by Sanchez, Bob
Oh-h-h-h yes. Viseth Kim’s father. Sam wouldn’t make his next visit without a backup.
“Tell me something else,” Sam said. “Do you know Dith Chang?”
“Strong back and good heart.” Tuch tapped his head. “But his skull is made of stone. Who knows where he went? Is that what you’re asking?”
“Dith Chang used to work for Bin Chea. Odd jobs, I heard.”
“Yeah, he cleaned yards, ran errands, did practically anything. We used to drink and play cards together. But something went wrong and he vanished. Maybe he screwed up a job and Bin Chea fired him.”
“Do you think he could have killed Bin Chea?”
Tuch was silent for a long time. “He is a quiet man,” he finally said. “I can’t tell you what goes in his mind.”
“What about the Cheas, what are they like?”
“Bin Chea was like a jellyfish drifting in the sea: if you swam too close, you got a nasty sting.”
“How do you know?” Sam asked.
“By the way the little fish avoided him. Last week I saw him at Khmer Video.”
Tuch had been shopping for a movie to watch with his girlfriend, but the stuff was all crap. Either the hero’s feet were like helicopter blades, or the movie was made by the guy who owned the camera, or it was filmed in Shanghai and dubbed over in Khmer that didn’t match the action. You know, a guy falls off a bridge and is still screaming after he sinks into the river.
It was a cramped, narrow place with videos up to the ceiling, and a long display stand that took up a lot of the floor space. On a TV in the back of the store, a movie showed scenes of houses on stilts off the shore of Tonle Sap. There were four men inside the store: Tuch, the man behind the counter, and two kids who were just hanging around, the whole place stinking from their cigarettes. You’re not buying anything, get out, said the guy behind the counter. The boys laughed at him until the bell rang and the front door opened.
It was Bin Chea, and the laughter stopped. He scanned the room through reflecting sunglasses that were silver like his hair; his mouth formed a straight line. Both boys were big enough to reach down and pat him on the head. They put down the videos and headed for the door, but Bin Chea stood in their way.
“Tell me the joke,” he said in a mild tone. The boys mumbled something about having to go now. “You’re not leaving until I laugh.” They were in for a long wait, because Bin Chea never laughed. “Take a movie,” he said to Tuch. “My gift to you, and then I wish you would please excuse us.”
Tuch mumbled his thanks as Bin Chea held the door for him. If he had known his landlord had anything to do with the place, he wouldn’t have gone there. He didn’t even dare look at what he had taken until he got to his car. Then he went home and wrote out a check for his rent, a week early.
Sam thanked Tuch for his time and then headed for his car. The thunder and lightning had disappeared, and the sky was stained like yellow curry. A steady rain pelted the ground. Bin Chea. Battambang. Battboys. How many connections would he find? He reported in to the station, asking for a records check on the missing Dith Chang and a backup for tonight. No way would he walk into a Mersey Street house without someone watching his back. Sam and Willie had busted a two-bit coke dealer there last year. They slapped cuffs on some white guy that Sam had pegged at five-ten, two-sixty, most of his bulk hanging over his belt--“Two-fifty if he shaves his armpits,” Willie had said.
And two-forty if he takes a bath, Sam started to say, but even this pathetic mass of smelly pores deserved a little respect.
Now Sam looked into his rear-view mirror as a car came around the corner. The streetlight illuminated a cruiser, and Willie pulled up behind him.
Patrolman Willie Johnson slid onto the front seat next to Sam. Willie had mocha skin and a slender frame, and his hair formed tight brown curls. He had a reputation for taking care of himself that came from his high-school days when he’d won a bantamweight boxing championship sponsored by The Lowell Sun. Sam had seen the front-page photo of Willie landing a right cross flush on the chin of the other finalist. “Beating up a white guy and getting a trophy for it? Heaven, man,” he’d told Sam. “Up there with grits and sex.”
“Long time, man,” Willie said. “Been what, a week?”
“Saw you last night.”
“A week since we doubled up, though. So how is it, working for a cement head?”
Sam smiled and said nothing.
