Little Mountain (33 page)

         When Fitchie left, Sam felt dizzy, as though the room were swirling, closing in, collapsing on him. DeVito stuck his head through the doorway.

         “The fuck you doin’?” he said.

         Sam steadied himself with one hand on a cabinet. “Paperwork,” he said. “Can you help me?”

         “’Bout time somebody got these files fixed up,” DeVito said. “Better you than me, man.”

         “Look, I just need--”

         “I don’t think so,” DeVito said, and left the room.

         Sam took a deep breath, coughed on the dust, and began moving cabinets a couple of feet from the cinder-block wall. Loose papers and folders lined the base of the wall. What did we need filing cabinets for, anyway, just dump every fingerprint record on the floor?
Every rap sheet?
Every--

         And there it was, a battered manila folder, the name CHEA, BIN typed across the tab in capital letters. Inside was the set of prints taken off the corpse at Bin Chea’s apartment, and a fax from the
FBI.

         Wilkins had lied; the prints didn’t match.

         They belonged to Khem Chhap.

         That’s what had seemed odd about Chea’s apartment. An unopened pack of menthol cigarettes but no ash trays, no butts, no
smell of cigarette smoke
in the apartment. Chhap was probably lured to Bin Chea’s place and shot.

         But where did Viseth Kim’s killing fit into this picture? The victim was alive, and the killer was dead. A dozen Battboys should have been questioned right after Julie was shot. If the victim had been Wilkins’ wife--or better yet, his girlfriend--the entire force would have been on the case.

         He went home and called Julie to tell her about the unlisted number. Her voice was soft and sleepy. “I’ve been thinking about you,” she said. “When are you coming up to the cabin? We miss you.”

         “I miss you, too. I don’t know how long this will be,” Sam said. “Fitchie and I made good progress tonight. I just hope we can settle it soon and get back to normal.”

         There was a long silence on the line.
“Normal.
Whatever that is,” she finally said. “You get yourself some sleep now.”

         Sam hung up feeling bone tired but wide awake, the way he’d been at Little Mountain after fourteen hours pulling a wagon or hacking with a hoe. Knowing that alertness might keep him alive as he slipped away to steal mangoes from the orchard. It was about time he interviewed some Battboys.

        
Informally.

         He got into his car and drove to Mersey Street, where he parked alongside a darkened curb about fifty yards from a street light. Across the street and two houses down was the tenement where Viseth Kim had lived. The sidewalk was empty. He reached inside the front door and turned off the porch light, then settled down in the darkness to wait for Vanney Lek.

         Soon two dark figures came around the corner at the end of the block. They embraced and separated; one walked up a flight of porch stairs while the other walked back around the corner. About ten minutes later, loud music blared out of a car that rumbled down the street. It disappeared into a driveway, leaving a red glow from the parking lights. The music grew louder,
then
stopped. Three shadows slipped out the end of the driveway in three separate directions.

         Vanney Lek stopped at the curb and lit a cigarette, a yellow glow inside his cupped hands. At the front door, Sam grabbed his arm. Vanney jumped.

        
“Sh-h-h.
No noises, Vanney, you’ll wake the neighbors. We’ve got to talk.”

         “Officer Long--”

        
“Detective.”

         “I’m sorry, detective, I don’t have time.”
Pleading in his voice, probably a little fear.
Good.

         “I’m not asking. Get in my
car,
I’ll buy you a donut.”

         A few minutes later, they sat in a booth in the Dunkin’ Donuts across town. “What happened to Viseth Kim?” Sam asked.

         Vanney squirmed in the plastic seat, his donut untouched. He removed a cigarette from behind his ear. “If people find out I’m talking to you--”

         “Look, Vanney, you’re a good guy. You know some Battboys, but I won’t judge you by your friends.”

         “What happened to your wife, I feel bad.”

         “Don’t make me repeat myself. What happened to Viseth Kim?”

         “I can’t believe this. You care more about that asshole than your old lady--”

         Sam wanted to throw hot coffee in Vanney’s face. “Last chance,” he said.

         The cigarette shook in Vanney’s hand. “He had a fat mouth, enjoyed telling girls he had the biggest cock in Lowell. His mother was completely ashamed of him.”

        
“And?”

         And his hands slid up a lot of skirts. I think somebody’s boyfriend--”

         “Don’t insult me, Vanney. This wasn’t about sex.”

         Vanney stubbed his unlighted cigarette in the ashtray. “Actually, we thought you did it. After the coward shot your wife--”

         “You’re full of shit, Vanney.”

         Vanney shrugged and stared out the window at the traffic. It had started to pour, and rain streaked their reflections in the plate glass.

         “Maybe your friends would like to know we’ve been talking,” Sam said.

         “They’d cut my balls off.”

         “That’s fine with me. You can find your own way home.” Sam stood and pulled up the zipper on his jacket, but Vanney grabbed his sleeve.

