River of Glass Read online

  “She think rich American man come take her away. Always she pray for rich American boyfriend.”

  “Prayers the Devil answers,” I said.

  She cocked her head, quirked an eyebrow.

  “It’s an Appalachian saying. Like a monkey’s paw. You get what you asked for, but in a bad way. Like you pray for a thousand dollars, but then your husband dies in an accident and the insurance payout is a thousand dollars.” I pushed my plate away. Nothing left but a couple of lettuce leaves and a few flakes of fish. “Okay, let’s go talk to some more folks. If you’re finished.”

  Khanh laid her silverware neatly across her still-full plate. “I finish.”

  Tuyet

  He made love as if they were in a hotel bed in Ho Chi Minh City and not in a walled compound where she’d been beaten, raped, and starved for days on end. Lying on his side, gazing at her across the pillows, he ran the tips of his fingers across her cheek, swept a few strands of hair away from her face.

  She smiled to hide the churning in her stomach and forced the tension from her body, deep breaths in and out, forced her limbs into a post-coital lassitude she didn’t feel. Might not ever feel again.

  “So beautiful,” he said in Vietnamese. “Remember that day in the park?”

  A tiny nod. They had strolled through the gardens hand in hand, then made love behind a topiary tiger. “You bought me quail eggs in rice paper. Then we walked on the Thu Thiem Bridge. We dropped petals into the water.”

  He had been another man then. A better man. She could still feel the warmth of his lips against hers, the way his gaze softened when he looked into her face. Surely, it had not all been a lie.

  Not all.

  She said, “I thought we were happy. I thought I made you happy.”

  “You did.” He ran a thumb across her lips. “You used to shine.”

  “I shine for you. Only for you.”

  She drew in a long breath and summoned images of her mother, her grandmother, the sweet drink her mother made from heart leaves and sugar, even the little monkey she had doted on as a child. Everyone and everything she’d ever loved. She opened her heart to them and poured that love out through her eyes. As if it were for him, for him alone.

  It was beyond belief that she should feel these things for him, after all he’d done, after all he’d allowed to be done to her. Beyond belief that she would want to be his woman. But she did want it, more than anything, because to be his was not to be theirs. To be his was to be safe from the man with the manticore tattoo.

  “You think you’re special?” He propped himself up on one elbow, studying her face. “Is that it?”

  “I want to be your woman,” she said softly. “That’s all. You said I made you happy. Why should you share with strangers? With him?”

  He rolled onto his back, covered his eyes with his forearm. “You have to be punished. You know that. Karlo is waiting.”

  Her breath caught, but her voice, when she spoke, was strong. “I know. But after.”

  She laid a gentle hand on his chest. No lower. If she reached beneath the sheets, he would know she was trying to control him.

  “If you live,” he said at last. There was something in his voice, a sadness that chilled her bones and froze the smile on her face. “If you live, then maybe.”

  14

  There was a missed call from Beatrice on my cell phone. I called her back from the Silverado, and she answered in a voice as warm and sweet as fresh-baked blackberry cobbler. “Got something for you, darlin’. How do you want it?”

  “Can you fax it to my office?”

  “It’ll be there in five. Just don’t forget about the meatloaf.”

  We stopped at the office to pick up the fax. Seven pages, small print. It would take days to get through it. I faxed a copy to Jay’s home computer so he and Eric could narrow the field and pass the likely prospects on to me.

  The new-message light on the answering machine was flashing. While Khanh stood in the doorway shifting from foot to foot, I punched the Play button. A man’s thin voice stammered a story about a cheating spouse. I could have used the money, but the resignation on Khanh’s face made me hesitate.

  My father had failed her. Hell, life had failed her. Not wanting to be one more letdown on a long list of letdowns, I suppressed a sigh and called back to refer him to another agency.

  Khanh gave me a tentative smile. “You good man. What now? Make more plan?”

  “I don’t know enough to make a plan,” I said. “All I know to do is cast a wide net and hope we catch something.”

