No Good to Cry (8 page)

Jimmy added, “The Feds got a squad dedicated to them—VCA. Vietnamese Criminal Activity. To shut them down. BTK. Oriental Boyz. D.O.A. Lonely Boys Only. Stop one gang, another pops up.”

“Like the VietBoyz,” I said.

Hank spoke softly. “
Dat khach que nguoi
. The lost and lonely souls far from home.”

“So Mickey Tinh ends up in Hartford?”

“He had to get out of New York. Played enforcer in Bridgeport, picked up on a home invasion. Lots of jail time. That's where he met the beefy white guy. Travis T-Boy Taylor. Cellmates. A piece of work. Attempted murder charge. Released for good behavior—that's hard to imagine—he drifted to Park Street, hung out in a bar opposite Pho New York, and reunited with Mickey Tinh. JD may be the leader of VietBoyz, but these two guys don't give a damn. For them, it's a place to hide out—to plan crimes. JD has no control over them, according to Big Nose, who is scared of them.”

“And that girl we saw?”

“JD's girlfriend. Linh Dao. Calls herself Lana. Pretty as all get out, but no brains. Sits there and moons over JD like he's the last piece of cheesecake in a midnight deli. JD likes her to dress up like she's one of the taxi girls he's heard about in Old Saigon.”

I nodded. “Good job, Hank. But I can't see Simon and Frankie hanging out with such punks.”

“They don't, Big Nose told me. They just like JD. He gives them a place to run to. Maybe feeds them bucks, has them run some drugs.”

Jimmy had been listening closely to Hank's long narration, but now I could see him start to drift off, slumping in the bed, his head lolling to the side.

Gracie shooed us into the living room and immediately began to brew tea. She placed cookies on a platter. “These characters sound dangerous, Rick,” she commented, but she was looking protectively at Hank.

“I'm gonna be a state trooper in a few weeks,” he told her.

“More reason to worry.” She tapped him on the cheek.

She turned to Liz. “Can't you talk some sense into Rick?”

Liz laughed out loud. “Gracie, I never could when we were married.”

“Well, my husband always listened to whatever I said.”

Hank smirked. “Is that why he died?” He squeezed her hand affectionately.

“Fresh mouth.” Gracie made believe she was slapping his cheek. He beamed at her.

Liz ran a spoon around the edge of her teacup. “I met Simon Tran, I think. Assuming there's only one Simon Tran in town.”

I sat up. “What?”

“Remember last year how I mentored the three scholarship girls at Miss Porter's? That program I volunteered for? One girl was Hazel Tran. Hung Tran. A beautiful girl, very bright, a little insecure being at the rich girls' school, but popular in her own way. For a short time we became friendly. She'd call me at home for advice. One time, walking through Target, I met the whole family. Father, mother, Hazel's twin, and a boy who looked like he didn't want to be there. Hazel introduced him. Simon.” She chuckled. “I remember that he overlapped his father's introduction with a nervous ‘Saigon.'”

“Lord, Liz. I can't find him—he spots me and runs away—and you've already met him.”

“In passing, Rick.”

“Are you still friends with Hazel?”

She shook her head. “No, the mentorship program was short-lived.” She hesitated. “I had some problems with her boyfriend at the time. He's…sort of a junior-grade womanizer who stood too close to me. But I know she's still at Miss Porter's. I get updates.”

“Call her.”

“Why?”

“I'd like to talk with her. Away from her family.”

“Surely she's not a mugger.” Liz blinked her eyes merrily.

“No, but I want to understand little Simon. I want to understand why, in a family of high-achievers—prep school wonders—why the youngest drifted into the dangerous world of the streets.”

Hank spoke up. “Maybe because he felt like the outsider in that family, Rick. He
looks
different.”

“Maybe his sister has something to tell me. I have this image of her in an upstairs window, half-shielded by a curtain, watching us drive away.”

Gracie wore a perplexed look on her face. “A stretch, Rick?”

Jimmy added, “You think the secret of that boy lies in the family?”

“It always does.” I sipped my tea. It was lukewarm now. “It always does.”