         “Wait. Huon was laughing about a cassette tape he heard the other night. Viseth was on it, begging for his life.”

         They walked out to the car, Vanney finishing what was left of his donut and wiping his hands on his pants. This tape might have been what Sam had heard on the phone. Was this supposed to be a favor to Sam, punishing Julie’s attacker? Not damn likely. This sounded like
Angka’s
work. Sam’s face felt hot, and he opened the window a crack to let in some fresh air.

         “Did he make the tape?” Sam asked.

         Vanney ignored the question.

        
“Vanney?”

         “I’ve already told you too much, so fuck you.”

         Fine, if that was the way Vanney felt. Sam drove through the center, past the
Lowell Sun
building, and crossed the bridge that took them north toward New Hampshire. It would be a long fall from the bridge to the rocks in the Merrimack River below them, but Sam put that thought out of his mind.

         “
You taking
me home?” Vanney asked. “This isn’t the way.”

         “I asked you a question back there, Vanney.”

         “Because you can drop me off, you
know,
a couple of blocks from my house and I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

         Sam would let him walk, all right. They motored down the boulevard that paralleled the opposite side of the Merrimack. By the time Sam pulled the car onto a soft shoulder they were well out of town, and the river was out of sight. The streetlamps reflected on the pavement as the rain fell in a steady downpour. Vanney could wear off a lot of shoe leather between here and home.

         “Where the hell are we?” Vanney asked. No car had passed them in either direction for several minutes. “This is the ass end of nowhere!”

         “You’re about ten miles from home,” Sam said. “You tell me what you know right now, or you get out and walk. You should make it home by daybreak, unless someone picks you up or runs you down. You know the way, right? So get out, enjoy the rain. Go on!”

         “Then fuck yourself, I’m going!”

         Vanney stepped out just in time to stick out his thumb at a set of headlights heading toward them. The car hit a puddle at full speed and sent an arc of water into Vanney’s face. Vanney wiped his face with his arm and began walking south. Windshield wipers swished back and forth as Vanney’s watery image disappeared down the empty road. Sam kept his pity in check for a few minutes,
then
pulled his Dodge back onto the road. He slowed at the sight of Vanney in the high beams; the kid was soaked and shriveled, and he looked like a hitchhiking rat.

         Sam pulled alongside Vanney, who looked ready to talk. Vanney opened the passenger door and got back in. There was no need to tell him he’d been thumbing for a ride in the wrong direction.

         “Huon didn’t make the tape,” Vanney said, “he just listened to it, anyway that’s what he claims.” He wrapped his arms around himself, and steam rose from his body just as it would from fresh ox dung.

         “Who do the Battboys work for?” Sam asked.

         “We don’t work for nobody. Poor Viseth--”

         “Battboys
are
nobody. You’re the shit on Bin Chea’s shoe.”

         Vanney looked up, startled to hear the name. “Isn’t--isn’t he the guy who got shot in the face?”

         No, he wasn’t, but Sam didn’t want to say so. Bin Chea had set someone else up to die in his place. Comrade Bin must have thought that if he was dead he could rule
Angka
forever. Did he remember Sam from Little Mountain? Was that why Bin tried to torment him with the phone call?
All these years and I still rule your life.

         “You tell me,” Sam said. “Is Bin Chea the man you work for?”

         “The man’s dead.” Vanney tried to light a cigarette without success, and flung the pack out the window. “I’m not saying anything that’ll send me to jail.
Fuckin’ wet cigarettes.
I’m fuckin’ soaked to the skin.”

         “Who killed your friend Viseth?”

         “I wasn’t there, how should I know?”

         “Look, this is just between us. Viseth is dead, and I have no problem with that. If Huon did it, maybe I want to thank him.” Sam reached into his wallet and pulled out a ten--all he had left--and offered it to Vanney.

         Vanney looked at the rumpled bill with contempt, but snatched it from Sam anyway. “This doesn’t buy you anything,” he said.

         “Understood,” Sam said. “It’s for dry cigarettes. But if you help me now, I’ll make it worth your while.”

         “You mean if I’m caught someplace I don’t belong--”

         “Then I won’t shoot you. If I see a little help here, I’ll put in a good word. Very quietly, so they don’t know it on the street.”

         “Viseth wasn’t my friend.”

         “Wasn’t
mine
, either. Who did us the favor?”

         “I don’t know his name.”

         “Describe him, then.”

         Vanney looked as though Sam had asked him to recite Shakespeare. “A regular Cambodian,” he said.

        
“How old?”

        
“Thirty or forty, who knows?”

        
“Taller than me, or not?”

         “I’m not sure. Taller?”

         Sam was getting annoyed. He was fighting off sleep, and this Battboy was going to make him work for every detail. Sam heard himself asking about scars, distinguishing features, clothes, quirks, but the damn kid didn’t seem to remember much. It was time to give it up for the night. All he wanted now was to go home and go to sleep.