by CW Ullman
“Mohammed Mazarin. Glad to have made your acquaintance,” Mohammed said to Hao as My Ling ushered them all into the house.
“Sit here and we’ll bring you some tea,” My Ling offered.
“What happened?” a perplexed Hao asked My Ling as they left for the kitchen. “Whose car is that?”
“Oh, nothing really. I had to leave the car in Los Angeles, hot wire the Lincoln and help these nice people out of their cab.” She answered downplaying the event.
Hao, not missing a beat, replied, “A usual night for you,”
She squeezed his arm.
But Hao’s smile faded when the gang activities and My Ling’s heroics were described in chilling detail by the Hastings’s and Mohammed.
“She was quite marvelous,” enthused Hastings. “Her actions reminded me of my grandfather’s description of his campaign in the Boer Wars. We were quite fortunate that she stopped for us, as the hooligans had gained the upper hand and were about to smash in our windshield.”
The television was on in the background and the group’s attention was absorbed by images of the riots from a news helicopter.
“Oh my,” was Hildegard’s reaction to a tragic scene of a motorcyclist trapped inside a fenced area. The top of his helmet had girl’s eyes painted on it. They watched as he was cornered and the crowd descended upon him and beat him with pipes and two by fours.
“Poor fellow,” Hildegard murmured.
“Should we watch something else?” My Ling wondered.
“Oh, no,” Edith insisted. “Fascinating stuff. What is the cause of all this?”
My Ling watched with detached interest, while Hao, riveted to the screen, glanced periodically at his wife. He watched the roving gangs break into stores, carry out the inventory, and then set fire to the buildings. He saw Koreans fire guns at crowds near their businesses and police cars and fire trucks racing through the streets. He heard the helicopter pilots and news anchors reporting that this was the worst rioting they had seen since the Watts riots of the 1960s.
“We’re part of history, Edith,” Hastings remarked. ‘Wait ‘til I tell the chaps at the club.”
Mohammed explained the entire case of Rodney King to the Hastings noting that everyone in Los Angeles had seen multiple showings of policemen beating him as he lay in the street, offering no resistance. The cabbie told of the months long trial and how a rampage of protest and riot began earlier that day after the policemen were found not guilty.
“We were there,” Mohammed expressed, pointing at the television with dazed pride.
My Ling, while not reacting visibly to the television images, felt pangs of sadness. She was reminded of the van ride with Mr. Pok seventeen years earlier when she witnessed crowds running from the Khmer Rouge. They were boys younger than the ones she saw now on television, slaughtering entire villages and tribes. She was also sad because she did not understand rioting in a land of plenty. She wondered how people could still complain, whine, and protest when there was so much. She knew that millions of Americans lived without working and complained that they were deprived, not respected, or suffered some injustice. They turned their children into objects to gain county benefits. On the other end of the scale, she noticed how the more affluent objectified their children while personifying their pets, who received most of their affections. She came to believe that America was often a place of dissatisfaction coupled with idling lives.
She understood the outrage over the police acquittals, but felt the rioters used it as an excuse so people who worked little could steal much. She thought of Cin’s dictum, that the hunter and the prey were more obvious in the jungle. As she watched the rioting, she realized that people felt comfortable being the objects of an imagined predator as justification for criminal behavior.
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Looking for a cover to commit criminal behavior was about to be played out savagely in Santa Ana. Little Tam Qui had a score to settle with the Las Familias 19, and thought the riots would pull Orange County sheriffs up to Los Angeles to help out. So, he gathered his clan and went looking for LF 19 just as Don Padre predicted. Little Tam Qui rolled onto LF19 turf, with too small a squad, into a situation that would be Little Tam Qui’s undoing.
The lookouts for LF 19 manned phone booths in Santa Ana and alerted Don Padre of Little Tam Qui’s location. When the two gangs finally met, Don Padre walked to the center of a street waiting for Little Tam Qui. He knew of Tam Qui’s reputation with knives and had heard of the slashing mutilations he had inflicted on his victims before ending their lives. Don Padre also knew that Little Tam Qui had an explosive temper that would make him less effective as a fighter if Don Padre could goad him.
