Читать книгу Dukkha Unloaded - Loren W. Christensen - Страница 8

CHAPTER ONE

“Where to, weary traveler?” the black man asks, as he stuffs my two pieces of luggage into the back of his green cab. He’s in his sixties, bald, big happy face, and a monstrous belly. I give him my home address. “Won’t be a problem,” he says, slamming the trunk. “No sir.” He opens the backdoor for me. “Where you flyin’ in from?”

Oh, good, he’s a gregarious sort—just what I need with a jet-lagged brain, hairy and mushy from the twenty-six-hour flight. “Saigon,” I say. “Vietnam.”

“Oh goodness!” he laughs, his big shoulders shaking. “Saigon. Know it well. Beaucoup. Number ten. Our hot day here probably don’t mean nothin’ to you right now, right? When I was there in the war, we used to say ‘If you can’t take the heat we shouldn’t have tickled the dragon.’ Get it? Land of the dragon and we tickled it? ‘Course they tickled us right back and some.” He guffaws, which makes his big belly shake and quake. He shuts my door and calls a loud greeting to the cabdriver in line behind us.

I retrieve my cell, tap in Mark’s number for the fourth or fifth time, and listen to it ring and ring. Where is he? We chatted for a couple minutes when I was boarding the plane in Saigon, and he confirmed he would pick me up at five p.m. in the new Lexus he bought a couple days ago as a retirement gift to himself. I told him he sounded as giddy as a cheerleader.

“I am, indeed, Sam,” he laughed. “Lots to be giddy about. I bought my dream car, I decided to take the PD’s early retirement offer, David is thinking about retiring too, and you’re coming home. Life is good.”

Mark and I have been friends for most of the fifteen years I’ve been a cop and for the three years I’ve worked the Burglary Unit in Detectives, he’s been my boss. We’ve been through lots together, especially these last few months with all my shootings and the horrific aftermath. He’s been a wonderful friend; me, not so much, and I desperately want to change that.

The driver, laughing at something the other cabbie said, struggles to squeeze his bulk behind the steering wheel. “Yes, sir, spent eighteen months in Saigon back in nineteen sixty-eight and sixty-nine,” he says, as if our conversation hadn’t had a two-minute break. He turns up the fan. “It’s hot here, eh? Eighty-six today. Thinking of changing my policy to ‘No shirt, no pants, no problem.’ So hot I saw a funeral procession stop at a Dairy Queen for ice cream. But hey,” he laughs, “don’t mean nothin’ compared to Vietnam’s heat. They probably don’t say ‘don’t mean nothin’’ over there. No, probably don’t. But the heat over there, it was somethin’ for sure.” He shakes his head, and guides the car around the long line of cabs and takes the ramp out of the airport pick-up area. “Tet is their New Year celebration, you know. When New Years happened in nineteen sixty-eight, it was one crazy-ass time. VC hit us so damn hard from so many directions we didn’t know if we was comin’ or goin’. Crazy-ass time, for sure.”

“Thanks for your service,” I say. “It’s a beautiful city today. Most of the population now weren’t alive during the war.” I see a folded newspaper on his dash. “Is that today’s paper?”

“No, sir,” he says, retrieving it, though he can barely reach it because his belly is already pressed to the max against the steering wheel. “It’s two days old, but I’ve been savin’ it ‘cause of what happened. You been gone for a spell, right?”

“About two weeks.”

“Crazy-ass thing happened right here in Portland—my hometown, no less. Sadness for sure, right there on the front page. Never thought I’d see such a thing again. No, sir. Didn’t think I’d see it again. Not in my hometown.”

I unfold the paper. The large font headline reads: AFRICAN AMERICAN FOUND LYNCHED.

An elderly African American man was found hanging from a rope tied to a light post at NW Third and Couch Street early this morning, according to Portland Police Spokesperson Darryl Anderson. An early morning jogger found the body. Anderson says foul play is suspected in the hanging. There are no suspects at this time, and the name of the victim is being withheld until notification of next of kin.

It must have happened right at press time because the piece is short but definitely not sweet.

“What have the follow-up stories said,” I ask.

“The po-lice aren’t sayin’ much. Must be gettin’ their ducks in a row or somethin’. Yesterday they didn’t say his name, only they thought he was in his seventies. Po-lice got no suspects, or least they aren’t sayin’. I think it’s ‘cause it’s sensitive, you know. Some folks had a rally outside the downtown po-lice station last night demanding to know what’s goin’ on.”

I refold the paper. This is going to be huge. I know the local press and every other major news organization across the country, and probably every black church, black community leader, and civil rights organization are swamping the PD with calls right now.

“The shit’s about to hit the fan,” the cabbie says. I nod, looking out the side window. When I look back toward the front, I see the cabbie’s eyes studying me in the mirror. “You’re a po-liceman, right?”

Oh man. I’m back in Portland less than an hour and I’m recognized. It’s been almost two months since my mug was splashed all over the bloodthirsty news and everyone wanted to kick my butt, and I was hoping being out of sight meant I’d be out of mind. Guess not. I look out the side window again and wait for him to order me out of his cab.

