“DeCord got the administration to call off the FBI and just let Bennett walk into a trap at the airstrip?”
Burke’s brow furrowed. “That’s what I told him would work best. If he let Thach take out Bennett, then I take out Thach, we could keep it all real quiet. No cops. Minimum Feds. No reporters. No nothing. Couple of bureau gophers already planted IDs on Thach’s guys. Then they’ll set the place on fire. When it’s all said and done, Bennett got shot trying to ransom his wife from slant gangsters. Press will love it. Clean. Look how right I was.”
Parsons’s eyes narrowed. “You do have my money, don’t you, Chuck?”
“I’ve got it.”
Parsons smiled.
“What about me, Burke?”
Burke leaned forward, arching an eyebrow. “Chuck, I got to admit, I’ve never seen anybody nosy, stubborn, dumb, and clever as you. If you hadn’t written that crap about my fighter, I’d have left you alone. But I’m kinda sensitive about people snoopin’ around Elite. So I hired Cristobel for a little kiss and tell. Just in case you got motivated and started poking around Little Saigon when we bagged Li—like you poked around my business. Crissy kept me posted on what you were doing, and everything was fine. But then you trail Bennett to the airstrip, take the money, and come home with it. Jesus, boy, don’t you ever just give up and quit? I tried to cover every angle, Chuck. I’ve been working on this for three years, so no expense was too great. Now you can see why that two million ransom is only what I’ve earned.”
“And you’ve been playing up to my father and brother for three years, getting your foot in the Paradiso.”
“Once Lucia tumbled with Edison, we couldn’t lose. Your old man rolled her in the hay a couple of times and thought she was the perfect girl next door. Horny old goat. Anyway, it was three years of hard work, so you can see what that two million means to me. You know something, it’s the old-money people like you Fryes that sucked the life out of this country. Now it’s a new ballgame. People like me who came from dirt-poor nothing are going to raise this country back up to where she was. Me and Lucia never had any oil money. We had to scrape together the rent. That ain’t right, salt of the earth folks like us struggling through life while the government helps all these ‘disadvantaged’ types. Mess with me, and you’ll get disadvantaged real quick. Fuckin’ Vietnamese, anyway. This isn’t their country. This is my country. All men were created equal, but a lot’s changed since then.”
Frye regarded Burke’s dark eyes, his curly brown hair, white even teeth. “I’m trying to figure out how a man like you can do what he does.”
Burke’s face went matter-of-fact. “I just do what I gotta do, Chuck, same as anyone else. I work on a bigger scale, is all.”
Frye smiled, wondering if Burke could see the hatred behind it. His heart was racing now. “Count the bodies, Burke. There’s the kidnapper from the Wind, two Dark Men, Xuan, Eddied Hy, Thach, Bennett. There’s a hundred-plus freedom fighters in Vietnam and the network. You killed all those people just for a resort and a bunch of money. How do you shave that face in the morning?”
Parsons was frowning, shaking his head like Edison used to do: Dumb kid, won’t you ever understand? “I told you once, Chuck, back there at my target range. I plain old don’t care about some things that other folks make such a big deal about. I have no opinions at all about killing people. Far as my face goes and shaving it, well, hell, I like my face.”
Parsons picked up the gun with one hand and reached into his pocket with the other. He screwed on a silencer and stood. “Let’s get the money now, Chuck. Time for me to be rollin’ down the road.”
Frye worked himself up from the couch. He expected his legs to be heavy and useless, but they felt strong and ready. He could imagine where the shotgun was, precisely where he had positioned it, and he could see, as clearly as he’d ever seen anything, what he would do with it. He could hear every movement, smell every smell. His eyes seemed to gather in details he’d never noticed. He looked at Burke, thinking: Your ass is mine. “Money’s in the cave.”
Parsons smiled, looked quickly around again, then moved to Frye. “You’re a big strong boy, aren’t you, Chuck? You ought to relax a little.”
Frye never saw the pistol move, he just felt the bony crunch as it hit the side of his head. He knew he was on his knees. He saw the floor moving, rectangles of hardwood floating, mixing, reforming.