  I stopped at the ATM and took out three hundred dollars in twenties. Then, with Khanh at my heels, I spent the afternoon questioning hookers, pimps, and self-styled businessmen on the wrong side of the law. Some I’d met when I was in vice, and some I’d cultivated after I went private.

  The message I left was always the same: An Amerasian guy and the man in this picture kidnapped the girl in this other picture. Help us find her, and we’ll make it worth your while.

  It was another cool, wet week, and we spent the better part of it dripping our way from one informant to the next. I bought Khanh an umbrella, and when the rain slanted in from the sides, found her a plastic poncho. Titans blue, with the team logo on the front. I exchanged my father’s leather jacket for an Australian stockman’s duster and a waterproof Outback hat with a broad brim. We made two more visits to the ATM, spreading around a chunk of my diminishing savings, twenty dollars at a time.

  No one knew the man with the manticore tattoo. Their denials were sincere. No shifting gazes, no nervous tics. He might have been a manticore himself, more myth than man.

  I asked about Helix too, with better luck. He had a reputation as a player, strictly minor league until about six months ago, when he’d stashed two high-end call girls in an uptown penthouse. He still kept his third-string girls in a cheap rent-by-the-month hotel, but he’d refurbished an old boarding house in East Nashville for his second string, each room decorated to facilitate a different fantasy. He was making a play for the high rollers, and if they wanted an Asian woman, he would either have one in his stable or find a way to come up with one.

  It sounded promising, but if he had a partner, Amerasian or otherwise, either no one knew, or no one was willing to talk about it.

  On Tuesday afternoon, the rain subsided into a fine mist that silvered Khanh’s hair in the light. As we climbed into the truck to warm up and dry out, she wiped the rain out of her eyes and said, “Why not go Helix house, see if Tuyet there?”

  “It’s on the list.” I punched the heater on. “But right now nothing points to him. Nothing concrete.”

  “Wish we check anyway. Make sure.”

  “After we find the guy with the tattoo. The manticore. I want some leverage before I talk to Helix.”

  “Bird in hand,” she said, tilting the vent up to warm her face. “Father say that too.”

  I nodded, though I wasn’t sure which was the bird—the one we knew was involved but couldn’t find, or the one we could find but had no evidence against.

  There were two more bombings that week, both meth houses, and by Thursday, For Justice T-shirts and bumper stickers had begun to crop up around town. A letter to the editor in the Tennessean called the bomber an American hero, filling a void left by an impotent law enforcement system. A guy selling shirts on lower broad waved one at us as we passed. It said: Justice: It’s a Blast!

  Another showed a bald man in white holding a burning stick of dynamite: Mr. Clean—Keeping Nashville free from scum.

  While Khanh and I worked our way through the city’s seediest pawn shops and strip clubs, Jay and Eric pinned posters on community bulletin boards across the city. Then they made their way down Beatrice’s DMV list, searching without luck for our Good Samaritan.

  By Friday, Khanh and I had run out of things to say to each other. My feet hurt, and I wanted a hot shower and dry clothes. I wanted to find the tattooed man, too, but wanting something d
idn’t mean you got it. As my mother used to say, People in Hell want ice water.

  “One more place,” I said, pulling into the parking lot of a dingy pink shoebox bar with peeling paint and a neon sign gone dim on one side. Khanh followed me to the front door, and when I opened it, a cloud of cigarette smoke rolled out into the wet night like a spume of volcanic ash. “I know a hooker used to work out of here, street name Amber. She used to get around, keep her ears open. If she’s not here, we’ll call it a day.”

  But she was, sitting alone at a table near the front door, where customers would see her when they came in and again when they left. She looked older than I remembered. Bottle-blonde hair, still damp from the rain. Heavy makeup that didn’t quite hide the sores on her hollow cheeks. Thick eyeliner, false lashes, flame red lipstick over blistered lips. She wore a red suede miniskirt and a black lace blouse with a red bra underneath. Black heels and white lace stockings held up by garters. One leg swung up and down beneath the table, dissipating nervous energy.