“Yes, sir. I thought it was you when you walked up to my cab. I got an eye and a memory for faces. Recognized you from the TV news. I’m a news junkie, you know.” I keep looking out the window. “Remembered your physique too. You must be a lifter.” Out of the corner of my eye I see him look back at my arms. I’m wearing a dark blue polo shirt. “Lordy,” he says, shaking his head.

We ride in silence for half a minute, and I can feel him looking at me through his rearview mirror.

“Hey, man. The shit hit the fan for you didn’t it? Lots of people sayin’ bad stuff about the po-lice when you killed the little boy. Me, I wasn’t one of them. I saw a lot of shit in ‘Nam and I got a cousin back in Baltimore who’s on the PD—city cop. I know personally how somethin’ can go down and how it can turn to shit in a quick hurry.”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, which I’m thinking is hard for him to do. I look toward the rearview mirror, and into his eyes.

“Yes, sir. Everybody says I talk too much, especially my wife. Guess I do. But do you mind if I say something—just a little worthless advice from a man who’s been where you are. For me it was during the war, a short ways outside of the city you just visited.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty tired. Actually, I’m very tired.”

“Just a quick comment, sir. For what it’s worth, that’s all. My sweet mama, God rest her soul, used to say to me and my six sisters, ‘If God sends us on strong paths, we are provided strong shoes.’” He shakes his head and does the loud guffaw again. “I was barefoot for a while after I come home, yes sir. Then I found me some strong shoes.” He looks into my eyes. “I’ve been driving a cab for thirty years and I know how to read people, probably better than some of these shrinks getting a hundred dollars an hour. I can tell you’re a good man. I wish you luck, brother.”

“What’s your name?” We’re on the freeway now, heading west toward the city. “Rudolph Abraham Lincoln, the third. I go by Rudy.”

“Well, thank you, Rudy,” I say softly. “I’m Sam. You’re very kind.”

“You are most welcome, Sam. Mind if I ask you your take on this lynching?”

“I don’t have one yet. I’ve only been back an hour and just now read this. My educated guess is if the perp isn’t apprehended quickly things are going to get bad. And if it turns out to be racially motivated, things are going to get even worse.”

“Yes, sir. I hear you.”

“It’s fastest if you take the Forty-Seventh Street exit and head south … Oh, sorry. I guess if you’ve been driving for thirty years you know your way around.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, taking the exit. “Tell me, there been many crimes like this lately? They call ‘em hate crimes, don’t they? Were you on the department when all the skinhead nonsense was going on in the early nineties?”

“Came on in ninety-five, but I know what you’re referring to. There were lots of hate crimes back then. Of late, I don’t know. I was off for nearly two months. Kinda kept my head buried in the sand for a while, plus I’ve been in Saigon for the last several days. I haven’t a clue as to what’s happening.”

My cell rings. It’s Mark.

“Mark! What’s going on? I landed at five and called you several—”

“Sam …” Voice weak, strained.

“Mark? What is it?”

Long pause—ragged breathing.

“Mark? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

His words come in a nonstop rush. “David and I were attacked. We were just sitting by the river and he’s unconscious. I’m okay. We’re at Emanuel Hospital can you come here?”

* * *

Rudy could easily be a Saigon cab driver. I ask him to take me to Emanuel Hospital as quickly as he can, and he pulls a one-eighty so fast, if my seatbelt wasn’t fastened, I would have been thrown against the door. We’re heading south on Northeast Thirty-Third now and breaking multiple traffic laws. I’m glad I didn’t say “really fast.”

I ask Mark what happened and all he says is they got jumped by several people, and beaten. He barely manages to say it before erupting into a coughing fit, followed by a lot of moaning. I tell him to stop talking. I’m on my way.

Mark is a tough guy. Almost thirty years as a cop, a hardcore jogger, bicyclist, and swimmer. He competed in Hawaii’s Iron Man event at the age of fifty-two. He’s fifty-eight now and still fit and strong. David is a dentist and trains just as hard on the same three events. None of those things makes them fighters, but it does give them an edge over a pot-bellied couch potato. How could this have happened?

Mark has always been a good friend but I had strained that bond. Just before I left for Saigon, I had been swept into actions in Portland that while in defense of my family’s lives and my own, were nonetheless illegal. I didn’t tell anyone, but Mark is a good cop and he guessed I was somehow involved. I should have trusted him and told him. Instead I had lied to him, lied by omission, anyway. He called me in Saigon and we worked it out. It’s still not over but I’m relieved Mark and I are back on solid ground.

Rudy makes a hard left on Knott Street, blowing through the yellow traffic signal and taking the turn nearly on two wheels.

“Three miles, sir. We’re makin’ good time.”

“Thank you, Rudy.”

“Excuse me, but I heard part of your conversation. Is this person who is hurt a good friend?”

“Yes, a longtime friend, and my boss.”

“Any arrests?”

“I didn’t ask. He was hurting pretty bad.”

“He black?”

“No, why?”

He shrugs. “It just popped into my head there could be a connection to the lynching. I get feelings about things sometimes.” He shrugs again. “Doesn’t sound like it, though.”

