Archer Mayor: The Dark Root

“Where you from?”

“California.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Oakland.”

“Where in Oakland?”

He didn’t answer, but turned slightly to look back at Smith frisking the second man to emerge-shorter, older, with a pockmarked face and a worried expression-the driver, Edward Diep. Even in the cold, I could see the sweat on his forehead. His eyes shifted from spot to spot, looking for cover, for solace.

“Your friend doesn’t look very happy.”

Truong Van Loc shrugged. “Bad horoscope this morning.”

“What’s his name?”

For the first time, Truong hesitated slightly. “We call him Jimmy-it’s a nickname,” he finally answered.

I seriously doubted that, but before I could challenge him, Smith finished with the driver and sent him back to join us. I suddenly wished I had one of the other patrol units here as well, so that all three men could be interviewed separately. I stopped the driver with my hand and turned to Truong, trying to keep my voice low enough that Diep-or Jimmy-couldn’t hear it over the engine next to us. “Where were you all headed?” I resumed.

“North.”

“Canada?”

“Montreal.” Truong retreated to the cruiser’s trunk, forcing me to either speak louder or turn my back entirely on the newcomer.

Frustrated, I reversed myself instead, abruptly facing Diep. “Your buddy tells me you have a nickname.”

Diep’s eyes widened and flitted between the two of us. His mouth opened.

“Tell him, Jimmy.” Truong’s voice floated over my shoulder, easy and cold, suddenly closer, making the name a threat.

Diep looked like he’d prefer to have a coronary. “Me good guy,” he finally blurted, his voice rapid and heavily accented.

“How long you lived in Philadelphia, Mr. Diep?”

He nodded. “Yes, yes.”

Smith glanced over to me. I pointed at his last customer, now emerging from the back seat of the Nova, and made it clear Smith should talk to him privately. I didn’t want Truong pulling the rug out from under me twice.

“So what’s the attraction in Montreal?”

“Friends.” Truong’s smile was becoming strained. Diep merely nodded in agreement.

“How many days are you planning to be there?”

“Three or four.”

“You go up there a lot?”

“Some.”

We stood in silence for a moment, watching Smith talk to the third man, whom he’d intuitively turned around so he couldn’t see his companions. It was a dicey moment-a small gap where the grantor of a consent search could reverse his approval, given enough time to think-and I worried that Truong Van Loc would shortly put it to Edward Diep to do exactly that.

“Where you from originally, Mr. Truong?” I asked, hoping to steer his mind to other matters.

“Vietnam.” His eyes didn’t shift from Smith.

I moved slightly to block his view, putting my back to both Smith and Diep-not the safest position, but worth the risk. Despite the apparent inanity of the conversation, I felt I’d embarked on a mental chess game that deserved my full attention. “That must’ve been tough, leaving your own country.”

Refocusing on me, the sardonic smile returned. But I got him to react, which gave me a momentary advantage. “It wasn’t my country anymore,” he murmured.

“Was it hard getting out?”

The cold, blank eyes widened, and he further opened up. “They can make magazine stories and movies, but none of you will know.” It was the longest sentence I’d gotten out of him so far, and it betrayed a passion-and a hesitancy with the language-that he’d been keeping to himself.

“Did you leave your family behind?”

Smith finished with the last passenger and sent him back toward us-I could hear him muttering excitedly to Diep-but I had Truong on a small roll now, and I didn’t want to give him up.

“My brother come with me.”

“The others didn’t make it?”

He shook his head, his eyes straying off into the distance. “They stayed.”

“Is your brother in California?”

Again, I’d caught him off guard. His face hardened. “He is dead.”

“How?”

But I’d taken him further than he wanted to go. He blinked once, scowled at me, and growled something incomprehensible over my shoulder at his companions, who instantly ceased their chatter. I stepped away so I could see all three of them. The last one was the youngest-in his teens or early twenties-more excited and nervous than Diep, but with Truong’s shark-dead eyes. The backs of his hands had tattoos peeking out from under the cuffs of his coat-a frequent, if unreliable, sign of gang membership.

I spoke louder to include the other two. “You’re lucky you didn’t come through here a few hours ago-we had a pretty good storm.”

The young man gave me a dismissive look, his hands flitting about his waist, as if looking for someplace to rest. “You don’t know shit, man: We get worse snow than you all the time. This shit is nothing.”

Truong hissed a single word. The young man shook his head like a startled, angry horse, and clammed up.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“I already told the other guy.” His accent, unlike those of the other two, came straight from American television.

“Now you can tell me.”

“Henry Lam. And I don’t have no ID.”

“Lieutenant?”

I glanced over at Smith, who was backing out of the car. “Wait here,” I told the three men. “One of us will be right back.”

Keeping my eyes on them, I met Smith halfway to the Nova. “What’s up?”

“When I was looking around the back seat, a panel fell open under the bench. There’s nothing behind it, but it’s pretty obvious what it’s for.”

I borrowed his flashlight and traded places with him. Squatting down, I could clearly see what Smith had discovered. A hinged panel lay flat on the floorboards, revealing a cavity about two feet deep, running the entire length of the seat. I lay on my stomach and slid forward until my head was almost inside the compartment, but moving the flashlight around, I couldn’t find a trace of anything suspicious.

I finished Smith’s search of the interior for him, removed the keys from the ignition, and walked to the car’s trunk, pointedly not asking permission for this expansion of the search, as was standard. But the trunk, aside from the spare tire, was blatantly empty-no rags, no soda cans, no excess tools, none of the usual debris we all end up carrying around for no discernible reason. There was also no luggage. In fact, for a five-year-old private vehicle, this car was about as aseptic as a rental unit. Even the glove box had been meticulously emptied.

I closed the trunk, checked the engine compartment purely for the sake of thoroughness, and then returned to the now-shivering, sullen, and silent little group under Smith’s watchful eye.

I dropped the keys into Edward Diep’s hand. “If you’d return to your car and wait just a few minutes more, we’ll process your paperwork. Feel free to restart the engine and crank up the heater. Thanks for your cooperation.”

All three of them shuffled by. Truong Van Loc paused a moment to look me in the eye-the mocking, superior expression back in place. “No luck?”

I resisted the bait. “Have a nice evening.”

I turned off the video camera in my cruiser and sat next to Smith as he filled out the speeding ticket and sent the Nova on its way north. Finally, he slid back in behind the wheel, stored his clipboard, cleared with Dispatch, and let out a sigh.

“What did you get out of the kid?” I asked.

“Mostly a lot of ‘shit this’ and ‘shit that.’ But for a guy who talked like a bad movie, I had the feeling he’d cut my guts out for the thrill of it. Still, compared to the one you were talking to, he was a charmer. They gave me the creeps. Sorry I bothered you for nothing.”