It’s too normal, he thought. Too business-as-usual. Why bring a kidnapped woman to a shopping center, anyway? “We guessed wrong, Benny. They’d never come here. It’s too—”
“Shut up, Chuck. There it is!”
Bennett hurled himself out of the car before Frye even stopped. Crawley ran from Thòi-Trang Fabrics. Frye squeezed into an open space beside the Celica and got out. He watched Bennett climb to the hood, swing across it, and peer through the windshield. Crawley cupped his hands to a side window. Frye touched the hood: still warm. He noted the odd paint job — the way that the grill and the chrome and the trim had all been painted the same dark blue as the body. Bennett slid off the car and landed with a thud on the sidewalk. For a moment he stood there, as if sinking in the cement; his fists down for balance and his face washed pink by the light of the nearest sign. Frye read it:
Frye could see a woman inside the shop, watching without interest. Bennett pivoted toward the door; Crawley moved ahead of him and pulled it open.
The woman was big and old, with gray hair twisted back in a severe bun, and wearing a tight black ao dai. Sitting behind a small table, she looked at each of them in turn, her eyes half suspicion and half amusement. Black lights cast a violet glow over two chairs, a Chinese calendar hanging from one wall, a brush painting of a mountain with waterfall. Incense burned from a small brass pot in one corner, Bennett pushed a chair close to her, climbed in, and braced himself on her table. “That blue car, right there. Where are the people who were in it?”
She placed a small enamel box before Bennett. She looked at Crawley, then Frye. Crawley opened it, put two bills inside. Frye saw her glance at the money, then back to his brother. “I saw no one.”
For a second it looked as if Bennett would end up in her lap. “The hell you didn’t, lady. Two men and a woman. Li Frye! Li Frye, lady, you know who that is?”
“Everyone know Li. I was in the back.”
“Look me in the face and tell me you didn’t see that car come in.”
She considered Frye, and for the briefest moment he was sure what he saw in her eyes was fear. “I did not see that car come in.” She brought out a tape from a drawer and placed it beside the box as if it were the final card of a straight flush. It was one of Li’s — “The Lost Mothers.” Her face filled the front, photographed against a single strand of barbed wire. The Dream Reader crossed her heavy arms. “I know Li Frye. She was not here.”
Bennett looked at her, then at Crawley, then went into the back room through a bead curtain that swayed and rattled in his wake. For the next few seconds Frye stood there and listened to his brother — a door opening then slamming, a grunt, curses. The incense burner shook, its brass lid chiming quietly. The Dream Reader stared at him. Frye had the feeling that she was memorizing his thoughts. Crawley’s face was deep purple in the black light. Bennett heaved back in, beads flying, then trailing over his shoulders as he came through. “Let’s go.”
They spread out to cover the shops. Next door, the jewelry store owner told Frye he’d been with customers — didn’t see the car arrive, very sorry. He hadn’t seen Li since last month, when she sang a benefit here at the plaza. She looked beautiful. He mentioned big savings on Seiko diver’s watches, waterproof to two hundred feet, no tax. “That is a gang car,” he said. “You can tell because they paint it all one color.”
The woman in the flower shop spoke no English at all, but nodded and smiled when he said Li’s name. She pushed the play button on a portable tape machine, and Li’s voice creaked from the tiny speakers.
“Li Frye?” he asked, pointing to the blue Celica.
“Li Flye,” she said, pointing to the tape player.
“Thanks.”
Two young men drinking outside Tour d’Ivoire said they’d seen the car pull up, but it was empty. Frye pressed, and the story got changed to another car pulling up at another place at another time. When he thanked them, they said no problem, we always help police.
Up the sidewalk he could see Crawley coming from a noodle shop. Beyond him Bennett worked himself from a door with some difficulty, then slammed it shut. He went back to the Celica, stared for a moment at the eye-level license plate, then crashed his fist onto the hood. The dent showed like a cut, catching the pink light of the Dream Reader — accurate, specific, on special. Frye could see her, still sitting inside, plump and silent as Buddha. Bennett waved him toward the Cyclone. He’s coming apart, Frye thought: he’s blowing up like the mine that got him in Dong Zu.
Using a crowbar from the Mercury, Bennett pried his way into the Toyota trunk in less than a minute. He sat on the pavement when he’d finished, drenched in sweat, his chest heaving and his eyes definitely not right. He wasn’t tall enough to see inside. “What’s in there, Chuck?”
“Nothing, and you’re wrecking evidence.”
Bennett hurled the crowbar back into the Cyclone, then glowered at Frye. “We’re going over every inch of this goddamned place. Don’t come back to this car unless you’ve got Li with you.”
Frye looked out at Saigon Plaza. People stared from the windows and doorways. The searchlights crisscrossed in the darkness above.
He went into every shop, stopped people on the sidewalk, and talked to everyone who would talk back. No one had seen a thing. When he returned to his car half an hour later, Donnell and Bennett were waiting.
Cops were all over the Asian Wind, Light bars pulsed, flashing against the building. Radios squawked. Two officers strung yellow crime-scene tape between saw-horses. An ambulance sped away. A potbellied sergeant stood, hands on hips, at a loss for some meaningful chore. An officer at the door let them in when Bennett told him who they were.
The cabaret had become a different place. The stage lights were off, the glitter ball stilled, and instead of music came the echoing murmur of police as they conferred, shot pictures of the body on the stage, roped off the back exit, nodded, and pointed like battlefield visitors reimagining some hopeless stand or bloody offensive.
Frye crunched across the glassy dance floor, righted a chair, and sat with his back to what was once a mirrored wall. Crawley stood beside him, arms crossed. Burke Parsons talked with an officer, pointing toward the stage with his hat, then stepped forward and knelt. With his free hand he indicated the exit route of the gunmen. Bennett climbed into a dinner booth, where a plainclothes cop joined him, pen and notepad poised.
Frye took a deep breath and leaned his head back, staring up at the bullet-sprayed ceiling. He tried to slow his mind, to organize his memory, but it swarmed him in undisciplined waves. It struck him that he had a true scoop here, a first-hand story, a big one. A week’s worth of front-page news, he thought, and nobody to print it.