“That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all week.” Frye looked at the guards, who were now looking at him. He shrugged and walked out.
Two minutes later he had found Loc at Pho Dinh. He was with the Dark Men, five of them. “Dien knows we talked. He isn’t happy with me, and he won’t be happy with you.”
Loc stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Duc has still not come back.”
“I wouldn’t bet he will. Be careful, Loc. You can come stay with me if you want, get out of Little Saigon.”
Loc shook his head. “I will wait for Duc. I have my friends. The general cannot surprise me now.”
“You know where to find me.”
“Thank you, Frye.”
He picked up three newspapers at the stands outside. They all carried stories on Tuy Xuan, killed by intruders in his Westminster home. They all said he’d been shot. No suspects. Motive: robbery.
He tossed them into a trash can as he headed back to his car.
CHAPTER 15
THE FBI OFFICES WERE IN THE FEDERAL Building in Santa Ana. Frye waited in a nondescript lobby for thirty minutes before anyone was ready to see him, while a receptionist answered the phone, channeled calls, took messages.
She finally showed him to a back office. It was spacious, with a view of downtown, an overactive air conditioner, and cool gray carpet.
Special Agent-in-Charge Albert Wiggins shook Frye’s hand with federal authority, then pointed him to a chair. He was thinner in real life than he looked on Xuan’s TV set, with eyes a little too close together and an undentable layer of confidence about him. His coat was on, his tie was knotted tight. “I’m glad you called this morning, Chuck. In fact, I was about to call you. There are a few things I’d like you to think about. You feeling okay today?”
Frye nodded.
Wiggins sat back. “First, what can I do for you?”
“I think you ought to pay some attention to the Thach angle. I know General Dien has been trying to tell you the same thing.”
Wiggins smiled. “What angle is that?”
“That Thach has engineered things like this before.”
“What are you referring to?”
Frye told him what he knew of Paris and Australia, the beheadings, Thach’s mission to obliterate the resistance. “I had a long talk with Xuan about three hours before he was killed. He more than suspected Thach’s influence in Little Saigon. When he died that way, it was too much of a coincidence to ignore.”
Wiggins nodded along with the whole story, as if he’d heard it just a few minutes before. “Yes, well, you can be assured that we’ve not been ignoring it either. Despite what your Vietnamese friends tell you. It’s a fact that Hanoi has its eyes and ears in Little Saigon. We kicked a few loose back in seventy-eight, more in eighty. All small-time people. They were encouraged by Hanoi to send reports about what was happening, and to send dollars. You might know that Vietnamese currency isn’t negotiable outside the country. The dollars are extremely valuable.”
“I imagine.”
Wiggins leaned back in his chair and linked his fingers behind his head. “You’re a reporter.”
“Used to be.”
“You know, we’re extremely cautious about this Thach angle, as you call it. Any mention of Colonel Thach is enough to stir up the refugees. They’re terrified of him. You wouldn’t be contemplating an article, a piece on him, would you?”
“I’m contemplating how to find Li, is all.”
“I understand. We’ll find her. But you have to know that by implying Thach’s influence here, you would be creating a great amount of fear and causing a potentially dangerous situation in Little Saigon. In fact, we believe this is what Xuan’s killers and Li’s kidnappers may well want.”
“Who are they?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be here talking to you, now would I?”
“You must have some ideas.”
Wiggins nodded, leaned forward. “I might. And you, Chuck, are the last one I’m supposed to share them with.”
“I know that.”
Wiggins stood, crossed his arms, gave Frye a governmental stare. “But I’ll do it anyway. I think—and this is purely a personal opinion at this point—that we’re not looking at a political situation at all. We’re not even looking at two related crimes. Listen. I think the kidnappers will come through with a big ransom demand, once they’ve sweated your brother long enough. God knows, between him and your father, the resources are there. When they do, we’re ready for them. That’s what Michelson and Toibin are there for. They’re the two best ransom men we’ve got. The second those kidnappers try to pick up the money, we’ll have them. I guarantee it.”
