The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremish Healy

  Meaning raped. "But—"

  Huong said, "Once you a punk, them booty bandits, they don't leave you alone."

  Trinh waited till his friend was finished. "Oscar and me, we never do that kind of shit to nobody, man. Even back then, AIDS was everywhere, these junky kids been sharing needles 'in the ghetto'. But nobody never turned us out, either. Thanks to Oscar."

  I wanted to aim Trinh more toward what I was investigating.

  "And after that, you graduated to terrorizing families for money."

  "Hey, man, you do what you know. Secret of success in these United States." Trinh looked around the room. "I gotta tell you, though, I don't know where your clients come from, you in this shitty little building with no parking out front, that slower than shit elevator, and then a locked-up door to your office."

  "Tell me something else, Nugey. You use Oscar for anything other than a human master key?"

  The tip-of-the-tongue smile. "I got my hand in lots of things."

  "Like loan-sharking."

  "Helping people who need cash, can't get it from the bank, without a mask and a gun."

  "Before you went into the lending business, though, you and Oscar both knew Woodrow Gant?"

  Trinh dropped the smile. "How come you asking around about him and us?"

  "He had dinner at a restaurant you have a piece of."

  Trinh paused for a moment, glancing up at Huong before coming back to me. "You know how come I rent to that little shit Chan?"

  "No."

  Trinh released a breath. "I find out, he want to open a restaurant. Only thing, he have one before, but he couldn't make it go. It close, Chan owe people, even went bankrupt. So now he want to try again, I give him a chance."

  "You're a real soft touch, Nugey."

  The loan shark smiled again. I decided I liked him better serious.

  He said, "That Chan, he one pure-blood Vietnamese. We still over in Saigon, he look down on Oscar and me like we dogshit somebody track into his house." Trinh leaned forward, putting his hand on my desk, grinding a little with the thumb. "So now he like this under me. Chan need my money, he got to respect me."

  "You set him up in the restaurant so he'd be in your control."

  "You got it." Trinh leaned back again. "I even call him 'Charlie,' like the fat detective guy in the old movies. And his woman, I call her 'Dinah,' get it?"

  I thought I did. "Dinah like 'diner'."

  "Right. And they got to take it because they got to respect me."

  Something was off. Huong remained stoic, but Trinh seemed relieved and kind of pleased with himself, like he'd just put something over on me.

  "So," I said, "your owning the restaurant building had nothing to do with Woodrow Gant eating there the night he was killed."

  "Zip, zero. Mr. Private Eye, I never even know the lawyer-man liked Vietnamese food. He sure never mentioned it when he was working on sending Oscar and me away."

  Trinh rolled out the half-tongue smile, then checked his watch before looking up at his friend. "Oscar, how about you bring the car around, we get out of here?"

  That seemed more off to me. Why wouldn't they want to leave together?

  Huong just nodded, though, watching me carefully as he backed out my door, closing it behind him.

  I waited for Trinh to turn back to me. "And I thought we'd never be alone."

  He smiled, but just the little one. "I don't like to say everything in front of Oscar. Sometimes he think I'm telling him to do stuff when I ain't."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning Oscar think you like a real threat or something to me, to my business, he maybe just decide to take you apart right here."

  "Might be easier said than done."

  Trinh looked me over, appraising something. "You one of those exercise geeks, go to the health club, jog by the river?"

  "Every morning, and twice on Sundays."

  A better smile. "Don't matter, Mr. Private Eye. You never seen Oscar do his thing. He into that extreme-fighting shit."

  “ ‘Extreme fighting'?"

  "You know, where these two guys get in a pit—with a fence like a schoolyard has around it?—and just beat the shit out of each other. No gloves, no rules except the eyes and biting."

  I'd heard of it as "ultimate fighting" a few years before. "I thought that got outlawed?"

  "They trying, man. But you got to go with the will of the people, and the people, they want to see blood. First one was in Denver. Oscar the shortest guy climb in the pit, but he still come out fourth."

  "What's your point, Nugey?"

