“Nice job softening him up,” he said.
Wish, leaning back with his eyes closed, said, “Huh?”
“The story. About your dad and his store. That worked.”
“Well, my dad did have a store. But I did lie some.”
“Which part?”
“Well, about him becoming a truck driver. What happened was, he fell in love with another lady-”
“You mean, besides your mother?”
“That’s what I mean-and then they took off. My mom tried to run the business but she couldn’t keep it going. It reminded her too much of him.”
“Well, I’ll be.” Paul knew Sandy had divorced Wish’s father, Joseph, years earlier, and remarried him only the year before. He had never heard the details.
“I was still pretty young,” Wish said. He reached into his pocket, took out an apple, and bit a huge chunk out of it.
“Damn, I’m hungry,” Paul said. Wish offered him the other side of the apple but Paul shook his head. He checked his watch, a Swiss Army Chronograph he had found on eBay. “We’re going to have to wait on lunch. I don’t want Dr. Mai to change his mind and leave. Did you catch what he said? He mentioned more than one man involved in the robberies.”
“So-one is still alive!”
“And he’s a good prospect for the man Kao’s hiding from,” Paul said. “We don’t have much in the police reports, but one thing we do have, the last known address of Song Thoj.” He consulted his notes. “He lived near the Chaffee Zoological Gardens on Palm. The Hmong have a tight community. The other bad guy might live there himself.”
“Do you want to go there after?”
“Maybe we won’t have to. Maybe Kao will be fine, and maybe we’ll see him and go home and Nina will get him his check.”
“Okay. So we wait for Dr. Mai. So I was saying how my mom had a broken heart.”
“I always thought she did. I’m glad the story has a happy ending. She and Joseph found each other again.”
“Yeah, they’re happy,” Wish said. “It’s a love story.”
Paul leaned back and dozed. He was trying to decide who could play the lead part in the movie of Sandy’s life. Gertrude Stein would be good, but she was long gone. He thought of the Eskimo receptionist he had seen in recent reruns of the TV series
His thoughts moved on to Nina, another love story, this one belonging to him. The question was McIntyre. Would he actually make a play for her again? Would she be interested? Jack had always liked women, many women, though Paul had enough collegial loyalty never to mention that to Nina.
Nina could never choose him over Paul. Jack was built like a kiln and as cynical as a bookie. However, she had in fact married Jack once, he couldn’t imagine why. The clear thing to do right now was to take care of her problems, so Jack could recede back into her past where he belonged.
“Maybe we shouldn’t leave Dr. Mai alone,” Wish said. “Somebody might try to kill him while we’re sitting out here. Aren’t you nervous?”
“Nobody tried to kill him before we got here and nobody’s going to try now,” Paul said. “He’s not a target, he’s a go-between. He just needs to finish his cooking.”
“But-”
“It’s not always gonna be excitement and broken windows and getaways. It’s mostly steaming in a hot car, starving.”
But hyper as a greyhound right before the rabbit runs, Wish pointed. “Ah ha!” he said, which made Paul jerk upright.
“What? What’s happening?”
“He’s coming.”
The elderly man in shirtsleeves and shiny pants right off the Salvation Army rack exited, holding tight to the rail as he came carefully down the steps. Nothing much was happening, it was just a hot, quiet afternoon in a sleepy town, but Paul felt a thrill, because this particular old man knew something Paul didn’t know. Paul started to explain that to Wish, then thought, let the kid figure it out for himself.
That thrill kept Paul in the business, not the tension and aggression and the rush of adrenaline, but the pursuit, the persistent uncovering of the facts, the coaxing away of denials and obstacles, the buttons slowly unbuttoned, the murmured confessions, and finally, the moment of eye-widening, naked, sexy truth. He eyed Dr. Mai and thought, now we get down to it.
Wish climbed into the backseat and Dr. Mai, smelling comfortingly of onions, sat next to Paul as they turned onto the shaded street. Mai’s face was thin and bony, the skin not much wrinkled. He led with a long, yellow-nailed finger to the freeway on-ramp, and they moved north on the highway. At the off-ramp he pointed again, and they moved onto the boulevard of used-car lots and strip malls. Paul didn’t disturb the silence. He didn’t want to accidentally offend, even though the KFCs and Burger Kings they were passing made him want to moan with hunger.
“Here.” They turned onto a residential street and Paul stopped while a school bus let off some kids. They scurried in all directions, heavy backpacks flopping. Following the finger of fate one more time, Paul stopped in a driveway halfway down the block at a tract house just like the rest. No car rested in the driveway; the garage door presented a blank facade. Dry grass and a couple of thirsty- looking bushes flanked the front porch. Paul assumed they were expected.
