Free Caught Dead by Andrew Lanh

contorted face, said something in a language I assumed was Yiddish, and made a guttural sound.
    â€œThis is what the world has come to,” he stammered. “You”—he pointed to Hank—“come to America and find not gold in the streets but gold in people’s teeth and across their knuckles and chunks so big around their necks they got back problems if they live to my age.” He chuckled, pleased with his observation. “Look,” he added, “it’s a sad story like all stories around here.” His lips trembled. “But I got nothing to tell you. I read the papers. I saw no shooting car, and if I did would I ever tell you about it? Not in this lifetime. But I did see your mother.” He looked at Hank, who was startled that the old man assumed Mary was his mother. “I’m closing up. It’s eight or so, I go to lock the door, but, you know, having trouble with the old key, so I turn and see the woman walking out of a car and standing on the sidewalk. She’s standing there under the streetlight, and I think, what’s with the Oriental lady being here? But I think maybe she’s working in the Chinese takeout one block over so I don’t look back. I went back into the store to turn off a light I left on in back because I forget every day, and I close the front door behind me. Next thing I know—bang bang.”
    â€œTwo shots?’
    â€œTwo shots. I stay inside until the police come. Then I go home to watch it on the eleven o’clock news.”
    â€œThank you,” Hank told him.
    â€œBut I’ll tell you, young man, a strange thing. In the split second I spot her standing there, she’s there like she’s looking for someone. That was the look on her face. Like she’s supposed to meet someone there. Like a person would look at a watch, you know.”
    â€œDid she look disoriented?”
    â€œWhat does that mean? I don’t know. I’m telling you, she might have been on the wrong corner by accident, but she’d come from somewhere looking for something.”
    â€œOr someone.” I looked at Hank. “Maybe she was looking for someone.”

Chapter Seven
    On Sunday I drove to Hank’s home for mi ga , chicken soup, the Sunday morning ritual of Vietnamese the world over. Invited many times to his home, I still felt a twinge of nervousness whenever I turned the car in that direction. There was a time when I wouldn’t have agreed so quickly to such an invitation. Hank’s father and grandfather, defenders of the idea of Pure Blood, stared at me too long—me, the mixed-blood violator of the Vietnamese household. But Hank had made it his mission—once he got beyond his own bias inherited from the men in his family—to integrate me into the family. It worked. Sort of.
    Inside the front door I removed my shoes, pushing them into the pile outside the kitchen door. I checked whether I had a hole in my sock. I didn’t.
    Hank saw me looking. “How Americanized you are.”
    I grinned. “Look at you.”
    Hank’s big toe jutted from a white athletic sock. He wiggled it. “I’m at home.”
    Hank’s mother greeted me, hugged me, and her fingers touched my hot cheek. “Sit in front of the fan. Please.”
    We sat at the huge Formica table. The life of the family was centered in the kitchen where all friends and family gathered. American guests sat in the little-used living room.
    His mother handed me a glass of Vietnamese coffee, a potent brew sweetened by condensed milk. The glass was ice-cold to the touch. It tasted like a creamy dessert.
    â€œI know you like it extra sweet.”
    â€œ Cam on ,” I told her. Thank you. Cam on nhieu.
    ***
    No one spoke English now, so I stumbled a bit with my fractured Vietnamese. We discussed the heat of the day. His mother choked out a word: Nong . We all nodded. Hank, wide-eyed at some of my stuttered words, jumped in