by Alfredo Vea
The investigator had flown two thousand miles to ask that question. Angrily, Anvil pushed a button on the wall to the right and yelled to a guard seated above the interview booths. Clearly, the question had stung him.
“Billy Junior, we’re through in here. No disrespect to you, Mr. Eddy, but there’s only so much I can stand at one time.”
He pulled out a small piece of paper, folded it, and pushed it through a slot in the security screen that separated the visitors from the prisoners.
“Give it to Miss Sabine, please. Tell her I love her as best I can. I still love her. Tell her I’m sorry for killing her father. Tell Little Reggie that I’m sorry for killing his father.” His saddened eyes were fixed on Eddy’s eyes. “I’m sorry for them, not for me.”
Eddy unfolded the sheet of paper, then realized that he had not obtained permission to do so. When he looked up, Anvil Harp had disappeared from the interview booth and was already going through a second door. Quietly he read the seven words written there.
“Eleven years, two months, and seventeen days.” Eddy then called out, “Little Reggie is dead,” in a condolence-filled voice.
“Thank God,” said Anvil Harp, as the door closed behind him.
Jesse penetrated the perimeter at the northwest corner, stepping around stacks of bottles and cans and between a half dozen stolen shopping carts filled with plastic and smelly piles of junk. His presence had been announced by a dozen skinny dogs of various breeds that barked and circled him as he walked. Dust rose up around him like the smoke from a flare.
There was no menace in these dogs. They had become as hungry and reclusive as their masters. Their masters’ malaise had been conferred upon them in long, cold nights of shared food and shared bedding. These dogs had glimpsed Hue and Quang Tri.
Passing through the outer defenses, he checked the terrain. There were small tentlike constructions along the perimeter of the encampment. They were made out of boxes and rags. Behind them a deep slit trench had been dug. Four poles marked its corners, and a sheet had been wrapped around the poles to form a semiprivate outdoor toilet. A cloud of flies hovered above the trench.
Behind the toilet was a pathetically small shelter fashioned from pallets and dirty blankets. Jesse bent down to look inside. It was clear that only one person slept here. The lawyer had noticed that the rest of the dwellings were multiple, communal spaces. There was a plate of cold, half-eaten food on the dirt floor. On the other side of the tiny room was a strange sight: a pair of tennis shoes had been placed side by side, the laces tied together. Someone had carefully placed a small black-and-white photograph beneath the tongue of one of the shoes.
In the other shoe were five nine-millimeter bullets. Jesse picked up the photo and saw that it was a picture of Princess Sabine posing in the nude. Her body was draped seductively over the arm of the sofa in her apartment. The small shadow of the photographer could be seen on the wall behind her. No professional had taken this picture. Jesse replaced the photo and then, out of respect for the dead, backed slowly out of the hooch. It was then that he noticed that a small crucifix had been dropped into the other shoe. Even someone like Little Reggie deserved a standdown.
Near the center of the compound he spotted what he knew must be the communal kitchen, the mess hall. None of the other structures were large enough to accommodate a fire or cooking utensils, and this was the only structure that was not made of cardboard. It was a large metal half-cylinder that had been inverted to form a small Quonset. At each end were poncho liners that kept out both the bone-chilling fog and the prying eyes of the police.
Jesse pulled a poncho liner aside. He noticed that it was an olive-drab army-issue liner that was being used as a door. It was of Vietnam vintage, much lighter than Korean War issue. The lawyer stepped cautiously into the dark hooch. In the center of the dirt floor a fire was burning. At the top of the hooch was a jagged hole that allowed some of the smoke and fumes to escape. Jesse could see that the metal had been recently cut. At the far end were a dolly and some oxyacetylene tanks. Someone had brought in a cutting torch and done the job right.
The scents of marijuana, human sweat, and canned food mixed with the smoke and heat to form a cloud that hung in the still air inside. There were empty ration cans everywhere. As Jesse moved, the rancid smell of unchanged clothing and unwashed hair forced him to change direction. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and placed it over his nose and mouth. It smelled exactly like the underground bunkers back in Dong Ha.
