by Sanchez, Bob
The last stack slid out of Sam’s hands and up against the wall, the top folder sliding down the dark crevasse where it might never be seen again. His hand darted out and caught the corner of the file with his fingertips, thank God for quick hands. But loose papers slid out of the folder and disappeared behind the cabinet.
“Fitchie, would you give me a hand over here?” Sam said. “I need to move these cabinets.”
“I’ve got to leave you,” Fitchie said. “Sit with Ellie, then take the baby sitter home. I’ll help you finish tomorrow.”
Sam began setting folders on the floor.
With any luck, he wouldn’t have to pull out--and put back--the cabinets on the other wall, too. If he did, he’d be here till midnight.
When Fitchie left, Sam felt dizzy, as though the room were swirling, closing in, collapsing on him. DeVito stuck his head through the doorway.
“The fuck you doin’?” he said.
Sam steadied himself with one hand on a cabinet. “Paperwork,” he said. “Can you help me?”
“’Bout time somebody got these files fixed up,” DeVito said. “Better you than me, man.”
“Look, I just need--”
“I don’t think so,” DeVito said, and left the room.
Sam took a deep breath, coughed on the dust, and began moving cabinets a couple of feet from the cinder-block wall. Loose papers and folders lined the base of the wall. What did we need filing cabinets for, anyway, just dump every fingerprint record on the floor? Every rap sheet? Every--
And there it was, a battered manila folder, the name CHEA, BIN typed across the tab in capital letters. Inside was the set of prints taken off the corpse at Bin Chea’s apartment, and a fax from the FBI.
Wilkins had lied; the prints didn’t match.
They belonged to Khem Chhap.
That’s what had seemed odd about Chea’s apartment. An unopened pack of menthol cigarettes but no ash trays, no butts, no smell of cigarette smoke in the apartment. Chhap was probably lured to Bin Chea’s place and shot.
But where did Viseth Kim’s killing fit into this picture? The victim was alive, and the killer was dead. A dozen Battboys should have been questioned right after Julie was shot. If the victim had been Wilkins’ wife--or better yet, his girlfriend--the entire force would have been on the case.
He went home and called Julie to tell her about the unlisted number. Her voice was soft and sleepy. “I’ve been thinking about you,” she said. “When are you coming up to the cabin? We miss you.”
“I miss you, too. I don’t know how long this will be,” Sam said. “Fitchie and I made good progress tonight. I just hope we can settle it soon and get back to normal.”
There was a long silence on the line. “Normal. Whatever that is,” she finally said. “You get yourself some sleep now.”
Sam hung up feeling bone tired but wide awake, the way he’d been at Little Mountain after fourteen hours pulling a wagon or hacking with a hoe. Knowing that alertness might keep him alive as he slipped away to steal mangoes from the orchard. It was about time he interviewed some Battboys.
Informally.
He got into his car and drove to Mersey Street, where he parked alongside a darkened curb about fifty yards from a street light. Across the street and two houses down was the tenement where Viseth Kim had lived. The sidewalk was empty. He reached inside the front door and turned off the porch light, then settled down in the darkness to wait for Vanney Lek.
Soon two dark figures came around the corner at the end of the block. They embraced and separated; one walked up a flight of porch stairs while the other walked back around the corner. About ten minutes later, loud music blared out of a car that rumbled down the street. It disappeared into a driveway, leaving a red glow from the parking lights. The music grew louder, then stopped. Three shadows slipped out the end of the driveway in three separate directions.
Vanney Lek stopped at the curb and lit a cigarette, a yellow glow inside his cupped hands. At the front door, Sam grabbed his arm. Vanney jumped.
“Sh-h-h. No noises, Vanney, you’ll wake the neighbors. We’ve got to talk.”
“Officer Long--”
“Detective.”
“I’m sorry, detective, I don’t have time.” Pleading in his voice, probably a little fear. Good.
“I’m not asking. Get in my car, I’ll buy you a donut.”
A few minutes later, they sat in a booth in the Dunkin’ Donuts across town. “What happened to Viseth Kim?” Sam asked.
