“Hey, Jerry, that was quick, I just phoned you not thirty seconds ago.”
“Oh, the beeper message was from you,” Jerry said as he reached into my pocket and cleared his pager.
“Yeah, check it out, amigo,” he said, pointing to the back table. “You told me to let you know when your buddy Willy dropped back in here.”
“That I did. You’re a good man, Mondo. Pour yourself one on me.”
“All right, Jerry,” he said as he poured them both doubles. “Saluda, amigo,” he said as he raised his glass.
Jerry took his drink, ignoring the toast, and walked back into the shadows, where Willy Beal sat clutching a beer. Jerry noticed that Willy looked more alert than the last time he had seen him. Even in the reduced light, Willy’s eyes followed him across the room. “Okay if I sit down, Willy?”
“Free country, Jerry. We made it that way, right?”
“You got that right, cowboy. Where’ve you been hanging your hat these past few days, Willy?”
“Is that an official question, or are you just making a friendly inquiry of an ex-teammate?”
“I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t partially official. Now am I going to get an answer to my question?”
“I’ve been around.”
“You can do better than that, Willy. Think a little harder, say over the past forty-eight hours.”
“You know the way we winos are, Jerry. I got drunk and passed out in some alley someplace. I don’t know where. Twenty bucks will buy a lot of booze where I buy my liquor; you knew that when you gave it to me. So I got drunk, passed out, and spent two days sleeping it off. Look here,” he said, “I still have ten bucks and change, which ought to last me through tomorrow if I stretch it.” His hand slammed onto the table, the money falling from his unclenched fist.
“Look, Willy, I’m sorry if you took it wrong, but I had to ask. Yeah, I care about you, but times have changed and I’ve got a job to do. What alley did you pass out in?”
“I can’t remember, Jerry, perhaps another beer will aid my memory.” Willy B. slugged down the remaining suds in one gulp and pushed his glass in Jerry’s direction.
Jerry looked back toward the bar, where he noticed Mondo eyeing the conversation with interest. “Yo, Mondo, another beer for my friend and a double for me.”
“Coming right up, Jerry. Does your buddy want a frosted glass?”
“I don’t think it will make any difference to him,” Jerry replied.
Jerry sat back down at the table and pushed the warm glass of cold beer toward Willy. “Here’s to better days, Willy,” he said as he raised his glass in a toast.
Willy took his glass without offering his own toast, raised it to his lips, and in one long swig polished it off. A loud “BURP” signaled that Willy was done, and Jerry used the opportunity to ask a few questions. “You read in the paper about the latest murder in Little Saigon?”
“Do I look like I spend my money on newspapers to you, Jerry? The fact is, I sleep under them most of the time, but I never read them.”
“I’ll take that answer to mean that you’re not aware of the murder.”
“I didn’t say that. Word on the street is the dishwasher at the Club Saigon got his ear removed and his throat slit two nights ago by the serial killer.”
Jerry was losing patience with his old friend. “Don’t play games with me, Willy. Tell me what you know about the murder.”
“I only know what the word on the street is, Jerry, honest. You act like I’m a suspect or something.”
“You might just be, Willy. Where were you two nights ago between the hours of eleven p.m. and one a.m.?”
“Let’s see, if my memory serves me right, I was holed up with some of the boys in an alley two blocks west of here.”
“Any of the BOYS who can verify your alibi, Willy?”
“You are serious about me being a suspect then, aren’t you, Jerry?”
“As serious as a heart attack, Willy. Give me a reason to believe you.”
“I wish I could, but you know some of the guys I hang with. We’re all stumblebums, winos. Would you believe them if they told you I was with them?”
“I’d try not to be too judgmental. I’m just looking for leads or clues. A lead to me would be if a suspect was eliminated because he had an alibi. I’d know that I was sniffing up the wrong tree. Help me with this, Willy, and you help yourself. Are you so far gone that you can’t see that?”
