"Yes, sir. Woulda called sooner, but it took me two days to get back from the evacuation. Me and my girlfriend went to Jackson, Mississippi. Man, traffic was a bear, bumper-to-bumper the whole way.”
“So I heard. What can you tell me about the woman?”
“Didn’t look much like the one in the sketch. She wore sunglasses and her hair was shorter, light brown, but I’m pretty sure she stayed here. The thing about the tat on her ankle? One morning when she was having coffee in the breakfast room, I noticed the tat on her ankle.”
“Easy to see why. You look like you’re a tat connoisseur.”
Rasheed beamed. “Got a few, for sure. You want her name?”
“I do. Her name and anything else you can tell me about her.”
“She registered as June Carson on July 17th, stayed here a week, checked out on the 24th.” Rasheed shrugged. “That’s about it.”
Frank liked the dates. June Carson had checked out the day Tex Conroy was shot in City Park, the day after the Peterson murder.
“Did she have a car?”
“We got no parking on the premises, you know, so we don’t ask our guests for plate numbers. But I saw her drive past the Inn one day.”
“Can you tell me the make and model? Even the color would help.”
“Looked like a Toyota Corolla. Maroon. Couldn’t tell you the year.”
“Great, that’s a big help. Anything else distinctive about her?”
“Not really. She kept to herself. Only time we spoke was when she checked in and out.”
“Did she sound like she was from here? Or somewhere else?”
“Couldn’t say for sure. Didn't seem like she was from around here, but she didn’t have no twangy Texas accent or nothing.” Rasheed gazed at him expectantly.
Clearly, Rasheed had been following the Peterson and Conroy cases on the news. By now it was public knowledge that Tex Conroy was from Texas. “Thanks for the tip, Mr. Cooper. I’ll be in touch.”
Buoyed by the lead, he left the Sunshine Inn. Now he had a name. It might be fake, but it was better than nothing. Was June Carson the woman on the security video? That woman had a tat on her ankle and so did June Carson. Coincidence? He didn’t think so.
Now all he had to do was find her. And if June Carson turned out to be Natalie Brixton, he'd finally get some answers.
NATALIE
2000 Paris
For my date with Thu Phan I prepared with great care.
I was certain he was my father.
Accepting him as a client brought great emotional turmoil and conflicted feelings. Part of me felt ashamed of myself for becoming a prostitute, a high-class escort to be sure, but still a woman paid to have sex with men. Another part of me felt ashamed that my father paid women for sex. Yet another part of me felt enormous curiosity. Veneration of Ancestors was now second nature to me. I wanted to meet him and see what he was like. Still another part of me wanted to confront the man who had abandoned us.
But as I prepared for our date my dominant emotion was fear. I was afraid he would recognize me, equally afraid that he wouldn’t. Most of all, I was afraid I would not find the courage to confront him and tell him I was the daughter he had forsaken so many years ago.
Using the makeup tricks I had learned, I emphasized my Asian eyes with eyeliner and glittery eye shadow. I brushed my long black hair until it gleamed. Then I chose my outfit, an elegant ankle-length silk dress with red dragons embossed on a black background. A slit on one side showed off my leg. I put on my shiny black spike-heels, a dab of jasmine perfume and studied myself in the mirror. Then I put on my favorite earrings, the ones shaped like seagulls. The birds would protect me. Or so I hoped.
To give myself courage, I took out Mom's picture and I chanted my TKD oath.
I shall be a champion of freedom and justice
.
Three times I chanted it.
_____
When the taxi stopped in front of Thu Phan’s hotel on the Champs-Élysées, my palms were sweaty and my heart was racing. Not even my TKD focus could calm me. But I strode into the lobby, head held high, using the smooth confident stride Madame had taught me.
As instructed, I went to an in-house phone and dialed Thu Phan’s room number.
“Bon soir. C’est tu, Laura Lin?”
Goosebumps rose on my arms at the sound of his low-pitched voice and melodic French, using the familiar
tu
, not the more formal
vous
.
“Oui,” I said. “C’est tu, Monsieur Phan?”
“It is,” he said in English. “You have a lovely voice and a charming accent, Laura Lin. Please come up so we can have a drink and get to know each other before we go out for dinner.”
Two minutes later I knocked on his door, aching with anticipation but also filled with dread. I had no idea how this night would end. The door opened and my father appeared. I thought my heart would stop.
