Saigon Red

by Gregory C. Randall

  “I don’t know, sweetie.” She hated to lie, even though she had no idea why the boy was taken.

  Javier and a detective went into the mall to talk to the girl at the counter of the video arcade. When Javier returned, he said she had nothing new to add. The detective remained to take the counter girl’s statement.

  “You, a pistol?” Phan said, leaning in to Alex. “That is not acceptable.”

  She guessed that he had noticed its shape under her shirt. “I have a license.”

  “They are very difficult to obtain.” He turned to Chris and Javier. “I assume one of you is behind this?”

  “It is all proper.”

  “You Americans think you own the world,” the detective said.

  Alex looked up at the corner of the entry lobby. A CCTV was secured high and out of reach. “Detective, where’s the mall security office? They may have something from the cameras.”

  Ilaria pulled Gianna close to her. “Alex, we must get home. Someone may call. Nevio is waiting.”

  Alex looked at Chris. “Can you take them home? I can do more good here with Detective Phan than I can waiting at the apartment. And you can talk to Nevio.”

  “Not a problem,” Chris answered.

  “I’m going to stay with Alex,” Javier said. “There’s something strange about all this.”

  “Strange?” Alex said. “More like scary as hell.”

  Phan sent the mall guard to give the security office a heads-up.

  Chris left with Ilaria, Gianna, and Maria. Alex, Detective Phan, and Javier walked through the mall to the security office. Two of Phan’s uniformed cops followed. Phan showed the security guard his badge and spoke rapidly in Vietnamese; the conversation went on for at least two minutes. Then the detective slammed his hand on the counter and pointed to his men, and one of the officers began to remove handcuffs from his belt. The security guard threw his hands up in the universal sign of “What the hell?” and pointed to a door down the hall.

  Minutes later, the three of them were looking through a mosaic of high-definition camera views on two large-screen TVs. Alex told the security guard operating the machine to rewind the playback to when the crying Gianna ran across the mall to Alex and Ilaria. The guard located the camera near the Starbucks and found the scene. At this point Gianna was under the arm of Ilaria, who was pointing back toward the arcade. The guard noted the time stamp, then synchronized the other feeds to the time. He moved the image of the arcade to the center of the monitor and then turned back the time. Paolo came into view, walking toward the arcade counter and the girl Alex had talked to.

  “That’s Paolo,” Alex said. “He doesn’t look anxious here.” She scanned the dark images behind him. One figure was obscured, but his shadow was larger than the Vietnamese that passed between the boy and him. “Another view?”

  Phan said something to the operator, and the screen changed. Now Paolo was seen in profile somewhere deep in the arcade.

  “He says this camera is mounted over the exit to the service hallway.”

  “I went out that door. Have him advance the footage from this point.”

  They watched Paolo leave the counter and walk back toward the machines. The shadow walked up to the boy, and Paolo stopped. A conversation began. Paolo looked around as the shadow pointed at the camera or the door below it. Paolo turned away to walk back into the mall. The shadow took Paolo’s arm and turned him toward the camera. Paolo went with him. About ten feet from the camera and the door, the face of the shadow appeared.

  “Freeze it!” Alex yelled. The image stopped. She looked hard at the crisp, colored image on the screen. Her stomach flipped—she almost lost it. “Goddamn that asshole. I’m going to kill him.”

  “You know that man?” Javier asked.

  “That is my goddamned ex-husband, Ralph Cierzinski.”

  CHAPTER 40

  They watched the video from six other cameras, following Ralph and the boy down the corridor and then out into the service area. There, a Vietnamese man climbed out of a van and talked to Ralph. Then the Vietnamese made a signal to the van. Two men jumped out of the side door and pulled the boy inside. Ralph climbed in the front seat, and the van left.

  Phan told the operator to refreeze the image. “License.” They all looked. Where the plate should have been there was nothing.

  “No help,” Javier said.

  “Unlike the rich United States,” Phan said, “we have far fewer blue Mercedes vans in this city. We’ll cross-reference and see if anything shows up. My guess, it’s stolen.”

