The Cyclone rolled down the road, fan belts squeaking, gravel popping against the tires, a dusty cloud forming in its wake.
The Lower Mojave Airstrip was two swatches of bleached, cracked cement held together by liberal patchings of tar, a quonset hut hangar and one low square building that once might have been a terminal. The tower was boarded up. A sign slouched, its words faintly visible after years of sandstorms, vandals’ bullets, neglect. “Cheaper fares?”
Kim studied the place. “Better movies. Park by the tower.”
Human life materialized in the dust as Frye pulled close. A mechanic in overalls stood outside one of the huts. Two young men — both Vietnamese — stood on the far side of the tower and squinted Frye’s way. The door of the terminal opened, then shut. At the far end of one runway, Frye noted a Piper, an old Fokker replica, and an ancient transport prop. It was repainted a beige that blended with the desert around it. The words “Liberty Transport” were stenciled below the fuselage. The left cargo door was open and a ramp led up from the runway, where a dozen or so wooden crates waited for loading.
“Stay with me,” Kim said, pushing open her door against the growing wind.
Frye followed her to the two men by the tower. They spoke briefly in Vietnamese. The shorter man seemed to be indicating the Halliburton, then the terminal. Kim squared her sunglasses and led the way to the squat building. Inside was a counter, a desk, a clock, two chairs, about twelve hundred square feet of nothing, and the father of Miss Saigon Days. The last thing Frye remembered of him was the bulging shock on his face as Frye yanked him to the floor by his necktie. He now sat at the desk, in front of a small computer screen. “Thank you, Mr. Frye,” he said quietly. “You saved my life.”
“Any time.”
“My name is Tuy Xuan. It is pronounced swan — like the bird.”
“Chuck.”
Xuan looked at his screen, then at Kim, Frye heard the wind howl, then die, leaving only the low drone of the transport engines behind it. A stinkbug wobbled across the dust-caked linoleum.
“Has our friend been here?” she asked.
“No. But there’s no reason to wait. You are ready, Kim?”
She turned and kissed Frye on the cheek. “Thank you. I know your brother will want to talk to you soon.”
As I will to him, Frye thought.
Xuan was coming around the counter when his daughter appeared in the far recess of the empty terminal. Frye watched her approach: hair back in a ponytail, a yellow cotton dress, pumps. She carried a silver case, like Kim’s. She looked once at Frye and averted her eyes, just as she had at the Asian Wind. She brought the Halliburton to her father. They spoke in Vietnamese. Xuan opened the case — well away from Frye’s line of sight — touched something inside, then shut it and spun the lock. “Nha, this is Chuck Frye, the man who saved me.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m honored.”
“I didn’t do much but half choke him.”
“I read your articles before you left the newspaper,” Nha said.
Frye tried to catch her eyes with his, but they slid off of each other like magnets of the same polarity.
Xuan held open the door for Kim. A hot puff of air blew in. “Please wait here,” she said to Frye. “When the plane takes off, you can go. Nha will escort you to your car.”
She blushed, turned away and busied herself with the computer. The door slammed.
Frye went to the opaque, sand-scratched window and looked out. Kim’s hair swirled as she moved up the loading ramp with the silver cases. The wooden crates were gone. The two Vietnamese men closed the door behind her and pushed away the ramp. The pilot was obscured by headgear: All Frye could make out was his pale, Anglo nose and mouth. The overalled mechanic untied the ropes from the ground cleats, ran forward, and motioned the pilot toward the runway. A tumbleweed rolled across the tarmac and came to rest against the defunct tower. In the shimmering middle-distance, Frye could see the gaping entrance of the Sidewinder Mine — old struts leaning precariously, boulders covered by black spray-paint. When he turned, he caught Nha studying him. He smiled at her. “Paris, my ass,” he said.
Nha’s expression didn’t change. “Talk to Bennett.”
Like talking to a rock, he thought. “Pretty bad last night. You and your family okay?”
Nha nodded slightly. “Frightened. I stayed beneath a table with my hands over my head, holding one of my sisters.”
The droning of the plane engines rose to a higher key. Frye watched it crawl onto the runway and straighten into the wind. Tuy Xuan hustled across the tarmac and disappeared behind the tower. A moment later, Liberty Transport sped down the runway and lifted into the air, wings rocking, engines torquing, flaps extended.
Frye stepped outside with Nha. Her father joined them, a satisfied smile on his face. “Chuck, you have helped us. Would you honor our house for dinner tomorrow night? We all wish to thank you.”
Nha looked at him, then out to the runway where the cargo plane lessened into the vast blue sky.
“I’d like that,” he said. “What was in the crates?”
Xuan touched him lightly on the shoulder and smiled. Then his face stiffened and his eyes focused on something past Frye’s shoulder. He muttered something in Vietnamese. “Come in here,” he said, leading Frye and Nha back into the terminal building. Looking back over his shoulder, Frye could see the white car parked on a rise in the dirt road a hundred yards away. Someone was standing beside it. Xuan produced a pair of U.S. Government binoculars and kicked open the door. He gave the glasses to Frye.
The man was leaning against a white Lincoln, apparently at ease. A camera with a huge lens lay on the hood of the car beside him. Frye recognized him immediately, half expecting him to step forward with a briefcase full of money, as he had so often for Nguyen Hy. Red hair and mustache, polo shirt, thick arms and neck. Red Mustache lifted his camera again. Frye shrank back into the doorway. Xuan and Nha were talking again in Vietnamese. The camera lowered; Red Mustache got back into his town car. Xuan dialed the telephone.
“Who is he?”
“A writer... and a former friend,” said Nha.
“He doesn’t look like a writer. Who does he work for?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, ‘former friend’?”
“Attitudes change,” Nha said. “Sometimes quickly.”
“What was in the crates?”
“Food and clothing for the camps in Thailand.”
Frye watched as the Lincoln backed down the road, rose over the hillock, and vanished.
“Vo couldn’t have done it.” Frye was looking at the oddly androgynous face of Detective John Minh. Minh had an office in Detectives, a desk buried in reports and Vietnamese business directories, a poster of Li on one wall, and a phone that kept ringing.
“Why not?”
Frye explained again how he’d seen him, sitting in the car.
Minh studied him. “He disappeared before the shooting, according to ten witnesses. No one saw him after, except for you. You were speeding past his car in the parking lot?”
“Not exactly speeding.”
“But you were looking through two windshields, late at night, driving?”
“I told you that.”
“You were certainly thinking of other things, weren’t you? Your heart was pounding. Your ears were ringing. But you now claim to identify a man you had seen exactly once before in your life?”
“That’s true.”
“We know he left before the shooting. We know it was his car used in the getaway. We went to his home to question him this morning, and he ran away. Why? He hasn’t gone to his record store all day. He’s a fugitive. He could easily have planned it and watched the execution. Did you ever think of that? Did you ever think that you may have seen his brother, or a friend who looked like him? How many Vietnamese gang boys have hair like that? A dozen at least, maybe more. Don’t sit there and tell me who did it, and who didn’t. It insults me and makes me angry.”