T. Parker - Little Saigon

He took the stairs to the Frye Ranch lobby on the third floor. Almost eight, he thought, but still bustling like always. Bennett was notorious for working his people late and paying them well. Erin, the receptionist, looked at Frye while she talked to one caller, punched another call through, and tried to get to still another blinking light at her switchboard.

He nodded in sympathy and walked past her. The property management suite still hummed with activity. Middle management types cruised past with the long strides of the indispensable. As he walked past Development — Industrial/Commercial, Frye noted three shirtsleeved architects hovering over a drawing that was spread out on a table. The division flack, Pincus, blew around Frye and into the executive wing. The walls were decorated with seascapes and occasional full-color photo blowups of Frye surfing choice breaks around the world. He stopped to consider a shot of himself casually executing a risky off-the-lip maneuver on a Sunset Beach monster. He stopped, admired his handiwork for a moment, then walked down the hall toward Bennett’s suite.

The door was shut but he went in anyway. The receptionist’s desk was neatened and vacated for the night. Strange, Frye thought, Benny’s always the last one here. Stepping down the hall, he could hear his brother, speaking loud and clear, as if over a very bad, or very long connection. Frye paused just outside Bennett’s door.

“ Yes ... that’s exactly what we need to know... is Xuan’s itinerary still valid? What about kilometer twenty-one?”

Frye leaned closer.

“ It will leave tonight and be through Honolulu by morning ... tell Kim to listen to the goddamned tapes, will you? Give her my love and courage... ”

The shipment, thought Frye, the supplies from the Lower Mojave Airstrip.

Bennett hung up and Frye pushed through the door. His brother sat on a stool at a drafting table, hovered over a model of the Laguna Paradiso. At work, Bennett dressed in a suit, wore his prosthetics, and used his crutches. Frye looked from his brother to the tiny Laguna Paradiso with its miniature homes, retail centers, hotels, marina, and the trolley designed to take residents down to their own beach without having to walk.

“We’re going to get her back. I can feel it.”

“We got a problem, Benny—”

“It can wait. Now this is from Lansdale again. Michelsen and Toibin won’t talk to me, but Lansdale leaks it to Pop. The gunman wasn’t a local, Chuck. He was from San Francisco. He left there two weeks ago; told his wife he had work in Garden Grove. He was a cook by trade, so I’ve got Arbuckle trying to find a local employer. So whoever put this together used some out-of-town talent. And we’ve finally got something from Eddie’s car. They found one of Li’s fake fingernails under the seat, and she got hold of someone pretty good with it. It had torn skin under it, and type O blood. They’re still looking for medical records on Eddie to type him. Mixed in with the skin were a few splinters of wood. It was ebony, and it was finished with a good lacquer. They think from a club maybe, or a knife. Maybe a gun handle. You see anything like that in his house? Anything at all?”

“No.”

Bennett paused. “Chuck, I need the box I gave you. Bring it by in the morning, before eight.”

Frye took a deep breath. “I don’t have it. It was stolen out of my place yesterday afternoon.”

“No. Say that isn’t true.”

“It’s true.”

Bennett looked at him. Frye could sense the rage percolating inside his brother. Then Bennett took a deep breath. “Of course it is. Explain.”

Frye told him of the Dark Men, Denise’s drug-hazed account, how it had been corroborated by Loc. “He’s sure it was General Dien’s limo. Do you know a Lawrence who looks like that?”

Bennett shook his head. For a long moment he stared down at the miniature replica of the Paradiso. Then he climbed off the stool, steadied himself on his crutches, and swung past Frye into the hallway. He stopped and looked back. “Come on, Chuck,” he said. “Go home. Stay home. Just stay away. You can do that much for me, can’t you?”

The Tuys’ home was small and neat, on a quiet cul-de-sac two blocks north of Saigon Plaza. A hedge of hibiscus ran along the front. Frye thought of his ill-fated tryst with the Mystery Maid, which culminated beneath just such greenery outside his own house. He thought too of the Lower Mojave Airstrip, and of the quiet presence of Tuy Xuan as he sat in the barren terminal with his computer. Cases of tapes. Crates of arms and legs. DeCord taking pictures of it all, and Bennett tracking it from his office phone. Frye went through a gate and down a walkway to the front door.

Tuy Xuan greeted him with a controlled smile, and offered his hand. His eyes were magnified by thick glasses. “I am very glad you are here,” he said. “Please come into my house.”

When Frye called him Mr. Tuy, the man shook his head. “You call me Xuan,” he said.

Madame Tuy and the four daughters were sitting in the living room. Xuan introduced them from the oldest down: Hanh, Tuoc, Nha, and Lan. Nha brought Frye a beer, stared straight into his face for a brief moment, and then looked away. He could see a little of the parents in each girl, the fine skin and lovely deep eyes. Nha was the tallest and most assured. Her grace was easy — half a woman’s, half a girl’s. Lan was toylike, diminutive, perfect. The two older sisters, Hanh and Tuoc, had permed their hair and wore blouses and jeans. Nha joined her father and Frye while the others disappeared into the kitchen. Their living room was sparse but tasteful: a lacquer painting of Saigon by the artist Phi Loc, an American sofa, a black enamel coffee table in the Chinese mode. An upright piano stood along one wall. Beside it was a small Buddhist shrine — a red altar loaded with fruit and prickling with sticks of incense.

Xuan was about to turn off the TV when the newsman announced that the FBI had joined the search for kidnapped singer Li Frye. The agent-in-charge was Albert Wiggins, a blandly handsome man of about forty, who said that finding gang leader Eddie Vo was of foremost importance. He held up a picture of Eddie: big smile, thin neck, a swirl of hair. He pleaded for community involvement. For a moment they all stood, watching in silence.

“Eddie Vo,” said Xuan, “could not do this alone. It is beyond his capacity. He could have been used — he writes her love letters, he is improper — but he takes his boys and storms the Asian Wind like a commando? Your FBI is naïve.”

“It is impossible,” said Nha.

“He is a performer,” said Xuan. “He behaves like a scene from MTV. Our young people, they are so eager to imitate the worst in your society.”

Nha turned off the set at the next commercial. “They’ll find him. Eddie Vo can’t stay invisible for very long. Not in Little Saigon. He will talk. We will be one step closer to Li.”

Frye nodded. “If Eddie didn’t set this up, who did?”

Xuan eyed him placidly. “Enemies of freedom.”

“Enemies of the shipments you make from the Lower Mojave Airstrip?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Why?”

Xuan looked at Frye through his thick glasses, then stood. “Please come with me to my study. Nha, help your mother.”

Frye followed Xuan down the hallway and into a small den. For the first time, Frye noticed that he walked with a slight limp. Xuan shut the door behind them. There was a desk and reading lamp, a sofa, a bookshelf, and a large map of southeast Asia on one wall.

“Some things are best discussed in private, Chuck.”

“I understand.”

Xuan smiled. “When did the war end?”