25.
NHUNG VU SET THE three boxes down and searched his pockets for the keys to the broken-down ’68 Oldsmobile communally owned by Coi Than Tien. The car was a relic, an embarrassment, but it was all that was available to him today. They only had two cars, and Elder Dang had taken the other for the day. Come to that, the ’74 Ford Pinto might be worse than the Oldsmobile.
Nhung slid the first box of supplies into the front seat, careful not to break or spill anything. He didn’t want Pham to be angry with him. Many of Pham’s followers still did not want Nhung included in their group, even after he proved himself during the midnight raid. He was too young, they said. Too green.
For the time being, Pham had restricted Nhung to supply runs and similar unimportant tasks. Nhung didn’t care. He would do whatever he could for Pham. And when the time came for Pham to give him a more important duty to perform, he would be ready.
Nhung shoved the second box into the car. He had to hurry. The supply run had taken far longer than he anticipated. Pham was meeting with his key followers at six. Nhung didn’t want to miss it. They would surely discuss the midnight raid, as well as their plans for the future.
Nhung had hoped the firebomb would scorch ASP off the face of the earth, but it hadn’t. At the very least, though, maybe now they would leave Coi Than Tien alone. Maybe now the violence would end. Maybe now—
“All by yourself, gook?”
Nhung dropped the third box onto the concrete. Bottles shattered, spilling their liquid contents.
“Clumsy little nigger, ain’tcha?”
There were four of them, and they had him surrounded. They weren’t wearing their ASP uniforms, but he knew who they were, just the same.
One of them peered down at Nhung, leering. It was the guard. The one Nhung and the others had fought during the midnight raid.
“Please, sirs,” Nhung said. To his embarrassment, his voice broke. “I must take these supplies back to my family. They are hungry and my sister is very ill.”
The ASP guard appeared to be the group leader. He dipped his finger in the spillage. “Your family eats combustible chemicals, I see. Don’t you dumb gooks know that’s dangerous? Probably not very tasty, either.”
The other three ASP men laughed. Nhung tried to bolt through their ranks, but they grabbed him and shoved him back against the car. His chin bashed against the hood.
The leader ripped the car keys out of Nhung’s hands. He opened the back door and shoved Nhung inside. The ASPers sat on either side of him while the leader drove. They pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward Maple.
Nhung looked desperately all around him. What would these men do? How much did they know? Through the car window, he saw a man he recognized from town, the editor of the newspaper, walking down the street. Nhung flung himself against the car window and shouted at the top of his lungs.
The driver floored the accelerator, and the man sitting next to Nhung yanked him back into his seat. Before Nhung could speak again, the man slapped him brutally across the face. Nhung cried out, this time in pain. Apparently his ASP host didn’t know the difference. He hit Nhung again, with a clenched fist. Nhung’s head thudded back against the car seat.
Nhung didn’t remember much else about the drive. The sun set and it soon became dark. He couldn’t tell where he was or where he was going. He was dazed; his mind seemed to flicker in and out of consciousness. His mouth and jaw ached, and two of his teeth felt as if they had been knocked loose. He wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. He wanted to cry, but he knew it would only make matters worse.
The car stopped finally and they hauled Nhung out. Many more ASPers were assembled in a clearing in full regalia, including hoods. They hauled Nhung past a blazing campfire toward a wooden post in the center of the assemblage.
No—it wasn’t a post, Nhung realized. It was a cross.
They wrapped a thin cord around his hands and feet, then tied him to the cross. The ASP men moved closer, encircling him, none of them speaking. The field of green hoods filled Nhung with terror.
One of them approached. He was shorter and larger than the man who had beaten him in the car. This man stared at Nhung for a long moment, then walked behind him. A moment later, Nhung felt his shirt being ripped off his back.
Another man in green advanced. He was cracking a bullwhip over his head.
Nhung wanted to be brave, but it was too hard, too impossible. He clenched his eyelids shut and cried. “Please don’t,” he whispered. “Please don’t—”
The tail of the whip smacked his exposed back. Nhung screamed, a loud high-pitched wail. He felt as if his back had been split open, as if the skin had been ripped off and the soft wet underflesh left exposed.
The whip cracked again. The nerve-shattering pain pierced his back like a dagger. He was certain he could not bear it any longer. And then they hit him again.
His knees weakened. If he had not been tied to the cross, he would have collapsed. The man wielding the whip was quite skilled; each blow landed in almost exactly the same place as the previous one, deepening the wound, intensifying the agony.
The whip sounded again and again and again. Nhung’s vision began to blur. He felt his consciousness fading.
And then, as abruptly as it had begun, the whipping stopped. The wind whistled through the trees, stinging Nhung’s back, licking at the open wound. But the whip did not crack.
The ASP men were moving away from him, huddling around the campfire. They worked busily at some task, but Nhung couldn’t tell what it was. He heard a few chuckles, then some malevolent laughter.
He became very scared.
The ASP huddle parted, and through wet and blurry eyes Nhung saw what they were doing. The short man, the one who had torn his shirt, was in the center, stoking the fire. No, that wasn’t it. He was holding something in the flames. Something long and thin, like a poker.
