Act of Revenge (42 page)

“They've left,” said Leung. “Let's go.”

Lau said, “That doesn't make sense. Why would they leave? It's the Fourth of July weekend. They're probably just down at the beach.”

“That's right,” said Vo. “We should wait.”

“But not here, in front of the house,” said Leung. “Drive on, and turn left at the corner.”

As they turned past that junction, another Dodge van approached from the direction of Park Street. It could have been the twin of theirs, except that it had tinted windows and was black, where theirs was gray. The vans passed each other slowly, their speed suited to the narrow, sand-dusted residential street.

Freddie Phat, at the wheel of the black van, made a startled movement and craned his neck to look at the other vehicle as it passed.

“What's wrong?” asked Tran, who sat beside him in the front seat.

“Strange. It looked like Kenny Vo sitting in the passenger seat of that van.”

“Stop!” cried Tran. “Turn around and follow it!”

Phat hit the gas pedal, shot forward to the next intersection, and spun the van skidding around. The three hard faces in the back rocked, and their automatic rifles clattered on the floor.

“That's their car,” Leung shouted.

“Where? Where?” Lau saw nothing ahead but empty roadway.

“An orange Volvo,” said Leung excitedly. “It just passed the next intersection, going to the left.”

Lau accelerated, turned, and soon they had the square orange car in view. “Stay back,” Leung ordered. “I don't want them to see us. That's good, let a car get between us. They are heading for the shops. Good, they're slowing, they're turning into that parking lot. Follow them! No, no, not right next to their car! Idiot! Park over there, right next to the exit. Good.”

They parked. The lot was crowded with shoppers and their cars, as were the narrow sidewalks of the shopping strip, which was anchored by the Beach Bazaar and a large Grand Union super-market. Those in the back crowded forward so they could see out the windshield, from which they had an excellent view of the Volvo. As they watched, its passengers left, the two girls running into the Beach Bazaar, a substantial emporium whose striped steel awnings dripped with beach chairs, inflated animal-shaped swimming toys, large beach balls, air mattresses.

“Who is that black woman?” Vo asked.

“A nursemaid, no doubt,” said Leung. “She is not significant. Our luck has changed, it appears. I am going to examine the situation in the store. All of you, wait here and do nothing!”

He was gone ten minutes. When he returned, he was carrying two yellow smock shirts, embroidered with the logo of the Beach Bazaar and the names of two employees. Back in his seat, he said, “It is perfect. They are scattered throughout the store, and the girls are isolated in the swimming costume area. This is what we will do. Lau and Eng will stay with the car. I and Vo and Cowboy will enter the store. Cowboy and I will wear these shirts. Cai and Yang will take up a position outside the store. The girl knows Cowboy; that will put her off her guard. He will lead her to the back of the store. I will join him there, and together we will take her through the stockroom, to the rear exit. There is an alley there, and a loading dock. When Vo has seen us enter, he will signal to Lau, and he will take the car around to the alley, get us and the girl, and then come around and pick up the three others.”

“What about the other girl?” asked Vo.

“If she sees anything, we will take her, too,” said Leung. “Does everyone understand what he is to do? Cowboy?”

The youth nodded sullenly. Leung asked each of the others and, where there was doubt or confusion, gave crisp instruction. They were nothing like a Hong Kong triad team, he thought, but far better than Red Guards, and it should be a simple operation. In and out.

There was an odd smell in the store, an old-fashioned place with circulating ceiling fans, wooden floor, a high, stamped tin ceiling, long counters, and bins. Cowboy thought it must be some sort of confection; it was sweet and heavy, and to him as exotic as five-spice powder would have been to nearly all of the store's clientele. It was crowded with these, and getting more crowded as people came in to pick up the various necessities they had forgotten to pack in their rush to leave the heat of the city for the big weekend.

Cowboy walked quickly to the place Leung had indicated, where swimsuits hung on chromed racks and headless, armless models showed them off. He could not see Lucy, and felt a sudden and surprising sense of relief. Perhaps they had suspected something and fled. But no, he now saw a short Asian girl selecting suits with intense concentration, reading the price tags and the labels as if they were oracles. She did not notice Cowboy.