  Trinh nodded. "My point is, I want to whack that lawyer-man Gant, I ain't gonna have him eat at Chan's restaurant, then shoot him on a road. We just catch him in an alley sometime, like when he getting his car, maybe. Then I tell Oscar to beat that Uncle Tom to death."

  Trinh stood up. "Like I'm gonna have Oscar do to you, you don't stay the fuck out of my business."

  As Nguyen Trinh walked into the corridor, I began to register why he'd have wanted Huong to bring their car around. As soon as I heard him push the button for the elevator, I went into my desk drawer for the old photo album.

  * * *

  I was already at my office door, making a mental note to call our superintendent and get it fixed, when I heard the elevator door close. Trinh had been right: The elevator was slow, slow enough that I could be downstairs and hidden by the time he was getting off and going out the main entrance. I watched him at the curb, folding into the backseat of a green, four-door Mercedes, which pulled away heading south toward the theater district.

  I gave it a count of five, then slipped out the door, hailing a cab from the cover of the next building. When the driver slewed over to me, I said into his open window, "This is your lucky day."

  * * *

  "For Yuri, lucky already fifteen dollars."

  The driver looked over his shoulder and through the Plexi-glas, his accent Russian, the meter running. My visitors' green Mercedes was three vehicles ahead of us and showing no sign of reaching its destination.

  Back in my office, I couldn't see any reason for Nguyen Trinh to have Oscar Huong bring their car around unless they didn't want me following them somewhere. Which meant I wanted to. But I'd never have time to get the Prelude, and besides, Chan or Dinah at the restaurant might have seen me driving away and described it to them. A cab would be a little less obvious.

  If a lot more expensive.

  Yuri pushed back the Kangol cap on his head and picked up the mike to his radio, saying something in terse Russian before replacing it. "You think this close enough, three cars?"

  "Given the volume of traffic, yes."

  He shook his head, waving a hand at the side streets. "A truck comes out, boom, we lose them."

  "We get closer, they'll know I'm back here."

  A shrug, then something to himself in Russian.

  Another five dollars on the meter, and we were in Dorchester, skirting the edges of Mattapan. Yuri twisted halfway in the driver's seat. "I do not like these streets so much."

  Hard to blame him. We were in a part of town you wouldn't mistake for Helen Gant's neighborhood. Building walls tagged with graffiti crumbled into trash-filled vacant lots. Kids in clumps wore Oakland Raiders and Philadelphia Eagles colors, watching the Mercedes glide by, then eyeing us.

  "Pretty soon," said Yuri, "I do not want anymore to follow."

  His last word still hung in the air when the Mercedes pulled to a stop in front of a coffee shop.

  I said, "Go past them to the next street and turn left." Ducking down, I could see only the taped posters near the top of the shop's windows, advertising "OPEN AT FIVE" and "TWO EGGS AND TOAST $1.50, COFFEE EXTRA."

  After Yuri turned, I told him to stop, too. Getting out of the cab, I gave him a twenty as good-faith money, then walked back to the corner building, a failed hardware store from the empty fixtures still inside. Looking at a slight diagonal across the street, I couldn't see Nguyen Trinh at first, but Os
car Huong was just going in the front door of the coffee shop, aiming his keyring at the Mercedes, which gave that little security-system chirp. Then I could see Trinh inside the shop, moving to a windowed booth. He slid onto the bench seat and stretched out, checking his watch again. Huong eased down opposite him, and I could see their pantomime conversation through the glass as a waitress brought them both cups and saucers, pouring from a Pyrex pot.

  None of us had to wait very long.

  About five minutes after the waitress left the booth, a junker Chevy came down the street and parked in front of the Mercedes. I'd seen the car only in bad light, but its muffler noise was an aural signature, and I wasn't very surprised when the driver's side door opened to show Grover Cleveland Gant derricking himself with difficulty out from behind the wheel.

  * * *

  Quietly and to my back, Yuri said, "Soon we must leave."

  "Soon we will."

  "Those kids in the next block, I do not like the way they look at my cab."

