The look in Loc’s eyes was half terror and half hope. He looked at his friends, then back to Frye. “You will help me find my brother.”
“I need Lawrence.”
“I put the box in a brown grocery bag, as he told me. I brought it to the restroom here and left it. I got in my car and drove away. But I drove to another place and watched with binoculars. A few minutes later, a limousine arrived. It was General Dien’s. I am sure of it. Then a man went to the bathroom. When he left I went in and the bag was gone.”
“Did you see the general?”
“No.”
“What time?”
“I delivered the box yesterday night. A few hours after I broke into your house.”
“Did Lawrence put you up to burning out Ground Zero Records, too?”
“No, That was my own idea. Frye, I would not have disturbed your house if I knew it belonged to Li’s relative.”
“Where can I get a hold of you?”
“Call the restaurant. They will know.”
They took the same path back to Loc’s station wagon. The other Dark Men vanished into the trees. Loc dropped off Frye a block from Pho Dinh.
Frye leaned into the window. “Was Duc wearing a pair of red tennis shoes on Sunday?”
Loc nodded. “I bought them for him. Who cares?”
“One of the kidnappers wore the same thing.”
Loc glared up at Frye. “Duc is a fool, but he wouldn’t hurt Li.”
“Where was he going when he disappeared on Sunday?”
“To see the Dream Reader.”
“About what?”
Loc shrugged and lit a cigarette.
So, Frye thought, someone else went near the Dream Reader and never came back.
Like Li and her two escorts.
Like Eddie.
Like how?
Michelsen and Toibin were sitting in a car outside Bennett’s house when Frye drove up. Crawley was in the living room, sitting by the telephone. “He’s at the office, Chuck. Be home in an hour. You can wait here until he’s back.”
“This can’t wait.”
Frye was scrutinized by the FBI men as he went back to his car and started it up.
The commercial division of the Frye Ranch Company had been moved to Westminster at Bennett’s insistence, to the displeasure of Edison. The suites were on Bolsa, in the Cal-Asia Building, a block from the heart of Little Saigon. Frye parked, looking at the huge glass facade. A fountain gurgled in front of the main entrance, surrounded by pine trees carefully pruned to offer an oriental bonsai effect. He could see the shops and restaurants through the glass walls. Bennett’s van was in the space reserved for it.
He took the stairs to the Frye Ranch lobby on the third floor. Almost eight, he thought, but still bustling like always. Bennett was notorious for working his people late and paying them well. Erin, the receptionist, looked at Frye while she talked to one caller, punched another call through, and tried to get to still another blinking light at her switchboard.
He nodded in sympathy and walked past her. The property management suite still hummed with activity. Middle management types cruised past with the long strides of the indispensable. As he walked past Development — Industrial/Commercial, Frye noted three shirtsleeved architects hovering over a drawing that was spread out on a table. The division flack, Pincus, blew around Frye and into the executive wing. The walls were decorated with seascapes and occasional full-color photo blowups of Frye surfing choice breaks around the world. He stopped to consider a shot of himself casually executing a risky off-the-lip maneuver on a Sunset Beach monster. He stopped, admired his handiwork for a moment, then walked down the hall toward Bennett’s suite.
The door was shut but he went in anyway. The receptionist’s desk was neatened and vacated for the night. Strange, Frye thought, Benny’s always the last one here. Stepping down the hall, he could hear his brother, speaking loud and clear, as if over a very bad, or very long connection. Frye paused just outside Bennett’s door.
“Yes... that’s exactly what we need to know... is Xuan’s itinerary still valid? What about kilometer twenty-one?”
Frye leaned closer.
“It will leave tonight and be through Honolulu by morning... tell Kim to listen to the goddamned tapes, will you? Give her my love and courage...”
The shipment, thought Frye, the supplies from the Lower Mojave Airstrip.
Bennett hung up and Frye pushed through the door. His brother sat on a stool at a drafting table, hovered over a model of the Laguna Paradiso. At work, Bennett dressed in a suit, wore his prosthetics, and used his crutches. Frye looked from his brother to the tiny Laguna Paradiso with its miniature homes, retail centers, hotels, marina, and the trolley designed to take residents down to their own beach without having to walk.
“We’re going to get her back. I can feel it.”
“We got a problem, Benny—”
“It can wait. Now this is from Lansdale again. Michelsen and Toibin won’t talk to me, but Lansdale leaks it to Pop. The gunman wasn’t a local, Chuck. He was from San Francisco. He left there two weeks ago; told his wife he had work in Garden Grove. He was a cook by trade, so I’ve got Arbuckle trying to find a local employer. So whoever put this together used some out-of-town talent. And we’ve finally got something from Eddie’s car. They found one of Li’s fake fingernails under the seat, and she got hold of someone pretty good with it. It had torn skin under it, and type O blood. They’re still looking for medical records on Eddie to type him. Mixed in with the skin were a few splinters of wood. It was ebony, and it was finished with a good lacquer. They think from a club maybe, or a knife. Maybe a gun handle. You see anything like that in his house? Anything at all?”
“No.”
Bennett paused. “Chuck, I need the box I gave you. Bring it by in the morning, before eight.”
Frye took a deep breath. “I don’t have it. It was stolen out of my place yesterday afternoon.”
“No. Say that isn’t true.”
“It’s true.”
Bennett looked at him. Frye could sense the rage percolating inside his brother. Then Bennett took a deep breath. “Of course it is. Explain.”
Frye told him of the Dark Men, Denise’s drug-hazed account, how it had been corroborated by Loc. “He’s sure it was General Dien’s limo. Do you know a Lawrence who looks like that?”
Bennett shook his head. For a long moment he stared down at the miniature replica of the Paradiso. Then he climbed off the stool, steadied himself on his crutches, and swung past Frye into the hallway. He stopped and looked back. “Come on, Chuck,” he said. “Go home. Stay home. Just stay away. You can do that much for me, can’t you?”
Chapter 12
The Tuys’ home was small and neat, on a quiet cul-de-sac two blocks north of Saigon Plaza. A hedge of hibiscus ran along the front. Frye thought of his ill-fated tryst with the Mystery Maid, which culminated beneath just such greenery outside his own house. He thought too of the Lower Mojave Airstrip, and of the quiet presence of Tuy Xuan as he sat in the barren terminal with his computer. Cases of tapes. Crates of arms and legs. DeCord taking pictures of it all, and Bennett tracking it from his office phone. Frye went through a gate and down a walkway to the front door.
Tuy Xuan greeted him with a controlled smile, and offered his hand. His eyes were magnified by thick glasses. “I am very glad you are here,” he said. “Please come into my house.”
When Frye called him Mr. Tuy, the man shook his head. “You call me Xuan,” he said.
Madame Tuy and the four daughters were sitting in the living room. Xuan introduced them from the oldest down: Hanh, Tuoc, Nha, and Lan. Nha brought Frye a beer, stared straight into his face for a brief moment, and then looked away. He could see a little of the parents in each girl, the fine skin and lovely deep eyes. Nha was the tallest and most assured. Her grace was easy — half a woman’s, half a girl’s. Lan was toylike, diminutive, perfect. The two older sisters, Hanh and Tuoc, had permed their hair and wore blouses and jeans. Nha joined her father and Frye while the others disappeared into the kitchen. Their living room was sparse but tastefuclass="underline" a lacquer painting of Saigon by the artist Phi Loc, an American sofa, a black enamel coffee table in the Chinese mode. An upright piano stood along one wall. Beside it was a small Buddhist shrine — a red altar loaded with fruit and prickling with sticks of incense.