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Chapter 2

U ncle Duran had arranged his desk to take full advantage of the window in his office. A man of upright posture, powerful build and impeccable taste, the senator sat with his back to the expanse of glass, fully aware that the view from the trio of wing-backed chairs facing his desk was a postcard image of the nation’s capitol. Seen from a height and distance that softened detail and muted noise, visitors to his office saw stately monuments, manicured lawns, cherry trees and the orderly movement of pedestrians and traffic along wide boulevards. It was Washington, D.C., at its most picturesque.

Framed by the window as he sat in his leather-bound chair, the senator looked positively presidential.

Not only did he look the part, but he wanted the role. Because he was a man who knew the right people and did the right things, the Beltway press was already speculating that he was a strong contender for the Democratic party’s nomination. Although it was too early in the election cycle for Uncle Duran to make a public announcement, he had begun talking privately and often about his ambitions. Mostly to people who counted. Occasionally to me. Before I’d left for Mexico, he’d wondered out loud if being President would inhibit his ability to act as he saw fit, then smiled as he told me that my job was to be sure that it didn’t.

It was only when he stepped away from his big window and massive desk that first-time visitors realized how big Uncle Duran was. At six foot seven and a muscular three hundred pounds, he dwarfed not only me, but most of his constituency.

It was his size that had terrified me as a child when I first saw him in the Songkhla refugee camp in Thailand. Though I wanted desperately to go to America, I shrank back as this burly, big-voiced man and his entourage approached. Only a camp worker’s tight grip on my hand kept me from running to hide in my bed.

Most Americans I had met had large noses, but this man’s was very large and crooked. His face was craggy, with a tall forehead, a jutting chin and thick eyebrows. Like a fairy-tale giant, I thought as I stared at him. Without hesitating, he leaned forward and scooped me up, lifting me far from the ground. I trembled when I saw that his eyes were like pale pieces of silver. And that his teeth, when he smiled, were large and very white. I had wondered if he ate children.

Then he turned to those who were with him and spoke. My English was not good enough to understand what he said, but the camp worker whispered a translation. As cameras flashed and pencils scribbled on small notebooks, the senator explained that I was special to him. Because he could not locate my father, his brother and his wife would adopt me. I was the first of the needy children that the loving, generous citizens of America would rescue. He intended to find placements for hundreds of children like me—children who had been orphaned by war and who dreamed of America.

Now, almost two decades later and just months past his sixtieth birthday, Uncle Duran’s dark hair had turned the color of brushed steel. But his rich baritone voice and gentleman’s charm still won hearts and even votes on the campaign trail.

Unfortunately, Uncle Duran was not being charming now. Nor was he smiling. The argument that we were having across his centuries-old desk had boiled down to a few simple truths. It didn’t matter that I had worked for him long enough to prove that my professional judgment could be trusted. And it didn’t matter that I was his brother’s only child. It only mattered that I was defying him.

As I stood behind one of the wing-backed chairs, my fingers digging into its cushioned sides, my face impassive, I watched him clamp his unlit cigar between his front teeth and slowly shake his head. Then he rolled the cigar back into a corner of his mouth to speak again.

“Though I warned your parents against him long ago, I’ve overlooked your friendship with Tinh Vu, even tolerated your addressing him as ‘uncle.’ I tried to accommodate a child’s need to rediscover her roots, to embrace the familiar. But you are no longer a child. And you’re more American than you are Vietnamese. Damn it all, Lacie. When was the last time you actually spoke Vietnamese?”

“It’s been a long time,” I admitted. As a teenager, I’d tried to become part of the Vietnamese community in Chicago, but quickly discovered I didn’t belong. Even Uncle Tinh and I had, for many years, conversed in English.

Uncle Duran nodded, smiled around his cigar. But if he thought I was going to back down, he was mistaken.

“Does it matter how Vietnamese I am?” I said. “Or how American? I’m a good mimic and a quick study. As you’ve often pointed out, I can fit in anywhere I want to. All I am asking is to be allowed to do a job that I’m trained to do. That’s all Uncle Tinh is asking.”

Uncle Duran’s smile disappeared.

“And I am asking you—no, I am telling you—that I will not authorize this venture. I have been part of your life longer than Tinh Vu has. I was the one who found you, who gave you a family and a job that means something. Can you so easily dismiss my decision about this?”

