A Hard Light

by Wendy Hornsby

  He considered for a moment, sipping Coke through a straw. When he spoke, he seemed to be detached, unemotional. Again, I read in his aloofness a certain arrogance: How could I not know these details of his life? As if the story had been told so many times before.

  “I knew Bao Ngo from childhood,” he said. “We grew up in the same village. Our fathers grew up together, and their fathers. Our families sent us away to school together. When my cousin married his sister, then we were family.”

  I said, “Khanh Nguyen told me you and she worked with Bao Ngo at the Musée de Tourane, the old colonial French museum in Da Nang, during the Vietnam War.”

  “Oh, yes.” He bowed slightly, a formal recognition. “Madame Thieu, who was wife of the president of South Vietnam—the last president—asked Bao to be curator of the museum. Bao asked for my help, and for the help of Khanh Nguyen.”

  “The museum sounds like a family business,” I said. “Was Mr. Ngo related to Madame Thieu?”

  Again he bowed. “That is the way in Vietnam.”

  It occurred to me that for a man who lived in a hut on the banks of a river of sludge, Mr. Tam looked fairly well scrubbed. His accented English was perfect, his manner genteel. All the parts of the picture did not hold together.

  “When the Communists invaded from the north,” he said, “we had one day, Bao, Khanh, and I, to crate the most important museum treasures and to load them onto military transport.” He looked out across the harbor, remembering. “One day and four trucks were all we had to save eighteen hundred years’ worth of a people’s history and culture from certain destruction by the invading forces. That was not sufficient time, was it?”

  “Wouldn’t seem so.” And probably wasn’t necessary, though I refrained from the suggestion. The old French museum has been restored by the current Hanoi regime and renamed the Cham Museum after the people who traditionally inhabited the area around Da Nang. I doubted that the treasures inside were ever in danger of anything except slipping from the clutches of the fleeing Saigon leadership.

  I asked, “Where did you send the collection?”

  “To Saigon. We set out in four trucks with military escort. But I saw only two trucks arrive, mine and Bao’s. The road was very crowded with people fleeing from the invading troops. A few miles south of Da Nang, deserting soldiers commandeered Khanh’s truck. And the fourth transport, I don’t know.” He raised his hands, the delicate hands of a scholar. “After the first day on the road, we lost sight of it. It was impossible to go back and search for it. Maybe it arrived in Saigon later, I can’t say.”

  “You fled with Bao Ngo and Khanh Nguyen and who else? Who drove the fourth truck?”

  He studied me, a wariness in his gaze. And then his hand came up to shield his face from Guido’s lens, halting the interview. “What did you say is your name?”

  “Maggie MacGowen,” I said.

  Tam reached into his shirt pocket and drew out the business card I had given him earlier, checking on me. He studied the card and then he studied me. “MacGowen? Is that your family name?”

  “It was my married name. It’s still my professional name. The IRS knows me as Margot Duchamps.”

  “Is it a common name, MacGowen?”

  “Fairly.”

  He nodded and put the card away, still cautious, I thought. But he didn’t get up and leave, as I was beginning to fear he might.

  “The fourth truck?” I prodded.

  He waved away the question. “Long time ago. Who can remember?”

  I moved on. “What happened to the museum collection after you delivered it to Saigon?”

  He shrugged. “I did not stay to find out. We parked the trucks behind the gates of the president’s palace, received diplomatic credentials for our efforts, and then we went directly to the American embassy to wait our turn for priority evacuation. That is all.”

  I prompted him. “You left Vietnam.”

  “Here I am.” He spread his arms, suggesting that I should not ask him the obvious.

  “You seem to have fallen on hard times. Tell me about your life in this country.”

  “I opened a small gift shop, but it was not a success. Then I found work as a cook.” He smiled, his lips stretched taut over his discolored teeth. “Cooking in a restaurant is not the job my family had in mind when they sent me to university, but I managed.”

