by Jay Brandon
Daniel tried to think honestly about his motives in starting this affair. Why did he approach Khai in the first place? What kind of influence did he think Khai would bring to bear to persuade the Vietnamese pawnbroker to abandon a successful business and move it elsewhere? He hadn’t been naive, he hadn’t thought Khai was the damned spiritual leader of the community. He had known exactly what he was. Hadn’t that been the real reason he hadn’t reported the attack on him in his shop to the police—because he didn’t want them to trace his tie to the gang leader? He’d been protecting himself, not Carol. Telling the police might have provided them with a clue to Carol’s whereabouts, but he hadn’t given them that.
All right. Then it was no longer time to think about his own safety. Only Carol’s. He tried to picture her in that dark old mansion, surrounded by the bastards. Hate surged through him, lifting him to his feet. To hell with them all. He had no love for Vietnamese, Linh in particular. Carol was the only one who mattered. If the death of one Vietnamese man would free her, that was no price at all to pay.
A shadow passed behind the window across the way. He recognized the bulk, though the man remained faceless. A world behind glass, that’s all it was to him. When he had first approached Khai, the Vietnamese community had seemed to him more like an ants’ nest than anything else. What happened within it was mysterious and of no concern. However they dealt with each other was okay with him, as long as he got what he wanted.
Now it was time to descend into the ants’ nest himself. He was still turning it over in his mind, philosophizing, but his body had already decided. He had moved behind the counter and was examining the guns there. His eyes slid across them and he settled on the .45 he’d taken to Khai’s. It was a heavy gun, clumsy in his hand. He had fired it a few times out in the countryside. With one inadvertent shot he had knocked a good-size limb off a mesquite tree. The gun had stopping power, that was certain. It was a conversation-ender.
He found a clip of ammunition in another drawer and examined it at some length before loading it into the gun. His hands turned the clip over and over. After the gun was loaded, he held it for long minutes until it felt like part of his arm. There was a sensation of loss in laying it aside, on the shelf under the counter.
For the next hour he moved softly around the shop, adjusting the merchandise on the shelves, even dusting. He could not sit still. But the physical movements were mindless. He would move a VCR two inches to the right and five minutes later move it back to its original position.
The sun seemed disinclined to move. He was waiting for dusk. He almost called Khai back to tell him: “I’m just waiting for the sun to go down.” No one went into or out of the pawnshop across the street. Once Linh came to the door again and opened it. The wind grabbed the door and slammed it back against the wall—silently from where Daniel watched, but it looked like quite a crash. Crazy Linh was trying to sweep dust out onto the sidewalk. The wind must have blown it back in his face. He stood there for a moment holding the broom. Linh was wearing a long white apron. He looked like a grocer, or a butcher. He stared at the empty street, though not across it at Daniel. Missing his customers. Daniel watched him coldly. Linh went back in. The sign on his door still said OPEN.
The sun slowly declined. Daniel continued to move restlessly around the shop. When his door opened he was standing with his back to it, across the shop from where he’d left the gun. He turned slowly. The air was suddenly crystalline from the cold blast that had come in from the street.
It was Thien. Daniel didn’t relax. The boy stared at him. He looked very slight and Asian. He was wearing a jacket that was much too thin for the weather. His skin must have been blue beneath it, but he wasn’t shivering.
“Shouldn’t you be at home?”
Thien didn’t answer the question, but it broke the silence. The boy walked deeper into the shop, toward the small electric heater glowing red in the middle of the floor. Daniel walked back toward his stool and the counter.
“Khai’s men came collecting again today,” Thien said. “They claimed the payments were late, even though they hadn’t been there to pick them up until today. They charged more interest. One man didn’t have it and they beat him in front of his children.”
Daniel had no response. So it was back to business as usual for Khai. He must be very confident of his scheme. He was no longer distracted from the daily chores.
“Have they gone in the other pawnshop?” Thien asked.