Parsons hit him again. The next thing he knew, Burke had yanked him up by the shirt collar. Frye felt himself swaying, trying to keep his legs under him.
“I don’t like all this quiet.” Frye watched him push one of Li’s tapes into the little portable player and turn the volume up. He waved the pistol toward the bedroom. “You first, Chuck. Move quick, I’ll shoot you right between the shoulder blades.”
Frye stumbled into the bedroom. He braced himself against the doorjamb, stopped, looked back at Burke. There were three or four of him, all moving in perfect unison. They waved guns at him.
Frye’s heart started roaring now, sending tidal waves into his ears. He moved into the cave. The light from the bedroom was weak. “Back there,” he heard himself say, “in that box.”
Parsons looked hard at him. “You get it out, Chuck. You got so many tricks here tonight, I plum don’t trust you no more.”
For some reason, Frye thought this was perfect. Then he remembered the .12-gauge he’d hidden there. Yes, he thought, this is going according to plan. When he took his next step, Parsons caught him by his shirt.
“You moved too fast, Chuck. That changed my mind. I think I’ll just fetch it myself.”
“It’s booby-trapped.”
“Don’t expect me to believe that now, do you?”
“It’s not here. It’s somewhere else.”
“Getting desperate, Chuck? Don’t do that. It’s unbecoming. Well, this is it. Head or heart? Nobody’s gonna ever find your body, ‘cept the sharks, so I’d vote head.”
Frye turned to face him. “The money’s at the Mega-Shop.”
“The money’s either on Frye Island or right here. If it’s on the island, I’ll deal with that. But either way, you’re gonna be dead in less than two seconds.”
Burke sighed.
Frye pivoted and lunged toward the box.
The pistol went off, louder and from a slightly different direction than Frye expected. He waited for the rip of pain, but it didn’t come. Then Parsons tripped clumsily, like a drunk man. The gun spilled from his hand as he caught himself on all fours. “Shit,” he muttered.
Cristobel stepped into the cave from the bedroom, her small automatic held out. Frye kicked Burke’s weapon away, then pulled the shotgun from the box.
Parsons worked himself up from the floor unsteadily, hands pressed against his stomach, blood running over his fingers. His hair was tousled, his eyes dim, his skin gray. He looked like a man who just woke up. He considered Cristobel, first with irritation, then disappointment. He stared at Frye and offered a wouldn’t-you-know-it shake of the head. “What a dumb-ass way to lose this one,” he said quietly. “That stupid bitch.”
He wobbled, reached into his jacket, and had a derringer halfway out when Frye shot him as close to dead-center as he could get, which from that distance was close indeed. Parsons went everywhere, but most of him slammed into the cave wall and crumpled into a heap. The air drizzled warmly.
Frye jacked another round into the chamber and walked to Cristobel.
She backed out, eyes wide, face pale. She dropped the pistol. Frye looked at her, and she looked back with an expression of fear and disgust almost as deep as his own. Her voice was quiet, sickened. “Everything I told you was a lie.”
Frye turned off the music. Cristobel went into the bathroom. When she came out, she leaned against the living room wall and stared at him. She looked white as the paint. “Burke used me to watch you. I didn’t know why, not at first. When things got clear, it was too late. The rape story was just to put you off, because I had no intent
ion of making love to you.”
“Why? Money?”
She shook her head. “My brother didn’t die over in Vietnam, Chuck. Not officially. He was just missing. Burke found out he was alive. He played me a tape of Mike talking to Lucia. Said he could get Lucia to spring Mike first, when Hanoi started letting them come home. When I started getting scared, he also said she could get Hanoi to leave him in prison until he died. I did what he wanted.”
Frye looked into her dead brown eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I couldn’t let him get away with this. I’m so fucking sorry. I’d have told you sooner, but I was afraid of what he’d do to me. I know you saw through me—” Her tears ran fast, but she still looked straight at him. “I was so glad you saw through me, Chuck, but I wasn’t going to crack. I just wasn’t. He had me fooled a while. Then real scared. I didn’t know what he’d do. Until I realized he was going to kill you, Mike came first. Everything I did was for my brother. Everything except when I made love to you.”
