“I called the cops!” Benito shouted. “The cops are on their way.”
Mai-Nu squirmed out of the third man’s grasp and struck him hard in the face.
The man seemed mystified.
“But I love you,” he said.
Mai-Nu hit him again.
The other two men turned toward Benito.
“The cops are coming,” he repeated.
One of them said something that Benito could not understand. The other said, “We must leave,” in clear English.
“Not without Mai-Nu,” the third man said.
Mai-Nu shoved him hard and he nearly fell off the steps. His companions grabbed his shoulders and spoke rapidly to him as they dragged him to the van parked directly in front of Mai-Nu’s house.
“Mai-Nu, Mai-Nu,” he chanted as they stuffed him inside. A moment later they were driving off.
Mai-Nu watched them go, her hands clenched so tightly that her fingernails dug ugly half-moons into her palms.
Benito rested a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
Mai-Nu spun violently toward him.
“Yes, I am okay.”
Benito was startled by her anger and took a step backward. Mai-Nu saw the hurt expression in his face and reached for him.
“Benito, Benito,” she chanted. “You were so brave.”
She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. He could feel her exquisite skin beneath the wet nightshirt, could feel her breasts flatten against his chest.
“You are my very good friend,” Mai-Nu said as she kissed his ear and his cheek. “My very good friend.”
She released him and smiled so brightly, Benito put his hand on his heart, afraid that it had stopped beating.
“Are you all right?” Mai-Nu asked him.
Benito nodded his head.
“You are sure?”
Benito nodded again. After a moment, he found enough breath to ask, “Who were those men?”
“They are from the Kue clan.”
“You know them?”
“Yes.”
“What were they doing here? Why did they try to kidnap you?”
“It is called ‘marriage by capture.’”
“What?”
“It is a Hmong custom. If a woman spends three days in a man’s home, even if there is no physical contact between them, she must marry him as long as he can pay the bride price set by her family.”
“By your uncle.”
“It is becoming rare in America, but my uncle is desperate.”
“That’s crazy. I mean, they gotta know that you would turn them in, right? They have to know you’d have them arrested.”
Mai-Nu did not answer.
“Right?”
“I could not do that to my people. For practicing a custom that has existed for hundreds of years, no, I could not do that.”
“But you wouldn’t marry him?”
“You are very kind, Benito. And very brave. I am in your debt.”
“Mai-Nu, you wouldn’t marry him.”
“I must ask you one more favor.”
“Anything.”
“You must not tell my brother about tonight. You must not tell him about my uncle. I know that he asked you to watch out for me, but you must not tell him anything. The way Cheng is, what he thinks of the old ways, you must not tell him. It would be very bad.”
“Mai-Nu?”
“You must promise.”
“I promise.”
She embraced him. Her lips found the side of his mouth. She said goodnight and returned to her house, locking the door behind her. Benito stood on the sidewalk for a long time, his fingers gently caressing the spot where Mai-Nu had kissed him.
It was a soft, cool night full of wishing stars, unusual for August in Minnesota—a summer evening filled with the promise of autumn—and Benito was terrified that the weather might encourage Mai-Nu to close her windows and lower her shade. As it was, she was dressed in blue Capri pants and a boxy white sweatshirt that revealed nothing of the body beneath. She was sitting on her front stoop, her back against the door, sipping vodka and orange juice.
Benito called to her from the sidewalk.
“¿Qué pasa, chica?”
he said.
“¿Como te va?”
“Very well, thank you,” Mai-Nu replied, and patted the space next to her. Benito sat down.
“My Spanish is improving,” she said.
“Sí.
I heard from a college today,” Benito said, just to be saying something. “Minnesota State wants me to come down to Mankato and look at their campus.”
Mai-Nu hugged Benito’s arm and a jolt of electricity surged through his body.
“You will go far, I know you will,” she told him.
“I need to get my scores up. I took a practice ACT test and only got a nineteen. That’s borderline.”
“It is hard, I know.”
“Did you take the ACT?”
“Yes.”
“How’d you do?”
“Thirty-one.”
Benito’s eyes widened in respect. Thirty-one put Mai-Nu in the top five percent in the country.
“I have always done well with tests,” she told him.
