The Nomination (16 page)

“The rain makes me feel sad. All these memories that talking to your machine brings back to me.

“I did not keep track of the passage of time when I was comforting American boys in Saigon and being loved and cared for by Mai Duc. It was not long. A year or two, I think. Much was happening in the city, but as I have told you, I did not understand politics, nor did I have any interest in the war. I do not think I could have told you who was fighting against whom, or why. My job was to be with the boys. Others had their jobs. Time passed. I cannot mark it by events, because I knew little of events.

“There was, I recall, much violence in the streets of Saigon. Vietnamese people were killed by Vietnamese police. There were explosions and gunfights and much death. Every day there seemed to be more young American men in the city. And money. There were bars and dance halls and prostitutes on every street. There was marijuana and heroin for everyone. I liked the marijuana. But I did not try the heroin. I saw what it did to other young women. Anyway, Mai Duc forbade the heroin. She supplied us with the marijuana. It was to share with our boys. Marijuana and rice wine and American beer.

“One day Mai Duc called me to her office, which was a room in a Saigon hotel, part of her suite. She had a desk and file cabinets and two telephones and a typewriter and a television set. Mai Duc was very rich. She was one of the most powerful people in the city. She employed a number of policemen, whose job was to protect her interests and keep her and her business safe.

“There were, I remember, two very comfortable upholstered chairs in her office. Mai Duc's special customers, I knew, sat in those chairs. But on this day she asked me to sit in one of them.

“She sat behind her desk, and she did not smile at me. I guessed that I had done something wrong, that she would tell me she no longer wished to be my mother. These were fears that haunted me in those days. I did not fear the soldiers or the explosions. I was afraid of displeasing Mai Duc.

“Mai Duc seemed to me to be a very wise and old woman, but thinking back, I suppose she was younger then than I am now. She smoked little black cigars, and there was one in an ashtray beside her elbow on that day. She picked it up, puffed it, and looked at me through the smoke. ‘Li An,' she said, and her voice was gentle, telling me she was not displeased with me. ‘You are my favorite child. And I know you love me. So you will do what I wish.'

“I said nothing. She was not asking for my agreement. She never asked for my agreement. Only my obedience, which I was happy to give to her.

“‘A young man,' she said, ‘an American boy who has been with you, who was pleased by you, has come to me. He is an important man, an officer, and he wants you.' Mai Duc held up her hand as I began to speak. ‘No, my child. Not as the others have had you. This man wants something different, and I have agreed. You will be for him alone. He has rented a room for you. There you will live. You will be with no other men. Just this one. Do you understand?'

“I told her I did understand. Other girls, I knew, had such arrangements. They were taken care of well. ‘If it will please you, my mother,' I said.

“‘Whatever this young man chooses to give you, you may keep,' Mai Duc told me. ‘If there are problems, you may come to me. I know you will please him.'

“'I will do my best,' I said.

“Mai Duc smiled. She came to me from behind her desk and hugged me. Then she said, ‘Now I will bring this young man to you. He is waiting in the next room.'

“And that was when I met Thomas.

“I am tired now.”

“HELLO, MAC CASSIDY. It is evening now. I stopped this morning without saying good-bye to you. I wondered if I could continue. I felt that I had told you too much already, that I should keep my secrets to myself as I have kept them all these years. I know this is for our book. But you can understand that it is you to whom I speak, and even though we have only met one time, talking with you so intimately, telling you my secrets, makes me believe that we are friends. I speak to you as a friend. I want my dear new friend to like me, and I fear that these stories of mine will prevent you from liking me.

“Since this morning I have been thinking of you and your book, and as painful as this is for me, I want to be honorable. My life has not been very honorable, Mac. But I do think of myself as an honorable person. I agreed to tell you my story. So I shall.

“Besides, in a strange way, telling you my stories, putting them outside of myself, sharing them, feels like a burden is being lifted from me, as if this life of mine, these hard memories, they are no longer mine alone. They are yours, now, too, whether you want them or not, and some day they will belong to everybody who might read our book.