The man raised the iron object high above his head. Now Nhung could see it clearly. It wasn’t a poker.
It was a branding iron.
The hooded men on all sides began to chant. “Blood, blood, blood,” they cried. “Death, death, death.”
“We will strike back against the enemy,” the man with the iron cried out. “We will fight and fight until the land is pure once more!”
“Please don’t do this,” Nhung begged them. “Oh, God! Please no. Please no!”
“Death, death, death,” they chanted, even louder than before. “Kill, kill, kill!”
The short man held the glowing iron an inch from Nhung’s face. The heat emanating from it stung Nhung’s eyes. The brand was in the shape of a cross.
The short man ripped the drooping tatters of Nhung’s shirt off his chest.
“No,” Nhung whimpered, over and over. “I’ll do anything. Please. Please—”
He heard a hideous hissing noise, followed by the most searing pain he had ever felt, had ever imagined. It burned through his chest and ignited every nerve in his body. His agonized shout reverberated through the twilight. And to his horror, he found that when the iron was removed, his suffering was even greater.
The only mercy was that he fell into deep unconsciousness and, as a result, wasn’t aware of what they did to him next.
26.
BEN WAS GRATIFIED TO find that Deputy Gustafson was not on duty when he arrived at the jailhouse the next morning. Sheriff Collier waved Ben through, never once making eye contact with him. Ben wondered how much he knew about the beating Gustafson had dished out when Ben was here before. More than he cared to acknowledge, Ben guessed.
Vick was the only inmate of the county jail that afternoon, which Ben realized had probably been true for most of the time Vick had spent behind bars. That had to get lonely, day after day. Ben only hoped the mounting loneliness would make Vick more talkative than he had been last time around.
Vick rose from his cot when he saw Ben come down the hallway. “Are you here for a visit,” he asked, “or are you staying t
he night?”
“I’m definitely not staying the night,” Ben answered. “Ever again, if I can help it.”
Vick grabbed the cell bars. “What makes you think you can spring me from this hellhole when you can’t keep yourself out?”
“That night was no party for me,” Ben said. “But you’ll notice that I’m free now and you’re still behind bars.”
“Good point.” For a fleeting moment, Vick’s lips formed something that might have been a smile, or at least a smirk. “How’s the eye?”
“Much better, thanks.”
“What ticked off Gustafson so bad?”
“Principally the fact that I’m representing you.”
“Oh.” That caused Vick to reflect for a moment. Good. Ben was more than willing to let Vick be motivated by guilt. “Guess this was a bad career move for you.”
“Guess so. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
Vick instantly pushed away from the bars. “About what?”
“This case, of course. How can I represent you without any facts?”
“I told you I want to plead—”
“Nonetheless I can’t handle this case without more information. You think I can just make the facts up as I go along?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Ben decided to move on to the questions. “I’ve been to the boardinghouse where you were staying, and I’ve talked to Mary Sue. She says you had some visitors shortly before the murder.”
Vick didn’t respond.
“Mary Sue described one of your visitors as Vietnamese. That wouldn’t have been Tommy Vuong by any chance, would it?”
A deep furrow formed over Vick’s eyes. “Why would I meet with him?”
“I can’t imagine. But I don’t think you met him for the first time in that bar. I think you two had some history.”
“Well, you’re dead wrong.”
“Am I?” Ben took a few steps down the hallway. “If it wasn’t Vuong, who was it?”
“I don’t know what Mary Sue’s talking about. She has a tendency to drink more than she should. She probably hallucinated it.”
“Imagined a Vietnamese visitor to a member of a white-supremacist group? Seems unlikely.”
“Maybe he was visiting someone else in the house. She had several tenants.”
Ben decided to move on. It was better to keep him talking, even if he was lying, than to tick him off and cause him to clam up. “Mary Sue also said someone else dropped by to see you, the night before the murder. A woman.”
Vick’s eyes widened ever so slightly.
“Don’t deny it,” Ben said. “I can already see that it’s true.”
“What’s she accusing me of? Fornicating with the whore of Babylon?”
“Nothing quite that serious. Actually she seemed to think you just talked. At least on this particular occasion. Who was she?”
“I—I—” Vick looked away suddenly. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” Ben clung to the bars that separated them. “Donald, I’m your lawyer. I’m on your side.”
“I—” Vick averted his eyes. “I’m sorry. I made a promise.”
“A promise? To whom?”
“I—can’t say.”
“Mary Sue said she overheard the woman mention—”
“I said I can’t talk about it!”
“Donald, would you please screw your head back on? How can I represent you if you won’t even tell me what you know?”
Vick folded his arms across his chest and turned away.
“Is this related to the fight at the Bluebell Bar? Or was that about something else?”
Vick didn’t honor Ben’s inquiry with a reply.
“What was the point of that fistfight, anyway? I can’t believe you went after Vuong just because he was Vietnamese.”
“He and his friends outnumbered me,” Vick snapped. “They all attacked at once.”
“They didn’t gang up on you just for the hell of it. I heard you started the fight.”
“Nonetheless, they—”
“Why, Donald? Everyone keeps telling me you’re the quiet, soft-spoken type. From what I hear, you didn’t even drink, much less hang out in bars. I think you must’ve gone there looking for Vuong. Why?”