Then the curtain that led to the changing room was thrust briskly aside, and there she was right in front of him, swimsuits draped over her arm. She saw him.

“Cowboy? What are you doing here?” she asked in Vietnamese, looking curiously at his shirt, which bore the name
iris
embroidered in red thread.

“I have to see, I mean, to talk to you. It's very important.”

Lucy looked over at Mary, who was utterly absorbed in the mathematics of assessing clothing value, and nodded to Cowboy. She tossed her suits over the top of a rack and followed Cowboy toward the back of the store.

“In here,” said Cowboy, pushing open the swinging door to the stockroom. Lucy went through, and Leung grabbed her, clapping his hand over her mouth and pressing a pistol muzzle into her back. He pulled her into a dark alcove formed by large cardbord crates containing plastic swimming pools. In Cantonese he said, “Is it true that you can speak Cantonese?”

She nodded. He said, “Are you going to scream or do anything foolish?”

She shook her head, and he removed his hand from her mouth. She looked at Cowboy and said, in Vietnamese, “With Heaven rest all matters here below: harm people and they'll harm you in their turn. Perfidious humans who do fiendish deeds shall suffer, and cry mercy in vain.” Cowboy reacted as if slapped. He looked away from her, his jaw quivering. Every Vietnamese knows the scene where Kieu and her lover, Tu, the rebel chieftain, take revenge on all who have abused her.

“What did she say?” Leung demanded.

“Nothing,” Cowboy mumbled. “Just some poetry.”

Leung snapped, “Go out to the loading dock and see if they are there.” Cowboy trotted off.

Leung turned Lucy around and gave her an appraising look. He shook his head. “Incredible! So you speak Vietnamese, too, even poetry. You know the saying,
cai tai, cai tai
, and so on?”

“Yes, because of the rhyme. Talent and disaster are twins.”

“Particularly true, it seems, in your case. You have caused me an enormous amount of trouble, little girl.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“I suppose I will have to, although it seems a shame. There is a white-girl brothel in Macao that would pay nearly anything for someone like you. Perhaps I will pump you full of heroin and pack you in an air-freight container. How would you like that?”

“I think it would be wisest to kill me. If you did that other thing, I would escape and find you, wherever you were, and eat your heart.”

To Lucy's vast surprise, Leung replied in English with a decided New York accent, “Oh, don't be a schmuck!” He looked at his watch and said, in the same voice, “Where the fuck is that goddamn kid? What is he, jerking off out there?”

Lucy's linguistic curiosity overwhelmed her fear and burst forth. In English, she asked, “Where did you learn to talk like that?”

Leung switched back to Cantonese. “You are impressed. To confess the truth, I have only a few phrases like that. I learned my English from an American, a native of this city, in Macao. I was escaping from the Cultural Revolution, and I had a septic wound in my leg. It was from being beaten with chains and thrown into a vat of pig manure. He took me in and taught me a great deal about your wonderful country before—”

Cowboy came running then, a worried look on his face.

“They are not there,” he blurted.

Kenny Vo was pacing to and fro in the front aisle of the Beach Bazaar, where they kept the shopping carts and the soda machines. He kept looking out of the window, expecting the gray van to pull up with Leung and Cowboy and the girl. But the van did not come. The parking lot was growing more crowded.

It was not hard for Tran and his associates to overpower Lau and Eng. They simply worked their way crouching through the parked cars, appeared at the unlocked side door of the gray van, jumped in, and stuck pistols in the faces of the amazed White Dragons. Nor was it difficult to get the details of Leung's plan from Eng, who was, in fact, one of the two
ma jai
Tran had snatched earlier, and he required no additional demonstration of what lengths Tran would go to in order to extract information.

Tran snapped out directions for the counterattack and left Freddie Phat and one of his men in the van, while he walked out into the parking lot with the two others. They spread out, winding through the cars, stepping lightly around the clusters of harried parents and their children, the clumps of teens in bright beach wear, the occasional slow-moving elderly couple. Each of the Vietnamese carried a long beach bag tucked under his right arm.

