The Collector (12 page)

“She’ll be difficult to replace,” Sam continued, “but luckily for you, I found someone else.” And when David turned to glare at him, Sam said, “Take heart, David. I’ll show you your treasures soon enough.”

That small assurance…

David could feel his heart thumping inside his chest, almost as if it were trying to force out his doubts. He was falling face-first, right into that tiny glimmer of hope. And in Sam’s eyes, he could see that the little shit knew it.

Returning the punk’s smile, David thought to himself that when this was over, when he truly had what he needed from Sam, the cops were going to have to use tweezers to pick up the pieces of this little prick.

Sam dropped the lock of Velvet’s hair, his gaze still on David, baiting him. “You don’t have to trust me, David. Our little Velvet found her for me. Didn’t you, cousin?”

David turned to her in surprise. She couldn’t even look at him.

“When I heard about Mimi,” she whispered, staring at her drink on the table, “I thought you might need help.”

David tried not to choke on his disgust. Velvet was supposed to have his best interests in mind. Jesus, he deserved her loyalty—he paid for it, didn’t he? But here she was, calling Sam first? Letting David walk into this setup?

But then he remembered what Sam had said earlier: better a drop of blood than a pond of water. In Vietnam, family came first. Even distant relatives had a stranglehold.

He waited until Velvet looked up to meet his gaze. He could see real fear in her eyes; fear of him or Sam, it was difficult to say.

“As for the necklace—” Sam slid out from the booth and stood; he straightened his suit with a practiced hand. “There you have a big problem, my friend.”

He leaned over the glass table, getting into David’s face. “A little bird told me the police have the missing bead from your necklace.” He came close enough to whisper in David’s ear, “Guess where they found it? In Mimi’s mouth. But maybe you knew that already?”

David felt the seat fall out from under him. The room started to spin.

Sam pulled away, taking a good look at David’s reaction. “Now, is there something you forgot to tell me? Maybe
you
went to see Mimi. Things weren’t happening fast enough. You lost your temper….”

David recoiled in horror. “I didn’t kill Mimi, and you fucking know it. I needed her!”

He patted David on the shoulder. “Try to stay out of jail, will you, David? You won’t be much use to me there.”

David closed his eyes. He couldn’t catch his breath.
Oh, shit. Shit!

Sam gave Velvet a peck on the cheek. He said, “Take him home, Velvet. Make him forget a little, will you?”

B
eth jabbed an accusing finger at the documents on the kitchen table. “Look at that…that pile of
shit!
” She took a long drink from the wineglass. Judging from the heaviness around the vowels, it was far from her first.

Seven picked up the moving papers. Scott’s family was looking for their blood money, having filed an unlawful death suit. Seven made a mental note to call Ricky’s lawyer tomorrow.

“It’s okay, Beth. I got it.”

She shook her head. The dark circles beneath her eyes and deep grooves around her mouth said it all: she was a woman defeated.

Beth Allen Bushard had grown up in Newport Beach, the daughter of an orthodontist and a real estate agent. She had perfect blond hair and a year-round tan courtesy of the local tanning salon. She worked out with a trainer. She considered her Senior Presentation, for the National Charity League—the debutant ball—one of the biggest moments in her life, right after her marriage and the birth of her son.

Seven still remembered the wedding—a Princess Di-type gown and five hundred of Beth and Ricky’s closest friends. Seven, the best man, had used a microphone to introduce the wedding party of no less than thirty as the bridesmaids and ushers stepped into the grand ballroom of Newport Beach’s most exclusive Yacht Club.

Seven and Laurin had eloped straight out of high school. They’d had one of those quickie Vegas weddings with Elvis presiding. At the time, they’d thought it was a hoot. Of course, the marriage lasted about as long as the wedding.

Beth was a communications major from USC and considered her sorority sisters family…family that scattered like rats on a sinking ship once it became clear that her husband had killed a man.

She was a good wife and mother. And she was falling apart.

“You shouldn’t have to do any of this.” She punched her fist into her thigh. “I shouldn’t have to do this.” She punched her thigh again, harder this time.

Seven grabbed her hand before she could keep hitting herself.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”

She shook her head. He’d been saying the same thing for months and she’d stopped believing him.

