No Good to Cry (25 page)

“Yeah. How'd you know?”

He was adamant. “What I'm saying is that there is something there. Yes, hard to read. Maybe impossible. But I have an idea.”

What Hank had done was to edit the snippet of footage, slowing it down, breaking it into ten distinct seconds, each the equivalent of a still photograph. I'd watched it with him, but still saw nothing. But Hank wasn't through.

“We're going to reenact the ten seconds, frame by frame. With space between. With real people, not frenzied flashes of movement and light. We'll try to approximate the real action of those ten seconds. Same time of day, same direction—into the sun.”

“How?”

A mischievous grin. “You ever want to star in a video?”

He had it all worked out. At four that afternoon, the approximate time of the footage, Gracie, Jimmy, Hank, and I stood on the sidewalk in front of Gracie's house, positioning ourselves according to Hank's direction so that we were at the camera's angle, facing the bright sunlight. Gracie was commandeered to use Hank's phone camera, a task that stymied her. “Oh, I can't.” But of course she was game.

Jimmy was now walking without crutches, though his foot was still bandaged. “I'm up for this.”

Our director Hank named Jimmy the victim, the old Vietnamese man. Hank and I would be the miscreants, aborted in our knockout endeavor. Hank positioned his laptop on a chair dragged from Gracie's apartment, and the second-by-second slow-motion video was to be our script. Our abbreviated scenario.

We rehearsed. The culprits were on camera for ten seconds. A blink of an eye. The old man walked slowly. Someone runs up, flying up the street, suddenly in the frame, near the old man. A movement—perhaps a thrust of arm in the air, raised. A blur. Meanwhile the second culprit, smaller, is not seen until the final seconds, off camera until the sound of the car crash, at which time he steps into the frame but turns suddenly, rushes away, disappears. We see him for two or three seconds.

“But they're all ghosts,” I complained to Hank. “You can't even tell if the moving figures are—male. Or young. Old. It's a scene shot through a plywood lens.”

“It's something.” He shot me a look. “C'mon, Rick. Game up for this.”

So Jimmy stood still, stopped by the movement behind him. I was the assaulting figure, rushing in, raising my fist. Hank was the shorter figure, stepping into the frame, twisting around toward the camera angle, and disappearing.

We rehearsed. Gracie recorded the ten seconds. We did it over and over.

Dressed in an oversized I Luv NY sweatshirt and misshapen stretched-out sweat pants—the logo of the New England Patriots had almost disappeared—Jimmy had also donned a World War Two vintage feathered fedora. “A chill in the air,” he explained.

“Where in the world did you get that?” I asked.

Gracie spoke through clenched teeth. “My dead husband's wardrobe, which I keep in a back closet. Off limits. Jimmy rifled through it.”

“Hey, I'm an investigator.”

A gaggle of girls from Miss Porter's, strolling by, stopped to gape, and looked ready to applaud wildly. Perhaps because of the fedora, but more likely enthralled by Gracie, dressed as she was in some 1940s Betty Grable cocktail dress with bunches of red silk roses at the bodice, her notorious black cape dramatically draped over her shoulders. She managed the camera with the care and attention of Cecil B. De Mille staging
Birth of a Nation
with megaphone and safari hat. Apropos of nothing, she sang out to the girls, “I was a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall.”

They bustled away.

“They know nothing about art,” she grumbled.

Jimmy, standing in position but wobbly on his bum foot, smirked, “Yeah, I'd like to thank the Academy…”

Back in Gracie's apartment we watched ourselves. Hank fed the cell video through the TV, and put it on a loop. Juxtaposed with the original video. Back to back. Over and over, ten grim seconds. We were a fleshed-out version of the original's opaque images.

‘What do we see?” I asked.

“Well, the original video is jerky,” Hank said. “Look. The Rick/evil person is moving in on the old man. In the original sequence the image is broken by starts-and-stops.”

“But,” I said, “that isn't the case with the other perp. The Hank/evil person flows in and out smoothly, though in a flash.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “But look at Hank/evil person's head? When you look at the original, there's…a sudden glare. Like a light in your eye? A spotlight? What in the world?”

