“For many, Chuck, the war still goes on. There are freedom fighters in Vietnam, there are resistance leaders in Kampuchea, there are many refugees here in the United States, working for the day they can liberate Vietnam. The war is not over. Not until they accomplish their goal.”
Frye sat down. Xuan pointed at his map. “The yellow pins are pockets of resistance. The blue are actual locations of the Secret Army. The red show the areas in which Colonel Thach is most active. You have heard of him?”
“I saw a picture of his face.”
“He is an enforcer of state security, a brutal and clever man. He fought in the jungles during the war, and he continues. Do you know what he does to suspected resistance leaders? He decapitates them and places their heads on stakes for the local people to see. During the war, he did the same thing to those sympathetic to the West.”
Xuan, his arms crossed, looked at the map as if it might offer some new discovery. “But what are colored pins on a map? What we cannot show is that Colonel Thach’s influence reaches far into Kampuchea and Thailand—that he is feared and hated throughout Southeast Asia. When the Vietnam resistance became active in Paris, two of our leaders were murdered. In Australia, two more. Last year in San Francisco, a patriot was found slaughtered in his car. His name was Tranh Hoa, and he was a deep friend to me. We grew up together outside Saigon. He was closer to me than a brother. These are unsolved crimes, Chuck. No one was caught. They were organized by Colonel Thach. He was kind enough to remove the heads of his victims. It was the same as signing his name.”
Xuan brought an envelope from the safe, sat down beside Frye, removed his glasses, and wiped them with a handkerchief.
Then he pulled out a small collection of newspaper clippings. An article from Melbourne told of the grisly discovery in some detail; Le Monde carried a picture of one victim before his death; the San Francisco Chronicle piece was surprisingly small, considering the horror of the crime.
“Do not look for the name Colonel Thach,” said Xuan. “To connect him is beyond the authorities. His men are well-trained and financed.”
“Would he send his men to Little Saigon?”
“That is my belief.”
“To take Li and choke the supply line to Vietnam?”
Xuan nodded. “It is not terribly complicated, when one looks at it from this angle.”
“But why send his men to California when she goes into Vietnam—with the supplies?”
Xuan nodded. “Colonel Thach is out to crush the resistance, Chuck. To do that, one must crush the spirit of freedom. When terror reaches into Little Saigon, Hanoi is achieving its goal. Consider this from Colonel Thach’s perspective. Here is Li Frye, a beautiful and talented singer. A woman who has the hearts of the refugees. A woman who dresses in fine Western clothes, who wears jewels and perfume. A woman married to an influential businessman. Thach imagines them going to lavish parties together. He imagines them being written about, photographed. He sees her walking in the shoes of privilege. What greater statement of power than to tear her from her own home?” Xuan leaned forward, put out his hands, and slowly clenched his fists. “What greater power than to crush her in front of her people? And remember, Li grew up in the jungle. She is popular in the countryside and difficult to catch. One of the sad realities of your free society, Chuck, is that people are easier to kidnap or assassinate. Look to history for proof.”
Frye considered. Slowly, what Tuy Xuan was saying began to sink into him. “If it was Thach’s men—then Li will be … she’s … dead.”
“We are prepared for that possibility, but no, that is not certain. I believe Thach’s men will always sign his name. They want us to know that they will pursue us to the ends of the earth. That Li has not been heard from is, in a way, positive news. It means that they have … other plans for her.”
“Like what?”
Xuan folded the clippings back into the envelope. “I cannot guess, Chuck.”
“But why? You send supplies, medical stuff, arms and legs. Why send killers thousands of miles to stop that?”
“What we send is not the point. You don’t understand the tactics of the Hanoi government, or the methods of Colonel Thach. More important than the supplies is Li herself. Her music. Her stature and reputation. She is a symbol of freedom, Chuck. To remove her is to remove hope. Imagine the heaviness of heart, when innocence and hope are destroyed. When our leaders in Paris were murdered, the community shrank back in fear. Afraid to show their faces. What breaks the will of a people faster—to have their soldiers killed, or their towns and cities ruined?”