Wiggins took a deep breath. “Coffee?”
“No thanks. I’m listening.”
“I’ll admit it, Frye, when I first heard about Xuan, I thought the same thing you did. Two prominent resistance leaders … removed in the same week. But I did my homework on Xuan, bless his heart. He’s one of those Vietnamese who sees a Communist behind every bush, and remember this is the FBI talking. He organized his own secret police back in ‘seventy-eight, to screen the refugees coming in. People were beaten. People disappeared. You know what he was saying then? Thach. Thach is behind it all. Guy had a regular fixation, Frye. And I’ve got evidence now that Tuy Xuan may have been involved in some questionable dealings with the local gangs.”
“What kind of dealings?”
“He’s an activist. He enlists support in Nguyen Hy’s so-called Committee to Free Vietnam. They fund a ‘resistance’ over there. I’d speculate he got some funding from the gang kids’ families, and the gang kids went to get it back. It’s damn easy to throw suspicion, if you want to leave a signature. Look at yourself, it worked on you, didn’t it?”
“Who? The Dark Men? Ground Zero?”
“I don’t know, at this point. I’m not sure it matters. Let’s just say we’ve got early indicators that Xuan and the criminal youth element were tied. So we’re not talking politics here. We’re talking plain old dollars and cents. You know something, Chuck? The refugees are smart. They know that they can point fingers at Hanoi and we good Americans will go along with them. We hate Communists in this country, don’t we? Well, the refugees know that. They play on our own fears, and every time someone gets their pocket picked, they blame Hanoi. The gangs know that. Eddie Vo knows it.”
“Gang kids beheading an old man? Hard to swallow.”
“There was a gang working here in the early eighties. Their leader was infamous for doing just that. His nickname was Chop, for God’s sake. So it’s not hard for me to swallow at all. Unless, of course, you know something about Li or Xuan that you’re not telling us.” Wiggins sat down, looking at Frye innocently.
“Something like what?”
“The pipeline to Vietnam. The ‘prosthetics’ that Bennett and Li send over there.” Wiggins smiled. “He told me he was sending over plastic limbs, and I laughed in his face. Which isn’t easy to do to a man who hasn’t got any legs.”
Frye said nothing.
Wiggins smiled. “Hey—I don’t care. I think it’s great. Send all the guns and ammo he can afford. That’s the question, though. How does he afford it? Where’s he get the money?”
“You got me.”
“Knew I would, Chuck. Just knew I would.”
“Funny how we got back to politics again.”
“Fleecing money from homesick refugees isn’t politics. It’s theft.”
“General Dien is the master of that game, from what I hear.”
“And Nguyen Hy is a close second. Bennett and Li are just a little too close to Hy’s CFV for the … contact not to rub off. You know—sleep with pigs, you pick up their smell. And sooner or later, the suckers find out and what happens? Heads roll. So, if you’ve got any information on how that pipeline is financed, I’d sure like to know. I might be able to keep something like this from happening again. Talk about good copy, Chuck. You help me, and I’ll help you
on this one. We could show just who’s taking money out of Little Saigon and where it’s going—or not going. But if you’ve got any ambition to write about some Vietnamese colonel cutting off heads in California, Chuck, I have to ask you to run it by this desk first. Would you do that?”
“No. I’d end up with my byline on the same kind of lies you let the other papers print today.”
Wiggins’s face darkened. “Chuck, let me put it another way. Stay the fuck out of Little Saigon and forget about Colonel Thach. I’ll give you the first tip for your big exposé. The main reason we didn’t release the MO on Xuan’s murder isn’t because we’re afraid of starting a riot in Little Saigon, though that’s a possibility. The main reason is that Colonel Thach can’t even leave his apartment in Ho Chi Minh City anymore. He’s in protective isolation—a better term for it is house arrest. The new Hanoi Politburo doesn’t trust him. He’s an old war machine and they know it, and they also know they can’t control him. They’ve been sitting on him since June. His ice is too thin for the kind of skating you’re talking about.”
