“And they caught them?”
“Two hours later. They put one away and the others walked. The trial was bad. I felt unclean, and that made it worse. I got up to four showers a day, but they didn’t help. You can’t wash your mind with soap and water. Not a day goes by, not an hour, when I don’t think about lying there with the oil machine pumping away over me. I wake up and the first thing I wonder is: Am I going to make it through this day without re-living that night again? Funny, because as soon as you ask that, you’ve already failed. And I swear, Chuck, I swear I’ve seen those other three. They’re in the same car — an old Chevy — and they cruise Coast Highway in front of my apartment. I’ve seen them three times in the last month. I’m sure of it.”
“You tell the cops?”
“They say there’s no law against driving Coast Highway. They think I’m paranoid. The funny part is, I am.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“So if I’m weird, please bear with me a little. If you don’t want to, I don’t blame you. But if you buy the ticket, you ought to know what the ride’s like.”
They stood for a while on the sand below her apartment. Frye held her close and could feel her heart beating against his chest. Her hair smelled like rain. Her mouth found his, and she was more assured now, eager. She put both her hands on his face and locked him in. She sucked out his breath. Frye gave her all he had. A moment later she was walking up the stairs toward her door. Frye stood and waited, but she never looked back.
Bennett was sitting on his couch when Frye walked in. Donnell Crawley stood in the corner, looking at one of Frye’s surfboards. “Your security stinks, little brother. No wonder my tape got stolen.”
“I told you I’m sorry about that—”
“Forget the tape, Chuck. We’ve got bigger problems now. I played a hunch on the black hood the gunman was wearing. I checked the yardgoods stores in town and found a lady who’d sold a piece of black cotton to a man, eight days ago. She was terrified. Donnell leaned on her a little. She’d seen the guy before. Twenty years before, near Nha Trang. He was Dac Cong — Communist Special Forces.”
“Jesus.”
“Pop got Wiggins to let her view the body. Bingo. It was the same guy who bought the fabric.”
“From Vietnam to San Francisco to Little Saigon. One of Thach’s men?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. The FBI’s doing a background check on him but it will take a while. They’re not in any goddamned hurry to share with us.”
Crawley sat down with Bennett. Frye went to the window and looked out. The traffic on Laguna Canyon Road hissed along, tourists heading inland with genuine Laguna art. “I talked to Wiggins about Thach. The colonel’s a prisoner in his own apartment right now. His bosses don’t trust him.”
“I got the same intelligence.”
“Do you believe it?”
“No. But my sources need a few days to look into it.”
“Wiggins talked down the whole Hanoi angle anyway.”
“No one in the government will listen to that, Chuck. Not with Lucia Parsons getting Hanoi friendly enough to talk about POWs. Not with a city full of refugees ready to panic at the mention of his name. They want to be real sure before that can of worms gets opened.”
“Do you really think he’s behind it?”
“I don’t have any proof either. It’s easy for people to make it look that way.”
“Why do that?”
“Terror is a tool. I learned that well enough.”
Frye considered this. “Has she called again, Benny?”
“No word. Nothing, The FBI ran the voice print yesterday and it was definitely Li on the phone.”
“What about the other voice?”
“Male Oriental, middle-age. Not a native speaker. That’s all they could say.”
“Benny, I read the story that Li told Smith. About Lam and you and her. Three bottles of French champagne on your... picnics. And three bottles of champagne on her stand in the dressing room.”
Bennett heaved off the couch and swung over to Frye. “Get down here, Chuck. Get down to my level.”
“No way.”
Bennett glared up at him. “I’m going to tell you something. These stumps I’m standing on aren’t the worst thing I brought home from Nam. The worst is up in my head, and that’s just where I’m going to keep it. You can’t pry into me. Don’t even try. The war is nobody’s business but my own. Not yours, not Pop’s... nobody’s. Someone’s fucking with my head, Chuck, Don’t you start, too.”
“They’re trying to make you remember Lam, aren’t they?”
Frye could sense Bennett, navigating his own fury now. Bennett stepped back and stared up. He spoke softly. “That’s exactly what they’re trying to do. What they don’t know is that I remember him all the time, every day of my life. I don’t forget traitors: Ever.”
Bennett lurched over to Crawley, who produced a Colt .45. Bennett brought it over to Frye and held it out. “If Thach is behind this, you might need a friend. I got Donnell and more FBI than I can stomach hanging around my house. Now you’ve got this. The clip’s full, no round in the chamber, and the safety’s on. You know how to use it?”
“Pop showed me a long time ago.”
“Well, the Colt .45 hasn’t changed in fifty years. It shoots straight and slow, and hits like an elephant. Keep it close, watch your back and don’t spend any more time in Little Saigon than you have to.”
Frye took the heavy weapon. What mass has more finality? he thought. A tumor? A gravestone? “Thanks, I guess.”
Bennett swung toward the door, stopped, then exhaled long and slow. He turned back to Frye with a curious look of pain and disappointment. “Wiggins finally caught up with Eddie Vo. About an hour ago.”
“Where’d they find him?”
“Trying to get into his house. He pulled a gun, and they shot him six times on his front porch.”
Frye leaned against his broken stereo speaker. “Eddie Vo was just a mixed-up kid.”
“Wiggins talks like he just got Joe Bonanno. The FBI’s happy now — they’ve got their prime suspect. Be careful, Chuck.”
Crawley waited for Bennett to pivot past him. “Good night, Chuck. Anything not right, you call me. I be here fast as I can.”
Frye got a flashlight and went into the cave. He dug through some old boxes and finally found the little pair of stereo speakers that he’d outgrown years ago but couldn’t bring himself to toss.
In the living room, he hooked them up to his receiver and put on Li’s Lost Mothers.
The sound wasn’t great, but the music came through anyway. He read the translation of “Tunnel Song.”
Frye looked at the fresh traces of mud on the floor, on his shoes. From the cave, he thought. From the cave.
Suddenly, obviously, like a shade being removed from his eyes, he knew where they had taken her.
And he knew where Eddie had gone.
And he knew where Duc had gone.
Mud in the middle of August.
He called information and got her number. The Dream Reader answered on the ninth ring. She sounded sleepy. Frye said he’d just had a bad nightmare and demanded an emergency reading. She said it would cost twice as much this late. They agreed on midnight.