Obedience (17 page)

With a quick bow, Hoang went away. He disappeared through swinging kitchen doors. No bar then, just a stock of booze in the refrigerator. Dave looked at the gray, thin man again. He sat in his gray suit and gray tie at a corner table, far from the windows, eating, and talking to a stocky Asian whose back was to Dave. The gray man seemed earnest, and was leaning forward to do his talking and listening. The Asian leaned forward too. They might have been television actors, told by a director to look conspiratorial.

Who the hell was the gray man? Dave knew it was just part of aging, so there was no point in fretting about it, but with everything else, his once sharp memory was developing leaks, and sometimes it made him frantic. Then it came to him. His second visit to the docks. The man had stood opposite Le Tran Hai in the doorway to the warehouse. Like Hai, he’d worn a hardhat, held a clipboard, and had checked items off a shipping manifest as forklifts jounced past, rolling crates into the looming building. Hai had been too busy to give Dave attention, too busy even for manners. He hadn’t introduced the gray man. Dave judged him to be in his sixties, but this morning Hai had described Rafe Carpenter as “my most trusted and valuable employee.” And Carpenter was only in his thirties. Yet the gray man had been doing an important job, teamed with the boss. While Carpenter was doing what—running the crane? Dave scowled.

He stopped scowling when the tiny young woman with the tinkling laugh brought his martini. He thanked her, tasted the drink: Icy perfection. He lit a cigarette and smiled contentment. The
pho,
when it arrived steaming in its bowl, kept him smiling. So did the savory little rolls of pork and God-knew-what in puff pastry. He was downing the last of these, when the gray man and the Asian got up from their table and headed for the door. The gray man glanced at Dave in passing, but there was no recognition in his eyes.

Then Dave wasn’t noticing him anymore. He was noticing his stocky friend. His heart bumped. It was the man off the power launch, the one who had met Rafe Carpenter at the docks the day of Le Van Minh’s funeral, and had walked off with the two attaché cases. Only distance had made it possible to mistake him for Don Pham. Though both stood about the same height and weighed about the same, the two men were wholly different. This man was flashy, with none of the gambling lord’s quiet menace. This man moved with a self-satisfied swagger. This man smiled too much.

Hoang was trailing him, rubbing his hands, chattering, laughing. He opened the door to let them out onto the shabby, sun-struck street. Dave jerked bills from his wallet, laid them on the table, and followed, pushing the wallet away, taking long strides. Hoang caught his sleeve, frowning. “But,
m’sieur,
you have not finished your lunch.”

“Who is that man?” Dave asked him.

“Chien Cao Nhu.” The little restaurateur beamed after the swaggerer’s departing back. “He is a dealer in sailing craft built in Taiwan. It is a splendid business for this area—brings many wealthy people here.”

“Who may just stop in at the Hoang Pho to eat?”

Hoang nodded cheerfully. “He has only come here recently. From New York. We are all delighted. Plans are underway to honor him soon at a special banquet.”

“Which you hope to cater, right?”

Hoang laughed. “Of course.” Then he frowned. “
M’sieur
is troubled about something?”

“I don’t think I’d count on that banquet.”

Dave pulled the door open, half stepped out onto the sandy sidewalk. Chien Cao Nhu climbed into a glossy black Continental up the street. Not into the front. Into the back. A slim little youth in black opened the door for him. Turtleneck, tight jeans, leather jacket, he looked like one of Don Pham’s doll-boys. Probably with a .357 Magnum strapped to his delicate ribcage. The Continental rolled off. The gray man got behind the wheel of a gray Honda, a late model but nothing pretentious. Dave turned back to Hoang. “Who’s the man he lunched with?”

“I do not know,” Hoang said. “It was before always another man. This man is a stranger to me.”

Dave looked at him hard. “The other man—young, fair-haired, a dock worker?”

Hoang nodded. “Carpenter,” he said. “Rafe Carpenter.”

He followed the gray car. It wasn’t a long drive. He hadn’t expected it to be. The gray car slid down into the low-ceilinged cement fastness of parking levels where Dave had only a short time ago parked to visit Tracy Davis. The parking facility was under that bleak white square surrounded by new government buildings. Dave left the Jaguar not far from where the gray man left his Honda. He got into a red-doored elevator with the gray man, and watched him get off at the second floor. When the doors slid open to let him out, Dave saw on the opposite wall a big Federal seal.
U.S. Customs Service.
The doors closed.