Connection? Not unless both turn out to be hate crimes. Mark said they were walking by the river but didn’t say if it was the Columbia or the Willamette. I’m guessing the Willamette since it has walkways on each side with a nice view of the downtown area from the east side. Why would someone attack them? They’re not a threat to anyone. They’re both nearing sixty and are more about exploring museums and antique stores. Neither one is effeminate so it’s hard to imagine they were selected because someone just guessed they’re gay.

As we cross Martin Luther King Boulevard, Rudy says, “Two blocks, Sam. You want me to wait?”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be. I’ll pay up so you can go about your business.”

Rudy nods as he crosses Vancouver Avenue and heads toward the entrance to Emanuel. “You’re goin’ to need a ride home, right? It can be hard to get a cab this time of the evening on a Friday. I’ll wait for you.” When I start to protest, he says, “I got a break comin’ so I’ll just take it here. They got a nice cafe. If you take longer than forty-five minutes, I’ll head out.”

“Okay, Rudy. You really don’t have to do this, but I appreciate it.”

“Yes, sir. Besides, maybe someone will do my cousin a favor, the one who’s a cop in Baltimore. Being black and a cop isn’t always easy for him.” He parks the cab on the ER side of the hospital. “Where you meetin’ your buddy?”

“Good question. I forgot to ask. The front desk will know where he is.”

I’m out of the car and standing by the fender as Rudy works his girth out from behind the steering wheel. “My wife calls me ‘Fatty McButterpants,’” he says, standing and catching his breath. “I tell her it’s her fault ‘cause she’s such a good cook.”

We wind our way between several rows of parked cars. A KGW News van and a KOIN News van are parked side by side across from the ER entrance. There must have been a shooting or something.

“Always somethin’ goin’ on here,” Rudy says. “Been here lots of times with fares who got themselves sick, shot, or stabbed. One guy got all three done to him. The front desk is to the right just inside the door.”

The last time I was here I was cradling Jimmy in my arms. I shudder. I sense Rudy looking at me. Thankfully, he doesn’t ask what’s wrong.

The glass doors slide open and we hang a right into the air conditioning. The elderly woman behind the desk is talking with a large, Hawaiian-looking woman. The big woman thanks her and heads quickly toward the elevators.

“I’m looking for Mark Sanderson,” I tell the woman. “He was brought in some time today with a David Rowe.”

“You a friend or relative?”

“Friend.”

“Don’t need to look them up on the computer. Lots of people interested in them today—police, the TV. Everyone is up on the second floor. I don’t know if they will let you see them but it’s where they are. Sad about what happened. It’s been crazy,” she says, looking behind me at someone else needing directions.

“I hope everything will be okay, Sam,” Rudy says. He points to a hallway to our right. “Coffee shop is down there. I’ll wait ‘bout forty minutes, forty-five.”

I nod, too stunned to speak, and hurry toward the elevator.

The elevator doors swoosh open on the second floor to reveal a crowd of police brass and reporters. The press doesn’t look my way but the cops do, some with blank faces, a few with slow nods. Chief Rodriguez looks at me for a long moment before giving me a single nod, then continuing his conversation with Deputy Chief Glanville. My fans. Gotta love ‘em. Only Captain Regan smiles and moves toward me.

“Sam, how are you doing?” he says.

“Captain,” I say, shaking his hand. Bill Regan is the Captain of Detectives, my top boss. He’s a good one, a hundred percent supportive of his people. He and Mark have been a dream to work for. “I just got back into town. Mark was supposed to pick me up at the airport but he called me about twenty-five minutes ago. Said he and David got assaulted.”

Regan nods. “He and David were walking on the River Walk on the east side of the Willamette when some assholes jumped them, don’t know for sure how many. Thumped them good. Mark has a lot of lacerations and some torso bruising where they stomped his chest. Docs looked him over and patched some of his cuts. Nothing broken. David is in rough shape. Still unconscious. They’re doing all kinds of X-rays and scans.”

Adrenaline charges through my muscles, pushing away my jet lag. I don’t know what my eyes are doing, but Captain Regan takes a step toward me, his eyes looking intently into mine. His voice is low, his words just for my ears. “This is the time for cool heads, Sam.” I don’t say anything.

“You hear me?”

I nod. “Yes.”

He looks at me for a beat longer, then over at a camera crew. “Just once, I’d like to catch whoever calls the press whenever a cop is involved in something. Anyway, the Fat Dicks caught the case and are still in there talking to Mark. We’ll know more details when they’ve finished their—”

“Excuse me.” An Asian nurse smiles at the captain. “Are you Sam Reeves?”

“I am,” I say.

She turns toward me. “Sorry. Someone over there pointed at you two. Mark Sanderson is asking for you.”

“Oh, okay,” I say. “Captain, I’ll let you know what I find out.”

Regan nods and I follow the nurse through the crowd.

“Detective Reeves,” a female voice to my left calls out before we get to the doors. I recognize the woman as a KOIN reporter. “May we get a comment from you? Why are you here?”

“Does this have anything to do with your shooting?” asks a male voice from behind me. Shoulder mounted cameras that had been sitting on the floor are quickly lifted into place and aimed at me.