She cried silently as she looked at Frye. Slowly, by sheer force of will, Cristobel recomposed herself. “I did that for me. Funny part is, I’d fallen in love with you. I lay in bed that night knowing I’m in love with a man I’m cheating on and lying to and setting up for God knows what. I’d never treated a person worse than I treated you. It doesn’t mean anything now. It means less than anything.”
She turned, walked toward the door, stopped. “Tell the cops I did it, I don’t care. I’m actually proud I shot that sonofabitch. I had a lot to live for a couple of days ago. Right now, all I want is to see Mike again.” She looked down for a long moment, as if in prayer. When she looked back up at him, Frye saw how far gone she really was. “I’d get something on that head of yours, it’s bleeding an awful lot.”
“Stay.”
“I’m sorry, Chuck. You’re a pretty good man.”
Frye watched her go—a single body moving down a dark tunnel, surrounded on all sides by relentless steel—no exits, no yields, no turns, no options, no comebacks, no light at the end of it… just footsteps, golden hair, echoes.
He went back to the cave and dug Burke’s house keys from his sopping pocket.
Then he carried the shotgun to his car, placed it on the seat beside him, and drove to Lucia’s house.
CHAPTER 30
THE PORCH LIGHT WAS ON AND THE DOOR-mat said THE PARSONS—WELCOME! Frye opened the lock and then the deadbolt, and stepped in. A light shone from the kitchen. In the hallway he could see the thin shadows of the palms on the walls and hear the bubbling murmur of the shark pond. He moved lightly over the tile, then into the living room, where a single torchière widened its light to the ceiling. I’ve got the second floor, Lucia’s got the third. She does her work in the guest house.
Through the sliding glass door, Frye saw the guest quarters in the back, hidden under the banana trees: lights on, a few of Lucia’s tireless minions laboring over paperwork. He climbed. His head throbbed, but his mind had cleared. The first flight of stairs ended at a short hallway—Burke’s rooms, he thought—and the second began at the other end of it. As he started up, Frye could see a light above, and hear someone moving across the floor. At the top, he stayed close to the hallway walls, taking the last few steps quietly as he could. From inside the bedroom came the sound of a woman humming, the buzz of a long zipper being locked. The stock of the old Remington was warm and slippery in his hand.
Through the bedroom door he saw her, dressed in a black silk robe, her hair loose and flowing, organizing the contents of a suitcase that lay open on the bed. The Pacific sparkled through the window behind her, turned to purple-black by the moon and window glass. She spoke over her shoulder. “That you, Burke? Paul?”
Frye stepped in. Lucia gasped sharply, straightened. “Chuck? Burke’s out now, he’s—”
“I know where he is.”
“You talked to him tonight?”
“Mainly he talked to me.”
“You men come to some agreement about things?”
“Yes. We decided you owe me three million dollars that Dien stole from his people. I’m here to get it.”
Frye moved toward her and Lucia backed up. Then she reached slowly to the lamp and clicked it on. “Is that what I think it is all over your shirt?”
He looked down, nodding.
“I’d have never thought you could do that, Chuck.”
“Burke didn’t either. Get me Dien’s money, Lucia, or I’m going to do something extravagant.”
She looked at him a little defiantly, then sat on the bed. One big tear rolled down her face. She wiped it with the end of the robe sash. When she lowered her face into her hands, black hair cascaded down. “What did you do to him, Chuck?”
“It kind of got down to one of us or the other.”
She looked up with an anguished face. “You just keep living through things.”
“Funny, isn’t it?”
“Not really.” She sobbed into her hands again. Finally, she stood. Her chin shook. “Does it matter that I loved him? More than as just a brother?”
“Let’s weep.”
Lucia seemed to study him. “You got something real cold in you, Chuck. Part of Edison rubbed off, whether you know it or not.”
“Get me the money. I’m sick of you.”
“It’s in the safe down in the basement, with his snakes.”
Frye waved the shotgun toward the stairs. “You first, Lucia.”
“I’ve got a plane to catch in twenty minutes. I’m not going to miss it.”
Frye grabbed her robe and shoved her to the door. “March.”
