Sweat (30 page)

“That's my motto.”

The stairs broke a moment of silence, creaking in pain as Wallace followed in the younger detective's wake. Nguyen reached the fourth floor and looked back down at Wallace. The twenty-two-year veteran with a growing waistline was grasping the banister in an effort to both pull himself up and prevent himself from falling back.

“The exercise program starts next year, with my New Year's Resolution,” Wallace managed through a thick cough.

“It's July.”

“I know. Remember what I said, ‘slow and steady.' I don't like rushing things.”

Nguyen knocked on the door with three hard thuds. A few seconds passed before Wallace tried his special if-you-knock-loud-enough-someone-will-answer-even-if-they-are-not-home technique.

“I'm coming,” a voice said, agitated.
The Wallace Theory
proved correct again. He smiled at Nguyen who shook his head at the immature, albeit effective, approach of his mentor. Wallace pounded once more for good measure.

“I said I was coming, you don't have to be such an asshole,” the voice said as it approached the foyer.

Robert Plant Everett, bong smoker extraordinaire and son of the self-proclaimed biggest Led Zeppelin fan ever, opened his apartment door and a visible cloud of smoke billowed out. Wallace and Nguyen turned and stared in disbelief at the lifelong student peering out through the haze. Door open, it registered in Robert's rusted cerebrum that the visitors were pounding on his neighbor's apartment. “Jake isn't home,” Robert said, with long stretched syllables, a common speech impediment of a daily toker.

“Do you know where we can reach him?” Wallace asked, taking a step toward the neighbor's door.

“That depends. What do you want him for?” Robert asked, eyes bouncing slowly from Wallace to Nguyen and back to Wallace. A mix of smells, none of which were appealing, poured from the apartment. A lava lamp cast a slowly flickering shadow that nudged against the doorframe. Nguyen stepped to the other side of Wallace and peeked into the stoner's paradise. It was impossible to tell whether the twice-baked neighbor kept a bowl burning in his apartment or whether the smell was just “cannabis cling,” smoke impregnated into the neighbor from years of abuse.

Wallace pulled out his badge and shoved it in Robert's face. The quick flash of the shield was too fast for the veteran stoner, and Robert's brain tried to process what his eyes had just seen.

Wallace didn't wait for a reply. “Where is he?” the detective asked.

“Where is who?' Robert asked.

“Jake Patrick. Apartment 4-A,” Wallace answered.

“He's not home.”

“We already covered this ground, bright eyes. Where is he?”

“He said he was going to be away for a few days. Said he had something to take care of.”

“Where did he go?”

“Out of town, I guess.”

“When did he leave?” Nguyen asked, perturbed.

“What day is it?”

“Monday.”

“Then he left yesterday,” Robert said, trying to sound straight.

“When will he be back?”

“Wednesday, I think. He gave me his fish bowl and asked me to feed his fish while he was gone.”

“You two friends?”

“Nahhhhh. But Jake seems like an all right dude. For someone who doesn't really party,” Robert added, once again no longer conscious of his audience's profession.

Wallace looked at Nguyen.
Let it go, just let it go
, he thought, hoping Nguyen would read his mind.

Vincent DiMarco watched the white van turn left at the end of the road leading to Chang Industries, followed by the rumbling of two, five-ton trucks, shaking the ground, stirring up a cloud of dirt and bugs. DiMarco's rental car was littered with surveillance mainstays: binoculars, grease-stained fast food bags, an assortment of coffee cups and soft drink cans. He was a man of habits, and in the hours he spent on surveillance, DiMarco drank his caffeine, chewed his gum, and smoked his cigarettes—all with equal passion.

He sweated through three shirts a day, and the smell of perspiration and bad food in the car was growing rancid. Worse still, DiMarco was becoming immune to his own funkiness. He had briefly visited the stage where he could smell himself and he knew he stunk. He was now at the point where he knew he reeked, but smelled nothing. It was all downhill from there. He could step in a pile of fresh dung and it wouldn't affect him in the least. The population of indigenous flies was enjoying the Wop from Boston like a rotten-flesh buffet.

The small park with a semi-unobstructed view of Chang Industries was one of three famous suicide spots on Saipan. During WWII, when the Japanese knew that the U.S. offensive on the island wasn't going to end with the honor of victory, the cliffs earned the nickname that has haunted them for half a century.

Facing impending doom, ruthless Japanese soldiers convinced the local population that the Americans would torture, rape, pillage, and burn. Believing that a certain and most unpleasant end was at hand, the island's population—a mix of Pacific Islanders with a history of Spanish, German, and Japanese colonization—started throwing themselves from the top of what are now called “suicide cliffs.” When the bodies stopped raining and the waves below washed away the crimson evidence, twenty thousand islanders had killed themselves. Those residents who had resisted suicide of their own volition were simply thrown off the cliffs by the Japanese military. By comparison, twenty-four thousand Japanese soldiers and three thousand American G.I.s had died in the weeklong battle for the island.

DiMarco stood and for the hundredth time read the landmark sign identifying the cliffs and their infamy. He threw away his coffee cup in the green basket trashcan that buzzed with two-winged activity and looked over the edge of the cliffs with an extended neck.

Surveillance was boring but necessary, and the isolation of the cliffs was perfect for staying low. The oppressive heat kept most tourists at the beach, away from the scorching sun. And when the odd tourist or history buff did infringe on his activities, DiMarco got out of his car and headed down the narrow trail that lead to an even smaller scenic overlook. The trail was narrow and treacherous enough to scare a billy goat, much less beachcomber tourists in flip-flops. A ten-minute walk by DiMarco was usually enough time for the crowds to move on.