She looked up, her eyes swimming. “Nothing is ever going to be okay again and we both know it.”

She reached for him. It was getting to be a regular thing, holding his brother’s wife and comforting her. At first, it had just been a reflex. He’d needed the holding as much as she did. But now, it started to feel strange, the relationship shifting in a way he hadn’t meant.

He looked into Beth’s brown eyes, at her mascara, uncharacteristically smeared. She felt so frail in his arms, almost ethereal.

He remembered Erika’s warning.
Time to cut the cord…or tie it up tight
.

He thought about it, dealing with the possibility that Beth was looking for more than he could give her.

Only, instead, something unexpected occurred.

Right then, it wasn’t Beth’s face he saw, but another’s.

Shining black hair juxtaposed against a porcelain complexion. Vibrant blue eyes. Freckles. Gia.

He shut his eyes, closing off the image.

“You hate this,” Beth said, seeing his reaction.

He stepped away, shaken by what had just happened. He thought about that spark of static electricity when they’d touched.

Something there…

He focused back on Beth, feeling suddenly too sober. “We’ll get through this, Beth. As a family.”

She bit her lip, looking embarrassed by her sudden show of emotions. She nodded. “Okay.”

He helped her upstairs to her bed. Watched as she reached for the bottle of medication at her bedside.

“That was an empty bottle of wine on the kitchen counter, Beth,” he said, letting his concern sound in his voice.

She took out a pill and swallowed it back with a glass of water. “I’m okay,” she said, giving a wan smile. “It may not seem like it sometimes, but I know my responsibilities. I’m…careful,” she said, replacing the bottle on the nightstand. “I just need sleep.” She kicked off her flats and slipped under the covers still wearing her slacks and sweater set. “You’ll check on Nick for me?”

“Always,” Seven said.

Outside the bedroom, he closed the door behind him. He’d known a wrongful death lawsuit was inevitable. What Beth hadn’t figured out was what little difference the lawsuit would make to her and Nick. Ricky had left behind a financial disaster.

Seven turned for the stairs, wondering how to break the news to the already fragile Beth, when he saw his nephew waiting for him at the foot of the steps.

“Is Mom okay?”

Nick was the spitting image of his father. Curly blond hair, green eyes. One day, he’d be taller than his uncle. But right now, he looked really small. And scared.

Seven nodded, coming down the stairs to put his arm around his nephew. “She’s going to be fine. It’s just tough, you know? For all of us. How about I cook us some dinner?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Come on. Whatever you want, buddy.”

His nephew looked up at him. In those eyes, Seven could see all the pain the kid had buried inside.

Jesus, Ricky.

“You know what I wish sometimes, Uncle Seven?” Nick said. “I wish it had been him. Dad, I mean,” he said in a broken whisper. “I wish that Scott had been the whack job and that he had killed Dad, not the other way around.”

The horror of that admission was right there on the little guy’s face.

Seven took Nick by both shoulders. He crouched down, coming eye level to his nephew. He said in a strong, sure voice, what he called his cop voice, “Hey, I think that sometimes, too, okay? And who can blame us? That doesn’t make us bad people—that just makes us angry and hurt. Human nature, buddy. And I’ll tell you something else. I think if your dad had told someone how mad and scared he was, about Scott, I mean, instead of keeping it all inside—if he’d showed half the courage you just did by talking to me—maybe Scott wouldn’t be dead. You get me?”

For the first time since that horrible day, tears filled Nick’s eyes. He threw himself into Seven’s arms and just started bawling.

Seven held him tight, knowing the release had been long overdue. Happy to see it.

“It’s okay,” he told Nick over and over. “It’s okay.”

When he could finally talk, Nick whispered in Seven’s ear, catching his breath between each halting word, “Why couldn’t you be my dad?”

“Hey, I’m not turning down the job.” Seven pushed the boy’s limp body away just enough so that Nick could see his face as he spoke. “Your dad’s going to be in prison for a long time. And I think maybe, just maybe, by the time he gets out, he could be a different man. Someone we can trust again. And if we’re strong enough, if we work really hard at it, we might even be able to forgive him. But in the meantime, anything you want, Nick,” he said, trying not to choke on the words. “Anything.”

