Little Mountain

by Sanchez, Bob

  “Hey Sam, you all right?” Fitchie stood next to him, agitated, and Sam opened his eyes. “I saw your car, you okay? I heard you saved the lieutenant’s ass last night. We’ve got to talk.”

  “Mm?”

  “Look, they just pulled a body out of the Pawtucket Canal.” Sam sat upright. “Cambodian kid, they ID’d him as Vanney Lek.”

  “Shit!” Sam held his head. “And I’m responsible.” He explained the events of last night, and Fitchie said he already knew. Fitchie drove Sam to the Owl Diner for a cup of coffee. The place was packed, and they had to wait for a booth. “Angka,” Sam said. “We have to crush Angka.”

  Fitchie gave a quizzical look over his coffee cup. “Explain,” he said.

  Sam told Fitchie about the group that had terrorized the countryside of his native land. “I understand,” Fitchie said patiently. “And the organization is here now?”

  “Right, and I know just how to bring them down.”

  “How about you get some shuteye, then we’ll talk?”

  Sam drained his coffee cup and left a dollar bill under the saucer. “I’ve had all the sleep I need. Let’s do it now.”

  They parked near Bin Chea’s house and waited. Mrs. Chea’s car was not in the driveway. “What’s the plan?” Fitchie asked.

  “To piss off a dead man,” Sam said.

  “Chief’s gonna love you for it,” Fitchie said. “But I’m in.”

  After an hour, a taxi pulled up in front of Chea’s house. The driver stepped out and pulled two bags of groceries from the back seat. Mrs. Chea stepped out the other side.

  “We should help with her bags,” Sam said. “I wonder who’s using her car?”

  Sam and Fitchie caught up with them on the porch. “Thanks for your help,” Fitchie told the cabbie. “We’ll take it from here.” He lifted a ten-kilo bag of rice from the cabbie’s arms. A lot for one person.

  “Thank you, detective,” Mrs. Chea said in Khmer. “But I have already paid the driver to help me.”

  “I apologize, Mrs. Chea, but we have more questions. May we help you put your groceries away?” Sam headed upstairs without waiting for her reply.

  “Yes, of course. Thank you,” she said, though her tone suggested the opposite.

  All signs of damage had disappeared from the apartment. The living room had new wallpaper, pale blue with a floral print. Against the wall, where a picture of a Thai stewardess had hung, a statue of Buddha sat on a table, golden and serene. The telephone sat on a side table next to the couch. Mrs. Chea put the food in the kitchen cabinets and heated a pot of water. Sam and Fitchie declined her offer of tea.

  “But may I use your telephone?” Sam asked.

  “Yes, please,” Mrs. Chea said. Sam picked up the handset, pushed the redial button and heard seven beeps and a ring. It was a local call. Judging from the tone pattern, it was likely a number here in Lowell.

  “Yes?” An unfamiliar voice spoke in Khmer.

  “Um, yes,” Sam said in Khmer, his voice soft and tentative. “Um, is this Paradise?”

  There was a long silence on the line. In the background, a bus rumbled by. “Who is this?”

  “I’m--I mean--I’m trying to find Bin Chea?” Sam’s voice rose at the end of the sentence, striving for the right note of uncertainty.

  “He’s dead.”

  “I know that. But--”

  The man on the other end of the line hung up. Sam hit the redial button again. The same man answered.

  “But I have something for him,” Sam said.

  “Who is this?”

  “It is only for him, I can trust no one else.”

  “You idiot, he’s dead!” The phone slammed down. Sam hit redial; this time the phone rang a dozen times before the man picked up.

  “What?”

  “Bin Chea is alive and in great danger. I have the name of his greatest enemy.”

  There was a pause on the line, and then a different voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Comrade Bin?”

  Silence.

  “You can run or you can stay and kill your enemy, Comrade.”

  “Who is he? Who are you?”

  “You aren’t Comrade Bin. I must see him in person.”

  The man laughed, perhaps with resignation in his voice. “An obvious trap. You want me to be Bin Chea, you want me to tell you where I am, and you want to blow my head off. Okay, come to my little shop. If you know what he looked like, you will see your mistake before you pull the trigger.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in paradise,” the man said.

