No Good to Cry by Andrew Lanh Page B

into my face, he swallowed his words. “My shadow. Not like the others—me.”
    I knew what he meant. Staring at the family photograph, the family illuminated by a photographer’s garish brush, the differences hit you. Young Simon, small and compact like his father, a bantam fighter, was dark-complected. Indeed, he could pass for a black kid. Or maybe Spanish. His father’s rough, honest gaze. Not so the others with their mother’s fairer skin, though they still carried their father’s features. Simon, the last born—and his father’s reflection.
    Mike went on. “Always had trouble in school. Skipped classes. Fought back. Doesn’t go now—a dropout.”
    My eyes drifted toward the living room. A wall of awards—plaques, school honors, embossed certificates, blue ribbons. A family’s wall of fame in eight-by-ten frames from Target. I breathed in. “I thought he’d be here today. I’d like to meet him.”
    Mike looked at his wife, who turned away. “We told him you were coming—to help us, we told him—but he gets angry. And he runs off early this morning.” A helpless shrug. “He’s always been…a runner. You yell at him—he disappears. I lock him in his room, but he escapes.” His voice broke. “I made him a prisoner but…” His voice trailed off.
    â€œBut I need to hear him out,” I said.
    A mumbled voice. “Some days we never see him.”
    Hank spoke up. “He’s facing serious charges. A man died.”
    Mike winced; his wife gasped.
    The tapping of a nervous foot. At the top of the stairs a boy’s sneaker moved.
    â€œI told him.” Mike’s hand balled up into a fist. “That detective came here, that Ardolino. Simon didn’t make it better. They took him and his buddy Frankie in for questioning, real quiet-like, me trailing behind all confused, but Simon yells and runs like a nut. Frankie tried to slug one. They throw them into a room to calm down.” His voice a shout. “My boy is doing his best to go to jail.”
    â€œTell me about his earlier arrests. Shoplifting. Muggings. Drugs. Four months in juvie.”
    At first his voice was so soft I had trouble hearing him, but then, banging his fist on the table so that the plates shook, he roared, “A foolish, crazy boy. He always tells me he’s not good enough—smart enough—for the family. Christ Almighty. Even when he was small, he got in trouble. To everything—no, no, no. Fights me.” A glance at his wife. “I demanded my kids be good in school. I…I locked them in their rooms at night. No nonsense. Study. They were not gonna have my life.” A thin smile at Lucy. “I mean, my life is good, but I wanted…” He stopped. He nodded at her.
    Lucy finished. “The best in America.”
    â€œSimon fought me. He used to follow his older brother around, like hero worship, Michael this, Michael that. But then Michael goes to Trinity and says life in this house—the junk heap in the front yard—embarrasses him. Little Simon got no one to talk to. Bad grades, mouthing off to teachers.”
    â€œWhere did he meet this Frankie Croix?”
    Mike’s face closed up. “A bad apple, that one. Sneaky, rotten. I know, I know—I excuse my boy and blame the other. I don’t excuse my boy. But this Frankie hangs out on Park Street in the Spanish neighborhood, drifts over to Little Saigon, maybe to buy drugs, finds this gang of boys…”
    Lucy broke in. “The VietBoyz, they call themselves.”
    â€œA gang?” I turned to Hank.
    â€œYeah, I heard of them. A local band of thugs—the underbelly of Little Saigon. Petty criminals, mostly. Not exactly BTK.”
    I squinted. “What?”
    â€œBorn to Kill, Rick. Remember that notorious Vietnamese gang that made headlines with a wild shooting at a funeral in Jersey? Based out