Little Saigon

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “Does Dien know about it?”

  “Of course not. I’ve told no one that they were being spied on in my cabaret. I’d have taken it all out, but it would be expensive.”

  Frye thought again. “How about if I take Benny’s place?”

  “I wish you would.”

  “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  Frye sat on Li’s dressing room chair. Julie reached into the wardrobe and pushed the button. The wall panel slid back to expose the window.

  Julie fiddled with a tape recorder. “Why do you want me to record this, Chuck?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m fishing, and I feel lucky.”

  “If the general hears it, he would take severe revenge on me.”

  “He’s the last one who’ll hear it.”

  Ten minutes later, the party started. First into the room was one of Julie’s waiters, carrying menus. Then the general, followed by a thin, wolflike Asian in a gray suit.

  “His name is Tòng,” whispered Julie. “But he is called Willie. In Saigon before the fall, he sold women. He tried to sell me.”

  Then a chubby Vietnamese man, short, with the serene baby face often seen on deported religious leaders.

  “Mr. Dun,” she said. “He is in the narcotics business. He lives in San Francisco. They are gangsters.”

  Three young men in suits and sunglasses came in next. Each took a wall and crossed his arms; one carried a briefcase. Stanley Smith’s Gậy Trúc, thought Frye, in living color—the Vietnamese Mafia down from San Francisco.

  Julie excused herself, checked her makeup, then slipped quietly out of the room. The microphone picked up the shuffle of feet and bodies, the sliding of chairs on the floor.

  The last one in was Burke Parsons, cowboy hat, grin and a newspaper in his hand. “Well, ain’t this the cutest lil’ o’ room in Little Saigon? Dien, you know your way around here, I’ll give you that.” He looked straight at Frye, took off his hat, smoothed his hair.

  Julie brought in a bottle of champagne and uncorked it. Willie the pimp rested a hand on her hip as she stood beside him, Dien jabbered something at her. She put the bottle back in its bucket, bowed slightly, and left.

  The four principals sat, the three bodyguards stood at ease. After a round of small talk, attention drifted to Burke.

  He raised his champagne glass and studied Willie, then Dun. “To success,” he said. “Thanks for coming by. I know y’all are busy men, so I’ll make this brief. You two gentlemen are in a good position. We’re all in good positions. You know what we got here in Orange County? We got good weather, hard-working people, and more hard-working people just dying to get in and live here. We got L.A. an hour north, we got more beaches than all get-out, and there’s plenty of money to keep the gears lubed up right.”

  Frye checked the tape recorder. The red light was on, the tape turning slowly behind the plastic window.

  “Now, gents,” Burke continued, “when you get a lot of people clamoring to live in the same place, you see your real-estate prices get high. I mean sky-high. This here county’s one of the prime hunks of ground in the world right now, and a little bit costs a bunch. You get out to the coast, you’re talking even higher.”

  “How much per acre?” asked Dun, his pudgy hand pouring tea.

  Parsons laughed. “It don’t sell by the acre, Dun, it sells by the foot. Varies. I drove past a crooked little patch of weeds in Laguna Beach yesterday, way up in the hills. Right on the road. Sixty by sixty. So slanted all you could build on it would be a billboard, and the askin’ price was a hundred thousand. That comes to a hair under twenty-eight dollars a foot. And that’s the lot, Mr. Dun—it ain’t got nothin’ on it but the for-sale sign.”

  Dun nodded while Willie lit a cigarette. Dien watched them over the top of his champagne glass.

  “There’s three things to remember here, gentlemen. One is that real estate’s the most valuable commodity we got. Second is that it’s getting more valuable as we sit here and drink. Third is that you don’t just walk in and buy the kind of land I’m talking about at a K-Mart.” Burke poured some more beer and leaned forward. “It takes more than just money to get it. Everyone’s got money—Columbian coke heads, Japanese bankers, Iranian princes. Think any Californians’ gonna sell them their coast? I’m not talking about a home here and a shop there, I’m talking about bulk. I’m talking consolidated acreage. Hell, you know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the best investment property God ever made. I’m talking about the Laguna Paradiso.”

