didn't know a single one. I had no way of knowing how many Hmong had known Veil and fought with him, or if any of them had escaped from Laos and made it to the United States. All I had was a recent photograph of a man the Hmong hadn't seen in half a lifetime; despite the fact that the younger Veil had been clearly recognizable to me in the painting, there was no telling how he had looked in those years, in or out of uniform, probably covered most of the time with mud and blood. I hated to think of what the odds might be against finding anyone who would recognize him.
But the symbols on the robe in the painting had been specific, and the logic of my trip still seemed inescapable; the symbols were associated with the Hmong people; there were more Hmong in Seattle than anywhere else; I was in Seattle. The fact that my feet were feeling better was at least some consolation, and I could now walk without a cane.
I learned that the Hmong had gathered together in a patchwork of interconnecting neighborhoods in the southeast sector of the city, and I found and checked into a hotel near the enclave. I knew that I could spend weeks working restaurants, bars, and other places where people gathered, and consequently needed a more systematic approach in my search for someone who might have known Veil. Figuring that I had certainly begun earning the ten thousand dollars Veil had left me, I began spending it, keeping a careful record of my expenditures in a small notebook.
I made up a short message offering a five-hundred-dollar reward to anyone who had ever known Veil and could supply information about him. Then I went looking for a pay phone booth that possessed a number of specific characteristics: it had to be fairly close to the hotel where I was staying, isolated enough so that it would be almost completely unused for one or two hours a day, out of doors but with some kind of shelter or windbreak nearby, and surrounded by enough open space so that I could monitor the movements of any people who might pass by.
I finally found what I was looking for in a small park about three-quarters of a mile from the hotel. There was a bank of three phones in the center of a small, lighted plaza circled by woods. Not too many people would be using those phones in the middle of winter, and there were more convenient phones for pedestrians to use on the sidewalks circling the park. All three phones were in working order, so I incorporated the number of the one on the right in my message, instructing anyone wishing to claim the reward to call that number between six and eight in the evening.
The next step was risky, but seemed unavoidable. I had registered at the hotel under a false name, paid cash, and made a few noises about being a salesman for a manufacturer of designer jeans. I wanted as few people as possible to see me, and none at all to be able to connect me with a search for a missing American who had fought with the Hmong in Laos. But I needed a printer, which meant that I could not avoid dangerous personal contact altogether. I found a print shop with an owner who was bilingual in English and Hmong. He translated my message into Hmong, and I left him with instructions to blow up Veil's photo to poster size, incorporate my message in both languages at the bottom, then print up a hundred copies on poster-weight paper as quickly as possible. I thought that the owner, a Hmong, reacted slightly when I gave him the brochure with Veil's photo, but I told myself that it could be my imagination and that narrowly escaping being burned alive would make anyone paranoid.
In any case, the posters were ready the next afternoon, as the man had promised. I paid for them and walked out with the bundle under my arm. The palm of my left hand, which had been resting on the butt of the Beretta in my coat pocket all the time, was sweaty, even in the cold air.
My hand stayed on the Beretta as I walked out onto the sidewalk. I had been constantly looking over my shoulder since leaving New York, and as far as I could tell I was not being followed. Still, my torturers had destroyed the painting precisely to keep hidden the link between Veil and the Hmong. If it were discovered that I was alive and had left New York, it wouldn't be all that hard for my enemies to figure out where I had gone. Also, I could not discount the possibility that there might be hostile eyes and ears among the Hmong. I planned to keep on looking over my shoulder.
I had no phony ID with me, and renting a car would have necessitated using a credit card with my real name on it, which I did not want to do. However, I did manage to find a place where I could rent a bicycle. I ate some dinner while I waited for it to get dark, then-as I did each night at six-I checked in with Garth to let him know I was all right. Nothing was happening on his end; there was still no trace of Veil or clue to his whereabouts, and the NYPD had still not been able to identify the two assassins.
It was after eight when I set out on my bike with the posters and a staple gun I had purchased in a luggage rack mounted on the rear fender. I pedaled straight into the Hmong enclave.
Most of the Hmong, I had learned, worked in the fish processing and lumber industries, the industrial backbone of the county, where they had a reputation for being hard and conscientious workers. They were a close- knit community, trying as best they could to preserve their ancient culture and customs, transplanting them from the mountains and jungles of Laos, hoping they would take root and survive on the brick and glass escarpments and concrete-paved trails of Seattle.
Pedaling through these neighborhoods of dreams, I looked for telephone or light poles outside bars, post offices, shopping centers-any site where large numbers of people might congregate or pass by. The Hmong, it seemed, ate late, and I often caught the odors of food-rice, fish, curries, strange and pungent spices. I pumped fast and furiously between stops, swerving to avoid patches of ice and piles of snow in the streets, braking to a stop at what looked like appropriate sites, stapling up the posters and moving on. By midnight, I had stapled up all one hundred posters, over a fairly wide area. Half frozen, my feet throbbing, I rode wearily back to my hotel, where I soaked my aching body in a warm tub, then went to bed and immediately fell asleep.
The next day I was at the park at five, an hour before any potential informants were scheduled to begin calling. I hung out of order signs and unscrewed the light bulbs in all three booths, then I looked around the area. There was certainly nothing foolproof about using a public pay phone as a blind; anyone with influence and a little time could get the location of the phone from the telephone company. However, this was the best strategy I'd been able to think of, and a quick circuit of the small park told me there was no one else there, at least not at the moment. By six, I was hidden behind a tree in the darkness a few yards from the booths.
At five minutes past six the phone began to ring. I let it ring, waited and watched; except for the ringing of the phone, the park remained absolutely still, and finally the caller hung up. Two minutes later the phone began ringing again. This time I answered it.
A nervous teenage boy wanted to talk to Jill. I told him he had the wrong number. I hung up, and the phone immediately began to ring again.
'Yeah?'
'I am calling in regard to the reward being offered for information on the man pictured in the poster.' The man's voice was deep and resonant, assertive. There was also a pronounced accent, which I assumed was Hmong.
'Okay. What can you tell me?'
'Who are you?'
'Who are you? I'm the one paying out the money, so I get to ask the questions.'
'But I haven't seen any money. It will be necessary for you to tell me why you want information about this man before I tell you anything.'
'The man in the poster: What's his name?'
'None of us who knew him were ever told his real name. He was known to us only by a code name which was given to him by the Americans.'
'What was the name?' I asked, trying to keep my growing excitement out of my voice.
'In Hmong, it translates as the name of a creature who may come from either heaven or hell. In English, I believe the word means a leader of angels-Archangel. I fought with him many years ago in Laos.'
Bingo, I thought as my heart began to hammer. 'Sir, I'd like very much to meet with you. I need to know everything you can remember about this man and what he did in Laos. You give me that, and you'll have your money.'
'You still have not told me why you want this information,' the man said warily.
'First we'll talk, and then maybe we'll get to that. In the meantime, I will pay for what you can tell me. Remember that if I can't get what I want from you, I may be able to get it from somebody else.'
'All right,' the man said after some hesitation. 'We'll meet at-'