Vick didn’t respond. He sat down on his cot and faced the wall.
“Donald, answer my question!”
No change.
“Is Dunagan the one you’re protecting?”
Vick’s head jerked around, his eyes fierce and narrowed. After a long moment he slowly turned back toward the wall. He wasn’t taking the bait.
“I know you’ve known Dunagan all your life and that he’s an old family friend and all that crap. I also know you had a tough father with high expectations who passed away before you had a chance to satisfy him. Assuming that was possible.” Ben paused. “I have some understanding of that situation myself. My guess is that your involvement with these ASP goons is part of some cockeyed plan to please your father.”
Ben could see the muscles in Vick’s neck tightening.
“Is that it, Donald? Are you taking the rap to protect your daddy’s buddy, the Imperial Grand Dragon?”
Ben waited a long time, but no answer came.
Under different circumstances, Ben might’ve been willing to take Vick’s silence as confirmation, but here, he just wasn’t sure. There was so much he was uncertain of, so much he didn’t know yet. Most of his theories were flying off his tongue as soon as he thought of them.
“Are you aware that the DA found hairs on the murder weapon? Hairs he has matched to yours.”
No response.
“What about it, Donald? Have you been shedding around any crossbows lately?”
Nothing at all.
“I know they stock crossbows at the ASP training camp. I’ve been there.”
Silence. No reply.
“Do you know what’s happened to this town? It’s in an uproar. Everyone’s scared to death that today will be the day the fuse on the powder keg ignites and all hell breaks loose. They want your blood, Donald. They’re going to give you the death penalty because they’re hoping that will be enough to put Silver Springs back the way it was before you and ASP came to town. You’re going to take the rap for the whole club.
“But I know they’re wrong,” Ben continued. “I know this town will never be the same until we find out who really killed Tommy Vuong. Can’t you help me do that? Can’t you help me keep your miserable butt alive?”
Not a word. Not even a twitch.
“Fine.” Ben marched down the corridor, away from Vick’s cell. “I just hope to hell you don’t get what you deserve.”
27.
BY LATE AFTERNOON BEN was back at the campsite. Both Jones and Loving were gone. Ben hoped they were burrowing into their respective assignments and uncovering useful information about Donald Vick, Tommy Vuong, and ASP.
Christina was there, but she was still giving Ben the cold shoulder. Cold wasn’t a strong enough adjective—glacial might be more appropriate. Subzero.
Mike was on top of his helicopter—at least Ben assumed it was Mike. All he could actually see was the top of his head. A vast array of tools and machine parts were spread on the grass around him. “What are you doing?”
Mike tried to answer, but his response was incomprehensible. After he took the wrench out of his mouth, it was better. “I’m installing some of these parts I got in Silver Springs.”
“Do they fit?”
“They do after I solder them in.” Mike’s hand fumbled around in the grass for a tool. “My principal concern is these spark plugs. They’re really meant for tractors.”
“Oh, well,” Ben said. “Tractors, helicopters. How different can they be?”
“Right.” Mike pushed himself off and opened the door to the cockpit. “I’m going to start her up. Will you crawl on top of the engine and tell me what happens?”
“You must be joking.”
“Just
tell me if the spark plugs spark. And if you spot anything else rattling loose or flying out of its housing, that would be good to know, too.”
“You’re out of your mind. I won’t be anywhere near that bucket of bolts when you start it.”
“Don’t be such a chicken. I’m just going to turn over the engine. What could happen?”
“Soldered spark plugs could ignite my flesh. Aerial scrap metal could fly like shrapnel into my face.”
Mike patted the hull. “I don’t think you should refer to Portia as aerial scrap metal. You might hurt her feelings. Are you sure you won’t keep an eye on the engine while I start it?”
“Not unless I can do it from the other side of the lake.”
“My hero! By the way, while I was in town this afternoon I got the scoop on the prosecution’s case. They’ve found the murder weapon.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crossbow near the scene of the crime. Hairs in the firing mechanism. I’ve heard all about it.”
“Is that a fact?” Mike stroked his chin. “Then you know about the bloodstain?”
“Bloodstain?” Ben said blankly.
“That’s what I figured. It’s the kind of zinger prosecutors like to keep to themselves until trial, if at all possible.”
“But Swain told me about the hairs.”
“Right. That’s the straw man. He’s hoping you’ll expend all your energy—and cross-ex time—trying to convince the jury that the hairs don’t necessarily incriminate your client. And when you’ve finished, Swain will stroll calmly to the podium for redirect and tell the jury about the bloodstain.”
“On the crossbow?”
“You got it. And it’s Vick’s blood type. You might be able to talk your way out of a hair or two, but two hairs and a blood blot make for a pretty damning combination.”
“Blast.” Ben bit his knuckle. “And they’re sure the blood is Vick’s?”
“Like I said, the types match. I doubt if this burg is equipped to run microscopic analyses. But I would be”—he glanced at Portia—“if I could get back to Tulsa.”
“What is this, blackmail? I’m not crawling on top of that alleged flying machine and that’s final.”
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