  “What is the address?” Sam asked.

  “If you have this number, then you surely have this address.” He breathed softly into the phone. “Who are you?”

  “I am your past, come to spit in your face.”

  “I will be waiting for you,” the man said. Then he hung up.

  Sam turned to Fitchie and Mrs. Chea. “You are a United States citizen. Can we speak English for detective Fitch?”

  “I try, my English not too good.”

  “The man who was shot in this apartment--”

  “My husban’. Murder.”

  “No, Mrs. Chea. The victim was Mister Khem Chhap.” Sam tried to look her in the eye, but she stared at the teacup instead. Could she see the next few hours in the swirl of leaves?

  Her hands shook, and she placed the cup and saucer in her lap. “You arres’ me now?”

  “We could. You signed a paper saying your husband was killed. What really happened?”

  “Chhap Khem, we not know him, he come here from California and lie, lie about my husban’. Try to destroy his--I forget word.”

  “Reputation. What did he say?”

  “Oh-h-h, he say Chea Bin kill this and so, cut up little pieces, burn with fire lotta people. My husban’ say Chhap evil man, must make him stop lie to everybody. He say Chhap must die, I must help. Make it look like my husban’ dead, I collect insuran’ for him, sell hou’. We go start again someplace nobody know us. I very afraid, say yes okay. Then somebody shoot Chhap, I say oh my God, oh my God. Face gone, so awful. You come, I cry, say my husban’ dead. Later my husban’ say ‘Put Buddha in hou’,’ people think you pray for me. I do it. But every day, I pray for soul of Chhap Khem.”

  “Mrs. Chea, where is your husband now?”

  “No, no. Cannot tell.”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  “What mean threaten?”

  “Did your husband say he would hurt you?”

  “Not have to say. I know.”

  “Who was here just before the murder?”

  “Me, my husban’, and Chhap Khem. They fight, I say okay, okay--you sit down, I give everybody soup, feel a little better. Chhap not touch soup, say maybe poison, maybe we try kill him. Husban’ go to front window, Chhap try to leave. Then my husban’ punch in face, oh-h-h, hit very hard. Then knock on door, husban’ say to Chhap okay you can leave now.”

  “That’s when Khem Chhap was shot? Did your husband say where he was going after that?”

  “No, he just point to body and say, tell police that me.” But had Chea thought about fingerprints? Or did Wilkins have a price for losing a file?

  “Have you seen him since the shooting?” Fitchie asked.

  She stared at her lap. Of course she had seen him.

  “If you’re afraid, we can help you.”

  “You protect me from his son, too?”

  “Your son? You said you had no children living.”

  “Nawath Lac my husban’ son, not mine. Very bad, I think just like my husban’. He never be my son.”

  “He is dead. But if you don’t help us,” Sam said, “you will never have peace. Where is your husband?”

  Silence.

  Then Sam pulled out a card from his pocket. On one side were Mrs. Chea’s Miranda rights in English; on the other side, the Khmer translation. Sam read both sides aloud.

  They arrested Mrs. Chea on a charge of obstructing ju
stice. Sam bore her no ill will and didn’t care whether the charge stuck. He just wanted her out of the way when he confronted her husband.

  Sam had seen Bin Chea too many times in his dreams lately; he had a feeling that this would be no simple arrest. Maybe it would end with a bullet through Bin Chea’s heart.

  Or through his own.

  Chief Corcoran listened intently to Sam’s request that they obtain an arrest warrant for Bin Chea. “You haven’t explained why he faked his own death,” Corcoran said.

  “Bin Chea runs an organization built on terror,” Sam said. “Just as he did in Cambodia, in a camp called Little Mountain. People started to get uneasy about friends and relatives disappearing. The rumors started circulating about Chea’s organization. Chea even started getting hate mail. Then along came Khem Chhap, who was dying of cancer and wasn’t scared anymore. He probably confronted Bin Chea and threatened to expose him. Bin Chea could kill him easily, but he has a better idea: If people think Chea is dead, they’ll all leave him alone. So he calms Chhap down. Mrs. Chea makes soup for everybody while her husband calls Viseth Kim and sets up a hit.”

