78 | April• 2018
THE DRIVE OF HIS LIFE
become dentists and pharmacists
andwhite-collarsuccessstories–
madehimfeelashamedofthelife
he had made.
Money had always been tight,
which exacerbated the arguments
betweenMaandhiswife.Heknew
she was losing respect for him and
that everyone in the family had no-
ticed it. Rather than suffer the in-
d ig n it y, Ma moved one day, w it hout
explanation, from their home in San
Diego. He found a little room in a
boarding house near Santa Ana, 90
minutestothenorth,andbegana
solitary existence as a taxi driver – a
choice that seemed to have led to his
current predicament.D
UONG STEEREDthe Civic
towardsanewmotel,the
Flamingo Inn, where they
would meet Nayeri and Tieu. Deep
intothenight,thefugitiveslaughed
and drank and smoked cigarettes,
whileontelevisionthenewsanchors
said that the reward for information
leadingtotheirarresthadincreased
from$20,000to$50,000.
Sunday dawned, and Nayeri
seemedmoredistantthanusual.
Ma’scaptorsdrankandtalkedinur-
gent tones. Nayeri soon began yelling
at Duong. he room became loud and
tenseandsmall.Ma,withhislimited
English, sensed that the argument
concernedhim.He’dbeguntocon-
sider what the men must have real-
ised themselves: if they killed himneeded a second vehicle. The next
morning,theyfoundavanforsale
on Craigslist. Duong took the vehicle
foratestspinandthensimplydrove
away.Hemetupwiththeothers
againlater,andthefugitivesvisited
ahairsalonandalteredtheirap-
pearances, none more than Duong,
whoshavedhisgoateeanddyedhis
hair black.
When they left the salon, Nayeri
andTieutookthevan.DuongandMa
gotintotheCivic,andthere,alonein
thecar,Duongbecamerelaxedand
evenchatty,askingaboutthetaxi
driver’s life in their native Vietnam-
ese.Atonepoint,heevencalledMa
‘Uncle’,atermofendearmentthat
implied respect for the old man. But
Mawasleery.Forallheknew,Du-
ongwasplayinganangle.Asalways
intheUS,MafoundhisfellowViet-
namese the hardest people to read.
WhenMahadlandedinCalifornia
in1992,withawifeandfourkids,
he’d struggled. A former lieuten-
antcolonelintheSouthVietnam-
ese Army during the Vietnam War,
he still had the physical and emo-
tionalscarsfromsevenpunishing
yearsspentinaCommunistforced-
labourcamp.hewarandhistime
inthecamphadplacedhimnearly
two decades behind the first wave
of emigrants who’d left Vietnam for
the US.
For years he took menial jobs.
He would later say that his sib-
lings – who had arrived earlier and