by Sanchez, Bob
Sam treaded quietly, conscious of every squeaking board. At the top of the stairs was a dark hallway; at the end, the door was closed. The music was much clearer now, Cambodian music filtering through from the other side of the door. Probably a cassette player.
Fitchie stood to one side and nodded as Sam held up three fingers, took two deep breaths.
One--two--
Slam the door on your fears--
--three!
His kick ripped the door off the jamb.
For a moment, it seemed like the wrong place. Drapes covered the windows, and red satin sheets covered an elegant four-poster bed. Fancy wallpaper, polished wood floor with a blue area rug.
Bin Chea stood up from a plush chair in front of a huge television. He was a small man with a slight frame. With his flowered print shirt and shorts, knobby knees and sandals, he could have been a grandfather dressed for a picnic. His eyes locked on Sam like a missile on its target.
He held a cigarette lighter; at his feet was a red gasoline can with a rag jammed into the opening. Sam caught the faintest whiff of gasoline, then caught his first real glimpse of the television screen. It showed a close-up of a man who had been eviscerated but who was still alive. From the edge of the screen, a hand held the man’s liver. A stack of videos sat on a small table. Bin Chea’s home movies.
Sam’s jaw trembled.
“Hello, Long Sambath,” Bin Chea said in Khmer. His soft voice barely carried over the music. “Welcome to Paradise.”
“You’re under arrest!” Sam yelled, fighting the urge to pull the trigger. The wheel of history turns, Comrade! “You have the right to remain silent--”
Bin Chea held up a cigarette lighter, his thumb poised to strike the flint. “You give me no rights. I say what I will. You cannot kill me, I am already dead. Shoot me now, and this room goes up in flames with you in it.”
“Anything you say can and will be used against you--”
Did you kill my mother, too?
Sam took a step forward, his weapon aimed at Chea’s center mass. Was Bin Chea right? Could a gunshot ignite the room, turn it into a funeral pyre? Maybe that’s what he wanted.
Bin Chea’s expression changed to one of pity. “Are you ready to die, Long Sambath? So sad, you could have had a good life serving Angka. We left you a token of our good will.”
“You did the same for Lieutenant Wilkins, didn’t you? You paid him off so he would lose your fingerprint files.” That idiot Wilkins! “A lot of people hated you, so you faked your death. Why would they bother with a dead man?”
Bin Chea jerked the lighter in Sam’s direction. Sam blinked, and Bin Chea offered a kindly smile. “Yes, there is freedom in death. Your enemies put down their weapons and let you get on with your business. Are you a Buddhist, Long Sambath?”
Don’t answer him. Don’t give him the satisfaction.
If today was the day for Sam to die, then it was also the day for Angka to die. He pushed aside thoughts of Julie crying at his wake, of Trish growing up without a father.
“Those people downstairs have confessed to offending Angka. Now they must suffer so their next lives may be filled with bliss.” Bin Chea’s words flowed in a river of sarcasm. “Me, I am not coming back to another life. Better to find Buddha in this one and roast his body over hot coals.”
Then from the cassette came a sound that made Sam falter. A woman’s voice, high and sweet. Was it Sarapon? His sister? Was this son of a bitch playing Sarapon’s songs?
Behind Sam, Fitchie yelled--
Sam walked until he was face to face with Bin Chea. They stood a foot apart, the cigarette lighter between them. A surge of energy ran through Sam’s body, and Sambath’s father stood beside him, an arm around his shoulder as they stood together against death. Sambath turned for a moment: father’s eyes were fierce and proud. Sambath had never abandoned father at the stake, never turned his back in shame. Now they stood together to defy the core of evil.
Together they would die.
Sam turned back to Bin Chea. “I have a confession to make,” Sam said. Bin Chea leaned forward, his eyes glinting. Comrade Bin loved--
Sam spit in his face.
Bin Chea’s mouth opened slowly, and the lighter shook in his hand. Sam could grab it easily now, but he wasn’t through. “Light it,” Sam said, and he spit in Bin’s face again. “Light it! Light it! Light it!”
