Only the Heart (19 page)

21

GAMBIT

TOAN'S STORY

Linh came out of hospital on the thirteenth. On the fourteenth we started looking for Hai.

It wasn't like you could just phone him up and make an appointment, and even Kieu didn't know where he actually lived — or if he lived in any one place. Secrecy is a survival trait. And Hai was a survivor.

But she did know where he liked to eat. So we spent a few days staking out his favourite restaurants.

I don't know how many times I'd been to
The Old Saigon
— a few dozen, at least. But this time it seemed strange. Like it was the first time I'd set eyes on it.

Kim looked surprised as we entered, but she controlled it. I watched her talking to Linh without looking at her legs, without mentioning the accident. The word was on the streets about what had happened, but some things just aren't talked about — even among friends.

The conversation was strained. We were tight and nervous. After four days of wasted time, you'd think the nerves would have eased — through boredom, if nothing else. But the opposite happened. Every day, every minute that passed brought us closer to the inevitable confrontation, and we were like prisoners on death row, knowing what was in store, but not knowing when.

Phuong played absent-mindedly with one of her chopsticks, rolling it over and over between her fingers, like a tiny baton, while her eyes were fixed on the picture of a dragon on the wall calender. Kieu sat staring at the table in front of her, and I could feel my breakfast doing laps in my stomach.

Only Linh seemed calm, answering Kim's questions patiently and smiling at times.

Then Hai Nguyen walked in and all questions ceased. Kim retreated to the kitchen, muttering to herself.

He had a couple of his goons with him and they took their seats at a table near the back of the shop.

Kieu was sitting facing them, but still with her head down. She knew he was there, but she was like the rest of us. It's fine sitting in a hospital room, planning what you'll do, what you'll say. But reality has a way of changing things.

We all sat there, each of us waiting for someone else to make the first move. Hai had walked past us like we weren't there, and now he was sitting at his table, with one of his men on each side of him, staring out of the window, ignoring our presence like we were beneath his notice.

I watched Kim return. She placed a pot of tea on the table in front of Hai and left again. A few minutes later Chien brought out the bowls of noodle soup, and Hai began to eat, leaning over his food without looking up.

I wanted to move, to stand and walk over to him, but I was frozen. Then I felt the wheels of Linh's chair move. Just slightly. She backed it away from the table and began to turn it towards the rear of the restaurant. It was all I needed. Suddenly the lock was broken. I stood up, took hold of the handles and began to push my cousin across to where he sat, bent over and eating.

Behind me, I sensed Phuong moving to join us, but Kieu remained frozen in her seat. She knew him far better than we did. Maybe she knew enough to be smart.

I made my way across the room, guiding the chair around obstacles until we were standing opposite him.

Still he made no effort to look up.

The man on his right stared at me, then at Linh.

“What do you want?”

That was when Linh finally found her voice. And the tone was cold.

“Nothing from you. We came to speak to Hai.”

Still bent over his bowl, Hai stopped eating. Slowly he raised his head and stared at Linh. Measuring her. She stared back, unblinking.

“Why me?”

This time it was Phuong who answered.

“We thought that someone who had shared our ordeal at Pulau Bisa might feel inclined to offer his assistance in our present … situation.”

He studied Phuong closely for a few seconds before recognition dawned, and I realised why Linh had insisted on bringing her along.

“You are still beautiful.” He allowed his eyes to travel slowly over her. “I always thought so, but Cang …” He paused returning his gaze to her face. “You know, if you'd been any older, he would probably —”

“We are not here to discuss that.” Phuong reddened as she cut him off.

Hai nodded and placed his hands on the table in front of him. “Of course.” His eyes swept over her again. “What
are
we here for?”

He addressed his question to Linh. But she didn't answer immediately.

The men flanking him had returned to their food. We were no threat, and the noodles were getting cold.

Linh looked at each of them in turn, then back at Hai. She said nothing, but the message was clear. He considered for a moment, then with a word he sent his two companions away.

They sat down at another table and continued eating.

Hai looked at her legs for the first time. She waited until his eyes met hers again before speaking.

“We are not here to seek justice … or revenge. We need your help.”

“My help?”

