Little Mountain

by Sanchez, Bob

  “But when they saw the king’s garden--Wow! There were so many kinds of flowers, just like in grandma’s garden. Brilliant blues. Soft, lovely greens. Shades of red and yellow you couldn’t even imagine! And the apsaras said to themselves, ‘This is more beautiful than anything in heaven,’ so they stayed and danced in the garden for as long as they could. They had long, beautiful fingers, and when they danced they bent them back like this--only a lot more.”

  She brushed her palm across his fingertips. “Did the aspirins have to die to get to heaven?”

  “Apsaras. No, I don’t think so, honey. That’s just where they live.”

  “Will Courtney see them?”

  “Yes, I expect that she lives with them. Let’s walk back to the house. I want to show you something.” On the deck, Sam reached into a plastic bag and pulled out a doll that looked exactly like Courtney. Thank God for K-Mart. “She can dance in your garden anytime you want,” he said.

  Trish hugged her new doll. “Courtney Aspirin,” she said. Courtney had been granted a new life as a dancer, her reward for all the pleasure she’d given Trish in her previous life.

  “You know what, Daddy? Courtney isn’t really dead.” She pointed out toward the fresh grave. “That was a different doll. I switched.”

  In front of them, a dragonfly settled on a daisy. If it were true, then what about the other doll? Should you spare one by sacrificing another? What kind of outcome was that for a girl to accept? Of course Trish hadn’t switched dolls, and she was entitled to the comfort of her fantasy.

  Later in the afternoon, Sam and Willie helped Mr. Lassiter replace the doors and the carpet while Willie’s wife Tamara entertained Trish. The couch and the shattered dresser went out to the sidewalk for a trash pickup. How could Julie have moved it so quickly the other day, given her pain and terror?

  Willie held up a pair of Sam’s shredded jockey shorts, and two or three pieces of buckshot clattered onto the pine floor. “Stainless steel balls in your underwear,” he said. “I always knew it. Smaller than mine, though.”

  Trish was wonderful company for Sam--on the morning before Julie came home, they drove to Singing Beach on the North Shore. For hours they built a sand castle, splashed in the surf, and watched seawater fill up the impressions their feet made in the wet sand. The cotton-candy clouds and the hot inland breeze made for perfect beach weather. They came in at high tide, when the lifeguard said that the bluefish were feeding near the shore.

  He’d frequently thought of Julie during the week. Of Bin Chea, who threatened Sam’s family even in death. Of Viseth Kim. Why would he hurt Bin Chea, except for money?

  And then there was Fitchie, whose wife lingered on the edge of the abyss.

  Sam and Trish ate stripped clams and onion rings and hopped on the stove-hot sand. At noon, Sam drove home wearing a wet bathing suit that soaked through his slacks and onto the car seat. They laughed most of the way back to Lowell Hospital, where they picked up Julie. Then he drove them to his in-laws’ house, where Dottie seemed eager to renew her mothering skills for the afternoon.

  But Sam was anxious to get back to work. Courtney’s burial nagged at his brain.

  Sam eased Julie onto a lawn chair on her parents’ deck, then lay down her crutch and opened up the umbrella. She was slim and beautiful in her two-piece bathing suit, but had an ugly bandage on her left thigh. Pinpoints of light filtered through the umbrella and dotted her pale skin. At Julie’s feet, Trish discussed ballet with Courtney Aspirin.

  Julie sat with her leg elevated. Potted geraniums basked in the sun on the deck’s wide railing. She brushed away mosquitoes from her face while Ginger, her parents’ Irish setter, sniffed at her bandage. Julie hadn’t smiled since Sam picked her up at the hospital, and she didn’t look ready to start now.

  The deck faced an acre of almost complete privacy. An open expanse of overgrown lawn was surrounded by tall shrubs and low-spreading maples that shielded them from the view of the neighbors in back. It wasn’t like Eric Nordstrom to let the grass go. On the other side of the trees was an old stone wall overrun with poison ivy that the old man refused to spray. My green curtain, he called it. Keeps the little bastards out.

  Except for Trish and her reincarnated doll. Sam would bring her by more often if only Eric wouldn’t treat him like a leper. Or if her grandfather drank less.