He was very handsome, glossy black hair swept back from a high forehead, full lips and dark-brown Asian eyes. He surveyed me from head to toe and smiled, a generous smile that exposed gleaming white teeth. “Come in, Laura. You are every bit as beautiful as Lin said you would be.”
I said nothing. I hated being weighed and measured against some sort of beauty yardstick. He gestured at a cozy loveseat and I sank onto it, grateful I didn’t have to stand. My legs were shaking. I barely noticed my surroundings. My entire being was focused on my father. He was tall and slender, moving with easy grace in his bare feet. He wore tailored black slacks and a ruffled dress shirt with gold cufflinks.
“May I get you a cocktail?” he said. “A glass of wine?”
“A glass of wine, thank you.” I smiled. “I’m a little bit nervous.” My usual opener to put the client at ease. Tonight it was for me. I was terrified.
“Don’t be nervous, Laura Lin. I can tell that we will have a lovely time.”
I said nothing.
A lovely time? Not after you hear my big surprise.
He filled two glasses from a bottle of chilled white wine, set them on the Italian-marble table in front of the loveseat and sat beside me.
“I was told you live in New York,” I said. “That must be exciting.”
“Paris is just as exciting and much more beautiful. I was born here.”
My heart did flip-flops inside my chest. “How interesting! I would love to hear about it. Did your parents always live in Paris?” Even as I said this my mind was estimating his age. Mom would have been forty this year, and my father was four years older than she was. This meant Thu Phan was forty-four. Twice my age. I tried not to think about that.
“My father's family had to flee Vietnam in the 1950s. Because of the political upheavals. They settled in Paris. He met my mother here.”
“Is your mother also Vietnamese?” I knew she wasn't, but I wanted to learn everything I could about my heritage.
“No, French. She died years ago. But enough about me. I understand that you also have Asian ancestors. Tell me about your parents, Laura Lin.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Here was an opening as big as the Empire State Building, but it was too soon. I wanted to know more about my father before I delivered my surprise. If I found the courage to do it.
“Later, perhaps. I'd love to hear about your work. Are you a professor at an important university?” By now I knew all the tricks: Flatter a man and he will tell you all about himself, the good parts anyway.
He waved a dismissive hand. “Teaching does not interest me. I own real estate in Manhattan, apartment buildings and retail stores. It took years of hard work to make them pay off, but now my business does quite well." He looked disgustingly pleased with himself. "So I get to travel and see the world.”
And spend obscene amounts of money on call girls
.
“Have you ever been to Vietnam?”
“No." He moved closer on the love seat, close enough for me to smell his spicy aftershave lotion, close enough for him to put his hand on my thigh. “You have beautiful eyes and skin, Laura. How did you happen to begin working for The Service?”
“I needed money.” That was the truth. Never mind why I needed it.
He nodded. “You seem quite young. That is why I asked.”
“I’m twenty-two.” I dug my fingernails into my palms. “I was born on April 15, 1978.”
But this announcement of my birth date did not bring the response I had hoped. My father looked puzzled for a moment, then took my hand and ran his fingers down my forearm. “Would you like to make whoopee before we go out for dinner, Laura Lin?”
I sat there, stunned, and my stomach clenched in a painful knot. I had not expected his request to come so soon, and his ignorance of my birth date, willful or not, hurt me deeply. A seedling of anger took root inside me.
“My name isn’t Laura. My name is Natalie.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand. What has this to do with anything?”
“It has to do with Jeanette Brixton.”
A shocked look rippled over his face. “Jeanette? I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do. I am Natalie Brixton, Jeanette’s daughter.”
I don’t know what I expected. I guess I wanted him to embrace me and tell me how thrilled he was to have found his long lost daughter. But he sprang to his feet, hands fisted at his sides, and glared at me. “You are not. Why do you pretend to be someone you are not?”
My cheeks flamed with anger. “Why are you using an escort service?”
His Asian eyes narrowed to slits. “This is not what I paid for, to have some slut berate me.”
“Who are you to call me a slut?” I shouted, unable to keep my voice low and well-modulated as Madame had taught me. “You pay women half your age for sex. You abandoned me when I was two, and you never paid my mother a dime for my support.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.” He pointed to the door. “Get out.”
Tears flooded my eyes. Once again my father was casting me aside just as he had twenty years ago. I rose and faced him. In my spike heels I was almost as tall as he was. It took all my willpower not to spit in his face. “You think women are your playthings? Do you know what your wife had to do to support herself and her child?
