Authors: Bob Sanchez
After supper, Sam drove across the city, past mill buildings and renovated store fronts. He pulled his Ford in front of the funeral home, a decorous-looking white house with gables, black shutters, and a bright green lawn with perfect grass that glistened from a light spray. The lowering sunlight broke apart in the mist above the lawn and re-formed into a rainbow. A discreet sign outside identified the business. It was nothing like the other small businesses across the street with their garish signs and catchy names. There were no Triple-A’s in the funeral business, no Speedee’s, no golden arches, no slogans, no neon.
Just quiet dignity and a curbside full of cars that brought the friends of the dead from all over town.
Sam hated funeral homes.
Sambath, Vacheran, and Boreth helped carry Father into the forest, where they placed him on a soft pile of leaves. Sambath agonized that he could not do more. How could they care for him? No one knew what to do, or what to do it with. Sambath held Father’s hand gently, hoping that Father’s next life would be better.
Father squeezed his son’s hand. “Take care of your mother,” he said.
“And Sarapon.”
“Yes, Father. I will take good care of them.” But Sambath could not bear to tell the truth: Mother and Sister were already gone.
Then Father’s hand fell limp; he was gone as well.
In the foyer, several knots of people chatted quietly. Many were young high-school age boys looking glum and awkward in their sport coats and ties. Girls wore dresses and runny mascara, and paid their last respects to Justo, a classmate who had died the same night that Chea was killed. The man Justo and Carmela saw must have scared Justo badly. That would make Justo and Chea victims of the same killer. Ironically, both were here tonight, same funeral home but different worlds. Vastly different cultures, but mourned in the same building on the same summer night. It doesn’t matter where we’re from. Strip away the habits and the customs, and we all feel the hurt when a friend dies.
Across the foyer, McDermaid nodded discreetly. He had a complexion the color of rosé wine. Sam walked over to meet him. They shook hands; McDermaid smelled faintly of Old Spice and
breath
mints.
“I need to speak to someone who knew the victim well,” Sam said.
“One moment,” McDermaid said, and he walked over to a cluster of teenage boys. He whispered into the ear of the tallest one, and nodded back toward Sam.
“This is Justo’s brother Jesus,” McDermaid said. Jesus wore a light blue jacket and a red tie.
A charcoal
fuzz grew above his upper lip. Sam felt a dozen pairs of eyes looking at them.
“Detective Sambath Long, Lowell Police,” he said. “I’m very sorry about your brother.”
“What do you want that can’t wait?” Jesus said.
“Was anyone trying to hurt Justo?”
“It was a fuckin’ accident. Why? What’s this all about?”
“Had anyone threatened him?”
Jesus looked up at the ceiling, his eyes welling with tears. “Man, I don’t
need
this now.”
One of his friends put his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “What’s the matter, Jesus?
This guy bothering you?”
“Nah.
It’s all right. Let us be a sec, okay, Manny?”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said, “but this is very important.”
“He was a scrappy guy,” Jesus said. “Didn’t let no punks bother him.”
“Did he fight with any Asians?”
Jesus squared his shoulders and looked Sam in the eye. “Matter of fact, he knocked some
Cambodian
kid on his ass last week.”
“Can you give me a name?”
“Guy named, I don’t know. Just some douche bag.
Manny, you there when Justo kicked that kid’s nuts last week?”
“You should
of
been there.” Manny punched at the air.
Looked like he’d taken a couple of whacks himself.
“I’d of bought a ticket.” Jesus wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his sport coat.
“Who was he?” Sam asked.
“Seth something,” Manny said. He planted a left jab in the air in front of Jesus’s chest.
Left.
Left.
Right.
“Should
of
seen it.”
“Cut it out, Manny. This ain’t the time for Golden Gloves.”
“Viseth? Viseth Kim, maybe?”
A light went on in Manny’s eyes. “Yeah, that could be it. I think that’s it.”
But they didn’t know what the fight was about, and soon Sam headed for the room where Bin Chea lay. They were an older crowd, and mostly separate. Outside the room a guest book sat on a side table, and an elderly Cambodian woman hunched over to sign it. About thirty people, almost all Asians, milled around or sat in metal folding chairs, facing a closed casket of wood that was polished to a deep brown shine. No one looked familiar to him except for a somber Mrs. Chea and one of her neighbors, a well-fed Italian woman who held both of the widow’s hands and nodded in sympathy. On one wall was a display of flowers that dwarfed a pair of photos. This was what he wanted: to satisfy himself about
who
Bin Chea was. Or wasn’t.
The pictures came into focus as he approached. The first he looked at showed both of the Cheas, but as Sam’s eyes were drawn to Bin’s, he knew immediately. The face had the same roundness, the same soft features that had made Sam distrust gentle looks forever. Those eyes were empty of feeling the way they’d been when they had taunted Sam so many times. There was no flicker of pleasure or amusement, compassion or even hate.
Nothing.
