No Good to Cry (23 page)

“No.”

“I didn't think so.”

He walked past me to the front of the apartment and gazed out the window into the street below. The skittishness was gone now, replaced with his gangland swagger, as if he'd decided to own the space. A crooked smile. “Is my bike safe around here?”

“Probably not.”

He swung back quickly. “Then I gotta get going.”

“Well…”

He thrust out his arm. “This is for you.” In his hand was a CD in a plastic jewel case, unlabeled. I reached for it. For a second he kept his hand suspended, his fingertips gripping the plastic. Broken nails, I noticed, dried blood at the nub of his fingernails, a smear of splotchy bike grease. He made me yank it from him. He dropped his hand to his side and backed up.

“I don't understand.”

“You hear about the thing in Little Saigon?” He waited. “I mean, the old guy almost attacked. Nothing happened but the police swarm the streets like it's Pearl Harbor Day in a Japanese restaurant.”

“That's funny.” I said. “That line.”

“It ain't original with me.”

“I still don't understand.”

“As I say, nothing happened, but the old guy is the grandfather of a friend of mine. So the whole thing got real personal real fast.” He pointed to the CD in my hand. “Le Hanh Fashions a block away got this security camera. This here is the video. It's shitty 'cause all it shows is blurry figures and a lot of bright sunlight shining off the cars. The guys ran into the sun. But it's the only video.”

I fingered the plastic case. “Why don't you give it to Ardolino?”

A phony laugh. “Yeah, are you serious? Can you imagine that scene? I ain't got street cred walking up your damn stairs right now. And I don't wanna find myself in a goddamn police lineup. You hear me?” He moved toward the doorway.

“What can I see on it?”

“Nothing. I seen nothing.” But he grinned. “But maybe you're a magician.”

He turned to go.

“Wait,” I said. “I want to ask you…”

He waved me off. “No, I don't think so.”

“Why are you doing this?”

His words came out fierce, hostile. “Because no one fucks people over in Little Saigon on my turf and gets away with it.”

“Understood.”

“No one.”

He stepped into the hallway, but then he deliberated, looked back at me. He fiddled with a gold stud in his ear. Then, zipping up his bomber jacket, he reached into the pocket and took out a slip of paper. “Here.”

I read the scribbled pencil. “87 Buckingham. Room 3.”

“What's this?”

“You figure it out.”

Chapter Twenty-six

The video was useless. Or that's how it struck me when I first played it. That night Hank and I watched it over and over. Slow motion, zooming in, zooming out. All the pyrotechnics whiz-kid Hank could muster on a computer screen. Nothing: splashes of intense sunlight, vague ghostlike figures running. A shaft of piercing sunlight on a car fender, blinding. Nothing.

The perps on the screen for—ten seconds. Tops.

“What we can see,” I summarized, frustrated, “is a tottering, slow-moving figure brushed by two wisps speeding past. Paranormal activity.”

Hank watched the screen closely. “But there's a reason JD gave it to you.”

“What he wants is no trouble on his block. Bad for business.”

Hank made a face. “There is that.”

I shrugged, watching as he pressed “Replay.” “Maybe he just wanted to prove to me that he wants justice for Simon and Frankie.”

Hank stood up, yawned. “Thanks for the movie. Next time make some buttered popcorn. I gotta get some sleep.”

I waved the slip of paper at him. “You're forgetting he gave me an address.”

Hank sat back down. “Yeah, what did you find out?”

“A rooming house a few blocks down from Farmington. A dead-end street. On the edge of Little Saigon. A little seedy, a drug den maybe. I know there's drug activity there. But also, I suspect, where I can find Diep and Khoa.”

“But he didn't tell you that.”

“In his own way he did.”

***

Another night of dreaming. The orphanage. The boy named Le Xinh Phong. The black kid that allowed me a little breathing room—for a second. The gang of boys chasing him. Waking, the image of that face metamorphosed into that of Simon, running, running. Police dogs tracking him, crying on the banks of the South China Sea during the monsoon season. I woke, gasped out loud. Did he live? Some hardscrabble, piddling life, the boy in the corner. Did he make it to America? Like Mike, was he slipped into the family tree of greedy folks, shuttled to America, and then abandoned? Did he come to understand that none of this was his fault, that he was an accident of war and disaster, that his American father might still remember his mother, the…maybe nothing at all. His GI Joe father. Back in America, a life lived with new children, a wife, a Chevrolet, breakfast special at Denny's. A summer vacation at Disney World.

No. I shook myself awake. Stop it. No. Because thoughts of that boy—and Simon—came cascading back into my own life. And I didn't want to think about it.

But I had to. Early, perhaps seven, the sound of the garbage truck clamoring on the street, the phone rang. It was Mike Tran.

“What happened?” I got out.

The black boy. The orphanage. The Most Blessed Mother Orphanage. Don't hurt me, Viet.

Please.

Mike took some time to answer, and I thought the line had gone dead. But I could hear tinny radio music behind him, drifting in from another room. An oldies station. Johnny Cash, I thought. Or Glen Campbell. A country guitar, twang and strumming.