Bin Chea’s body trembled, his eyes full of rage and his face dripping with spittle. A hand slammed down on Sam’s shoulder. “Let’s go!” Fitchie yelled. “He’s gonna do it!” Sam took a step backwards to balance himself.
Bin Chea flicked the lighter, yellow flame shooting high and dancing in his eyes. A smile passed across his face and died. “The light is bad in here,” he said. “For a moment I thought I saw a brave man.”
Sam lunged, but Fitchie held him back. Bin Chea opened his hand and dropped the lighter.
Fitchie twisted Sam away--
“Gonna hit the--”
Holy Jesus, it’s going to--
Whump!
The flames erupted behind Sam and seared the back of his head and arms. Dear God Dear God Dear God! Help me! He gasped for air, hot scorching air. Sam and Fitchie made it past the door to safety as more cops arrived. Sam turned, and Bin Chea lay screaming, screaming. The initial flash had died down and given way to flames that licked across the floor. It was old, dry wood like the straw torch Bin Chea had dropped at Father’s feet.
The smoke and fumes would kill them if they didn’t leave now. But there was something else, the bitter smell of vengeance. It was going to stick to him long after he left here, and he didn’t want to live with it.
“Sam! Sam! Let’s get out of here!”
Sam’s chest heaved as he turned back. Now Bin Chea was rolling toward a corner, his clothes in flames. Fitchie pulled at Sam’s arm, then let go. “Forget him,” he said. “We’ve gotta clear the building.”
Sam could not take his eyes off Bin Chea.
Black smoke blotted out the ceiling. The flames licked up the walls.
Worms from the oven.
Sam crouched low and dashed back directly through the flames, picking up the rug. Bin Chea’s eyes were wild, his face twisted and burning, his clothes turning black. Don’t die, damn it, not until I’m through with you. His arms flailed until Sam wrapped him in the rug.
He scrambled along the floor beneath the worst of the smoke, covering his face, hauling Bin Chea across the blistering floor. Gasping, gasping. There were shouted orders and frantic voices, the words meaning nothing to Sam.
And then another voice, familiar and calm. The man stood above him, indifferent to the smoke and fire. His hand was extended--
Come with me, Sambath.
“Father? Father?”
Then the lights went out.
Sam woke up breathing pure oxygen on the edge of the cemetery across the street, his guardian angel a black medical technician. Had everyone made it out safely? Where was--?
“Sit down, detective.” The EMT’s large hand gently pushed Sam’s shoulder down. “Fire about put your lights out for good.”
“What?” Sam’s head was about to burst. “Where’s my father?”
“Breathe deep,” the EMT said as he held the oxygen to Sam’s face again. The EMT’s name tag said “C-O-T-T-”--Sam couldn’t even see straight. His father was here somewhere, he’d heard his voice. You’ve been gone so long, Father! Where are you?
After a minute, Sam began to get his bearings again. Knots of curious onlookers gathered at a safe distance. Smoke and flames billowed from the roof. Firefighters attacked with arcs of water, and then the roof collapsed. Great spectator sport, house fires. Down the street, an ambulance whooped its siren, making its way past rows of parked cars.
Fitchie walked over to Sam, his face covered with dirt and sweat.
Sam pulled away his oxygen mask. “You okay, Fitchie?”
Fitchie shrugged. “You look like you saw a ghost. We should�
��ve just tossed in a match and said sayonara.”
“Death--death is too easy. I want Bin Chea--to live a very long life--”
“Oh, sure you do. In prison, with a blowtorch up his ass.”
Sam managed a weak smile; Fitchie had read him perfectly.
They sat on the grass together, not talking as ambulances carried away Angka’s prisoners. Sam had second-degree burns that hurt like hell. He walked over to a waiting ambulance, but nothing would stop him from seeing Julie and Trish tonight.
In the flames, there had been a flicker of joy when Sam thought he had seen his father, when he thought that his memories had played him a cruel trick, that his parents and his sister Sarapon must be alive and well. That his father would take him by the hand--
But his father was in a different world, Sam realized that now. To meet again, they would have to wait.
EPILOGUE
Countless people had died at Little Mountain. If only the bones could speak, if only the spirits could return from the mists above the pond, they would point at Comrade Bin--You! You! they would say.