  Alex scanned the last image frozen on the screen, taken just after the van had turned the corner. “Can you make this image full screen?”

  The operator did. The resolution was sharp, the view panoramic: the facade of the mall, across the service area, and to the parking lot beyond, where thousands of motorbikes were parked in neat rows, their chrome handlebars sparkling in the sunlight. In the center of the image, among the first row of motorbikes, one lone figure stood. His head was turned toward the disappearing blue van.

  Alex tapped her finger on the monitor. “Zoom in there.” The image enlarged. “More.” The man now filled half the screen, but the image was becoming grainy.

  “Do you have another camera that covers this area of the parking lot?” The detective translated for her, and a few seconds later an overhead view of the parking lot appeared. The operator zoomed in again.

  He was thin and tall, his face full on to the sun. He was obviously not Vietnamese; a hoody covered the back of his head.

  Phan gasped. “Move it forward in time,” the detective said. “Slowly.”

  The image advanced. The man turned, and his head tracked the departing van. Then he picked up a helmet sitting on the seat of the motorbike. He dropped the hoody, and his spiky white hair grabbed the sunlight. The man secured the helmet, slid up the visor, and climbed on the bike. He turned his head toward the mall exit. In the peripheral edge of the camera’s view, Alex ran out into the service court.

  “Your son!” Alex said. “Why is your son here?”

  “No idea,” Phan said. He continued to watch the display. “How is he connected to all this?”

  They fast-forwarded the action through the arrival of the police, Campbell, and Castillo, and the dismissal of Bobo, the minivan driver. The entire time, Lin remained in the parking lot on his bike, watching. They continued to watch until Bobo’s minivan left the premises and Lin seemed, strangely, to follow after him.

  In the quiet of the control room, Alex’s phone pinged, a text message:

  Hi Sandy Girl,

  I miss you a lot. I want two hundred thousand dollars, or the kid will permanently disappear. More info later . . . BTW, this Saigon weather sucks! How can you stand to live here?

  Danny Z.

  “What?” Javier asked, seeing the stunned expression on Alex’s face.

  “A fucking ransom demand from Ralph. I cannot believe this is happening.”

  She showed the message to Phan and Javier. The detective still seemed in shock over the appearance of his son. Alex, like her brother, also did not understand what the connections were in all of this.

  “Those are the same silly names he used in Venice, aren’t they?” Javier asked.

  “Yes, the guy just loves to rattle my cage—I don’t get it. He’s seriously psychotic.”

  She explained to Phan that years earlier, during one of the few periods of bliss she and her ex-husband had shared, they started calling each other the names of the characters from the play Grease. Phan said he’d never heard of the play.

  Now, Ralph was in Saigon and had kidnapped Paolo. This was not the first time she wanted to shoot him. Her phone pinged again:

  Sandy,

  By now, you’ve called out the cavalry, watched me on the mall videos (damn they have a lot of cameras, wish I’d put that many in the house, especially the bedroom—just joking). I’ve always liked that about you, you’re reliable and predictable. My demand
remains the same. Between your boss, Campbell, and Como Motors, I’m sure you can dig up the money. You have twenty-four hours. I’ll text you the details. Just send me a short and sweet confirming note.

  Danny Z.

  She showed the second message to the others. Alex’s head spun. He’d obviously seen Chris visit the house in Cleveland through the cameras in the smoke alarms and had somehow found out about her involvement with Como Motors. The son of a bitch.

  Alex looked again at Cierzinski’s message, then replied:

  You asshole—fuck you!! If anything happens to Paolo, I will hunt you down and kill you.

  She didn’t sign it.

  CHAPTER 41

  Beyond the enclosing ring road of the mall, Lin stood in the vast parking lot filled with thousands of motorbikes, his helmet on the seat. He’d watched everything that had happened during the last hour. His greatest shock was seeing his father. He’d not expected that—it had to be the woman, Alex. She must have called him.