“Now the rain has stopped, and it is beautiful and peaceful here in my valley. Jill has wheeled me out onto the deck so I can smell the freshness of the damp earth and hear the evening sounds. This time of day is sad for me. It means another day in my life has passed, and I know my remaining days are limited. But it is lovely, too. As the sun settles behind the hills a soft velvety color seems to wash through the trees. The chirping of crickets and the singing of night birds mingles with the distant tinkle of water bubbling through the brook. It fills the air with quiet music. Bats and swallows swoop around snatching insects. So peaceful. The only peace I have ever known in my life, Mac, has been here, in the quiet solitude of this house here in my valley, although the peace is outside of me. It does not truly penetrate my heart. My soul has never felt peace, and I suppose it never will.

“But as I have said, I am hoping that telling you my story might help me to find peace before I die. That is what I am beginning to feel. The pain of speaking these words to you is purging me. I do not know if that will continue. My memories grow more painful as I proceed with my story. We shall see. If talking with you fails to bring me peace, well, Mac, you will have your book, anyway.

“There is one other person who I want to hear my story. I am feeling that if I tell it and you write it and Ted Austin gets it published, she will see it, and then she will know. I think of her and it gives me the courage to continue. It gives this difficult thing we are doing purpose. I will soon explain that to you. Please be patient with the way I ramble.

“So I met Thomas. How can I tell you about Thomas? He entered Mai Duc's office that day, stood before me, held out his hand to me, looked directly into my eyes, and said to me, ‘If this arrangement is not agreeable to you, Li An, then it will not happen.' He spoke very formally, as if it was a speech he had memorized and practiced. I am certain that Mai Duc required him to say this, but I believed he was sincere, and I believe it to this day.

“Mac, he had eyes the color of the summer sky and hair as black as night. He had a wonderful tan, of course. Thomas always had a tan. His face was the color of strong tea, almost as dark as mine, and except for tiny crinkles at the corners of his eyes, his skin was as smooth and as soft as mine, too. And when he smiled, his teeth flashed. He was quite young, but to me he seemed very wise and mature, more a man than a boy.

“I had, of course, been with many American boys. It never mattered to me how they looked. There were dark-skinned boys and fair-skinned boys, boys with crooked teeth and pock-marked faces, fat boys and skinny boys, handsome boys and homely boys. I noticed these things, of course. But that did not affect how I felt toward them or how I treated them. Mai Duc had taught me that my own beauty and cleanliness were very important, but that the beauty of men had no significance, although many of the boys acted as if it did have significance. Handsome boys behaved differently from those who were not handsome. But whether they were beautiful or ugly, in their souls they were all lonely and frightened. I was aware only of their gentleness and their sadness and their need for my comfort, and even though I was just a child, I felt wise and motherly toward them. So the fact that Thomas was handsome was of no particular interest to me. I knew that he was lonely and frightened, too.

“He was staring at me, smiling. ‘Do you remember me, Li An?' he said.

“I did not remember him. There had been so many boys. But Mai Duc said that I had been with him, so I smiled at him and said, ‘Yes, I remember you.'

“He said nothing. He was waiting for my decision, still holding his hand out to me.

“So I took Thomas's hand, bowed my head, and said, ‘The arrangement is agreeable to me.'

“And so it was done. I belonged to Thomas Larrigan. I was, as near as I can figure it, not yet thirteen years old.

“I must stop now.”

E
ddie Moran parked on the fourth level of the parking garage on Summer Street and waited a couple of minutes in his car to be sure he hadn't been followed. Then he walked down the stairs to the third level, where he found Larrigan right where he said he'd be, sitting in his big Lincoln. The garage was dimly lit by yellow bulbs in steel cages, and from somewhere in the shadows came the slow, rhythmic echo of dripping water. It was seven o'clock on a Thursday evening and, for the moment, there was no traffic on level three, no cars starting up, no clatter of high heels, no voices, no chirps of remote openers, no businessmen with briefcases striding toward their vehicles.

You had to give it to the judge. This was a pretty good place to meet someone you didn't want to be seen with.

Moran opened the passenger door. He noticed that the dome light did not go on when he opened the door.

Larrigan didn't even turn his head when Moran slid in beside him. “Don't slam the door,” he said.

Moran pulled the door shut.

“So,” said the judge. “What've you got?”

Moran took the paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. It was the photo he'd downloaded from the Internet. He handed it to Larrigan.

Larrigan took a miniature flashlight from his jacket pocket, looked at the photo, then looked at Moran. “She's gorgeous. Who is it?”

“You don't recognize her?”

“No. Should I?”

“You fucked her plenty of times.”

