Another Man's Moccasins

He took the last step from the darkness and, with the moonlight raising shadows across his legs, his voice seemed disembodied. “I’m willing to make you a deal.”

“I don’t deal. Drop the weapon.”

“Try to shoot me, and I shoot her.” He didn’t move. “The girl for the laptop.”

I stared down at him and could see his muscles straining the sleeve of his leather jacket. I figured the only thing to do was shoot. His weapon was pointed at her chest and chances were he’d hit her, but it was possible that my first shot would be on target and would do more damage than his responding fire.

I could feel the weight of the big Colt in my hand. What if I missed? What if he didn’t? I was willing to take those types of chances with my own life, but not hers. I thought about who she was, and what she’d gone through—all to find me.

Talk. It was the only way.

“Ho Thi wasn’t your granddaughter.”

“No.”

I swallowed and prepared myself for any opening that might present itself. “Did you kill her, or did Maynard?”

He looked at me. “He did.”

I didn’t believe him for a moment. Phillip Maynard hadn’t been the type, but Tran Van Tuyen was. “Okay, let’s say that’s the truth. Then why kill him?”

His gun hand stayed steady, and he was focused on the whimpering girl at the wall. He’d had the better part of a week to get to know me, and he’d done his homework well—he knew that I wouldn’t endanger her. “He committed suicide, as you said.”

“You’re lying.”

He glanced at me. “One of the ranchers, Mr. Dunnigan...”

“You’re still lying.”

“I am to assume from this that the bent bottle caps didn’t succeed in misdirecting you?”

“No.”

“It was a habit Phillip Maynard informed me of.” He actually smiled and finally took a breath. “Phillip was actually blackmailing me. He was supposed to retrieve the girls, and more importantly, the computer. He made a mess of it and killed Ho Thi. I suppose he thought that if he planted the girl near the culvert and threw the purse in with the Indian, there wouldn’t be any questions. I assume he was counting on a preconceived prejudice.”

“So you drugged him, just like Rene Paquet, and hung him? ”

He didn’t say anything. The unspoken truth lay there between us like a bad smell, and I started formulating a new plan in hopes that he’d become so agitated with me that he might change his aim. “Paquet wanted to save Ho Thi and get her out of whatever human-trafficking scheme you’ve got going, which is why she got picked up by the undercover detachment in L.A.”

He studied me. “You know, I really am unfortunate to have arrived in your county, Sheriff.”

“So you killed him and, consequently, the forty-two people in Compton.” He took another breath but didn’t move or say anything. “So, under the auspices of Children of the Dust, you retrieved Ho Thi and returned her to the brothel, but once there, she met the sole survivor of the Compton truck massacre. ” I nodded my head very slightly toward the young woman at the wall. “Ngo Loi Kim. She and Ho Thi were desperate, and I’m assuming Paquet was the one who had given them this laptop as an insurance policy in case something happened to him.” His resolve didn’t appear to be weakening, so I kept talking. “The wild card was the photograph of Ngo’s great grandmother, sitting in the Boy-Howdy Beau-Coups Good Times Lounge with an unidentified Marine investigator who played Fats Waller, and once told her about a favorite fishing hole in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, USA.”

“You have an overactive imagination, Sheriff.”

“It doesn’t take any imagination at all, and you’re still under arrest.”

There was a long silence, where we both reviewed our options. “My offer still holds—the girl for the laptop.” I was thinking about how I could prolong the conversation, but I was running fresh out of options and he confused my silence with my considering his offer. “You don’t know what is in the computer, nor should you care. It is nothing in comparison with the life of this girl—the great granddaughter of a wartime friend—and you can save her.” He took another step. “You didn’t know I existed last week, and I can assure you that you’ll never know I existed tomorrow.”

“You can’t possibly think you’re going to escape.”

“It is something at which I’m very good.” He smiled again.

He wasn’t going for any of it, and now was the time I would have to choose—fire or give him the computer for Ngo Loi. I took a deep breath, and the darkness shifted. It was as if the entire stairwell was growing behind Tuyen, and a face appeared almost a foot and a half above his.

Something was there.

Somebody.

Virgil.

Apparently, Tuyen was not the only one who had used my piano playing as a cover to ascend the steps, our conversation notwithstanding. My expression must have changed, because the lithe man’s face suddenly stiffened and he spun.