No Good to Cry (6 page)

“Then the police caught them in the act.” Lucy drew her lips into a thin line. “Thank God.” She whispered again, “Thank God.”

Mike let out an unfunny laugh. “Simon confesses. Blabs the whole thing. Like he's proud. The judge sentenced them to four months at Long Lane. Simon tells us he hated it there. Rough boys, fights, cruelty, mocking by the authorities, everybody telling you you're a piece of shit. Back home, he still runs the streets—it's like it's in his blood—can't help himself.”

“But he still goes to…VietBoyz?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“No more crime?”

A fatalistic shrug. “I don't know.” Then, “Probably.”

“But he hated juvie.”

“Maybe he thinks he won't get caught,” Hank added.

Mike grunted. “Kids think they can get away with murder these days.”

Immediately he regretted his words. “I don't mean…no…he wouldn't…”

“Did he talk to you about the latest attack? The death of Ralph Gervase?”

Mike's eyes flashed. “You know, I asked him after we got back from the police station. Ardolino told me they were getting evidence against him and Frankie. Convinced, they said, he's back to no good.”

“But Simon denied it?”

Again his fist slammed the table. “Yes.” He locked eyes with mine. “You know, that first time, dragging Simon to juvenile court, dealing with lawyers, hanging out in courtrooms, talking to the judge, my little Simon dressed in a suit too big for him, all those times I got him to talk. We
never
talk. But then he did. Maybe he was scared. I don't know. He admitted
everything
. No reason, he said, the nonsense he did. Just for the hell of it. Something to impress the guys in VietBoyz, maybe. But after this last time we talked again. He—like sought me out. I'll tell you, Rick Van Lam, he
swore
to me this ain't his doing. ‘But nobody'll believe me,' he says to me. ‘I believe you,' I said back. And he starts to shake. My boy, shaking. He ain't never did that. A hard nut, that boy. This black sheep. ‘I ain't done it.' And I told him again, ‘I will call someone who will believe us.'” He pointed a finger at me. “You.”

Lucy tittered nervously. “Do you believe us?”

I said nothing.

“Simon don't lie to me.”

“I want to talk to Simon,” I said.

That answer didn't satisfy. Mike swung his body around and leaned into Hank. His voice got dark. “You talk to him.” The
him
was me.

“We'll see,” I said without conviction.

Mike folded his arms over his chest and rocked in his chair. “When he was found guilty last year, I condemned him, I yelled. I…
hit
him. I locked him up. He disgraced us. I
wanted
him to go to Long Lane because I
wanted
him punished. Otherwise, what are we?
Ac gia ac bao
.” He looked to see if I understood. You pay a price for evil.

Hank muttered, “You reap what you sow.”

Mike went on. “But this time I looked into his face and I knew to my soul that he was not lying to his father.”

He stood up. We all stood up.

“We'll find him and talk,” Hank volunteered.

I nodded.

***

Outside, Hank and I sat in the car, neither talking for a while. Bothered, I was staring back at the house, though I sensed Hank watching my profile. Through the front window I could see Lucy clearing dishes from the dining room table. Mike Tran at one point stood by the front window, looking out at us, his face pressed against the glass, probably surprised we were still there.

“Well,” said Hank, impatiently.

“I believe him,” I stated finally. “I think Simon was telling him the truth.”

Hank grinned. “So do I.”

“But it's only my gut instinct.”

Hank laughed. “Good enough for me.”

“Ardolino may not agree with me.”

“Did you expect him to?”

“But I think Simon is going to be the worst evidence against himself.”

I put the car in gear, though I shot a look back at the house. In the upstairs window a face stared out from behind a curtain, half hidden but staring. “Look, Hank.” I pointed.

“Hazel.”

“I'd like to hear her take on her brother. Maybe even Wilson's.”

“A beautiful girl.”

Hank waved to her, a foolish gesture, I thought, but Hazel, suddenly aware of our stares, had quickly moved away. She had pulled the curtain across the window.

Chapter Six

Little Saigon on a Sunday afternoon in April.