I ignore them and follow the nurse through a set of swinging doors and into a large room with a series of small rooms formed by curtains along each wall, some empty, some with their curtains drawn. Men and women in pale green scrubs dart about busily. Mark waves to me from where he is sitting outside of one of the rooms, its curtain drawn.

“Mark,” I say, rushing over to him. Grimacing, he scoots to the edge of his chair, tries to get up but his body changes his mind. He looks like hell: bandaged forehead and hand, abrasions on both pale cheeks and chin, and a wide-eyed, confused look I’ve seen a hundred times on the faces of trauma victims.

“Sam, I … David is hurt bad.”

“Mark,” I whisper, kneeling down on one knee next to him. I gently touch his shoulder, not knowing where he hurts. “What on earth? Are you hurt badly? Is David in this room?”

He slowly scoots back until his back is flush with the chair, closes his eyes, and exhales as if it’s all he can manage. “No. He’s in X-ray right now. I think they’re bringing him back here but I don’t know for sure. He’s got tubes sticking in him, he’s hooked up to machines … God.” Mark takes a slow, laborious inhalation and eases it out. “They kicked him … over and over … in his head. I tried to help him but two of them were on me. They had me … down, punching and kicking me.”

“They hurt your head,” I say, tentatively lifting my hand toward it but not touching him. It’s hard for my jet-lagged brain to compute my friend is hurt. Ninety-nine percent of me is still back in Saigon. Stepping off the plane into Portland’s airport and the cab ride on the city streets was a culture shock after the chaos and intensity of my ten days in Vietnam. It’s hard to catch up. “I mean, damn, Mark. What do the doctors say about you?”

“ER released me,” he says. “Nothing broken. Ribs are badly bruised. It’s a little hard to breathe and to … talk. I cough a lot, which really hurts. They stomped on my chest and my side. I hit one of them. I might have fractured a knuckle.”

“Are the suspects in custody?”

He shakes his head. “White … late teens, early twenties. There are these … benches along the walkway. It was about three this afternoon and Mark and I … we were sitting on one looking out at the river, having a Starbucks and sharing a muffin. We were sitting close to each other. Guess it gave us away. I saw them coming in my peripheral but I didn’t think anything about it. I was aware of them again, out of the corner of my eye, when they were about fifty feet away. When my cop instinct finally kicked in, I scooted away from David a little. But it was too late. The young men were moving straight at us saying things like … ‘faggots’ and ‘butt rangers’ and the like. We stood and … started walking in the opposite … direction but they were on us.”

“Can you ID them?”

He nods through a cough spasm, clearly in pain. “For sure the ones who worked me over. Maybe the two who got David, I don’t know. They split in the direction they came from. No one else on the walkway, so no witnesses, none I know of, anyway. Fat Dicks are on it. They got my report and left just a couple …” Mark coughs into the crook of his arm. He takes a deep breath, then, “They left a couple of minutes before you got here. Must have left a back way. Didn’t … want to deal with the press.”

“I’m so sorry about this, Mark. I’m so pissed right now I can’t think straight.”

His scabbed lips smile ever so slightly. “Do I look as bad as you? Jet lag is special, isn’t it?”

“No, you win, you look worse. What can I do right now? You want a lift home? I got a cab waiting.”

He shakes his head. “Got to wait to find out about David. It might … take a long time, hours maybe. I think he’s going to get a room on one of the upper floors. They said I … I could stay with him. I’ll just sleep. Got me on some crazy meds.”

“I’ll stay with you.”

“No. I just wanted to see you now that you’re home. Seeing you makes me feel better. Safer, for some reason.” He starts to smile but it ends up being a grimace. “Not exactly cop buddy banter, eh?”

I shrug. “We’re friends first.”

He pats my hand. “Yes, we are. Go home now and get some rest. I want … to hear about Saigon when we’re both in better shape.”

“Okay. Call me when you’re ready to leave and I’ll come and get you.”

He leans his head back against the wall and blinks slowly a couple times. “Deal. Glad you’re back … Sam.” His eyes flutter shut and his face relaxes.

I ask a passing nurse to point out another way down to the first floor and she directs me to a stairwell. I find the number for Captain Regan in my cell phone and tap it in. By the time I’m done filling him in on Mark, I’m in the first floor lobby and half hiding behind a coffee cart. I don’t want to deal with the media.

“Thanks, Sam,” Captain Regan says. “On another matter, you ready to come back to work?”

I knew that was coming. The shooting was two months ago and I haven’t been back since. The police shrink Doc Kari’s last words before I went to visit Samuel and Mai in Saigon was it was my decision when I want to go back. The unwritten guide for cops who have dropped the hammer on someone is you don’t return until you know you could do it again. No cop who has ever been forced to kill on the job wants a repeat of the experience, but the police shrink, the department, and the officer in question need to know he or she can do it again if required. A cop who can’t decide, or knows for certain he can’t, has no business on the street. The officer’s life, as well as those of other officers and citizens, might depend on him doing exactly that.

For the past two months, I’ve been telling my father and myself I will never again pick up a gun. I kept the proclamation even when I was in Saigon, and I was thrust into the middle of a deadly shooting. But now, after talking to Mark, it’s like I suddenly have an itch to get back and do some police work. I want to have it both ways, but I know I can’t.

