No Good to Cry (17 page)

At one point Lana left the storefront, but returned with a paper bag, a two-liter bottle of Coke tucked under her arm. Two or three anonymous boys left, sullen youngsters who plowed their gangland way through clusters of old women with shopping carts filled with lemongrass and soymilk. A kid walked in, almost a jaunty skip to his walk. But largely the storefront was quiet.

Late in the afternoon a car turned the corner and parked close to the entrance, its front wheels up on the cracked sidewalk. I poked Hank. “Look.”

The massive white guy I recalled as T-Boy stepped out, scratched his belly exposed under the T-shirt, lit a cigarette. He looked back toward the street, his eyes searching for something—or someone. His passenger door opened and Frankie Croix's brother, Jonny, slinked out, looking over the roof of the car toward T-Boy. He gestured angrily, and T-Boy, unhappy, gave him the finger and flicked his cigarette over the top of the car. Jonny roared and headed into the storefront, T-Boy close behind him, yelling after him.

“Probably prison buddies,” Hank commented.

“Yeah. But maybe that's how young Frankie came to meet Simon. Here—at the storefront. Hanging out with his older brother. One day little lost Simon comes in for succor.”

Hank grinned. “Succor? More likely a joint. Or maybe Frankie and Simon hung out there first.”

“Unlikely. I don't think a creep like Jonny follows anyone. Frankie hero-worships that piece of goods.”

“Maybe they're having a board meeting this afternoon,” Hank went on. ”Executive chambers.”

I flicked my head toward the street. “Look.”

We hadn't noticed a low-slung Toyota with dark tinted windows pulling up at the corner, five or six car-lengths down from the storefront, idling in a fire hydrant zone. Even from inside the restaurant I could hear the
thump thump thump
of a heavy bass line.

“They just get here?” Hank asked.

I nodded. While we watched, both doors opened. Two Asian men walked out, both peering anxiously at the front right tire. Conferring, evaluating, one kicking the rubber as if to test its air power. One guy said something to the other, who didn't look happy.

“Christ, the guys who picked up Simon and Frankie from the Coffee Pot,” Hank said.

The same two men, one carefully buttoning his black linen sports jacket, adjusting his metallic wraparound sunglasses. The other one was shorter, sporting the same metallic sunglasses. But he wore a white cotton shirt under his black jacket, on his feet, black kung-fu slippers. No socks. Vietnamese, yes, and even from where I watched I could discern a splash of green tattoo across the neck of the taller one. Both stared at the storefront, but didn't move.

Hank and I looked at each other. “Gang members?” he asked.

“Probably, but they're not going inside—no official homage to JD, it seems. A violation?”

“What does it mean?”

“Thugs moving in on JD's territory? Outsiders? Making themselves known? Maybe up from Bridgeport.”

“JD's gonna declare war, Rick.”

They stood next to their car, the music blaring, too loud, making a point. A presence on Russell Street, but something was wrong. Who were they? A New York gang? D.O.A. from Canal Street? The Viet Crips, a bloodthirsty gang, muscling in? A gang known for robbing banks, hitting massage parlors and pool halls. Was JD's world threatened?

I started to say something but abruptly stopped. Scooting around the corner, looking out of breath, Simon and Frankie flew across the street, dodged a Budget rental truck lumbering by, and stopped short next to the Toyota. Frankie called out, “Joey. Diep.” The taller Vietnamese took off his sunglasses, pointed at Frankie, and Frankie threw up his hands in the air. An it-ain't-my-fault gesture. The smaller man pointed to the backseat, and Simon and Frankie tumbled in. The other man hopped into the front seat and the car backed out of the space and squealed off, swerving, in a burst of speed that left a strip of rubber behind. The bass line of some rap song grew louder as the car streamed past the window where I stood. The dark tinted windows hid the occupants.

I looked at Hank. “
Van hoa toc do
.” A life devoted to speed and sensation. The wild life. A candle burning at both its ends. “They believe they can tackle any ghosts they meet.”

“What are you talking about?” From Hank. “I can't believe it—Simon and Frankie with those thugs?”

“That's what JD hinted at, Hank. Another camp, moving in. The young soldiers have no allegiance to him.”