  He looked at the Honda minivan. It was the same one he’d followed earlier from the Luccheses’ apartment building. The driver stopped the minivan near the women and the group talking with his father. Then the driver, having not picked anyone up, moved his van farther up the road and parked. Lin watched as some of the people and police climbed into their respective vehicles and drove away, while the others, including his father, went back inside the mall. A minute later he was alone in the sea of chrome and plastic motorbikes.

  He made the decision not to follow the blue Mercedes van when it left. His target was the woman, the one claiming to be his aunt. She was the key to Lucchese and the continued feed of the last pieces of the information he needed. Lucchese’s boy, the Anglo man, the Vietnamese helping him—too many variables. Now he was pleased he’d waited to see what developed. His father, the woman, and the head of Teton Security, all in one spot. Yes, waiting was the right decision.

  Now that everyone was gone, he looked back at the minivan. The driver climbed out and lit a cigarette, then casually looked at his phone. Lin put his helmet back on.

  “Enlarge view three times,” he said. The image on the visor expanded, and the man next to the minivan filled the screen. Lin smiled.

  “Bobo Bao, you son of a bitch,” Lin said. “You haven’t changed at all, and I assume that Tommy Quan is still holding your leash?”

  Before Lin had left HCMC, he’d had a run-in with Bobo and his brother, Bing, both of whom ran with a drug gang under the control of the cousin, Tommy Quan. He guessed that the van service was one of their more legal enterprises. He was more than a little shocked to see the connection to the Luccheses. Then again, considering their common associate, he wasn’t that surprised.

  Bobo climbed back into the minivan, then pulled out onto the perimeter road. Lin snapped the strap to his helmet and followed closely behind the Honda.

  Thirty minutes later, Bobo stopped at a street-side restaurant. Lin parked his motorbike and walked to the side of the minivan, found it unlocked, slid open the door, climbed inside, and waited.

  It was getting dark when Bobo returned and climbed back into the Honda. Lin calmly placed a small pistol against the side of the man’s head.

  “Who told you to pick up the Luccheses at the Pearl, Bobo?” he demanded in Vietnamese. “And who was the white guy at the shopping center?”

  “What family? What guy?” Bobo pleaded. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Your past comes back to fuck you—however, that is not your concern. The group that you took to the mall—the one with the three women and two children. Who sent you? Who is the tây that took the boy?”

  “I don’t know. An American. Before I picked them up, he gave me a hundred dollars—told me to wait.”

  “No. First I asked, Who got you the fare?”

  “My cousin. He called me. This is his Honda. I drive it sometimes. He said to pick up this family at the Pearl Apartments. I did—then we went to the mall.”

  “Write down the name of your cousin and his address.” Lin passed him a card and a pencil. “And your phone’s passcode.”

  “My phone, why? You from the government, the police?”

  “Something like that. Do it now.” He pushed the muzzle of the pistol tight against the head of the driver. “Write.” He then took the paper from him. He looked at the name on the card, and smiled. “Now, the man who came to your van, gave you the hundred dollars, who was he?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him until today. My cousin told me to stop at a specific location before picking up the people at the Pearl. I did that. As I waited, a man walked up to my door and gave me a hundred American dollars and a phone number and said when I get to wherever I’m taking them, to call him. I called when we got to the mall. I don’t know who he is.”

  “Give me your phone.”

  “I need my phone.”

  “No, you don’t.” No one outside of the van heard the pop of the suppressed pistol.

  Lin left Bobo slumped in the front seat and walked back to his motorbike. After crossing the canal and driving back into District 1, he pulled to the side of one of the busy streets and read the information the driver had scrawled. He recognized the address. It was in a neighborhood known for three things: drugs, prostitutes, and a gang he knew too well. As a kid, he and his friends—once they stopped harassing him and welcomed him as one of their own—were constantly at war with these crosstown gangsters. He knew they had connections to Laotian and Cambodian heroin dealers. He assumed that they now had international, cross-Pacific connections. How did this American know these people? How did he know Tommy Quan?