  Somehow, Frye thought, I knew that.

  “It was in the paper today,” said Willie. “Solar-powered trolley take people to beach.”

  Burke smiled and unfolded the newspaper he’d brought in. The front page of the business section had a feature on the Paradiso, sketches of the development, pictures of Edison and Bennett.

  Dun smiled like a cherub. “How valuable is it, Mr. Parsons?”

  Parsons leaned back. “Let me talk straight with you, Dun. You sell heroin. Well the Paradiso is better than a Burmese mountainside of poppies under government protection, a process plant, and a distribution network run by ex-CIA jocks. And you, Willie? You sell women and, heh, related services. Both are high-end items. But, over time, the Paradiso will get you more per square foot than your best-looking whore, and it don’t wear out. It just keeps gettin’ more and more valuable. You don’t even have to buy it fancy clothes, and it won’t pocket money behind your back. A commercial-retail coastal venture in Southern California is the safest, surest bet there is. We’ve got tax-abatement incentives, a soft coastal commission, a board of supervisors that’s plenty receptive to developers. We got people with money all over the place. They’ll move into the Paradiso soon as the paint dries.” Burke held up the paper again. “We’re talking condos that start at eight-hundred grand. Homes at a million plus. That’s first phase. A marina, shops, hotels. There’s no risk, the profits are solid. If—and I repeat if, it’s handled by the right people.”

  “What profit?” asked Dun.

  “Fifty percent over five years.”

  Dun raised his pudgy hands. “I can get that at a bank, at the Sears Financial Network.”

  “On millions in twenty-dollar bills that smell like dope? Try it, Mr. Dun. I’m talking about a risk-free, fifty percent return on cash money. Say between you and Willie here—ten million going in—fifteen coming out. It’s a lead-pipe cinch.”

  Julie and a parade of waiters came in, bearing lunch. She fired up the sterno grill in the middle of the table and placed a skillet filled with fish and vegetables on it. The waiters arranged the side dishes. Dien waved them off. Julie bowed again and left.

  “Not only that, but you’ll have the benefit of legitimacy—call it prestige. General Dien, can I speak frankly here about our arrangement?”

  Dien nodded.

  “The general has had the good sense to see the possibilities. He’s helped his country all he can. He’s raised a lot of money, and now he’s found the smart thing to do with it. He’s collected several million dollars from the refugees over the last five years to finance patriots trying to reclaim your homeland. The general’s helped them out, but he’s got some change left over. And he’s realized something that I’d like you to consider. Right now the biggest piece of ground you could get on this coast would be a house somewhere, and the neighbors wouldn’t even talk to you when you took out your trash. A year or two from now, people are going to warm up to you Vietnamese, and I mean all the way. Things’ll change when we get our POWs back, when people here get used to you. So, as investors in Elite Management—that’s me—you can get your money down and your foot in the door of Republic Investments—that’s my sister. That’s how you buy into the Paradiso.” Burke paused, pointing his chopsticks at Willie and Mr. Dun. “Hell, in good time, you can do a project on your own and come to us for financing. Imagine that.”

  Imagine that, thought Frye. Burke’s laundry service. Won’t Benny and Pop like
to know where their investors get the money.

  “See,” Burke said, leaning forward again, “the general knows that by the time he gets that kind of prestige in this county, he’ll be in deep clover so far as really helping his people goes. I’m talking ways he couldn’t have even dreamed of ‘til now. I’m talking friends in business and government. I’m talking legitimate power, American-style. Getting it ain’t easy, but once you got it, you can pretty much do anything you like with it.”

  Willie and Dun looked at each other. Burke leaned back in his chair. “Gentlemen, we’ve all worked too hard alone to stop now. Together, we can do very wonderful things. For all of us. But if you want the kind of success I’m talking about, you have to work inside the system. And gentlemen, I am the system.”

  They ate. Burke cleaned his plate in five minutes, then piled on another helping. “Anyway, gentlemen, that’s my offer. Fifty percent over five, and we’ll take cash. My lawyers will draw up the papers in a jiffy. You’d both be legally incorporated as partners in Elite Management, and you’d both sit on the board with me. I’ll call the shots. I’m looking for ten million, round numbers. If you don’t want a piece of the action, I’ll go somewhere else. No shortage of backers for the Paradiso, I can tell you that.”

