Dragonfish: A Novel by Vu Tran

back. “My father comes here about once a week. It’s the only place you can fish in the city, outside of Lake Mead, which isn’t a real lake either. They stock this pond with about thirty thousand trout a year. Catfish, too, and bass.”
    Junior eyed the shimmering waters. He said, seemingly to himself, “I have never eaten a single fish I’ve caught here.”
    The kid finally managed to unhook the fish, and it jumped out of his hands and flopped on the ground before tumbling back into the pond. He stared at the rippling water and wiped his hands on his jeans with an infantile smirk.
    Junior sat back down and placed the rod on the ground.Beside his chair was a small blue cooler. He reached into it and pulled out a small but bulging manila envelope. He handed it to me and flicked his cigarette into the pond, which drew some glares from fishermen nearby.
    I was struck by how openly he was doing all of this, as if no one would find this scene curious, the two brothers in their FBI shades and him in his stylish fishing gear, pulling envelopes out of a cooler like beers. Why, I wondered, were we not having this conversation at his restaurant or some dusty office with the curtains drawn?
    “Inside the envelope,” he said, “you will find a cell phone and five hundred dollars in cash for the room and any expenses you might have. Stay alert. Check Miss Hong’s room as often as you can. Stand guard outside if you have to. And keep the phone on you at all times in case I call. The boys here will escort you to the hotel. You will find your car parked on the fourth level of the garage, in lot 4B. I will give you back your keys after this is all over. Just know that it’s there, and that despite everything, we do want you to drive home on your own.”
    “And if she doesn’t come?”
    “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. For now, start with the hotel room.”
    The brothers approached me, my cue to embark on the job I’d been given.
    When I stood, Junior gestured at me with yet another unlit cigarette between his fingers. “My father would not want me telling you this, but you should know that it was Miss Hong who pleaded for you. In fact, she promised him that if he left you alone, she would never leave him. She swore her life on it. For you. That is the only reason my father’s men didn’t come to your doorstep months ago.”
    He lit the cigarette, turned from me, and expelled a profound cloud of smoke into the morning air.
    He had spent our first meeting convincing me that I had no business being with Suzy. This time I was the only person who could save her.
    That feeling rose in me again, though now I understood what it was, why it distressed me so. The job I’d been given was to be my punishment.

5
    T HE ENTRANCE TO THE C ORONADO H OTEL was canopied by a blanket of lights so brilliant, even at noon, that I imagined it singeing my hair. Two valet attendants, bow ties choking their necks, stood glumly below the raised lance of a giant bronze conquistador who welcomed guests. Like the other casinos downtown, the Coronado revealed its age during the day, with its big-bulbed signs flashing sixties glamour, its flat crusty walls a world away from the mirrored splendor on the Strip.
    When the brothers dropped me off, the kid handed me my duffel bag of clothes through the car window along with my credit card and my badge, which he pulled out of his own pocket. “Don’t lose yourself, Mr. Officer,” he said. “We’ll find you.” He winked at me as the tinted window swallowed up his face. Slowly, their hearse of a Lexus rolled down the street.
    I walked at once to the parking garage where my Chrysler, as promised, stood pristinely in lot 4B. I checked the undercarriage and could find nothing suspicious. To my surprise, the door was unlocked. Inside, my Glock lay where I’d left it in the glove compartment, and my backup five-shot was still nestled comfortablyin its holster beneath the driver’s seat. Except