Four Blind Mice

alternative was starvation, and besides, I had been brought up to hate the communists. I proved to be an excellent scout and was recommended to MACV Recondo School run by U.S. Army Special Forces. This was my initial encounter with Americans. I liked them at first.”
    “What happened to change that?” I asked Luu.
    “Many things. Mostly I came to understand that many of the Americans looked down on me and my countrymen. Despite repeated promises, I was left behind in Saigon. I became a boat person.
    “I finally got to America in ’seventy-nine. Orange County in California, which has a very large Vietnamese population. The only way we could survive was to re-create the family/village structure from our own country. I did so with a gang — the Ghost Shadows. We became successful, at first in California, then in the New York area, including Newark. They say I murdered members of rival gangs in New York and Jersey.”
    “Did you?” I asked Luu.
    “Oh, of course. It was justifiable, though.
We were in a war.
” He stopped talking. Stared at me.
    “So now you’re here in a supermax prison. Have you received a date for the execution?”
    “No. Which is very humorous to me. Your country is afraid to execute convicted murderers.”
    “It’s comical? Because of things you saw in Vietnam?”
    “Of course. That is my frame of reference.”
    “Atrocities committed in the name of military activity.”
    “It was war, Detective.”
    “Did you know any of these men in Vietnam: Ellis Cooper, Reece Tate, James Etra, Robert Bennett, Laurence Houston?”
    Luu shrugged. “It was a long time ago. Over thirty years. And there are so many American surnames to remember.”
    “Colonel Owen Handler?”
    “I don’t know him.”
    I shook my head. “I think you do. Actually, Colonel Handler was in charge of the MACV Recondo School when you were there being trained as a scout.”
    Luu smiled for the first time. “Believe it or not, Detective Cross, the scouts didn’t usually get to meet the man in charge.”
    “But you met Colonel Handler. He remembered you to the day he was killed. Can you help me stop the murders?” I asked Luu. “You know what happened over there, don’t you? Why did you agree to see me?”
    He gave another indifferent shrug. “I agreed to see you . . . because my good friend asked me to. My friend is Kyle Craig.”

Chapter 73
    I COULD FEEL a cold spot where my heart was supposed to be. This couldn’t all be leading to Kyle Craig. I had put him here in Florence for all the murders he had committed — and now, somehow, he’d gotten me to come and visit.
    “Hello, Alex. I thought you’d forgotten all about me,” Kyle said when he saw me. We met in a small interview room near his cellblock. My head was full of paranoid thoughts about the “coincidence” of seeing him again. He couldn’t have set this up. Not even he could do that.
    Kyle had changed physically, so much so that he resembled one of his older brothers, or maybe his father, more than his previous self. When I had been pursuing him, I’d met everyone in Kyle’s family. He’d always been gaunt, but in prison he had lost at least twenty pounds. His head was shaved and he had a tattoo on one side of his skull: it was part dragon, part snake. He actually looked like a killer now.
    “Sit down, Alex. I missed you even more than I thought I would. Sit, please. Let’s talk the talk. Catch up with the catch-up.”
    “I’ll stand, thanks. I’m not here to make small talk, Kyle. What do you know about these murders?”
    “They’ve all been
solved
by the police or the army, Alex. The guilty have been charged, and in some cases executed. Just as I will be eventually. Why waste your time on them? I’m a hundred times more interesting. You should be studying me.”
    His words were delivered in a low-key manner, but they went through me like a powerful electric current. Was Kyle the missing goddamn connection? He couldn’t be behind the murders. They had started long before he’d been arrested.
But did that really matter?
    “So, you don’t know anything that can help me? Then I’m leaving. Have a nice life.”
    Kyle raised a hand. “I’d like to help, Alex. I mean that sincerely. Just like the old days. I miss it. The chase. What if I
could
help?” he asked.
    “If you can, then do it, Kyle. Do it right now. We’ll see where it goes from there.”
    Kyle leaned back in his chair. Finally, he smiled — or maybe he was laughing