In the other picture, the presence of his wife and two children--were they his daughters?--did nothing to change his expression. Sam turned away in disgust. How could this man have had children of his own, and be the man who--?
But he did. And he was. The flames under his father’s feet licked at the edges of Sam’s heart. Rage swelled inside Sam’s chest as he fought the desire to smash the photo against the wall.
Did Mrs. Chea know what a cruel man he’d been? He didn’t remember seeing her in Cambodia, and their children were surely innocents. How much had they heard of the rumors about their father? Did they believe? Did they know or care? He looked around the room, wondering whether he would see them, but he didn’t. Then he remembered Mrs. Chea’s words:
three children, all dead.
Tomorrow Bin Chea would lie in a wooden box that slid into an oven. Then his charred bones would be ground to a powder, and his widow would receive his remains.
Four pounds of dust.
Good.
Sam called the station to arrange for the night shift to pick up Viseth for questioning. Not that getting beaten up was a crime. If Viseth killed Bin Chea, then he’d performed his first public service.
But Sam had no plans to thank him.
Khem the computer programmer met Sam in his company cafeteria. When the man hobbled to his chair and sat down, his trouser leg lifted a couple of inches to reveal a brace above his white socks. He’d been hit by a car a month ago and just came back to work last week. No way did this man shoot anyone and dash down three flights of stairs.
The night shift came up dry; apparently Viseth had left the area. Maybe the boys on days would have better luck. Meanwhile Sam searched for Khem at the Pailin Jewel, across the street from a sheet metal business with a chain link fence. The green-front restaurant sat in the heart of the Heights. He had only stopped there himself on occasional police business. There was a clothing store, a music shop, a beauty shop, a grocery, and the restaurant. Together they made up Pailin Plaza, and Cambodians came to it to shop, to socialize,
to
keep a sense of their identity in a strange land. Sam had never been to Pailin Province, the emerald-mining center that the shop was named after.
Every so often, a young man or woman would walk into a place like the Pailin Plaza and find an old friend, an old cousin long since given up for dead. Sam had already made his search, however. He had made dozens of trips from the refugee camps back into Cambodia to guide families past the traps and the bandits. Sometimes his trips took him back to his home city of Battambang, where his stucco house sat without a roof, looking like a scorched ghost. He unearthed his mother’s jewelry in his back yard, but none of his trips found him any of the relatives or friends he feared were dead.
The refugee camps themselves were no better. Sambath had witnessed a thousand reunions, but none involving him. Everyone he ever loved had vanished. It seemed as though he too had died.
In America, he was reborn.
Mrs. Chang’s place of employment sat like a small, unpolished jewel in the middle of the plaza. Like an emerald, as the bright green shades suggested. Maybe he would find someone there who knew where Khem lived. Not that Khem would be there now, if he had anything to hide from the police. Try Bangor or Stockton.
Inside, most of the tables were occupied with Saturday customers, mostly Asians. In a corner sat an American couple; a plaster
apsara
hung on the wall above their heads. In the center of the same wall hung a color photo of Angkor Wat, the great temple where the heavenly
apsaras
danced a thousand years ago. The curtains filtered the sunlight and cast a pale green glow into the dining area.
The place smelled of fried beef, onions, and cigarette smoke. Sam hadn’t eaten food in his home country’s style for months. Well, even cops have to eat, and here I am. A ceiling fan stirred the air like a lazy cook stirring soup. Tape-recorded Cambodian voices came out of a speaker, sounding like western rock singers.
The language was Khmer, but he couldn’t make out the lyrics. The style was half eastern, half western. Were these singers from before the civil war?
Before the slaughter in the villages and the rice fields?
A woman began to sing a solo, and he remembered his sister Sarapon. He’d been ten when he heard his sister on the radio as she sang the most beautiful ballads. His heart ached now at the memory of her, at the memory of his parents. That was the reason he’d walked away from his culture. There was so much pain in the memories.
A bald man in his late forties came to the table and wiped it clean, then left and returned with a steel pot of tea and a porcelain cup. Perspiration showed faintly under his arms.
The manager, apparently.
Sam picked up a menu. “Sir,” he said, “I am trying to find someone named Khem. I don’t know his last name. Comes here often, I think.” He filled in the description.
“I don’t have time to talk now.
Too many customers.”
And he was gone.
Might as well look at the menu.
He ordered a dish with thin strips of pork and beef, diced green onion, bamboo shoots and cilantro.
And of course a plate of rice.
His table had a bottle of Vietnamese soy sauce and two bottles of red chili peppers.
Little ones, Thai chilis, maybe an inch long, packing the power of a .22-caliber bullet.
He asked the waitress the same question. She wore a green blouse, and a yellow ribbon held her hair back. “Yes, I know several Khems,” she said. “Do you mean the man who’s been talking about that Cambodian landlord?”
“Exactly,” he said. “He was here?”
“Not in the last couple of days. Maybe he’s through spreading his lies about that landlord. Isn’t it a shame? I don’t believe him about the poor man, and now he’s dead.”