“Have we learned anything?” I asked again.

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “I'm the only one with talent. Someone's lifting an arm to slug me and I stand there. In character.”

“Method acting.” Gracie smiled at him sweetly. “Yeah, you and Brando.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Grandma's kitchen smelled of diced ginger. She stood at the counter, an oversized cleaver in her small, frail hand, and she wailed at the brown fibrous tubers. At one point she stopped, picked up a few flecks of the savory herb and handed them to me. “Chew these.” I placed them in my mouth: potent, tangy, my nose twitching. She smiled. “A cure for everything that can be cured.”

“Well, I don't know about that,” I laughed. “I've heard you can see in the dark.”

“It's seeing in broad daylight that's the real problem for so many folks.”

On the late April afternoon, a chilly day, the kitchen was warm and toasty. Not only the heavenly scent of chopped ginger, but a small bowl of grated garlic, a colander of freshly rinsed broccoli, the florets gleaming as if waxed. Long strands of lemongrass lay like marsh reeds across a cutting board. The rice cooker hummed, whiffs of steam seeping out. On a cutting board a plump bitter melon.

A drifting afternoon in the kitchen, as I sat at the oilcloth-covered table, quietly sipping jasmine tea and munching on ginger candy so tart my eyes teared and my mouth puckered.

“This is nice.” Grandma walked by and patted my wrist. “You stay away too long.” She was wearing one of her daughter's old housedresses, too big on her small frame, bunched at the waist.

I smiled up at her. “Busy, Grandma.”

She swung her head back and forth and looked like a small doll that might shatter. “Foolish boy. You have to always come home.”

“I'm here.”

She squinted at me, her foggy eyes trying to focus. “You look tired. This…this Tran boy…this case.” We were chatting in Vietnamese, hers a slow drawl and mine a hesitant attempt, but now she lapsed into English, always a strain for her. “I watch TV, Rick. Americans like to talk of dying.” Then, back to Vietnamese. “They think if they talk about it, it will not come for them. They don't understand that we have no choice but to suffer.” She tapped my wrist.
“Lua thu vang, gian nan thu suc.”

A man's misfortune is the touchstone of his life.

I laughed as I dropped another candy into my mouth. “Everyone wants to live forever.”

“Then they are foolish,” she answered.

She bent over the cutting board, intent on what she was doing. I heard her chuckle, and mutter, “The act of living is the act of dying. One and the same.” But she seemed to be saying it to herself.

Grandma's kitchen. Of course, Hank's Grandma, but mine by love and possession. And I cherished the time sitting alone with the old woman, a woman so tiny she came up to the world's hip but oddly dominated any room she walked into. That wrinkled prune face, wreathed by a halo of brilliant white hair. Slightly hunchbacked, she shuffled along, at your side, leaning in, whispering, smiling, holding your hand. She was medicine for any day of blues.

Hank was at the Academy, so he couldn't make supper. His mother and father were somewhere in town, dragging along Vu and Linh, Hank's younger brother and sister. Grandpa, never a fan of mine, was somewhere in the house, doubtless listening to Grandma's encouragement of me—and shuddering. No matter: I loved this late afternoon with Grandma.

Grandma finally sat down opposite me, her hands circling a small cup of tea. “Yesterday I spent the day with Lucy.”

Grandma had undergone a painful reckoning. She wanted to undo the transgression she believed she'd committed years back when she let the friendship die after Lucy's marriage to an untouchable. They'd talked a few times on the phone, both overjoyed with their rediscovery. Now another milestone: Lucy had invited Grandma for lunch. The two women, after all these years, a lunch.

She whispered, “Decades of my shame leave me now.”

I said nothing.

She sat still. Finally, “
Doi cha an man, doi con khat nuoc.”

She saw the question in my eyes, and translated in slow, fractured words. “When parents eat salt”—she struggled.

But I knew the rest: “The children die for water.”

She smiled. “The horrible things we do to our children.” A heavy sigh. “The years are nothing now. I was a foolish woman who let others tell me how to live my life. As Buddha would say”—now she pointedly looked at me—“
Di hoa vi quy
.” The need for cherished peace.