Your
child?”
Something flickered in his eyes and quickly disappeared. His implacable gaze remained locked on mine, but a muscle jumped in his jaw, a telltale sign of his discomfort.
“My mother was a prostitute. That’s what your ex-wife had to do to survive. She had no money and no skills.” I smiled, not my charming smile, the smile I used to convey displeasure and defiance. “Her brother told me she was a great dancer, but not great enough to get a job that would support us.”
He stalked to an antique writing desk and picked up his wallet. “How much do you want? Name your price.”
If I had been holding a gun in my hands I would have shot him.
Fear spilled down my spine like ice water. Not for my physical safety. Thanks to my TKD skills, I felt confident that I could disable most men. It was the Vietnamese Ancestor gods I feared. This man was my father. If I killed him, the angry Ancestor spirits would haunt me forever, seeking to avenge my father’s violent death, as I sought to avenge my mother’s.
I had no gun, of course. I had only words. But words are also powerful.
“Name my price? No price that you could ever pay, Mr. Thu Phan. You never cared about me. If you cared about me, you wouldn't have abandoned me. In all the years after you left, twenty years, you never tried to get in touch with me. Not once. Ever.”
“I was working, trying to make a living." He waved a dismissive hand. "But why should I explain? You wouldn’t understand.”
“Don’t you want to know what happened to my mother?”
Clearly annoyed, he said, “Okay, what happened to her?”
The moment of truth. My truth.
“In 1988 we were living in New Orleans. I was ten. Mom worked six nights a week from nine o’clock until whatever time she got home. While she was at work, I stayed in our crummy little apartment. Alone. And then one day she didn’t come home.” Bitter memories swirled in my mind, sharp and clear.
Tears welled in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks.
Thu Phan remained stone-faced. “What happened?”
And I thought:
Why sugarcoat the pill? He’s a grown man. He can take it.
“A policewoman rang the doorbell and told me she was dead.”
His mouth gaped open. “How terrible! You must have been—”
“Don’t give me your fake sympathy!” I wanted to twist the knife and make him feel every bit of the guilt he had avoided for twenty years. “The police found her body in a sleazy hotel room. Naked. In bed. One of her johns punched her and hit her. And strangled her.”
Thu Phan took a deep breath and blew out his cheeks. “I’m sorry. Give me your address. I will send you a check every month.”
“I don’t want your money,” I said coldly.
He looked puzzled. “What do you want then?”
“Is that what you think life is about? Money? You’re rich enough to buy whatever you want. If you want someone to love you ..." I smiled my terrible smile. "To
pretend
to love you, you call The Service and they send you a woman who makes you feel important and provides you with sex. That’s all women are to you, playthings to use and discard when you’re done with them.”
“Natalie,” he said in a low voice.
My heart surged when he said my name, acknowledging at last that I was his daughter.
His shoulders slumped like a deflated balloon. “I’m not like that. I’ve been hurt, too.”
It was a very good thing I did not have a gun. “Don’t try to weasel out of this by saying some woman fucked you and dumped you.”
Seeing the shock in his eyes as I said this was priceless. “Want to know how I spent the rest of my so-called childhood? Living with Mom’s brother and his screwed-up family in Texas. My cousin Randy tried to fuck me, but I wouldn’t let him. So he made his sister give him blowjobs.”
My father gaped at me. “Why didn’t his parents stop him?”
“Because his mother was a drunk and his father was having an affair.” All of a sudden I felt exhausted. My insides were shaking. “I’m leaving now. If you care about me at all, Mr. Thu Phan, you will tell no one about this conversation. You will tell Lin and everyone else at The Service that you were absolutely thrilled with the service provided to you by Laura Lin.”
He had the grace to look shamed at least. “I will do that, of course. I wish you would allow me to send you a check ...” He trailed off when he saw the look on my face.
I grabbed my purse, strode past him and stopped at the door. It took all my willpower not to turn and take one last look at him. Part of me wanted to memorize his face. Another part of me wanted him to hold me and comfort me, the little girl he had abandoned so long ago.
But that would be a mistake, because I knew that what I had said was true. Thu Phan was rich and powerful like the man who murdered my mother. Like many powerful men, my father used women. He might not beat them or kill them, but what he did was just as bad: Use their bodies for sex and dismiss them. These ugly thoughts churned through my mind as I rode the elevator down to the hotel lobby.
When the elevator stopped, I ran to a restroom and vomited into a toilet.