Sifu Shen Lang Rui was buried three days ago. Father—I’ve been calling him that for several days now—said that his teacher was mostly a Buddhist, though he enjoyed going to Catholic churches from time to time. Since he was a Chinese man living in Vietnam, Father blended the two cultures into the funeral.
Following the Vietnamese Buddhist custom, he cleaned and dressed his teacher, placed him in a coffin, and set it up in the living room with lots of incense. White and pale-colored flowers were sent by friends and placed beautifully around the room, to which Mai and I added three dozen white lotus. Mai said our flowers represented complete purification. Father found an eight by ten photograph of Sifu sitting at their dinner table in their condo and placed it on the coffin.
To honor Sifu’s Chinese heritage and customs, he was dressed in black slacks, white shirt, and his blue Converse, all acceptable colors for the burial. Following custom, Father broke Sifu’s comb in half and kept one part for himself and placed the other in the coffin. Mai, Kim, Linh, Anh, and Ly were told not to wear jewelry, and no one was to wear red because it denotes happiness in Chinese.
Father ensured that Sifu wore nothing that was red, which Chinese custom believes would turn him into a ghost. However, red paper was draped over some of the figurines, all of which had to be positioned far away from the coffin. Before Father sealed it for the last time, all of us were told to face away because the Chinese believe that witnessing the process is unlucky.
Sifu was buried in a cemetery where he and Father had trained many times over the years. Father bribed the officials there to bury him in the shade of a grove of trees, a favorite place for their workouts. He said that burying his teacher in the same place where he as a student had so profoundly changed as a martial artist and as a human being, would lock in all that he had learned from his great teacher.
Harry the police captain micromanaged the investigation of the attack. A similar one in the United States that caused three deaths, multiple injuries, and a tunnel cave in, would be news for a week with players interviewed on The Today Show and CNN. That didn’t happen here because Harry instructed his hand-picked officers on how to ‘handle’ different aspects of the case. If he hadn’t, my father and I would have been put through the ringer. Never mind that the fight in the tunnel was self-defense and Father was fighting to protect his home and family. I haven’t asked how Harry managed it all and how much was paid to specific officials, but for now it looks real good for us. I guess their way of handling situations can come in handy even when you’re the good guys.
A work crew dug out the underground room and recovered the body of the man Bobby and I fought. I know that horrible incident and the death bothers the boy; it certainly does me. I’m not feeling guilt that the man died down there, it’s the idea that he was buried alive that’s so awful on the psyche.
Harry told my father that our family hadn’t been linked to the release of the girls held captive in the warehouse in Bien Hoa and the subsequent killing of several people, all of whom had been traced to Lai Van Tan. Harry said the Bien Hoa police would have done their own manipulating to keep Lai Van Tan out of the picture, but a watchdog group called the International Human Rights of Exploited Children got wind of the rescue. Father thinks his friends at the orphanage might have made that happen. Apparently, Lai Van Tan is learning that his power and money is meaningless to the pit bull human rights group. Actually, his power is pretty well shot anyway, and the same with his organization. But guys like him have a way of coming back. Hopefully, the human rights group will make that most difficult for him.
Father stayed with Kim for a day and a half after Sifu’s heart attack, never once leaving the room. Mai said it wasn’t until the next night, sometime after three a.m. that she heard a noise out in the garden. When she looked out her window, she saw our father weeping by the koi pond. He joined us for breakfast the next morning, looking like he hadn’t slept for a while, which I’m sure he hadn’t.
Bobby’s parents called from the Tan Son Nhat Airport while the police were still at the house. They had a return flight to the United States in ninety minutes and asked if I could bring the boy to the airport. We showered the tunnel off and changed into clean clothes in twenty minutes flat. Mai wanted to take us, but I encouraged her to stay because I thought Samuel needed her more. She told the taxi driver where to take us and to wait and bring me back to the house. She gave Bobby a big hug, and the boy and Tex shared a quiet talk before Bobby gave Tex an awkward hug that nearly knocked the legless man over.
Bobby didn’t speak during the ride. I know the boy and I are going to have nightmares of that terrible tunnel attack, watching the deadly alley fight on the monitors, and witnessing poor Shen Lang Rui’s fatal heart attack. Bobby is mature, but he’s still a kid who has been exposed to terrible violence and death.