“Tang.” She reached across and picked up the tea-pot, pouring first Hai then herself a cup. He sipped his and she did the same. There was an air of ritual about her actions.

Then she placed the cup on the table in front of her and cleared her throat.

“You lived in the camp. So you understand the … bond which grows between people there. How it survives time and distance.”

She allowed her eyes to drift across the room to where the girl sat, still looking down, her face shrouded by the black curtain of her hair.

Hai followed the line of her gaze, then looked back at her as she continued: “Kieu was like family to us, and now that we have found her again … You understand. But Tang doesn't. He doesn't understand how a person's feelings can change. If you could just … speak with him. Make him understand. And reassure him that his secrets” — now she stared right at him — “and those of his friends … would be safe. As safe as the truth about the … accident on the highway. We … Well, we were sure he would listen to you.”

Before he could reply Phuong spoke, her voice soft but steady.

“Cang always said there was no such thing as personal business; not when it affected the good of the group.”

He smiled. “You listened well. For a child.”

“I was two years younger than you. And less … headstrong.” This was a Phuong I had rarely seen. Strong. Controlled. Like her mother. “But Cang was not always right. He said you would never be strong enough to lead.”

Deliberately she picked up the pot and poured herself a cup and took a sip. All without releasing his gaze.

Finally he turned to address Linh.

“I will speak to him.”

It was enough.

The meeting was over. As we made our way into the sunshine, I saw the two gang-members move back to the table, and Kim carry out the next course. But as I turned away I noticed Phuong. She looked back, just briefly, and a tiny smile touched her lips. Then it was gone.

Hai watched her until she disappeared, then he bent to his food.

22

ENDGAME

LINH'S STORY

Most Wednesdays, Thanh Tran comes over for dinner, and he and my uncle usually spend the night playing chess on the covered veranda at the back of the house. The chess is an excuse, of course. What he comes for is the conversation and the company. And sometimes to read my father a new poem. We're about all the family he's got.

You see, in nineteen-eighty, while he was still in re-education, Thanh's wife Hang and their three children made their bid for freedom. And disappeared …

For a while after the accident I couldn't see any point in going on. I even considered finishing the job Tang and his goons had started.

But you grow out of everything, even despair. Sure, there's a certain satisfaction to be got out of feeling bitter, butit hurts people, especially the people you love, and you can't keep doing it. Either you let it destroy you, or you start doing drugs or booze, which is about the same thing. Or you shake the crap out and get on with what's left of your life.

I don't know when it finally happened for me, when that piece of earth-shattering wisdom finally fell on my head. Probably it was a gradual thing, the result of long talks with Grandma, my aunt and uncle, and Thanh.

Especially Thanh, I think. Because although he could still walk, he'd probably lost at least as much as I had. Maybe more. But it hadn't killed him. Or his poetry.

Bitterness kills, I learned that.

I just wish Tang had …

*

26 May 1986
Boundary Park

TANG

The noise of breaking glass is masked by the music, thumping from the stereo in the lounge-room.

In the corner Linh lifts a knight and places it at the centre of the board. Toan studies the move and frowns. He is beaten and he knows it. He looks across to where Kieu sits reading. As if by some secret chemistry, she looks up and smiles. He smiles back and returns his attention to the game.

With a final echoing chord the record ends. The stereo falls silent and Kieu gets up to change it.

But she doesn't reach the machine.

Before she can even scream, a hand snakes out from behind the archway that leads into the dining room. It covers her mouth and she can feel it bruising her cheek. She senses the touch of metal against the skin of her throat, and she hears the voice, a hoarse whisper in her ear.

“Hello, Kieu. Miss me?”

At the sound of his voice Toan looks up. Suddenly the pieces are scattering across the tiled floor, as he stands, upsetting the small chess-table.

Linh spins the chair to face the intruder.

“I guess not … Hai say you not come with me, but he didn't say why. He sending me to Melbourne.” He laughs. “Cut out the disease. But you know that, didn't you, baby? What kind deal you cook up between you? Didn't think I know, eh … Street-talk, babe. No secrets on street. I still got friend. Maybe more than you think …
Don't move!”

Toan retreats the step he had taken, and Kieu screams as the blade at her throat presses closer.