  "Stand next to it and flex."

  Yuri muttered something in Russian, but moved away from me.

  I was watching the scene in the coffee shop. Oscar Huong had stood to let Grover Gant slide into the booth on his side, which put some serious tonnage on that particular bench. After Huong sat back down and the waitress poured a third cup, Gant watched her walk away before reaching his right hand, holding an envelope, across the table. Nguyen Trinh took the envelope and opened just the flap, looking inside and thumbing the contents. Then he may or may not have said something to Huong, but the Ultimate Fighter's right hand disappeared under the table for a moment, and the shoulders of Grover Gant doubled over toward his coffee, the head bobbing in what didn't look like pleasure from my angle.

  Yuri called out to me, "Two minutes more, then my cab and me go."

  Now Trinh definitely was talking, aiming his comments at Gant's bobbing head. I thought Gant's lips were moving, but given the distance, it might just have been from pain. Trinh slipped out of the booth and Huong stood, then leaned over to Gant, whose head now snapped up, his upper body beginning to rise, nearly taking the table with him, coffee cups jumping and spilling. The two Amerasians moved off, through the door of the shop and toward the Mercedes, the chirp noise preceding them.

  From behind me, "One minute."

  I waited until Trinh and Huong were back in their car, doors closed, before turning away.

  "Yuri, start your engine."

  * * *

  "You know, my cab must be back by three o'clock to garage."

  The Mercedes cruised fairly leisurely along the city streets, the meter on Yuri's dashboard in the mid-four-figures. I figured I could always find Grover Gant if need be, but I was curious where Trinh and Huong might go next, and I had only the office address the gang unit had given me for them. Holding up his left wrist, Yuri twisted in his seat to say, "And is already two-twenty."

  "Just hang in there a little—watch it!"

  He swung his head forward, stomping the brakes just as a moving van pulled out from a righthand side street. The van didn't have the turning radius to clear the parked cars the first time, requiring a leviathan three-pointer to get squared away. By the time Yuri was able to pass, the Mercedes was nowhere in sight.

  "What do I tell you? A truck comes out, and boom, we lose them." He looked down at the meter. "Now?"

  "Back downtown, Tremont Street."

  "Where I pick you up?"

  "Yes."

  "This time of day, we will not until after three get there. Way—"

  "Twenty-dollar tip, or no tip. Your choice."

  A moment's hesitation, then Yuri picked up his radio mike and spoke some Russian into it before glancing at the inside mirror. "Again the address, please?"

  * * *

  Back in my office, I got our superintendent working on my door lock as I flipped through the mail Nguyen Trinh had opened. Nothing seemed to be missing among the flyers, insurance advice, and utility bills on the condo.

  When I called my answering service, the woman with the silky voice gave me one message on the Gant case. Steve Rothenberg's title searcher at the Registry of Deeds would be dropping off a package of recorded documents on the Viet Mam property late that afternoon. There'd been no unstamped envelope on the floor under the mail slot, but I decided not to wait for it before driving out to the restaurant, since I thought a bluff would work, and I wanted to catch Dinah before she'd be involved in the preparations for their dinner crowd.

  * * *

  Frankly, I wasn't sorry there was no green Mercedes in the parking lot next to Viet Mam. I stopped the Prelude across the street, so that I could get a good view of the dumpster and the pyramid of cigarette butts next to it.

  About fifteen minutes later, the outside door to what I took to be the kitchen opened, and Dinah stepped onto the black-top. Her right leg looped behind the left as she walked to the corner of the dumpster, her hair still perfect but slightly different, I thought. A cigarette was already in her mouth, a lighter coming up from an apron pocket.

  I left the car and moved toward her. Dinah was just blowing out the first big plume of smoke with something approaching pleasure on her face when I must have appeared in her peripheral vision.

  Standing hip-cocked, weight on the good left leg, her pleasure waned as she waited for me to reach her.

  "Dinah, I need to talk with you."

  She took another drag on the cigarette. "This my break." A hacking cough. "Chan give me five minute only."

