“What is it?” He returns the smile.
“It’s just nice to have someone in the house taller than me,” she says, amused. “Doesn’t happen often.”
She’s standing right beside the marble statue, and it hits him where he’s seen her. Same hair, same lips, same—
He swallows. The naked statue is of her. Damn.
It’s exactly what she wanted him to see, and, satisfied, she leads him down the hallway.
* * *
Tranh’s office is at the back corner of the house, and like everything else, it’s enormous. He’s still on the phone when Drew is led in, but he smiles and gestures for his guest to sit. Drew points to the bookcases covering the entire side wall, and Tranh nods again, mouthing go ahead in English before continuing his conversation in Vietnamese.
The built-in bookshelves are so tall, they require their own ladder. Tranh’s collection is impressive. Drew finds everything from a first edition of Little Women to a signed hardcover of The Shining. While he doesn’t really envy Tranh his house, his lake view, his cars, or even his wife, he does feel a stab of jealousy over these bookcases.
If only he were the head of a violent gang that killed people and got kids hooked on drugs, he’d be rich, too.
“See any you like?”
Tony Tranh is off the phone and standing right beside him. They shake hands, and though Tranh is nearly a foot shorter than Drew, he doesn’t seem the least bit intimidated. A trim man in his early fifties, he’s wearing a perfectly tailored black button-down, pressed chinos, and leather Gucci slides. Drew feels a bit lame in his cheap white athletic socks from Costco. Twelve bucks for a pack of eight.
“All of them,” Drew replies with a smile. “Your collection is impressive, as is your home.”
The answer pleases Tranh. He gestures to the chairs facing the windows and the lake, and they both sit.
“So you mentioned to my assistant that you host a true crime podcast.” Though he was born in Saigon and didn’t immigrate to Canada until he was sixteen, Tranh speaks with no accent at all. “I listened to your inaugural episode about the billionaire murders. So fascinating. How many listeners do you have?”
“About three million per episode.”
“And what does that pay?”
Very direct. “Not as much as I’d like.” Drew keeps his tone light. “But enough to eat and pay my mortgage.”
“Hmmm,” Tranh says. “So it’s more like a monetized hobby, then?”
Drew stiffens but doesn’t reply. It’s not the first time he’s heard it.
“You have a master’s in journalism, right? And then you worked at Toronto After Dark for fifteen years, until it folded?”
Uh-oh. “Yes, I did.”
Tranh nods. “You did a series on all the Chinatown gangs. It was an interesting read. I knew some of those boys when I still lived in that area. You seemed to have a lot of inside information. Who gave it to you?”
Drew smiles. “I never reveal my sources.”
“What if I paid you a hundred grand? Cash? Right now?”
Surprised, Drew laughs. That was a first. “Tempting. But still, I can’t.”
“That’s too bad.” Tranh’s eyes fix on Drew’s. “I would have liked to know who talked to you.”
“So is this your way of confirming that you’re part of the Blood Brothers, one of the gangs I wrote about?”
It’s Tranh’s turn to smile. When he does, he looks like a teenager. “The BB weren’t a gang. More like, you know … a monetized hobby.”
Drew can’t help but laugh.
There’s a knock on the office door, and the same tiny woman from earlier brings in a tray. She sets down a pot of green tea, two teacups, and a plate of brown cookies.
“This is my mother,” Tranh says. “She makes the best cinnamon-sugar cookies, an old family recipe. Try one.”
Drew is not a cookie person and has never had much of a sweet tooth. But both the old woman and Tranh are looking at him expectantly, so he takes a cookie and bites into it.
“Delicious,” he says, and means it.
“C?m ?n,” she says with a smile, then leaves.
Tranh pours them both tea and settles back into his chair. “So. If I understand correctly, you’re here to talk to me about someone I might know, who dated a woman that was friends with someone you used to know. Do I have that right?”
“I know that’s vague—”
“Exceptionally.”