  He rattled the ice in his cup, gazing off toward the boats. “You are partially correct, Miss MacGowen. Art was indeed the family business. My father, and his father, were exporters, however. Not collectors. They assisted in the looting of Vietnam.”

  “Do you have a job now?”

  “I am not currently employed.” His expression showed more anger than chagrin. “I had an argument with my last boss. The issue is of no consequence. But he tells everyone who will listen that I am an informer for Hanoi. Now my old friends don’t want to be seen with me, and no one will hire me.”

  “Informer for Hanoi? The war is over, Mr. Tam.”

  He leaned back, crossed his arms. “Is it?”

  I didn’t want to debate the sorry state of the Communist menace with him. I waited a beat, and then asked him, “When you fell on hard times, why didn’t you go to your family for help?”

  “Pride,” he said. “Pride is one of the seven deadly sins in your culture, is it not?” He tapped his chest. “Behold a sinner.”

  “If you wanted to find out where Bao Ngo has been since 1975, where would you start?”

  “How did you find me?”

  “The IRS has an address for you. We went to the address and the landlady told us you had moved out but that she still sees you in the neighborhood now and then. It was just a matter of showing your picture around until someone recognized you and could tell us where you lived,” I said. “But we have nothing to help us find Bao Ngo’s trail after he walked off the boat. I would like to know—the police would like to know—where he has been since 1975. Khanh says no one in the family has heard from him.”

  “No one.” Tam thought about it before he shrugged. “If he did not contact the family, then that is your answer. Bao did not wish to be found. Who can say why? I think it is wise to stay off the database, like my friend Bao Ngo.”

  “Do you have any ideas where to begin looking?”

  “I would expect Bao to do as I did when I left the refugee camp: to seek work at auction houses, galleries, and museums that have Asian collections. Maybe a fine arts importer. There are not many. Maybe someone remembers him. Put his picture on the television. You can do that?”

  “Not easily,” I said.

  “Ah.” Tam gazed away, apparently deep in thought. “I cannot help you.”

  “Do you know any reason why Bao would want to hide?”

  “Not one.”

  I thought his answer came too quickly. The next few questions earned only one- or two-word answers. Clearly, Minh Tam, his lunch finished, paper wrappers folded into a neat stack beside his folded hands, had nothing more to say.

  Reluctantly, he agreed to speak with us later if we had more questions, and asked us to give his regards to Khanh Nguyen when we spoke with her. But for the moment he was finished. We said our good-byes and left him basking in the sun.

  Guido picked up both the recorder and the camera and headed at double-time off toward our van. He still seemed miffed, oddly silent for the loquacious Guido.

  “How about a beer?” I called to his back. “On the expense account.”

  He stopped, thought, redistributed the weight of his load, said, “All right.”

  We locked up the gear in the van, and then walked along the waterfront to the very end of the marina village to a fish house with an outdoor deck.

  It was a typical February day, clear and breezy, mid-seventies. The truth is, except for some hot days in August and September, a week or ten days of rain after the first of the year, and some fog in June, the weather was typical of nearly every day around coastal L.A. The only atypical aspect of the day was
Guido’s moodiness.

  A waitress wearing short-shorts set two cold beers in front of us. Guido didn’t even glance at her young backside. He leaned his elbows on the table, ignoring the frosted glass in front of him.

  “What was the point of all that?” he asked.

  “You know the case Mike is working on?”

  “Yeah.” Guido frowned. “Kids torture an old perv. We’re using them in the new project.”

  “Pedro wasn’t old—only twenty-two,” I said. “His killers remind me of Bao. Maybe we can fold him into the project.”

  “Fold him in?” Guido scowled. “Pedro’s dead and Bao’s a thug. Where’s the connection?”

  “Can’t you see it?” The heat in my voice surprised me, shocked Guido.

  He tucked in his chin the way boxers do before they go inside. “What’s going on with you?”

  “I don’t want to finish this film as it’s planned. I don’t want to talk to any more pubescent sickos or their ineffectual mothers. ‘My baby ain’t bad.’” I fell into the mournful whine I’d heard from every mother of every single delinquent we had filmed. At least, every mother we could locate. “‘The system failed my baby.’”

