table. The division flack, Pincus, blew around Frye and into the executive wing. The walls were decorated with seascapes and occasional full-color photo blowups of Frye surfing choice breaks around the world. He stopped to consider a shot of himself casually executing a risky off-the-lip maneuver on a Sunset Beach monster. He stopped, admired his handiwork for a moment, then walked down the hall toward Bennett’s suite.

  The door was shut but he went in anyway. The receptionist’s desk was neatened and vacated for the night. Strange, Frye thought, Benny’s always the last one here. Stepping down the hall, he could hear his brother, speaking loud and clear, as if over a very bad, or very long connection. Frye paused just outside Bennett’s door.

  “Yes … that’s exactly what we need to know … is Xuan’s itinerary still valid? What about kilometer twenty-one?”

  Frye leaned closer.

  “It will leave tonight and be through Honolulu by morning … tell Kim to listen to the goddamned tapes, will you? Give her my love and courage …”

  The shipment, thought Frye, the supplies from the Lower Mojave Airstrip.

  Bennett hung up and Frye pushed through the door. His brother sat on a stool at a drafting table, hovered over a model of the Laguna Paradiso. At work, Bennett dressed in a suit, wore his prosthetics, and used his crutches. Frye looked from his brother to the tiny Laguna Paradiso with its miniature homes, retail centers, hotels, marina, and the trolley designed to take residents down to their own beach without having to walk.

  “We’re going to get her back. I can feel it.”

  “We got a problem, Benny—”

  “It can wait. Now this is from Lansdale again. Michelsen and Toibin won’t talk to me, but Lansdale leaks it to Pop. The gunman wasn’t a local, Chuck. He was from San Francisco. He left there two weeks ago; told his wife he had work in Garden Grove. He was a cook by trade, so I’ve got Arbuckle trying to find a local employer. So whoever put this together used some out-of-town talent. And we’ve finally got something from Eddie’s car. They found one of Li’s fake fingernails under the seat, and she got hold of someone pretty good with it. It had torn skin under it, and type O blood. They’re still looking for medical records on Eddie to type him. Mixed in with the skin were a few splinters of wood. It was ebony, and it was finished with a good lacquer. They think from a club maybe, or a knife. Maybe a gun handle. You see anything like that in his house? Anything at all?”

  “No.”

  Bennett paused. “Chuck, I need the box I gave you. Bring it by in the morning, before eight.”

  Frye took a deep breath. “I don’t have it. It was stolen out of my place yesterday afternoon.”

  “No. Say that isn’t true.”

  “It’s true.”

  Bennett looked at him. Frye could sense the rage percolating inside his brother. Then Bennett took a deep breath. “Of course it is. Explain.”

  Frye told him of the Dark Men, Denise’s drug-hazed account, how it had been corroborated by Loc. “He’s sure it was General Dien’s limo. Do you know a Lawrence who looks like that?”

  Bennett shook his head. For a long moment he stared down at the miniature replica of the Paradiso. Then he climbed off the stool, steadied himself on his crutches, and swung past Frye into the hallway. He stopped and looked back. “Come on, Chuck,” he said. “Go home. Stay home. Just stay away. You can do that much for me, can’t you?”

  CHAPTER 12

  THE TUYS’ HOME WAS SMALL AND NEAT, ON A quiet cul-de-sac two blocks north of Saigon Plaza. A hedge of hibiscus ran along the front. Frye thought of his ill-fated tryst with the Mystery Maid, which culminated beneath just such greenery outside his own house. He thought too of the Lower Mojave Airstrip, and of the quiet presence of Tuy Xuan as he sat in the barren terminal with his computer. Cases of tapes. Crates of arms and legs. DeCord taking pictures of it all, and Bennett tracking it from his office phone. Frye went through a gate and down a walkway to the front door.

  Tuy Xuan greeted him with a controlled smile, and offered his hand. His eyes were magnified by thick glasses. “I am very glad you are here,” he said. “Please come into my house.”

  When Frye called him Mr. Tuy, the man shook his head. “You call me Xuan,” he said.

  Madame Tuy and the four daughters were sitting in the living room. Xuan introduced them from the oldest down: Hanh, Tuoc, Nha, and Lan. Nha brought Frye a beer, stared straight into his face for a brief moment, and then looked away. He could see a little of the parents in each girl, the fine skin and lovely deep eyes. Nha was the tallest and most assured. Her grace was easy—half a woman’s, half a girl’s. Lan was toylike, diminutive, perfect. The two older sisters, Hanh and Tuoc, had permed their hair and wore blouses and jeans. Nha joined her father and Frye while the others disappeared into the kitchen. Their living room was sparse but tasteful: a lacquer painting of Saigon by the artist Phi Loc, an American sofa, a black enamel coffee table in the Chinese mode. An upright piano stood along one wall. Beside it was a small Buddhist shrine—a red altar loaded with fruit and prickling with sticks of incense.

  Xuan was about to turn o
ff the TV when the newsman announced that the FBI had joined the search for kidnapped singer Li Frye. The agent-in-charge was Albert Wiggins, a blandly handsome man of about forty, who said that finding gang leader Eddie Vo was of foremost importance. He held up a picture of Eddie: big smile, thin neck, a swirl of hair. He pleaded for community involvement. For a moment they all stood, watching in silence.

  “Eddie Vo,” said Xuan, “could not do this alone. It is beyond his capacity. He could have been used—he writes her love letters, he is improper—but he takes his boys and storms the Asian Wind like a commando? Your FBI is naïve.”

  “It is impossible,” said Nha.

  “He is a performer,” said Xuan. “He behaves like a scene from MTV. Our young people, they are so eager to imitate the worst in your society.”

  Nha turned off the set at the next commercial. “They’ll find him. Eddie Vo can’t stay invisible for very long. Not in Little Saigon. He will talk. We will be one step closer to Li.”

  Frye nodded. “If Eddie didn’t set this up, who did?”

  Xuan eyed him placidly. “Enemies of freedom.”

  “Enemies of the shipments you make from the Lower Mojave Airstrip?”

  “Yes, that is correct.”

  “Why?”

  Xuan looked at Frye through his thick glasses, then stood. “Please come with me to my study. Nha, help your mother.”

  Frye followed Xuan down the hallway and into a small den. For the first time, Frye noticed that he walked with a slight limp. Xuan shut the door behind them. There was a desk and reading lamp, a sofa, a bookshelf, and a large map of southeast Asia on one wall.

  “Some things are best discussed in private, Chuck.”

  “I understand.”

  Xuan smiled. “When did the war end?”

  “ ‘Seventy-five.”

  “Then you really don’t understand at all.”

  Xuan stooped in front of a tall gray safe and dialed the combination. The door opened with a squeak. He squatted, reached in with both hands and removed a wooden board. He leaned it against the blotter on his desk. Frye looked at a second map of Southeast Asia, dotted with colored pins—blue, red, yellow.