“I don’t know, boss. I plan to make an appointment with the shrink tomorrow and talk about it. I’m sorry. I wish I had a solid answer for you.”

“I understand, Sam. Just know Deputy Chief Rodriguez wants to put your name back in Personnel as unassigned so we can fill your spot in Burglary. He was talking about doing it last week so it might have already happened. If it has, don’t worry about it. If you’re ready, I want you back and I’ll make it happen.”

“Thanks, Captain. I’ll call you as soon as I know what’s going on.” I stuff my cell back into my pocket and, not seeing any reporters, step out from behind the coffee cart. Rudy waves to me from where he is talking to the elderly woman behind the information desk. She is laughing at something he said. Quite the gregarious guy.

“How’s your friend?” Rudy asks, leading the way to the cab.

“He’s hurting and his partner is in bad shape. Still unconscious.”

He shakes his head. “Sorry to hear it, Sam. You said partner. Were they on duty?”

Whoops. I didn’t want to get into all that. But why shouldn’t I? Mark’s relationship with David isn’t a secret. In fact, it’s been going on for years while most of the hetero marriages I know of on the PD have crashed and burned.

“My friend is gay,” I say, watching him for a reaction. He opens the driver’s door, not giving me one.

“Ooooh, all right, all right,” he says over the roof. “Explains things some. Get in the front seat there if you want, Sam.”

I slide in and shut my door while Rudy struggles to fit in behind the wheel again. The seat is pushed back as far as it will go.

“Was it a, what do they call it, a gay bashing?”

I nod. “Looks like it. Perps are still on the loose.”

He backs out of the slot and winds us through the lot back out onto the street. “Another hate crime, right? Sons-of-a-bitches. Three now, if it turns out the lynching is one.”

“Three?”

“I forgot, you been gone. ‘Bout a week ago some fool threw a firebomb at the Muslim Community Center up in Northwest Portland—the one on Twenty-Fifth. Nobody hurt and the fire went out before it could damage anything on the building. Oh, hold the boat. There was a cross burning too. Southwest, near Council Crest. Make it four.”

“Has anyone been arrested?”

He shrugs. “Haven’t heard anything except a few TV news stories about Muslims being afraid and sayin’ how they are people of peace.” He looks over at me. “What do you think, Sam? What does it all mean?”

I shrug. “Hate crimes for sure. Several white guys attacked my two friends. Could they have lynched a black man? Sure. Could they have attacked the Muslim center? Sure. But usually haters focus on one or two groups. But who knows? What do you think?”

“I think there’s too much hate in the world. People get intimidated, scared so they turn to hate. Maybe hate gives them some kind of power over what scares them. Don’t know if it fits, but my mama used to say church gives some people just enough religion to hate but not enough to love.”

“Your mother was a wise woman.”

“Yes, sir,” Rudy chuckles as he turns right onto Martin Luther King Boulevard. “She was a wonderful … Uh-oh. I forgot my dispatcher warned us to avoid this part of MLK today and here I drove us right into this mess. Folks demonstratin’ again in front of the clinic.”

At least two hundred people are blocking the street in front of the Northeast Women’s Center, a well-known family planning clinic that performs abortions. Looks like about every other person is waving a sign:

CHILDREN KILLED HERE

STOP ABORTION NOW

BABY GOOD, BABY KILLER BAD

PRO-LIFE AND PROUD

Several are holding long poles with naked, red paint-splattered dolls dangling from them.

There have been demonstrations here by pro-life groups as long as I can remember. The first year I worked by myself, I worked uniform in this part of town for about two months. Got called here twice for crowd control. The first call was no big deal but on the second one a few weeks later, there were pro-choice and pro-life groups clashing hard. I caught the call and like the dumb rookie I was, I waded right into the middle of it before my backup arrived. When a guy pushed me from behind, I spun around and leg swept him to the sidewalk. Who knew he was the national president of “A Woman’s Right to Choose,” one of the largest pro-choice groups out of New York City? The man had flown into Portland to give a speech only to be launched face first onto the sidewalk by little ol’ me. He wasn’t hurt badly, but face injuries tend to bleed a lot, which fired up his people into breaking out windows and attacking the police. Since I had waded into the crowd without backup, and it was me who dumped the guy, and since I had less than a year on the job, I decided it best not to mention it was my action that fueled the riot.

Right now, a dozen cops wearing black helmets and black, heavily padded chest and leg protection are guarding the front door, standing stoically unresponsive to the demonstrators surging toward them, backing away, and surging toward them again. The cops aren’t about to get suckered into their antics.

Rudy twists in his seat to back us up, but we move only a foot or two before he has to anchor it. “There’s a truck on our butt and crazy folks squeezing between the bumpers.”

“This demo is bigger than usual,” I say, looking at a middle-aged man standing in front of our car and thrusting a sign at us: JESUS FORGIVES YOU. Brother, I hope so.

“A girl died here last week,” Rudy says. “I only read part of the story but I think she was about sixteen. Guessin’ it’s what this is all about.”