“But they look like hit men.”

“None of this is good,” I said. I looked down the street—the car had disappeared. “None of it.”

Chapter Nineteen

Mike Tran asked me to stop in at his shop the next day. He called from the garage where he worked, machines clanging and hissing behind him. Another mechanic yelling out, the
whop whop whop
of an air gun loosening tire bolts.

“I gotta work overtime, but I wanna touch base with you. You ain't called me.” He must have regretted his sharp tone because his words were followed by a tinny laugh. “I mean, I don't know how you guys work.”

Yes, I told him. I'd stop in the next day at lunchtime.

“Fine.” A wail of noise erupted behind him. The shriek of metal against metal. “I gotta go.” The line went dead.

Mike worked as a grease monkey at Lesso's Auto Body and Repair on Route 6, a three-bay garage connected to a Dunkin' Donuts and an Indian grocery. When I arrived just before noon, he was waiting for me in the small reception room, a paper cup of vending-machine coffee in his hand. He'd rolled up the sleeves of his blue work shirt, a sewn-on name tag identifying him as “Mike.”

“I can't leave,” he said. “But we can get a bite in the back office. Just us.”

I trailed him through the busy garage, cars up on lifts, another with a fender being primed for painting. A chubby man in dungarees and a baseball cap yelled out, “Hey, Mike, you got you a half hour, okay?”

Mike nodded back at him.

We sat on hard-backed chairs in a small room that also held a corner desk covered with work orders. Dixie cups, crumpled-up McDonald's wrappers. A small refrigerator covered with magnets. A wall calendar that featured a rustic covered bridge for the month of April. A pot with coffee so thick it could be classified as tree resin. I shook my head: no thanks. No coffee.

“Wise choice,” he laughed.

He took out two bottles of spring water from the fridge, snapped off the caps. He reached into the back and took out a brown paper bag. “I took the liberty, Rick. I got you the wife's
ban mi.
Okay?”

I nodded.

He handed me the Vietnamese sandwich: a crispy baguette filled with sliced pork, pickled carrots, daikon, and cucumber. “The wife's special,” he commented. “Nothing like it.”

He was right: marinated pork with a rich paté. He watched my face carefully, noting my approval.

“You wanted to talk to me?”

He put down his sandwich, his face folding in.

“Things happening,” he said slowly. “I mean, I read in the
Courant
about that arrest in Little Saigon, that gang thug Mickey Tinh. The cops…they got an eye on that place now. This JD character. The
Courant
said he charms the reporters…”

“You're afraid for Simon?”

He nodded vigorously, his eyes suddenly moist.

“This ain't good, Rick.” A deep intake of breath as he fumbled with the pack of cigarettes in his breast pocket. “Can't smoke in here. Christ. The world we created.” Angry, he looked into my face. “I want you to understand something about my kids.”

“All right.” I waited.

Another intake of breath, a nervous twist of his head. “I think I came off as a bastard when you came to my house that time. With Hank. I think you got the wrong impression of me.”

I held up my hand. “Mike, the impression I got was of a man devoted to his kids.”

A broad smile. “You got that right.” The smile disappeared. “But my wife says I come off too…harsh…like I'm always demanding…judging.”

“Mike, I don't judge you.”

He clicked his tongue. “Sometimes I think everybody else does. Especially my kids. I can't do nothing right by them. All I ever wanted was that they have a life that…ain't like mine.” He made a fist and rapped the table. “This life of grease and oil.”

“You've made a decent life, Mike.”

“Yeah, I got a house, a good wife, good schools.”

“Then what?”

A helpless look covered his face. An explosive bang from the shop—he jumped, stammered, “Shit.” Then, slowly, “It's like I don't understand the world I created. Take Simon. Like he's in trouble. Probably gonna get in more trouble. It's like I don't know who he is anymore. Sixteen now, a dropout. I can't control that…and since coming home from Long Lane he's different. And now this old guy attacked and dying like that and the cops blaming Simon and Frankie. Well, Rick, Simon's
worse
now. He tells me he never wants to go to prison, but he's in the streets, he goes to that VietBoyz place.”

“I know.”

