“Where?”
“Eddie Vo’s garage. This afternoon. Think about it while you’re counting the roaches in jail tonight.”
The police bagged his possessions and fingerprinted him at the Westminster station; the Sheriff’s deputies booked him and sprayed his ass for lice at Orange County Jail; the inmates whistled and offered to fuck him as he was led down the cellblock in blue overalls with the cuffs still so tight that his fingers bulged with pain. He looked at the taunting faces and doubted John Waters was really right when he wrote that everyone looked better under arrest. Sometime during the nightmare, he was allowed to call Bennett. After that, a burly doctor poked five stitches into the side of his forehead.
He lay on his cot and stared at the ceiling. The man in the bunk below gave him a chew of Skoal, then told him about the bum rap he’d gotten for aggravated assault. When the man began his fifth version of the same story, Frye told him to shut up and go to sleep. His other two cellmates kept to themselves, lying on their beds, faces to the wall.
He was exhausted. As he lay there, Frye conceded that this is probably just where he belonged. The best thing you can do is keep out of the way. It’s hard to believe, he thought, that I was close enough to Eddie Vo to strangle him, and I let him go.
Li’s ao dai, spotted with blood. Her trousers. Her shoe. Her earring. That’s why Minh staked out Vo’s house. That’s why he didn’t take Eddie as soon as we got there. He was hoping Eddie and I would lead him to Li. Maybe he would have.
Instead, he’s gone.
Frye dozed off. Sometime after midnight a deputy led him to the checkout room. He got his clothes back. His money was still there.
He met his new lawyer, Mike Flaherty, dispatched by Bennett. Bennett himself didn’t show. Frye stepped outside into the cool early morning, and Flaherty led him to his Mercedes.
“Your brother wants to see you,” said Mike. “I’ll drive you back to your car.”
Bennett, Donnell Crawley, and Nguyen Hy were in the living room, each with a stack of handwritten notes in front of him. A.38 lay on the coffee table in front of Nguyen. Two men that Frye had never seen before were connecting a tape recorder to the telephone. Both wore suits, both studied him intently as he walked in. Crawley introduced them as Michelsen and Toibin, FBI. The windows were open and the night was warm.
Bennett looked at Frye briefly and told him to go out to Donnell’s cottage in the back.
Frye moved down the hallway, noting again the pictures, decorations, and awards. He stopped at the war photos — shots of his brother and Li at the Pink Night Club in Saigon. Benny with two good legs under him, looking fresh-faced and happy, a little giddy with war, a foreign land, romance. Li stood beside him, her hair wound monumentally upward in the prevailing Western mode, her face oddly girlish. It seems so long ago, he thought: it must seem like centuries to them. Then Bennett’s citations and awards, both military and civic — two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, the L.A. Times Orange Countian of the Year, the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce Helping Hand Citation — dozens more. Even a couple of new ones since the last time he’d looked. Benny, he thought, never happy unless he was the best.
Frye glanced into Bennett’s studio: bookshelves, a drafting table, and a model of the Laguna Paradiso development on a stand in the middle of the room. He looked at the tiny hillsides, the blue enamel water, the miniature boats in the marina, the homes, and stores.
The Laguna Paradiso, he thought, the biggest Frye Ranch project yet. Bennett’s baby. Edison’s parting shot.
He went through the utility room, then out to a back porch. A spotlight on the garage illuminated the yard — a brick patio, an awning, a good expanse of lawn. The hedges were neatly trimmed, the grass freshly mowed, the plants along one side perfectly spaced and tended. Donnell kept the grounds. Nestled at the far end, under a big orange tree, stood his cottage. Frye let himself in: a bed, a Formica table, a tiny television set. Ten years, he thought, and I’ve never been inside. He sat on the bed and waited, his stitches hurting and the lice spray making him smell like a pet hospital.
Bennett came in a few minutes later, braced himself on his fists and looked up at Frye.
“You all right?”
“I’m okay.”
“Get down here to my level, would you, Chuck?”
Frye knelt on the floor in front of his brother. Bennett’s eyes weren’t right. Even as a kid, he would get that look.
“Chuck, what were you doing?”
“Trying to help. See, Vo—”
“I see.”
Bennett’s fist slammed into his chest before Frye could react. His breath ripped out of him as if gaffed, something wailed in his ears, and Bennett toppled him over and fastened his thick hands around Frye’s throat.
Bennett’s face loomed over him. Pressure throbbed in his eyes. Two thumbs locked into position against his windpipe. The voice that came from the clenched mouth above him was hard and cool as the stainless of Minh’s revolver. “Never do that again. Never do anything I don’t tell you to do. Don’t move. Don’t think. Don’t breathe without my permission again. Ever.”
Frye believed he was nodding. Everything was red, just like when he was under the water, fighting for direction. The next thing he knew, he was gasping. The ceiling was turning from red to bright white, then back again. He could hear his breath — rapid on the exhale, deep on the inhale. He sat up dizzily and let the room spin around him. As soon as he caught his breath, he started coughing.
Bennett returned from Crawley’s kitchenette, pivoting on one hand, bearing a glass of water in the other. “Here, drink.”
Frye swatted away the glass, which shattered against a wall. When he stood over Bennett, he was as close as he’d ever gotten to kicking the living shit out of him. Bennett’s gaze was impartial, measured. Frye could already see the arc his foot would take, a short upward swing, off the floor, weight shifting, straight into Bennett’s jaw.
It was too easy.
It was too hard.
He sat back onto the bed.
“Good soldier, Chuck. Calm down. We’ve got business to do now and we need to do it right. Are you with me?”
Frye nodded, coughed again.
“First, tell me what in Christ’s name you were doing with Eddie Vo.”
Frye sputtered out the story.
“Any hint at all as to where he took her? Any?”
“Benny, I just thought he was crazy. He took me right back to his house. He didn’t act like a man who’d just kidnapped someone. He showed me his collection of Li stuff. He looked at a poster like it was really her. He’s nuts. He named himself for Eddie Van Halen, for God’s sake.”
Bennett swung from one end of the little cottage to the other, then back to Frye.
“Next, what about Kim?”
“We ended up in Mojave. She got off. A guy named Paul DeCord took pictures of us from the road.”
“DeCord took pictures of you? Are you sure?”
“I think so. Who is he? And don’t tell me he’s a goddamned writer.”
Bennett shook his head. “How did Kim behave?”
“She was nervous. What was in those crates, Benny?”
“What did she tell you?”
“Damn it! What’s going on? She didn’t tell me anything.”
Bennett tapped his fingers on the floor, staring at Frye. “And what did you gather?”