Frye considered. “Have you gone to the police, the FBI?”
Xuan nodded and pointed out the window to the sky. “To them, mine are the theories of an old man. They think my head is in the clouds. Besides, what evidence can I provide, except for what I’ve told you? None. They are doing what they can do to find local men who may have helped. But the true instigator is many layers, many thousands of miles away right now.”
“Local men, like Eddie Vo?”
“Oh, yes. The young people are so easy to influence. So easy to manipulate.”
Frye considered. “What does Nha do for the resistance?”
“Many things, Chuck. Her English is nearly perfect and she is good with numbers. She helps me account for shipments, helps me deal with suppliers. At the university, she attempts to educate her peers.” Xuan sat down. “In my best dreams, I see her doing for our people what Li has done. A symbol of hope. She has the fierceness of the cause behind her. I did not indoctrinate her. It is her spirit. There are few of her kind among the younger people. They are our future.”
“Like Nguyen Hy?”
“Yes. His Committee to Free Vietnam is a good thing.”
“What about General Dien?”
Xuan shook his head slowly. “He is like a branch gone bad. He sucks nourishment from the soil and turns it into more disease. For years he collected money in the name of freedom, and little came of it. He is a wealthy man now. You can do the mathematics yourself.”
“Why hasn’t he been busted?”
“The people’s faith in him turned away over a long period. For a while, he was our apparent hope. The donations, the support? No one would accuse the general of being a thief. He made small advances for a short time. He always has a new plan about to be executed. The people cannot admit he is dishonest, it would demonstrate that they themselves are fools. The Vietnamese people are proud, Chuck. We will go to … unrealistic lengths sometimes, in order to save face. You should know that about us. The general is like your national debt. If we ignore Dien, our foolishness is not exposed. Slowly, people have seen that Nguyen Hy is the true expatriot leader. Support has gone to him. Now, only the very old still believe in Dien. But it is a fact, he is very powerful.”
“He did what he could to stop that kidnapping.”
Xuan nodded. “I am thankful for that. At heart, he is not evil, he is just greedy.”
“Why have you told me all this?”
Tuy Xuan looked at Frye, eyes magnified by his thick glasses. “Because you saved my life, and I want you to know what it is you saved. And because the more people who understand our struggle, the better. You are a fine young man. I am an old man with a bad leg. But to tell you about my tiny, insignificant battles does my heart good.”
“I never really knew that Benny and Li were involved in this. They never said one word about it to me.”
“And now you can see why. Things in our arena are dangerous, Chuck. They wanted nothing but to protect you. Bennett has two lives. In one, he is a businessman, a man of money and influence. But does he live in a great home? No. Does he wear expensive clothing or drive big cars? No. The other Bennett is a soldier and a patriot. Much of the costs of supplies, he bears himself. He will be angry, when he knows I’ve talked to you.” Xuan gave a little laugh, then placed his hand very lightly on Frye’s shoulder. “I believe that you should know. And Chuck, I know what it is to be … o
utside.”
“Outside of what?”
“Your family.”
“What makes you think I’m outside mine?”
Xuan folded his hands and smiled. “It is something that I see in your face. In the way you behave with your brother. In the way you looked at him at the Asian Wind and stood up to hug him. In the way you go to him and he does not go to you. You come from a powerful family, Chuck. But you are not among them. You are outside.” Xuan wiped his thick glasses again. “I mean no offense. I was outside my own family. I was considered too political. There came a time when I had to choose. I chose my country.”
And what is it that I’ve chosen, wondered Frye. A surf shop? A cave-house? A wife I couldn’t keep?
“No,” said Xuan. “You don’t have to choose. You are a country at peace. You are a generation of peace. Enjoy the fruits of that freedom.”
I’ve done some of that, Frye thought. Maybe too much. “Benny paid for it, I know.”