I hated to just send him off without us having a long talk, a debriefing of sorts, but there wasn’t time. I made sure he had my phone number, Mai’s number, my email, and hers. I encouraged him to sleep on the plane and get a couple nights of good rest at home before we talk about what all happened here. I found that process to work well with witnesses of violence.
Since there wouldn’t be enough time at the airport to talk to his parents about what had happened, I told him that I would be glad to call them after they got home. Bobby said he would tell them about it first and then brief me as to what parts he skimmed over or didn’t mention at all.
His parents, both in their fifties and barely five feet tall, were more happy than angry to see their son. I’m betting the anger will show itself when things settle. They thanked me profusely for doing such a good job keeping him safe. Bobby and I looked at each other and almost laughed.
It was sad seeing him go. Sometimes I think people are put into our lives for a reason, other times I’m not so sure. Bobby came along so that I could help a young man who was reaping the repercussions of making a bad decision. I guess it could be argued that his contact with me nearly cost him his life, but my contact with him nearly cost me mine as well. Maybe we were simply destined to share such a horrific experience so that we both grew a little from it. Maybe we have more to share. Well, whatever the reason, I request from the Big Overseer one thing: Could you make these lessons a little easier, a little less traumatic? How about one that doesn’t give Bobby and me nightmares and claustrophobia forever?
On the other hand, it’s often said the hard lessons are the most profound. Maybe this was one to show me that I’m still a protector. I failed terribly at that in Portland, but I was able to succeed with Bobby. So what was Bobby’s lesson?
Maybe that all other challenges in his life will seem like a leisurely stroll in the park compared to this one.
I was already missing him so much that I barely noticed the traffic madness on the way back to the house. Maybe I’m getting used to it. Maybe I’m getting comfortable here. Maybe after all that’s happened, thinking I’m getting comfortable is a pretty dumb thing to think. Lots of maybes.
Lu received a head concussion, broken jaw, and torn neck tendons. Apparently his boyfriend, one of Lai Van Tan’s goons, got suspicious and confronted Lu about all his questions. When Lu got frightened and tried to leave, the boyfriend beat him severely. Then Lai Van Tan ordered him killed. The plan was to have Lu stabbed by the front gate on camera, part of the Lai Van Tan’s psychological warfare. That didn’t happen, probably because the pedicab driver and the male passenger, the boyfriend, saw the Volvo and van when they passed by us. Or maybe it was the phantom police motorbike that put a crimp in their plans. Lu will be okay, eventually.
I met Anh, Mai’s other sister, a warm and big-hearted woman. She wasn’t blessed with her sisters’ good looks, but she had a wonderful sense of humor. One time at breakfast she told me that she had just gone to the doctor and he said that her chronic bad back was a result of getting older. When she told him that she wanted a second opinion, he said, “Okay, you’re homely too.” Her goofy jokes were much needed.
Mai and I have shared some wonderful moments. We’ve had long talks, long walks, and periods when we didn’t need to speak at all. We’ve been to the eighth floor of the building under construction twice. The first time we just sat on the window ledge, sipped wine, and watched the sun go down and the stars come up. Last night we went up again and this time we made love. We didn’t spar as foreplay like we did the first time, though we did dance again to the music in our hearts.
She whispered that she loved me and I told her I liked her butt. When she started to do that nipple twist thing on me, I quickly confessed that I was crazy in love with her. She got that look on her face when she doesn’t understand my English, and asked if crazy in love was good. I assured it was. We were both scared by our feelings because we didn’t know what the future held for us.
Mark, my friend and boss in Detectives, called a day after Shen Lang Rui died. He asked how I was doing and feeling. At first, I didn’t tell him anything about what had happened since I’d been in Saigon, though I did tell him that it was hot, the food was fantastic, and the traffic was nutso.
He said that the front office, in an effort to save money on upper echelon salaries, had offered him an early retirement and that he was thinking about taking it. He could leave in six weeks and his long-time boyfriend, David, a dentist, could retire anytime he wants. We chatted for several minutes about who was doing what to whom on the job then, after a long pregnant pause, Mark got to the main reason he was calling.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened, about what I know,” he said.