He located a plastic milk carton and sat down to wait for his eyes to adjust to the darkness that filled all but the center of the room. After a few minutes he removed the kerchief from his nose. His olfactory system had reached some sort of equilibrium. In time he saw that there were three other men in the hooch with him. Two were huddled quietly at the far end, sucking on a hand-rolled marijuana cigarette, while the third sat alone at the very edge of the firelight.
One man was black, while the other two were white. All three wore clothing that had not been washed in months, if not years. The jacket of choice was a “one each” U.S. Army field jacket in olive drab. All were slick with grease and perspiration.
“You don’t belong in here,” said the voice near the fire. It was a firm but gentle voice. “You should be leaving.” Two other voices grunted their agreement.
Ignoring the admonition, Jesse moved toward the fire. The face of the man seated there was lit by a shaft of light that poured through the vent hole above. His matted hair had once been light brown and curly. His skin beneath the filth and sunburn was smooth, even youthful. It was the man’s eyes that caught Jesse’s attention. They were filled with distance and dread. He had seen many such eyes in Vietnam. Life, perhaps death, had betrayed this man.
“I need to speak to you. I know that you spend your days up on the hill—somehow you have managed to gain safe passage through the guns and the gangs. I don’t know how I know, but I’m sure that you know something about all of the killings up here. You know what happened to all of those boys. I think you know what happened at the Amazon Luncheonette.”
“You should be leaving,” repeated the voice, this time with menace.
“So that’s how it is,” said Jesse disdainfully, while inspecting the area around himself. Using the toe of one shoe, he casually prodded a paper bag from Klein’s deli.
“You can take money right out of my pocket; you can eat my food every day, but you won’t let me rest my tired feet in this splendid palace of yours.”
After a moment of silence the softened voice responded, “You can stay. Though I understand the true motive for your generosity, I still want to thank you for the food.”
“Don’t mean nothing,” answered Jesse. “Don’t mean nothing.”
The two men in the distance suddenly stopped moving, the glow of the cigarette hung immobile in the blackness. One of them slowly exhaled his precious lungful of smoke. The two men with the dying joint turned to stare into the intruder’s face. A stranger had uttered the grunt’s mantra. The man by the fire raised his head to look directly at the lawyer, to study his face.
“Who are you? Do I know you?”
“Supongamos, ” said Jesse, while facing away from the man. “Supposing Oscar Wilde was wrong and men did not kill the things they love, amigo, what would America, west of the Mississippi, be like today? If Wilde had been allowed to love whomever he wished, what would sustain the seventy wars that are being fought somewhere in the world at this very moment?
“Or suppose this one especially: Suppose the Nicene Council. back in the fourth century, had not deleted women and their writings from the New Testament and from the church. Suppose the female apostles had been allowed to live on in the Bible. Do you suppose there would have been a Vietnam War?”
The man near the fire began to weep.
Calvin shifted nervously in his seat as the prosecutor pored over a page in his voluminous notebook. The defendant looked at his lawyer, who was making the sec
ret sign to calm down. Calvin inhaled deeply then remembered to sit up and place one hand on each knee. His body language had occasionally been extremely defensive.
After running his finger down the page, the prosecutor stood up, then placed himself between the defendant and his lawyer. He knew that the two were communicating somehow, and he intended to block Calvin’s view.
“You told the inspector, did you not, that you knew that Little Reggie had the gun?”
“I know that he almost always be carrying a gun,” answered Calvin, “so, on the tape, I guessed that he had one that night. If you listen to the tape, Mr. Cling, you can hear that I was ask a trick question. I been forced into giving that answer. On that night, the night when Mai was killed, I ain’t knowin’ he had the gun until I saw it in his hand.”
Despite the obstruction by the prosecution, the witness saw the signal to elaborate. Calvin continued his statement.
“Everyone on that hill have a gun, sir. Even the little kids have guns. They takes their guns to the playground when they ride on the swings. When they ain’t got decent clothes or shoes on, they got heat. They be strapped when they go to the store to buy penny candy or a root beer.”