“Then make good with what he bought for you. Someday, I hope my people can say that. It will not be in my lifetime though. Peace and freedom are as far from Vietnam as the moon is from the earth.”
“We got to the moon, Xuan.”
Tuy Xuan smiled. “Yes, we did. What I’ve told you is for you, Chuck. Forgive my presumption about you and your family. Old men love the business of others, because their own is fading so fast.”
“If Thach’s men took Li, where are they now?”
“I think they are holding her. Where? Who can say? My guess is nowhere in little Saigon. We are a close community. We talk. I believe they are somewhere else.”
“Thank you, Xuan.”
“Shall we eat?”
Dinner was immense and unending. Frye took instruction on mixing the proper ingredients: easy on the fish sauce, use the greens to make your own soup, plenty of mint and cilantro and bean sprouts, stretch the rice paper just right and it will stick to itself and make a perfect roll. The rice cake was thick and sweet; Frye ate three helpings.
“Nha is a writer,” said Xuan. “She was very interested to talk to you about journalistic work.”
Nha explained that she was finishing her senior year at Cal State Fullerton, with a communications major. “I do enjoy the reporting,” she said. “But only when my heart is in the material. It’s difficult to care about football games.”
“Wait until you hit the rewrite desk on your first job,” Frye said. “You don’t know what boring is yet.”
“If I get a job I’ll be pleased,” she said. “It’s an overcrowded profession, I know.”
“Well, there’s one less reporter on the Ledger now,” he said. Nha and Xuan both blushed and looked away. “Anyway, it’s a good job. You’ll like it. You’ll learn to write fast and ask lots of questions. Think you have the personality for that, Nha?”
She smiled. Frye studied her creamy skin, the perfect red lips, her black hair tied with a white ribbon in a ponytail. “I can adjust. I’m very good at that.”
Xuan, fortified with wine, told of their escape from Vietnam, the long days on the boat, the near-starvation and final rescue by an Australian fishing crew. Frye watched the daughters glance anxiously among themselves, then lower their heads as Xuan mentioned the pirates who had attacked their leaking escape boat. “There were things too terrible to describe,” he said quietly, and that was that.
Nha excused herself and returned with an empty champagne bottle. She explained that while her family floated in the Pacific, nearly dead from thirst, they found this bottle floating past the ship. They’d prayed that it contained something drinkable. She shook a tiny scroll loose from inside and gave it to Frye. It said “To Whoever Finds This Note: We Hope You’re Having As Much Fun As We Are! Lance and Jennifer Gentry—Honeymooning in Hawaii—6/82/.”
Xuan went on to say how they had arrived in California with no money, no work. Only a few friends and Li Frye were here to help them get started. Frye considered the nice house, the new dining room furniture and the lacquer paintings of Vietnam. A trade, he thought: your country for your life.
The girls all spoke English well; Xuan’s was fair, and Madame Tuy’s wasn’t good at all. They’ve come a long way, he thought: further than I’ll ever go. Xuan thanked him again for pulling him down at the Asian Wind, for saving his life. An exaggeration, thought Frye, but I’ll go with it. Dinner ended with a toast to him. It was Frye’s turn to look down, and he caught Nha’s steady gaze from the corner of his vision.
Something hit him as he sat there with this family, some glimpse of what his own was like when they were together, all those years ago. He wondered if they might be like this again, together without the swells of disappointment, without the unspoken battle lines, without the sharp memories of how it used to be and could never be again.
He excused himself, went into a bedroom, and called home. Hyla answered. She had entertained Mrs. Lansdale all day and tried to get Edison out of his cottage long enough to eat. “He’s been there all day, poring over that big chart on the wall. Filling in things, putting question marks in the little boxes. How are you, son?”
“Okay. I just wanted to call and tell you … that I love you and I know this is going to be all right.”
“I know it is too, Chuck.”
“I’m doing what I can, Mom. I’m not gonna mess anything up.”
“Chuck, don’t be that way.”