Tears welled in my eyes. I didn’t want to defy him, to hurt him. But it was because of him, because of the values he’d taught me, that I had made the only decision I could when Uncle Tinh called.

“You’ve told me often of your work for the senator,” Uncle Tinh had said. “Can you come down to New Orleans right away? On business, Lacie. Please. My people…our people…need you.”

How could I say no?

I looked directly at Uncle Duran, lifting my chin for emphasis.

“I’m sorry, Uncle Duran,” I said. “This is something I have to do.”

He moved the cigar away from his mouth, put it down on the clean crystal ashtray on his desk. When he lifted his head, our eyes met and I braced for what I knew was coming.

“You’re fired,” he said clearly. “Effective immediately.”

I had chosen.

And so had he.

I went back to my adjacent and more functional office. Determinedly dry-eyed, I packed my personal belongings into several cardboard boxes as Uncle Duran stood in the doorway and watched, unspeaking. Then he helped me carry my possessions downstairs and load them into my car. But before I turned the key in the ignition, he leaned into the open driver’s side window.

“Even if I approved of Tinh Vu, which I don’t now and never have,” he said, “I cannot risk having anyone in my employ so closely associated with organized crime. I know what your feelings are on this subject, and I’ve tried to spare them by waiting until now to bring this up. I have evidence, Lacie. Recent evidence that Tinh Vu is actively involved in the production and distribution of breeder documents. You, of all people, should know what that means.”

Then he stepped back from the car. But he spoke, once again, before I’d completely rolled up the window.

“Should you ever find the courage to face the truth about your Uncle Tinh, call me. We can revisit the issue of your employment.”

That gave me plenty to stew over as I sped down the Beltway toward the studio apartment I rented. Uncle Duran’s suspicions about Uncle Tinh’s ties to organized crime were all too familiar. But a specific accusation and talk of evidence were new.

Even though he had never even met him, Uncle Duran had never made a secret of his dislike for Uncle Tinh. It seemed to me that his dislike grew to the point of near obsession when Tinh’s City Vu opened in New Orleans. After that, Uncle Duran had taken every opportunity to point out that great food and impeccable service were not the reasons the restaurant thrived. Impossible, he said any time an opportunity presented itself, that an immigrant could parlay a storefront restaurant in Evanston, Illinois, into a landmark twenty-room hotel and restaurant just a block from the French Market in New Orleans. Tinh Vu could not have achieved this merely through hard work.

I agreed. And so did Uncle Tinh.

Even when he still lived in Evanston, Uncle Tinh had catered to those who wanted to keep their business dealings private. It was not unusual for businessmen, cops, politicians, criminals and, I suspected, individuals who combined two or more of those avocations to meet over a meal in the little storefront. Uncle Tinh always managed to arrange that such meetings were undisturbed. In New Orleans he’d taken the concept a step further. He claimed proudly that if you were to ask any journalist in the Big Easy where the city’s power brokers met, their list would include the quartet of small dining rooms on the mezzanine level of Tinh’s City Vu. Those rooms, I knew, were swept daily for listening devices.

That did not make my adopted Vietnamese uncle a criminal.

Supplying false documents did.

A few years earlier I’d helped the INS break up a documents syndicate in Los Angeles by locating a storage facility that, when searched, yielded two million “breeder” documents. Such documents—counterfeit social security cards, resident alien cards, U.S. birth certificates and more—established legitimate backgrounds for illegal immigrants. They proved legal residency in the U.S. and were used—bred—to obtain genuine documents such as driver’s licenses, student ID cards and insurance cards. Counterfeit documents were big business. The stash I’d discovered was worth forty million dollars on the streets. And those who produced such documents were closely tied to those who exploited illegals once they arrived in the U.S.

In the past I had dismissed Uncle Duran’s periodic accusations about Uncle Tinh, thinking that he was unnecessarily suspicious. And, perhaps, jealous. But now, as I turned onto the ramp down to the garage beneath my building, I wondered whether I should return to Uncle Duran’s office and examine the evidence he claimed to have.

Did I have the courage to do that?

The tears that I’d so successfully suppressed for most of the afternoon began to creep down my cheeks as I pulled into my parking spot. I killed the engine, lay my arms across the steering wheel and rested my forehead against them. For a few minutes I sat that way, unmoving, as I considered my options.