Chapter Eight

Hazel Tran was a stunning girl. She knew that about herself. You could tell that by the way she withdrew a compact every so often from the Vera Bradley bag she'd tossed casually onto the seat next to her. She sat back, a broken smile on her lips as she ran her fingertips across the rim of the water glass.

She looked at Liz. “I was so surprised to hear from you. It's been…like a year, no?”

Liz nodded. “Yes, a year. How have you been?”

Hazel shrugged. “My last year at school.”

“And next year?”

“Vassar.” She smiled as she said the name.

“Not bad,” I said to her.

She twisted her body and looked at me, baffled. “I don't understand why we're here.” She waved her hand around the small sandwich shop just down the hill from her dorm at Miss Porter's, steps away from the Farmington Country Club. Liz had phoned her, and Hazel agreed to meet both of us for lunch between her classes.

Liz assured her. “I told you…”

I cut in. “You do know that I'm trying to clear your brother, right?” I was a little impatient because I watched her eyes glaze over as I spoke. “We did meet at your home the other day.”

She smacked her lips, annoyed. “My parents insist I go home on weekends. Sometimes.”

“You don't like that?” I asked.

“What do you think?” An edge to her voice.

We'd ordered sandwiches—a bacon cheeseburger for me, a turkey club for Liz, and a tuna melt for Hazel, which she ignored. A diet Coke also untouched. Repeatedly one fingertip traced the rim of the water glass, either a nervous gesture or idle boredom.

She dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin, though she'd not touched her food. A girl conscious of curious eyes on her. She was wearing a peach-colored cotton blouse, snug, the collar turned up, a simple gold chain with a drop pearl around her neck. A teenaged boy, passing by, hesitated, as if he knew her, but it might have simply been that she looked up at him, smiled, but then turned her head away.

Liz caught my eye. “Hazel, you still can get any boy's attention.”

“Thank you.”

Liz wasn't happy.

“I'm trying to get to know the family,” I continued. “I figure perhaps you can help me understand what makes Simon tick—why he's taken a road so different from you and your other brothers.”

She was in a hurry to speak. “I have no answers.”

“Of course you do,” I said a little hotly, which surprised her.

Liz glanced at me. “What he means is that you can tell us about Simon, anything, something, bits and pieces of growing up with him. If Rick is to help him. The why…”

Hazel tossed out a line. “He's always been the baby of the family. Two years younger.” She sat back. “That's it.”

“And you're the only girl.”

She clicked her tongue. “Yeah, you'd think
I'd
be the baby, but not in a Vietnamese family.” She glared at me. “You
know
that. Boys rule the roost. Men call the shots.”

“Yet your parents are proud of you. Miss Porter's on a full scholarship. Vassar next year.”

Her voice crackled. “My father is a slave driver. You've
met
him. All A's in school. No B's. Study, study, study. He wouldn't let us have—fun. That's why he bought that horrible little house in the South End.”

“Why?” From Liz.

“He wanted the family away from the bad neighborhoods. The South End has, you know, Italians, Polish. We started out on a bad street—drugs, hookers—but we moved. When I was small, we lived in that house with almost no furniture. Money for the mortgage, that was all. Lord, I slept on the floor.” She frowned. “Imagine. A house with no furniture. I was embarrassed to invite friends over.” She bit her lip. “I never did, in fact.”

“They sacrificed for you kids.”

“I suppose so.” She looked into my face. “A world of…not love but…
hoc
.”

Liz looked confused.

“Studying,” I translated.

Hazel picked up her tuna melt but then put it back on the plate. “But Pop hounded us. Afraid of failure. Drummed it into us. We gotta make it in America. What will the neighbors think? No slackers. Work, work. Lord, he
locked
our bedroom doors at night. That's what got to Simon, I think.”

“The pressure?” I asked.

She nodded. “We're all bright kids, always were. Michael at Trinity now. Wilson at Kingswood-Oxford. Me here.” She pointed out the restaurant in the general direction of her campus. Even little Simon was bright. Really. Always trying to please Pop. Quick, sassy, sharp as a button. Teachers loved him.”