She gave him a hopeless look, then led him out of the bedroom, down the stairs and into the library. She flicked on a light and groped a moment for the hidden switch. The wall panel swung out and the light went on. She shivered, then started down.
Their footsteps echoed in the big room. The heavy bags cast fat shadows on the padded floor. Frye could see the anaconda, six feet of it resting on the glass, interrupted on its nocturnal prowl. Lucia stopped, turned to him, and shivered again, wrapping her arms around herself. She nodded at the safe, wiped her eyes. “The key’s under Charlotte’s water dish.”
“The cobra?”
“Nobody else here with that name.”
“Get it out.”
She shook her head and stared at him. “Chuck, you could pay me, beat me, slander me, or steal my money, but you couldn’t get me to put my hand in that cage. Never.” She was trembling now, and her eyes were big. “There’s a nine-iron that Burke used to fish her out with sometimes. It’s leaning on the wall over there.”
He went to the cage. Charlotte’s head shifted; an eye beheld Frye. The water dish showed beneath one of her curls, a wedge of light blue against her pale green scales. Suddenly, her hood spread and she hissed. Even through the glass he could hear her—a big, pressurized sound like air being let from a balloon. Frye’s heart was in his mouth.
Charlotte stared him down, swaying, uncharmed.
The shotgun blast took half the cage with it, a splintered hurricane of glass, blood, scales. Charlotte slapped in the debris, loops and coils everywhere, a muscular, headless frenzy. He fished her out by the tail and dropped her to the floor.
The key was under the dish. It slid easily into the safe, and Frye brought Dien’s briefcases full of cash, gold, and jewelry onto the floor in front of him. “You knew about all of this, didn’t you, Ms. Ambassador? You helped him set it up.”
“I did what I had to to get our men back.”
“There were a thousand easier ways. Ways that wouldn’t have killed my brother and a lot of other people.”
Lucia wiped her eyes again with the belt, then crossed her arms. “Burke threw in a couple of things that I … wasn’t expecting. I didn’t know he helped bring Colonel Thach here. I didn’t know he was behind the kidnapping until a couple of days after it happened. When Burke’s plan went into motion, the best policy option was to see it through,
rather than try to stop it. There comes a point when you go with what works.”
“What about the Paradiso?”
“That was something we had our eyes on for years. There really isn’t anything illegal about it, Chuck, Dien’s money is legitimate investment capital so far as I’m concerned. Your father cut us in as partners. It just took a little convincing.”
“You fucked him.”
Lucia checked her watch. “That helped.”
Frye found the video tape that Loc had stolen out of his apartment. He put it in one briefcase along with the loot.
Then Lucia brought her hands to her face and broke down. Her shoulders heaved, the robe jiggled. Her sobbing started loud and kept getting louder. Frye could see the tears dripping off her wrists. He stood there for a minute until the storm passed. When she had gathered herself back together, she gave him an odd look, and shook her head. “Do whatever you want, Chuck. I’m being picked up in ten minutes for a flight to Washington. I don’t intend to miss it. I’ve got men to bring home.”
She turned and climbed the stairs.
In the bedroom, Frye watched her pack. She moved mechanically, efficiently. “You can’t possibly be thinking of having me arrested.”
“It’s pretty damned possible.”
“If you do, Hanoi will shut down and start stalling again. You can bet on it. Those men of ours will sit there longer, rot a little more. Basically, Chuck, you can take me, or you can let the prisoners come home. You can’t have both. Think about it.”
“I am.”
Frye looked down on the guest house. Two of Lucia’s young workers had set their luggage on the porch. One checked her watch, looked up toward the bedroom. Thank God for Burke’s soundproof playroom, he thought.
Lucia yanked a dress from her closet and deftly worked it into a hanging bag. She glanced at the alarm clock. “Chuck, God rules up above, and people like me rule here. If you try to stop me, you’ll only ruin a very good thing. The concerns you have are just too … small. In the big scheme of things, little people get hurt. It’s really just simple math. And if you can put a stop to bringing back our men, then you’ve got to take a good hard look at your own soul. You ready to do that?”
Little Saigon Page 37