Though I owed much to my Uncle Duran and I had worked hard to make him proud of me, Uncle Tinh was my oldest and dearest friend. He and I first met when my new American parents took me to a little campus restaurant in Evanston, Illinois, for pho. As I attacked the noodle soup with chopsticks and a deep ceramic spoon, Tinh Vu had nodded approvingly, then come over to chat with us. In doing so, he gave my parents a means to communicate with a nine-year-old girl who had lived with them for just a few weeks. My parents spoke only a few words of Vietnamese; I knew only the broken and often crude English spoken by street-smart teens at the refugee camp.

Over the years I ate in the restaurant’s tiny kitchen frequently. Beneath a colorful poster of the kitchen god, Ong Tao, Uncle Tinh and I talked about our lives and our problems and our dreams as we ate steaming bowls of pho or nibbled chopsticks full of do chua, a spicy-hot fermented pickle. About the time I went off to college, Uncle Tinh sold the campus town restaurant and moved to New Orleans. But despite busy schedules, we kept in touch. My last visit to the Big Easy had been just five months earlier.

I trusted Uncle Tinh with my life. Did I trust him not to lie to me?

I lifted my head from my arms and sniffled as I dug around the glove compartment for a tissue. I blew my nose, then looked at myself in the rearview mirror. My own very serious dark eyes stared back at me.

I knew what I was going to do.

I would go to New Orleans. Uncle Tinh would explain the current crisis in detail and, if it was within my power, I would stay and help the Vietnamese community. At the same time, I would observe and interact with my Uncle Tinh not only from the perspective of someone who had grown up loving him, but as the adult I now was.

When I had done all I could, I would return to Washington. There, though the thought of it made my heart ache, I would examine Uncle Duran’s evidence. If it had substance, I would confront Uncle Tinh, giving him a chance to convince me of his innocence.

And if I discovered that Uncle Duran’s accusations were true?

I took a deep breath as I stepped from my car. I squared my shoulders, straightened my spine and lifted my chin. For the second time that day, I made the only decision I could.

If Uncle Tinh was a criminal, I would dedicate myself to bringing him to justice.

Chapter 3

A week later I checked into the room that Uncle Tinh had reserved for me at the Intercontinental New Orleans. The luxury high-rise hotel was conveniently located in the Central Business District and offered impeccable service along with the anonymity of almost five hundred guest rooms.

My flight was an early one so, as we’d agreed, once I’d settled into my room, I joined Uncle Tinh at the Old Coffee Pot. His restaurant—Tinh’s City Vu—was a dinner place, so the Old Coffee Pot was our long-time favorite for a quiet, relaxed breakfast.

Uncle Tinh was already sitting at one of the little tables in the restaurant’s tree-shaded courtyard when I arrived. Before he realized I was there, I stood for a moment watching him sip his coffee and, once again, I found it impossible to believe that this man could be a criminal. I walked over to stand beside the sun-dappled table.

“Hello, Uncle Tinh,” I said.

He smiled broadly as he stood and hugged me enthusiastically. Then he held me briefly at arm’s length, his dark eyes sparkling as he asked about my flight. I looked back at the man who was the bridge between my two worlds, my only connection to my birthplace and its culture.

Although he was almost sixty, Uncle Tinh looked much the same as he had the day I met him. He had a round, unlined face, a body kept strong through the practice of martial arts and was tall for a Vietnamese man—almost five foot eight inches. His head was shaved clean and his hands, as always, were beautifully manicured. He wore a white dress shirt that was unbuttoned at the collar, a pair of gray trousers and his trademark leather sandals. His favorite Rolex watch—a bit battered from hard use—rode on his right wrist, accommodating his left-handedness.

“You look lovely as ever, chère,” he said as we settled into our chairs. “Fit, certainly. But maybe a little too thin.”

I laughed. No matter how much I weighed, Uncle Tinh complained that I looked too thin. In the past month, I had, in fact, regained all the weight I’d lost in Mexico. Which put me at my usual one hundred and five pounds. And I was sure that the bulky blue cotton sweater and jeans that I wore made me look several pounds heavier.

“One of your desserts will remedy that, I’m sure,” I said.