  She looked up at me and blinked. Then recognition dawned in her eyes, and her mouth stretched to reveal a jumble of stained and rotting teeth. Meth mouth.

  “Hey, baby.” Her voice was husky, an emphysema hack. “Ain’t seen you around in a while. Heard you was off the job.”

  “Gone private.” I pulled a chair out from the table for Khanh and slid into the one beside Amber. A bored-looking waitress took our orders and came back with a pair of Budweisers for me and a Kirin for Khanh. I pushed one of the Buds toward Amber and kept the other.

  Her chipped nails picked at the skin of her forearms, where a patch of scaly green skin said she’d been mainlining krocodil. Known as a poor man’s heroine, the Russian drug was made from codeine, gasoline, paint thinner, and other toxins, and was known for rotting the user’s body from the inside.

  Amber was walking dead. She just didn’t know it yet.

  Or maybe she did.

  She squinted at me through the cigarette haze. Didn’t flinch when I touched the skin beneath her eye, where there was a bruise too dark for the makeup to hide.

  I said, “Jerome do this to you?”

  She waved my hand away. “Could be. Or maybe some john. All the same, you know? What brings you here, baby? Slumming?”

  I showed her both pictures and ran down the story, and when I’d finished, she sat back in her chair, scratching at her cheeks like she had bugs under the skin. “I seen that guy around.”

  “He a john?”

  “Maybe, but I never did him. Not his type, I guess. And I’m not sorry, either. Dude got crazy eyes. Mean, you know?”

  “Where can I find him?”

  She shifted in her seat, breasts pushed out, legs spread. “Little somethin’ to make it worth my while?”

  I gave her a twenty from my new wallet.

  “Big spender,” she said, and stuffed it into a pocket sewn inside the waistband of her skirt.

  “It’s pretty generous, considering you haven’t actually told me anything. If what you’ve got pans out, I’ll bring you another one.”

  “I seen him at Ray Salazar’s place. You know, down off Broad. Adult videos, sex toys, peep booths in the back. I was givin’ a little show, and this guy comes in. I remember on account of the tattoo.”

  “He watched your show?”

  “For a while. He jerked off, and then he laughed this real mean laugh and called me some names in another language and got up and left.”

  “What other language?”

  She shrugged. “It wasn’t Spanish or French. Or Chink or German. He sounded kind of like Dracula.”

  “Then how did you know he was calling you names?”

  “The look on his face, he sure as hell wasn’t calling me sweetheart.” She scratched at her arm, then held up a bloody fingernail and grimaced. “This guy targets working girls? Should I be worried?”

  “We don’t know enough to tell, but I’d say it’s just as well for you you’re not his type.”

  The waitress drifted by, and I paid for the drinks. Then Amber walked out with us so anyone watching would think I’d paid for services rather than information. We stood under a leaky awning and waited fruitlessly for the drizzle to dissipate. “Need a ride?” I said, finally. “Drive you to rehab.”

  She barked a laugh. “Been there, done that. Didn’t take. Besides, I still gotta bring in another couple hundred or Jerome’ll—” She stopped, looked into my face. “I forgot what a Boy Scout you are. You get any redder, you’re gonna bust a vessel.”

  I drew in a calming breath, blew it out. The Zen detective. “He’ll kill you one of these days. If the kroc doesn’t get you first.”

  “No great loss. Might be a relief, I guess. But just as likely he’ll get himself offed.”

  “And then?”

  “There’s always another Jerome. A girl’s got to have somebody watchin’ out for her.”

  “He’s watching out for you, all right. He’ll watch you right into the boneyard.”

  For a moment, anger cleared the glaze from her eyes. “Two years, I don’t see you. Now you wanna come here and get all up in my business? Fuck that. Fuck rehab. And fuck you.”

  Khanh watched her go, then looked at me and said, “She like you wallet. But not so crazy about you.”

  15

  Ray Salazar’s Adult Emporium was wedged between a comic book store and a barbershop. There was a narrow alley beside it and a poor excuse for a parking lot behind. The asphalt had buckled, and weeds grew up through the cracks. The security light came on when I pulled in and parked between Salazar’s junker and a burgundy Impala. Ours were the only vehicles in the lot.

