T. Parker - Little Saigon

Massive reproductions of Thach’s ruined face hung beside those of Li, with DEATH TO THACH emblazoned below in red.

A stage had been built near the center of the plaza, bathed in bright lights and festooned with Vietnamese and American flags. The podium was draped with a sign in both languages: DESTROY COMMUNISM, LIBERATE VIETNAM, FREE LI. Frye studied the backdrop — three versions of Li’s face, all taken from her album covers. He could see Nguyen Hy, sharply dressed in white linen, directing some activity behind the microphone. Beside the stage stood two men in dark suits, their arms crossed. More Feds, Frye guessed. Two others lingered on the far side, another munched distractedly beside a food booth. He spotted Wiggins talking to air NBC reporter. There were rows of chairs set up on the asphalt, but not even half enough, he guessed. Already the booths were surrounded by people buying food. In one booth a bingolike game progressed, with dozens of players studying little cards with numbers on them. The barker was a short man, his stubby arm turning a wire cage filled with numbered cubes, his voice a ceaseless syllabic river.

Strange, he thought, but it’s all so quiet here. Nothing more than a low murmur, and already a couple of thousand people. Most of them wore black. Their faces revealed nothing. They looked joyless but not anguished, full of purpose but without focus, eager with impacted patience. The lights bore down and the people waited.

A young woman slipped past Frye, glancing at him, and he could see the fear — a minor tension was all she gave away — just a flicker in her eyes. The barker pulled another winner. A middle-aged man stepped forward, ticket raised. He received an envelope, then backed again into the crowd. How few of that age you see here, Frye realized: a generation decimated by the war.

He bought skewers of Vietnamese sausage on a bed of noodles, and two oddish, green blocks of gel wrapped in plastic for dessert. The Committee to Free Vietnam booth was busy. Standing outside the office, workers handed out pamphlets, pointing at the collection of Secret-War-zone photographs, taking names and numbers. One of the girls recognized Frye and waved him over.

“You like Vietnamese food?” she asked.

“Real good,” said Frye.

“All the money raised tonight goes to free Li,” she said.

Frye noted the long table set up on the sidewalk. The CFV workers were taking donations, which went directly from the outstretched hands of the Vietnamese into a gray safe. Ones, tens, twenties, a small jade necklace, pearl earrings. An old woman offered fifty cents. Then she stood there with tears running down her face and worked a ring from her finger. She handed it over. “Li Frye,” she said. “ Tự do hay là chết.”

The girl looked at Frye. “She say, ‘Freedom or death.’”

She smiled faintly and pointed out a picture on the CFV display. It showed a fragment of the Secret Army, eight heavily armed men. They appeared to be in the jungle somewhere, a camp perhaps. Frye studied the intensity of their faces, wondering what chance they had. Eighteen years old, he guessed, twenty? What spirit moved them into the jungle, against impossible odds, toward a martyrdom so puny it would be forgotten before their blood was dry? Maybe not, he thought: maybe all these people here would remember. That’s where Li comes in. Keeping the memory alive. The memory tender.

“Secret Army,” she said, still pointing.

“They’re so young.”

“Passion is not for the old. They are in Ben Cat, then in Bien Hoa, then in Saigon itself. No one can find them. They destroyed the bridge at Long Binh ten days ago. After that, they destroyed thirty-seven Communists near Cu Chi. Then, into the jungle, like a panther.”

“How many of them are there?”

“Many. They are feared. They sneak into Saigon to meet with the resistance. They move across the border into Kampuchea. The Khmer Rouge help them, because they hate the Vietnamese. They steal supplies and disappear.”

She looked at him placidly. “For freedom. Please give.”

Frye nodded and dug out twenty bucks. Down to twelve dollars and change, he thought: I gotta get a job. He wandered toward the stage, where Nguyen was making a sound check. Hy looked down, grinned, and pointed to a small trailer parked behind the stage.

Donnell Crawley stood outside it, arms crossed, dark glasses on. He shook Frye’s hand and almost crushed it. “He’s inside,” said Donnell. “Things are going pretty good, I think.”

“I can’t believe the turnout.”

“Didn’t surprise me. These Vietnamese got a lot of heart.”

He found Bennett sitting in the trailer, a cordless telephone on his lap. He was wearing a suit and his prosthetic legs. His crutches leaned against a small refrigerator. Frye sat down. The trailer was hot and the windows were closed.

“What did Burke Parsons say?”

“He told me to lay off or he’d sick his snake on me.”

“He pulled that shit in ‘Nam, too. I hope you agreed.”

Frye nodded.

“Good. How about Lucia? Beaming after her big moment in Washington?”

“Burke did all the talking.”

“I used to think it was Lucia who wore the pants in that family. Now I’m starting to wonder. The dumber Burke plays, the smarter he seems.” Bennett leveled a calm, hateful gaze at Frye. “He’ll never buy into the Paradiso with refugee money, Chuck. I promise you that.”

The telephone buzzed. Bennett raised his hand for silence, breathed deeply, then picked up the receiver.

“Frye.”

A long pause. Bennett looked at him.

“Use Tran Khe, he’s a better driver, and he knows the house, I want word immediately after the pickup. Immediately.”

Frye checked his watch. Bennett wrote something on a notepad that was open on his lap. A minute went by, then two. Bennett sat still, just his chest moving slowly, the telephone held to his ear.

A moment later he hung up. “Thach just left his apartment. In twenty minutes, we’ll have him.”

“Is it Kim you were talking to?”

“Kim is in a safe house outside Saigon, getting it from the field by radio. She codes it out to resistance radio in Trang Bang, then they leapfrog it from village to village, all the way to Cambodia. The Khmer relay to Phnom Penh, where they’ve got telephone to Hong Kong, Our people in Hong Kong have access to secure British lines, and our man in London is good,” Bennett smiled. “He works in a travel agency. The rest is easy — London to New York to San Francisco to here. Pay phones. If the radios are all working right and the operators are good, it takes seven minutes to get word from Kim to me. If one thing goes wrong, it can take hours.”

“Does the CIA listen in?”

“Sure they do. Up until three months ago, we used some of their people for relay. NSA has us wrapped, but it takes time when you use different pay phones at this end. They’ve got us, it just takes a while to find us. They’re an hour behind, at least.”

Nguyen came into the trailer. “On schedule?”

“He’s on schedule, Hy.”

“Any chance I’ll get to make the announcement tonight?”

A sly grin passed over Bennett’s face, but he forced it away. “One step at a time.”

Nguyen nodded, then headed back out for the stage. Frye watched him through the window, shaking hands with Pat Arbuckle, who looked on with an air of bemused superiority. Crawley grasped a huge speaker cabinet to his chest and walked it closer to the stage front. A CBS news crew had cornered Minh, freezing him in bright light. A sound man held a boom over his head while the reporter pressed a microphone to his face. The chairs were already filled, and people without seats were pressing toward the stage for a good view. Willie and Dun entered, surrounded by bodyguards. Albert Wiggins loitered near a noodle stand.