“You called your friend"s stepmom, but not the police?” Rey scanned Kao from top to bottom as we sat on a lumpy avocado-and-hazelnut striped sofa in the young man"s cluttered living room.
The ground-level one-bedroom apartment was no more than five-hundred square feet with one tiny window at the front and a slightly larger one in the rear. Neither offered much of a view. The front overlooked a narrow street lined with a dozen similar three-story dwellings and a leveled lot bordered by cinder blocks; the back presented a large park and playground forgotten by time.
Hansi, Larry"s cheerful chatterbox cousin, had given us a quick scenic tour of downtown and five beach parks on a roundabout route to Kao"s. When he picked us up in a couple of hours, he"d drive past galleries and shops, as wel