The door opened. A lovely young girl stood there with long black hair, big almond long-lashed eyes, and a pair of brown legs with just that turn of the flesh, that absolutely perfect curve of calf and thigh that Paul had dreamed of every night from the age of thirteen to the age of eighteen. These firm, luscious legs thrust beyond ragged cutoffs, descending into sockless athletic shoes.
“Uncle Mai,” she said, and pulled the door open, giving Paul and Wish hardly a glance, her mind clearly somewhere else.
“This is Yang.” Mai slipped off his shoes before he went in, which caused a delay as Wish’s hiking boots took awhile to unlace and pull off. The girl disappeared and they finally entered a barren living room furnished primarily with a low, round table and big patterned seat cushions. In the window alcove Paul noticed a red cabinet with a mirror and a Buddha statue draped with white scarves and flowers. White votive candles burned and the room smelled of incense.
“Kao!” Dr. Mai called. “Kao!” He said a few more words in his language, the warning tone unmistakable.
A small Hmong man came into the room, wearing shorts and a black T-shirt. He paused in front of Paul, then stuck out a hand.
“Hi,” he said.
“As you can see, he’s fine,” Dr. Mai said.
Kao Vang did look fine, perfectly healthy, a sheen of light sweat over his scarred face, no signs of torture or duress, no cameras in the corners that Paul could see, no shadowy figures lurking in the kitchen. But tension entered the room with him.
“Can we sit down?” Paul said. He pulled up a pillow and found it wasn’t so bad so long as he could lean his elbows on the table. “You know who I am?”
“I explained to him,” Dr. Mai said.
“He said ‘hi’ just then. He doesn’t speak English?”
“Only some. I will translate.”
“Okay. How are you, Mr. Vang?”
“He says ‘I am fine.’” As if to illustrate how fine he was, Vang pulled out a pack of Indonesian cigarettes and lit one, looking away from Paul. A moody customer, Paul decided, and not a happy one.
“How is your wife?”
He stiffened. He had understood that.
“Also fine.”
“Is she here?”
“She is working so the family can eat while waiting for the check.”
“Where does she work?”
“Not far away.”
“I see that another young lady is staying here, too.”
A few sentences went back and forth.
“Yang is their oldest child. Their son Boun is twelve.”
“Nina hasn’t met Yang yet, has she?”
“Yang is busy with school.” Well, she ain’t in school right now, Paul said to himself. “How old is she?”
“Fifteen. Why do you ask about her?”
“No particular reason. Well, Mr. Vang, thank you for seeing me today. We can clear up this problem once and for all.”
“There is no problem,” Dr. Mai said, although Vang hadn’t spoken.
“Is there any special reason why you can’t come up to Tahoe to go to the bank with Nina and get your check?” Paul said. The Hmong began talking and gesticulating. Kao and Dr. Mai didn’t seem exactly mad at each other, but there was some disagreement.
Wish got up and went over to the altar to examine the statue. He started edging toward the hall door, which was ajar. Yang’s listening to every word, Paul thought. An itch rode up his back to his neck and his scalp, and he thought, she’s part of this somehow.
Wish pushed at the door. It opened. No one there now.
Dr. Mai said, “Kao has to stay here right now-”
“Why?”
“This isn’t the Communists. You don’t get to know everything. Kao is very disturbed that he hired this woman lawyer who is keeping his money from him for no reason. Now. The money is urgently needed. Kao is returning to Laos. If I must, I will return to Lake Tahoe to receive it. Kao asks you to call your boss and ask her to deliver the check tonight or at latest tomorrow.”
Paul thought this over. “Let me go outside and make a call to her.”
“Yes. Get your instructions.”
“I have to explain a couple of things to her when I call.”
Dr. Mai’s eyes rolled upward.
“This second robber, the one that got away. Has he threatened Mr. Vang?”
“Call your boss! Get the check!” Kao yelled. He had been frustrated into using English. “I will call the police on her! She is a thief!” He held his jaw, moved it back and forth, grimaced. “Look at me! Look what that money is for! It’s my money!” He lapsed back into Hmong.
In the back room, Paul heard a sound. Crying.
“All right, I’ll go out and call.” He motioned to Wish and they walked out into the blazing sun. Paul stood under the garage overhang, far enough away from the house that he wouldn’t be heard, and called Nina.
“Honey, this guy Kao is very annoyed,” he told her. “Nobody’s beating on him. Nobody’s got a gun on him.”
“Where’s his wife?”