His nephew nodded, taking a deep breath.

“We just take it one day at a time, okay?” Seven brushed the hair from the kid’s face, then hugged him again. “God, I love you, Nick. And I’m sorry your dad was a selfish shit and did this to us. But it doesn’t have to defeat us, okay?”

For the longest time, Seven stood holding his nephew. If he could help Nick, be there beside his nephew as he navigated the years ahead—now that was a job worth being put on this earth to do.

“Now. Men need food to be strong,” he said in a mock caveman voice. He threw his arm around his nephew’s shoulders and headed for the kitchen. “And I’m starving,” he said, lying through his teeth.

“Pancakes?” Nick asked hopefully.

“You got it.”

He gave Nick a high-five. Stepping into the kitchen, he prayed Beth had some kind of cookbook. How the hell did you make pancakes, anyway?

“You pay attention and learn, grasshopper,” he told Nick. “Your uncle makes one mean pancake.”

“My uncle doesn’t know how to cook,” Nick countered.

Seven smiled, suddenly feeling okay. “So find me a cookbook, will ya?”

T
he history of Vietnam began four thousand years ago, when a dragon prince married a fairy princess.

Together, the two conceived one hundred children, a number much too large even for the immortals. And so they agreed to split their brood. The fairy princess, Au Co, moved to the mountains with half her children, while the dragon prince, Lac Long Quan, took to the lowlands with the rest. To this day, the Vietnamese considered the dragon to be the luckiest of all creatures. They are the “Children of the Dragon.”

Velvet sat at the vanity in the master bath of her condo, staring at her reflection in the mirror. The Dior makeup she loved so well lay lined up before her, gleaming from its individual gold cases. She watched the woman in the mirror, telling herself she was one of them, the Children of the Dragon. A woman of luck.

She reached for a cotton pad and soaked it with makeup remover. With a few swipes, she divided her face in half in the mirror. One side showed a woman in full makeup, reminiscent of a geisha, a woman born to please men like David Gospel. But the other side, the clean-faced woman—bare of mascara and lipstick—this was the law student who used only her intellect to improve her position in life.

She stared at herself in the mirror, confused by the two sides reflected there.

After leaving the Net High, David had taken her back to her condo. Their sex had been hard and fast, edging on violent. He’d been angry, believing that she’d betrayed him…and Velvet had never shied away from a good fight.

Afterward, she’d walked him to the door in a silk robe embroidered with dragons. There, she had kissed him tenderly…and before he could pull away, letting her know that he was unforgiving, she had spoken those forbidden words.

“I love you, David.”

And then she’d shut the door.

Velvet reached for more cotton and finished removing her makeup. She considered herself part of a new generation of Vietnamese. She wore Versace and listened to indie rock. She drove a Mercedes. She attended law school and studied
Vogue
like a textbook. Her name was on the list of the most exclusive L.A. nightclubs.

And still there was a part of her that was rooted here in Little Saigon. Even with her shaky Vietnamese, she got by in the coffee shops talking about what it was like to grow up Vietnamese in a place where Vietnam evoked images of rice paddies, sweltering heat and an unending war. Like her people, she struggled to make a new life—a new
identity
—for herself. And yet she’d never been able to shed the traditions of the past.

Part of Velvet’s tradition included Sam Vi.

Sam was a gangster, through and through. Within the community, he was more myth than man. But Velvet had known Sam before any of the darkness had taken hold. He’d driven her to her first dance in his brother’s sleek Vega. He’d been her first kiss, an experiment that was more about teaching her the ropes than anything sexual. To Velvet, Sam was
dong-bao
. Born of the same womb.

But that had changed with the gangs. She remembered trying to talk to him once, telling him he was going down a bad path. But Sam, he’d just given her a smirk and said something like, “Keep studying, Velvet. Someday, you’re going to be somebody.”

She’d seen it in his eyes then. Sam Vi was going to be somebody, too. And he’d do it in his own way.

No, she didn’t admire Sam anymore—she didn’t even respect him. But in her heart, he was like her brother. And she cared for him very much.

