by Vu Tran
We were approaching the southern end of the Strip. As the brother lit up another cigarette, I flicked mine out the window and gazed at the mountain range of hotels that bordered the highway. At night, I remembered, amid giant digital screens flashing promises and exaltations, these same hotels towered over the city like monuments, some with mirrored walls that—as you traveled past them—trembled in the wash of glitter and dancing light, as though the city were too alive, too troubled with hope, ever to fall asleep.
But now, in the desert dawn, there was a lifelessness to the way the valley’s light fell across the Strip and to how the shadows pooled beneath the hotels like melted paint. Framed by the Martian mountains in the distance, the Strip looked like an artist’s rendering of some alien civilization, with buildings erected from every culture and time in history, every possible mood, and with no consistency save their garishness and size. In the daylight, everything looked faraway, out of reach. If people came here to lose themselves, did they ever come to find anything?
As traffic picked up, I closed my window and let its tint darken Vegas once more. I wondered then if peace was a thing that one achieved or that one could only be given.
Last time I took this road, I felt like I’d just escaped a burning house that I’d ignited in the night, that had singed my backside and sent me fleeing my own shadow. I didn’t understand it then, but I admitted it to myself now: I had wanted all along to kill Sonny. There was no logic or morality behind it. Just an overwhelming desire to do something to him, at least hurt him badly, and maybe then things would feel right again. Except they never did, because they never do, not for people like me. I was back on the highway, steering blind, hoping for a clear path beyond the horizon.
This had become my life since Suzy left: a constant fumbling toward peace that lies only and always in the distance.
4
WE TOOK THE HIGHWAY south of the Strip until the city turned into a succession of clay tile roofs and stuccoed strip malls lined with palm trees. It was typical suburbia, distinguished by a pervading newness as bright as the sunlight. You could almost smell the sawdust and drying paint.
We approached a large park. Softball fields and basketball courts. Picnic tables. More trees and shade than I’d seen anywhere in the city so far. By the entrance, crowning the treetops, a giant digital screen flashed the words SUNSET PARK! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
After some distance inside the park, we appeared to reach its end at a gravel lot that yawned into a vast desert of brush and dirt mounds. We parked. The brothers got me out. We were still deep in the suburbs, but this felt like the edge of the city, the point where it surrendered itself entirely to sand and dust and silent sunlight and people vanish by simply walking into the distance. A few lonely cars peppered the lot. My Chrysler was not among them. For the first time since leaving Oakland, I regretted ever getting out of that car.
But I only had to turn around to see life again: the tops of pine trees ahead and then, as we mounted a short grassy hill, the enormous pond that glistened beyond them.
It was like stumbling upon a man-made oasis, burnished gold in sunlight. The pond was around fifteen acres, its grassy banks dropping over a short brick wall that encircled the waters like the coping of a swimming pool. A few people sat at picnic tables bundled in their coats beneath shady pines, watching the ducks, the pigeons flapping about like seagulls, the toy boats buzz-sawing across the glimmering water.
As my two escorts scanned the area, I spotted the small island at the center of the pond, a mirage within a mirage, adorned with a giant Easter Island head that loomed out of a grove of palm trees.
The older brother pointed at someone in the distance. As they flanked me, we walked toward a chestnut tree with a large branch overhanging the water. Beneath the tree, wrapped in a dark coat, sat a hooded figure in one of two lawn chairs. He held a fishing rod in his lap, its line in the water. I wondered if Sonny was a man who ate the fish he caught or threw them back.
As we came closer, the figure turned his head, and I realized it wasn’t Sonny at all. Even under the hood, Junior’s angular, elegant face was easily recognizable. His expression did not change when he saw me. He just sucked at his cigarette and returned his attention to the pond. His father was nowhere in sight, and I couldn’t decide if that relieved or disappointed me.
With my two escorts hanging back, I approached the empty lawn chair beside him, stepping into the shadow of the chestnut tree.
“Please have a seat,” Junior said without turning to me. He was wearing a long black duffel coat and leather gloves, holding the fishing rod indifferently in one hand and smoking with the other. As stoic as a mannequin.
He called out something in Vietnamese to the brothers. The older one approached him and said, “Are you sure?” Junior gave him a look. Without another word, the two brothers made their way down the sidewalk that skirted the pond.
Junior peered at me now with raised eyebrows. I could see my own awkwardness in his calm, dignified demeanor. It reminded me of my first and only time going to confession, at Suzy’s request, and not knowing what was too sinful to divulge to the priest and what was not sinful enough.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said.
“Is it?”
“It is. So long as you cooperate this time.”
“I don’t know anything about Suzy.”
“I know.”
“Does your father know it?”
“We both know it now. We had to be sure first.”
“About what? That I wasn’t hiding her? That I hadn’t stolen her back?”
“Given your last visit, we thought anything was possible.”
A moment passed before I realized I was silent out of shame. My recklessness months ago had cost me the right to be above suspicion in anyone’s eyes, least of all theirs.
“So why am I here now? Is it penance you want?”
