Vato

Vato is one half of V & B Tow Company, a towing business whose work brings him into contact with people and problems that other operators might avoid. Alongside Blood, he assesses cars not only by their apparent value but by the likely behavior of their owners, shares an unexpected store of Vietnam-era stories, and becomes part of the circle around Takeshi and DL’s Karmology Clinic. His comic manner does not make him merely a joke: the narrative also shows him helping build a business with Thi Anh Tran and answering a call from the Thanatoids when their vehicle needs assistance.

Work and Practical Judgment

Vato first appears with Blood in a Custom Deluxe called Mi Vida Loca, slowly searching the Woodbine Motel parking lot for vehicles worth towing. Their method resembles surveying a forest for usable timber, but Vato’s business calculations are more complicated than choosing the most expensive cars. A Rolls-Royce owner, they reason, might treat reclaiming a towed car as an amusing adventure and leave a tip. A Mercedes, by contrast, could mean an unpleasant encounter and little profit. The distinction makes Vato’s work a study in people as much as automobiles: the make of a car gives him clues about the customer who may come to retrieve it.

The pair have recently taken part in a roundtable near Marin about the interpersonal problems involved in towing. Vato’s account of Mercedes owners links business risk to a vehicle brand’s reputation, turning a roadside service into a comic exercise in anticipating conflict. The humor is grounded in the work itself. Choosing which cars to tow entails weighing not just their market value but the likely cost—in time, trouble, and customer relations—of getting paid.

The following night’s encounter leads to a practical exchange. Blood gives Takeshi access to V & B Tow’s Preferred List, a continually updated guide to vehicles by make, model, year, condition, and special features, available around the clock. The detail shows the partners treating their knowledge as a service they can package, not merely as private expertise. When Blood mentions that they are tired, Vato produces white diamonds, and the two return to their nighttime search for towable vehicles. The scene keeps their work and its comic informality in the same frame: a professional information service coexists with a late-night cruise and a handful of small stimulants.

Stories, Humor, and the Clinic

The next day, Vato and Blood turn up unexpectedly at the Karmology Clinic with material about Vietnam generally and Ortho Bob Dulang in particular. Their accounts range across transactions at Ton Son Nhut, dangerous postings, military officers, and the shifting numbers of people present between sunset and sunrise. The narrative leaves the status of these recollections deliberately mixed: some are war stories, some happy inventions, and some express a stubborn certainty that never quite becomes a clear explanation. Vato is therefore a teller of stories without being presented as a reliable source for every detail. His arrival supplies Takeshi and DL with material, but the material remains unresolved between recollection, performance, and exaggeration.

Vato is also visibly susceptible to DL’s charm. As he talks, he becomes so captivated by her that he scarcely knows what he is saying; DL answers with professional-seeming attention. This small exchange complicates the clinic’s workaday consultation. Takeshi and DL are trying to listen, take notes, and appear serious, while Vato’s contribution is partly shaped by his attraction to the listener. The scene is comic, but it also makes the clinic a meeting place where information comes entangled with personality.

As Vato and Blood grow closer to Takeshi and DL, they learn about the Carezza di Morte, the Ritiro delle Ninjette, the Macchina Puncutron, and the one-year-and-one-day sentence. Vato and Blood do not offer the pair unsolicited advice about these matters, even though they discuss the story animatedly among themselves. Vato imagines turning it into a sitcom and, whenever it comes up, tries to provide the laughter of an entire studio audience by himself. His response converts an unusual and consequential history into comic entertainment, but his restraint in advising his friends marks a limit to that performance: he may laugh at the story without claiming authority over what Takeshi and DL should do.

Partnership and Community

Vato’s partnership with Blood extends beyond their shared tow-truck work. The account of Thi Anh Tran traces an earlier responsibility that grew into a business relationship. After Gorman Flaff’s death, a letter left by him brought Thi Anh Tran’s name to the partners. Years later, when she was qualified as an accountant and waiting at Pendleton, Vato and Blood hired her under their commitment as godfathers. They soon recognized her value and made her an equal partner. The change in her position also changes the partners’ own conduct: they become so wary of upsetting her that they are willing to do almost anything to avoid it. The business is thus shown as more than a two-man operation, with its structure altered by Thi Anh Tran’s ability and standing.

A later call from Thi Anh Tran prompts Blood to ask Vato whether he has done something wrong. The brief exchange presents their familiarity through teasing uncertainty rather than through explanation; the evidence does not specify the purpose of her call or establish that Vato has actually offended her. It does, however, reinforce the unusual deference the partners have developed toward their equal.

Vato and Blood also serve a wider community through the work of V & B Tow. When an emergency call comes from Shade Creek, the caller is among the Thanatoids. Their company is practically the only towing business in the county willing to handle vehicles connected with Thanatoids and the complications that may follow. On this occasion, the vehicle has gone over a mountain-road edge and ended up in an apple tree in the orchard below. Vato pretends to ask Blood whether they are heading in the right direction, and Blood reminds him that he is the navigator. The joke restores their familiar division of roles even as the call demonstrates the practical consequence of their willingness to serve people other businesses avoid.

Narrative Role

Vato’s episodes connect distinct layers of life in the novel: commercial calculation in the motel parking lot, improvised storytelling at the clinic, the history of a business partnership, and a roadside emergency involving the Thanatoids. He is not defined by a single quest or dramatic transformation in this evidence. Instead, his character takes shape through repeated acts of judgment and sociability: evaluating which cars make sense to tow, offering access to the company’s vehicle information, bringing stories to Takeshi and DL, and joining Blood in responding to a call others might decline.

His comedy works through contrast. The same man who turns a complicated personal history into a proposed sitcom helps maintain a company whose decisions have concrete effects for its customers and employees. His banter with Blood does not erase that responsibility; it is the form their partnership takes while they work. Vato’s place in the narrative is consequently both comic and connective: through him, V & B Tow becomes a point of contact between the clinic, Thi Anh Tran, and Shade Creek’s Thanatoid community.