“But something happened?” From Liz.

“I think Pop was on his case about grades. ‘Oh no! A B-plus in Spanish? Oh dear! Say it isn't so!' It just got to him. The
weight
of the family. The rest of us, you know, already shining lights…That and…” She hesitated.

“What?” I waited. Silence. “What?”

“Look at him.”

“He looks like your father.”

“My point exactly. Pop's half black. No big deal. But the rest of us look more like Mom—I mean our complexions.” Nervously her hand tapped the compact, which she'd rested on the edge of the table. “Simon is, well, darker than the rest of us.”

“And that's a problem?”

“Not to me—or most people. These days, especially. I think it's sort of cool that I'm…like a quarter black.” She arched her neck, smiled. “Gives me a sort of cachet with some of the rich girls at school.” She twisted her mouth into a cynical grin. “They come from different worlds—like Darien and Beverly Hills—and think street life is cool. Or something. Street cred. Like I would know
anything
about street life. Dr. Dre and me. Kanye West humming in my ear. Pitbull sending me tweets. Yeah, sure.” A false laugh that broke at the end. “I celebrate it.”

“But Simon doesn't?”

“I don't know. All I know is that he's had kids in school taunt him, that kind of thing. Half Asian, half black, whatever. He'd come home to tell Pop and Mom—‘They call me dog-eater. A freak.'”

I debated what to say. “And you think that led to him to run the streets, hanging out with a gang? With Frankie Croix?”

She drew her lips into a thin line. “Frankie Croix. That loser.”

“You know him?”

“A troublemaker. He got into it with my boyfriend.”

“They know each other?”

“No, not really.”

“What are you talking about, Hazel?”

She spoke over my words. “I really don't know what I'm talking about.”

Liz was watching her closely. Hazel seemed pleased with her response, sitting back, tilting her head. For some reason she smiled and blinked rapidly. She excused herself, whispering to Liz, “Powder room.”

We watched Hazel weave her way through the tables, pausing to say hello to a small group of girls sitting in a back booth. She leaned into the table, said something that made the girls laugh loudly, and Hazel glanced back at Liz and me, both of us unfortunately staring at her with a little too much interest. A half-wave, a shrug that communicated an exaggerated
whatever
, and she disappeared into the bathroom.

“What a difference a year makes,” Liz said slowly.

“Meaning?”

“A scholarship girl, she was shy, charming really. Of all the poor girls I mentored—she'd already been there a year—leading them through textbook assignments and even manners and dinner etiquette, she was the most deferential, thankful. A quick, lively mind. A year later she carries herself with an unpleasant confidence.”

“Well, she's found all sorts of approval at the exclusive school.”

“She seems to take little interest in Simon's problems.” Liz's eyes got cloudy. “That ticks me off.”

“Yeah, I noticed. But she's also straining at the family leash.”

“Her father's a man who wanted to save her and her brothers.” Liz reflected, “He may have gone about it the wrong way, though.”

“What a cruel, cruel man, no?” I wasn't happy.

“Last year she was so sweet. To me, at least. The
only
time I saw her bristle, become a little mean-spirited, was when her boyfriend, this lumbering football jock who oozed testosterone, acted smitten with me. Flirted stupidly, hung on my every word.”

I grinned. “I can understand that.”

“Hazel wasn't happy.” Liz rolled her eyes. “Nothing like having a teenaged boy practice his feeble pickup lines on you.”

“Good-looking?”

“Very.”

“Smart?”

“Very.”

“Winning ways?”

“None.”

Hazel slipped back into her seat. “I
do
love my family,” she insisted. “I hope I didn't come across as…” Her voice trailed off.

“Then you must be worried about Simon,” Liz said in a curt voice.

Hazel drew her lips into a disapproving line. “He was always Pop's favorite, you know.”

“You saw that?” I asked.

She tossed her head back, touched the edges of her hair. “It was obvious. Simon, as I say, looks like Pop, but Simon was…weak, he'd fall apart, he'd cry. He…he was real bright in school, but it was like he couldn't keep playing a part.”