“I haven’t been watching for them.” Not technically a lie, but he knew no one had gone into Linh’s shop. Khai had that much delicacy, not to try to collect payment from a man he was having killed.
“Have they been here?”
“Here?” Daniel laughed mildly. “No, of course not.”
Thien had been holding his hands out toward the heater on the floor. Now he turned his back on it in order to face Daniel. The Vietnamese boy put his hands behind his back, still warming them. Daniel wondered if he had a pair of gloves to give him. Thien’s expression was strange, not at all unfriendly and yet remote. In a moment Daniel realized it was because the boy was reminiscing.
“Do you know why I started coming in your shop?” Thien asked.
“I thought you enjoyed my company.”
“That was after,” he said matter-of-factly. “What first drew me in was I saw that you were the only one who didn’t pay Khai. Everyone said it was just because you were American, but I hoped there was something else, something—”
“Transferable?” Daniel suggested.
Thien nodded. “Something I could learn.”
“Linh didn’t pay either,” Daniel pointed out. Strange to say the man’s name so lightly.
“But everyone knew he’d suffer for it eventually. You they didn’t even approach. That’s what I wanted to learn. I thought maybe Americans had a system to protect them.”
Daniel spread his hands. “Sorry, kid. No secrets.”
He nodded again. “I know. And now Khai knows it too.”
Thien’s eyes were lowered. He was looking at the shelf under the counter. When he looked up at Daniel again his black eyes were opaque.
But of their two expressions, Daniel’s was the less scrutable.
The lone young Saigon cowboy across the street was on the far side of the Vietnamese pawnshop, peeking around the comer at the American’s shop. Damn job. Khai should have given them shorter shifts in this bitter cold. The wind crawled under his red windbreaker, making it billow like a sail. He clutched it tighter around him and peered across the street at the pawnbroker talking to the little Viet boy. The boy was a pest. The older Vietnamese had seen him all over the neighborhood without taking any notice of him. He wished the boy would go home now so the American could get on with what he was supposed to do. The young man had made a small bet that the American wouldn’t do it. If Greer didn’t, the cowboy was supposed to do them both. He put his right hand under his armpit to keep it warm, but that was a losing battle.
When his colleague came up behind him and tapped his shoulder he jumped, almost crying out, turned, and snapped in their hard-edged tongue, but then gratefully accepted the hot coffee the other had brought. They had a brief conversation to the effect only that nothing had happened. The young man gestured and his colleague peeked around the comer. He saw the boy in the shop. He seemed to be talking quickly, animatedly, with hand gestures. The American was shaking his head. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the boy.
The two Vietnamese walked back down the block to stand in a doorway that partially sheltered them from the wind while they drank their coffee. One argued that they shouldn’t move so far from their post but the other just shrugged, and they both stayed until the coffee was gone. When they returned to their surveillance, the boy was finally gone from the shop. The American was alone behind the counter, toying with something beneath it. The two Vietnamese watched him, speculating in low voices. The sun was touching the horizon. In a few minutes it wo
uld turn even colder.
Rybek drove by the Greer house. When he stopped a dog started barking but there was no response from the house. No curtain twitched, no light went on. The house was not just dark, it was obviously empty. The first time Rybek had driven by it it had looked like a home, but now, just a few days later, it looked like abandoned rental property. Trash blew through the yard. Nevertheless he went through the motions, getting out and trudging through the wind to the front door. No one answered the bell or his loud knocking. He wouldn’t have been disappointed if the door had swung open when he banged on it, but it was locked and he decided it wouldn’t be worth the trouble to open it. He didn’t expect to find a body in the living room.
He had called her friend Jennifer again and now Jennifer said yes, Carol was away on a trip. Rybek had a gift for sensing when someone was lying to him, but he wasn’t sure of the reason. He tried not to speculate about people’s motives. It was too distracting, trying to fit facts to a theory. Minds were too squirmy to predict anyway. You could never tell what lay back of someone’s forehead.
