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do join gangs, especially the Natoma Boys and Santa Ana Boys.”
    “One paragraph in the whole piece, you put down the gangs. These guys aren't that sensitive, Tommy. A few words aren't going to put them on the vengeance freeway.”
    “I wonder…”
    “They don't care what you think anyway, 'cause to them, you're just the Vietnamese equivalent of an Uncle Tom. Besides, you're giving them a whole lot too much credit. These assholes don't read newspapers.”
    The dark clouds churned from west to east, congealing rapidly as they moved in from the ocean. The moon sank into them, like the face of a drowner in a cold sea, and the lunar glow on the window glass slowly faded.
    “What about the girl gangs?” Tommy asked. “Wally Girls, Pomona Girls, the Dirty Punks. it's no secret they can be more vicious than the boys. But I still don't believe they'd be interested in you. Hell if they got steamed this easily, they'd have gutted me like a fish ages ago. Come on, Tommy, tell me what's happened? What's got you jumpy?”
    “It's a doll.”
    Sal sounded bewildered. “Like a Barbie Doll?”
    “A little more ominous than that.”
    “Yeah, Barbie isn't the nasty bitch she used to be. Who'd be afraid of her these days?”
    Tommy told Sal about the strange white-cloth figure with black stitches that he had found on the front porch.
    “Sounds like the Pillsbury Doughboy gone punk,” Sal said.
    “It's weird,” Tommy said. “Weirder than it probably sounds.”
    “You don't have a clue what the note says? You can't read any Vietnamese at all not even a little?”
    Taking the paper from his shirt pocket and unfolding it, Tommy said, “Not a word.”
    “What's the matter with you, cheese head? You have no respect for your roots?”
    “You're in touch with yours, huh?” Tommy said sarcastically.
    “Sure.” To prove it, Sal spoke swift, musical Italian. Then, reverting to English: “And I write to my nonna in Sicily every month. Went to visit for two weeks last year.”
    Tommy felt more than ever like a swine. Squinting at the three columns of ideograms on the yellowed paper, he said, “Well, this is as meaningless as Sanskrit to me.”
    “Can you fax it? In maybe five minutes, I can find someone to translate.”
    “Sure.”
    “I'll get back to you as soon as I know what it says.”
    “Thanks, Sal. Oh, hey, you know what I bought today?”
    “Do I know what you bought? Since when do guys talk shopping?”
    “I bought a Corvette.”
    “For real?”
    “Yeah. An LT1 Coupe. Bright metallic aqua.”
    “Congratulations.”
    “Twenty-two years ago,” Tommy said, “when I first came through the immigration office with my family and stepped into my first street in this country, I saw a Corvette go by, and that was it for me. That said everything about America, that fantastic-looking car, going by so sleek.”
    “I'm happy for you, Tommy.”
    “Thanks, Sal.”
    “Now at last maybe you'll be able to get girls, won't have to make it anymore with Rhonda Rubbergirl, the inflatable woman.”
    “Asshole,” Tommy said affectionately.
    “Fax the note.”
    “Right away,” Tommy said, and he hung up.
    A small Xerox machine stood in one corner of his office. Without turning on any room lights, he made a photocopy of the note, returned the note to his shirt pocket, and faxed the copy to Sal at the Register.
    The phone rang a minute later. Sal said, “You put it through the fax wrong-side up, dickhead. All I've got is a blank sheet of paper with your number at the top.”
    “I'm sure I did it right.”
    “Even your inflatable woman must be frustrated with you. Send it again.”
    After switching on a lamp, Tommy returned to the fax machine once more. He was careful to load the page properly. The mysterious ideograms had to be face-down.
    He watched as the rollers pulled the single sheet of paper through the machine. The small message window displayed Sal's fax number at the newspaper and the word sending. The page of ideograms slid out of the machine, and after a pause, the word in the message window