He rode up another floor, took a down elevator to the second floor, got off. Under the Federal seal, facing steel-armed waiting-room chairs with fake leather cushions, a reception counter was flanked by ficus trees. Behind it, a tan-uniformed, middle-aged woman sat at a desk. He went and leaned on the counter. The woman was talking on a telephone. She gave him a smile, spoke for another few seconds into the phone, then laid the receiver in place.

“What can I do for you?” she said cheerfully.

“You may think I’m not securely wrapped,” Dave said, “but that man who just came in here, just got off the elevator at this floor? I’d swear he was an old friend of mine from high school. Ed Williams—right?”

“The thin man with glasses? Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. That was Mr. Priest. Warren Priest. He’s a chief Customs inspector.”

“Priest? Are you sure?” Dave said. “Excuse me. Of course you are. But I could have sworn—”

She tilted her head at him, amused. “If you don’t mind my saying so,” she said, “weren’t you and this Mr. Williams in high school rather a long time ago?”

Dave laughed. “Only a few decades. You’re right, of course. If we passed each other on the street, we’d neither of us know it, would we?”

“People do change.” She smiled. “More’s the pity.”

Drycott Security Services had offices in a flat-roofed pale yellow structure up a side street of wholesale storage buildings—brick, dingy white paint, loading docks, rippled iron access doors, high wire fences, barred windows. A visitor to Drycott Security had to punch a button by a locked black wrought-iron gate. The bell push activated a surveillance camera over the front door of the place. The little click it gave in turning to focus on him, made him look up at it. It eyed him glassily. A voice came from a slotted black metal box next to the door, a cheerful young female voice.

“Thank you for coming to Drycott Security today. Please state your name and the purpose of your visit.”

“My name is Brandstetter.” Thankful it wasn’t raining, he got out the ostrich-hide folder, opened it, held it up for the camera to look at. “I’m a private investigator, on assignment with the Public Defender’s office of San Pedro County. I’m looking into the recent murder of Le Van Minh. He was your client—you guard the Le warehouse on the docks at the harbor. I have a couple of questions about that.”

“Thank you, Mr. Brandstetter,” said the cheerful voice. “I’ll be back to you in just a moment.” The sound clicked off. He lit a cigarette, turned, and watched a cat with kittens playing in a storage yard across the street. Something clanked behind him. He turned back. The voice said, “Thank you for waiting, Mr. Brandstetter. Please come in.”

He dropped his cigarette, stepped into the narrow area between gate and front door, and the gate clanked behind him. When he put his hand on it, the door lock buzzed, he pushed the door, and was in a reception office that had no one in it to receive anybody—desk, chairs, a large painted plaster eagle on the wall, plants in corners, a standing U.S. flag. The door closed behind him, lock clicking quietly.

The cheerful young voice came out of a speaker over a door in the opposite wall. “Please go through the patio, sir. Mr. Drycott is expecting you.”

The patio was sheltered by a sprawling, old avocado tree. Avocados large as softballs lay on the tiles. Dave’s shoes rustled heaps of big dry leaves on his way to a bulky old man waiting for him in an open doorway. Drycott pumped his hand and laughed a hearty laugh that showed silver fillings in his back teeth—old G.I. dentistry.

“Brandstetter,” he roared. “Proud to meet you. You’re an ornament to our profession. You make us all look good.” He slapped Dave on the back, and propelled him indoors. “Yes sir. I’ve seen you on television, read about you. Siddown.” He waved a hairy paw at a visitor’s chair. He dropped into a high-backed tufted leather executive chair back of a rangy desk. His face darkened. “Of course, I couldn’t side with you against Colonel Zorn. The President didn’t much like that either, but—the law of the land has got to be followed, I guess, even if it lets the Commies take over the world.”

“Duke Summers put Zorn out of business,” Dave said. “Not I. You calling Duke Summers a Commie sympathizer?”

“Course not,” Drycott said brusquely. “Never mind.” He waved the memory aside. For the moment. When he’d walked in Dave had noticed beside a glass-fronted case of medals on Drycott’s office wall, a photograph of Drycott with Ronald Reagan, Lothrop Zorn, and other military men. Among twenty photographs, mostly from World War II, but some from later wars. Always wars. Drycott sat forward. “What can I do for you? These damn Vietnamese. Nothing but trouble. Downright subversive of those liberals in Congress to let them in, lend them money, teach them English. They’re not like other people, Brandstetter. I know. I was sent over there by Jack Kennedy, in the first wave of advisers.” He frowned and shook his head grimly. “Nothings too low for the little yellow bastards. Never was. No morals at all.”