Up and down Park Street cars moved, bumper-to-bumper, jockeying for parking spots. Shiny SUVS with license plates from Rhode Island and Massachusetts turned off the interstate, whole families crowded inside, a day's excursion to shop for the week at Saigon Food Market. Husbands drank beer and played a round of pool at Ky Dien Parlor while their wives filled carts with lemongrass, mangoes, barbecued pork. Jugs of soymilk. Loaves of crisp French baguettes for
ban mi
pork sandwiches. Teenaged boys stood on corners, their hair primped in duck's-ass cuts from a decade they hadn't heard of, cigarettes bobbing in their mouths, cell phones beeping from the pockets of their baggy pants. Girls in plastic jackets flirted with them. A ripple of high laugher, someone yelling out to a friend. An old woman embraced another old woman.
“Toi nho ban lam!”
How much I missed you!

“Oh, my God,” Hank whispered. “I actually heard someone talking in English.”

A young girl, her blond-streaked hair freshly permed, paused as she moved in front of some boys, waited for them to smile at her. To whistle, to spin around, do an exaggerated boogie-woogie two-step for her.

They did.

She rushed by them.

Hank and I spent hours wandering through the neighborhood, interviewing shopkeepers, stopping stragglers who sat on benches and watched the buses going by. Mug shots of Frankie and Simon in hand. Over and over—“Do you recognize these kids? The afternoon of April 12? Around four o'clock?”

According to Ardolino, Frankie and Simon claimed they'd been wandering Little Saigon, aimless, an hour in an arcade playing video games, stopping for sodas at Le Vinh Grocery, goofing off on a bench in front of the small park off Russell. But no one remembered them. The kid in the arcade told us he was new there, so he couldn't help. Others glanced at the photos, shrugged, and moved on.

A wasted afternoon, perhaps, but our last destination was the VietBoyz storefront down on Russell—where, if the boys were to be believed, they'd hung out for some time. Ardolino had scoffed at that notion and told me it was a crock. Our last stop—and the most troublesome.

Street gang members as witnesses? As alibis?

The leader had told the cops that Frankie and Simon were there.

No one believed him.

“Down there.” I pointed.

Perpendicular to Park Street, Russell Street was a narrow dead-end. A couple businesses on the corner. Binh Thanh Fashions. Bo Kien, a small eatery. But mostly shabby triple-decker homes dotted the street. The sidewalks were broken, littered with beat-up plastic trash barrels. A bicycle frame was chained to a streetlight post, the wheels and handlebars disappeared. A block down, a yellow-brick two-story industrial building blocked the end of the street, the second floor boarded up, plywood sheets covering the window frames. A gutter on the roof sagged dangerously, pitched downward. To the left of the entrance was a huge sign: FOR SALE. The sign was faded, peeling.

“That's what Big Nose told me,” Hank added. “Command central for the VietBoyz.”

“This should be interesting.” I poked him.

“There's probably an assault weapon aimed out the front door.” He poked me back.

“That's why you're walking in first.”

“You'll miss me.”

“I suppose so.”

I looked up and down the street, but there was nothing to see. Russell Street had little life. An old man tottered out of a triple-decker, eyed us suspiciously, and headed away. Quiet, quiet. The building looked abandoned. I tried the front-door knob, but it was locked up tight. I knocked, waited, knocked again.

“How does a gang keep quarters in Little Saigon?” I wondered.

“Intimidation?”

I rapped again. “Who pays the rent?”

Hank grinned. “That's what I like about you, Rick. A pragmatic man.”

“Who pays the rent tells us a lot about the folks inside, no?”

I peered through a murky window into a dark room. A ratty sofa, an upturned chair, folding tables and chairs stacked up against a wall, and a long counter that suggested the room had been a store at one time. Etched into a tiled wall: “Tate's Groceries. We Deliver to Your Home.”

Well, not anymore.

“Coffee?” I suggested to Hank.

He nodded.

Back at the restaurant on the corner of Russell and Park, we drank potent Vietnamese coffee and had triple-color dessert. Bo Kien was a tiny, family-style eatery. We tucked ourselves into the end of a long industrial table already occupied by a young family of four who sipped
pho
and never looked at one another: the wife tapping on a tablet, the frowning father checking his iPhone messages, and the young boy and girl absorbed in some noisy tick-tock video game on the gadgets gripped in little fists. Hank nodded at them and whispered to me, “There is no hope for the next generation.”