Vanney squirmed in the plastic seat, his donut untouched. He removed a cigarette from behind his ear. “If people find out I’m talking to you--”
“Look, Vanney, you’re a good guy. You know some Battboys, but I won’t judge you by your friends.”
“What happened to your wife, I feel bad.”
“Don’t make me repeat myself. What happened to Viseth Kim?”
“I can’t believe this. You care more about that asshole than your old lady--”
Sam wanted to throw hot coffee in Vanney’s face. “Last chance,” he said.
The cigarette shook in Vanney’s hand. “He had a fat mouth, enjoyed telling girls he had the biggest cock in Lowell. His mother was completely ashamed of him.”
“And?”
And his hands slid up a lot of skirts. I think somebody’s boyfriend--”
“Don’t insult me, Vanney. This wasn’t about sex.”
Vanney stubbed his unlighted cigarette in the ashtray. “Actually, we thought you did it. After the coward shot your wife--”
“You’re full of shit, Vanney.”
Vanney shrugged and stared out the window at the traffic. It had started to pour, and rain streaked their reflections in the plate glass.
“Maybe your friends would like to know we’ve been talking,” Sam said.
“They’d cut my balls off.”
“That’s fine with me. You can find your own way home.” Sam stood and pulled up the zipper on his jacket, but Vanney grabbed his sleeve.
“Wait. Huon was laughing about a cassette tape he heard the other night. Viseth was on it, begging for his life.”
They walked out to the car, Vanney finishing what was left of his donut and wiping his hands on his pants. This tape might have been what Sam had heard on the phone. Was this supposed to be a favor to Sam, punishing Julie’s attacker? Not damn likely. This sounded like Angka’s work. Sam’s face felt hot, and he opened the window a crack to let in some fresh air.
“Did he make the tape?” Sam asked.
Vanney ignored the question.
“Vanney?”
“I’ve already told you too much, so fuck you.”
Fine, if that was the way Vanney felt. Sam drove through the center, past the Lowell Sun building, and crossed the bridge that took them north toward New Hampshire. It would be a long fall from the bridge to the rocks in the Merrimack River below them, but Sam put that thought out of his mind.
“You taking me home?” Vanney asked. “This isn’t the way.”
“I asked you a question back there, Vanney.”
“Because you can drop me off, you know, a couple of blocks from my house and I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
Sam would let him walk, all right. They motored down the boulevard that paralleled the opposite side of the Merrimack. By the time Sam pulled the car onto a soft shoulder they were well out of town, and the river was out of sight. The streetlamps reflected on the pavement as the rain fell in a steady downpour. Vanney could wear off a lot of shoe leather between here and home.
“Where the hell are we?” Vanney asked. No car had passed them in either direction for several minutes. “This is the ass end of nowhere!”
“You’re about ten miles from home,” Sam said. “You tell me what you know right now, or you get out and walk. You should make it home by daybreak, unless someone picks you up or runs you down. You know the way, right? So get out, enjoy the rain. Go on!”
“Then fuck yourself, I’m goi
ng!”
Vanney stepped out just in time to stick out his thumb at a set of headlights heading toward them. The car hit a puddle at full speed and sent an arc of water into Vanney’s face. Vanney wiped his face with his arm and began walking south. Windshield wipers swished back and forth as Vanney’s watery image disappeared down the empty road. Sam kept his pity in check for a few minutes, then pulled his Dodge back onto the road. He slowed at the sight of Vanney in the high beams; the kid was soaked and shriveled, and he looked like a hitchhiking rat.
Sam pulled alongside Vanney, who looked ready to talk. Vanney opened the passenger door and got back in. There was no need to tell him he’d been thumbing for a ride in the wrong direction.
“Huon didn’t make the tape,” Vanney said, “he just listened to it, anyway that’s what he claims.” He wrapped his arms around himself, and steam rose from his body just as it would from fresh ox dung.
“Who do the Battboys work for?” Sam asked.
“We don’t work for nobody. Poor Viseth--”
“Battboys are nobody. You’re the shit on Bin Chea’s shoe.”