New arrivals stream around the cab heading toward the clinic. Someone pounds on our trunk lid.

“Hey!” Rudy shouts, unsnapping his seatbelt.

“Stay in the car,” I say. The guy with the JESUS FORGIVES YOU sign is thumping the butt of his stick on the hood now. Rudy leans on the horn.

“Don’t honk, Rudy. It draws more attention to us. It doesn’t take much for an ugly crowd like this to turn real ugly. Okay, the truck’s starting to back up. Let’s follow it.”

But there are people pressed up against both sides of the cab now, so many all we can see are crotches, bellies, and belt buckles. Someone starts pounding the roof and then another and another. It sounds like it’s raining baseball-sized hail.

My door opens but only a few inches before the weight of all the bodies shuts it again.

“Lock your door!” I shout, but Rudy’s is already open. Mine opens again while I look for the lock button on the armrest.

A hand grabs at my face. I snap my head back and grab the man’s pinkie and ring fingers with my left hand and his middle and index fingers with my right. The Japanese call it yubi tori, a finger hold, but my students call it “make a wish.” I yank the two sets of fingers in opposite directions. Even over the roof pounding, I can hear the hand’s owner scream. I push his arm away and pull my door shut, lock it, and turn to Rudy. What the hell?

If my new friend’s stomach wasn’t so big, the protestor’s head would probably be pressed against the big man’s lap. But since there’s no room, Rudy has braced the side of the bearded fellow’s face against the steering wheel with one hand and is pinching a wad of the man’s eyelid with his other.

“Which do you like the most?” the big cabbie asks calmly. “When I do this?” He pulls the flap of skin at least an inch away from the terrified man’s weeping eye. “Or this?” He twists the skin right and left as if trying to get a key to open a lock. I can’t tell if the man is screaming because of the pain or from the utter horror of the technique. It’s probably about fifty-fifty.

The weight of the crowd has been pressing the driver’s door against the man’s lower body holding him in place, but the easily bored mob abruptly abandons their peer for greener pastures, this time to something happening at the front of the clinic.

“Better catch up to your homeboys,” Rudy says, releasing the man’s eyelid. He palms the bearded face as if it were a hairy basketball and pushes him out of the cab. The guy sprawls onto his back and covers his face with his hands. Other protestors step over him. The roof pounding has stopped now that everyone has rushed off. Over by the building I can see riot police spraying the crowd with pepper spray.

“Back up this unit now!” a cop dressed a little like Darth Vader shouts, slapping his palm on the hood of the cab. His shiny black helmet, tinted visor, and heavily padded uniform are definitely intimidating. “Follow the truck out of here,” he barks. “Do it now, driver!” From behind the riot control officer, a female protestor, dressed in a black peacoat, army fatigue pants, and wearing a bandana over her face, smashes the officer across his back with a white cross. Two other black uniformed officers grab her and take her to the pavement.

“The truck is backing, Rudy,” I say, looking out the back window. “Let’s do it.”

“Oh my,” Rudy says, backing us up. “This was somethin’. This was surely somethin’.”

“It was but it could have been worse. There’s a driveway. See it? Back into it and get us turned around so we can head out of here front end first.”

* * *

“You okay?” I ask. Rudy has pulled to the curb a few blocks from the women’s clinic and is patting his chest with his palm.

“I got to go on a diet, for sure. My old heart works overtime just to pack my ass around and when I got to do somethin’ harder than eatin’ chips, it feels like my ticker is goin’ to bust right out of my chest. The wife and my four daughters are ridin’ me all the time to lose some weight.”

“Sounds like they love you,” I say, watching his face for signs he might pass out.

He laughs, which sends his belly rolling and his shoulders shaking. “Guess you’re right. Yes, sir.”

“Where did you learn the eyelid technique?”

He laughs even harder, which shakes the cab like we’re in a magnitude four earthquake. “You like it? Works every time. Learned it in the army from a ranger. He taught me it was the best way to get a man’s attention. He was right too. I’ve used it many times on ornery drunk fares who didn’t want to pay me. What about you? Your friend is going to remember you every time he goes to use his hand or what’s left of it.”

“I teach martial arts.”

“Oh, right. I remember from the news. Some people burned down your school, or somethin’.”

I nod, flashing to that awful night watching my school burn. I flinch at the memory of the events leading up to it and of the crazy turn my life had taken. I learned there is a word for it: dukkha. Most cops never fire their weapon in their career, but in one eight-week period, I got into two shootings, one in which I accidentally shot and killed an innocent child. The “accidental” part doesn’t make it any easier.

Then I met my father. A man I thought had died in the Vietnam War suddenly became a part of my life. With him came a family life I had been sorely missing since my grandfather and my mother passed away. It’s been more than wonderful that in one of life’s great coincidences we found each other, but along with this joy came more violence. Seems like crazy dukkha runs in the family.

But then there is Mai, the most incredible woman I’ve ever met. I started having feelings for her the moment I saw her. It was devastating at first thinking she was my sister, but happily she isn’t. She is an unrelated stepsister and we have fallen, as she says in her rough English, “asshole over tea kettle in love.”

“They did burn it down. I’ll probably rebuild. Right now I’m holding classes in the basement of a church where one of my brown belts preaches.”

