T. Parker - Little Saigon

“Their only fight writer hates the sport. Papers don’t pay enough attention to boxing anyway.”

Burke tipped back his hat and shook his head slowly. “You can say that again, Chuck. It’s the only game around that amounts to much fun anymore. I read every one of your ditties. You gave a damn about the sport, and it showed.”

“Well, thanks.”

Burke took off his hat and smiled at Cristobel. Frye watched his eyes stray to her neck, then back up again. “Cristobel. Spanish name?”

“My father was German, my mother Mexican.”

“One helluva interesting combo,” said Burke.

Lucia was about to say something to Frye when three women closed in around her, offering their hands, introducing themselves.

Edison shook his head. “Everywhere she goes it’s like that. They mob her.”

How do you know? Frye thought.

“I got to thinking about your job, Chuck,” said Burke. “Your pop here filled me in. And I’ll be damned if I don’t know that Mack character. I come to so many of these fights, I couldn’t help but run across him. Tough little pecker. Didn’t surprise me at all he got his panties in a bunch like that.”

“I’d sure like to talk to him. That’s why I came.”

“Well, he’s here most of the time. Don’t see him tonight, though. Might try his office up on floor eight. Elite something.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Rollie?” Burke smiled, first at Frye, then at Cristobel “Shorter than you, gray hair, fifty or so. Just a regular sort of fella.”

“If you see him, tell him I’d really like to talk.”

“Sure enough.”

Lucia introduced Frye to Paul DeCord, who offered a friendly smile as they shook hands. Frye saw an alertness in the eyes, behind the glasses that sat crookedly on his nose. But there’s something about that face, Frye thought, that tells you it’s got nothing to hide. Not the same face he wore to his drops with Nguyen Hy. Or the one he brought to the Lower Mojave Airstrip.

“You’re a writer, I hear,” said Frye.

DeCord chuckled. “I’m doing some research on the refugee community for Health and Human Services. So I do my share of writing.”

“Photography, too?”

“Occasionally.”

Frye considered. “I guess you know Stanley Smith.”

“I’m familiar with his work. My own has a completely different focus.”

“Are you interested in the MIAs?”

DeCord looked over Frye’s shoulder, then refocused on his face. “On a personal level only. Burke and Lucia are just good friends. Are you?”

“At this point, Li’s my main MIA.”

“I can understand that,” said DeCord.

Frye watched his father watch Lucia. Something like pride showed on his face, something like dumb admiration. The last time Frye had seen Edison look that way, it was at his favorite spaniel.

Edison caught him, mid-study. He smiled, a little sheepishly.

“Take a walk with me, will you, Pop? We should talk.”

Frye excused himself from Cristobel, already the target of Burke Parsons’s attentions.

They left the ballroom and took the walkway toward the swimming pool. Edison held open the gate. The pool was huge and elaborately shaped, with deck chairs around it and a bunch of kids splashing in the shallow end. Frye watched branches of light and shadow spread and wobble along the bottom. Edison sat on a chaise lounge.

“Well, I guess that was one helluva scene you and Tuy Nha walked in on last night.”

“Right up there with the worst of them, Pop. Is there any more news about Li?”

Edison shook his head and loosened his necktie.

“Would you tell me if there was?”

His father looked at him, checked his watch. “I see what happens when you get involved in your brother’s business, son.”

“What do I have to do? Bring Li to Frye Island on a Rose Parade float?”

“You’d probably steer it into the bay.”

“And let her drown, like I let Debbie drown. Right?”

Edison stood up. “That’s horseshit, Chuck, Not me, not your mother, nobody ever said that.”

“It’s what you believed though, isn’t it?”

Edison stood before him, nose-to-nose. “What in hell’s wrong with you?”

“I’m locked out.”

“You’re nothing you haven’t asked for.”

“What I’m asking now is to be let back in.”

“You got off in Chicago, Chuck, and the train kept going to New York.”

Frye stepped back, looked out to the pool. “Who’s Paul DeCord? And don’t tell me he works for Health and Human Services. He’s taking pictures of Benny, visiting Minh, and sitting with you.”

Edison glared at him. “I just met the sonofabitch myself, son. He’s a friend of Lucia’s, and he’s a Fed researcher, for chrissakes. What do you mean, taking pictures of Benny?”

“You know about the medical supplies Bennett sends over?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, DeCord’s documenting it. What I’m telling you now is to be careful what you say. I don’t know who the hell this guy is, and neither do you.”

Edison shook his head, the same way he did twenty years ago when Frye had started up the family station wagon and driven it through the garage door. He checked his watch. “I don’t want to miss the main event. Heavyweights.”

“Where’s Mom tonight?”

“She canceled last minute, Chuck. Wasn’t feeling up to it.”

“What are you doing here?”

Edison looked at him, a long cool stare. “Lucia’s a major investor in the Paradiso, and this is a chance to talk strategy. I’ve got better things to be doing right now, but we made the date a month ago. You have a problem with that?”

“Yeah. You got my old seat. It’s the best one in the house.”

Edison turned and walked back through the gate, letting it slam behind him.

In the main event, a Nigerian heavyweight lost a close decision to a big kid from San Diego. The Nigerian left the ring in a tiger-print robe. Frye was certain that no tigers lived in Nigeria. He watched the boy from San Diego parade around the ring after, toothlessly demanding Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson would knock you out before you got off your stool, Frye thought. He watched through the binoculars, but the fight seemed less compelling than Lucia, Burke, DeCord, and Edison. Just after the ninth round, they left their seats and trailed up the aisle. His father walked closely behind Lucia, and Frye thought: He looks like a dog.

“You got quiet after that walk with your dad,” said Cristobel.

“You don’t have much leverage on the topic of quiet.”

“That’s pretty romantic for a first date.”

“You want a romance, buy one at the market.”

“You can be a real prick, can’t you?”

“It’s genetic. Come on, I want to see if Rollie Dean Mack is up in his suite now.”

They took the elevator to the eighth floor. Frye led her around the corner and down the long hallway. He knocked, tried the door, and knocked again.

“Not your night with this Mack guy,” Cristobel said.

They had just started for the elevator when Frye heard Edison’s laughter booming up the stairwell behind them. He stopped and peered around the corner. Lucia Parsons climbed the last few steps, Edison behind her. They made their way to the Elite Management suite and Lucia opened the door with a key. She took Edison by the arm and led him in.

“Not what you wanted to see, exactly?”

“No.”

“Maybe it’s not what it looks like.”

“Nothing much is these days.”

“Let’s go home, Chuck.”

They walked along the beach near Cristobel’s old blue apartment. The moon hovered through the palms of Heisler Park and the black water was smooth and glittery. Close to shore, waves dissipated into phosphorous-purple suds.