Vanney looked up, startled to hear the name. “Isn’t--isn’t he the guy who got shot in the face?”
No, he wasn’t, but Sam didn’t want to say so. Bin Chea had set someone else up to die in his place. Comrade Bin must have thought that if he was dead he could rule Angka forever. Did he remember Sam from Little Mountain? Was that why Bin tried to torment him with the phone call? All these years and I still rule your life.
“You tell me,” Sam said. “Is Bin Chea the man you work for?”
“The man’s dead.” Vanney tried to light a cigarette without success, and flung the pack out the window. “I’m not saying anything that’ll send me to jail. Fuckin’ wet cigarettes. I’m fuckin’ soaked to the skin.”
“Who killed your friend Viseth?”
“I wasn’t there, how should I know?”
“Look, this is just between us. Viseth is dead, and I have no problem with that. If Huon did it, maybe I want to thank him.” Sam reached into his wallet and pulled out a ten--all he had left--and offered it to Vanney.
Vanney looked at the rumpled bill with contempt, but snatched it from Sam anyway. “This doesn’t buy you anything,” he said.
“Understood,” Sam said. “It’s for dry cigarettes. But if you help me now, I’ll make it worth your while.”
“You mean if I’m caught someplace I don’t belong--”
“Then I won’t shoot you. If I see a little help here, I’ll put in a good word. Very quietly, so they don’t know it on the street.”
“Viseth wasn’t my friend.”
“Wasn’t mine, either. Who did us the favor?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“Describe him, then.”
Vanney looked as though Sam had asked him to recite Shakespeare. “A regular Cambodian,” he said.
“How old?”
“Thirty or forty, who knows?”
“Taller than me, or not?”
“I’m not sure. Taller?”
Sam was getting annoyed. He was fighting off sleep, and this Battboy was going to make him work for every detail. Sam heard himself asking about scars, distinguishing features, clothes, quirks, but the damn kid didn’t seem to remember much. It was time to give it up for the night. All he wanted now was to go home and go to sleep.
“Except the gold chain,” Vanney said.
Sam sat up straight. “With a big medallion?”
“I’ve seen bigger and better ones.”
A few minutes later, Vanney got out of the car a couple of blocks from his house. The rain had eased, and he sprinted down an alley and disappeared into the darkness.
Suddenly, Sam felt wide awake. He drove to the end of Eleventh Street and walked in the direction of Bin Chea’s apartment. Across the street, he could watch from the darkness of the playground--the street lamp was still out. Had Viseth hidden here before he murdered Bin Chea’s house guest? On the top two floors, lights shone from the living-room windows. It was beginning to make sense. Nawath Lac’s eyes held the same cold void as his father’s eyes. Viseth Kim had molested that little boy Ravy, not knowing he’d messed with Angka. That he’d messed with Bin Chea’s grandson. And maybe Nawath had taken down one of the palm fronds that graced the apsara in his living room. Palm rips a throat just as well as a knife. Angka will follow you across the ocean--you are never safe.
The light went out on the top floor. Could be that wasn’t Bin Chea’s apartment at all; it may have been just a convenient place to stage his death. No one would be looking for him anymore. Sam’s shirt was soaked, and a light breeze made him shiver. God, a warm bed would have been perfect. The porch light went out, and Sam waited. A minute later, the front door opened and someone stepped onto the porch. In the gloom, Sam couldn’t tell who it was. He walked to the driveway as Sam moved quietly to his own car. A pair of taillights flicked on between two houses, and Sam dashed for his car.
Sam followed the car through the downtown, careful to keep a safe distance. He followed to the old mill building where he usually went to his health club; then he parked his car across the street. It was five stories and had hundreds of rooms, most of them unrented. Only security lights were on in the building, except for a light on the third floor. Sam waited out by the road while his quarry threw something on the ground, probably a cigarette. Then he apparently took out a key, opened a door and stepped inside. The man had been too far away for Sam to make out any of his features. Did Bin Chea smoke? The light in the parking lot cast a yellow glow on the car so that Sam couldn’t tell its real color. He noted the make and model. The license number wasn’t one he recognized, and he kept his distance because of the car alarm.