So she'd spent a lovely day at the Tran household, Mike Tran working at the garage all day. Lucy alone in her kitchen.

“I'm glad you two are friends again.”

She shrugged away that comment. “We were always friends, but I listened to the wrong voice inside me.” A wistful smile. “Now I listen.”

“I'm happy.”

“She tells me you brought Simon home. A boy covered with bandages. Black and blue.”

I nodded. “I took him first to Gracie's. He's all right.”

“He told her that you saved him.”

“No, he saved himself.”

“She's hoping you saved him.”

“But I…”

She held up her hand. “The boy is home safe. Thank God. But she's worried what will happen.” She looked into my eyes. “Talk to me about him.”

So I told her about the shooting, Khoa's death. Diep's capture. But also little Simon behind me, frightened, weeping.

She nodded. “So he learns, that boy.”

“I hope so.”

“Oh yes, he learns. Now he witnessed that life is not a game.
Chim bi ban nut gap canh cay cong cung so
.”

I didn't understand. “A child who…” I stopped.

She finished in English. “A child who is burned will always run from fire.”

“I hope so, Grandma.”

“But she's worried. That goes without saying. She wakes up in the morning and she thinks of Simon. She has trouble talking to her husband because he is a little…”

“Pig-headed,” I finished.

She laughed. “A good man but fighting his own demons. The dark that stays inside him.” A sigh. “Because of Simon, he feels he's failed as a father. It pulls him apart, making him
more
severe. He won't ever say anything—you know Vietnamese men, silent, running away from emotions—but he's ready to…shatter. And maybe…it's up to you…maybe you can talk to him.” Her face reddened, her eyes flickering. “You understand what he went through. The horrors there. The horrors here. The old country.” Her voice got so low I had trouble hearing her. “This is a man who still cries out at night from his nightmares, his boyhood in the streets.” She stopped, out of breath.

“He is hoping I can clear Simon's name. I don't know.”

Her voice hardened. “Do you hear yourself, Rick? That's not you talking. Of course, you can help.”

“I don't know.”

“You probably already know the answer.”

“You think so?”

She wagged a finger at me. “Lucy tells me you take no money for this. Like a good son of Vietnam. So that tells me you are looking with your heart as well as your head.” She tapped my temple. Her fingertip was warm to the touch.

“I remember a saying from the little book my mother left with me in the orphanage.
Ngay dai nhat cung phai qua di.
”

Even a long, long day will come to an end.

“Your mother was a wise woman.”

I felt a tugging at my heart. My mother—a vague image of a woman holding me, crying, letting go of me, sending me away. My mother, lost. Another country. Lost.

A new land. America. This warm kitchen.

I stared around the cluttered kitchen. On each wall a calendar, perhaps five in total, something I'd never understood in Asian kitchens. Chinese markets, Vietnamese restaurants, Korean gift shops, Laotian health stores. New Year's gifts in the marketplace. This household of Catholic and Buddhism. A mother and a father, happy together. And Grandma in the center of it all, the moral heartbeat.

“My mother,” I whispered.

Grandma stared into my eyes. “I have something to say. Something that comes to me as I hear your story.”

I waited. “I was hoping you would.”

“Simon. The lost boy. You are convinced he has nothing to do with the street violence?”

I nodded. “Yes. Without proof.”

“Instinct?”

“Maybe.”

She sat back in her seat, watched me closely. “It seems to me, Rick, that you believe that young boy is innocent, but all your focus is on
him
. All your energy is on his story. You keep asking him to help you. You look to…him.”

Feebly, I protested, “I have to. What else is there?”

“But you already
believe
him innocent. Then he has nothing to do with the crime, yes? Maybe it is time to look at a world where he is
not
the center of your attention.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means this—is there anyone who
wants
him to be guilty? You tell me the two street crimes—maybe three—resemble the foolishness he did that got him sent away.”

“Grandma, who would want to frame a young boy? It makes no sense.”

She held up a finger. “Wait. Maybe not
wants
him to be guilty but—well,
allows
him to be guilty.” She glanced toward the counter where the vegetables sat, waiting for her touch. “The boy that everyone expects to be bad.”