Benito didn’t know what to say to that so he said nothing. They sat together in silence, Mai-Nu still holding Benito’s arm. She released it only when a Honda Accord slowed to a stop directly in front of them. Its lights flicked off, the engine was silenced. The man who stepped out of the vehicle was the largest Asian Benito had ever seen, nearly six feet tall. His jaw was square, his eyes unblinking—a military man, Benito decided. He smiled at Mai-Nu with a stern kindliness.
“You do not have a cordial word for your uncle?” he said.
“Why are you here?” Mai-Nu asked.
“We have much to talk about.”
Benito started to rise. Mai-Nu reached for him, but Benito pulled his arm away.
“It is a private matter,” he said, and moved to his own stoop. It was only a dozen steps away; he didn’t figure to miss much.
“Did you send those assholes last night?” Mai-Nu asked.
“Mai-Nu, your language—”
“Screw my language,” she said, and took a long pull of her drink.
Pa Chou’s eyes became narrow slits. His voice was suddenly cold and hard.
“The way you drink,” he said. “The way you talk. What has become of you?”
“I am angry, Pa Chou. Do you blame me?”
Pa Chou glanced around the street. Seeing Benito pretending not to listen, he said, “Let us go inside.”
“Fine,” said Mai-Nu. She stood and went into her house. Pa Chou followed. Benito gave them a head start, then dashed into his own house. His mother asked him what he was doing and he said he was going to his room to listen to music. Once there he stared intently through Mai-Nu’s window, but could see neither her nor her uncle. Yet he could hear them. They spoke their native language. Benito did not have to understand their words to know they were angry.
He sat and listened for what seemed like a long time. Then he heard a distinct sound of skin slapping skin violently, followed by Mai-Nu falling into her living room. Pa Chou was there in an instant. He heaved her up by her arms, shook her like a doll, and slapped her again with the back of his hand. Mai-Nu shouted at him and Pa Chou hit her again. Mai-Nu fell out of sight and Pa Chou followed. There were more shouts and more slapping sounds. Finally, Pa Chou strode purposely across the living room to the front door. He shouted something at Mai-Nu over his shoulder and left the house. Mai-Nu walked slowly into her living room and collapsed to her knees, leaning against the sofa. She covered her face with her arms and wept.
Benito closed his eyes and braced himself with both hands against the bureau. Something in his stomach flipped and flopped and tried to escape through his throat, but he choked it down. A blinding rage burned at the edge of his eyelids until teardrops formed. He smashed his fist against the side of the bureau, then shook the pain out of his hand.
It was a family matter, he told himself. It had nothing to do with him.
But he could tell Cheng Song about it.
He could do that.
The headline of the
St. Paul Pioneer Press
four days later read:
Killing underscores problems in growing Hmong community.
The story suggested that the murder of Pa Chou Song and the subsequent arrest of Cheng Song by St. Paul police officers was an indication of how difficult it is for many in the Hmong community to assimilate to American culture. But that is not what distressed Benito. It was the photograph of Pa Chou that the paper printed—a decidedly small man in his late forties standing next to the doorway of a Hmong restaurant.
Benito was confused. He rushed to Mai-Nu’s house and knocked on her door.
“Who is it?” she called.
“Benito Hernandez,” he answered through the screen door.
“Come in. Sit down. I will be there in a minute.”
Benito entered the house and found a seat on the rust-colored sofa. There was a law book on the coffee table. Benito glanced at the spine—
Minnesota Statutes 2005.
He opened it to the page held by a bookmark. A passage had been highlighted in yellow.
524.2-803 Effect of homicide on instate succession,wills,
joint assets, life insurance, and beneficiary designations.
(a) A surviving spouse, heir, or devisee who feloniously
and intentionally kills the decedent is not entitled to any
benefits under the will…Property appointed by the will
of the decedent to or for the benefit of the killer passes as
if the killer had predeceased the decedent.
Benito closed the book and returned it to the table when Mai-Nu entered the room. He stood to greet her. She appeared more radiant than at any time since he had known her. Her smile seemed like a gift to the world.
Mai-Nu was tying a white silk scarf around her head. She said, “It is traditional to wear a white headband when one is in mourning.”
“Mourning for your uncle,” Benito said.