Finally, clearing his throat, he said, “Maybe it ain't nothing, but last night I heard Simon on the phone. He was calling this other guy. Kenny, I think. Sounded like he said Kenny. But he was whispering, secret-like, but I heard him say something about, well—‘I don't wanna do that.' But then, he said ‘All right, all right. Tomorrow. Frankie said yes.' When I walked into the room and snatched the phone from him, he beat it out of there, hiding in his room. I couldn't sleep all night, worrying. Should I be worried?” An exaggerated laugh. “I mean, any more worried than the kid makes me already? Who is Kenny? I woke up and thought—something bad is gonna happen to my boy today.” A deep sigh. “So I called you.”

“I'm glad you did, Mike.”

“I didn't know.”

“Is he there?”

“Locked in his room, but that don't mean nothing. He runs when he wants to. You know that. I can't lock him in no more.”

“I'll look into it,” I promised him.

“You will?”

“I will.”

***

A day of surveillance then. Now that I knew where they lived, I'd been planning on checking out Khoa and Diep—Kenny and Joey. Maybe trail them—learn their habits. They loomed too large in Simon and Frankie's world. JD's dislike—and his sending me in their direction—suggested what? Time for me to move?

If Simon and Frankie hooked up with the brothers today, I'd know about it because I'd be their persistent shadow.

By nine in the morning I sat in my car across the street from 81 Buckingham, idling in the parking lot of a Shell station that had gone out of business, the windows boarded up, a few old cars lined up near the curb, all with For Sale signs on the inside windshields. A number to call. My ancient Beamer fit in nicely with the old rusted relics.

I waited.

I kept an eye on the small parking lot on the side of the old rooming house. The low-slung Toyota with the dark tinted windows sat there, front bumped up against a crashed-in chain-link fence. The guys were sleeping in—or they'd gone somewhere on foot. But I suspected they were late-sleepers. Night clubbers, party boys in their high-life duds, smoking reefer in the parking lot of the Boom Boom Room, a hot-as-hell Asian New Wave night spot, dancing till dawn. A seedy venue, often raided. Gunfire. Fistfights. Kewpie-doll Vietnamese hookers. Kenny and Joey's world, I believed. At nine in the morning, they'd be yawning and stretching like alley cats facing sunlight.

I sat with a bag of buttery croissants from Amy's Bakery on Buckingham and Farmington, a huge mug of coffee, and three Hershey chocolate bars if I got peckish later in the morning. If they were at home, I'd tag them.

The rooming house was an ancient ramshackle Dutch Colonial with green asphalt shingles and white peeling shutters. To the left and right were cheap brick five-story apartment buildings, and across the street were mom-and-pop businesses, an Asian grocery, a beauty parlor called Hair for Now, the deserted Shell station next to a thriving Mobil station, and an auto body repair shop, already doing a brisk morning business. A neighborhood of shops and poor people. The sign that advertised the rooming house announced, honestly: ROOMS. CHEAP. DAY RATES. Then, an afterthought: Mrs. Homer's Rooms.

I sipped coffee slowly, leaned my head back against the headrest, nibbled on the corner of a croissant, and waited. Just waited. At ten o'clock I sat up sharply when the front door opened and the two brothers walked out. They were laughing at something. The taller one, in front, swiveled around and playfully head-butted his shorter brother, who jumped back, then clipped the other with the back of his hand. Even from across the street, crouched low in my seat, I could hear their boisterous humor, overlapping voices in Vietnamese.

“Toi doi.”
One was hungry.

His brother teased him.
“An khoe nhu voi.”
An appetite like an elephant.

At the edge of the sidewalk both paused, debated the direction, and the taller one nodded down the street. A small art deco diner on the corner, a gigantic roof sign that announced: AETNA DINER 24 Hours. But the “E” and the “I” had darkened, and the “R” flickered. ATNA DINE. Brilliant even with the morning sunlight hitting it. “Diep,” the shorter brother called out and pointed.

Both brothers were dressed in black clothing, hooded sweatshirts under black vinyl windbreakers, black jeans, military boots. The hoods were up, pulled over their foreheads, but there was no mistaking who they were. A different look from before—gone were the sleek linen suits, the silk black shirts.

I watched as they disappeared into the diner.

I waited.

With my window rolled down, I could smell bacon grease from a block away. Burnt coffee. Garbage overflowing bins. A breeze carried a whiff of motor oil from the auto body shop. A smoky backfire from a lumbering city bus that chugged by. My stomach turned.

A half-hour later they walked out, looked up and down the street as if waiting for someone, lit cigarettes as they strolled back to Mrs. Homer's. They stood on the front porch, silent now, inhaling, then flipping the butts into the bushes. Again they looked up and down the street, leaning into each other. They looked angry as they went into the rooming house.

I waited.