Velvet’s mother died when she was fourteen. Sam had been her rock during that time, mourning right along with her. Unlike Velvet, Sam had been born in Vietnam. He’d lost his father in the war. He knew what it was like to grow up on your own, without someone to guide you.

At her mother’s funeral, she remembered him taking both her hands in his and telling her she would never have to worry about anything. That he’d take care of her. Velvet had two older brothers, but they’d never been close. Her father was a quiet man. With the death of Velvet’s mother, he seemed to shut down, a turtle slipping back inside its shell. Without her mother, Velvet felt isolated in her grief.

But there was Sam telling her she wasn’t alone. She remembered how happy that promise had made her.

Sam had paid for college. He would have done the same for law school if she’d needed it. He’d told her she had a job waiting when she passed the bar…as Sam’s private counsel. She should think about commercial law, he’d told her, now that he was an important businessman…while Velvet wondered if she shouldn’t, for Sam’s sake, specialize in something of a more criminal nature.

She hated the fiasco that had been the last months. Hated that it all centered around Sam’s relationship with Trudy H. That Sam could be so gullible….

But then, even though he was powerful and successful, she’d never considered Sam the brightest bulb.

But maybe that was the point. Trudy H. was another rung up the ladder.

It was something endemic to the community, this need to push forward. Almost as if they were saying it was all right that they’d left Vietnam, as long as it was for something better.

For Sam, the pinnacle was David Gospel. He’d studied the man, his family, his rise to success with Gospel Enterprises. Sam wanted to make himself in David’s image, Vietnamese version.

As for Velvet, she told herself it was love and not money that had brought her to this point.

Mimi had first contacted Sam about David. David had become a regular client by then, and Mimi had seen an opportunity. More than anything in this world, David Gospel wanted more magic baubles to complete his collection. It made him vulnerable to the likes of Sam.

And here was Mimi, in Sam’s debt. She told Velvet that the cards had counseled her on her course of action. Together these two men could form a strong alliance. But Velvet always wondered if that wasn’t just an excuse. The meaning of the cards was often influenced by the context in which they were read.

She thought of her own situation—how much she, too, owed Sam.

So Sam had sought out Velvet, calling in yet another marker. “I need your help, Vee,” he’d told her. He always called her that, thinking it was cute how the nickname corresponded with his own name, Sam Vi.

He’d given her instructions: become David’s confidante. “You don’t have to sleep with him,” Sam had said. “He’s just some old geezer, anyway. Keep him company. Make him like you. You’re a smart girl, Vee. And very beautiful. You’ll know what I need.”

To be his spy. If David should ever become suspicious or unhappy about the progress of their “project” together, Sam would expect a call. That had never happened, of course, making Velvet’s job easier. But she dreaded her meetings with Sam. She hadn’t wanted to betray David. And tonight, she’d done just that.

Maybe that’s why she’d started sleeping with him. Her own interpretation of the Confucius ideal of
chun-tzu
—the noble individual. A sacrifice was needed. And David was far from an old geezer. He was, in fact, a generous lover, handsome and charming. He’d shown Velvet a world she’d only dreamed of. He had stories and experience; he’d met famous and interesting people like Donald Trump and the Dalai Lama.

And he had a sense of humor. That had been the most surprising part. The arrogance and the polish she’d expected. But not the laughter.

She told herself he didn’t care for her—he couldn’t possibly. But it didn’t matter to Velvet. She’d fallen in love just the same.

But then came that push-me/pull-you of her obligations to Sam. He was family. Part and parcel of her traditions. In her closet, alongside her Versace suit, hung several traditional
ao dai.
She made offerings of food and lit joss sticks at the altar she kept for her deceased mother. She celebrated Tet with Sam and other relatives, the day that every Vietnamese turns a year older.

On the vanity, she reached for a Dior lipstick a bright crimson-red. Staring at her reflection, she drew a big
X
over her face on the mirror.

She didn’t know how to say no to Sam. Just like her Vietnamese pedigree, he was part of who she was.

But she would learn. That much she promised herself. It would break her heart, but very soon, Velvet would say no to David and Sam both.

It was after he’d put his nephew to bed that it suddenly hit Stephen. That gut feeling nagging him all day…he finally understood.