  Lin drove the streets until almost midnight. Twice he’d passed the address, and each time a different pair of guards sat in front trying to be inconspicuous but failing miserably.

  He turned down the alley behind the house and found an iron door with a grille over a small window. He studied the side of the building and saw, two floors up, an open window with a light on. A shadow passed by.

  He drove a few blocks away and ordered chicken from a street vendor. The food in China was okay, but nothing like the street food he grew up with. He sipped his tea. Whoever this kidnapper was, he needed to be stopped. All the arrangements had been finalized with Lucchese. The Chairwoman was expecting the remaining pieces of software this week. Lucchese had been directed to bring the last two plug-ins and the helmet to a remote location. Lin would fly in, land, get the items from Lucchese, and leave. No one would see him. Now this American may have seriously screwed it all up. While Lucchese had questionable ethics, he would do anything to get his kid back. If the boy were hurt by this kidnapper, the deal would collapse. He was sure of it. Maybe Tommy Quan had answers to his questions. If not, too fucking bad.

  He drove back to the gang house, and after a few minutes of climbing and quietly scrambling along corrugated roofs, he made it to the open window. The lights were off. He put on his night-vision helmet, removed the pistol, and climbed in—the room glowed green. A woman lay on the bed, a man next to her. Both were naked.

  The woman, her mouth open, snored. Lin took a vial from his pocket and dripped a few drops of liquid on a cloth. He placed it gently over the woman’s mouth. In seconds the snoring stopped. She still breathed. Her breasts slowly rose and fell. He took another piece of cloth and a small flashlight from his pocket and walked around the bed to the man. He placed the pistol against the man’s skull. He then jammed the cloth into the man’s open mouth. The man jerked upright. Lin aimed the flashlight into the man’s eyes, blinding him.

  “Do not say a word or scream, or I will splatter your brains all over your girlfriend. Do you understand me?”

  Confused and disoriented, the man managed to nod and tried to speak through the cloth crammed into his mouth.

  “Hands, behind you.”

  Lin zip-tied them together. Then he tied the man’s bare legs.

  “You’re Tommy Quan, right?”

  The man stared into the white
light where Lin’s voice came from. The light never wavered.

  “Look, I know you’re Tommy Quan.” The man nodded and mumbled something.

  “No, I’m not removing the gag, yet. I can learn all I need to know by you shaking your head. Let’s begin. First, your cousin Bobo is dead. He gave me your address. I also have his phone. Let me try your number.”

  Lin opened the driver’s phone and punched in the passcode. He went to the Recents list and pushed the second number. Immediately Quan’s phone on the nightstand lit up and vibrated. The phone was on mute, as he’d hoped—the last thing he needed to do was draw more attention. “Well, that’s confirmed. Now, did you send your cousin to pick up the fares at the Pearl Apartments?”

  Quan shook his head yes.

  “An American guy needed your help. Was it because of the American woman?”

  Quan confirmed the question.

  “Good. I will need the name of that guy.”

  Quan began to mumble through the cloth again.

  “Be patient—I’ll ask for it in a moment. There’s big money in this arrangement, yes?”

  Quan again nodded his head, yes.

  “Good. Did you ever do business before with this man?”

  He nodded yes again.

  “Excellent, here in Vietnam? No? America? Yes? Was it drugs? Outstanding, we’re almost done.”

  Lin looked at the girl. His night-vision visor had adjusted to the light of the flashlight. “She’s very pretty; I would hate to have anything happen to her. So, I’m going to remove the gag. If you do anything, move anything, or even start to pray, I will shoot her. Do you understand?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. So, not to waste time, I’m going to ask you again to tell me how you know the man. I want his name, and where I can find him. Got it? One mistake, she will be first, then you.”

  Lin jerked the gag from Quan’s mouth but kept the flashlight in his eyes.

  Quan took a deep breath. “My hands?”

  “No fucking way. So, who is the man?”