“Too cool. Hey, you think I’m too old and too fat to learn the art?” He makes chopping motions on his steering wheel with the edge of his palm.

“Mmm,” I say, giving him an up and down appraisal. “Yes.”

Rudy looks at me, sees my smirk, and does that whole-body laugh of his. “Okay, okay. First I get it from my wife and daughters and now from you. Okay.”

I lightly punch his massive shoulder. “Just messing with you, Rudy. You’re never too old. I had a male student in his seventies and an overweight grandmother in her sixties. It would get you in shape for sure.”

He’s still chopping his steering wheel. “I just might do it. Yes, sir. First there was Bruce Lee and now there’s goin’ to be Rudy Lee.”

I laugh at his antics. “And you can teach me the eyelid technique. I’ve heard of it but I never saw it in action.”

“I’ll do it, yes, sir. Right now, I should get you home. My dispatcher is probably wonderin’ what I’m doin’.”

Rudy pulls away from the curb and chuckles. “Rudy Lee. I like the sound of it. No, no, no. How ‘bout Rudy Van Damme?” He hangs a left on Hawthorne. “So how is the chubby grandmother and seventy-year-old man doin’?”

“Not too well. They both died.”

“Say what?”

I laugh. “They’re both doing fine.”

“Okay,” he says, pointing at me. “Got to watch you every second.”

Ten minutes later we’re parked in my driveway.

“What’s the damage?” I ask, helping Rudy pull my luggage from his trunk. I wave at Bill, my neighbor. He nods reluctantly. Probably mad because my lawn is overgrown and because of the hubbub here a few weeks ago.

“Let’s see,” Rudy says. “ I got to deduct the time I was in the coffee shop at the hospital, the fun we had at the demonstration, the laughs we had talkin’ after … I’d say I owe you about fifteen dollars.”

“We did have a good time, didn’t we? It kind of pushed the jet lag right out of me.”

“Gimme twenty dollars to satisfy the boss and maybe you can buy me a burger one of these noon hours.”

“Let’s make it thirty dollars and I’ll buy you a salad with vinegar and oil dressing.”

He laughs. “Okay, okay. It’s a deal. Here’s my card.”

I hand him mine. “I will call you, Rudy.”

* * *

I’m sipping a cup of green tea, a two-bagger, which should give me a little shot of energy to get through the rest of the evening. Got the front and back door open to air out the place and I’ve let all the faucets run for a minute to flush out the rust. No one broke in while I was gone, which I always worry about and, except for the lawn, the place is in good shape. Mai and I washed all my clothes before I left Saigon so I just got to put my things in drawers. It’s midmorning in Vietnam and there is where my mind and body are right now. It took me about three days to get over the time difference when I got to Saigon so I’m figuring about the same coming home.

It’s a little after eight p.m. and in the time I’ve been back in Portland, I visited my best friend in the hospital, did a little jujitsu in the front of a cab, and I made a new friend. Can I pack a lot into three hours or what?

Mai is probably in her office working on the jewelry stores’ books, or maybe tending to her sick mother. Kim’s TB is worsening and though no one has come out and said as much, I don’t think she has much longer to live.

I tap in about twenty-five numbers, listen to all the clanking, dead air, some creaks, and finally, ringing.

“This is the devil talking,” Mai says, “who do you want?”

I laugh. “That’s almost how it goes.”

“Sam,” she whispers, her voice heating up my face. “Are you in Portland?”

“I made it back sort of in one piece,” I say, imagining all five feet eleven inches of gorgeousness sitting by the koi pond in their ornate backyard, the color-splashed, wiggling fish nibbling at her dabbling fingertips—lucky fish.

“I miss you,” she says softly.

“I miss you more.”

“You are probably correct.”

“How is your mother?”

Long pause, then in a halting voice, “Oh, Sam. I am so scared. She talked about dying last night. Father got angry with her and I just cried. This morning she acted like she had not talked about it at all.”

“I’m so sorry, Mai. How is Father?”

“He is quiet. When he is not with Mother, he sits by the koi pond. I am worried about both of them. If something happens to Mother … I do not know what will happen to him. He lost his teacher nine days ago and if he loses Mother …”

When my father dropped into my life, Mai was attending Portland State University and was about to graduate with a degree in business. My father, who is Mai’s stepfather, traveled to Portland to see her graduate. Over the years he kept abreast of his hometown by regularly reading the Oregonian newspaper online, and two years ago he came across a story about my mother’s death in a traffic accident. The story caught his eye because around the time he went into the service he had dated a young girl with the same last name. When he read she was survived by, at the time, a thirty-two-year-old son, Sam Reeves—his first name—as well as the same number of years he had been in Vietnam, he put two and two together. He was captured after only a few months in Vietnam, and if she had mailed him about being pregnant, he never received the letter. After he read about my mother, he would see my name ever so often in the online newspaper regarding a police case. He also found Internet sites about my martial arts and my competition years when I was younger. A few weeks before he came over, and probably the deciding factor in meeting me, he read I had shot an armed robber.

“Mai, I wish I could say or do something to make all this better. I hate to see you hurting.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, then, “You are doing something by being here for me.”