  Sam gestured at the yard. “This is what you gave up,” he said.

  “For love. I gave it up for love.” She still wasn’t smiling, was she being sarcastic? She’d also given up Richard Coeurdelion, who used to park his cream-white Jaguar in front of their apartment even after their breakup. The showoff didn’t even live in town anymore, but wanted to remind her of what she’d lost. His wheels impressed their neighbors, except for a Puerto Rican named Fuentes who used a key to sketch a sex act on the passenger door. Richard never came back to the neighborhood after that, and Fuentes went on to art school.

  “Are you sorry you left that fellow, the one with all the money?”

  “That fellow brought me flowers in the hospital, you know.” Julie paused; Sam was very intent now. “I said he should take them home to his mother. The posies you snitched from Mom’s garden are much nicer. Besides, life’s a lot more exciting around you.” She paused and cocked her ear. “Sam, did you hear that?”

  “No. What is it?”

  “I don’t know. Is the front door locked? Please go check it.”

  Totally unnecessary, but Sam went in to check. His feet made no sound on the Persian rug, and the grandfather clock ticked softly. The front door was open, but the screen door was locked. A copy of The Watchtower lay on the threshold. He locked the front door and returned, wondering if Armageddon lay at his doorstep. Or had Julie and Trish already faced it without him?

  “What if they come for us, Sam?” A soft, warm breeze blew across the deck, but she shivered.

  “They won’t. This person doesn’t know about your in-laws, and--”

  “How did he know about us, for God’s sake?” Her tone sounded accusing.

  “He could have looked us up in the phone book. We’ll get an unlisted number, like your parents.”

  “For all the good that’ll do us now. Whoever killed that poor man--what’s his name again?”

  “Bin Chea.” Yes, the poor man. Sam never shared his doubts about Bin Chea with Julie. Why trouble her with his old demons? She would listen and try to understand, while he would feel as like he was asking for pity.

  “Whoever killed him nearly killed us. Sam, your job nearly got us killed.”

  “I know. I’m--” Sam didn’t know what he was. He didn’t know whether he bore any responsibility for Viseth’s attack or not, but he did know that he felt like shit.

  “If you had opened the door instead of me, that bastard would have killed you. He seemed so--surprised when I looked at him, as though he was at the wrong place.”

  “Probably thought he’d see an Asian woman.”

  “And then I--and then I slammed the door and grabbed my baby. Oh God, he got me anyway. If he had hurt my baby--” She started to cry, and Sam stroked her hair. Sam was ashamed that he hadn’t been there, yet Julie was right. He tried not to think of his corpse lying under Katsios’ knife, his face--

  “I wish you’d get out of this job,” she said.

  “And do what? A cop is all I ever wanted to be.”

  Inside, the kitchen phone rang. Sam got up to answer it, and Julie took his hand. “Don’t,” she said. “My folks have an answering machine.” He sat down and pulled himself closer to her, his arm around her shoulders. Was the call for him?

  He kissed her behind the ear, where the scent of Ciara was gone. Her expression didn’t change. Thank God she was all right. The phone rang three times and stopped. Then he touched her arm and she drew it away, a sign it was time to leave her alone for a while. Maybe he should mow the lawn--show Julie’s dad there were no hard feelings, and pretend he was a homeowner at the same time.

  Sam lace
d up his old sneakers and took the Lawn Boy out of the back shed. He checked the gas, put in the clutch, and pulled the cord. The engine sputtered, then fired to life. Good. I’ll burn off a little steam.

  “Go in circles, Daddy,” Trish begged. She followed Sam on a path that looked like a plate of noodles. He made a winding path across the thick grass, and she laughed as she skipped along behind him past the rock garden. Then they looped back to the storage shed before wobbling toward the driveway. When the engine stalled, he looked back at the mess he’d left behind.

  Julie squinted through the brilliant sunlight. “Better straighten that out, Sam. Pop’s a little short on humor these days.”

  Now there was an understatement. He took a dead branch and unclogged the chunk of damp grass that had stopped the blade. This time he finished the job in straight, even rows. After a short break, he found a spring rake and mounded the clippings near the old stone wall on the property line.

