T. Parker - Little Saigon

“I saw him.”

Minh smiled bitterly. “It doesn’t change anything right now. We need to find him, either way. Do you have anything useful for me?”

“The gunman had mud on his shoes. Gray. Dried.”

Minh nodded and checked his watch. “It’s in the CSI report. It wasn’t hard to notice, Chuck.”

“I took a walk downtown late last night. I remembered a few things I didn’t tell you before. First, two of the gunmen wore ski masks. The one who got shot had a hood, with the eye holes cut out. Looked homemade. Second, the one who dragged her out had on a pair of red tennis shoes. High tops.”

“We didn’t know that.”

“And the hooded guy grabbed the wrong woman. He went for one of the backup singers first. Then he helped drag Li off, jumped back on stage and started shooting. That’s strange.”

“Why strange?”

“Who in Little Saigon wouldn’t know Li?”

Minh brought out a tape recorder, nodding. “That’s true. Tell me again, exactly what you saw.”

Frye made his second deposition in two days. His account was interrupted by three phone calls and a visit from the chief, who told Minh that the press conference was set for seven o’clock. He looked at Frye with sleep-starved eyes, and tossed a stack of afternoon papers on Minh’s desk. “We got the search warrant ten minutes ago, Detective.”

Minh looked pleased.

“Press is hot on this one, John,” he said. “Do your best to cool them off. We’ve had half the department in Little Saigon the last ten hours, and I don’t want that fact unpublicized.” He walked away, sighing, checking his watch.

Minh regarded Frye placidly. He tapped his pen against the desk. He looked at the poster of Li, then back to Frye. “Did Kim get into the sky okay?”

“Huh?”

“Kim, the woman you drove to the airstrip this morning. You know, the airstrip out by the old Sidewinder Mine.”

Frye just sat there, feeling stupid. He felt his ears turning red. “Is this one of those deals where I tell you everything and you don’t tell me jack?”

Minh switched off the recorder and offered a thin smile. “What did you come here to find out?”

“Was the dead guy a local?”

“We haven’t decided yet. It’s difficult. So many of the refugees don’t carry proper identification.”

“Eddie Vo’s friend talked about Stanley last night. Stanley who?”

“Smith. He’s connected to the university, popular with the gang boys. He’s one of those academics who thinks he knows everything — useful at times. We’ve already questioned him.”

Frye hesitated. “Then yeah... she got into the sky okay.”

“With the usual assortment of tapes?”

“I don’t know how usual they were.”

Minh considered. “Your brother is a difficult man to deal with. He offers us little; his answers are short and often unsatisfactory. He behaves, in my opinion, like a man with things to hide.”

I’ve got things going backwards here, thought Frye. Find out what you can about John Minh. “ I wouldn’t know.”

The detective dumped his pad and pen, answered the phone, listened, and hung up. He scribbled something on his blotter.

“What’s lại cái?”

“Homosexual.”

“What about the writing on the mirror?”

Minh’s pale-blue eyes narrowed. “That’s tampering with a police investigation.”

“I didn’t touch it.”

“You were a reporter once? That’s about what I’d expect from one of you.”

“I go with my strengths.”

“How would you like to take them to jail with you?”

Minh leaned back in his chair, an expression of appraisal on his face. He answered his phone, listened again, said he would be right there. “You don’t spend much time in Little Saigon, Frye. I know, because I do. I’m there. This is the situation. Everything in Little Saigon can be dangerous, every whisper and every move. People get shot for saying the wrong thing. There is much extortion and robbery. My personal opinion is that you should stay out of the affairs of the Vietnamese. My American half tells me you’re a nice guy. My Vietnamese half tells me that you are easily taken advantage of. If you have something to prove, you should prove it somewhere else. The best thing you can do for Li is to keep out of the way of my investigation.”

I’ve heard that before, Frye thought. He rose, feeling impaled by Minh’s sixth sense, glad to be free of his calmly prodding eyes. “My sister-in-law got kidnapped, and my brother’s hurting bad. Sucker or not, I’m going to do what I can to get her back. I learned a long time ago what happens when you do nothing.”

Minh stood. “I appreciate your coming here. If you have more information, please come again. It’s possible that I might be able to pass certain things back in your direction. I find your brother almost impossible to deal with, but you are not like him. We both want the same thing here.”

Frye stepped into the hallway. The man waiting to see Minh stood up and took a briefcase from beside the chair. He was bigger than he looked in the video, or through the binoculars at Lower Mojave Airstrip. He walked past Frye like he wasn’t there.

When Red Mustache was inside Minh’s office, Frye came back down the hallway, took a seat, bent down, untied his shoe and listened.

“Paul DeCord.”

“John Minh. You have about two minutes.”

“I have as long as I need, Detective.”

Minh’s hand appeared from the doorway. Frye didn’t bother to look up. The door closed. He finished with his shoelace, stood and walked out.

From a pay phone at the station he called his brother’s house and got nothing. Bennett’s secretary at work said he hadn’t been in all day. Hyla said he’d left at four.

Ronald Billingham was underwhelmed to see Frye walk into the Ledger offices. The editor eyed him from his glass-encased office. Frye grabbed a fresh copy of the day’s paper. The reporters acknowledged him with caution: such is the aura of the once-employed. Fingers tapped keyboards, monitors offered their dull green glows, a wire machine chattered in the one corner. Frye waved like a politician to no one in particular, then ducked into the morgue. He was halfway through the MASTER CHORALE — MUDWRESTLING file when Carole Burton burst in, all silk and perfume. She gave him a robust hug.

“Ronald’s going to kick you right out,” she said.

“I know.”

“Sure is good to see you, Chuck. How’s the family taking it?”

“Oh, just fine.” He slipped Minh’s clip file into his morning paper and folded it shut.

“Good God, I didn’t just see that,” Carole said.

“See what, Carole?”

Billingham strode in, shook Frye’s hand, and asked him to leave. He was a soft, fungoid man who always seemed ashamed of himself, especially when he smiled. He made the most of his minor authority. “You don’t have any business here, Chuck. I’m sorry.” Billingham reddened, looked down.

“As am I. I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to say hello.”

“To the morgue?”

“The memories still run deep.”

“Would you give one of our reporters a comment about last night?”

“No.”

“Get out.”

“Can do. ‘Bye, Carole.”

Billingham watched him leave with a proprietary air, victory written all over his face.

Frye drove down Bolsa and parked a block from Saigon Plaza. So, he thought: Paul DeCord hands Nguyen Hy a briefcase full of money, and DeCord goes to Minh. Who is it, then, that I’m hiding evidence from? DeCord, Minh — or both?

Benny knew the cops would come to his home sooner or later. FBI too. If the payoffs are illegal, that explains why I’ve got the tape. Then where’d the money come from? And where is it going? Maybe Paul DeCord got burned. He wants his money back. But he wouldn’t go to Minh if the payoffs weren’t legit. Did Nguyen rip him off?