“Hank, everyone said that about your generation.”

“And they were right. Actually.”

The dimly lit family restaurant had mismatched tables, chairs with torn plastic, white-washed plaster walls lined with cheap, romanticized scenes of old Vietnam that alternated with innumerable glossy calendars handed out by other restaurants, mostly Chinese take-outs. A young man with green spiked hair was happily tapping into an iPad, chuckling to himself. At one of the front tables a rollicking gaggle of small children tumbled over one another, sipping soda from plastic cups. Across from them their parents were all talking over one another, a stream of high-pitched Vietnamese that I couldn't grasp.

“What are they saying?” I asked Hank. “Too fast for me.” My Vietnamese was rusty—serviceable but woefully incomplete.

“Money,” he said. “Somebody owes somebody money but took off back to Vietnam. Everyone has an opinion.” Then he added, “
Co tien mua tien cung duoc
.” Looking into my puzzled face, he translated glibly, “Money does all the talking.”

A middle-aged man walked out of the kitchen and yelled something to the boy at the counter, who ignored him. The man wiped his hands on an apron, repeated what he'd said, and then swore.

Hank saw me looking. “Looks like Mike Tran.”

“Black,” I said.

“That's Johnny Binh. Nice guy. He's a character in Little Saigon. Dishwasher, handyman, you name it.”

“I have a confession, Hank,” I began slowly.

Hank was shaking his head, his voice dropping. “Oh God, Rick. I hate it when people start with those words.”

“Why?”

“Because it always means I have to turn someone in to the police. Like—you.”

“Pretty soon you'll be the police.”

“And what a quandary that'll be for me.” He waited. “Okay. Spill it.”

“Whenever I see a Vietnamese with black blood”—I nodded toward Johnny Binh—“I flash to my childhood—and not a good memory.”

“The orphanage?”

I nodded. “All these years later I'm ashamed of my own behavior. I cringe.”

His eyes narrowed. “Okay. Just what did you do?”

I took a sip of tea and swallowed. I couldn't take my eyes off Johnny Binh.

I breathed in, drummed my fingers on the table. “I was looking for someone worse off than me. I was always getting beat up or having the nuns flog me or—or ignored, shoved in a corner. Then one day there was this
bui doi
who was black as can be. His name was Le Xinh Phong. Everyone hated him, even the nuns.”

“And you could catch your breath?”

“Yeah. But worse. I think I hoped that I'd be
included
. Other boys would talk to me.”

“So?”

“So I had a chance to beat someone up. To hurt someone the way I was hurt.”

“Jesus Christ, Rick. Nice guy.”

I closed my eyes for a second. “You know, I regret it to this day. My face gets flushed when I think of it. And this morning, sitting opposite Mike Tran, I kept flashing back to that sad boy who had no life.
Den Phong.
Black Phong. A boy with less of a life than mine.”

“What happened to him?”

“When I left, he was still there.” I paused. “My last image of him—beat up, sobbing.”

“Christ.”

I nodded toward Johnny Binh. “Whenever I see black
bui doi,
it reminds me that I gave in to the worst of my character.”

“A long time ago, Rick.”

“No, Hank. Sometimes, waking up, it seems like an hour ago.” I reached for my wallet. “Let's get the hell out of here.” As I stood up, I leaned into Hank. “I beat myself up as a cautionary tale, Hank. A warning to myself every day of my life that everybody matters.”

***

The front door was wide open, secured with a red brick. But the room was dark. Hank and I stepped inside, bumping into each other because he paused, twisted around, fumbling for a light switch.

“Nobody's here.” Hank's voice echoed in the quiet room.

At that moment I heard rustling in a back room, heavy footsteps, the faint
beep beep beep
of a phone, someone grunting. A light switch suddenly snapped on, the room flooded with overhead fluorescent light.

“Help you?” A thick voice, unfriendly.