Rybek stood on the porch in the whistling wind and knew that the house was empty. The barking dog in back sounded petulant. Probably hungry.
He trudged back across the front yard. The wind felt wet now. Fall was the rainy season in Houston and they weren’t out of it yet. The damned heater in Rybek’s car wasn’t working. When Rybek had complained about it the garage mechanic had said, “When d’ya ever need a heater in this town anyway?” Today, Rybek could have told him. He sat in the car blowing on his hands. No place to go and a lousy day to go anywhere. He’d spent too much time on this already. Six more murders had been committed in the two days he’d spent investigating this one, which no one even believed was a murder.
Slowly he pulled away from the empty house, heading for the pawnshop one last time.
Daniel watched the dying sun shoot its last rays straight down the street, red as neon. A moment later it was gone. The streetlights hadn’t come on yet. The block looked dim and dead, like an abandoned movie set. His own shop lights were on, spotlighting him. There was dimmer light inside Linh’s shop across the street. A few days ago sitting isolated and well lighted like this would have made Daniel paranoid. Now he moved around as freely as if he were at home behind curtains. He checked the clip in the .45 again and slipped the heavy gun into his overcoat pocket. He unplugged the electric heater as he passed it and snapped off the overhead lights at the front door, leaving the dying glow of the heater the only illumination.
The two Vietnamese were still around the corner, watching intently as Daniel closed the door behind him and started across the street. His head was down against the wind. The men nudged each other into watchfulness. They peered up and down the street for witnesses. The American seemed to be paying no attention, so they acted as his lookouts. It was other Americans they were concerned about. The Vietnamese merchants were supposed to know what was about to happen.
Greer went straight across the street and into the Vietnamese pawnshop. Khai’s two men stepped out from the corner. Through the picture window of Linh’s shop they had a good view of everything.
Linh looked up when Daniel came in. The tinkling bell was shrill. Linh didn’t speak, didn’t even nod. He might have been dead already, sitting slumped behind the counter. His hands were resting on top of it. Daniel didn’t speak either. He had thought about engaging the man in conversation first, but neither of them had anything to say. Daniel just glanced around to make sure that they were alone.
When he looked back Linh’s hands were gone from the countertop. They were beneath it, scrambling for what Daniel knew lay under there, being a shopowner himself.
He shouted, something without words. Linh might have shouted too. He stood up straight, knocking his stool back, because he had found what he was looking for. His hand came out from under the counter with the gun.
Daniel leaped aside as Linh fired. Glass shattered. Daniel could still hear the singing of the path the bullet had traced past his ear. He ripped the .45 out of his pocket, tearing fabric. Linh had his own gun balanced atop the counter, holding it with both hands. His eyes glittered a few inches above the barrel.
Daniel didn’t even hear the bullet hit. Bad sign. Daniel stood stock still, his arm fully extended ahead of him, and fired.
The Vietnamese went crashing back into the shelves behind him. His arms were flung out to the side, one of them still holding the gun. For a moment he was crucified against the bric-a-brac of his stock. Daniel fired twice more. He was deaf from the noise. His hand was numb but perfectly steady. It might have been someone else’s hand.
The Vietnamese gurgled something inarticulate in any language as he slid down the wall. Daniel stood there like a statue, the gun still extended the full length of his arm.
Outside, Khai’s men were coming closer for a better look. There was a whir of motion behind them. One of them turned to meet it and Thien flew past him. He flung open the door of the pawnshop and screamed, “What have you done?”
Daniel stood in the same spot, looking stunned. In a moment he had the presence of mind to put the gun back in his pocket, but he had no response for Thien. The boy continued to scream at him. Daniel started toward him.
The two Vietnamese outside headed for the boy too, toward the door of the shop, when one of them grabbed the other’s arm. People were coming. Thien’s cries were drawing a small crowd of running footsteps.
The streetlights snapped on. That was decisive. Khai’s men drew back, but only after a last long look into the pawnshop. Sticking out from behind the counter were the Vietnamese pawnbroker’s unmoving feet. Only one of them still wore its slipper.