  "I know why you were so scared the last time I was here."

  Dinah looked away, taking a deeper drag. "I not scared. I not know—"

  "Nguyen Trinh and Oscar Huong?"

  She winced, the way I suspected she'd learned not to with her leg. "I have nothing to tell you."

  "I'm trying to help a man I think is innocent."

  Dinah looked at me.

  I said, "Please?"

  She glanced once toward the kitchen door before refocusing on her cigarette. "When I in Vietnam, many 'innocents' die. My husband, too."

  "I'm sorry." The first time I saw Dinah, she'd mentioned that he'd fought. "Was your husband ARVN?" meaning Army of the Republic of Vietnam, our southern allies.

  "No. He from north, a Catholic." Dinah fixed me with her eyes. "One of the commandos in newspaper stories."

  Jesus. Before I got to Saigon in the late sixties, about three hundred men who'd fled from the communist North had been recruited by our C.I.A. to parachute back up there because they knew the terrain and the dialects. Thanks to a North Vietnamese mole in the ARVN, they were captured, tortured, and often killed. Recently declassified American military records confirmed that our government had written off all of them. Whether dead or alive.

  I said, "There's supposed to be a payment from our Congress for survivors like you."

  Dinah coughed out a laugh. "No. When my husband killed, American officer come to our village. With money, four thousand dollar. Family of my husband say he never marry me, and I have no record to show, so his family take all the money."

  "But maybe you can get more now."

  She looked at me with contempt. "No money then, no money now." Then she sucked in more smoke. "When Communists win war, they come find me. They believe I wife of my husband. They torture him, they torture me. My leg, my br . . . my chest." A hand fluttered helplessly to her neckline, the scar diving under her collar more livid in the late afternoon light. "And so now I am with Chan, and no money can pay for these things."

  "Dinah, I'm truly sorry, but your husband tried to help people who needed it. Can you help me?"

  She drew again on the cigarette, her eyes working hard on something. "What you want to know?"

  A window, but one I didn't think would stay open very long. "The woman with Woodrow Gant that night. You'd seen her before?"

  "Yes."

  "With Mr. Gant?"

  "Yes. Only."

  "Only what?"

  "Only with him.
"

  "Do you know if they left in the same car?"

  Dinah glanced to an empty parking slot. "I know they come in same car."

  Bingo. Maybe. "You saw them arrive?"

  A look over her shoulder. "I am walking out door for cigarette break. Chan always want me in restaurant to help when new customers come. I watch them get out of car, walk to front door. Same car, he drive."

  "When they were leaving, did they call a cab?"

  Genuine confusion. "Taxi?"

  "Right."

  "Why they call, they have car?"

  One more. "The woman, was she a little drunk when they left?"

  “She drink most of wine bottle."

  Only a quick puff now, Dinah's cigarette almost gone, and I sensed my window closing.

  I said, "Is there anything else you can tell me about the woman that night?"

  "She always with sunglasses, always with same big hair."

  "Same hairstyle, you mean?"

  Dinah took a last drag. "I save my tips here, study for beautician school." The free hand went to her own head.

  "Yes?"

  Dinah dropped the stub on the ground near the pile of dead ones and crushed it out with the toe of the good foot. "I don't look at her face so much, but I look at the hair, like I look at everybody's." Another smoky, hacking cough. "Same hair mean not her hair."

  Jenifer Pollard had said that Woodrow Gant liked her to dress in costume and . . . "The woman in the restaurant that night was wearing a wig?"

  "Yes. That is all I know."

  "Dinah—"

  "I must go." She was already turned to move as she coughed a final time. "Chan give me five minute only, and too many cigarette bad for you."

  By the time Dinah reached the kitchen door, I was halfway to my car. After what she'd been through, I thought lung cancer probably held precious little terror for the waitress of Viet Mam.

  * * *

  Back at my office by half-past four, I pushed open the door to find the package from Steve Rothenberg's badger at the Registry. It was a manila envelope, nine-by-twelve, folded over to fit through the mail slot in my now fixed door.