“And my brother.”
Benito was standing in front of her now, clutching the newspaper.
“Thank you for thinking of me,” Mai-Nu gestured at the paper, “but I have already read it.”
Benito showed her the photograph.
“This is your uncle?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Pa Chou Song?”
“Yes, of course.”
“It is not the man who came here that day. The man who beat you.”
“You saw him beat me?”
“I saw—”
“Did you, Benito?”
Benito glanced at the open window and back at Mai-Nu.
“I saw,” he said.
“And you told my brother?”
“I know now that you wanted me to tell Cheng what I saw.”
“Did I?”
Benito nodded.
“There is no evidence of that.”
“Evidence?”
“Did I tell you to go to my brother?”
“No.”
“Did I tell you not to speak to my brother?”
“Yes.”
“That is the evidence that the court will hear, should you go to court.”
“I don’t understand.”
Mai-Nu brushed past Benito and retrieved the law book from the coffee table. She hugged it to her breasts.
“In Laos, women are expected to submit,” she said. “Submit to their husbands, submit to their fathers, submit to their uncles. Not here. Here we are equal. Here we are protected by the law. I love America.”
“Who was the man who came here that night?”
“A friend, Benito. Like you.”
She reached out and gently stroked Benito’s cheek.
“You must go now,” she said.
A few minutes later, Benito returned to his bedroom. Dark and menacing storm clouds were rolling in from the northwest, laying siege to the sun and casting the world half in shadow. Mai-Nu’s lights were on and though it was early morning, he had a good view of her living room.
He did not see her at first, then Mai-Nu appeared. She moved to the window and looked directly at him. She smiled and blew him a kiss. And slowly lowered her shade.
L
loyd B. Jensen’s funeral cortege wasn’t scheduled to leave the State Capitol for an hour, but a throng of thousands already lined University Avenue for a glimpse as it passed. The November sun wasn’t doing much to warm them so they’d crowded together instinctively, three deep, all the way to the police cordon at Rice Street. It gave them a huddled-masses look appropriate to the occasion. A cynic might say that in this year of our Lord 1934, anybody who advocated the redistribution of wealth could draw a crowd, even if he was dead. As for me, I voted for him once, and I’d have done it again if the iron crab hadn’t taken him down. I wasn’t there to freeze my toes for a peek at his corpse though. I opened the door of The Criterion. It was warm inside, a few bar flies were gathered around their Manhattans, and somewhere in the murk a client was waiting.
Margaret Thornton phoned me after someone steered her to Slap Madigan, who’d recommended my services. The meeting place was my suggestion, but as soon as I laid eyes on her I could see it was a mistake. She wasn’t the kind of woman a man should rendezvous with at a nightclub in mid-afternoon. She said I’d recognize her by the black hat she was wearing, and there she was in a corner booth, veil pinned back over one ear. The rest of her outfit, cloth coat, a glimpse of skirt before I sat down, echoed the darkness of the place as well. That didn’t strike me as a good sign a year after her husband’s murder, but she looked fine in widow’s weeds. Her face might have hardened a bit since it graced the front pages, but there was still a girlish softness about her.
I introduced myself. She nodded nervously. She had raven-colored hair, pale, luminous skin, and a few freckles around her nose that were barely visible in the dim light. Her slender, ringless fingers fidgeted on the table. One of them was chewed to the quick. I ordered a beer, and she turned down a refill on the Presbyterian she’d been nursing. I felt like a heel for arriving stylishly late. The poor kid had probably never been in a joint like this before, at least not alone.
I was in my mid-thirties then, she was about ten years younger, so these weren’t fatherly feelings I was having, but I didn’t stop to analyze them at the time. It wouldn’t have changed anything anyway. We made some small talk. She told me she was Thornton nee Gallagher, a St. Agnes graduate. You can bet that tugged at my heart strings. In fact, it put a face to the premier fantasy in my rich array of hooch-induced fancies: Catholic school girls in Little Bo-Peep shoes, white knee socks, and those short plaid skirts they wear for God only knows what perverse reason. When I was a lad my pals and I would sometimes get a peek of alabaster thigh as they walked away. Of course, if we caught some Protestant or God forbid a sheeny doing the same, the gauntlet went down.