“Ah, that reminds me. Since your last visit, I have created a new dessert. It will be a favorite, I think. But you are my most honest critic. So I wait for your approval before adding it to the menu.”

I had never yet disapproved of one of Uncle Tinh’s desserts.

“I will sample it at the first opportunity,” I said.

Uncle Tinh waited until I’d taken my first bite of the callas—crispy Creole rice cakes smothered in hot maple syrup—before telling me that he’d arranged for me to attend an evening gala in the Garden District. It was being given by the Beauprix family.

“Anthony Beauprix is the son of an old acquaintance of mine. He is a policeman and a friend of the Vietnamese community here in New Orleans.”

Uncle Tinh, it seemed, had already decided to contact me when Beauprix had come to him for help. Beauprix had told Uncle Tinh that without someone inside the Vietnamese community, his investigation was hopelessly stalled. That was when Uncle Tinh had told Beauprix about me. Uncle Tinh laughed as he related that part of their conversation. Or, more correctly, he laughed in reaction to my expression.

“No offense, sir,” Beauprix had said to him. “but I was hoping you could recommend someone who lives or works in Little Vietnam. Someone who’d be willing to pass relevant information on to me. The last thing I need is some gal from up north coming down here and playing cop. I don’t doubt she’s good at her job—she sounds like a fine little actress. But this is police business, always best handled by the police.”

I didn’t know Beauprix and hadn’t worked with the New Orleans P.D., but the attitude was all too familiar. And I knew from experience that my size would make it even easier for him to underestimate me.

“For this,” I asked Uncle Tinh pointedly, “I’ve disrupted my life?”

“Patience, chère,” he replied. His accent, like his restaurant’s food, mixed the French of upper-class Vietnam with the Creole accents of New Orleans. “If I had the means to aid the Vietnamese community without involving you or the police, I would. Certainly, many in Little Vietnam would prefer it that way. But I have only wealth and the guilt of one who did not suffer as many of my countrymen did. This situation requires the intervention of outsiders. Anthony Beauprix is doing his best. But whether he likes it or not—whether he knows it yet or not—he needs you. That means convincing him to accept your help. I have already laid the groundwork. So now I will tell you how it can be done….”

I spent the rest of the day shopping and, by midafternoon, put a dent in the expense money that Uncle Tinh had given me. I was pleased with the purchases I carried back to my room in an assortment of boxes and bags. I now had a suitable dress, appropriate undergarments and matching shoes to wear to the gala. I shed my clothes in the dressing room—a luxury I’d longed for in my small D.C. apartment—and took a long soak in the deep marble tub.

I submerged myself so only my face was above water and considered my future. Unlike Uncle Duran, I was not independently wealthy. Thanks to Uncle Tinh, my stay in New Orleans would cost me nothing and I had enough savings to coast for a while. But eventually I would have to support myself.

If Uncle Duran’s evidence was nothing more than malicious speculation—and I felt that it likely was—I would seek a new job among organizations that already appreciated my diverse and, by most standards, peculiar skills. Past assignments had given me contacts within an alphabet soup of government agencies specializing in national security: CIA, FBI, ATF, DSS, INS. One of them would probably hire me. But the appeal of my job with Uncle Duran had been the commitment to the immigrant community that he and I shared.

As I made circles in the bubbles with my toes, questions about my future ran through my mind. Would I ever again be able to work for Uncle Duran? Did I even want to? Would he blackball me, making finding another job in Washington impossible? What impact would conflict with Uncle Duran have on my parents?

So many questions. No answers.

My mind flashed to the poster that hung in my adoptive mother’s office, and I smiled. Her favorite movie was Gone With the Wind.

“I won’t think about that now,” I said out loud in my best Scarlett O’Hara imitation. “I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

I splashed enthusiastically just for the hell of it, spent a moment blowing bubbles with my head beneath the water and my hair splayed out around me, then practiced my New Orleans accent by reciting Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham out loud until the words echoed off the bathroom’s glossy white-tiled walls.

Out of the tub, I thought about slipping into one of the cushy terry-cloth bathrobes supplied by the hotel, realized that one-size-fits-all wasn’t created with me in mind and, instead, wrapped myself in a thick, white bath towel. Then I sat on the upholstered bench in front of the lighted vanity, carefully applied my makeup, fixed my hair and slipped on my new clothes. I was a vision in basic black.

