Return to Dust by Andrew Lanh Read Free Book Online Page A

of such impurity. We also served as grim reminders of the deleterious American presence on that war-torn soil.
    Hank and I had some angry moments, even foolishly grappled on a tennis court one afternoon—a lame physical confrontation that was more ludicrous than hurtful—and then, curiously, Hank began to trust me—and to like me. Born in America, he had been raised at home with the blustery old biases carried from Vietnam, but also a lot of love. A bright guy, and funny. Hank—his real name is Tan—became my buddy. I liked him a lot.
    â€œSo you got a case you want me to help solve?” Hank asked, walking alongside me.
    â€œWillie Do.” I threw out the name of the man who’d supposedly skirmished with Marta Kowalski.
    Hank stopped walking, his face hardening, and leaned into me. “Vuong Ky Do.”
    â€œThe one and the same.”
    â€œWillie doesn’t bother anyone, Rick.” His tone was nervous and dry. “Willie…well, hides from the world.”
    â€œSo I remember.”
    â€œTell me.”
    I watched Hank’s face closely, animated, twisting to the side but back to me, eyes bright but wary. Ever since we became friends—and especially after he made it his passion to make me a part of his family, the Sunday morning guest for familial mi ga , the ritualistic chicken soup—Hank defined himself as my sidekick in my investigations. Most of my endeavors involved mundane and deadly dull insurance investigations that kept me busy and paid the bills. Tedious, granted, but for Hank, with all the fire of a young man who loved mystery and crime and punishment, my wanderings were the stuff of Arthurian quest. Sir Galahad with an iPhone, a Twitter obsession, and a Mac Powerbook. Jimmy Gadowicz found him a little too eager, but tolerated him with a grandfatherly tap on the shoulder. Liz, those times we were together, found him charming, delightful. And he blushed when she smiled at him. I found him good, honest company.
    As he tagged along on my fraud investigations, sitting in the car stuffing his face with doughnuts and drumming his fingers on the dashboard, turning up the radio when a Maroon 5 tune came on though I immediately lowered the volume, he had a lot to say about the world I inhabited. So many years my junior, he sometimes assumed a patronizing tone—the cocky American-born Vietnamese man who felt a need to school the always insecure immigrant boy who chose him as a friend.
    We sat at a table in the back of the hall. Hank stretched out, his legs resting on the bottom rung of a cafeteria chair. He was wearing a canvas jacket, vaguely military, and a J.Crew T-shirt beneath it. In his baggy shorts and orange sneakers he seemed ready for a day of surfing at a Rhode Island beach rather than getting ready for autumn and Thanksgiving feasts. A tall gangly young man, dark as nut bread, with narrow, slanted eyes in an intense hard-angled face, all his hair cropped close to the scalp and one discreet earring, he watched me closely.
    â€œWillie Do is a dangerous topic, Rick.”
    That surprised me. I sat up. “What? For God’s sake, why? I remember him from the college. He never spoke but…”
    He broke in. “Everybody in the Vietnamese community sort of leaves him alone.”
    â€œBecause of…”
    â€œWhat he went through. Christ, Rick. The torture, the escape.” A long pause. “But I think the brutal rape and death of his little girl ended his life. He had to watch that as it happened. He stopped breathing.”
    I shuddered. “I can understand that.” The frozen man.
    Now Hank stared into my face. “No, you don’t. I don’t think anyone can ever understand that. Yeah, my family…you on those Saigon streets, alone…yeah. But not like that. So you got to be careful when you bring his name into any investigation.”
    I breathed in. “Which is why I was planning on calling