“Le Van Minh was well thought of,” Dave said.

Drycott grunted skeptically. “Not by somebody. Somebody murdered him. And probably with good reason.”

“On the day of his funeral,” Dave said, “I went down to the Le warehouse. Something funny was going on there, smuggling, I think—but I couldn’t stop it. Your security guard ran me off. Only a skinny old man, but he had a gun.”

Drycott’s face twisted. “A skinny old man?”

Dave nodded. “At least seventy.”

Drycott gave an amazed laugh, wagged his head, flicked one of many switches on a panel that blinked tiny lights. “Bring me the file on Le Electronics, please?”

“Yes, Mr. Drycott,” a male voice said.

Drycott let go the switch, and blinked at Dave, head tilted. “You sure it was our logo on his shirt?”

“Drycott Security Services,” Dave said.

“Reason I ask,” Drycott said, “is that I never put anybody in one of my uniforms who’s a day over forty. We don’t hire pensioners. They can’t protect anybody.”

A straight-backed young man with a white sidewall haircut came in, laid a file folder in front of Drycott, turned with military precision, eyes front, and went straight out of the room again. Drycott opened the file, thumbed pages, peered at them. “Here it is. Day before the funeral, we got a call saying no guard would be needed that day. Place would be closed. Regular drive-by patrol would be enough.”

“Let me guess who made that call,” Dave said. “Rafe Carpenter, right?”

Drycott frowned, moving a finger on the page. “Right.” He squinted at Dave. “Doesn’t sound Vietnamese.”

“No morals, though.” Dave stood. “No morals at all.”

H
E WOKE ON
the couch in the long back building and didn’t know what time it was. The only light came from embers glowing in the iron basket in the fireplace. What had wakened him? Sounds from the bathroom. Numb, stiff in the joints, he shifted position, and a book tumbled to the floor. The frames of the reading glasses dug into his nose. He took them off, folded the bows. “That you?” he said.

“What?” Cecil was startled. He came and stood, a tall, lean silhouette between Dave and the hearth. “What are you doing down here?”

“Waiting for you,” Dave mumbled. “What kept you?”

“Getting a feature together for tomorrow on the latest election polls. Never enough time.”

“You could have phoned,” Dave said.

“Ho. Look who’s talking.” Cecil switched on a lamp Dave remembered stretching a weary arm up to turn off just before his eyes had fallen shut. How long ago? He squinted at his watch. “Good Lord, it’s two-thirty.”

“And that,” Cecil said, “is only because I hurried.” He was back in the shadows jingling glass, ice, and bottles the bar. “I could hurry or I could phone. I chose to hurry.”

“Never mind.” Dave sat up, swung his feet to the floor. “You’re here. That’s all that matters.” He moaned, yawned, rubbed a hand down over his face. “I wish Tracy Davis’s lunatic half-brother had gotten into trouble someplace near here. The harbor’s too far. All that driving wears me out.”

Cecil came into the light and handed him Glenlivet over ice. Holding brandy in a small snifter, he sat on the raised hearth, saw the book on the floor, bent, and picked it up.
“The Vietnamization of America.
Man, can’t you give it a rest?” Disgusted, he laid the book on the bricks. “Get your mind off it.” He waved a long arm at the half-finished, half-stocked shelves. “Read a detective story.”

“They don’t fool me anymore.” Dave drank some of his whisky. “No, I was looking for a reference to a certain Chien Cao Nhu.”

“Oh, yeah? The one that used to broker sailing craft on Long Island Sound? Till somebody blew up his Mercedes? He wasn’t in it, but the District Attorney set a Grand Jury to look into what happened, and Chien dropped out of sight.”

Dave shook his head in wonder. “You are a fount of obscure information.”

Cecil grinned. “I try to remember everything. They tell me it helps you get ahead in the news business.”

“He’s here now. Down at the harbor.” Dave reached for cigarettes and lighter under the lamp. “Still selling sailboats from the enchanted Orient. And less attractive imports, I suspect.” He lit a cigarette. “The Vietnamese community regards him as a prince of a fellow.”

Cecil was watching him smoke. Grimly. “If you’d retire like you promised, you could quit cigarettes. It’s the tension that makes you smoke.”