The Missing Girls of Little Saigon

The nightlife in Little Saigon pulsed—young, electric, alive. Music spilled from clubs that moonlighted as restaurants by day. Lines of partygoers braved the cold storm. The hunger for the night was plain in their darting, watchful eyes as they glanced toward the glowing doors.

Dent marched past the scene: fresh-faced youth dressed more for the sweltering heat of the clubs than the bite of the rain. The men wore flashy, expensive button-downs, their collars smooth despite the downpour. The women strutted in skintight dresses, their teased hair somehow holding up against the damp air.

One girl caught his eye. Shivering in high heels like the rest, she stood apart. Her green dress clung to a slender waist and full hips, her coy smile hinting at mischief. Her skin, dark and soft, reminded him of ripe black currants. On another night, he might have plucked her away from her circle of friends with promises of better music, tastier drinks, and no lines.

But tonight, he had business.

He left the neon-lit streets behind, heading deeper into the neighborhood, where the sidewalks emptied and the bright signs gave way to dim, shadowy shopfronts. English faded into Vietnamese. Electronics stores, tax offices, and liquor license brokers lined the streets, their darkened facades cold and uninviting.

This was the path to the Trees—the heart of Little Saigon.

The Trees were five towering, stark gray slabs jutting from the eastern corner of Uptown. In the 1950s, the area was called East Park Row and the Towers—as they were known then—were built for Gotham's working-class families. But when the shipyard shut down, a mass exodus followed, with those families fleeing to Midtown.

After the Vietnam War, the Towers were repurposed as a stopgap for the refugee crisis. Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, and Thais were crammed into the buildings, their lives packed into the cold, impersonal structures.

But they adapted. Rejecting the sterile building numbers, they renamed the Towers The Trees and gave each one the name of an Asian fruit: Cherimoya, Rambutan, Durian, Lychee, Longan. And so, Little Saigon was born—carved from the crumbling bones of East Park Row.

Dent stopped in front of Cherimoya. Rain dripped from his black hair onto his wool coat. Water sloshed in his shoes, his feet soaked through, but his focus stayed on the battered double doors ahead. They groaned on rusted hinges as residents slipped in and out, their sharp, wary glances lingering. A tall white man in a tailored overcoat didn't belong here.

He glanced at the crumpled note in his hand.

Cherimoya. Basement. Chim Lac. Red bird. Thanh Ha.

"You couldn't be more vague, Mari," he muttered, tucking the note into his pocket and walking inside.

The hallway stretched long and lifeless, the concrete walls damp and slick to the touch. There was no lobby just several scuffed elevator doors. Above one, a rusted placard labeled Basement hung at a crooked angle. At the far end of the corridor, an old man slouched in a threadbare chair, his thin elbows propped on the armrests. Pale eyes flicked to Dent, then drifted back to the crumpled Gothamist in his lap.

The elevator doors groaned open, releasing a stale gust of air. Dent stepped inside and jabbed the button for the basement. The light on the panel flickered as the car shuddered and began its descent. His eyes lingered on the steel doors, marred with deep scars—graffiti carved with keys and knives: names, crude sketches—all of it seemed like cryptic messages warning him not to go any further.

When the doors slid open, Dent felt a nervous tug at his senses.

A man filled the doorway, his massive frame eclipsing the world behind him. A black t-shirt stretched taut over his broad chest and muscular arms. His face was hard, unreadable as he spoke.

"What do you want?" he asked, voice gravelly and low.

Dent concealed his hesitation, smoothly pulling the note from his pocket. He spoke the words as if he'd said them a hundred times, though he was certain he was mispronouncing them: "Chim Lac."

The man's eyebrow twitched. Barely. Without a word, he stepped aside. It wasn't an invitation, but a command.

Dent slipped past him, feeling the weight of the man's presence pressing on his back.

The hallway beyond was narrow and dim, the air thick with moisture. Turning back would have been the wise choice—he knew that—but the strangeness of it all was tantalizing. It pulled him forward as much as his need for answers. Faint sounds echoed from somewhere ahead—murmurs and footsteps, muted but growing louder. He rounded a corner, the noise sharpening into a low hum of conversation. A warm amber glow spilled across the walls.

When Dent stepped through the threshold, he stopped cold.

The basement had been transformed into a sprawling, secret market. Strings of mismatched lights hung from the low ceiling, casting uneven shadows over rows of stalls draped with cloth. Vendors barked at customers who lingered over displays of ripe fruit, dried herbs, gold chains, counterfeit electronics, cheap cigarettes, and knives of every shape and size.

As Dent ventured deeper, every eye turned to him. Conversations faltered, fading into a weighted silence. The crowd—young and old, men and women—was unmistakably Asian, marking him as the white intruder, the outsider.

He moved carefully, each step drawing more stares. The deeper he ventured, the thicker the air grew with perfumes, colognes, unburnt incense, spices, and faint traces of tobacco. As he neared the end of the first aisle, a green steel door caught his eye.

It stood apart from the market, dirty and defunct, as if long abandoned. A red tribal-style bird was painted across its surface, its angular wings spread wide. The paint cracked and weathered, as though it had endured longer than the building itself.

Dent approached and knocked. The sound echoed, louder than he expected.

The door creaked open almost immediately.

The same hulking man from the elevator stood there, his expression unchanged. He said nothing.

Dent blinked, momentarily caught off guard, then quickly remembered the name on the note.

"Thanh Ha," Dent said, forcing confidence into his tone. "Marion Perez sent me."

The man stared him down for what felt like an eternity before slamming the door shut in his face.

Dent exhaled, tension coiling in his shoulders. The buzz of the market behind him grew louder, the sounds amplified by his unease.

Finally, the door creaked open again. The man stepped aside, his massive frame still looming.

Without a word, Dent stepped through. The heavy door groaned shut behind him, locking out the noise of the market.