“Thought so. Don’t know how you can take it. How’s Fitchie’s wife doing?”
Sam shook his head. How would he feel, losing Julie? He pushed the thought out of his mind and slammed the door. “Ellie’s not going to make it.”
“Leukemia’s a bitch. Don’t know why they paired you two when he’s going to be out so much.”
“Fitchie’s a good man. It will work out fine in the long run.”
The neighborhood was a mixture of Southeast Asians, whites, Latinos, African-Americans, gays, straights, everyone just trying to get by. Sam knew some of these people. Some worked at the Mobil stations and the Seven Elevens, some robbed them, some did both. The clouds broke apart like crumbling cement and let in the day’s dying sunlight. A teenage boy and girl stood on the curb and stroked each other’s rear ends.
Willie held his hand in front of his stomach. “Come back in the fall, that girl’s gonna be out to here,” he said. “Any kid in this neighborhood’s got two strikes against them, and the third pitch is this big fucking spitball they’ll never hit.”
Sam was about to ask what he meant, but Viseth and another Battboy--it looked like Chun--walked into the house next door to Viseth’s. “Here’s our buddy,” Sam said.
Sam and Willie followed.
The hallway stank of cigarette smoke, cheap wine, and cat shit. Upstairs, someone shouted in Khmer, and a tabby screeched and ran. This house certainly didn’t fit the theory that Bin Chea took care of all his property. Viseth and a friend sat on the stairway underneath a flickering light and listened to the radio. A cassette player sat at the boys’ feet and played a song with high-pitched Cambodian voices and a western-sounding rock band. They stared at the two officers, but made no move to get up.
“Didn’t we see you on 11th Street this morning?” Sam asked Viseth. Viseth looked back and said nothing; his dark brown eyes were filled with hate. He took a deep drag on a cigarette. His watch said Omega.
“Nice watch,” Sam said. “Looks like about two months’ rent. How’d you afford it?”
“Heard he’s got a night job,” Willie said.
Chun turned the music way up, and Sam reached down and flicked the OFF button. “Is this how you spend your time, smoking cigarettes and being rude to strangers? They’re both bad for you, you know.”
“You’re no stranger, you fuck,” Viseth said.
“Ooooooh!” Willie said. “Nice talk.”
Viseth blew smoke in Sam’s face. Sam cocked his fist and waited for his old partner to hold him back. His biceps twitched, but he wouldn’t give in to temptation. Not worth the court appearances.
Viseth blinked. “You don’t have the guts.”
Sam put his face an inch from Viseth’s, close enough to smell the nicotine on his breath. His face looked like the surface of an alien planet full of old craters and active volcanoes. A face that only a judge could believe. Sam grabbed an ear. “I could lift you by this,” he said.
“Take it easy, man,” Willie said. “Chrissake, they’re only kids.” Sam let go, but held his gaze. Viseth’s eyes hardened like flint.
“Why did you slash Bin Chea’s tires?”
“What?”
“Patrolman, this boy can’t hear me. Will it help if I stretch his ears?”
“The fuck you talking about?”
“Patrolman, this boy needs a Brillo pad for his mouth. Mister Kim, one of your friends told me how you slashed Bin Chea’s tires.”
“Who told you that lie?”
“Why did you do it?”
“Look. It’s a sh
ame about his tires. It’s a shame about him. Some real mean guys out there, huh? Truth is, I don’t care about my landlord one way or the other.”
“You don’t care that he’s dead?”
“You see me wearing white for his funeral? Look, you want to arrest me, go ahead. If you don’t, then get out of my face.” Viseth turned his head toward the wall.
Through the wall came a filtered conversation, a man and woman speaking in Khmer, Nintendo sounds on the television, a rap-rap sound that could have been a ladle on a soup pot, and footsteps. Fried-onion fumes oozed through the cracks in the plaster.
Willie traced his finger along his nightstick. Chun dropped his cigarette and ground his heel on it. He had a gap-toothed grin inside a round face. If Sam shook him, Chun’s brains would rattle like dried peas in a bowl.