“Sorry, Jerry, you’re right. I should be straight with you. After all, we have been through a lot together.” Willy looked deeply into his empty glass as if remembering better times. His mind seemed to drift as he lost eye contact with Jerry. Jerry could read his mind, because Jerry had gotten that same vacant look a thousand times before, when he thought back to the Team. It was his own version of the game called WHERE ARE THEY NOW, and Jerry was glad to see by the expression on Willy’s face that Jerry wasn’t the only one that played it.
“Willy. Willy Beal. Time to come back,” Jerry found himself saying, as he reached out and cupped his arm with his hand. His touch seemed to bring Willy gently back to the present.
“Sorry, Jerry, I guess I slipped away for a while. If I had another beer, I’d drink to better days.”
Jerry motioned for Mondo, who came over to their table with another round. “Look, I got to go now, Willy. What say you come over to my place tonight? I can offer you a clean bed, fresh sheets, a shower—what say?” Jerry thought if they spent some time together, Willy might be able to help him, especially after he came out of the drunken fog that he was in. Jerry was getting vibes about this case, and the vibes told him that if he found the killer, he would be an ex-Special Forces trooper. When Willy Beal was clean and sober, the way Jerry knew him over the pond, he was one of the best. He was a fighting, killing machine. If Willy wasn’t his man, and Jerry had no real reason to believe he was, then he probably could help him find the killer. Jerry needed to keep Willy B. on a short leash!
“I appreciate your offer, Jerry, but I feel like finding the boys and drinking some muscatel. Maybe some other time. Hey, Jerry, I’ll ask around and see if I can come up with anything that might help.”
Jerry looked deep into Willy’s soulful eyes and released his grip on his arm. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty, which he added to the money on the table and slipped it into his hand. “Thanks, Willy. You take care now.”
“Hey Jerry,” Willy laughingly said, “the next time I pull them street blankets over me, I’ll read them first.”
The dark, wraparound glasses that Vinh Ho wore always made the old man appear ominous. He wore them when he walked in the hazy L.A. sunshine and even wore them in the dimly lit interior of the Club Saigon. It was part of the mystique of the man, a part that nobody dared question. It was part of what made him appear so menacing. He was a man short of stature and slight of build, but you couldn’t see into his eyes. You couldn’t see him scrutinize your face as he talked to you. Each muscle contraction gave the man more insight into you than you could ever hope to get from his high-cheekboned granite face, shielded by the sweeping dark band of shadowy glass that sat on his button nose. That was the face that stared back at Jerry this morning as he prepared to question Uncle Vinh about his dishwasher’s murder.
It had been midafternoon when Jerry arrived at the Club Saigon. Kind of ironic that the Club Saigon had the same name as the Vietnamese joint in Pleiku where Gunner took out the ARVN lieutenant, killed him, and stuffed him in the fifty-five-gallon drum. He had done that back in ’67, a year before their camp fell to the NVA. As Jerry recalled, the ARVN Colonel that invited his team to the party was named Vinh Ho. The connection had to be more than plain coincidence. Jerry made a mental note to check with the CIA and Interpol and see if they had a file on Uncle Vinh.
“I have been expecting you, Detective,” Uncle Vinh said as Jerry approached his table. Jerry wondered how this man knew that he was with the police, but he had long since learned
that criminals could spot him a mile away. He made another mental note to assume Uncle Vinh was a criminal.
“Mr. Vinh Ho, I am Detective Jerry Andrews,” he said as he extended his hand and gave this kindly-looking old gentleman one of his police business cards.
“You have come to inquire into the unfortunate death of my dishwasher Johnny Hong?”
“Yes, that’s correct. How long had Johnny Hong worked for you?”
“He had only been with me for six months. He was a good boy, young, energetic, strong. He took all his pay home each week to his elderly father and mother. I was thinking of moving him up in my organization in the near future. Like I said, he was a good boy, such a shame to die so young.”
“Your remorse is overwhelming, Mr. Ho. Now you say he was a dishwasher?”
“Yes, that was his only position in my organization.”
“You keep saying ‘organization.’ What organization is that?”
The sly old fox looked up at Jerry through those sinister-looking dark glasses and through unsmiling lips said, “Why, this restaurant, the Club Saigon, of course.”