When he came to my house that night a few days before I came over here, he said that he had figured it out, which I interpreted as meaning he knew I was somehow implicated in the extraordinary violence that happened at Portland State University. He didn’t say what all he knew, but judging by how angry he was at me in my living room, I can assume he figured out a lot of it.
“Okay,” I said to him on the phone, then I let it hang there to see where he was going with it.
He took a deep breath and exhaled before he spoke. “You and I have been friends a long time,” he said. “I realized early on that you are an ethical and moral man. I saw that you lived and worked by strict principles of doing what you think is right, treating people with respect, even when those people had committed the most atrocious crimes. Maybe you were born that way, maybe your mother and grandfather raised you that way, or maybe it was your martial arts training.”
“All three,” I said.
“Whatever the reason, I have to trust that you know what you’re doing. That you have the right reasons for concealing—”
“Mark,” I interrupted. “Pour yourself a cup of coffee. I’m going to tell you everything.”
For the next half hour, I told him about Lai Van Tan and how he pursued Father to Portland and how that led to the violence at Portland State University. I told him about the sex-trade business here and the battle we had freeing the girls. When I finished telling him of the fight in the tunnel, Mark was quiet for a long moment. Then, “Thank you, Sam. How awful this has been for you. But I feel even better now about my decision. It’s a big weight off my chest.”
“Mine too, boss. I apologize for leaving you out of it. Please know that I don’t take any of this lightly.”
He took a deep breath, exhaled. “Remember in the academy when there were no grays, when everything was black and white?”
“Were we ever that young?”
“When you coming home?” he asked. “You still got a job here.”
I sighed. “Oh man… I don’t know. Maybe another week or so. I want to help in whatever way I can to get things situated here with my family.”
Last night Father and I talked into the wee hours. He told me that he didn’t think Kim would live much longer. The doctors had always been uncertain, but he had always been positive that she would survive. That is, until of late when she began deteriorating. He said she no longer responds to the medication, and his limited healing abilities have had no effect. He thinks she knows what is going on with her, which is the reason she insisted on coming back to the house.
When I asked if Mai knew, he said he thought so. He said she is incredibly close to her mother and he just hadn’t gathered his courage to sit down with her and talk it out.
We were sitting on the bench by the koi pond, the night sounds soothing, a lone cricket chirped over where the south wall met the east one, a slight wind rustled the palm tree fronds but did nothing to reduce the terrible humidity. Thunder was grumbling somewhere in the northern sky, reminding me of what Mai said about the nightly rumble of distant artillery during the war. I wondered if Father was remembering that. My guess is that it’s never far from his mind.
He scooted off the bench and squatted by the edge of the pond. The white koi swam over to him and nibbled at the finger that gently stirred the water.
He turned around to face me, dropping one knee to the ground. “I have thought a lot about taking a journey to the Mekong Delta. It is south of Saigon, a very large area that supplies much rice to the world. About three years ago, a friend told me that during the war some people, no more than three or four, saw two towering statues there, hidden somewhere on a plantation or along one of the many rivers. Who knows, they might be gone now or covered by overgrowth. Both were supposedly fifty feet high, carved by a man known as the “coconut monk.” Father smiled at that for a moment. “Coconut monk. I like that.”
“What are the statues, Father?”
“One is of Jesus and one is of Buddha. They are embracing, you see.”
“Wow. That would be incredible to see. What a journey.”
Father nodded but didn’t say anything for a while as he poked at the dirt with a twig. Behind him, the white koi hadn’t moved, its eyes watching. After a while, Father looked up at me, his eyes wet. “I am not old, but I am getting there.” He shrugged. “For a while, a little voice has been telling me to go look for those statues.”
“Then you should listen to it,” I said. “Listening to that voice has done well for you all these years.”
“You are correct, sir.” He smiled. “Ed McMahon used to say that on the Tonight Show with his bud Johnny Carson. They are both gone now.”
I didn’t say anything.
“My instincts have been talking to me about you, Son.”
“Oh? Do I even want to know?”
He took a breath, let it out. “They are just my instincts; they are not written in stone.”
“But…”
“You being here has been incredible. And I wish that somehow you could stay.”
“But…”
“My instincts are telling me that your journey is back in Portland.”