  “And if they leave Chea alone--”

  “He’s stronger than ever.”

  “Why do you think he’s at this address?”

  “It’s one of his properties. It looks abandoned, but it still has a phone line running to it. And it’s exactly the low-key type of place to hide out until things quiet down. Then I saw his son going in there the other day. Nawath Lac was in business with his father, so there’s a strong chance he was going to see him.”

  “What about the man in the cement stoop?”

  “Dith Chang apparently had no problem with Bin Chea. There’s evidence he torched some houses for the guy. But he was cheating on his wife. Mrs. Chang went to Nawath Lac for help, and he made her problem go away. Every time she walked out the front door she stepped on her husband. Maybe she knew, but I think she didn’t want to know.”

  The Chief reached for the phone and made the call.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Partway back to his apartment, Sam trailed behind a battered pickup truck that looked held together by bumper stickers and peeling paint. Who the hell was Hanoi Jane? Americans were full of opinions, and they covered their tails with them.

  Shit happens, another sticker said.

  He understood that one.

  He unlocked the door to his apartment. Most signs of the attack were cleaned up in the living room, and a new scatter rug covered most of the chewed-up part of the floor. Julie and Trish had come home from the cabin. Now Julie slumped in the armchair with her weight on her right side, looking as though she’d been crying all afternoon. From Trish’s bedroom came the sound of the TV. “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” Mister Rogers sang, obviously about someone else’s neighborhood. How had Julie been able to move the set into Trish’s room, considering her injury?

  “What are you and Trish doing back home? Are you all right, sweetheart?” Sam said.

  “Don’t you call me that!”

  Sam stood back as though Julie had spit at him. She’d objected to his calling her “sweetheart” when she first moved in with him, and he’d never used it again until now. Except with Trish. Sweetheart was a term he’d reserved for Trish. Why had he forgotten?

  “No need to be so angry with me,” he said.

  He opened the refrigerator, took out a new gallon of milk, and dumped the contents down the sink. She hobbled to his side to see what he was doing, and he tried to ignore her. He rinsed the inside, filled the container, put in the roses, and set them on top of the Lowell Sun on the kitchen table. That publicity hound Wilkins was on the front page again, and Sam didn’t care why.

  Her hand brushed the nape of his neck. “I’m sorry I’m being so awful, but Pop and I had a big blow-up.”

  “I guess you did. Was it about me?”

  She sniffled. “What else? I wouldn’t fight with Pop about just anything.”

  In fact, Sam hadn’t seen Julie fight with her father for eight years, when she’d ditched Richard in favor of Sam. That self-righteous bastard Eric Nordstrom had called his own daughter a whore, and her new boyfriend--Sambath Long!--a gook. Could those two really be father and daughter?

  “Mr. Lassiter didn’t waste any time replacing the doors,” Sam said. “Don’t you think we’re better off here, Julie?”

  “We are safe here, aren’t we?”

  “Of course we are.” The words came out of Sam’s mouth with more conviction than he felt. If Julie didn’t object so strongly, his gun would be within easy reach tonight.

  The tap-tap-tap on the door made them both jump. Sam looked out the window to see whose car had pulled up. No one’s.

  Julie looked frightened. “Don’t answer the door, Sam.”

  “Julie? It’s Jolene Gower from across the hall.”

  Sam sighed and looked through the peephole. He opened the door, and she stepped in carrying a covered platter.

  “I thought you might not feel up to cooking tonight,” she said, “so I roasted you a nice chicken.” The aroma trailed her all the way to the kitchen table. Jolene Gower was an angel.

  “Oh, that’s so sweet. You didn’t need to do that for us, Mrs. Gower,” Julie said.

  “Of course I did. You should be resting, not cooking.”

  “You have a good heart,” Sam said. “You remind me of my mother.”

  Jolene laughed. “I’m sure I look just like her. You folks come by and visit when you’re up to it. Got to go feed Cletus now.” Jolene went back to her apartment.

  Sam inhaled the sweet scent of dinner. He set plates and silverware on the kitchen table, and the phone rang. Julie answered, then handed the phone to Sam.

