Dukkha Reverb. Loren W. Christensen
out the door six minutes later.
“Did you sleep well, Son?” Samuel asks. He and Mai are seated at the table. Ly sets down a plate of croissants and sliced papaya.
“I think he woke up frisky, Father,” Mai says.
He frowns. “Frisky?”
“I slept wonderfully,” I say, looking at Mai over the rim of my cup. “Gosh, this is really excellent coffee.”
“I am happy you like it,” she says, missing my not so subtle change of subject. “It is called Trung Nguyên. It is our, uh, domestic coffee.”
“It’s fantastic. Do you have Starbucks here?”
“No Starbucks,” Samuel says, thankfully forgetting the frisky comment. “I like their French Roast but nothing compares to Trung Nguyên. Many critics say it is the best in the world. Besides, a cup of coffee here is fifty cents. In America, a Starbucks costs four dollars or more. No Vietnamese here is going to pay that much for coffee.”
Mai refills my cup. “It is hot today already,” I say, appreciating the ceiling fan.
“Always warm in Vietnam,” Mai says. “This is the rainy season now. It will be hot and rainy and… muggy?”
Samuel nods. “Muggy, yes. You have not seen it rain until you see it rain here, Son. The streets flood for a couple of hours and then everything is dry and hot again.”
I stuff a piece of croissant into my mouth. “I’m so thrilled to be in Saigon.” I wave my hand at the table. “This is all really fantastic. The way you live. Everything. It’s not what I expected.”
Samuel’s face sobers. “We are very fortunate. As you will see, there is great poverty in Vietnam, especially in the countryside. In Saigon, it is not always as obvious, except for street beggars in the core area, and in a few scattered parts of the city. That is because we are the third wealthiest city in all of South East Asia. Others in Vietnam are not the same.”
“Father will not say much about it, but he and Mother give much to the poor and to organizations that help people. The old soldiers’ home cost much money to operate and Father pays for it himself.”
He waves her off. “That is fine, Mai. Everyone helps when they are able.”
“That is so not true. You and Mother are extremely generous—”
“Have some more papaya, Sam,” Samuel interrupts. “It is quite sweet this time of year. We have many types of fruit here…”
His predator eyes return.
Mai touches his arm. “Father? What…”
He turns toward the glass doors. Did he hear something?
The Superman overture tinkles from Samuel’s cell.
“Intruder,” he says, calmly looking at the screen. “In the yard.” He scoots his chair back and stands before the full meaning of his words sink into my still jet-lagged brain. He stands to one side of the glass doors and quick-peeks around its frame.
The Superman overture continues.
“Remain here,” he says, opening the glass doors.
Mai and I look at each other for a second before getting to our feet. We follow him like the disobedient children we are.
Samuel stops at the top of the landing and looks toward the koi pond, his head blocking my view of whatever he is seeing. From the left, Lam is sprinting toward the pond, shouting, his Glock held in a two-handed grip. He sounds pissed.
When I lean out to look around Samuel, I see the back of an elderly man sitting at the end of the cement bench where Samuel and I sat last evening. His posture is calm and relaxed. Incongruently, there is a groaning man lying on the ground next to him, kicking his bare feet and flailing his arms as if he were trying to swim on dry land. The old man is casually patting the back of the prone man’s head as if consoling him.
Lam stops behind the bench looking confused as to how to proceed. He says something to the old man. If he got an answer, I didn’t hear it.
Samuel moves quickly down the steps and over to his security man. Samuel says something to him and Lam lowers his weapon.
“What’s going on?” I whisper.
“I am not sure,” Mai says. “Lam asked Sifu if the man gave him trouble. I did not hear what he said.”
“That’s Shen Lang Rui?” I ask, though Mai just said it was. “Who’s the guy on the ground?”
Samuel speaks with the old man, who continues to pat the moaning man’s head. The downed guy is doing a great imitation of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps—sans pool.
“An intruder, I think,” Mai says. “I think Sifu caught him.
Slapslapslapslapslap
Tex streaks hand over hand between Mai and me, bounds down the four steps, and slaps his way over to the others.
Lam jerks the dazed young man to his feet, and is about to smack him, but Samuel steps between them. When Lam lets go, the intruder’s wobbly legs give out and he crumples back to the ground. The old man scoots off the bench, kneels on one knee, and touches the front of the man’s neck. He rubs it in small, gentle circles. In no time, the man shakes his head and gathers his bearings. Sifu stands and nods to Samuel.
“Shen Lang Rui healed him,” Mai whispers with admiration. “So he can stand.”
Before I can ask what she means, Samuel and Lam pull the man to his feet, his legs no longer appearing wobbly. Lam wants a piece of the guy so badly that he can barely restrain his twitchy self. I’m guessing that he doesn’t like his security breached. A touch on his shoulder from Samuel calms him a little.
Samuel leans in close to the intruder, their noses nearly touching. The young man listens, his face vibrating with fear, then he begins blabbering as if he has only seconds to get it out. Sifu has resumed sitting, his back to the action, once again watching the undulating movements of the koi.
I glance at Mai.
She smiles, shrugs. “All this must seem weird to you,” she says.
“It doesn’t to you?”
“The man is a thief, uh… what you call it… a burglar. Lam said that he came over the wall on the south side. There is a tree on the outside of it that Father is having removed because he thought that something like this could happen.”
“He isn’t one of Lai Van Tan’s people?”
“I think that Father is believing he is just a thief. He is nineteen, he said. Just a stupid boy. He is poor and was looking for something to take to sell.”
“Are you calling the police?”
Mai shakes her head. “I do not think Father will want that.”
“Why not?”
“Father will explain.”
“I don’t understand about Sifu. Did he catch the intruder?”
“I think so. I think he was holding the thief on the ground waiting for Lam to come. Sifu knew that Lam would see him on the monitors. He always teases Lam by coming in… un… undetected.”
I shake my head. “This is crazy. What was he doing to the kid’s neck?”
“The patting? It was to hold him down. Sorry, I do not know that nerve technique. It is advanced.”
This is all a bit much even if I weren’t still jet lagged.
Lam heads back to the monitor room, his gun tucked in his waistband, while Mai and I remain on the porch. Samuel is speaking quietly to the thief, but the hapless kid is trembling like a bumped bowl of Jell-O.
“Father