There was the sound of a siren in the distance. It couldn’t be coming here. Who in this crowd would have called the Houston police? But the sound was coming closer. Khai’s two thugs turned and ran.
Daniel ran too, brushing past Thien in the doorway. The boy’s fingers tore at him. Daniel pushed him back against the door and ran. It was December, one of the longest nights of the year, and the night had just begun. Daniel ran into it.
When Rybek arrived he found a crowd of jabbering Vietnamese, none of whom, of course, had seen anything. Greer’s pawnshop across the street was as empty as his house. Rybek looked around for the only other person on this block he knew by sight, but for once he wasn’t there. The detective wondered fleetingly where the boy was.
Chapter 13
RAPTORS
This time he went right in the front gate. It was closed but unlocked. Daniel lifted the latch and went in. He didn’t look up at the windows as he crossed the lawn. On the front porch was a lounging young Vietnamese who watched him come but didn’t move. He did glance at the .45 Daniel still carried. The Vietnamese didn’t appear to be armed. He straightened up as Daniel came up onto the porch, but didn’t move to bar Daniel’s way or announce him. Daniel almost expected a nod of greeting. He was one of them now, one of Khai’s men.
He walked inside, crossed the front hall unmolested, and went straight into Khai’s study. Khai was behind the desk. He flinched ever so slightly at the sight of the gun but didn’t appear alarmed. Daniel raised the .45. His eyes were dead, much flatter than Khai’s, which still showed lively interest in the world.
He dropped the pistol on the desk. “All right. It’s done.”
“I know,” Khai said. He looked at Daniel speculatively. He was wondering how to make the best use of him in the future. On the other hand, it might be better to go ahead and kill both Greers now while he had them here together. Khai was still thinking, but in a lazy, happy sort of way. He had already won.
“Have a seat, why don’t you, while we talk about it.”
Upstairs, John Loftus stood at one of the windows and watched Greer walk in. The fool wasn’t even cautious. He didn’t have Khai bring the woman out to the gate. He walked right into the house like the vicar come to call.
Khai was going to let him have his
wife back. Loftus was as sure of that as you could be of anything Khai had in mind. Khai wanted the American couple back in the public eye in Little Saigon, visibly under his thumb. He’d let them walk out tonight.
But the woman was no longer just Khai’s or her husband’s to give and take at will. John Loftus had some say in her future.
Loftus didn’t speculate over why he felt so possessive of Carol Greer. They had been the only two white people in this house for days. It was like Noah himself had paired them up. Loftus didn’t think like that, though. All he knew was that he had promised himself he’d have her, and he didn’t break promises to himself.
If she wasn’t willing it would have to be rape, which meant he’d have to kill her afterward, but those were the breaks. There were plenty of slants around to blame it on.
Something seemed to be going on, but no one, of course, had told Carol what it was. At dusk the rat-faced Vietnamese had slipped into the room with her. He carried a rifle and leered at her, but he’d been there for half an hour now and hadn’t done anything more. But he hadn’t left, either.
Outside her window the night was turmoil. Clouds roiled and churned, brewing another storm. As soon as the sun departed the night was black and isolating. She could see neither stars nor buildings. Carol was alone with the rat-faced man and she hadn’t talked to Daniel all day. That was the worst part. She knew that somewhere out there Khai’s planning had come to fruition. That would account for the rat-faced man’s grin. Maybe they were waiting for final word that Daniel was dead. Ratface was here to make sure of being first in line when they were certain Carol was no longer of any value to them.
She sat on the bed. When she started crying she grew furious, because it made the rat-faced man’s grin grow even broader. Instead she started thinking about just how many of them she could kill. Ratface would get close to her, that was certain. When he did she would get his rifle, one way or another. Then into the hallway, down toward Khai. She wasn’t thinking of escape. With Daniel dead she had no home to escape to. But there was revenge.
