Edison now marched to a far wall, onto which he had stapled several sheets from a large desk pad. He had written the main headings in black felt-tip: POLICE (MINH), FBI (LANSDALE), HOUSE/SENATE (BARNUM), FRYE COMPANY SECURITY (ARBUCKLE), COMMITTEE TO FREE VIETNAM (NGUYEN), BENNETT, EDISON. Under each he had noted the exact time and whatever progress each had made, or whatever assignments he wanted them to carry out. Frye saw that his own name was not included. Beneath (LANSDALE), Edison now scrawled “8:12 A.M. — STILL OUT!”
“Bastard,” he muttered, then dropped the pen, which swung on a string tacked to the blotter.
Bennett raised his hand, leaned into the phone. “Minh... Bennett Frye. Was that Eddie Vo’s Celica I chased all over hell last night, or not? The word I get from the street is it was.” Bennett pressed the speaker button and put down the receiver. Frye heard Detective John Minh’s clear voice come back over the line.
“Eddie Vo drives a dark blue Celica, painted out like the one at the plaza. He reported it stolen two days ago.”
“You bust him?”
Minh paused. “We approached him for questioning early this morning. He escaped.”
“What do you mean, escaped?”
“We’ll find him. We now consider him our prime suspect.”
“I sure as hell hope so. What about fingerprints, hair? Got an ID on the dead man yet?”
“That’s all I can tell you right—”
“ ‘Cause that’s all you have!” bellowed Edison. He began a verbal assault and Minh clicked off. Edison stopped mid-sentence, sat down, stood up again, and looked at Chuck. “What you hear in this room stays in this room.”
Frye nodded. “Fine, but Eddie Vo didn’t do it.”
They looked at him. Edison raised an eyebrow. “The hell’s that mean?”
“He was in the parking lot, sitting in a car. I saw him. Minh knows it — I told him last night.”
“Then he’s obviously found out something you don’t know. He’s the prime suspect, son. You heard the detective.”
“I don’t care what he is, Vo wasn’t even inside the Wind when it happened. Bennett, listen to me... I saw him sitting—”
Edison shook his head and turned to Bennett. “Minh isn’t going fast enough on this. Gimme that phone, I’m trying Lansdale again!” Thirty seconds later he was swearing out the senator, demanding an elite FBI team in Westminster before evening. Frye listened to Lansdale, pausing, evading, placating.
“She could be at the bottom of the Pacific by then!”
“They’ll find her, Ed. Just hang tight.”
Edison pounded down the receiver, stared at Bennett’s notepad for a moment, then marched to the intercom and demanded breakfast immediately. He looked at Chuck again, then at Bennett. “What do you want him to do?”
“I need you to drop off Kim at the LAX, Chuck. She’ll have the Halliburton case with her. You got some gas in that clunker?”
“It’s ready. Shouldn’t I do something a little more useful?”
“Like what?” asked Edison.
Frye looked at his father, then at Bennett. “There are plenty of things I could—”
Edison stood up and went toward the door. “What you can do is what Bennett tells you to do and no more, Chuck. It’s a case of too many cooks.”
“While you and Minh chase a guy who didn’t do it? Come on, I’ll go out with Hy’s people, work the neighborhoods... something. I know a little bit about asking questions.”
Edison shook his head. “This isn’t the time for that.”
“You better go,” said Bennett. “Kim’s plane leaves at eleven, and I want you there plenty early. Call me as soon as you get home, okay? And one more thing, if Kim says there’s been a change, there’s been a change.”
“Of what?”
“Do what she says.”
Frye pushed through the door and headed back to his car. Bennett padded up behind him. “Chuck... there is something else you can do for us. It’s not easy, but your contacts with the cops might help. If it gets sticky, back off. But find out what you can about John Minh.”
Tough assignment, thought Frye. Cops don’t talk about other cops. Especially to reporters, ex or not. “What’s in the case that Kim’s taking to the airport?”
Bennett looked at him matter-of-factly. “Li.”
Chapter 4
“Take interstate five, Chuck. We’re not going to Los Angeles airport.”
They headed up the Santa Ana Freeway toward the city, late enough to miss the Monday morning traffic. The suburbs marched by, divisionless and vast. A blanket of tan smog hung ahead of them, while above it the sky gradually reasserted its blue.
Kim sat beside him with the air of someone awaiting diagnosis. She fingered a red handbag and stared straight ahead through dark glasses. She had smoked four cigarettes in a row and was now lighting her fifth. Every few minutes she turned to look behind them. “I could not sleep last night. All I could think of was Li.”
“Me, too. What’s in the case, Kim?”
She worked the combination and opened the top. Frye looked down at thirty odd cassette tapes, neatly arranged, surrounded by foam.
“What’s on them?”
“Li’s songs. Some messages to friends. News from the United States. Gossip from relatives.”
“Why not just mail them?”
Kim drew on the cigarette and looked at Frye. “Some places the mail cannot go.”
“Paris isn’t that far away.”
She locked the case and turned to stare back at the traffic again.
Frye looked out to the Los Angeles skyline: overpasses and buildings and palm trees floating in a warm, tangible light. “Did you see her before the show last night?”
“We ate dinner together.”
“How was she?”
“She was tired and anxious about her trip. She had no idea of what was to be.”
“Did anyone?”
Kim glanced behind them again. “There is always a feeling in Little Saigon that things may happen. You read the newspapers. There was the shooting last week. Before that, the fire. Robbery. There is activity.” She tossed the cigarette and drummed her fingers on the seat. “North of the city, take Highway Fourteen.”
“I’m wondering if it was someone who knew her. A friend. Someone she thought was a friend. bạn.”
Kim’s fingers stopped moving. She ran them through her long black hair. “That is possible, Chuck.”
Fast Burbank, he took Highway 14 to Palmdale. The traffic thinned, the air cleared, the high desert landscape was rugged, parched. It was hot. Frye felt his shirt sticking to his back, his legs damp against the seat.
“Where we going, Kim, Death Valley?”
“Go through Palmdale, all the way to Rosamond.”
Frye noted that the temperature needle of his car was creeping to the hot zone. He wiped his face and looked out to the flat, unforgiving desert.
State Highway 14, wide, fast and in good repair, took them north. It shimmered ahead of him and vanished in a clear, acrylic hallucination. A faded sign announced the next city: WELCOME TO ROSAMOND — GATEWAY TO PROGRESS. Rosamond Boulevard led them east. Five miles past the town, Kim guided him north on a wide dirt road. Then west on a smaller dirt road, marked by a rotting wood sign that said Sidewinder Mine. Two hundred yards later, the road ended in a sliding chain-link gate. Wind had driven tumbleweeds against the mesh. She got out into the heat, dug the keys from her purse, and opened the locks. The breeze caught her hair as she leaned into the gate and pushed it aside, loose brush and all. Frye proceeded. In the rearview, he watched her check the locks.
“One-half mile, then right,” she said. A slight smile crossed her face. “It’s very hot today, Chuck.”