  “You need a break,” Guido said. “You’ve done three films back-to-back.”

  “The problem isn’t the workload, it’s the rut. Three films in a row I’ve done about the evil spawn of the urban nightmare. Guido, I just can’t gut this one out.”

  “I hear you.” He relaxed a little. “You’re a victim of your own success, kid. The first film you did for the network did really well, so the network wants you to go with the winning formula and keep making the same film over and over. That’s how they operate, and you’re stuck with it as long as you’re in their pocket.”

  “I want out of the pocket.”

  “But I don’t see how Bao Ngo is going to give you your segue. What are you proposing to do, find out where Bao Ngo has been for the last twenty-some years? Like a video Where’s Waldo?”

  “Maybe. I like the myth Bao has become. Man, missing over twenty years, shows up to assault family. You can’t deny the mystery here.”

  “Myth,” Guido muttered. “Mystery.”

  A fuss at the far end of the patio distracted us. The same two men we had seen earlier, the men in short-sleeved shirts who had watched us tape Tam, argued with the hostess about the table she offered them. They wanted something closer to the water, up where Guido and I sat. But the hostess didn’t want to give them the only table available, a table for six, because she had a large party waiting. The men were pushy and ugly with her, intimidating: Civil service, I thought, low functionaries or inspectors of some kind. Petty tyrants who need to throw their weight around.

  I was glad the hostess didn’t give in. I didn’t want loudmouth neighbors, perhaps nosy neighbors. The pair left in a huff, the taller of them punctuating their exit by pushing over a wrought-iron chair.

  I moved my chair out of their path as they swept past.

  Watching them, Guido said, “Pissants.”

  I put my hand on his arm and he turned back to me. I said, “What would happen if we scrap the dysfunctional Brady Bunch shit we’ve taped so far and head off in a new direction?”

  “If I say ‘budget’ or ‘deadline’ or mention your esteemed executive producer’s blood pressure, will it matter?”

  “What can she do?” Saying that, I felt as if a blockage had just blown away to reveal something I should have seen all along. “I’m at the end of the contract. Let them fire me. Most of what we’ve done so far on this project, Guido, has been done before. Directionless youth grow up to become neighborhood bullies, convenience store thieves, precocious rapists. So what?”

  “So what? I’ll tell you so what. The footage we have so far is really dramatic, great, insightful, magical stuff, Maggie.”

  “We can do better. Think about this: Pedro’s killers and Bao Ngo spent hours tormenting their victims, and earned damn little for their efforts. So, I ask you, what actually was their reward?”

  Guido began to chew on his lower lip as he thought about it.

  “Try this,” I said. “Pedro’s crime is, he underestimated his prey. He thought he was going to get something for nothing, and had to be taught a lesson.”

  “What was the lesson?”

  “I’m not sure, but I have a feeling he needed to be shown who was in charge,” I said. “Pedro is young and randy, he has a week’s pay in his pocket. He wants sex, but he doesn’t want to go out on the boulevard and pay a pro. So he goes to the park where he knows a group of teenage girls hang out; he’s seen them there many times before. He knows they’re poor. He thinks that because they have babies they’re gullible, easy. For pocket change and a six pack, he thinks, they’ll give it up to him. Maybe he can just talk a little booty out of them. In his own mind, Pedro is one charming guy. He thinks that’s why the girls invite him home with them.”

  I looked sideways at Guido. “I wonder at what point during the nine hours of torture, Pedro realized he had made a fatal miscalculation about who was in charge.”

  “Hmmm.” Guido thinks in pictures, and I knew a whole new reel of images was running through his head.

  “Those girls didn’t have babies because they were pushovers. The babies are their meal tickets, the boys who fathered them are their pawns. For those girls, sex is power.”

  “Yeah, okay, I see that. I even like it. But where does Khanh fit in?”

  “She had something Bao Ngo thought he was entitled to.”