He drags her towards the door. His breath smells of alcohol. “ ‘You gone too far, Tang.' That's what he say.
Too far!
He goin' soft. What'd you tell him? Must bin powerful stuff … No matter. I still got friends. Leader shouldn't sell out his own people. Got to have loyalty …”

“Not loyalty, Tang.
Obedience
.” The word cuts the air and Tang spins around, dragging Kieu with him like a doll. A sharp pain, and she feels the blood run down her neck as the knife cuts in. Not deep, but the nerves scream, and she bites her lip to stop from crying out.

Standing in the archway Hai Nguyen is flanked by four gang-members, standing two each side of him, but a step behind.

“You …!”
The word is a curse, and Tang tightens his grip on the girl.

“Melbourne, Tang. I gave you an order.” The gang-leader's voice is level. And cold.

“You don't give me no more orders. Gone soft … Selling out your own …” He turns his gaze to the others. “You take orders from someone sells out his own? We don't have to. One against five. He can't do nothing, not on his own. He don't deserve give orders …”

For a moment there is silence, then there is a slight movement from one of the men behind Hai. He looks into his leader's eyes, then across at Tang, and without a word he crosses the floor to stand beside the younger man, with his hands in his pockets, his feet slightly apart. Another one follows. Three facing three across a few metres of floor.

In the corner Toan stands motionless, watching a trickle of blood soaking into Kieu's white blouse. The patch is spreading slowly down across her shoulder. Linh has not moved and her gaze remains fixed on the man with the knife.

Time has stopped, as the two opponents stare at each other. Then Hai looks across at one of the men facing him. It is a look of … regret.

“You see, Hai. No respect. Where's your
obedience
now?”

But Hai is still staring at the man, who moves to stand closer to the rebel.

Hai allows a sigh to leak out and his shoulders slump slightly. Then he nods. Slowly, deliberately.

Without any warning the man draws a knife from his pocket and almost casually drives it into the side of Tang's chest, while the other men grabs the arm holding the knife and pulls it sharply away from Kieu's throat.

In the moment before the pain strikes, Tang looks down and sees the blood pouring from his chest. The expression on his face is one of puzzled surprised. Then, with a sudden spasm, he grimaces and at his side.

He opens his mouth a few times, but no words come. Then he looks at Kieu, who has moved a couple of paces away.

“Slut …” he whispers. “I … gave you …”

The words falter, and he stumbles forward a pace. Toan moves to stand beside her, but the danger is over. Tang's mouth falls open, his eyes roll and his knees give way, but before he collapses, two pairs of hands grasp his arms and drag him out through the archway towards the back of the house. The way he came in.

Hai looks at the three teenagers.

“We had him followed.” He shake his head. “Pity …”

Standing with her hand to her throat, Kieu looks down at the bloodstain on the carpet a few paces away.

“I'm sorry about the mess. It wasn't supposed to happen this way.”

And without another word he leads the remaining gang-members away.

For a long time no one moves.

*

LINH'S STORY

Chess is a game. It has rules, and if you break them the game is forfeited. It would be nice to believe that life was like that. I guess sometimes it even is.

They never found Tang's body and there was no mention of his disappearance — on the news or on the streets.

I don't know how much Hai Nguyen's actions on that night were a result of him honouring his end of our “bargain”, and how much it was just “gang business”. Maybe it was a little of both. Or maybe he just decided it was time to ditch his loose cannon before it did any more damage.

We'll never know. I only saw him once more, about six months after Tang's death. He was standing in the street, just across from my uncle's store, with two or three of his goons. They weren't looking my way, and I wasn't in any hurry to attract their attention. I turned the chair around and went back inside.

A couple of weeks later the papers reported that they'd found his body in a car, somewhere out near Narellan, and that the police were treating the death as “suspicious”.

The Triple K were a spent force. Other gangs were moving in on their turf and they didn't have the leadership to hold their ground.

I don't know why the gangs have to be a part of a community which is almost obsessively law-abiding. It just doesn't seem to make any sense.

My grandmother would probably see it in terms of balance. Good and evil, light and dark, the yin and the yang.

Me, I don't think the universe is organised quite so neatly.