“I saw your Bowers last night.”
“When this happened to Li, it made me think of Debbie.”
“Me too … put me through to Dad?”
Edison sounded like a linebacker breaking huddle. “Edison Frye!”
“Chuck.”
“Sonofabitching FBI is all over the place and they still haven’t found Eddie Vo! I got Lansdale with me here right now, and I told him he’s a hostage until we get Li back safe and sound. Bastard’s drinking all my gin.”
“You’ve got news on my case?”
“They’ll drop the charges. It took some leaning on my part, Chuck, I’ll have you know that.”
“Thanks.”
“For chrissakes, just mind your own business for a while, will you?”
“I’m trying.”
“You can die trying, son.”
“There’s no better way to go.”
Edison barked something to the senator. Springer spaniels howled in the background. “What do you have on Minh for us?”
“His father was American CIA and he’s still alive. One popular notion is that Minh gets information from him. The other popular notion around the department is that he’s a lousy detective and got the job because he’s a minority.”
“Half a bloody minority. It’s amazing we’ve got a flag left to salute in this country.”
“Anyway, I just wanted to call and say I’m doing what I can. I’m doing that.” Frye paused while his father told Lansdale to pour him another drink.
There was a moment of silence. “Pop … I want back in.”
“Back into what, son? Jail?”
“Back into my family.”
Another pause. “What the hell’s that mean?”
“If we could all like … pull together.”
“Been drinking again?”
“We’ll talk later, Pop.”
Edison slammed down the receiver.
Frye sucked in his breath and called Bennett, but one ring later, he hung up.
After dinner, Madame Tuy and two of her daughters rushed out to go to the movies. Xuan said he had work to do.
Nha took Frye on a walk around Little Saigon. The night was warm and filled with the smells of the restaurants, the chiming rush of Vietnamese.
The shop signs glowed brightly, the cars bustled in and out, and everyone seemed to know Nha. She introduced him diligently, but Frye was bad enough at American names. It was a pleasure just to watch her, this woman-child, filled with a beauty she scarcely knew she had.
Frye noted that she kept her distance from him, and that when their
arms brushed against each other, hers would shrink away. But in the shop windows, between the flyers and posters, he could see her looking at him. Curiosity, he wondered—gratitude, interest? She told him of her studies, the books she was reading, the friends she had made. She kept asking about newspaper work. He told her what he knew, and insisted that she never write about boxers or fixed fights. When she smiled, Frye felt happy. “I could never do that as well as you,” she said.
“Don’t even try.”
Nha bought him a red silk rose in thanks, she said, for saving her father’s life.
“I didn’t do anything but yank him down, Nha. Really.”
“It was enough. He could have taken a bullet. We’ve come too far for that to happen.”
For a brief moment, Nha put her arm in his. When a friend drove past them and honked, she took it out. “I’m not sure what to do with myself,” she said finally. “In Vietnam, young people who are not married do not expose themselves.”
“It’s a little more liberal here.”
“Are you ashamed?”
“I’m proud.”
They stopped at Paris Cafe. The coffee was strong and black and sweet. Nha studied him over her cup. “American women are so confident. So … aggressive.” She looked at him and, under the table, touched her hand to his. “What am I? I don’t know. I’m not sure who I am or what I am.”
Frye saw a young man hustling down the sidewalk, a shopping bag clutched in his hand. He was wearing sunglasses and a fedora, moving fast. “You’re Tuy Nha, That’s enough, if you ask me. You know that guy?”
Nha looked, shook her head. “You Americans are so simple sometimes. Kind. But simple. And bold.”
“We’ve got home field advantage.” Frye watched the kid move past the cafe, shifting his bag from left hand to right. The hat was pulled down over his face. Where have I seen that walk?
“Can I say I desire to know you?”
“Only if you mean it.”
“Then what do I do?”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“It’s Eddie.”
As Frye stood, he saw Eddie’s fedora rotate briefly in his direction. Vo broke into a run.
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