  “Then why come to us?” asked Willie.

  “Your assets have the desired bulk and liquidity,” said Burke. “In other words, you got cash and you got lots of it. And you’ll appreciate the silent aspect of the partnership, I think. I don’t want a bunch of whining bankers telling me how to run the Paradiso. You wouldn’t have to worry about it. I won’t let you worry about it. She’s my baby, and I’ll make her work.”

  “Correction,” said Dun. “It is Bennett Frye’s baby, is it not?”

  Burke drank off the rest of his champagne. “Don’t worry about Bennett Frye.”

  Dien settled back in his chair. “What Mr. Parsons has failed to boast about is that your ten million would give Republic Investment a controlling interest in the Paradiso. He can arrange this limited stock purchase very quietly and quickly. It would leave the Fryes in a … diminished position.”

  “Behind Bennett Frye’s back?” asked Dun.

  “Bennett Frye has enough to worry about right now,” said Parsons.

  Dun smiled. “And your sister has made much progress with Hanoi, in getting them to locate the missing Americans. They are willing to talk now. You are right, Mr. Parsons, a new era is coming between our countries. Perhaps we can all work together for mutual understanding, and profit.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Dun.”

  He stood and shook Burke’s hand. Willie did likewise. Their bodyguards moved to the door.

  “You have a day to think this over,” said Burke. “You can reach me through General Dien.”

  Frye watched them leave.

  Dien and Parsons looked at each other.

  “They’ll go with you,” said the general.

  “They’re not stupid. You got it all?”

  Dien nodded. His man came to the table, set the briefcase on top and opened it. Frye could see the neat stacks of bills, all hundreds. Beside them were three small bags and half-dozen bars of gold. “The jewels have been appraised; the gold bars are certified. The documents are in the bags. The value here is one million four hundred thousand dollars. With what I gave you last week, the total is three million. Are all the papers in order?”

  “My lawyers say it’s a go. Your people would be proud of you, General. They thought they were buying back fucking Vietnam, but what they’re really getting is the Laguna Paradiso.”

  “What I’m getting is the Paradiso, Mr. Parsons.”

  “We’re both getting it. There’s plenty to go around.”

  “Mr. Thieu will accompany you to your car, Mr. Parsons. So much petty theft in Little Saigon these days.”

  They laughed. They shook hands. Parsons closed the briefcase and followed Dien out.

  Frye sat back on Julie’s bed. She came in a few moments later, stopped the tape, and gave it to Frye. “I hope you found what you wanted.”

  “Not exactly. They say anything on the way out?”

  “I heard one phrase Mr. Dun said to Willie. Dịp may hiếm có. Mày nghĩ sao?” Roughly translated it means ‘A really big chance, what do you think?’”

  They sat in the bedroom. Bennett shut the door and climbed onto the bed. It was dark and musty, a diluted wash of sunlight coming through the drawn curtains. His face receded into the shadows as Frye told him about “Rollie Dean Mack,” and the meeting between Burke, Dien, and the investors. “I’ve got it on tape. And don’t worry, I’m not going to lose it this time.”

  Bennett’s face was locked, grim. “I always tried to keep Burke close, because I never really trusted him. I guess I didn’t keep him close enough.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We cut off Republic Investments as of right now, that’s what we do. I’ll tell Flaherty and the other attorneys not to tender any more shares of the Paradiso for the next week. Then I’ll take care of Burke. There’s no way I’m going to finance the Paradiso with the blood and sweat of the refugees.”

  “What about Dien?”

  “Burke can throw the money back in his face if it’s not good with me.”

  “Willie and Dun?”

  “If Burke takes their cash and can’t spend it, then they all get what they fucking deserve. See how Parsons likes having the Vietnamese mob after him.”

  “I got to thinking when I watched Burke and Dien. Remember the man that Loc said approached him about stealing the tape of DeCord and Nguyen? The description fits Parsons, except for a mustache he could have faked. And the tape was delivered to the general. I think Parsons was Lawrence, and I’ll bet he delivered that tape to DeCord.”