“Do I know you from somewhere else, Mr. Ho? Vietnam, perhaps?” Jerry continued, as he tried to look through those dark shades.
“Our paths may have crossed at some time,” he said slyly. “As you may know or may have guessed, I am Vietnamese, and I did serve my homeland for many years in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, where I attained the rank of Colonel.”
Jerry decided not to pursue this line of questioning, as he already instinctively knew that this was the same Colonel Vinh Ho that had thrown the party for his unit in ’67. He also instinctively knew that the Colonel also remembered the event and possibly even remembered him being there. “Did Johnny Hong have any enemies that you know about?”
“Johnny was a quiet boy. He stayed to himself.”
“Did he owe anybody any money? Was he a gambler?”
Vinh looked up again, noting the insinuating tone of Jerry’s voice that invoked the stereotype of Orientals who liked to gamble. Each time Vinh looked up, Jerry felt his piercing stare going through him like a sharp knife. He sensed that the man behind the dark glasses kept silently saying to him, Another time, another place, and you would be a dead man.
“Johnny Hong was a good boy; I personally do not know that he gambled. He worked hard and got a hundred fifty a week from me. How he spent his money was his business!” he said curtly.
The tone of Vinh’s response was the first time Jerry sensed anger from the old man. Jerry was getting to him! Perhaps a few more pointed questions that smacked of racism and he would see the eyes behind the dark glasses. Some other time, he thought. “If you would be so kind as to give me the address of Johnny’s parents’ house? I have a few questions I’d like to ask them.”
“You can see my bookkeeper on the way out, Detective. Now, if there is nothing else . . . ” his words hung in the air like yesterday’s laundry.
“I’ll find my own way out, Mr. Ho. I may be back if I think of anything else. Thank you for your time.” Jerry got up and walked past some hulking shadowy types that surrounded Uncle Vinh. His “organization” henchmen, no doubt.
The hazy light of day hit Jerry in the eyes about the same time that the smoggy L.A. air entered his lungs, causing him to blink and cough at the same time. The smells and sounds of Little Saigon reminded him of street vendors, hawking their wares and foodstuffs from smelly stalls along the side streets in Pleiku City. Jerry had experienced flashbacks more times than he cared care to count and it never was a pleasant experience. “Flashbacks,” the buzzword of the eighties, were another symptom of PVS. Just like the fucking migraines he kept getting were a symptom, and neither symptom wanted to go away.
There he stood, looking stupid, a rivulet of drool coming from the corner of his mouth and dripping onto his shirt. The heat was stifling, and he unbuttoned his collar and loosened his tie. It was the smell that always triggered the “flashback.” He could see the cooking fires and the smoke wafting up into the air. Dust rising from the dirt road and the noises of the marketplace. Even in town, he didn’t trust the Vietnamese. He didn’t trust Colonel Vinh Ho or his ARVN assholes as far as he could throw them. But why the fuck had Gunner killed that ARVN and stuffed him in the fifty-five-gallon drum? Why did that crazy son of a bitch put him in this position? They needed to “di-di mau” back to the camp on the first available chopper. Why were all these pajama-clad peasants staring at them?
His brain was buzzing at an alarming pace. Fight or flight: all his senses were high-keyed and at the alert. If one of those fucking farmers made a move toward him and Gunner, Jerry would tear him in half with his AR-15. He walked carefully through the streets not recognizing anything or anyone. They were in hostile territory here, only Gunner covering his backside. No other Americans.
He walked around for a while, alert to the dangers of this area. Finally, he reached a place called Alley d’ Francaise. His temples were beginning to pound like a bass drum playing a John Phillip Sousa march. He searched out the coolness of the shadows. He always felt safe in the shadows. He was glad to be off the open street. He was vulnerable there. The dark curtain was coming and he had found refuge. At the end of the alley, he found a door that was slightly ajar. He opened it and saw a steel stairway ascending upward. He went to the landing and looked under it. Nobody was there. It was dark and cool. It would do just fine. The black curtain was coming and he would be pain-free for however long he was under its power. He crawled under the landing and pulled some boxes around his position. As the last cardboard box was pulled into place, the dark curtain thudded down.