“So he turned to street crime?”

“I think he just got tired of it all…the expectations. He needed to break out, I guess. I did, too. In my own way.”

An edge to my voice. “Teenagers rebel, Hazel, but they don't attack strangers on the street. Over and over. Shoplifting. Weed. God knows what else.”

“He met that Frankie Croix, that's why. I
told
you.”

“A bad influence?”

She puckered her mouth. “A piece of white trash. They met each other, became bros. Frankie's a lowlife, lives in a slum in Hartford. Simon is—like a follower. Frankie was…excitement maybe. A dropout. Made Simon drop out, too. Talks in this hip hop slang, you know. Swaggers, spits, gives the finger to the world. Simon saw that as…well, good. Low expectations, I guess.” She shrugged and suddenly looked tired of the conversation.

“What did you think when Simon and Frankie were arrested and sent away?”

“I wasn't happy.”

“I know, I know, but you must have…”

“Lord, who wants to live with a criminal in the family?”

“And now—maybe again. This time a man died, Hazel.”

“Simon says he wasn't there.”

“The cops don't buy it.”

She lowered her voice. “Lord, his alibi this time—listen to this—is a gang leader.”

“But did you feel sorry for him?” Liz asked.

“Frankie whispered in his ear that the devil has more fun than the angels.”

“But what about his two brothers? Do they try to help him? He sounds like a boy who needs someone he can trust.” Liz's voice rose.

“I don't know. I'm not there. Only weekends. Not always. I have a life…here. A boyfriend. Pop told me Simon runs to some hole in the wall off Park Street. Pop trailed him there once. This leader guy, covered with tattoos, told Pop Simon wasn't there, even though Pop saw him and Frankie wandering in.”

“JD,” I said to Liz.

Liz persisted. “I don't care. Two older brothers…”

Hazel's eyes sparkled. “You do know that Wilson is my twin. Fraternal, of course. What can
he
do? Simon thinks he's a nerd. Lost in his books, hunched over, those glasses slipping down his nose. Half the time he doesn't even know where he is.”

“It sounds like you don't like him,” I said.

“Wilson thinks that if he hugs a book to his chest, Pop will love him. That's not how it works. I don't think about him. We're twins, at one time always together in school. Too many comparisons by teachers. He doesn't like to look up from a book.” Her eyes got wide. “How can you learn about the world unless you look around you?”

“What does he think of Simon's problems?” Liz asked.

“I don't know.”

“What about Michael?” I asked.

She bit her lip. “He hides out at Trinity. I heard Pop on the phone asking him to talk to Simon. Simon used to follow him around, hero worship crap. Long ago. But Michael blew Pop off. Well, it doesn't take much to make them yell at each other. Michael has decided to become a white man.”

I looked into her face. “But that's impossible.”

A superior tone in her voice. “Oh, you can do it if you try hard enough.”

“And Michael can do that?”

“He already has.” She looked at her watch. “I'm being picked up.”

We stood up. I dropped cash on the table as Hazel scooted out the door, quickly disappearing. Liz shot me a look and shrugged her shoulders.

Once outside Liz tensed up. Her hand reached out to grasp my elbow. “Rick.” Under her breath she whispered, “Oh, Christ.”

A tall young man stood beside a red Audi, the top down despite the spring chill. He leaned against the driver's door, an insolent posture, casual but possessive, and pointed at us, extending the index fingers of both hands. Double-barreled shotgun. A kind of worldly gesture you could imagine Tom Buchanan using in
The Great Gatsby
as he bumped into an old crony from New Haven.

“Judd, you remember Liz from last year.” Hazel didn't sound happy.

A roustabout playboy, I thought, dressed more for an outing at an Episcopalian dinner dance at the Farmington Country Club. A blue dress shirt, gray necktie, prep school trousers.

Judd walked toward us and reached out his hand to Liz. He gripped her fingers too tightly, held on too long, and Liz twisted her body away.

Judd preened. “I thought I'd never see you again.”

Liz sucked in her cheeks. “You almost got your wish.”