He leaned forward, anxious to say something. “Now the boys are hanging with two older Vietnamese guys. Twice I seen them riding in their car. It's—it's like, I don't know, the boys got brainwashed by these punks. I trailed that car 'cause I seen Simon hop in. They drive around, slow down, here and there, and I start to sweat. Are they gonna rob somebody? With my boy in the backseat? Shit, I almost rammed their car with my truck. I don't say nothing to Simon. He'll flip out. I, well”—he stared into my face—“that's why I talk to you.”

“What do you think of Frankie?”

“You know, when he first brought this kid Frankie to the house, I was happy. Simon never had no friends at school. A scholarship to Kingswood-Oxford but he's lonely there. He got kicked out. Michael and Wilson—they love it there. Well, I think they do. Secrets—they keep secrets from me. So Simon goes to public high school. No friends. Always in his room. Him and Wilson share a room but they're like strangers. Except when they play those goddamned video games and crap like that.”

“Yeah, I know.” For a second he turned away, his lips trembling. “It's okay, Mike.”

He smiled back at me. “This Frankie, yes, a little rough at the edges, a coarse mouth, everything ‘fuck this, fuck that.' Even in front of me and my wife. But I think—okay, a friend. Then I learn Simon met him at the VietBoyz headquarters—Simon says Frankie's older brother hangs there—so I start to worry. But he's always okay with me, quiet-like. It's just the…eyes. They stare at you, like mean and hard. I had a neighbor who had a dog with those eyes. You always kept your distance.”

“And then they got sent to Long Lane.”

His fist hit the edge of the table. A piece of waxed paper slipped to the floor. When I bent to pick it up, he told me, “Leave it, for Christ's sake. I'll never understand that shit. Knocking folks over for the fun of it. Maybe 'cause they smoke weed. Who knows what else? I don't know. It's like I tell Lucy—who are these kids today? You know, Simon was my favorite. I know I shouldn't say that, but he was. The baby who looked like me. A curse, it turned out. Black
bui doi
. Double whammy, no? You and me, right, Rick? But you got you some white blood. You're…halfway home to America.”

“Still and all.”

He watched my face. “All right, all right. It don't matter now. I know I pushed Simon hard—I pushed all the kids hard. Maybe I forgot to smile at them. I
demanded.
You know, that was a mistake, I realize now. Christ, I drove them so that each one found a way to get back at me. With Simon he closed down. Just shut down, like he found the ‘on' switch and clicked it to ‘off.' The more I yelled, the more I pushed his face into books, the more he became…a stone. My fault. I know that now. I only wanted…”

“The best,” I finished. “Nothing wrong with that.”

Fury in his voice. “Yes, there is, as it turns out. That's when he found the streets. Out there”—he pointed through the cement wall toward the outside—“there were assholes that told him to do whatever the fuck he wanted to do.”

“Except listen to you.”

“You got that right. But what I'm telling you, Rick, is that I made a big mistake. I wanted perfection from my kids, and now I know nobody gets perfection in this world. You don't even come close. I punished…imperfection. Everything backfired.”

“Not everything, Mike.”

His voice bitter, “Yes, everything. I made mistakes not knowing they was mistakes. I spanked my boys, Rick, and a teacher spotted it—called DCF on me.” He fumed. “The fucking Department of Children and Families. They warned me, so I stopped. But that's not the way it is—the way I grew up.” A strange smile. “You know what they tell us—If you don't love your kids, give them candy. If you do love then, take the stick to them. Rick, I
love
my kids.”

“I know that, Mike.”

He mumbled to himself, “
Giau con hon giau cua
.”

Kids are a poor man's wealth.

“But the others stayed with the books, no? Scholarships.”

A sarcastic grunt. “Yeah, if that's what you wanna call success.” He took a quick bite out of his sandwich. Then he drained half of the bottle of water, smacked his lips. “Yeah, right.”

“Tell me.”

“Hazel's grades are slipping at Miss Porter's, and she's on scholarship. All A's, all her life. You know why, don't you?”

“Judd Snow.”

His eyes got wide. “You guessed that?”

I smiled thinly. “Nor much investigating there, Mike. I've seen them together. He's very controlling.”

His hand slammed the table. “He's gonna ruin her life. Lucy tells me Hazel is scared of him at times—she cries in her room.”