  He wasn’t a buyer. “You want to scrap a whole month’s work?”

  “Not all of it.” I sipped my beer as I ran through the contents of the tapes filed in my office at the studio.

  “San Marino is a million light-years away from the ghetto,” Guido said. “You give any thought to the shift you’re making? Jeez, Maggie, you’ll need the frigging Golden Gate to bridge the gap.”

  “For crying out loud, Guido.” I rubbed my eyes and then I looked at him, at his scowl. “Try this: It’s Tet. Time to celebrate the family. We talk to Khanh with Tet as subtext. We go down to Little Saigon and film the parade on Saturday. Better yet, we fly up to San Francisco for the dragon parade down Grant Avenue. Can’t you see footage from the celebration bursting open the cinder-block and barbed-wire backdrop we have so far?”

  “No point arguing, is there?” Guido ground his back teeth and watched seagulls without apparent interest.

  “Argue what?”

  Slowly, he focused his big brown eyes on me again. “Bao Ngo has nothing to do with Mike Flint, does he?”

  “Not one thing.”

  “And Pedro has everything.”

  I nodded. “Pedro is Mike’s case.”

  “I get it, Maggie.” I didn’t care for the know-it-all smugness that came over him. “I see the segue you’re going for, and it doesn’t have a goddamn thing to do with this film or any other film or Bao Ngo, either. It’s Mike’s pocket you really want to get out of, and you think you’ve found your rocket. But I don’t think your personal problems can fly on the back of this film.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” But there was some truth in what he said. Damn him.

  The air was heavy with something else left unsaid. I leaned back and stared at the side of Guido’s face. “What?” A challenge in my voice.

  As if startled, he echoed, “What?”

  “Spill it, Guido.” I set down my glass. “Something has been on your mind all day. If I have done anything to upset or offend you, I want to hear about it.”

  “There’s nothing.” Another answer that came too quickly.

  “And?”

  He watched seagulls some more. Drank some of his beer.

  “Guido?”

  Finally, he met my gaze. His big eyes were moist. “How long have we been friends?”

  “A long time.”

  “Good friends?”

  “You’re as close as a brother to me.”

&
nbsp; “We’re family?” he said.

  “Damn near.”

  “Family tells family what’s going on, Maggie.”

  “If something is going on, I missed it.”

  “Are you all right? Physically, I mean.”

  “I spend every day with you, Guido. If I wasn’t all right, wouldn’t you know?”

  He folded his arms across his chest, pugnacious, angry. Like an accusation, he said, “Your mother flew down Sunday morning. She’s still at your house.”

  “Mother visits happen to the best of us. Your mother has been known to fly into town to stay with you, too. So?”

  Guido’s posture went rigid, defensive. I had hurt him, an offense by omission, because I hadn’t brought him inside.

  He said, “Liam Farrington from Channel Four News was at Cedars Sinai Hospital Saturday night following up on a hit-and-run. He saw Mike carry you into the emergency room.”

  “So Liam went straight to the phone and called you for the scoop?”

  “He was worried about you. He said there was a lot of blood. He said you were crying.”

  “He wanted to know if there was a story,” I said.

  “Is there a story, Maggie?”

  I sipped my beer, holding the bubbles at the back of my throat because I could not swallow. When Guido reached across the table for my hand, I pulled back because if my composure slipped at that point, it would set off a floodtide.

  Early Saturday night the world divided for me into two categories: the people who knew and the people who didn’t. The people who needed to know, knew: Mike, our children, my parents. And the people who didn’t? What happened between me and Mike was none of their business.

  I managed a breath. I finally swallowed. Looking over Guido’s shoulder at the Queen Mary anchored across the channel, I said, “We forgot to get Tam’s signature on a release. We have to go back down there.”

  “Maggie?”

  “And we need more footage of his hut, for background.” I scooted back my chair. “You ready?”

  “If you are.” He wouldn’t look at me; I thought he was trying not to cry. He dropped money on the table and rose, held the back of my chair as if I needed help. As if I were suddenly delicate.