  Bennett just looked at him.

  “Will DeCord try to take you down for gunrunning? Parsons would love it—it would get you out of the way while he tries to sell the Paradiso out from under you. Lucia would love it—it would satisfy Hanoi.”

  “If I get Thach tonight, and he’ll release Li, DeCord won’t have to take me. I’ll quit. I’ll be done, Chuck.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’ll have my wife back, and Thach will be greased. That’s all I want out of life right now. Michel sen and Toibin were ordered back to Los Angeles this morning.”

  “Why?”

  “No explanation.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Especially when they knew I was instructed to get this.” Bennett climbed off the bed, reached under it, and pulled out a suitcase. He flicked up the latches and opened it, The money was neatly stacked, bound by rubber bands. “Two million, total. The other half is in another suitcase under here.”

  A strange smile crossed Bennett’s face. He checked his watch. “The timing is perfect. Thach’s just where he’s supposed to be. We’ll have him in seven hours. In nine or ten, we’ll have Li. I’ll never even have to touch this money.”

  CHAPTER 26

  CRISTOBEL WAS SITTING ON HIS PORCH. SHE had a little package on her lap, gift-wrapped in lavender paper, a deep purple bow. “Hi, cutie,” she said.

  Frye felt his ears getting hot, a jolt of bad energy shooting up his spine. He stared at her, cracked a skullish smile. “Hi.”

  She followed him in. “What’s wrong?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “For you.”

  He opened the package. It was a daily planner for the year, with a good pen attached. “Nice,” he said.

  “I figured you could use it, Chuck. Interviews for jobs and stuff. I mean … what’s wrong with you? Is that supposed to be a smile or—”

  Frye took her face in his hand, hard. The planner fell to the floor. He grabbed an arm, dragged her to the couch, and pushed her down. “Then you’d know exactly where I’d be, wouldn’t you? Was that the deal, Cris? Keep an eye on Chuck? Make sure he doesn’t get too close to Rollie Dean Mack because there isn’t any fucking Rollie Dea
n Mack?”

  Her color drained, her eyes went hard.

  Frye slammed the door and locked it. He kicked the planner across the floor. He pulled the purse from her hands and spilled it out. A .22 automatic bounced onto the couch cushion. He waved the little pistol at her. “What are you doing for Burke?”

  She looked at him with absolute disbelief now, a dignity so deeply shocked it was all she could do just to behold him. “You’re really crazy, you know that?”

  “I saw you with Parsons last night, on your patio.”

  She breathed deeply, nodded, looked straight at him. “You better listen to me, Chuck, and listen really well. I met Burke Parsons at the fights with you. And I happened to goddamn like him at first. Last night, I finally told him to cool off. That’s between us, not you. But Burke doesn’t care what you do or when you do it, and I don’t either. You’re the last topic of conversation when we’re together—I can guarantee you that. Don’t flatter yourself. I attract men, and I can get rid of them when I need to. We were talking. Don’t try to chain me up. And don’t even dare try to tell me which men to see and which not to. I’m sick to death of you and your plots, Chuck. You don’t own me. Fuck somebody else if you can’t hack it. Fuck yourself.”

  “Did he send you to Rockpile that first morning? Was that your idea, or his?”

  Cristobel looked at him, eyes clear and dark, jaw set. “You don’t listen, do you? Getting to know you was my stupid idea, and it gets stupider by the second. I saw you out there in those waves, and I had to find out if what I thought was true. What a silly, dangerous, romantic, stupid bitch I am. After what happened to me in Long Beach, it made sense to admire from a distance. I should have kept it that way.”

  Frye could feel the rage bubbling far down inside himself, a sour potion coming quickly to boil. “Nothing happened in Long Beach, or any other beach. You made it up. You weren’t raped. You weren’t touched. I had a cop friend of mine check it out. Like it or not, Cristobel, you came back clean.”

  “He’s lying. It happened on August sixteenth of last year, just before one in the morning. I was drunk. I had a fight with—”