“Oh, you’re PI! Like on TV.” He took the chain off the door and let
them in.
Actually he didn’t just let them in, he welcomed them as if they were
honored guests. Within three minutes flat, they learned his name was
Tuong Tran Phan (the order of his nam having been rearranged to
accommodate the western custom of putting the surname last), that he and
his wife, Chinh, were among the boat people who fled Vietnam two years
after the fall of Saigon, that they had worked in laundries and dry
cleaners, and eventually opened two dry-cleaning stores of their own.
Tuong insisted on taking their coats. Chinh-a petit woman with delicate
features, dressed in baggy black slacks and a yellow silk blouse-said
she would provide refreshment even though Bobby explained that only a
few minutes of their time was required.
Bobby knew first-generation Vietnamese-Americans were sometimes
suspicious of policemen, even to the extent of being reluctant to call
for help when they were victims of crime. The South Vietnamese police
often had been corrupt, and the North Vietnamese overlords, who seized
the South after the U.S. withdrawal, had been murderous. Even after
fifteen years or longer in the States, many Vietnamese remained at least
somewhat distrustful of all authorities.
In the case of Tuong and Chinh Phan, however, that suspicion did not
extend to private investigators. Evidently they had seen so many heroic
television gumshoes, they believed all PIs were champions of the
underdog, knights with blazing.3 8s instead of lances. In their roles
as liberators of the oppressed, Bobby and Julie were conducted, with
some ceremony, to the sofa, which was the newest and best piece of
furniture in the living room.
The Phans marshaled their exceptionally good-looking children in the
living room for introductions: thirteen-year-old Rocky, ten-year-old
Sylvester, twelve-year-old Sissy, and six year-old Meryl. They were
obviously born-and-raised Americans, except that they were refreshingly
more courteous and well-mannered than many of their contemporaries. When
introductions had been made, the kids returned to the kitchen, where
they had been doing their schoolwork.
In spite of their polite protestations, Bobby and Julie were swiftly
served coffee laced with condensed milk and exquisite little Vietnamese
pastries. The Phans had coffee as well.
Tuong and Chinh sat in worn armchairs that were visibly less comfortable
than the sofa. Most of their furniture was in simple contemporary
styles and neutral colors. A small Buddhist shrine stood in one corner;
fresh fruit lay on the red altar, and several sticks of incense bristled
from ceramic holders. Only one stick was lit, and a pale-blue ribbon of
fragrant smoke curled upward. The only other Asian elements were
blacklacquered tables.
“We’re looking for a man who might once have lived at this address,”
Julie said, selecting one of the petits fours from the tray on which
Mrs. Phan had served them.
“His name’s George Farris.”
“Yes. He lived here,” Tuong said, and his wife nodded.
Bobby was surprised. He had been certain that the Farris name and the
address had been randomly matched by a document forger, that Frank had
never lived here. Frank had been equally certain that Pollard, not
Farris, was his real name.
“You bought this house from George Farris?” Julie asked Tuong said,
“No, he was dead.”
“Dead?” Bobby asked.
“Five or six years ago,” Tuong said.
“Terrible cancer.” Then Frank Pollard wasn’t Farris and hadn’t lived
here. The ID was entirely fake.
“We bought house just a few months ago from widow, Tuong said. His
English was good, though occasionally dropped the article before the
noun.
“No, what I mean to say-from widow’s estate.” Julie said,
“So Mrs. Farris is dead too.” Tuong turned to his wife, and a
meaningful look passed between them. He said,
“It is very sad. Where do such men come from?” Julie said,
“What man are you speaking of, Mr. Phan?”
“The one who killed Mrs. Farris, her brother, two daughters.” Something
seemed to slither and coil in Bobby’s stomach He instinctively liked
Frank Pollard and was certain of his innocence, but suddenly a worm of
doubt bored into the fin polished apple of his conviction. Could it be
just a coincidence that Frank was carrying the ID of a man whose family