Chun’s eyes were fixed on Sam’s muscles. Willie leaned against the wall and picked his teeth.
“Where do you live, Chun? What floor?” Sam said.
“I don’t live here. I live next door.”
“Then I suggest you go there and stay out of trouble. Move along. Out!” Chun got up slowly.
Viseth looked directly into Sam’s eyes. “You guys need to practice,” he said. “Your good-cop bad-cop routine sucks.”
“I’m going to put you in jail,” Sam said.
“You must have something new on me. I’m scared shitless.”
“You’re never shitless, Viseth. And I’ll never get out of your face.”
Willie picked up the smoldering cigarette butt and he dropped it in Viseth’s shirt pocket. “There’s something on you,” Willie said. “Leave the place as clean as you found it.” The boys ambled out the front door before Viseth yelled and slapped at his shirt.
“Wish you wouldn’t do that,” Sam said. He knew he’d hate to be burned again. Willie just smiled.
Sam looked up the stairway. How could this be an apartment building owned by Bin Chea? At the top of the stairs, a hole in the plaster wall suggested something ripped away. An empty nip of Beefeater’s gin stood against the wall. Names and phone numbers were carved in the wall, and the stench of urine drifted into his nostrils.
Maybe the hole in the wall meant a stolen bicycle. His first transportation in America had been a 26-inch Columbia that he rode to work during the spring and summer. At night, he’d bolted it to the wall after finding out that the landlord didn’t care. Within two nights the bicycle was gone, leaving only a hole in the wall much like this one. Would anyone pay Chea’s widow for the damage, as Sam had done with his landlord?
Sam knocked on the door while Willie stood in the background. Feet shuffled slowly to the door, and Sam showed his face and his badge in front of the peephole.
An old Cambodian woman let them in and invited them to sit at the kitchen table. She had thin white hair, and wore an old blouse that might have come from a second-hand clothing store. Once it might have been blue, but now Sam could see through it to her wrinkles and her underwear.
He described Chun and Viseth to the woman.
She twisted her fingers in her palms as though she could wring the worry out of her bones. Her knuckles protruded with arthritis; the backs of her hands showed the dark spots of age.
She hesitated, and then the words tumbled out. “Those boy not good. Last week, they say ‘old man, lend us fifty dollar.’ We say no, but they don’t let us go, we very scare. Think maybe we--” She paused and looked down at the floor, as though the right word had slipped away and blended into the tattered carpet. “A lend? They not pay back. Cannot afford. Husband work, I care for my sister. She very old. One day she carry bag, they trip her, steal her food. My husband go help, they punch him. Five boy! They say we call police, maybe we disappear. Now my sister not leave apartment.”
Sam gently placed his hands around hers, feeling her tremble. “That’s okay, Aunt, everything will be okay. We will help you, but we need a little time.” How long had it been since he’d called a woman Aunt, they way he used to in Cambodia? More than fifteen years. “That’s okay, Aunt.” Her shaking eased a little.
“Would you like to file a complaint?” he said.
The woman’s eyes opened wide, and she shook her head. Of course not, but that was the problem, wasn’t it? No one ever pressed charges against these kids.
Sam gave her hands a final squeeze and let go. “Have you ever seen them carry guns?”
“No gun, not need. They young and strong. They get angry, maybe they kill with hand.”
And Sam could kill those creeps with his hands.
Sam and Willie could easily pick up these kids, but they would be out on the street in no time. This family would need a lot of courage to press charges, and they seemed to have more sense than courage.
Meanwhile, Sam would arrange for more patrols in the area.
“By the way,” Sam said. “How often did you see Mr. Chea?”
Her voice turned bitter, like tea from the sdao leaf. “Never see. Only see wife she collect rent.”
“What do you mean, you’ve never seen him? Never at all?”
“We never at all meet.”
On his way home, Sam stopped to check out Samson Cleaners. The place was closed, though Nawath was supposed to work there nights. Sam shook his head. What was that all about?