“She doesn't know how to get away from him. She thinks she loves him.”

“Wow,” he said. “You called that one on the money.”

“Again, not much investigating.”

“He's more than that. She fell for him the first time they met. I blame Wilson—he wanted to learn how to play chess. Well, I don't really blame him—not really. An accident. But she got drunk with him, and he liked it. He got drunk with her. Such a pretty girl—and bright. Miss Porter's. He tells her to jump, and she does. And he tells her to jump not because she needs to but because he knows he can make her. You follow what I'm saying?”

“Yes, I do. Not a boy easy to like.”

An unhappy laugh. “To put it mildly. And Michael won't talk to me—told me I want
his
life. I can't even follow what the hell he's talking about. ‘Look what you done to me.' Like what? He—well, I have to give up on him.”

“And then there's Wilson.”

For the first time a genuine laugh. “Christ, the bookworm. If I got to hear him talk about…
Moby Dick
or something, I think I'll go nuts. Yeah, he's become a cocky little shit. You know what he said to me? One day at the supper table? We're sitting there and he says my fingernails are dirty. He's disgusted. ‘I'll never have dirty fingernails,' he tells me. I almost smacked him on the side of the head. I'm the garage mechanic that pays the fuckin' bills.” A sad hound-dog look swept over his features. “Christ, Rick, my own kids look at me like I'm a disease.” His voice trembled.

“I'm sorry, Mike.”

“I ain't telling you this to make you feel sorry for me, Rick.”

“I know that.”

“I don't know why I'm telling all this to you now.”

“We're having a talk, Mike.”

“You know, Wilson is this chess prodigy. He beats Judd, even his teacher. One time, picking up Wilson at the campus, I saw Judd and some bullies shove Wilson into a wall. When I yelled, Wilson said it was no big deal. ‘He's a simple ape.' That's what he said. Calm, like it was nothing. ‘Shut up about it.' That's what he yells at me. I think he was embarrassed that I saw. Maybe scared. Rick, Wilson is afraid of Judd. And that bothers me. One time when Judd was at the house he said something—I don't know what—but Wilson started to shake. Another time Judd said to him, ‘My shining knight takes your measly pawn.' Wilson looked hurt. I still don't know what that meant.”

A head poked into the room, startling us. “Mike, what the hell?”

Mike rustled the papers on the table. “I'm over. I'll work overtime. But I wanted to—one of the reasons I asked you here today is—the fee? What do I owe you for your work? We ain't talked about it.”

“No, Mike, no charge.”

He got flustered. “I ain't a charity case.”

“It's not charity. It's something I want to do.”

He sat back, considered my words, and said “No.”

“How about this, Mike? If I solve anything, you write a check to the Boys' Club of Hartford.”

He nodded. “You sure?”

“Positive.”

“It's a Vietnamese thing, right?” A sloppy grin.

“You could put it that way.”

He stood up, swept the sandwich wrappings into a trash bin. “Follow me out back.”

I sat in the passenger seat of his dented Ford pickup, the cloth upholstery ripped and stained, the radio missing a knob. Food wrappings on the floor. A smashed-in Budweiser can. A carton from a Chinese restaurant, dried soy sauce on the flap. An ashtray pulled out and overflowing with Camel butts. The acrid smell of old cigarette smoke and fast food. Watching me, he rolled down his window. “Nobody sits in this truck but me.”

“And me?”

“An experience you probably won't repeat.” He laughed at his own joke.

“What do you want to show me, Mike?”

He reached over and opened the glove compartment and pulled out a large manila envelope, wrinkled, grease-stained. It was thick with newspaper clippings. Quietly, a bunch at a time, he handed me clippings from the
Courant
, from the
New Britain Herald
, from the
West Hartford News
, carefully scissored clippings. Some yellowed and torn, dirt stains, coffee stains. Awards for his children, Dean's List, Honor Society, Woodsman of the World medallions, scholarships from a women's club. A library commendation for Wilson. Dozens of them. Michael, Hazel, Wilson, even Simon. A middle-school commendation, Simon accepting the award in front of the school sign. He looked joyous. I'd never seen Simon look—joyous.