“Ah, the belle of the ball,” I said as I turned slowly in front of the room’s full-length mirror. Then I laughed and added, “Not!”

Unlike Scarlett, I wasn’t dressed in dusty velvet drapes. But I doubted that Beauprix would fully appreciate my wardrobe choice. At least, not tonight. I took the elevator downstairs and was pleased to note that few eyes turned in my direction as I made my way through the lobby.

I could have taken a cab, but this was New Orleans and I loved the romance, if not the Spartan nineteenth-century amenities, of the city’s arch-roofed streetcars. The St. Charles line ran past the front of the Intercontinental, at the No. 3 stop. I got on, carrying the exact change required, dropped my five quarters into the box and felt like Cinderella going to the ball.

Unfortunately, my teal-green coach was crowded with tourists and commuters, and all the reversible wooden seats were occupied. So I stood toward the back, congratulated myself on selecting new shoes that were actually comfortable, and enjoyed the New Orleans scenery sliding past at nine miles an hour.

About twenty minutes later, I stepped down from the coach at stop No. 19 and walked for two blocks. The umbrella I’d taken as a defense against the light drizzle was almost unnecessary—live oaks formed living canopies along the residential blocks above Louisiana Avenue. The house I was looking for was on Prytania and Seventh, just a block below the free-standing vaults and above-ground crypts of the City of Lafayette Cemetery.

The Beauprix home was a double-galleried Victorian gem with a first-floor living area that even the bodies and voices of several hundred guests didn’t fill completely. Inside, the huge open spaces of the first floor were a swirl of color and texture, of light and sound. Everywhere, tall crystal vases spotlighted by tiny, intense lights overflowed with pink and violet varieties of roses, lilacs, irises and gladiolas floating in clouds of baby’s breath.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t at the moment fully appreciate the beautiful decor, the sounds of celebration or the smell of fresh flowers. Because within a few minutes of my arrival through the back kitchen door of the lovely house, I had ended up standing at a stainless-steel counter, surrounded by the bustle and din of food preparation and reeking of fish and onions.

I wrinkled my nose and tried not to breathe too deeply as I finished dusting a large silver tray of pale-pink appetizers with a sprinkle of red caviar and finely chopped chives. Grateful that the smell was not necessary to my disguise, I wandered across the kitchen to the sink, carefully washed my hands, then rubbed them dry on the front of my bibbed apron. Beneath the black apron was a black rayon uniform that hung limply below my knees. Beneath that, there was enough padding to make me look forty pounds heavier and distinctly barrel-shaped. Once my hands were dry, I briefly tucked my right hand into an apron pocket, assuring myself that the tiny electronic device I’d hidden there was still safe. It was one of a handful of specialized items I’d collected over the years and brought with me to New Orleans.

“Olivia!” the caterer said loudly. “Take that tray out to the dining room, please.”

I counted to ten slowly before looking up, deliberately slack-jawed and blank-eyed, from my contemplation of the heavy support hose and the sturdy black shoes I wore. For the gala, carefully applied makeup had changed my complexion from golden to dusky and I had braided my hair in deliberately thick, uneven corn rows. The wax forms that thickened my cheeks and made my upper lip protrude also distorted my voice.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said slowly.

Ignoring the direction of the woman’s pointing finger, I picked up the silver tray nearest the sink. It was littered with a few limp pieces of parsley, a half-nibbled radish and a few abandoned olives.

The caterer—a tall, middle-aged black woman whose presence seemed to calm the chaos of the busy kitchen—was destined to be a saint. She spent only a moment rolling her eyes heavenward before stepping in front of me, taking the tray from my hands and returning it to the counter.

“This one, honey.” She gave me a filled tray, then corrected my hands so that they held it level. “Now be careful, Olivia. Don’t spill.”

“No, ma’am.”

I offered her a smile enhanced by a gold-capped front tooth, then walked to the dining room down a short hallway lined with glass-fronted shelves stacked with fine china and polished silver.

I slipped behind the long buffet table and carefully set the tray down at the far end of the table, in an open space beside a huge arrangement of irises. The thick petals looked like velvet and were a shade of purple so deep it was almost black. I tucked myself behind the arrangement with my back into a corner.

