My optimism was obviously not catching. Brandt, looking older and more tired than I’d seen him in years, merely said, “I hope so.”
Early the next morning, tucked into my small corner office in the detective squad room, I began the day by pulling a slim address book from my pocket and dialing an in-state, long-distance number.
“State Police Criminal Division.”
“Dan Flynn, please.”
There was a brief pause. “VCIN-Flynn.”
VCIN stood for the Vermont Criminal Information Network, of which Lieutenant Daniel Flynn was director. The title sounded loftier than it was, since there were only two people in the office. Nevertheless, it was a grand experiment, and a credit to both Flynn, who’d thought it up in the first place, and to the Vermont State Police, who’d given him their blessing.
The principle of VCIN was childishly simple-establish a central clearinghouse for intelligence from every police agency in the state, using a process Flynn called the “pointer system.” If I fell over a crook named Bubba, for example, I sent his particulars to Dan, who entered them into his files on a “pointer card,” which he then tagged with my name. If any other cop, at any future date, came across Bubba and queried VCIN about him, Dan would know to put that other officer in touch with me. The beauty was that my file on Bubba never actually left my office-just his name and a few pertinent details. That one technicality guaranteed that no one could “steal” my case-a paranoid, and all-too-common concern of ambitious cops everywhere, and one around which Flynn had wisely constructed his system. As a result, from having no such operation three years ago, the Vermont State Police were now sharing information with-and acting as a conduit for-some thirty-five local law-enforcement agencies out of a possible statewide total of fifty-nine.
That, of course, was not the full extent of Flynn’s resources. His office was also connected to all the standard federal networks, both here and in Canada-as were many of the rest of us-and to Interpol. It also fielded information from the hundreds of Vermont state troopers out in the field, and communicated with state-police agencies throughout the United States.
All of which made Dan Flynn a good man to know. The fact that he was also pleasant and enthusiastic-if a little overly talkative-was a much-appreciated extra, something his greeting drove home now.
“Joe. I haven’t heard from you in months. What you been up to?”
“Nothing much. Things’ve been pretty peaceful.”
His rich laughter deafened my ear. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, boy. I read the newspapers. Soon as I heard about it, I ran Travers through my system here, just to see what popped up-professional curiosity.”
“What did you find?” I asked, curious myself. Travers’s wasn’t one of the names I would have thought to submit.
“He was a bad boy. You know he used to ply his talents in both Rutland and Bennington?”
“Yeah, I’d heard about some of that. Nothing to do with Asian gangs, was it?”
Dan Flynn laughed again, this time with a hint of conspiracy. “You know how it works, Joe. You want details, I give you the guy who handled the case. Period.” He hesitated a moment and then added, “But what about Asian gangs?”
“I think I may have something cooking down here. That’s actually why I called.”
“Got any names?” I could visualize him with his fingers poised over his computer keyboard.
“Yeah-four. Edward Diep, Truong Van Loc, Henry Lam, and Michael Vu.” I spelled each one out for him.
There was a prolonged pause while I heard him typing feverishly away. When he spoke again, I knew I’d definitely hooked his interest. “I found Michael Vu.”
I sat up, surprised that such a long shot had actually worked. “You’re kidding. Where?”
“Hartford-Detective Heather Dahlin. Vu’s been pegged for illegal aliens and possible extortion.”
I quickly wrote down Dahlin’s name, silently blessing VCIN and the foresight that had created it. “Anything else?”
“Not in-state. I take it you already tried the feds.”
“Yeah-nothing except that Truong’s brother was killed in a gang fight and that Vu has an old California rap sheet.”
Flynn grunted sympathetically. “These people all Vietnamese?”
“I guess so. Truong said he was.”
“Vietchin? Of Chinese ethnic origin?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“’Cause if they are, they may still write their names using Chinese characters-being from the old country is a big source of pride to them, especially since they’re discriminated against in Vietnam. If you can get their names in character form, then you can translate the characters using the so-called Standard Telegraphic Codes, kind of like Morse code-and then we can send them via teletype to Interpol, or the Hong Kong police, or whoever else you think might be useful.”
“The names I’ve got won’t work?”
“Not overseas. I’ve tried names that had ‘Bob,’ or ‘Mike,’ or whatever in them, and I’ve hit a dead end nearly every time. They pick those when they get here. ’Course, they might work with other U.S. agencies, like Vu did with me.”
“Okay. Thanks. Why did your ears perk up when I mentioned Asian gangs?”
“They’re suddenly getting popular. Border Patrol’s nabbing them in growing numbers, crossing over from Canada. INS says fully staffed Chinese restaurants are starting to open where there’s little or no market for them, and then showing the IRS a booming business. Our troopers are reporting more sightings. Burlington PD thinks they might have a small gang in the making.”
My mind went back to Thomas Lee, owner of the Blue Willow. “The restaurants are laundering money?”
“Some of ᾿em are. And covering a drug-distribution network and an illegal-alien pipeline and credit-card fraud, and who knows what else. Of course, I have to tell my own people that of the three thousand Asians we have in this state, probably ninety percent are clean as a whistle. But it’s always the bad apples, you know? And Asian bad apples are worse than most-well-organized and super-insular. We’ve found that some of the more suspicious restaurants get supplies like napkins and straws and the rest exclusively from Chinese suppliers in New York, or Boston, or even Montreal, instead of buying them from local distributors. Everything they do keeps them isolated from the rest of society. Part of that’s cultural, I know-but part of it’s real clever, too. I mean, what do we care about a truck making weekly deliveries of tofu and shit like that up and down the state? We don’t, and we’re never going to know how much on board is tofu, and how much is dope or dirty money. These boys are sharp.”
“You getting reports of home invasions and extortion?” I asked, thinking again of the Lees.
“Nope. Usually those kinds of crimes happen in a Chinatown, or at least a residential area where you have a whole lot of Asians lumped together. Vermont’s still mostly just a road between two spots. And I hope it stays that way-none of us has the manpower to tackle it if it really got hot.”
As if he’d been eavesdropping on his own torrent of words, Dan Flynn suddenly stopped and reflected back on what had started this whole lopsided conversation. “You said you thought you had something cooking. What did you mean?”
“I wish I knew. It may just be a small local disturbance, but it’s gotten very violent very fast.”
“Well,” Flynn concluded after a small hesitation, “call again if you need any help. In the meantime, if you like, I’ll run a query through the system about Asian crime in general-see if any towns besides Hartford and Burlington have been having any trouble. Maybe we can come up with a common thread.”
That was an unexpected offer from a very busy man, and it gave me a sense of comfort that we weren’t necessarily alone on this-whatever it turned out to be.
Sol Stennis hit his own pay dirt an hour later, calling me from an office at the back of the Hooker-Dunham Block annex on Main Street. “I think I found Vince Sharkey.”