My mind wandered as I daydreamed about a new fraud case that involved an office manager at the Cigna in Bloomfield. Complicated, sensitive investigation. Higher-ups. I was nodding to myself, eyes half-shut, when I realized that the brothers were leaving Mrs. Homer's, both toting over-the-shoulder satchels. Khoa carried a pair of work boots, the laces tied together and draped over his shoulder. They popped the trunk of the Toyota and slipped in the bags. In seconds the car pulled out onto Buckingham, headed toward Little Saigon, three or four blocks away.

I slid out into traffic, two car lengths behind them. Khoa was driving, and jerkily, shifting lanes, tailgating, at one point irritated, leaning on his horn. They stopped at a red light, and even before it turned green, the Toyota jumped ahead, almost sideswiping another car. Gunning it, slowing down, shifting lanes erratically. A heavy-footed driver.

The car pulled into a parking lot of Enterprise Rental, just across from a Subway, and idled. Pulled over on the street, a half-block back, I could see the driver's door open and Khoa step out, looking down the street, shielding his eyes from the sun. Arms waving, he said something to Diep, but then got back into the car.

The car jerked out into traffic so quickly that a passing car slammed on its brakes, the driver raising a fist. Khoa, glancing in the mirror, gave the woman the finger.

I followed, watched them circle back to Buckingham, idle by the Enterprise lot, and then speed away.

The car stopped at a Mini-Mart, and Khoa left the car running, rushing in for a pack of cigarettes, ripping off the cellophane as he pushed open the door. He lit a cigarette and looked up and down the sidewalk. I could tell he was irritated—body stiff, jaw set, head jerking left and right. The car didn't move, idling at the curb, waiting. Then it darted out onto the street.

A stupid game, this rushing up and down the street, but finally the Toyota cruised slowly toward Park Street, maneuvered its way to Little Saigon. Then, suddenly, it pulled up a half-block away from a Second Niagara Bank on the corner of Maynard and Park, then inched its way forward. Again, the waiting. Then, finally, it slowly moved around the corner, stopping alongside a fire hydrant. Diep stepped out of the passenger's side, leaned back in for a second. I'd pulled across the street, parallel but unseen behind a panel truck.

Casually he strolled into the bank.

I waited.

I didn't feel good about the move, but I told myself that even thugs do legitimate banking.

A short wait.

The sudden wail of an alarm, piercing, intense.

A shot fired.

Yet Diep strolled back out in a sleepwalker's gait, his hood pulled over his forehead, his head dipped into his chest. He had a leisurely amble, but his arms cradled a canvas bag. He turned the corner, and Khoa plunged the Toyota forward, and Diep, now trotting alongside, leaped in. The door still wide open, the car pushed ahead, and Diep's arm reached out to shut the door.

My heart pounding, my throat dry, I trailed the car. A block away it slowed, as though going about its normal business, easing its way across a lane, slipping in front of a Connecticut transit bus.

I tapped out 911 and told the dispatcher what I'd seen.

“We have officers heading to the scene.” The dispatcher sounded harried. “The bank called in.”

“I'm following the car,” I told her.

A slight pause. “You're what?”

Stepping on the gas, I got close to the Toyota. I provided the license plate number and a description of the car. “Headed east on Park, almost at the intersection of Ledger. It's slowing…”

She interrupted. “Stay on the line, sir.”

“I plan to.”

I heard the wail of distant police sirens.

The Toyota hesitated.

Then, just as they neared the turn off Park, I spotted Simon and Frankie walking up the sidewalk. They'd stopped, probably caught by the wail of police sirens coming from different directions, but they seemed to spot the Toyota the same moment I spotted them.

No, God, I thought. No.

The Toyota pulled over behind a stopped transit bus, its front tires scraping the curb. The passenger window rolled down. Diep yelled at the boys, who hesitated, backing off, jittery. Simon turned, as though ready to run, but Frankie looked paralyzed. The bus pulled away, and the Toyota jerked forward, then stopped. An arm reached out. Simon moved, but Frankie ducked down. The glint of a gun, waved wildly at them.

Simon pulled at Frankie, who stumbled.

The gun on them.

Bumping into each other, fumbling with the door, the boys toppled into the backseat, and the car sped off.

I caught my breath.

Maneuvering in front of another car, shifting lanes, I struggled to stay with the Toyota as it careened down the street. No longer the slow pace now, but a wild ride. In the distance a police car's flashing lights. The Toyota scraped the fender of a parked car, a high-pitched whinnying squeal of metal against metal. The car blew through a red light and two other cars, reacting, crashed into each other. One car spun onto the sidewalk and plowed into a plate-glass window. The other rested against a trash bin, its radiator smoking.

I was behind the Toyota, maybe ten feet, maybe less.

It was impossible to see through the dark tinted windows, but I detected movement—the boys in the backseat squirming, twisting around.

The Toyota did not slow down now, whipping past other cars, weaving in and out of lanes, tailgating, swerving, a bumper-car frenzy. The squeal of brakes. Khoa was heading toward the entrance to I-84.

In my rearview mirror I spotted the flashing lights of two squad cars. Cars behind me were pulling off to the side, stopping. Double-parked cars blocked lanes. The cop cars careened left, then right.