The sound of Jerry’s beeper brought him back. He looked at the number displayed and recognized it as Deputy Coroner Sam Yamamoto. It seemed that he had been gone a long time during his flashback, walking great distances throughout Little Saigon, but in actuality, he was still standing in front of the Club Saigon looking at his police cruiser. He got behind the wheel and pulled out into traffic. Jerry had police dispatch patch him into the phone number of Sam’s office. “This is Detective Jerry Andrews. I have a message to call Sam Yamamoto.”
The cheerful voice on the other end of the line said, “Yes, Detective, Dr. Yamamoto will speak to you now.”
“Jerry. Sam here. I checked three of the unclaimed bodies we have at the morgue and found the same bruises and slash patterns. I haven’t had time to do an electron microanalysis of the bruises yet, but I will if you need it done.”
“Thanks, Sam, but, for now, I don’t think anything else will be necessary.”
“Okay, Jerry—this dude you’re hunting is a really bad one. You be careful out there.”
“Thanks for your concern, Sam.” Jerry hung up, thinking he finally had a solid clue to work with. The son of a bitch was left-handed!
FOURTEEN
She had a short, black pixie haircut that touched her forehead just above her eyes. Like most young Vietnamese girls, Ke Son Nu was straight as a string and weighed less than a hundred pounds dripping wet. In her tight Levi’s and oversized sweatshirt, the petite little sixteen-year-old high school junior could easily have been taken for a young boy in the dimly lit stairwell.
She had gone this way a thousand times, never thinking that there was any danger. Since she was twelve years old she had worked as a seamstress, sewing silk sarongs for the An Lac Specialty Company. It was a trade taught to her by her mother, who managed to escape Vietnam in the withdrawal from Saigon in 1975. Her father hadn’t been so lucky. He had been killed three days before the evacuation by an NVA shape charge. Ke Son Nu never got to know her father except for the few pictures her mother was able to save from the disorder that was Saigon just before it was overrun. Her mother grieved for many years and never considered remarrying. Ke Son was forced to go to work at an early age in order to help pay for her family’s needs, including the tribute that they paid each month to Uncle Vinh.
She had led a difficult life, working lo
ng hours and trying to get an education. Ke Son hoped that one day she would be accepted at the university. That was her American dream. Some dreams reach fruition, some don’t. Ke Son entered the stairwell that night after work. She was excited about finishing high school, about her dream of higher education, and about the wealth that it would bring to her and her mother. That night, her dream turned into a nightmare.
The voices began to drive him out of his dreamless sleep. They started very softly, awakening him gently with a soothing resonance characteristic of his mother’s gentle voice. It was a joke the voices played on him sometimes, pretending to be his mother, while in reality, if the voices could be categorized, they were the epitome of evil.
He rose carefully, not yet aware of the presence above him on the stairway. The steady tap, tap, tap of footsteps on the metal treads came slowly to his ears. The voices told him, “IT’S TIME. THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU.”
His knuckles dug into the concrete until they bled as he leaned forward, trying to hear the sounds more clearly. He reached into his coat pocket and removed a pair of tight leather gloves. He put them on as he looked up and saw only one light illuminating the stairwell. A plan of attack took shape in his mind. The bulb was within reach, if he hurried before “THEY” came for him. He slid out from under the landing, quietly walking a half-flight up the stairway, and unscrewed the bulb. His fingers burned even through the gloves, but he never cried out as he quickly returned to the cover of the lower landing.
He hoped that in the darkness his “TORMENTORS” would leave, but the gentle footfalls on the stairs above him continued downward in his direction. He wedged his body as far back under the landing as he could. The cold, damp concrete felt like ice against his clothes. The voices told him to forget the pain. “DAU LA TOT,” they said. “Pain is good.” His friends and tormentors, they prepared him for what he must do to survive in this jungle of his mind.
Club Saigon Page 8