As they stood feet apart, Don Padre taunted Little Tam Qui while keeping track of his right hand, his knife hand. Don Padre kept the insults up until Little Tam Qui finally had had enough, pulled out the buck, and extended his right hand to slash. Before he could act, Don Padre pulled a machete from the side of his trench coat and sliced off Little Tam Qui’s buck knife-holding hand. While Tam Qui screamed in horror at the sight of his severed hand, Don Padre lopped off his head off with one swing of the machete blade.
Don Padre picked up the Vietnamese gang leader’s head and waved it at the other Viper Family Junior gang members and warned them not to come to LF 19’s turf again or they would suffer the same fate.
Don Padre was so satisfied that he had dispatched one of the most annoying presences in his life, that he did not remember until a day later that he wanted the phone tap tapes from the little Asian woman.
Three days following Little Tam Qui’s death, Hao was reading the Vietnamese Orange County newspaper and notified My Ling.
“It looks like Little Tam Qui is missing. No one has seen him since the first night of the riots,” Hao related.
That afternoon My Ling called Don Padre from a phone booth, and knowing that his phone was tapped, hung up when he answered. He knew that meant to join her at the coffee shop where they had first met.
“You got the tapes?” Don Padre inquired.
“Do you have proof?” she replied.
He reached into the back seat and pulled a large, plastic garbage bag containing the frozen head of Little Tam Qui. She gave him the phone tap tapes and stepped out of the truck.
“I’ll stay in touch,” she said, and before he could respond she was gone.
CHAPTER XI
A pall shrouded Child Protective Services in Los Angeles because of the death of one of its employees. Wilamena Leumveld had been killed the first night of the riots, provoking a mixed reaction within the department. While the general display of emotion following her death was a one of shock, My Ling also noticed there was not much sadness. The person most concerned with her demise was the department head, Dexter Smith. My Ling believed Smith was bothered because he now had to clean up her caseload.
There were a number of children who had to come in to testify about the disposition of their cases. Whenever Smith brought a child in for a deposition, he would include two other social workers as witnesses. The depositions were almost all the same and in Child Protective Services-speak referred to as “Wilamena Overreach” because of her abuse of authority. Kathy Wiley was chosen by Smith to sit in on these interviews and they were all the same, except one.
Wiley heard a girl tell about her family life in Hermosa Beach, and it was noteworthy, not because of the girl’s experiences, but for the story regarding her father when he was in the military. Wiley’s conundrum was what to do with the knowledge. The incident had happened seventeen years earlier and she knew if she reported it, the men involved might be arrested and their families traumatized. But if it was a war crime, she thought it her duty.
She held onto the interview tape for a few days and decided to play it for her husband who was a Vietnam veteran. After hearing it, he was as stumped as she was.
The girl’s father was most likely given a direct order from a superior officer, and Wiley’s husband stated fir
mly that a direct order can not be disobeyed. In his view, if anybody should be brought up on charges, it should be the commanding officer. She agreed with him and decided to leave it alone. The problem was the incident would not leave her alone.
She went to Dexter with the issue who was decidedly against reporting it.
“This isn’t Nuremberg and our job is to protect children, not punish war criminals,” he insisted.
“I understand what you’re saying, but let me ask you one question: if it happened to your daughter what would you do?”
He exploded, “Goddamit, Kathy! I’m already dealing with enough crap because of Wilamena. Even though she’s dead, the department is probably going to get sued again, because of her shenanigans.” He stopped for a minute to calm down and answer Kathy Wiley’s question, “If it were my kid –,” he mulled the question over in his mind. “I don’t know. Let me have a couple of days to think about it.”
Two days later, he came back to her after having listened to the tape.