  “Pop will appreciate your mowing, though.” No doubt Julie was right, but Sam knew that as gestures went, a short lawn didn’t go nearly far enough. The undercurrent of tension would always exist between him and his father-in-law: Sam would always be un-white, un-tall, un-rich, Richard’s opposite in every way. Sam was guilty of not being Richard.

  All of which was self-serving nonsense. No matter what his father-in-law’s other grudges, Sam knew he hadn’t kept his family out of jeopardy. Eric Nordstrom had a right to be angry.

  Ginger barked and dashed around to the front of the house, and Sam and Julie turned around to see Tommy Garibaldi from the station.

  Garibaldi raised his hands as Ginger leaped on him. She had giant paws she had not yet grown into, and she tried to sniff his hands. Julie called her off.

  “I guess the lieutenant’s been trying to reach you for the last hour,” Garibaldi said. He looked at Julie out of the corner of his eye and lowered his voice. “How’s your wife doing?”

  “It’s okay to speak to the patient, Tommy,” Julie said. “I’m fine.” Sam knew she liked Tommy, even if the guy had the brains of a pineapple.

  “Sam, they found a body in the Westford canal this afternoon. We think it’s your man Viseth Kim.”

  A wave of relief washed over Sam--maybe his family was out of danger now.

  “The one who shot me?” Julie’s mouth hung open.

  “He’s the one. Sam, we really need you at the station.”

  Julie frowned. “Is this from old More or Less, the man who told Fitchie ‘First things first, take care of your wife’?”

  Garibaldi turned his palms upward. “Don’t know about that,” he said.

  “I’ll call in and see what’s up,” Sam said.

  “Sam, Wilkins wants you to come in.”

  At the station, Wilkins waved Sam into his office. As usual, the office smelled like stale Parodis. Sam was grateful for a door that would hold that smell where it belonged, in a tight cloud around Wilkins’ desk.

  “Found your man,” Wilkins said. Sam wished people would stop calling Viseth his man. “Looks like he cut himself shaving and then went for a dip.”

  “Cut himself shaving,” Sam repeated. Typical Wilkins, trivializing death.

  “He’s got this nick that runs from one ear, down across his Adam’s apple, and up to the other ear. Seems he took a couple rounds in the legs, too.” Wilkins took a Parodi out of a new package and sniffed the tobacco. “So revenge is sweet.”

  “What do you mean, Lieutenant?”

  “I mean somebody tracked him down real fast, and I’m thinking maybe it was you. How’d you know where he was?”

  “I didn’t!”

  “That’s hard to believe. You hunted him down, didn’t you? Did the night shift’s job, tracking him down like a dog,” Wilkins said. “Actually, I can’t blame you after what Viseth did to your old lady and your little girl. But even a cop can’t take the law into his own hands.”

  Sam’s face felt hot, and his damp shirt clung to his chest. “I can’t believe you’re saying this. There is no way I would go out and kill--”

  “Now I know you’re lying. If you wouldn’t go out and find the creep, you’re no kind of man. Besides, Specter saw you out walking the other night at about three A.M. in the goddamn rain. Outside your apartment you made like you were slicing your throat with your finger.”

  “You have no evidence of that, Lieutenant.”

  A veil of doubt fell over Wilkins’ eyes. “No, I don’t. What were you doing there?”

  “I told Specter already. After I left Julie, I went to my in-laws’ house. But I couldn’t sleep, so I took a walk.”

  “We could have bagged him for you. You could have waited, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. I did wait. Did you find a weapon yet?”

  Wilkins shook his head. “But from the looks of the boy’s leg, we expect to find a small-caliber weapon. In the canal, most probably. Viseth was stuck under a bridge past the mill, doing the dead man’s float.”

  “So you’re accusing me of murder.” It was not a question.

  “No, I’m suggesting you did a public service taking that trash off the street,” Wilkins said. “To the public, we’re looking high and low for the killer. Between you and me, though, I think we can close this case.”

  Sam’s hands trembled. What was he supposed to say? Wilkins wouldn’t sit still for a sermon on Sam’s values, which seemed so alien to the lieutenant. “I didn’t do it,” he finally said.

  “Right. Look, Viseth is gone. That’s the main thing.”

  All of Sam’s blood seemed to collect in his face. “No, it’s not the main thing! Don’t you think someone was pulling Viseth Kim’s strings?”