  Salazar carried erotic novels, movies, and sex toys, but video was his stock-in-trade. He sold commercial titles and a lowbudget porn series he filmed in his basement. He’d done time a few years back for trading in snuff films, but now he swore he was out of the death business.

  I turned toward Khanh. “You sure you don’t want to wait in the truck? Could be embarrassing.”

  “Not care embarrassing.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  We went through the alley and around to the front door. I pushed it open, and when the bell rang, Salazar, who was ringing up a stack of DVDs for a blushing middle-aged couple, looked up.

  At first I thought he was wearing a dirty turban. Then I got closer and realized what I’d thought was a turban was a tattoo. A realistic depiction of a rattlesnake.

  “What have you done to your head?” I asked.

  He stroked his bald head. “You like it?”

  “What’s not to like?”

  The couple stared fixedly at the counter. The woman tugged at the man’s sleeve. Salazar tucked the DVDs and receipt into a plain plastic bag and handed it to the man, who clutched it to his chest with one hand and pushed the woman out the door with the other.

  Salazar shook his head and grinned in my direction. “First-timers,” he said, and gave his head an affectionate pat. “I can see you’re wondering about the tat. This here’s a symbol of danger, mystery, and virility. Which is me, to a T.”

  “Funny, I never thought of rattlers as particularly virile.”

  “The serpent, man. You don’t really think God got all bent out of shape over an apple? Hell, no. That was all about sex.” He winked at Khanh. “What can I do for you two? I know you ain’t with the police no more, so I’m guessin’ this visit is personal?” “Not exactly. I’m on the private payroll these days. Khanh is my . . . client. Her daughter’s missing.”

  His eyes went wary. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  “Not you. But maybe someone you know. Someone who’s into Asian women, likes to play rough. He’s killed at least one girl we know of.”

  “I don’t deal in snuff films no more, man. And even when I was, it was strictly trade. I was never on the production side.”

  “But somebody might ask to buy one. Or sell one. And if they do, maybe you could give me a call.”

 
He rubbed his head absently, thinking it over. “What’re you offering? Now that you’re on the private payroll?”

  “Depends on what you deliver.”

  “Ballpark.”

  I looked at Khanh. Imagined my savings as a dwindling pile of dollar bills in a Scrooge McDuck bank vault. A tiny pile, getting smaller by the minute. “Two hundred if you give us something that pans out.”

  “Shit. I seen rewards for dogs higher than that. Last week, I seen a thousand dollars for a lost Chihuahua.”

  “I give you a thousand dollars, I’ll have to go live in a refrigerator box.”

  “Five hundred, then.”

  “Three hundred.”

  “Four.”

  “Three fifty, but only if we find her.”

  “Done.”

  I doled out another card and gave him a twenty for his time, which he tucked into his shirt pocket. Then I showed him Tuyet’s picture and the drawing of the man with the tattoo. “Ever seen either of these people?”

  He squinted at both pictures. “The girl, no. The guy . . .”

  “He’s been in here?”

  “Yeah, I remember him. Who could forget that ink?” He jerked a thumb toward the back. “We got to talkin’, and turns out we use the same artist.” He gave his head a fond pat. “Soon’s I saw it, I figured as much. My guy got a distinctive style, you know? Anyways, this guy Ka . . . uh, Karl, he special ordered a video, so there’s a good chance I have his name and address on file.”

  “You remember the video?”

  “Something about prisoners of war, I think. Blondes with big bazongas and bad accents wallowing in the mud with rifles.” He came around the counter and pointed to a stained coffeemaker against one wall. “Be right back. Help yourself to coffee—if you like it strong and black.”

  I took a pass on the coffee but glanced around at the wares. Videos to the left, books along the back wall, fetish gear to the right, and blowup dolls and sex toys in the center aisles. While Khanh glared at the floor, I picked up a pink rubber vibrator that looked like a squid. Put it down again.