A young man stood in the back doorway, his arms folded over his chest. His head was tilted to the side, wary, but as I approached, his right hand slipped quickly behind his back, dug into the back pocket of his jeans.

“I'm Rick Van Lam and this is Hank Nguyen.”

He said nothing. He watched us, his face blank.

“You are?” I asked.

“Ain't your business.”

At my side Hank's body tensed.

“We're here about Simon Tran.”

His eyebrows shot up as he glanced toward the back room.

“He ain't here.” He stepped back.

Hank cleared his throat. “Are you Joey Dinh? JD? Big Nose mentioned your name.”

“Big Nose has a big mouth.”

“Are you JD?”

“You seem to know a lot already. I guess you don't need me.” He took another step backward, but he had no intention of leaving the room.

“Look.” I was exasperated. “We were at his home this morning. He was supposed to be there. His father asked for help. You have to know the cops think he killed that guy up on Farmington.” I stopped because his body tensed up, the muscles in his neck pronounced, a vein in his temple jutting out.

“Yeah, I'm JD, and he ain't done it.”

“Well, can we talk?”

He debated that, once again looking behind him at the back room.

He leaned back against a wall, once again crossing his arms. “I got all day.”

I watched him. He was a young guy, probably early twenties, if even twenty. Mixed blood, definitely, a Spanish cast to his face. The slanted eyes of an Asian, dark brown with a slight gold cast to them. Lanky, wiry, but muscular, dressed in a shiny black muscle shirt despite the chill in the room. Cargo pants worn through the knee and tucked into unlaced brown work boots. Close-cropped hair, cut unevenly. A wealth of haphazard tattoos. A sloppy dagger across one side of his neck, a green-and-red fiery dragon on a bicep, a red-and-blue heart with an arrow through it, a girl's name I couldn't make out. Prison-style tattoos, dull ink.

“You're VietBoyz?” Hank asked.

JD scratched his neck with a broken fingernail and contemplated Hank who stood there in his neat khakis and breezy L.L. Bean windbreaker.

A mocking tone. “A social club.”

“Yeah, right.” Hank was smiling.

JD sucked in his cheeks, mimicked Hank's voice. “Yeah, right. You got that right.”

I shot Hank a look as he twisted his head to the side. “No offense, man.”

JD was nodding his head to a rhythm playing inside his head. A sickly smile, difficult to read. “Saigon ain't done nothing.”

“That's why we want to talk to him.”

JD paused, looked back over his shoulder again, and then nodded to the chairs. He pointed. We sat down but he didn't, which surprised me. He circled behind us, as though checking us out, but then, standing only feet in front of me, he said, “Saigon hates cops and you two smell like cops.” A sliver of a smile. “Viet Cong style. Uncle Ho's soldiers. Or Thai pirates.
Hai tac
.”

“And yet we're on the same side.”

His eyes flashed. “I don't think nobody's on Saigon's side.”

“That's where you're wrong.”

“He tells me he's being set up.”

“That may be true.”

A fake laugh that broke at the end. “And you gonna take care of that?”

I waved a hand in the air. “Well, I believe his father.”

“His father is an asshole.” His fist punched the air.

Hank flinched. “Come on.”

JD rushed his words. “He flies in here, accusing us. We ain't kidnapped the boy, you know. It's America. A free country. Free choice. Saigon walking in that door.” He pointed to the open door. “And he can walk back out.”

“He's in trouble.” I stared into his face.

“Every day is trouble.”

“Some days worse than others, no?”

Suddenly he slid into a chair opposite me, glared into my face. A broad smile, menacing, grotesque. I saw a broken tooth, missing teeth. A gold tooth.
Talk about your Thai pirates
, I thought. His eyes burned as he looked from me to Hank. “This is my kingdom here.”

I waited a bit. “What's your point?”

“We don't like strangers wandering into our camp.”

Hank frowned. “Look, man, we gotta at least talk to Simon.”

A smirk. “The Saigon Kid.”

“So we've heard.” I sat back in the chair, watched him carefully.

“Who ain't never heard of Vietnam and Saigon and the Cong and Uncle Ho Ho Ho.” Again, the phony laugh.

“I'm not his teacher,” I said.