“You also told the inspector, did you not, that you knew that he was going to kill her?”
“When he pull out that gun, knowin’ him the way I did, I knew that those women be in danger.”
“You’re not answering my question,” continued the prosecutor. “You knew that Little Reggie was going to kill those women before he actually did it, didn’t you?”
Calvin turned his gaze to the jury.
“If Little Reggie Harp be here today, pointin’ a gun at you, I be sure that the crazy fool would use it on one of you, maybe more. That’s what I mean by that answer. If I had knowed that he was going to hurt those women, I woulda tried to stop him. All I know when I knock on the front door of the Amazon Luncheonette was that I be near … her.”
“You wanted to be near her?” asked the prosecutor.
“I always want to be near her, near Mai. From the first time I saw her I could not stop thinkin’ about her, to smell her perfume. I thinks she is … was the mostest beautiful woman I ever seen.”
“Who was it that put Mai in the refrigerator?”
“I put her there,” answered Calvin. “I thought she be safe in there. I thought Reggie be satisfy if he think she suffocate in there. I schemed to let her out as soon as he leave and it be safe but she kick the door open.”
Now a shining tear began to wend its way down the ebony cheek of the defendant. Jesse sat upright in his chair, surprised by the emotion evident in his client’s face. He hadn’t given the sign for an emotional display.
“Until the day I die I never be forgettin’ the look on her face when she run past me into the street. She hate me. That pretty face couldn’t stand to look at me. I love her so much and she hate me for bein’ with him. I want her to stop—not to go out there. I know what Little Reggie could maybe do to her. I never had no time to explain to her….”
“There’s no question before the witness,” interjected the prosecutor.
“The witness is allowed to explain,” answered the judge.
“I ran out behind her and scream at her to stop, but nothin’ on earth could stop her. She be screamin’ something and can’t hear me callin’ out to her. Then I hear the first shot. Miss Persephone already be down. Blood everywhere. Then I seen him shoot Mai….”
Now the tears were streaming down the Biscuit Boy’s face.
“God, I be lovin’ her.”
“You got the gun from Reggie, didn’t you? He handed you the gun right after he killed those two women.”
“Yeah, he done that.”
“You said on direct examination that you tried to shoot Reggie right there in the street, isn’t that right?”
“Yeah.”
“But Reggie had removed the clip.”
“Yeah, I mean yes.”
“It was your job to hide the gun, wasn’t it?
“Yes.”
“It was your job to hide the clip, wasn’t it?”
“I never seen the clip, sir.”
“And you hid them both under the front porch of Princess Sabine Harp’s apartment?”
“Yes, but only the gun. Reggie always keep it there.”
“You killed Reggie Harp just one or two days after the murders at the Amazon Luncheonette, didn’t you? You were afraid that he would spill the beans about your part in the murders. First you sent him a note saying that he was a dead man, then you killed him.”
“I didn’t kill him, sir. I want to kill him, I’ll tell you that, for what he done to those three boys, for what he done to Mai. I try to kill him that night. He be such a sick boy. He got no place to live, did you know that? He be livin’ with those homeless vets down at the bottom of the hill. That crazy mama of his won’t let him in, so I be bringin’ him food that my mama cook, and I kicked it with him a little bit, but not too long ‘cause he be livin’ near a outdoor toilet.
“That mama of his always be askin’ boys to come in her house, of ferin’ them food and beer, and always showing those pictures of her, some with no clothes on. I never seen none of them pictures, but I heard. She be lettin’ any fool boy into her house, but she didn’t never let her own son to come in.”
Calvin glanced toward his lawyer for some indication of how well he was doing on the stand. The lawyer seemed pleased. Calvin’s English was much better than before, but not so good as to destroy all poignancy. This case needed poignancy. Jesse gave Calvin the signal to elaborate about Princess Sabine.