Slowly, with an air of intense concentration, I began lifting each stem, turning it slightly and settling it back into the vase, as if to make sure that each flower was shown off as beautifully as possible. Except that the flowers I was arranging were at the back of the vase. Either the caterer didn’t notice or she’d given up on keeping the most dim-witted of her employees busy. And I wondered what favor Uncle Tinh had called in to saddle her with such a useless worker.

From behind my curtain of flowers, I peered out at the party through my thick-lensed glasses, genuinely enraptured by the graceful patterns that formed and reformed as guests sought out acquaintances and made new contacts. Laughter mixed with the murmur of voices and the rustle of the leathery leaves of the magnolia trees that overhung the open gallery windows. A live, six-piece band wove it all together with a soft, bluesy melody.

This was New Orleans at its best. For a moment I regretted mightily that Lacie Reed wasn’t making an appearance as herself at the party that Anthony Beauprix had thrown for his father’s eightieth birthday. Briefly, I considered how I could capture the evening in pen-and-ink washed with the faintest suggestion of colors. Then I sighed and considered what Uncle Tinh had told me about my host, Anthony Beauprix.

Besides being a cop who desperately needed my help but was too chauvinistic and anticivilian to accept it, Beauprix was wealthy beyond most people’s wildest dreams. That, Uncle Tinh had told me during breakfast. The Beauprix family was old money, their fortune tied to a history of sailing ships, bootleg rum, smuggled guns and an uncanny ability to end up on the winning side of any war, no matter which side they’d started on. In New Orleans, that knack earned them as much respect as their money did.

Perhaps inspired by a public hanging or two—the citizens of New Orleans also having no problem executing those they respected—the Beauprix family gradually shifted their attention to more legitimate enterprises such as shipping and oil. Which was what made Anthony stand out among the current generation. A maverick, Uncle Tinh said. A beloved black sheep. Unlike his younger brother and sister who’d earned M.B.A.s at Tulane or his engineer and lawyer cousins, Beauprix was a detective in the New Orleans Police Department. A job, Uncle Tinh noted, more suited to the morals and attitudes of the founding members of the Beauprix clan. Certainly in his attitude toward women and his unlikely friendship with Tinh Vu, he was a throwback.

Then Uncle Tinh had shown me a black-and-white print of a photo of Anthony Beauprix that the Times-Picayune had on file. It was a candid shot taken as he’d accepted the police department’s award for valor. The caption taped to the back of the photo mentioned a hostage situation and no one dying. Thanks to Beauprix. From the grainy photo, I could tell that he was taller and slimmer than the mayor, dark-haired, and had his eyes, nose, mouth and chin in approximately the right places.

More guests arrived and the area around the table became crowded, blocking my view of the room. The caterer, who still looked unharried, swept past me, switched out a nearly-empty tray of white-chocolate-dipped strawberries for a full one and disappeared back into the kitchen.

In a halfhearted attempt to keep Uncle Tinh in her good graces, I spent a few minutes brushing crumbs from the linen tablecloth before busying myself with the irises again. I had just finished stuffing a particularly gooey stem back into the vase when a nearby male voice said “the flowers” with the slight rise in tone that usually implies a question.

I lifted my head and slid my eyes in the direction of the voice.

Standing on the other side of the vase, staring in through the flowers, was a man in a tuxedo. He was perhaps six feet tall with olive skin, well-cut dark hair and hazel eyes. He was smiling with a mouthful of perfect teeth.

My first thought was that this was Anthony Beauprix. My second was to wonder who he was smiling at. My third thought was that there was only one possible candidate.

I looked quickly at my feet.

“Do you like the flowers?” Beauprix repeated.

I nodded.

“And strawberries,” I muttered thickly and for no particular reason, except that I’d always believed that distinct characteristics and a personality quirk or two were essential to creating a believable persona.

“What’s your name?”

“Olivia,” I said, wondering why he could possibly want to know my name. Impossible to think that he had seen through my disguise. Perhaps he was planning to complain to the caterer about her useless staff.

I was wrong.

“You’re doing a fine job, Olivia.”

He flashed me another smile, put the plate he was carrying down on the table, picked up several dipped strawberries from the tray and added them to the bounty on the plate. Then he frowned and looked back at me.