“I just don't see it.” I sighed and remembered Jimmy's remarks. “Jimmy told me something similar—others using the boy.”

She stood up, smiled. “A great mind, that man. Think about it.”

“Thank you.”

She motioned with her hand. “Come with me.”

I followed her into the hallway, toward the back of the house. She opened the door to Hank's bedroom and switched on the light. She walked in, motioning me to follow.

“I don't know if Hank would like…”

She stopped me. “Of course he wouldn't mind. You're his brother.”

She pointed to a Connecticut state trooper's formal uniform hanging on a post. Pristine, sharp, the gray shirt with the royal blue epaulets with gold piping. A run of gold brass buttons down the front. The dark navy blue trousers with a crease so sharp it could be knifepoint. On the dresser the gray Stetson-style hat. A gold pin on the front that said “State Police.”

Grandma pointed at it. “His pride,” she said, beaming.

“It looks…chiseled.”

“He irons and steams and fiddles with it. For him, it is a piece of art.”

I laughed. “The ceremony is coming up.”

“His pride,” she repeated, running her fingers over the fabric.

“His mother worries.”

She looked into my face. “
I
worry. Of course, I worry.” But she added, “But I understand that it's the life he demands of himself. Duty, honor, service. Heroism is never ego. My grandson. My Hank. Number one son. I worry, too. But I understand that there is no other road for him to follow.”

“Why are you showing me this, Grandma?”

We stepped out of the bedroom and she clicked off the light. “Because you are a part of what makes him a man. He honors you because you honor him.”

“But I worry, too.”

Manhattan. Hell's Kitchen. A gun to my head. My trigger finger. The bloody body. My rage, out of control.

She wasn't listening. Instead she mentioned Liz's name, which surprised me. “He tells me she is helping young Hazel find her way.”

“Yes. Another troubled Tran child.”

She tossed her head back and forth. “Those children. A blessing and a curse. A family loses happiness when a child is lost.”

“Liz is helping.”

Grandma looked into my face. “A good wife to you.”

“Grandma, you know that we're divorced, Liz and I.”

She waved her hand in my face. “That means nothing. A piece of paper…no matter.”

I gave her a quick hug. “You know, Grandma, little Simon actually said the same thing to me—that Liz and I will always be married.”

A quiet laugh. “Maybe that little boy is not as lost as people say. Buddha speaks to his heart.”

“He's a Catholic, I think.”

“Everybody walks with Buddha, Rick.”

I followed her back into the kitchen and was surprised to see Grandpa sitting at the table, sipping tea. He looked up and frowned. My heart sank. The last frontier in this Nguyen household, the last and most harrowing barrier. Grandpa, the man refused to speak to me.

“Hello,” I said respectfully.
“Ban co khoe khong?”
How are you?

He hesitated. For a moment he blew across the hot tea, then put the cup down. As I watched, he extended his hand. Surprised, I stared at it, the gnarly arthritic fingers, twisted. In a barely croaked-out voice, he cleared his throat.

“Hello,” he said slowly. “
Chao mung bau.”

Awkwardly, we shook hands.

Behind him, already at the counter, her fingers running over reeds of lemongrass, Grandma was smiling.

***

Back in my apartment, I reflected on Grandma's words, although I also obsessed about Grandpa's magnanimous gesture. I smiled to myself. Perhaps the axis of earth could shift. Perhaps snow could fall in August. Perhaps fate does surprise you with a happy ending. Ever since last year when I helped solve the murder of two of Grandma's relatives, Hank had hinted that his grandfather admitted a begrudged respect for me. But in all my visits to the household, he'd never extended his hand. Until today.

I liked that.

Grandma's chilling words: who knowingly would
allow
Simon and Frankie to take the blame? Allow—permit—maybe welcome. To abet—to encourage. Who?

I made myself a cup of coffee, munched on a stale butter roll I'd left out on the counter that morning, and decided to play the video.
Let's go to the tape.
That horrid line used on scandal TV. Cop shows.
Let's look at the tape.
CSI: Everywhere
. The muckraking reporters trailing after errant politicians.
Let's take a look at the video. The tape shows…