He coughed hoarsely into a fist and drank his beer. “It’s Mrs. Nguyen I want to help,” he repeated.
“Then tell us everything you know. Start at the beginning. How much time do we have?”
He flipped open his cell for a quick check and then set it back on the table. “It’s a bit messy.”
“Only a bit?”
He put out his cigarette. He’d only smoked half of it. “First thing you got to understand is I rarely know their reasons for doing anything. I do what I’m told, I don’t ask questions. Me and my brothers, we’ve been doing that for years now. We started out washing dishes, and now we do whatever needs doing. They like that we can take care of ourselves, that we send money home to our mother, that my brothers do what I tell them. Knowing your place and what you have to do — they expect that of everyone, especially people they trust. They put us through school, you know. That’s the other thing you got to understand. Me and my brothers came to America on our own. Our father died on the way, and we haven’t seen our family back home in thirteen years. So Mr. Nguyen and his son, they’re all the family we got here.
“But like I said, certain things they don’t talk about. When Mr. Nguyen got married two years ago, we didn’t know he was with anybody. We were curious, of course. But we never saw her. She didn’t come by the restaurant, and when I drove Mr. Nguyen home or picked him up, I had to park by the curb, stay in the car. So I only ever saw her from a distance, standing in their living room window usually. I think he wanted it that way, her not knowing about his business, us not knowing about her. But some things you can’t help knowing. He started arguing with her a lot on the phone, spending more and more time at the restaurant, at the casinos. I lost count how many times he’d storm out of the house when I picked him up in the morning, all red-faced and cursing to himself. Drunk. He’s always been a drinker, but I’d never seen him start that early in the day until Mrs. Nguyen came along.”
Victor kept his hands in his lap like they were handcuffed under the table. I noticed he didn’t gesture when he spoke, even when there was emotion in his voice. And it was strange to hear so many words come out of his mouth. He wasn’t that taciturn after all. He just had remarkable self-control.
“Then one night last year,” he said, “I get a call from Mr. Jonathan, telling me I have to come to the house at once. I figure I’m in trouble or something. But when I get there, he’s waiting at the front door and waves me inside. First time ever. He looks nervous, which isn’t like him. When I walk into the living room, I see why. His father’s sitting slouched by the staircase in his underwear and no shirt on, and he’s holding his hand like it’s broken. He looks at me with bloodshot eyes, like he doesn’t know me. Mrs. Nguyen’s lying beside him at the foot of the stairs. She’s not moving. Her hair’s a mess. Her nightgown’s ripped at the shoulder. I can’t see any blood, but at the top of the stairs is an overturned lamp. Mr. Jonathan’s on the phone with 911, and when he hangs up, he hands me a pair of pajamas and orders me to put them on. He says Mrs. Nguyen has fallen and is unconscious, so when the paramedics come, I have to tell them I’m a family friend who was staying over and woke up and found her this way, that she accidentally fell down the stairs. I’m not to say anything else, or move her, or let her move on her own if she wakes up. He’s gonna meet me at the hospital shortly. I get even more freaked out now because I know he’s trusting me with her life. He grabs his father’s good arm and gets him to his feet, like he’s a stubborn child, and he starts hurrying him to the garage door. Mr. Nguyen hasn’t said a word yet, but suddenly he pulls his arm away and smacks his son across the face with his good hand. Mr. Jonathan glares at him like he’s ready to choke him. But then he just says, ‘Let’s go, Dad,’ and his father looks back one more time at Mrs. Nguyen and stumbles out the door on his own.
“So they leave, and I do exactly as I’m told. An hour later Mr. Jonathan arrives at the hospital. He’s alone, acts real concerned with the doctor and the nurses, even holds back a tear when they tell us that Mrs. Nguyen broke her left arm and suffered a concussion. She was lucky she didn’t break her neck. After that I’m told to go home.
“A week later, I finally see Mr. Nguyen again. He’s got a metal splint on two of his fingers. Him and his son act like nothing happened, but for the next few months, he’s a lot calmer and nicer on the phone with Mrs. Nguyen. He’s drinking less, brings food and flowers home to her. They even go to Hawaii for a week, and I know how much he hates flying.
“But once she gets better, things go right back to how they were. I pick him up one morning and he’s got a big bandage above his left eye. Few days after that — this was about a month ago — she comes storming into the restaurant during dinnertime and demands to see him. Mr. Jonathan tries to calm her down, but she swipes a glass from the counter and smashes it on the ground. That’s when Mr. Nguyen comes rushing out of the kitchen, grabs her by the arm, hauls her into the kitchen. There’s a lot of yelling at first, stuff flying around, but then his office door slams shuts and we don’t hear anything for hours. Even after the restaurant closes, they still don’t come out.
“So I wasn’t all that surprised when Mr. Jonathan took me aside the next day and told me to start following her. It was now my full-time job. Rent a different car every day, park down the street, wait for her to leave the house. Anywhere she goes, I go. She didn’t work anymore, so I was usually following her to the grocery store or the shopping mall, sometimes to the movies. One thing she liked doing was going to the casinos in the afternoon and just walking around, gambling a little, watching people. Sometimes she’d go driving for an hour and then come straight home. I reported all that.”
Victor had been telling his story mostly to me, but now he turned thoughtfully to Mai. “What I didn’t report was her visiting you. One afternoon she parks across the street from your complex, crosses over on foot. She walks directly to your apartment, drops an envelope in your mailbox, and doesn’t stop until she gets back to her car. I guess you got that letter.”
Mai gave me a knowing glance but offered Victor only coolness. “You just kept that to yourself? Respecting her privacy all of a sudden?”
I expected someone like Victor to bristle at sarcasm, but again he seemed surprised, more hurt than annoyed by her tone. “I was respecting the situation,” he insisted. “I figured I was following her because Mr. Nguyen thought she was cheating on him or something. This felt like something else though. The way she looked after she went to your apartment. . When she got back to her car, she sat there for a long time with her hands gripping the steering wheel and just stared at your complex. It was like someone had died. I went back to your apartment that evening and waited on that bench by the pool. You passed me, actually, when you came home. You were wearing exactly what you’re wearing now. I knew at once who you had to be. It’d be obvious to anyone who’s seen your mother. And I don’t know — something about the whole thing. . it felt so private, I guess. I admit I was curious, but I didn’t want to say anything until I knew more.”
He tried to look Mai in the eye, searching for some approval, and I could see now why he was doing all this. The first time he saw her, she must have inflamed his curiosity just as her mother did to me ten years before. He probably went back to that bench the following night and every night after that. Might have even fantasized about this very conversation, in this bar, with her and only her sitting across from him.