Sam checked his watch; it was almost two-thirty. The rain had stopped, and puddles still glistened on the asphalt parking lot as he ran toward the door. He squatted down and picked up an unfiltered cigarette butt that was still warm--“mel” was all that remained on the shred of soggy white paper. The smoker in Bin Chea’s apartment had left menthols behind, so who was this? Only one person Sam knew smoked unfiltered weeds. From the overhang came a steady drip-drip-drip. His heart pounded as he pulled the door open.
The elevator light was out; whoever had gotten here ahead of Sam must have used the stairs. To his left were the doors to the exercise club, a weight-loss outfit, and a telemarketing firm. He walked down the hall into the darkness. Industrial carpet muffled the sound of his shoes, as it may have been doing for someone else. For a moment all he heard was the sound of his own breathing. Sam drew his .38 as he stood at the door to the stairwell, just listening. Then he climbed the stairs, making as little noise as possible.
At the third-floor landing he waited again, then eased himself into the hallway. His mouth felt like paper. The office lights would be down the hall to his left, though he didn’t see them yet. He hadn’t gone far in that direction before he heard their voices. A cloth partition separated them from Sam.
“--money.”
“--gun down.”
“--nail your gook hide to the wall.” That was Tommy Wilkins, not a doubt about it, expressing his true self in the shadows of the night.
“Look, I am a reasonable man.” But whose voice was this? “If you want more, just allow me to get it for you. I have cash right here in the desk.”
Then there were gunshots, four of them in quick succession. One ripped through the partition in front of Sam’s nose. He stepped around the partition with his .38 leveled. “Freeze!” he shouted.
Nawath looked up at him, startled. There were four gaping holes in his desk; splinters scattered across the floor in front of Sam. Wilkins was down and bleeding, his gun on the floor beside him. From behind the desk, Nawath’s hands seemed to be adjusting to a new target. Sam squeezed the trigger twice, and Nawath fell backwards with two red blotches on his chest.
Nawath Lac was dead, and Wilkins lay in surgery at Lowell General with a bullet i
n his left shoulder. How Wilkins would explain that night’s events, the chief said he could hardly wait to hear. At least, thank God, he hadn’t lost any men, though he might have to fire a couple of them. Sam spent what seemed like the rest of the night answering questions.
By daybreak the Chief looked thoroughly exasperated. “Wilkins had said you were off the case,” he said. “Lucky for him you didn’t listen. But now I have to put you on paid leave until we finish the investigation. Meanwhile, go spend some time with your wife and kid.”
“They’re in New Hampshire now, at her folks’ cabin.”
“All the better. Go there and stay put until we call.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Sam?”
“Yes, sir?”
“This case is closed.”
Sunlight streamed in the window. Sam hadn’t been to sleep yet. Images swirled in his brain, the stuff of a waking nightmare. Muzzle flashes. Bin Chea with a butcher’s knife at Julie’s neck. Sambath smoothing the dirt over his father’s grave. “No, sir,” Sam said. “It’s not closed.”
The Chief bristled at Sam’s insubordination. “I don’t want to discipline you. I suggest you get some rest, then join your family. Grill some hot dogs. Go fishing. Take your kid on a water slide, my grandson loves those. But whatever you do, don’t--I repeat, don’t--pursue this case anymore. Now get out.”
The sun was already heating up the city. Sam couldn’t drive to New Hampshire, because he was bone-tired. And he couldn’t go home and go to bed, because he’d just sleep until the afternoon. So he drove to the park that adjoined Bin Chea’s properties, found a bench underneath a tree, and stretched out in the shade. The wooden slats were hard. A couple of mosquitoes flitted around his face. A muffler backfired, a boombox blasted, and people laughed nearby. None of it mattered. The air was filled with the warm scent of maple leaves and mown grass, and the sun’s rays danced among the leaves overhead. Sam dozed, his eyes trying to follow as Bin Chea raised a knife, about to rip--