T. Parker - Little Saigon

Another pause. “What the hell’s that mean?”

“If we could all like... pull together.”

“Been drinking again?”

“We’ll talk later, Pop.”

Edison slammed down the receiver.

Frye sucked in his breath and called Bennett, but one ring later, he hung up.

After dinner, Madame Tuy and two of her daughters rushed out to go to the movies. Xuan said he had work to do.

Nha took Frye on a walk around Little Saigon. The night was warm and filled with the smells of the restaurants, the chiming rush of Vietnamese.

The shop signs glowed brightly, the cars bustled in and out, and everyone seemed to know Nha. She introduced him diligently, but Frye was bad enough at American names. It was a pleasure just to watch her, this woman-child, filled with a beauty she scarcely knew she had.

Frye noted that she kept her distance from him, and that when their arms brushed against each other, hers would shrink away. But in the shop windows, between the flyers and posters, he could see her looking at him. Curiosity, he wondered — gratitude, interest? She told him of her studies, the books she was reading, the friends she had made. She kept asking about newspaper work. He told her what he knew, and insisted that she never write about boxers or fixed fights. When she smiled, Frye felt happy. “I could never do that as well as you,” she said.

“Don’t even try.”

Nha bought him a red silk rose in thanks, she said, for saving her father’s life.

“I didn’t do anything but yank him down, Nha. Really.”

“It was enough. He could have taken a bullet. We’ve come too far for that to happen.”

For a brief moment, Nha put her arm in his. When a friend drove past them and honked, she took it out. “I’m not sure what to do with myself,” she said finally. “In Vietnam, young people who are not married do not expose themselves.”

“It’s a little more liberal here.”

“Are you ashamed?”

“I’m proud.”

They stopped at Paris Cafe. The coffee was strong and black and sweet. Nha studied him over her cup. “American women are so confident. So... aggressive.” She looked at him and, under the table, touched her hand to his. “What am I? I don’t know. I’m not sure who I am or what I am.”

Frye saw a young man hustling down the sidewalk, a shopping bag clutched in his hand. He was wearing sunglasses and a fedora, moving fast. “You’re Tuy Nha, That’s enough, if you ask me. You know that guy?”

Nha looked, shook her head. “You Americans are so simple sometimes. Kind. But simple. And bold.”

“We’ve got home field advantage.” Frye watched the kid move past the cafe, shifting his bag from left hand to right. The hat was pulled down over his face. Where have I seen that walk?

“Can I say I desire to know you?”

“Only if you mean it.”

“Then what do I do?”

“Shit.”

“What?”

“ It’s Eddie.”

As Frye stood, he saw Eddie’s fedora rotate briefly in his direction. Vo broke into a run.

Frye jumped up, over the railing, and ran through a crowd on the sidewalk. The hat weaved ahead of him.

He veered into the parking lot for a clean line of pursuit and was nearly flattened by an Oldsmobile. Ahead of him, Eddie cut through the shoppers, his left hand raised, steadying his hat. He dodged into a gift shop.

Frye ran in, took one look around and barged his way past a protesting clerk to the back room. The door was open. Vo fled down the alleyway, knocking over a trash can, looking back over his shoulder.

Frye jumped the trash can and watched Eddie sprint through the back door of another store. He followed. Two steps into the shop, he realized he’d been had.

Whatever it was that Eddie had picked up now slammed into the back of his head. Frye lurched forward and caught himself on a cleaning bucket with wheels, which rolled away and left him face-down on a hard floor. Water sloshed out, splattering over his arms. He rolled onto his back in time to see Eddie jumping over him, the police handcuffs still locked to one wrist.

Frye reached up and caught an ankle. Vo crashed down, twisting and kicking like a roped calf. His hat flew off.

Frye tried to right himself and drag Eddie toward him, but there was no purchase on the wet floor. Vo struggled and kicked harder. Frye clamped onto Eddie’s leg as hard as he could, but he could feel it slipping through his hand.

He got a handful of sock, then a pinch of cuff, then nothing but his fingers digging into his own palm as Eddie scrambled up and hurled himself toward the store front.

Frye finally righted himself in the soapy water and wobbled to the storefront. Out the door and back into the plaza, he could see Eddie making an all-out dash across the parking lot. Straight — Frye guessed — for the Dream Reader.

He followed, turned a corner, and burst through her door a few seconds later.

She just sat and looked at him, apparently bored.

“Where’s Eddie?”

“Eddie who?”

Frye threw open the door and went into the back room. A bed. A refrigerator. A Chinese calendar, a poster of Li, a small radio.

Vo wasn’t under the bed, and he wasn’t in the tiny bathroom. He looked up, he looked down, he went back to the front room and looked at the Dream Reader.

“Where’d he go?”

“Eddie who?”

“ Eddie Vo, goddamn you!”

“Eddie Vo. He run fast by the window. I saw him. That way.” She pointed.

Nha spilled in, her eyes wide.

Frye kicked open the door and ran along the shops. Nha trailed behind him. When he came to the end of the sidewalk he jumped the cinderblock wall and looked out to the drainage ditch that ran behind the plaza. Moonlight wavered on the brackish water. The field was laced with power poles.

There was silence and darkness, and nothing moved.

He climbed back down, panting. “It was Eddie.”

“Are you all right?”

“Goddamn that little prick. How can he just disappear like that?”

“He’s just faster than you are.”

“You’re one helluva big help, Nha.” Frye’s breath came in gasps.

“If he’s gone, he’s gone. Come with me. Minh will be here soon and you’ll be in trouble again.”

“No.”

Frye went back to the Dream Reader and asked to use the telephone. She was sitting at her small round table, as always, it seemed, watching the people pass her storefront.

Frye couldn’t get Minh, so he told the Watch Commander that Eddie Vo was back in Saigon Plaza. He called Frye Island and told his father, who rang off immediately to call the FBI and Pat Arbuckle. There was no answer at Bennett’s house.

The back of Frye’s head was moaning in pain. He felt the lump with his fingertips. “Let’s get out of here, Nha.”

“Climb the wall and we’ll cut through the field. You don’t want to be around if Minh comes.”

Nha unlocked the front door of her house and let them in. Standing under the bright kitchen lights, she examined the back of Frye’s head, which she termed “battered.” She wrapped ice in a towel and held it to his throbbing skull. “No one is here but my father. Let me see if hell look at it — he’s knowledgeable about wounds.”

Frye sat in the living room while Nha went to the study.

A second later, he heard it.

The scream was high, full of comprehended terror. It was loud enough to sink into his bones.

He burst into the study to a vision so obscene he could only believe that he was dreaming.

Nha was on her knees, bowing to the floor and rising as if in worship. Her scream had risen in pitch to a keening that could come only from the darkest region of her heart.

Xuan sat on the couch, just as he had a few hours before, hands crossed on his lap, knees apart. His head was six feet away, resting on the desk blotter, glasses still on and eyes barely open, as if trying to read the small print. It looked as if his body had been dipped in a vat of blood.