Frye considered. “That’s exactly what Hanoi would tell you, if Thach were running an operation like this, isn’t it?”
Wiggins sighed and looked at Frye as if he were a moron. “Hanoi didn’t tell us that, Chuck, We’ve got more reliable sources than those lying bastards. So lighten up. Let the FBI do its job and you do yours. What the hell is your job anyway? Besides hustling Tuy Nha?”
“I don’t have one, exactly.”
“Well, you’re so hot to trot, why don’t you go find one?” “I’m working on it.”
Bill Antioch presided over the empty MegaShop, drinking his ever-present health shake. “Got you all signed up for the Masters at Huntington, Frye. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m also telling everyone you’ll be at the showing of Radically Committed Saturday night. At the Surf in Huntington. Any truth to that rumor?”
“It’s my movie, I guess I ought to be there.”
“Gnardical.” Bill gave him four comp tickets.
“How are we doing today, Bill, from a sales angle?”
“We’ve sold one bar of wax.”
“Large or small?”
Frye surveyed the shop. Bill had straightened things, dusted, arranged the boxes and boards, taken down the faded Christmas signs, put the wetsuits back on the rack by size. MegaT-shirts were marked down to three for ten bucks. This stung, but Frye said nothing. The windows were clean. The first inklings of retail hopelessness crept over him as he reached behind the counter for the phone.
He called Elite Management and got the usual put-off from the receptionist. She said that Rollie Dean Mack would return his call, but Frye had heard that one before. He tried again to get the address.
“It’s like no way, unless you have an appointment,” she said. She sounded like a certified surf-bunny, about age eighteen, loose-jawed, heavy on the schwas. “We don’t give out our business address unless we’re expecting you. Elite isn’t, like, geared to the publuck.”
Frye slammed down the phone. Then it hit him. “Advertising.”
“Can’t afford it,” said Antioch.
“No. Elite ran advertising in the Ledger, on Wednesdays, so that means someone had to go over the veloxes with them on Tuesday morning.”
“Cool.”
He called the Ledger and asked for display advertising, Dianne Resnick. Dianne once liked Frye, who occasionally wrote puff pieces to make her advertisers sound better than they were. Frye did this because Dianne had great legs, and because exaggerating the virtues of hopelessly third-rate companies was just plain fun. He brought a desperate, manic enthusiasm to these pieces, which read like a cross between Hunter Thompson and Alexander Haig. The all-seeing Ronald Billingham had edited the hell out of them.
Dianne answered the phone in her sales voice, soothing and eager to please. Frye explained that he needed to know where Dianne sent the ad proofs for Elite Management. The pulling of these ads was understandably a sore spot with Dianne, who was now out fifty-six dollars and seventy-eight cents a week in commission. “You still make ten times a week more than I did, Di,” he said.
“That’s because I bring money to this paper. Any nerd can write copy.”
“I did my best to tout those greedy mutants passing themselves off as businessmen. You have to admit that. It would mean a lot to me if you could give me that address, Dianne.”
She sighed. He heard papers shuffling. She put him on hold for a full minute. “Okay, Chuck, here it is. For a company called Elite, they sure didn’t seem to have much going for themselves. The receptionist proofed the ads, a little beach tart is what she sounded like on the phone. Anyway, it’s Number Eighteen Palisade, up in Newport Center. I’m sure the receptionist will just love you.”
“Rad.”
“Like, woah. Any chance you’re coming back? I really did like the piece you did about my rug dealer being a Persian prince, and his family being held hostage by the Ayatollah.”
“That one was true. Just nobody bothered to ask him. Put me through to Billingham, would you?”
“I think he misses you, Chuck.”
Frye asked Billingham for his job back and Billingham said no. Frye told him he had a Pulitzer winner on a Little Saigon patriot who finally got tracked down and beheaded by Hanoi. Bill Antioch looked on with horror.
Billingham waited. “I read the papers, Frye. Nothing at all about anybody’s head rolling. This kind of like watching that welterweight go down and calling it a dive?”