But Sam would speak for them. And now a few of those missing men had crawled back from the dead, oozed out of Angka’s grip. Even if they never spoke, their mere existence was testimony enough to put Bin Chea away forever.
Early that evening, Julie and Trish met Sam at the hospital as he was discharged. “Let’s go back to the cabin,” Sam suggested, and they all agreed. As they drove out of the lot, an Asian boy and girl walked hand in hand along the sidewalk, laughing together. If their parents saw them, they were as good as engaged. Sam could never forget his past, forget what his people had wrought on themselves. If you forget about evil, it will sneak back in the night and club you on the head. But if you forget about the good, it will vanish in the mists until you search for it. Sometimes you will search forever.
Trish must learn about her heritage. Cambodians weren’t them and Americans us. She was an inextricable blend of both.
They stopped by the apartment. The bedroom was cleaned up, and Julie’s books had been replaced on the bookshelf near the window. Buckshot had damaged some of the Shakespeare volumes and pocked the wall behind them. Sitting on top of the books, undisturbed, was the cassette of Sarapon’s songs. The cassette he hadn’t dared listen to. He picked it up and ran his thumb lightly over the plastic case that covered Sarapon’s picture, then put it in his shirt pocket.
Sam drove past the park and stopped at a traffic light. Tonight at story time, he would tell Trish about the apsaras and the romvong they danced, about the strands of red silk that joined newlyweds by the wrist. If she was still awake, maybe he would tell her about the Monkey General, or about fish that walked on their fins. And he would certainly teach her to count: Muy, pe, bei...
Cottony wisps hung in the evening sky, their edges turned to gold by the setting sun. On the basketball court, a half-dozen teenagers played three-on-three as though the day would last forever. A Frisbee coasted over the outstretched hands of a boy, and glinted briefly in the fading light.
Oh, and there was one more thing Trish should hear.
He slipped Sarapon’s tape into the cassette player and headed for the interstate.
The End
GETTING LUCKY
By Bob Sanchez
Chapter 1
Take one Lowell cop, slightly ripe. Shred a 28-year career and a 30-year marriage. Toss in a P.I. license and a dump of an office. Add a sense of humor, a dash of decency, and a taste for Beethoven. Sear with the loss of a son. Drain off the self-pity, and set it aside. Add salt to taste, and garnish with small paychecks.
One Clay Webster, comin’ up.
The phone kept ringing as I ran up the stairs. Those Yellow Pages were great. My ad wasn’t even in print yet, and one of Lowell’s troubled souls had found me anyway. I dropped an armload and fumbled to find the key my son Jerry had given me. My first caller certainly showed patience.
I pushed open the door to my new office and froze at the sight of a rat the size of a linebacker. I chucked the Boston White Pages at him, and he took off in a brown blur toward his own private exit in the corner.
In the middle of the desk, the phone stopped ringing.
Rats.
This office was in no shape for clients to see anyway. “I got this place for you, Dad,” Jerry had told me. “First month’s free--hey, after all you’ve done for me, it’s the least--”
The least, he had that right. In the late ’90s, my son the slumlord owned a dozen properties here in Lowell, Massachusetts, and I certainly wished his paying customers better than this. But who was I to complain? My first six months in business had been slow, and five thousand in savings wasn’t going to take me far. A guy could spend a buck to eat macaroni out of a can, or he could spend it on a Megabucks ticket for a $2 million jackpot. But I’ll win Megabucks when the next ice age comes to Lowell. Macaroni is now.
At least the office came furnished. The vintage 1960 desk had a gray plastic top and steel sides. Behind the desk sat the only chair, a swivel type upholstered in green plastic with duct tape running diagonally across the seat. The walls had dark stains from a leaky roof, and three of the ceiling tiles lay on the floor. Underneath my feet, the commercial carpet showed years of ground-in dirt. Overall, the place smelled like stale droppings and dead cigars, as though the rats hung out here for late-night poker games.