“What I think and what you’ll eventually do may be two different things. In my opinion he was given a direct order, so he’s off the hook. Now, that’s my opinion, as a guy who was in the service. Keeping that in mind, I played it for my wife and she says we have to go to the FBI. I know you played it for Stan, so what did he say?” Dexter asked.
“He agrees with you and I agree with your wife,” Wiley answered.
“Before we turn this sailor’s life upside down with the FBI, I have suggestion. My Ling had a pretty rough go of it over there, let her hear it and we can add that into our decision making,” he suggested and she agreed. “Fast forward it past where Tobie Armstrong gives her name and then we’ll play it for her.”
Kathy Wiley motioned My Ling to come into her office
“One of the girls came in to give a deposition and she inadvertently may have related a crime committed during the Vietnam War. We would like your opinion,” Wiley stated.
Wiley, Dexter Smith, and My Ling sat around the tape recorder. Wiley pushed the play button; My Ling leaned forward while Kathy and Dexter sat back and watched her reaction.
“I love my dad a lot and he loves me and he’s never done anything to hurt me,” Tobie Armstrong said.
“Do you know why Ms. Luemveld was investigating your father? Had you or your mother ever filed a complaint against your father?” Dexter asked.
“No. She was investigating my father because of something to do with his experience in Vietnam, where he and his friends threw a girl overboard,” she blurted out.
My Ling immediately sat up straight with eyes wide. Dexter reached for the tape recorder to shut it off, seeing My Ling’s upset, but she pushed his hand away, prompting Dexter and Kathy to exchange surprised looks.
“The father’s time in military service has little bearing on his relationship with his daughter. As you’ve heard, Tobie said they have a wonderful relationship and there are no problems between her and her father. So, I think we’re done here,” the attorney for Tobie said.
“Not quite,” said Wiley. “I want to hear more about…that.”
“You’d have to know my father; he wouldn’t harm anyone. He spends his whole day in the back of a surf shop shaping boards. He doesn’t say much of anything because he has a hard time talking.
“When he and his friends were in the Navy, they pulled a girl out of the ocean after her helicopter crashed. His friend, Charlie, told me it was a very rough sea. Charlie owns the surf shop we live in. He said they all worked really hard to pull this girl onto the ship. They dried her off after they saved her. Well, when the captain of the ship came down, they thought he was going to give them medals or something, but instead he got real mad and said they disobeyed orders and told them to throw her back in.
“My dad was the one who threw her back in the ocean. It messed him up real bad, but he couldn’t disobey a direct order, so he kind of had to do it. Charlie said they should have stopped him, but they didn’t. Ever since that happened, my dad’s been going to therapy and stuff, but it doesn’t help. So, when he sees Asian girls, he goes up to them and apologizes. None of the Asian girls knows what he’s apologizing for. So, he got arrested a bunch of times and I think Ms. Luemveld read about him in the paper and thought he was a perv or something and came out to investigate.
Kathy Wiley turned off the tape deck and she and Dexter looked at a trembling My Ling with an expression on her face they had never seen. She sat with tears rolling down her cheeks. Kathy imagined the trauma of hearing about such a horrendous episode was too much for My Ling and started to cry herself. Dexter Smith felt like a heel for not taking the incident more seriously and felt guilty for not turning the father into the FBI. My Ling fell on her knees sobbing and Dexter was so moved, that he knelt next to her and put his arm around her. Then My Ling whispered something that Dexter did not understand; he looked at Wiley to see if she caught it.
“Honey, what did you say,” Kathy Wiley coaxed from My Ling.
My Ling stopped crying and said, “Is his name Russell William Armstrong?”
Wiley thought My Ling may have seen the file, as Dexter quickly answered, “Yes.”
“I am the girl he threw from the ship. I am that girl,” she cried.
She reached into her blouse pocket and pulled out the two identification tags she had kept on herself for seventeen years. Dexter picked up one and read: Russell William Armstrong DOB: JAN 31, 1955 CATHOLIC U.S.5466841
“I pulled these off his neck when he put me back into the sea,” she explained haltingly between sobs.
