Mrs. Vang looked down. She spoke in a low voice. “I am ashamed to say we lied.”
“You lied then? Or you’re lying now?”
“No, there were two men.”
“Come on, Mrs. Vang. What reason could you possibly have to lie to the police when you had just gone through such a terrible event? Why would you lie to the police?”
Mrs. Vang began to weep. Dr. Mai looked distressed.
“Well, Mrs. Vang?” said Nolan.
In a voice punctuated by weeping, Mrs. Vang spoke, drawing out a large cotton handkerchief to hold to her eyes. “I can’t say,” she said.
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“I can only admit, there was another man. Because it is true.”
Nolan shook her head in disgust. “I have nothing further from this witness.”
“You may be excused,” Judge Brock said, but Jack was already saying “I just have a few questions on redirect.”
“Remain seated,” Brock told Mrs. Vang.
Jack bent his head toward Nina. “Well? Do we do this to her?”
“She won’t lie,” Nina said. “And the details are important, why the second man was motivated to commit arson. Ask her-ask her if she knew him.”
“Mrs. Vang,” Jack said, “had you ever seen this second man before?”
“I can’t say.” Jack glanced at Nina and she nodded.
“You knew this man, didn’t you? Mrs. Vang, you are in a court of law and you have sworn to tell the truth.”
“Yes. This is the land of the free,” Mrs. Vang said.
“You must speak the truth.”
“I am ashamed.” She wept.
Jack gave her a second. “You knew this man?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
“Moua Thoj.”
“Same last name as the man your husband shot in his store?”
“Yes. Song Thoj’s brother.”
“Tell us about it, Mrs. Vang,” Jack said kindly.
Mrs. Vang spoke at some length this time, haltingly, in Hmong. Eventually Dr. Mai held up his hand to stop her. Nolan sat at her table, disdainful but also taking furious notes.
“She says-excuse me. Moua and his brother, Song, belonged to a gang in Fresno together. We told our daughter she cannot ever see Song, but our daughter lied to us and she saw him one day after school. We found out later. He was angry that we would not consider him to be our daughter’s husband. He and his brother, Moua, they came to the store and robbed it and shot my husband.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police who did this?”
“Because my husband said no. In our country a girl who lied to her parents and saw a boy alone is considered not a good person for a marriage. She dishonored our family. My husband almost died because of this dishonor. Better to try to handle it ourselves. So we made our daughter stay home from school, and my husband wanted to take her back to Laos.”
“But then there was a second robbery.”
“I believe the brothers came back to the store again to kill Mr. Vang, not to rob. Because still he would not allow the marriage. Their family-they had lost face. They came in and I was watching. And Song said, ‘You fool!’ to my husband. He had a gun. And Kao Vang reached under the counter and shot Song and killed him. Moua ran away.”
She spoke with the despair of a person telling the truth.
Judge Brock had awakened and pricked his ears. Nolan had stopped writing and gripped the side of the table as though she wanted to jump up.
“Then came the fire,” Jack said.
“My husband and I were having great trouble. He was very bitter that our daughter had brought all this harm to us. He insisted that she go back to Laos. I couldn’t let that happen. It is no good for women in Laos. She would have a terrible life. I thought, we must take our chances here. And so, after the fire, I left my husband and I took my daughter and son. I could not have done that at home. But in this country, women are free.”
“Are we just going to let this witness rattle on forever with her stories?” Nolan said.
Judge Brock said, “I want to hear this.”
“And did you ever see this Moua after your husband shot his brother?”
“We were still working at the store. He came in and threatened us again. He said Kao owed him revenge money because Kao killed his brother. I told him I would call the police. He ran away again. But the next night-then the fire. All was lost.”
“Mrs. Vang,” Jack said, “why didn’t you tell the police this time about Moua?”
“What is the use? What could they prove? My husband said, we are trying to get a settlement for losing our store and then we are going back to Laos right away and away from this country. I helped him. But I was unhappy and frightened. I will never go back to Laos. My daughter and son will be citizens. I left my husband and took my children. I am staying here.”
“Do you know where Moua is now?” Jack said.
“I hear his family moved to New York when an investigator showed up asking many questions one day some months ago. He won’t come back. He is afraid of the police coming now.”
So Paul had scared Moua Thoj away by asking all those questions back in September, Nina thought, and made things safer for the Vangs, a ramble in the dark that resulted in inadvertent good.
“And your daughter is where?”
“She is with me. She works at the same store as me.”
Jack gave Nina a look that said, anything else?
“We have suffered,” Mrs. Vang said. “But here there is hope.”
“I have nothing further,” Jack said.
Recess for the day. They marched out. Mrs. Vang and Dr. Mai came over to shake hands.
“We’ll get you your money,” Jack told her. “We’re going to win.”
“Good luck,” Nina said. “To you and your children.”
Bashing all around. Jack bashed Paul, Paul bashed Jack, and Bob had a birthday bash.
He was fourteen tonight, and since they were stuck in San Francisco, Paul had suggested the spinning Equinox restaurant for the celebration, based on Wish’s rave review. The view, spectacular at sunset, had turned foggy and now swirled romantic and ambiguous in gray, black, and white. Of course, the place lacked kid-pizzazz. Bob was the only person under thirty here, Nina thought, unless you counted how childish Jack and Paul were acting. They had traded bad jokes from the moment they met at the entrance to the restaurant. For men who collided as often as they did, they sure had fun together.
Fortunately, Bob seemed not to mind the company of adults or his recent exile. Since Nina had dragged him back with her to San Francisco to sleep in the Galleria Park Hotel on Sutter Street, he had amused himself exploring the city. Incapable of hanging around a hotel room doing schoolwork, so far he had spent his birthday riding around on the cable cars by himself for hours at a time while Nina sat in the court. He planned to take the ferry to Sausalito the next day. As a result, his face rubbed red by the wind, flush with health and fresh local lore, he couldn’t stop talking.
Although Jack had offered to put him up, Nina knew stranding him in Bernal Heights would just cause trouble. Downtown he could find so many things to do, and now that he was six feet tall, she didn’t worry as much about him in this city he knew well. Also, although she considered it, she couldn’t make herself go back to Jack’s condo, not with her memories of what had gone on in the past between her and Jack, and her fantasies of what had come after. That phase of her life had ended.
A waiter came by to take their orders, shutting Bob up while he pored over the menu. First, they chose drinks all around, with Bob deciding on root beer while the others dived into the harder choices. Paul and Jack engaged in a hot contest over dinner wine, then settled for one red and one white. The men picked food quickly, Paul ordering prime rib, Jack the pork tenderloin. Bob vacillated lengthily between penne pasta and salmon, driving the waiter to erase two orders before the pasta scored the winning vote. Nina went with the evocatively named lemongrass-skewered sea scallops.