Larrigan laughed. “I never fucked this woman. I think I'd remember a beautiful woman like this. Who the hell is she?”

“Her name is Simone. How she looked about twenty years ago. Simone Bonet. Ring a bell?”

Larrigan frowned at the picture, then stared up at the roof of the car. “Yeah, maybe. The name sounds familiar. Not the face, though. Somebody appeared before me in court sometime? Some lawyer? I can't place her.”

“The name ‘Seymour,' remember?”

“Seymour.” Larrigan frowned. “Oh, right. What Bunny said when you . . .”

“She was saying ‘Simone.' She wasn't exactly articulating too clearly.”

“Yeah,” said Larrigan. “Great. That's good work, Eddie, but so what? I don't get it. This Simone some friend of Bunny's or something?”

“You might say that,” said Moran. “Take another look.”

Larrigan squinted at the picture. Moran saw him blink, look again. His eyes widened. Then he whispered, “Holy shit. You think this is . . . ?”

“It's Li An,” said Moran.

“She survived?”

“Evidently. She's a lot older in this picture than last time you saw her, wouldn't you say? You don't get older if you don't survive.”

“All these years, I just assumed . . .”

“You hoped,” said Moran. “But it didn't happen that way. She survived, and she became a movie star, and she's still alive.”

“It's her,” said Larrigan softly. “I see it now.” He looked at Moran. “What're we going to do?”

“You mean, what am
I
going to do?”

“You are a prick sometimes, you know that?”

“Just so you remember,” said Moran, “I'm in this as deep as you are.”

Larrigan shrugged. “So what do you suggest?”

“I found a certified-mail receipt in Bunny's purse, addressed to Simone Bonet. I think Bunny was trying to say that Li An's got the photos. So I guess I better go get 'em.”

“I guess you better. You think that will take care of it?”

Moran shrugged. “I been thinking about it. Who knows how many of the guys we knew back then remember you and Li An? But it was a long time ago, and stories are just that. Stories. If Li An is still pissed at you—and why wouldn't she be?—she might want to go to the media and tell her story. But without those photos, what has she got? Nothing. You just deny the whole thing. Just a story. Rumors. Gossip. Exaggeration. Faulty memory. Some broad, looking for a little attention. There's always gossip with public figures, and you're gonna be a very public figure, if all goes well.”

Larrigan was nodding. “Get the fucking photos, we're in the clear.”

Moran nodded. “Maybe she's got photos of her own, too. Get them and get Bunny's from her, and I'd say we're in good shape.”

Larrigan turned his head and looked at Moran. “What'll you do?”

“With Li An, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“We'll have to see how it plays out,” said Moran.

BLACKHOLE, INFINITELY PATIENT, infinitely watchful, was parked across the street from the exit to the parking garage. Moran had driven in a little before seven, nine minutes after Judge Larrigan arrived.

The judge's car pulled out at 7:22. Moran's vehicle emerged five minutes later.

Blackhole let a couple of cars get between them. Then he entered the slow flow of traffic behind Eddie Moran.

Bellwether had doubts about this judge, and Blackhole was now convinced that those doubts had substance. An upstanding judge with nothing to hide would not be meeting in a parking garage with a shadowy character like Eddie Moran unless he had secrets.

Blackhole's job was to learn those secrets.

“GOOD EVENING, MAC. Jill has tucked me in for the night. I am in bed now, and I will go to sleep soon. I am sipping a glass of sherry and feeling relaxed and brave. I will tell you of my life with Thomas Larrigan while I have this courage.

“The sherry reminds me. One of Mai Duc's rules was that we should not drink alcohol. We had wine for the boys, and we were allowed to smoke marijuana. Mai Duc believed marijuana made us more sensitive and responsive without dulling our minds. She wanted us to be alert and vibrant and focused on our work, and she believed that alcohol made us dull.

“But when I went to live with Thomas Larrigan, alcohol became a part of my life. Thomas insisted that I drink with him, and he was always drinking when he was with me. Wine, beer, rum, gin, vodka. It did not matter to Thomas, as long as he had a glass or a bottle in his hand. When I would tell him that I did not want to drink, he would become angry with me. And so I took a glass or a bottle, too. At first I only pretended to drink, or took just tiny sips, but gradually I began to drink with him. It didn't take much to get me drunk. I was such a skinny little girl. Sometimes it was fun, being drunk with Thomas. But too many times the alcohol changed him.