Wiley and Dexter were both stunned into silence.
“He was right. He was right,” My Ling stated.
Dexter, finally able to speak, asked, “Who was right?”
“My husband…He said the sailor strapped the vest on me, because he wanted me to live. He was not trying to kill me, he wanted me to live. Cin was right!”
She had been softening toward Cin’s interpretation of the incident since leaving Thailand six years ago. She found herself vacillating about Armstrong’s intention, but hearing her own story via Armstrong’s daughter and how much the girl loved him, touched My Ling. She could not help but think of her own father and how she had adored him. Maybe most devastating was hearing how the event had impacted William Russell Armstrong.
“I want to meet him. I want my family to go with me and I want you to be there,” My Ling said. “This is a great day!” She started to cry again and her joyful exclamation brought tears to both Smith and Wiley. Other employees, working in Child Protective Services, wondered what had happened when they looked inside Kathy Wiley’s office and saw the three of them on their knees, hugging one another, tears rolling down their cheeks.
My Ling arrived home and wanted to tell Dao and Di.u first. The sisters had been through the journey with her from the beginning. Except for the doomed helicopter flight, the overboarding, and Lieutenant Ba, they had been together through Huyen, Mr. Pok and his van, the Mekong, the compound in northern Cambodia, Elvis, all of it. The three came of age together, bonded by the shared beatings, deprivations, escapes, and living in the jungle. They had heard her talk about getting revenge for what the sailor had put her through, and now she wanted them to know he was alive and lived forty-five minutes away. She also wanted them to know that gratitude had replaced her need for revenge and she wanted them with her when she finally met Russell William Armstrong.
After My Ling informed them, she found Hao, Trieu and little My Ling and related the news. For all who heard the news, it was My Ling’s reaction they found most curious. They could understand if she was angry at Armstrong because they thought his actions were inexcusable, but when she spoke of hearing the story from his daughter, they saw how My Ling was softened by the devastation the episode had caused him. After they heard the tape of Tobie Armstrong’s deposition, they understood.
My Ling felt as though a weight had been lifted from her. Her reunion with Armstrong would allow her t
o bring about his healing. It made her think of the Lotus Blossom realizing that what she missed most in her life was helping the girls from the orphanage. She had been trying to get that feeling in America and had been unsuccessful, mostly because Americans did not need help or want it, they just wanted things. When they got those things, they complained until someone gave them more things. Hao kidded her once that if complaining were an Olympic event, Americans would receive the gold, silver, and bronze medals.
Again, she met with Dexter and Kathy. Dexter told her that going out to Armstrong’s place unannounced carried some risk, so he thought they might want a police presence as an escort. Dexter said he would contact the chief of police for Hermosa Beach and let him know that Los Angeles Police would be escorting someone into his jurisdiction. The Hermosa Chief suggested they reconnoiter at his station and leave from there to go to the Armstrong’s.
The day came when My Ling and the others left from downtown Los Angeles in cars from the Child Protective Services motor pool. They drove to the Hermosa Beach police station and met Chief Biwer. The LAPD officers and My Ling’s party sat down with the chief to explain what was about to happen. They were surprised when tears formed in the chief’s eyes. The LAPD team also teared up when they heard Chief Biwer say he had known Rusty, Armstrong’s nickname, for years and he had seen him suffer from this tragedy. Once they were all composed, they drove their police cruisers the mile to Armstrong’s residence.
There was some kind of party happening in the surf shop where Armstrong lived. Signs and balloons welcomed someone named Bryce. The coincidence was not lost on all concerned, since My Ling’s endeavor was also a kind of “Welcome Home.” They exited the cars and saw a boy and a man inside the surf shop, both disappearing from the glass door when they started toward it. Hao suddenly became anxious seeing them leave and turned to My Ling.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he challenged.