“Boys would come out her house swearin’ that they had been to bed with her, seen her titties and everything. They say she tied them up with string. Weird stuff. Jesus, that make Reggie so mad. It drive him crazy. It turn him into a crazy killer. I know he shot those three boys. Everybody know it, even without seein’ it.
“But I always know there be somethin’ wrong with him. If there was a pretty new car on the block, he scratch up the paint. If someone plantin’ some pretty flowers, he’d wreck ‘em. I think he hate anything pretty. That’s why he kill those women. He hate anything nice. If there be another bullet in that chamber, I swear he be dead that night. Good thing the gun be empty or there be another body out on the sidewalk.”
“Mai Adrong, Persephone Flyer, and Reggie Harp,” said the prosecutor reproachfully.
“No,” said Calvin. “There be another man out there that night. He run over to the bodies of the two women. It be the homeless man that I seen on the hill, Mr. Homeless. He’s all the time preaching against violence and drugs and such. He tells crazy stories about spiders and about what happens on a hill. Reggie aim right at him and pull the trigger but nothin’ happened. The homeless guy never even look up. He saw Reggie, but went right back to what he doin‘. It look like he be sayin’ something to those women.”
After almost two full days of cross-examination the prosecutor sat down at his table, leaving the crowded courtroom silent, and an exhausted Calvin anxious to leave the witness stand. Jesse was openly proud of his client and smiled at Eddy Oasa, who was seated in one of the attorneys’ seats just behind the defense table. Eddy nodded his head imperceptibly. The boy had survived. He had explained himself clearly and answered every question in a manner that the jury could understand.
“Just one or two more questions, your honor,” said Jesse who did not rise from his table. “What is your name on the street?”
Calvin smiled at the question.
“Biscuit Boy.”
“How did you come to have that name?”
A look of calm and deep affection descended upon Calvin’s face as he considered his answer to the question.
“I be stealin’ pastries from the back yard of the Amazon Luncheonette. I be takin’ the pastries just to taste somethin’ that her hands be touchin‘. I use to go up there and watch Mai all day long. I know when she wake up in the mornin’ and I know when she
go to sleep at night. Before the kids go to school I be watchin’ her window to see the lights come on in her bedroom. Then I run up the hill to catch the sound of her mixin’ machine and the smell from her oven.”
Calvin closed his eyes but continued to speak.
“I be standin’ across the street and just watch her movin’ back and forth in her kitchen. She be the most prettiest thing I ever seen. Well, one morning I’m fixin’ to steal some of the pastries that she leave on a bench in back. I seen the homeless guy takin’ them, so I reckons I’d try it. But she nabbed me. I won’t never forget that for as long as I live.
“I reach out for the pastries, but her hand come out and grab mine. Then I hear this laughter that sound happy and sweet like a kids’ playground and I look up to see that face smilin’ at me. ‘Dud bé giao bánh bích guy,’she say.”
One or two of the jurors had looks of pure amazement on their faces. Could they really be hearing a black boy from the projects speaking Vietnamese? Was it possible?
“Then in good English she translate. She say, ‘Biscuit Boy.’ She turned my hand over and, with her other hand, put a stack of hot biscuits in my palm. I feel like she had put one of her titties—” He turned his head to look at the face of his lawyer. “—breasts on my palm.”
With his eyes once again shut tight, he swooned at the thought.
“Mai teach me how to say my own name in Vietnamese, and she be usin’ that name every time she catch sight of me. I learn to say my name by sound at first, but, Hong Ha, the Vietnamese interpreter who come up to the jail, wrote it out for me, with all them accent marks and stuff. I needs to know how to spell my name correct, you see. When she give me that name, my life been change forever.”
“How did you feel about Mai?”
“I been waitin’ a long time for this here trial by jury, Mr. Pasadoble. I passed a lot of time upstairs, in my bed in the jail, readin’ and learnin’ things. I wasn’t livin’ life before—when everythin’ around me was the enemy, when every day be war. What I mean to say is I love Mai when I be a stupid boy stealin’ biscuits. Now I be a man charged with killin’ her, I know there ain’t no words to say what my heart feel for her.”
