LITMIR.BIZ

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face softening. “If it were just me, I would live in a small village somewhere by the sea. I do not need a house like this, or this kind of high tech security. But I have a family—a wife, children, friends who stay or live here, part time and full time. I must protect them from Lai Van Tan and, of course, from others who want what is in the house.

      “Sometimes in life we have to make concessions, do we not?” he says, leaning against the desk and folding his arms. “My family is everything to me, Sam. I will do anything to make them happy and safe. Buddha said, ‘If you light a lamp for someone else it will also brighten your path.’ Very true. It makes me happy to make my family happy.”

      A blink ago, his eyes were those of a predator, now they are filled with love. I wonder what it would have been like to have been raised by him. I bet I wouldn’t have been the obnoxious teen that gave my mother such a hard time. On the other hand, to quote Popeye, “I am what I am.”

      Lam says something in Vietnamese and Samuel turns to look at an exterior screen. It shows two men, both wearing dark pants and white overshirts, standing side by side, their backs to the wall. The one on the left is smoking a cigarette and the other is drinking from a can. The exterior lighting bathes them in tungsten orange.

      “Maybe just two men taking a break from whatever they are doing,” Samuel says, his eyes watching the screen intently. The one smoking says something and the other laughs and pats the smoker’s shoulder. They hang out for a few minutes, talking, laughing, before shaking hands and walking off in opposite directions.

      Samuel turns to me. “It appears to be nothing. We have only been in this house for a few weeks so we are still new to it and maybe a little hypervigilant. Much of our tension is because we are unclear about what is happening with Lai Van Tan. Kim’s brother, Lu, has an inside source who says that the man is hungry for revenge. It doesn’t matter to Lai that the death of his son resulted from the orders he gave, or that his son and his partner were the cause of their own demise. His twisted reasoning makes him even more dangerous.”

      “You said in our last email exchange that he hasn’t done anything since you’ve been back from Portland. Why do you think that is?”

      Samuel shrugs. “Maybe he is just stewing on it, maybe he is making plans to do something and he doesn’t want to bungle it as his people did in Portland. Maybe maybe maybe. I do not know. That said, I do not believe that he will make a big attempt, such as storming our walls, because it would get too much attention from the government, the police, and the media. I think he will try to pick us off when he thinks we do not expect it, and he will do it low key. That is another maybe. Desperate people are capable of desperate things, like storming walls.”

      I watch Lam zoom in on a woman walking by the front gate. She stops, looks through the bars, and moves on. Lam restores the screen to normal view and moves his gaze to another monitor.

      “Just wondering,” I say, looking back to Samuel. “Mai picked me up at the airport by herself. No worries about that? I mean, you have all this video security but then she is driving around town.”

      “Good concern. As we saw in Portland, these people are terrorists, but we choose not to be terrorized. We go about our daily business, but always in high alert. I trust Mai’s abilities. She has been well trained.”

      “I remember,” I say. She caught me off guard two or three times in my school with her extraordinary speed. Her techniques were a bit fancy-smancy for my taste, but she did them flawlessly and made them work. And when she had to use her techniques in a real fight for our lives, her skill and viciousness were disturbing. When the timing is right, I want to ask her about that. Or maybe I’ll ask Samuel.

      “Mai has great skills,” Samuel says proudly. “I know my daughter was alert to everything around her on her journey to the airport, at the airport, and on her way back. But I wonder, Sam,” he says with a slight smile, his head tilted a little. “I wonder how observant you were.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Did you notice anything about Mai when she picked you up?”

      Oh man, did I, but I’m guessing that’s not what he’s talking about. “Not sure what you mean.”

      “Good,” Samuel says. “She even fooled the veteran police officer, a trained observer. She was carrying a Glock 26, nine millimeter handgun in an ankle holster.”

      He laughs at the surprise on my face. “You were in good hands, Son.”

      I chuckle and shake my head. “She never fails to amaze me.”

      “I would have gone with her, but one of the old soldiers in the home died two days ago. I was attending his funeral. He had been a member of the Thủy Quân Lục Chiến, the Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps. He served in the two hundred fifty-eighth Marine Brigade, fifth Battalion. The ‘Black Dragons’ they called themselves. Poor man had never got over the horrors he had seen. That is, until the last five years of his life when Alzheimer’s removed his terrible memories. The disease was a blessing of sorts, I think.”

      “I am anxious to hear more about the soldiers’ home, and see it.”

      “Tomorrow. You look like you could sleep a week.”

      “Two weeks, actually. About Lai Van Tan, do you think he knows that I’m here now?”

      “I think he knows the color of your underwear.”

      “Oh man.”

      “About those ‘maybes’ I mentioned earlier?”

      “Yes?”

      “There is one more. Maybe he will act now, be more motivated now that you are here.” I must have a pained expression on my face because Samuel adds, “I am sorry. I know you came here to help clear your head.”

      “Yes, and get to know you and Mai better, and meet Kim and my sisters. But I don’t want to add to the risk. I don’t want anyone to be hurt because I’m here.”

      Samuel smiles. “We will deal with it, Sam. That is what warriors do, no? And we will deal with it as a family, and you have a big family here. Besides, even if you had not come, he would have done something eventually. Your presence might hurry him up. Or maybe not. Maybe, maybe.”

      I get what he’s saying about the inevitable, but it still bothers me that my presence might be the cause of someone getting hurt, or worse. I don’t need any more of that.

      “You hungry? I think the phở is ready for us. Lam, Ly will bring you some shortly.”

      “Cám ơn,” Lam says with a salute. “Oh, Sifu come tonight?”

      “No,” Samuel says, opening the door. “We will let Sam rest. I think tomorrow my teacher will come.”

      “Trời ơi!” Lam says shaking his head. “Sifu same like wind.”

      Samuel smiles. “He is indeed, sir. He is indeed.”

      Samuel closes the door behind us and once again we’re out in the wet heat. Alex, a Vietnam veteran-cop-partner, used to say that it would get so hot here that the water buffalo would evaporate. I believe it.

      Samuel is chuckling. “Lam gets frustrated because Sifu has shown up three times without being seen on the monitors.”

      I shake my head, not understanding.

      Samuel shrugs. “I do not know how he does it. I come out into the backyard and there he is, feeding the koi. I think he does it because he can and to annoy Lam. Sifu likes jokes.”

       *

      Mai enters the dining room and kills in her black satin pants and white blouse. I saw lots of women wearing the same thing on our way here this morning but none looked so breathtaking.

      “Mother is sleeping,” she says, sitting down. “Ly will take her something when she awakens.”

      “I

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