He opened the door to his apartment at eight o’clock, and Julie met his smile with an exasperated sigh. Strands of hair stuck to her forehead, and she looked less like a community-college English teacher than a mother who’d been stuck at home with a whiny four-year old. Trish ran out of the bathroom wearing only the bottom half of her bathing suit, and she gave him a cool, wet hug. He picked her up and kissed her on the tip of her nose. “I’ve been swimming in the tub,” she said, but Julie interrupted.
“Where have you been, honey? I was worried about you.”
“Developing leads on the shooting. I’m sorry I worried you.”
“Any luck?”
Sam shook his head. “Luck is what I may need. Willie and I just finished talking to a couple of Battboys who robbed an old woman.”
“Make an arrest?”
“No one wants to press charges. But that woman is going to get her money back.”
She pulled two cans of ginger ale from the refrigerator and handed him one. “How’s that, Sam?”
“I’m going to persuade Viseth to return it.”
“Meaning you plan to force him? You’re a law officer and not a vigilante, Sam. Don’t forget that.”
“And I won’t forget the look in that woman’s eyes. I think half of her fear was of the punks, and half was of Willie and me.”
“She’s afraid of the authorities--”
“We Cambodians don’t have good experience with authorities.” We Cambodians slipped off his tongue by accident. For years, Cambodians had been they.
“Was she afraid to talk to you?”
“Afraid not to, I suppose.”
“Well, I have to tutor Larisa tonight. I’ve already told her I’ll be late.” Larisa was a Russian woman paying for extra English lessons.
They both said their good-nights to Trish, who went to sleep quickly now that the night air had been wrung dry. She held the pink bear that Sam had won for her at the state fair last fall by firing one of those fixed pellet guns at a row of bobbing ducks. Sam smiled. Finally, my marksmanship training was put to good use. What better use than making my little girl happy?
Sam piled a plate with diced chicken and boiled rice, and sprinkled it with hot sauce. Julie had tried her hand at making spring rolls; he grabbed two from the fridge, and sat down at the table to eat. She didn’t much like cooking, so the effort had to be an act of love.
He sat at the kitchen table across from Julie while the FM radio played rock music that was barely audible above the soft hum of the window fan. A Rush song was on, and Sam turned up the volume.
We are young
Wandering the face of the earth
Wondering what our dreams might be wor
th
Knowing we’re only immortal
For a limited time.
Rush had it right. Like so many refugees, Sam had come to America with little but his dreams: he wanted to belong somewhere, to wipe away his past, to plant flowers in a garden where human bones didn’t poke through the soil. But evil left its traces everywhere. Even in America.
Sam washed his supper down with a can of ginger ale and stacked it on top of two rows of cans to form a soda-pop pyramid. The cans wobbled in the gentle breeze of the window fan. Later on, he planned to redeem the cans and put the nickels in the gallon jug that sat on the floor.
“When we fill up this jug, I’ll take it to the bank. It can go toward the down payment on a house,” Sam said.
“That’s silly. You don’t pay for a house with a bottle full of nickels and dimes.”
“But we’ve got to start somewhere,” he said.
“Yes, a journey of a thousand miles and all that.” She smiled and tucked a dollar bill into the jug.
As the cans rattled slightly in the breeze, Sam tapped the eraser of his pencil on a yellow legal pad. Did Mrs. Chea set up her husband the other night? If so, why? And who was the shooter? And what about Bin Chea at the video store? What frightened people about the man? Sam caught a whiff of Julie’s perfume. Her hair was combed back, and she wore earrings and a pale lipstick that brought him out of his thoughts of work.
“Are you signing up to teach your class in the fall?” Sam hoped she’d say no.
“Sure I will. It’s very satisfying, you know. People finish my ESL classes, and they come up and shake my hand. I feel like I’m helping people get started here.”
Sam smiled. She’d been teaching for years, and was Sam’s first and best English teacher. “You helped me a lot.”
Her voice became low and sultry. “You’re the only one who got so much of my time, ’cause you’re such a hunk.” She slung her purse over her shoulder and started to leave. “Really, you were my best student ever, even though I have a good class now. Except for one Cambodian fellow who dropped out--too bad, he was a good student.”