Junior unhooded himself. His pale skin was flawless, his hair slicked back, not a strand out of place. Such symmetry seemed to sharpen his admonishing air.
He said, “I am here today in my father’s place because I insisted on it. Because I know he is a man who remembers everything and forgives nothing. You should be glad to see me, Mr. Robert. And you should be grateful—to my father and to me—that up until now you have been shown some mercy. Do you understand?”
He noticed my left hand, which I’d been absently clenching and unclenching.
“Of course I do,” I said, more meekly than I wanted to. If I had been spared, I doubted that kindness was behind it. Still, Junior’s tone confused me. It struck me that his most inscrutable habit was his insistence on his own sincerity. Like last time, I found it difficult to trust, but even more difficult to dismiss.
I searched along the banks, the picnic tables, the random vague figures who might resemble his father, watching us from a distance. About fifty yards away, the brothers sat smoking on a bench with their sunglasses and their obviousness trained on us.
“Listen,” I said to Junior. “I respect everything you’re saying. Believe me, this situation between me and your father, between me and you—none of that’s lost on me. But you guys’ve had a gun to my head for a day now. Someone needs to either shoot me or explain what the hell’s going on.”
Junior reached down and stubbed out his cigarette in the dirt. He took off his gloves, dropped them in his lap like he was ready at last to speak truthfully.
“Miss Hong disappeared four days ago. The last time my father saw her was Saturday night when she was sleeping in bed. Sunday morning, she was gone. As you must know, she never misses Sunday Mass for anything. She took her car and her purse and left everything else. Her clothes, jewelry, books, everything. She and my father have had their problems, and she’s had her reasons for leaving in the past. But nothing explains her leaving like this.”
He looked at me like I had contradicted him. “Understand something, Mr. Robert—my father has made mistakes, some much worse than others.
But he loves Miss Hong more than anyone in the world. He wants her back. And he wants you to help him.”
I must have looked sufficiently perplexed because he raised a quelling hand and added, “We have reason to believe she’s still in town, and I’ll explain that shortly—but that is why you’re here.”
“What makes you think I can help him?”
“Don’t be stupid. You know your value to us. You know my father wants nothing to do with the police. The real police anyway. What he has is you, and you are in debt to him.”
I felt like telling him his idea of a cop was as real as Dick Tracy, but he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a photograph, which he handed to me. I tried not to blink. It was a surveillance image of me standing in Sonny’s living room with a gun over his prostrate body. The camera must have been hidden on the crucifix and lurking above our heads the entire time. It wasn’t a very clear image, but I was unhooded, my face recognizable, teeth bared like a dog’s.
Junior took out another cigarette. “We have the entire video. I’m sure you understand all the implications here. Unlawful restraint. Burglary. Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Losing your badge would be the least of your worries.”
He held the unlit cigarette with his thumb and forefinger like the handle of a teacup, his hands as slender and delicate as a woman’s. I felt a sweet, savage urge to shove him into the pond.
I gave him back the photo, but he raised his hand. “That’s yours to keep.”
“You could have hired a private investigator,” I said. “This is Vegas. Plenty of them here, and you have plenty of money. I’m not a detective anymore. I write traffic tickets, man.”
“Mr. Robert . . . do you really think we brought you here for your professional talents?”
“What if she refuses? Suzy’s more stubborn than I am. She wouldn’t come back to me, and now you want me to convince her to come back to your father. Maybe it’s better that she stay away from him.” I waited a breath for a reaction. “Why would I let her go back to something she had reasons to leave?”
He leaned back in his chair as if he had anticipated the question. He was still holding the unlit cigarette like a forgotten pen. “She’s been unwell for a year now, especially these past few months. We think this has something to do with her disappearing. It’s impossible to know unless we find her. My father—he’s afraid she might hurt herself.”
I winced and he saw it. He already knew that I was only too familiar with what he was saying.
“Has she?” I asked. “Since she’s been with your father?”
“He does not always tell me those things. What I do know is that she had an episode two months ago. My father called me in the middle of the night. He’s not one to ask for help, but that night he didn’t hide his concern. She had gone out walking again. The front door was left wide open and it was raining outside, and her car was still in the garage. He’d been driving around the neighborhood for an hour. I came over at once and we searched for her together on foot. We shined our flashlights in everybody’s backyard, calling out her name in the rain. My father was not angry like I had expected. When he’s worried, his voice is calm, and he kept calling her with that calm voice.
“Around three in the morning, we found her at the elementary school a few blocks away, sitting on a swing in the playground. She was drenched and barefoot, shivering in her nightgown. It’s possible she was drunk. I never got close enough to be sure. As soon as she saw us, she got up and started walking away and ignored our calls. We ran after her. She struggled when my father caught up to her and screamed out a few times before suddenly falling silent. They didn’t say a single word to each other. He wrapped her in a raincoat and we walked her home in silence. She was sick in bed for almost a week and said hardly anything to anyone.