  “Bin Chea’s in Paradise,” Fitchie said.

  Adrenalin jolted Sam’s body. “What address?”

  Fitchie gave one. “He’s ours,” he said.

  “He’s mine.” Sam hung up the phone and looked at Julie. “You and Trish eat. Tonight I’ll have cold chicken.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Paradise sat across from a cemetery, in a two-story wood-framed building zoned for business on the fringe of a Portuguese neighborhood. The windows on the second floor were boarded up. There were no signs outside to identify the place, but Sam was sure. The adjacent empty lot once had held a building owned by Paradise Trust, Fitchie had said.

  Uniformed officers guarded the back exit. Sam and Fitchie led another group in the front door; they were armed with 9-millimeter Glocks and a warrant. Sam gripped his weapon, the barrel pointing to the ceiling. Palms sweating. Heart pounding. Mouth dry all the way down to his lungs.

  Inside, a telephone sat on a desk behind a counter. Behind it, a two-year-old calendar hung on the wall. There was old carpeting on the floor, and faint music drifting through the air like the wail of a ghost. The air smelled like incense and death. No people in sight, just a bare desk and a few folding chairs leaning against a dark-paneled wall. Overhead, a fluorescent bulb spattered intermittent light. Bin Chea had to be in here. Soon they would cuff him and lead him away, unless he made a false move and Sam could blast him. Old memories tried to ease into Sam’s mind, and he shoved them aside. Curtains cut off sunlight from the front window. A bare light bulb hung from the ceiling and illuminated an empty room. On the far side, a hallway led to several doors.

  Sam approached the first door on the left and quietly pushed it open. No one was in there, either. A camera mounted on a tripod stood on the floor, aimed at an empty chair. Polaroid photos, three neat rows of five, were attached to the wall with red pushpins. The pictures all showed Asian men. Sam’s skin crawled as he recognized the photos of Khem Chhap and Dith Chang. The wall was a gallery of the dead, like in the old Tuol Sleng prison.

  He felt like a fist had caught him in the gut.

  “Goddamn, what a smell,” Fitchie said.

  “It’s coming from the cellar,” Sam said. The next door he opened let out m
ore of the stench. He flipped a switch, and downstairs a light buzzed, flickered, and went on. He took a cautious step, his guts coiled tight. He listened.

  A clatter, a groan.

  Sam went down the stairs in a hurry and crouched, swinging his weapon in an arc. Now the smell was almost overpowering. There were three men chained to the walls, lying in shit and vomit. Sam’s gorge rose. Oh God oh dear God, one of them was dead and a rat was chewing on his toes, the rotting flesh gnawed down to the bones. Sam gave a furious kick that smashed the rat against an empty chemical drum.

  Another man lay curled in a ball, his eyes open, seeming to stare at nothing. His muscles jerked, and he made no sound.

  The incense came from three candles on a wooden table. Maybe they were supposed to mask the other smells. Behind him, cops yelled and began to gag.

  “Oh holy shit! Holy shit!”

  “What the fuck is this?”

  “Shoot me,” the third man whispered in Khmer. “Please!” His eyes were vacant, as though his soul had already left his bony frame. Dried blood crusted on his mouth. Ninety pounds of desperation. Sam bent down and touched his forehead; it was cold, so cold. He knew what he had found and tried to control his fury.

  “Get these people free,” Sam snapped at Garibaldi. “Get ambulances now!”

  Garibaldi turned away and made the call.

  “It’s okay, uncle,” Sam said. “We’re going to help you.”

  The prisoner panicked. “No, shoot me!”

  Fitchie tugged at a chain on the wall. “And get us a chain cutter,” he said. “Let’s get ‘em out of this fucking place!”

  “Anybody check the top floor?” Sam asked. He turned back toward the stairs as Callahan threw up on his boots. There on the far wall hung a video camera.

  “He has to be there,” Sam said. “He’s been watching us. Back me up, Fitchie.”

  Sam gasped for fresh air as he reached the ground floor. He stood still for a couple of seconds and listened. The music again, coming from the top of the stairs. A radio? Sam looked up the stairwell and couldn’t see anyone. He started up the stairs, a step ahead of Fitchie.