“It was a dive, and I can substantiate every word of it. Now this murder piece is already written. The slug at the top says Frye/Ledger. Cost you my spindly salary for a look at it.”
“No can do. I’ve replaced you with a J-school girl already.”
“What do you pay her, two-seventy-five a week?”
“Two-fifty.”
“There should be a new rung in hell for editors like you.”
“Give us a quote about how the Fryes are coping with the kidnapping.”
“Get fucked, Ron.”
“Go to another paper. Our circulation’s dying anyway.”
“I just may do that, and you’ll be sorry I did.”
“How come you need an address for Elite Management?”
He guided the Cyclone through the long thin shadows of the Newport Center palms. The palms were newly planted, a hundred feet tall and there were millions of them. Everyone had a different story of what they’d cost: some said three thousand per tree, some said twenty thousand. The idea was to make the place more attractive to shoppers and the palms were brought in, like relief pitchers, after twenty years of so-so consumerism.
On the afternoon that he was fired, Frye had sat in his car for an hour and watched them plant a few. The root systems, carefully bound in wet burlap, were the size of living rooms. Now the emerald grass of Newport Center had been rolled right up to the trunks and the trees looked like they’d been there all along.
Number 18 Palisade was on the west side of Newport Center, in a building that housed a bank, a beauty salon, and a jewelry store. He climbed the stairs, looking in, each of the clients in a different state of beauty improvement. The hairdressers hovered over them, all elbows and chatter.
Elite Management was next to the restrooms. The door was locked, so Frye pushed the intercom button. The surf-bunny sounded half asleep when she asked who was there. Frye said he was UPS. The lock buzzed open and he walked in. The girl’s desk plate said SHELLY—RECEPTIONIST. Frye smiled and watched her face turn sour at his lack of packages and brown uniform. She had long blond hair, a denim dress, and skin rich and dark as teak wood.
“You’re not UPS, no way,” she said.
“That’s true.”
“There’s no reason for you to be here.”
“Why not?”
She picked up an index card and read Frye the blurb about Elite not being geared to the public. He studied the office: a small room wit
h two chairs, a desk, a Hockney litho on one wall, and a door behind Shelly. The door was shut. She had been brushing her hair. The brush lay on her desk blotter, trailing golden scraps. She finished the reading and looked up at him. Her face changed. “You’re Chuck Frye, aren’t you?”
“I am. And you’re Shelly, right?”
She smiled and put her hairbrush in a desk drawer. “I heard you’ll be at Radically Committed Saturday night.”
“That’s one of the reasons I’m here.”
“Woah!” she squealed. “Like what’s the deal?”
“The deal is I want to see Rollie Dean Mack.”
“Oh, that’s going to be hard, Chuck.”
“Is he in?”
“No.”
“When will he be?”
“Beats me.”
“Must be in sometime.”
“I’ve worked here all summer and I’ve only seen him, like, three times. I usually say he’s in the field, ‘cause that’s what I’m supposed to say. But I wonder what a millionaire like Mr. Mack would be doing in a field. Think about it.”
“Come on, I really have to see him, Shelly.”
She brought out her brush and ran it through a couple of times. Her hair gave a static crackle, lifted out, and hung a moment. Her teeth were white as typing paper. “I’m telling you, Chuck. I sit here eight hours a day. I do my nails, then my hair, then my makeup, then I listen to the radio, then do it all again. I’m not allowed to talk on the phone to my friends or this would be great. Daddy got me the job. Anyway, I take calls for Mr. Mack and Mr. Becwith. I write the messages on this.” She held up one of those three-color memo pads that make a different color copy for each person.
He sighed.
Shelly kept brushing her hair and smiling. She shook her head. “Sorry.”
This chick’s no dummy, he thought. Harder to get past than a free safety. “Damn it, Shelly, I surf all morning and it isn’t easy, you know? I gotta work at it, like everyone else does. I come in here to see your boss about a job and all I get is a runaround.”
“I’m real sorry, Chuck. I love the way you surf. And the way you moon the camera in Committed. Can’t wait till that part.”
Little Saigon Page 18