“After she got better, she started going to the movies every Thursday evening. She told my father that she just wanted to be alone in a dark theater for a few hours, then maybe have dinner somewhere by herself—that the routine helped her. It turns out she’s been visiting this hotel downtown called the Coronado. There’s no telling how long she’s been making these visits. She checks herself into a room on the twelfth floor, always room 1215. It’s reserved every week in her name. She arrives around seven and doesn’t leave or even open the door until midnight, when she comes out and makes her way home. My man is positive that the room is empty before her arrival and that she is alone the entire time. For all we know, she naps for those five hours. My father wanted to confront her immediately, but I convinced him to wait, let a few weeks pass, see if something happens that we can’t ignore. Until then, what is the difference really between a movie theater and a hotel room? Maybe this was something like church for her. Something she can do every week to feel whole or normal or whatever again.”
Junior had been rolling the cigarette between his fingers and now peered at it as though he didn’t know what to do with it. “I was wrong,” he said. “It was three weeks ago that we found out about the hotel. Now she’s gone. It’s partly my fault, I suppose.”
He fell silent for a moment as if reflecting on the accuracy of this confession. I could have believed now that he was sincerely, humbly, asking for my help.
“The truth is, Mr. Robert, she will not run away from you if it comes to that—or do anything foolish. You may find that hard to believe, given your history with her, but you’re the only person who can do this.”
The confidence with which he spoke of my marriage should have annoyed me, except that it was comforting to hear someone acknowledge what I’d only known as a private regret.
“You also want to find her as much as my father does. He needs someone who will care how this all turns out. Think of him what you will, but he wants no harm to come to her. He wants her back because he wants to take care of her, something you, frankly, never did very well. It might displease you to hear this—but my father knows that Miss Hong still loves him. She has always loved him. Long before she ever met you. Perhaps one day that will all be explained to you.”
He crossed his legs, satisfied that he’d said enough to convince me. He finally lit the cigarette, sighing smugly, and switched the fishing rod to his other hand.
“We checked, and she has again reserved her normal room at the Coronado. Something about that room is important to her, so we’re hoping she comes tonight, or sometime today. We booked the room next door under your name and with your credit card. Room 1213. Check-in is at noon, so you should be going shortly. You will wait for her there—until tomorrow, if necessary. If she does come, talk to her. Persuade her to come home. Tell her whatever you need to tell her.
“If you will, consider this a favor. Bring Miss Hong back to my father, and you can go on your way. He’ll forget everything, and we never have to see each other again. I’m offering you another deal. Hopefully this time you will accept for her sake, if not your own.”
He offered me a cigarette, his eyes disarmingly warm, con spiratorial. I shook my head, which seemed to disappoint him. He waved the brothers back.
I was still processing everything he had said. In particular, about me not taking care of Suzy, about her knowing Sonny before me, her still loving him. Every time he called her “Miss Hong,” I felt like clocking him. It didn’t matter if he was lying.
A feeling passed close to me then, distressing in a way I could not yet understand, like some shadow of a painful memory flitting past me while I wasn’t looking.
Junior’s fishing line jerked and his body awoke. He stood and took hold of the rod expertly with both hands, tugged at the line a couple of times with his cigarette clamped between his lips. He started reeling it in as the brothers approached. The kid rushed over to the bank as Junior’s fish burst out of the water, floundering violently, a foot-long trout. As Junior held up the rod, concentration petrifying his face, the kid grabbed the line and then the fish itself. It took him a few seconds, but he took hold of the convulsing trout with both hands, looked ov
er at me, and kissed its belly with an exaggerated smack.
Junior ignored the kid’s antics. He gestured for him to unhook the fish and throw it back. “My father comes here about once a week. It’s the only place you can fish in the city, outside of Lake Mead, which isn’t a real lake either. They stock this pond with about thirty thousand trout a year. Catfish, too, and bass.”
Junior eyed the shimmering waters. He said, seemingly to himself, “I have never eaten a single fish I’ve caught here.”
The kid finally managed to unhook the fish, and it jumped out of his hands and flopped on the ground before tumbling back into the pond. He stared at the rippling water and wiped his hands on his jeans with an infantile smirk.
Junior sat back down and placed the rod on the ground. Beside his chair was a small blue cooler. He reached into it and pulled out a small but bulging manila envelope. He handed it to me and flicked his cigarette into the pond, which drew some glares from fishermen nearby.
I was struck by how openly he was doing all of this, as if no one would find this scene curious, the two brothers in their FBI shades and him in his stylish fishing gear, pulling envelopes out of a cooler like beers. Why, I wondered, were we not having this conversation at his restaurant or some dusty office with the curtains drawn?
“Inside the envelope,” he said, “you will find a cell phone and five hundred dollars in cash for the room and any expenses you might have. Stay alert. Check Miss Hong’s room as often as you can. Stand guard outside if you have to. And keep the phone on you at all times in case I call. The boys here will escort you to the hotel. You will find your car parked on the fourth level of the garage, in lot 4B. I will give you back your keys after this is all over. Just know that it’s there, and that despite everything, we do want you to drive home on your own.”