Vo looked through the plate glass and saw them coming. He let out a curious high-pitched cry. The checkout ladies and their customers looked up. They saw a stocky Asian man in a sports jacket, dark trousers, and black loafers—not dressed for the beach. The man let out another sound, this one a combination groan and hiss, as if from a pressure vessel about to pop its safety valve. The nearest checkout lady raised her hand to attract the attention of a manager.

Vo saw the man who had ruined his life walking toward him; the rage burned away the last of his modest store of rationality. He yanked the machine pistol from his waistband and directed a stream of automatic fire at his enemy. He fired one-handed in his zeal and the weapon flew upward, blowing out the plate-glass window in a hail of shards before directing bullets at the parking lot and the sky. He heard something snap-snap-snap past his head. He dropped to the floor. Someone was shooting a Kalashnikov at him, disciplined fire in three-round bursts, the habit of the thrifty little army he knew so well. On his knees, sheltered by the bulk of a Pepsi machine, he fired the rest of the magazine blindly out the vacant window, and fumbled to replace it with a fresh one.

Sounds of firing came from outside as the two White Dragons blasted away; then that firing ceased. More bullets came flying into the store, in the same precise rhythm. An overhead fixture shattered, raining glass onto customers and staff cowering in the aisles. People were screaming, shouting. Vo couldn't think in all the noise. He wanted to shoot the screaming people. When the new magazine finally clicked in, he cautiously peeked around the Pepsi machine to find a target.

“Drop the gun! Now!” It was a woman's voice, and American, behind him.
Behind him?
Vo spun on his knees. It was the nursemaid, crouching low, pointing a gun at him.
The nursemaid?
He raised his weapon, and Detective Bryan shot him through the chest four times with her service revolver.

Around this scene, chaos. A hundred or so screaming people were attempting to leave by the two exit doors, parents were crying for their children, children were howling their heads off, several brave souls leaped through the broken window, a couple of men knocked Detective Bryan down as they rushed by. One person, however, brooked the human tide and walked calmly through the one-way entrance door.

Leung heard the automatic fire from the front of the store and realized that something had gone badly wrong. The plan was therefore finished. A shame, but he had already accomplished much. He would have to escape and attempt, somehow, to recoup. But first.

Cowboy saw the Chinese point his pistol at Lucy's head. Without a thought his arm shot out and struck Leung's elbow. The gun exploded. Lucy reeled backward, tripped on a low carton, and fell sprawling to the floor. Leung stared for a moment at Cowboy, unbelievingly, and then shot the boy twice in the chest. The youth fell, grasping at Leung, hooking his hand on Leung's trouser pocket, ripping the fabric and tearing the pocket out as he collapsed. Coins jingled and scraps of paper flew to the floor. Leung cursed, ignored the coins, scrabbled for the small papers.

Leung heard a voice shout in a language he did not understand. It sounded a little like the Portuguese he had picked up in Macao, and he recognized the name, Lucy. He had to kill the girl quickly and get away. But where was the girl? He saw the gap in the pile of cartons. She had wriggled into some crevice. The shout again. Steps, coming closer. Leung fired some shots blindly at the cartons and took off, dodging down the narrow aisles. He saw the daylight of the loading dock and ran toward it. There were pursuing steps. He ignored them and raced on, out onto the loading dock and down into the service alley.

“Fireworks must be starting early,” observed Karp as they rolled down Park Street in Long Beach.

Ed Morris frowned. “That's not fireworks, Butch. Somebody's shooting auto.”

Then they heard the sirens. “What should we do?” Morris asked.

It did not take Karp long to decide. The possibility that someone was firing an automatic weapon in a beachside community in which his wife was resident and that the discharge did not in some manner involve his wife was too remote to be credible.

“Follow the sirens,” he said, his heart bouncing yet again into his throat.

“Lucy, are you there? He is gone. You may emerge now.”

Hearing Tran's voice, Lucy crawled on hands and knees from her hiding place. She crawled backward, for the space in which she had wedged herself was barely eighteen inches wide. She felt wetness on her bare knees, and then on her hands. When she was free of the tunnel, she turned and saw Tran and saw that the wetness was Cowboy's blood, spreading out from his body, looking black in the dim fluorescent light, like the blood in the Asia Mall stockroom, from the men Leung and . . .