I left the door and window open for a little air and made a mental note for my next trip to the store: broom, dustpan, rat poison. Better get a bottle of Mister Clean too, the biggest they have. Custodial help wasn’t a line item in my budget, and whipping this dump into respectable shape for Monday would take me well into the night. Given my immediate business outlook, I’d have time to patch every last crack in the plaster walls. I walked down the hallway looking for an extra chair or two, picked the lock to the store room, and found a dozen chairs like the one I already had. I took the best two and attached Dymo labels to the back that said:
Property of Clay Webster, P.I.
Out front in the parking lot, the autumn wind slapped fast-food cartons against trees and sand against my face. My office sat above Robby’s Auto, which sold parts stripped from the automotive graveyard that lay behind the building. Just as Robby’s is built on the ruins of cars, Webster Investigations is built on the ruins of lives. “Former Lowell police officer benefits from personal tragedy--details at eleven.” When Channel 7 runs a promo like that, it’s been a slow news day.
I carried more furnishings in a cardboard box stored in the trunk of my old Dodge: a typewriter, every stationery item I could think of from paper clips to a date book Molly had given me, a bottle of generic aspirin, a half package of Tums I’d opened after Thanksgiving dinner, a cassette player, and a coffee pot, all tools of the trade for my new career. There were also a half dozen classical music tapes. For the moment, my Smith & Wesson .38 Special stayed in the sock drawer in my apartment--lately, I didn’t trust myself with it. I tossed my brown bomber jacket on the desk. To me it was my Joe Louis jacket, named for the Brown Bomber himself.
It was Sunday morning on the long Thanksgiving weekend. On Thursday I’d watched the annual high school football rivalry between Lowell and Lawrence, then went to Jerry’s place for turkey pot pie and a nasty case of heartburn. As a joke, he also gave me a cap pistol. It wasn’t the height of tact, given the way my police career ended. But when your family falls apart, you forgive the little slights so you don’t lose the one person you think still loves you.
Jerry had said, “Why not go in and spruce up the office some? You know, Dad, customize it to your liking?” No one would stop in on the holiday weekend, so I could tack my P.I. license on the wall, set up the coffee pot, and plan out my work for the next week, assuming any work needed planning. I plugged the cassette player into the wall, and Beethoven and I went to work.
The phone rang again. They say a good businessman picks up on the first ring, and I did. “Webster Investigations,” I sa
id with practiced smoothness.
It was a kid, and I won’t repeat what he said. He was the same nitwit who’d jangled my bells at home every night for two weeks. I hung up; as first calls went, it was hardly auspicious.
“Slimeball,” I said.
“Excuse me, sir?” A woman stood at the doorway: she seemed about forty years old, with a black leather coat that reached past the tops of her black leather boots. She had high cheekbones, jet-black hair, and a skin tone that suggested a recent getaway to a secluded Caribbean cay. The curve of her coat implied that she wasn’t built like a sheet of plywood. This weekend marked the unofficial beginning of the Christmas shopping season, and the woman probably wanted directions to the local branch of Saks Fifth Avenue--as if Lowell had one. Still, my pulse quickened.
“I need a bomb,” I said. How else would I fix what ailed this dump?
“Insurance and a match, that’s all you need.” She turned and walked down the hall, leaving me embarrassed about the sight of the place. Thank God she wasn’t a potential client.
But she returned in a minute, meeting my grin with a flicker of a smile. “Everything’s closed,” I said. “I’m just here to sandblast the office.”
She looked down at a slip of paper and said, “Do you know when Mister Clayton will be in?” From her accent, I guessed that she was Puerto Rican.
“The name’s Clayton Webster, but I go by Clay.”
“Bonita Esquivez,” she said. We shook hands. Her grip was soft and warm, and I let go reluctantly. Her dark brown eyes scanned the room, full of pity for the dump she surveyed.
“Handyman’s dream,” I said. “I’m getting it ready for opening on Monday.”
“Can’t you help me now? My husband is missing.”
I grabbed my jacket. “Then let’s get a cup of coffee,” I said. “There’s a donut shop two blocks down.”
A man never gets to make a first impression a second time, and somehow I’d survived her first impression of me. But my first impression of Bonita Esquivez was that she possessed a nervous elegance and a baby-blue Cadillac Eldorado with Dade County, Florida, plates.