He saw the whole thing like a movie in his head: Gia Moon standing to mimic Mimi Tran punching in the code and disabling the security system. At the time, he’d thought it was strange, how she’d held her hand at the exact level of the actual keypad built into the wall.

Fifteen minutes later, he was back at the office. He pulled up the interview with Gia Moon on his computer screen. These days, everything was digitized, the images downloaded onto a secure server. He watched the footage from the interview with Gia Moon on the LCD screen. She stood to punch numbers into an invisible keypad. Once, twice…six times, she jabbed her finger forward.

Seven glanced down at the file folder next to the computer. Typed on a sheet of paper on the top was the code to Mimi Tran’s security system. It had six digits.

His pulse took a hit, the martini having worn off hours ago. It was almost midnight. Luckily, he knew Rob’s cell number by heart.

Rob Maxwell worked for the Forensic Services Unit. Best damn computer guy on the face of the planet. The only thing that stopped Rob from taking over the world from the likes of Bill Gates was this one flaw: he was a bit of an asshole. Actually, he was a prick with the personality of a caveman.

So Rob Maxwell was basically kept chained to his dungeon office at FSU, not that he seemed to mind one bit. Seven actually thought the guy was a hoot, as long as you didn’t take him too seriously.

But the really great thing about Rob Maxwell when you were working on a case was the added plus that he needed very little sleep. Midnight was just the beginning of his hours online in the virtual world of elves, giants and warrior knights.

Now both men sat at Rob’s computer at FSU, where they’d agreed to meet. Rob was your typical aging punker, complete with skintight pants and deconstructed shirt held together with about twenty safety pins. His hair was dyed jet-black, and had been cut within an inch of its life, except for the bangs, which hung in a “devil lock” to his chin. He carried a beat-up copy of
A Clockwork Orange
to work every day, reading it like a Bible over his vegan lunch. In Rob’s twisted way, he thought it was the height of irony that he worked for the police department.

Tapping hard and fast on the keys, he complained to Seven that the job he needed done with the interview tape was a piece of cake.

“Jesus man, once, just once, I wish you yahoos upstairs could come up with something—you know—
real
. Something that might actually challenge me.”

“But then,” Seven responded, “Oh Big Giant Brain, how could my lowly intellect ever presume to conceive such a query?”

Rob seemed to like that one. “Amen, brother.”

Rob had a photograph of the crime scene up on the screen. With a bit of envy, Seven noticed Rob’s computer was a thirty-two-inch flat screen. The image showed the wall at the crime scene with the security keypad built in. Rob shrank the image to fit half the screen, then brought up the image of Gia Moon frozen in place, finger extended, ready to punch in her numbers.

“You know, I practically had the Grand Vizier on his fucking knees, ready to hand over the Sword of Eternity when you called,” Rob said, shaking his head but still typing.

“Like I said, I owe you,” Seven replied, his eyes on the screen.

“And then some. Okay, so we plug in our magic software that calculates the best fit between the two images.” He changed his voice, slowing it down to make sure that his minion could understand the Big Giant Brain. “And abracadabra.”

As he spoke, the right side of the screen, the image showing the keypad at Mimi Tran’s house, merged with the image of Gia Moon in the interview room. Rob played around with the two until everything lined up just right. Gia Moon now stood directly in front of the keypad, as if ready to start punching in the code.

“And here we go,” Rob said, hitting the Enter key.

Immediately, Gia began tapping in her numbers. Rob had changed the background of the interview-room footage to include the keypad on the wall of the Tran house.

Seven watched carefully. “Run it again,” he said.

Rob did.

“Can you zoom in?” Seven asked.

He snorted. “Stupid question. Hey, you want to see her do it naked? I can even give her a Pamela Anderson boob job.”

“Focus in on her hand and the keyboard,” Seven said. “I want to see what numbers she punches in. Slow it down.”

This time, Seven could clearly see the code that Gia punched into the keypad. He wrote it down, then compared the numbers to the actual code in the file.

Rob looked over. “Did you get what you wanted?”

Seven stared down at the two separate sheets of paper.

0-6-1-7-6-0.

It was the same number.