  “Probably. But Viseth pulled the trigger, and now he’s dead. Meanwhile, we have other cases.”

  Wilkins cut off Sam’s objection. “Look, I take it back. You didn’t have anything to do with Viseth’s unfortunate--um, demise. Anyway, your file stays clean. Don’t worry about that. I won’t stiff you the way you stiffed my brother.”

  Sam went back to his desk wondering whether he should go back to school and finish his degree. He was only a dozen credits short, but maybe graduation could get him a job where he didn’t have to work for Wilkins’ type. But how could he let his father down? That was why he’d become a cop in the first place. It was a family tradition, and he could almost hear his father’s lecture. You have a responsibility, son. Father looked stern in Sam’s memory. The khaki uniform, the jet-black hair that gleamed like his polished shoes. The gaze that seemed so ready to believe his son would disappoint him. “One day I will die,” he’d said, “and you and Sarapon must take care of your mother. I am afraid you will neglect her.”

  His father had been right. Sam hadn’t protected his mother in Cambodia, and he hadn’t protected his family in America, either. But he had become a policeman to prove his dead father wrong.

  He decided to visit one of Viseth’s old haunts.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Asian Store on Tucker Street was a five-minute drive, past the Jewish cemetery and over the railroad bridge. Sam had never been there except on police business. Two weeks ago, a gang had robbed this store and put the Cambodian owner in the hospital. Viseth had lived around the corner, but that didn’t prove anything. Now Sam lingered over the aisles of canned and packaged goods while a ceiling fan circulated the sticky air. The store smelled of egg rolls and fresh fish.

  The dark pine floors were worn smooth, probably years before the owner Souvann Tip ever imagined coming to America. Jasmine tea in yellow cans sat on shelves along with canned banana blossoms and boiled lotus seeds. Bags of ting ting jahe were just down the aisle from cans of tender bamboo shoots, sliced squid, and bottles of peppers. Packages in bright reds and greens came from places like Jakarta, Bangkok, and Singapore.

  And there was rice, of course rice, by the ten-kilo bag. Rice candy. Rice flour. Rice paste. Rice cakes. And rice noodles, translucent, fragile, looped like endless ropes in thin cellophane b
ags stacked high on the shelves.

  Sam ached at the memory of his mother serving him bowls of steamed rice on a lazy afternoon when the monks let him out of school for the day. Of the sweet taste of coconut milk, and the galangal that turned cooked chicken into magic. He picked up a gallon of milk from the refrigerated case and a package of ginger candy off the shelf. Maybe Trish would like to try something new.

  Sam waited in a short line at the counter. The clerk was a teenage girl who snapped her gum and did not return Sam’s smile. The sounds of heavy metal drifted out of her earphones. He tried not to be distracted by the aroma of warm egg rolls that lay on the counter. Underneath the counter were dozens of cassettes for sale, everything from Bangkok heavy metal to Singapore disco.

  “How is your father?” Sam asked.

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Why are you asking?”

  “I’m a police officer. You were robbed here last month. Your father was hurt.” Souvann had taken a 9-millimeter slug in the shoulder. Sam and Willie had picked up Viseth for questioning and then released him. There had been no arrest.

  Her look hardened to cement. In the corner by the ceiling hung a camera that stared unblinking, like a large black fly stuck to the wall. This was a new addition since the robbery.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” the girl said. “My father is glad that Battboy is dead.” A copy of Cambodian Voices lay on the counter in front of her, and Viseth’s murder was front-page news. Nice of him to die before the paper’s deadline.

  “I just wondered how your father is doing.”

  “Ask him yourself. He’s in the back room with the fish.”

  Sam turned around. The circular mirror above the paper goods was also new; his image reflected off the polished surface. He stepped across the threshold that led into the narrow back room. A fluorescent light strobed overhead as Souvann sat on a stool and added ice to the cases that held squid, pogy, mackerel, and cod. His left arm rested in a sling while he shoveled the cubes right-handed with a metal scoop. Anyone hit with a bullet three inches above his heart would want to rest that left arm for quite a while. If Sam had wanted to get past Souvann to the plantains and the bok choy, he would have to slip sideways.