“I can say the same thing to you.”

I tell her about what happened to Mark and David, my new friend Rudy, and our run-in at the women’s clinic.

“How sad about Mark. I know he is a good friend; I hope to meet him some day.”

“When you come.”

“With Mother sick, I do not know when I can.”

“Don’t worry about it right now, Mai. There is where your head should be, with your mother. We’ll make it happen when the time is right. And I can always come back over.” Neither of us speaks for a moment. Then I hear her sniff. “Mai?”

“What did you call it … LDR?”

“Yes, we have a long-distance relationship. Some couples say they have an LDR when they live a hundred miles from each other in different cities. We live nearly eight thousand miles apart so we win the LDR. But no two hearts are more together than ours.”

She sniffs a couple of times. “That was good, Sam.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” We both laugh.

“Have you think—er—thought more about what you want to do?”

“Sorta. I thought I was pretty certain about resigning from the PD, but after talking with Mark at the hospital, I don’t know. My original reasons for joining the PD came rushing back.”

“We talked about it before and you said it was because you hate bullies.”

“That’s the simple reason, yes, although bully is a pretty feeble word for what’s going on. It angers me my friend was hurt because of who he is. Also, I’ve heard there have been a series of possible hate crimes. Most recently a black man was found lynched from a lamppost. I haven’t heard yet if it was a hate crime, but I’m betting it was.”

“Hate crime?”

“It’s an additional charge on someone who commits a crime against another person because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, and other things.”

“Oh yes. We talked about it once in a class at Portland State. I think the professor called it a bias? Yes, a bias crime. I think Portland had a lot of it.”

“There was a huge wave of it about twenty years ago. It seems like every twenty years or so, it flares up and there will be a lot of incidents for a while, and then it will die down again. To me, it’s bullying at its ugly worst.”

“It sounds like you decided. I think the protector in you is deciding.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m just more confused than ever. And there’s another not so little issue. I don’t want to ever pick up a gun again.”

“You have to wear one, right? To be a policeman?”

“Yes, every officer must. There are desk jobs but still you must carry one.”

Mai is quiet for a moment, then, “When you were here you said you could live in Saigon.”

“I did, and I still think so. But I’m not sure Vietnam is where I’m supposed to be. Samuel, er, Father said he sees my destiny here, in Portland.”

“Oh,” she says in a small, disappointed voice. Mai holds our father and his beliefs in high regard. So do I.

“He also said you could end up here, in Portland. With me.”

“He did?” More perky. “When did he say it?”

“We had a long talk the night before I left. I certainly don’t have his ability to see, but I think things are about to change for all of us.”

“Mm.” Long pause. “Thinking about it makes me happy, sad, and scared.”

“Me too.”

My doorbell rings.

“Someone come?” she asks.

I scoot my chair back. “A little surprise for you—actually, a big one. Be right back.”

“Hey, Todd,” I say after opening the door. “Thanks so much for doing this. I would have come after her.”

“No problem, Sensei,” the big man says, stroking the white cat cradled in his arm. She looks lazily toward me and her eyes widen in recognition.

“Hi, Chien. Have you missed me?”

She meows and reaches a paw toward me.

“Aaw,” Todd groans. Then in baby talk, “I sure have, daddy waddy. I missed you sooo much I cwy and I cwy.” Todd stands six foot three and is a second-degree black belt.

“Uh, ooookay, Todd.”

He laughs and hands Chien over to me. She snuggles into the crook of my bent arm like it was designed with her in mind. “Like I said on the phone, I was coming this way, anyway.” He picks up a bag of cat food from the porch. “She went through two of these while you were gone. Eats like a Marine.”

Chien is rubbing the side of her face against my chest. “Just let me know how much I owe you for litter, food, and shredded curtains.”

“No charge, Sensei. The kids loved her and she didn’t hurt a thing. Of course, now I got to get them a cat. Have you ever noticed Chien is more dog than cat? I mean it’s like eerie. She even fetches.”

We say our goodbyes and I head for the phone. Chien is really Mai’s cat. She gave her to me to take care of when she went back to Saigon. I was going to try to take it to her when I went there, but Chien got sick and the vet said she shouldn’t travel. Chien means warrior in Vietnamese, a name Mai chose after the cat attacked a fellow student who thought studying together meant he could cop a feel.

“You still there, Mai?”

“No, I have gone to Timbuktu.”

“Cute. Okay, listen.” I put the phone next to Chien’s purring face and hold it there for a moment. Then into the phone, “Guess who?”

“Chien! I miss her so much. How are you my little warrior?”

“She misses you too. You can see her when you come.” I refuse to say Chien “cwyed and cwyed and cwyed.”

“Okay,” she says softly. “Oh, Mother is ringing for me, Sam.”

“I will talk to you tomorrow. I’ll get my Skype set up and we can use it from now on.”

“I am glad you are in my life, Sam. I love you.”

“I love you too. Goodnight.”

“It is ‘good afternoon,’ Sam. It is lunchtime here.”

“Phở?” I ask, referencing the Vietnamese soup I had there so often.

“Yes. Talk to you tomorrow.”