“Mac, I did understand how it was for the American boys in my country, being in a war they did not understand, fighting against an enemy they could not see and who was much more clever and vicious than they were. They all believed they were going to die. I understand about courage, and I know many of them were courageous. Perhaps Thomas was, too. But he was afraid of dying every minute I was with him. Alcohol gave him a way of forgetting. Many of the boys used heroin or opium, but as far as I know, except for the marijuana, Thomas relied on alcohol for his courage.

“I lived in three small rooms in one of the old Saigon hotels. By the standards I know now, it was squalid. But back then, in that city during that war, my rooms were luxurious. Thomas expected me to be there for him whenever he appeared, and since I never knew when he would arrive, I simply lived in my rooms. There was very little for me to do when Thomas was not there. I had a radio that played American rock and roll all day, and I had some books. I quickly learned that alcohol helped make the time pass.

“Thomas was a Marine officer stationed in the city. I never did know exactly what his job was. He was a soldier, that's all I knew. He never talked about it with me. With me he wanted to drink and make love. He did not want to talk.

“Sometimes he took me away for little holidays. We went on boats and we went swimming and we went for rides in his Jeep. Sometimes his friends came with us. In particular, his friend Eddie, who was not an officer but who worked with him, or for him. Eddie had an American girlfriend, a Red Cross nurse, or a nurse's aid, named Bunny, who was a few years older than me. Bunny was seventeen or eighteen, I think. She became my friend. Sometimes Eddie and Bunny would come to my rooms and we would all get drunk. Sometimes all four of us would get into Thomas's Jeep. Eddie would drive and Bunny would sit up front with him. Thomas and I would sit in the back with a bottle of gin while Eddie would drive around the city streets or into the countryside.

“At first, dear Mac, I was content with Thomas Larrigan. He brought me presents—clothes and jewelry and food and alcohol. He treated me tenderly most of the time. He was amusing. I enjoyed Eddie and Bunny, and we laughed often. Of course, we were drunk most of the time. But we thought we were all having fun, and we weren't thinking about death.

“It is hard to forget the bad things, though, no matter how much you are drunk. I understand that. You can push it aside, but a bad thing lingers there in the shadows of your mind like a predator, ready to leap out when you are not expecting it. That happened to me sometimes. And I suppose it happened to Thomas. The alcohol did not always make him happy.

“Sometimes he would be sad and frightened, and when he got that way, he would became angry with me. I never knew when that would happen. It was always sudden and unexpected.

“I am remembering one time, Mac. It is not easy to remember. Eddie and Bunny were with us. We were on a beach, all alone, just the four of us on this long beautiful sand beach. We had taken off our clothes to swim, and afterwards all four of us were lying naked on a blanket drinking cold beer under the hot sun. I was lying on my back with my eyes closed, and Thomas was beside me. On the other side of him was Bunny, and Eddie was on the other side of her. I think I had been dozing, because Thomas's voice at first seemed far away. He was saying, ‘Look, Li An. Look at this.'

“I opened my eyes. Thomas was straddling Bunny, who was naked and on her back. Bunny had her eyes shut tight, and Thomas was moving his penis between her breasts. He was holding her breasts in his hands, squeezing them around himself. ‘Your tits are too small,' he said to me. ‘You can't do this. Bunny's got nice big ones.'

“And in a very small voice Bunny was saying, ‘No, no. Please, no.' When Bunny said, ‘No, no' to Thomas like that, she sounded like a child.

“Eddie was sitting up on the other side of Bunny. He looked at me and gave his head a little shake, and I understood. He couldn't do anything. Thomas was his superior officer.

“Thomas turned to me. ‘Watch,' he said. And he held his penis in his hand and put it against Bunny's mouth. ‘Take it,' he said to her.

“Bunny was shaking her head back and forth. Her mouth was forming the word ‘No,' but no sound was coming out.

“Thomas slapped her face. He hit her very hard. It sounded like a gunshot. ‘I told you to take it,' he said, and he grabbed her hair and held her head still and forced himself into her mouth.

“Eddie had turned away. He was sitting with his back to us, hugging his knees. Bunny was making noises in her throat and Thomas was holding her cruelly by her hair.

“‘Please, Thomas,' I said. ‘Let me. I will do it.' I reached to him and touched his shoulder. Suddenly he whirled around, and there was craziness in his eyes.