T. Parker - Little Saigon

Cristobel held his hand. “Is there another way to find this Mack character?” she asked.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“I know it’s none of my business, but maybe you ought to try something different. A different paper, maybe. Let that Mack guy have his way and just get yourself a better job. You know, like play in a bigger league.”

“I got some résumés out, but it’s tough when all the publishers know what happened. He made me look bad.”

“Is that the only place he works? I mean, doesn’t Elite Management have an office or something else somewhere?”

“Newport. He’s never in. The girl who works there said she’d call me if he ever shows.”

They walked north, toward Rockpile. Frye watched a steady stream of cars heading out of the city, climbing the grade on Coast Highway.

“Let me know if I can help,” she said. “I’m good at résumés.”

“It just really pisses me off.”

“Your dad and Lucia?”

“Not so much Lucia, just... the whole thing.”

“I take it there’s some space between you.”

“A whole lot of it. I guess it’s been getting wider the last few years. Talking to him — it’s like trying to yell across an ocean to someone.”

“Have you done what you can to get through?”

“I suppose I could have stayed closer. More involved. I just kind of spun out for a while, lost contact. I’ve never been interested in the family business. That’s all Bennett and Dad now. Maybe Pop took it a lot more personal than I did.”

“Well, when a father works hard, he likes to share it. If you had better things to do, maybe he felt... like you didn’t need him.”

They walked up the zigzag stairway to the park. The path was lined with rosebushes and the grass was trimmed neatly around them. Frye led her to the gazebo that looks to the west. “I got married here,” he said.

“That’s nice.”

He looked down the ragged cliff to the rocks below, shining with ocean spray. The water hissed up the sand toward them, stopped just short, then receded.

“Miss her?”

“Yeah.”

“Going to patch it up?”

“I don’t think it’s patchable.”

“Things end. Things start.”

“There was a lot of damage. I wonder why we beat up on the people we love so much.”

“Our cages are too small.”

They sat on a bench by a cypress tree. Cristobel lay her head on Frye’s shoulder. For a while he thought she was dozing.

“It was a little over a year ago when it happened,” she said quietly. “Went to a party, had a fight with a man, and stormed out. I was a little drunk. Three blocks to walk in Long Beach — that was all. Next thing I knew, it was four men, a gun, and a car.”

Frye heard the waves crashing below.

“They took me out to a field. When it was over, I remember lying there and looking up at this big oil thing going up and down. One of those giant grasshoppers. It smelled bad. I hurt and I was freezing cold. I got my things back on and started walking, I found this workman in a shed. Big fat guy, smoking a cigar. He wrapped me up in some big towels and put me on a cot. The cops came and did their thing.”

“And they caught them?”

“Two hours later. They put one away and the others walked. The trial was bad. I felt unclean, and that made it worse. I got up to four showers a day, but they didn’t help. You can’t wash your mind with soap and water. Not a day goes by, not an hour, when I don’t think about lying there with the oil machine pumping away over me. I wake up and the first thing I wonder is: Am I going to make it through this day without re-living that night again? Funny, because as soon as you ask that, you’ve already failed. And I swear, Chuck, I swear I’ve seen those other three. They’re in the same car — an old Chevy — and they cruise Coast Highway in front of my apartment. I’ve seen them three times in the last month. I’m sure of it.”

“You tell the cops?”

“They say there’s no law against driving Coast Highway. They think I’m paranoid. The funny part is, I am.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“So if I’m weird, please bear with me a little. If you don’t want to, I don’t blame you. But if you buy the ticket, you ought to know what the ride’s like.”

They stood for a while on the sand below her apartment. Frye held her close and could feel her heart beating against his chest. Her hair smelled like rain. Her mouth found his, and she was more assured now, eager. She put both her hands on his face and locked him in. She sucked out his breath. Frye gave her all he had. A moment later she was walking up the stairs toward her door. Frye stood and waited, but she never looked back.

Bennett was sitting on his couch when Frye walked in. Donnell Crawley stood in the corner, looking at one of Frye’s surfboards. “Your security stinks, little brother. No wonder my tape got stolen.”

“I told you I’m sorry about that—”

“Forget the tape, Chuck. We’ve got bigger problems now. I played a hunch on the black hood the gunman was wearing. I checked the yardgoods stores in town and found a lady who’d sold a piece of black cotton to a man, eight days ago. She was terrified. Donnell leaned on her a little. She’d seen the guy before. Twenty years before, near Nha Trang. He was Dac Cong — Communist Special Forces.”

“Jesus.”

“Pop got Wiggins to let her view the body. Bingo. It was the same guy who bought the fabric.”

“From Vietnam to San Francisco to Little Saigon. One of Thach’s men?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. The FBI’s doing a background check on him but it will take a while. They’re not in any goddamned hurry to share with us.”

Crawley sat down with Bennett. Frye went to the window and looked out. The traffic on Laguna Canyon Road hissed along, tourists heading inland with genuine Laguna art. “I talked to Wiggins about Thach. The colonel’s a prisoner in his own apartment right now. His bosses don’t trust him.”

“I got the same intelligence.”

“Do you believe it?”

“No. But my sources need a few days to look into it.”

“Wiggins talked down the whole Hanoi angle anyway.”

“No one in the government will listen to that, Chuck. Not with Lucia Parsons getting Hanoi friendly enough to talk about POWs. Not with a city full of refugees ready to panic at the mention of his name. They want to be real sure before that can of worms gets opened.”

“Do you really think he’s behind it?”

“I don’t have any proof either. It’s easy for people to make it look that way.”

“Why do that?”

“Terror is a tool. I learned that well enough.”

Frye considered this. “Has she called again, Benny?”

“No word. Nothing, The FBI ran the voice print yesterday and it was definitely Li on the phone.”

“What about the other voice?”

“Male Oriental, middle-age. Not a native speaker. That’s all they could say.”

“Benny, I read the story that Li told Smith. About Lam and you and her. Three bottles of French champagne on your... picnics. And three bottles of champagne on her stand in the dressing room.”

Bennett heaved off the couch and swung over to Frye. “Get down here, Chuck. Get down to my level.”

“No way.”

Bennett glared up at him. “I’m going to tell you something. These stumps I’m standing on aren’t the worst thing I brought home from Nam. The worst is up in my head, and that’s just where I’m going to keep it. You can’t pry into me. Don’t even try. The war is nobody’s business but my own. Not yours, not Pop’s... nobody’s. Someone’s fucking with my head, Chuck, Don’t you start, too.”

“They’re trying to make you remember Lam, aren’t they?”