Now armed with a photocopied picture of Lee Chang liberated from the circulation stack at the local library, DiMarco kept his eyes glued to the back end of his binoculars. On his fifth day of surveillance, the Bostonian from Southie realized Lee Chang wasn't coming out, and even if he did, he certainly wasn't coming out with the girl. He had noted the two guards on duty during the day, and the team of four that patrolled the lot at night. The girls who worked in the factory walked from the building on the left in the morning, and returned at night. There was little else to see, with one exception. For the fifth day in a row, he watched the white van arrive, the driver retreating into the smallest building on the company grounds. The van and its driver left an hour later. It was a routine repeated three times a day—morning, noon, and night.

DiMarco stood by his car and felt the breeze on his face. He shooed away a persistent horsefly that attacked by stealth, twice making a getaway with a small bit of flesh. DiMarco slapped his leg and missed his target, never taking his eyes off the facilities.
Maybe I just found my way in,
he thought.

DiMarco followed the white van into town, blending in easily with the island traffic in his rented American two-door. The Chernobyl-red sunburn on his driver's side window left arm was his biggest risk to being spotted.

The van obeyed the speed limit and signaled when turning. DiMarco kept pace. Years of driving in Boston—a mix of Indianapolis raceway and demolition derby, with extra points for nastiness to your fellow commuter—made driving on the island almost boring.

DiMarco followed the van to the Seaside Breeze Resort, an establishment neither grand enough for a resort nor close enough to the ocean to be seaside. The garbage cans in front of the hotel were full from the tourists who walked down the main drag, launching trash missiles in the hotel's direction. At night the empty beer bottles, thrown by teenage gangs with nothing better to do, rained down. The pool was empty, a green sheen on the remnants of water resting on the bottom. The pink paint on the balconies of the hotel peeled, begging for a new coat. The van pulled into the parking lot, past a set of palm trees with dangling brown leaves, its roots no longer able to find an ample water supply.

The doctor pulled his van into the small parking lot wedged between the hotel and the moped rental shop and miniature golf course next door. DiMarco found a space near the back of the lot that allowed him to keep one eye on the empty pool, the other on the white van. He took a walk around the lot to stretch his back, peeked into the back of the van as casually as he could, and walked across the street for more fast food. The stakeout continued, only the location had changed. Tonight the bucket seat would be his mattress.

The doctor strolled out the front door of the hotel at six-thirty. DiMarco, already up for an hour with back pain, stood from the park bench on the side of the hotel near the pool, leaving his two-day-old newspaper on the table and throwing his half-eaten honey bun in the grass for the already circling seagulls.

The doctor pulled the handle on his van, the door sliding smoothly back on its rollers. He threw his little black bag on the back seat, shut the door, and rolled down the manual window. The knife on the side of the doctor's neck snapped him awake much quicker than the black cup of Hawaiian coffee and shower he had already had.

The doctor looked at DiMarco out of the corner of his eye, the knife touching his skin a fraction of an inch from his jugular. “What do you want?”

“If you do exactly as I say, you will live. If you don't, you won't. Those are the rules. The only thing keeping you alive is that I am not interested in you.”

“Take my wallet and the car.”

“I'm not interested in money.”

“What do you want then?”

“You are on a need-to-know basis.”

“I think you're making a mistake. I'm just a doctor. It is my job to help people. Take the car and my wallet. I won't call the police.”

“Well, doctor, if you are in the business of helping people, then you're perfect. You're going to help both of us. I have told you the rules. You can take them or leave them.”

“That's not really much of an option.”

“I was hoping you would see it that way.”

DiMarco slid the side door open and switched knife hands, the blade now touching the skin at the base of the doctor's skull. All DiMarco had to do was grab the doctor's head, pull it back, insert the knife and scramble his brains. The doctor, fully aware of the anatomical danger, kept his hands on the wheel as instructed.

“Where are we going?”

“According to my schedule, you have to be at Chang Industries by seven. Let's get moving.”

The white van slowed as it approached the gate to the sweatshop. DiMarco pulled the doctor's black medical bag onto his lap. Still sitting behind the doctor in the back seat, DiMarco spoke with an eerie calm. “Tell them I am a fellow doctor from the local hospital. And if I hear you speak a single word of anything other than English, it will be the last words that ever leave your mouth.”

The doctor never had the chance to scream for help. The two daytime guards waved the van through without even a cursory inspection, too busy with their conversation to be distracted by the doctor and his clockwork routine.

“Pull up close to the building. Closer than you usually do.”

“You have been watching me.”

“Of course. I
am
a professional,” DiMarco said with pride.

The doctor did as he was told, pulling the van near the door in a dirt spot between the infirmary and the building that housed the sweatshop floor. “Get out slowly.”

The doctor took his orders. DiMarco followed him into the infirmary, knife at the doctor's back. The Bostonian shut the infirmary door behind them and checked the room, keeping the doctor in front of him as he moved from corner to corner, from the door to the bathroom. The doctor played along, trying to give the impression of a lamb to the slaughter.

“Now what?”

DiMarco walked to the last door in the room and rattled the knob of the locked storage closet.

“I need to meet with Lee Chang.”

“He's not home.”

“The man doesn't leave. If he did, I wouldn't have gone through all this effort to come to see him.”

“Wouldn't it have been easier to just make an appointment with him?”

“If I wanted to meet him, yes. If I wanted to kill him, no,” DiMarco said into the doctor's ear.

“Kill Lee Chang?” the doctor said aloud.

“Yes, and if you don't keep your mouth shut, you'll be first.”

DiMarco moved closer, one hand on the doctor's shoulder, the knife still at the base of the doctor's skull, only flesh between metal and the brain stem.

“Call him,” DiMarco said.

The Chinese doctor moved slowly toward the wall and pressed the intercom button near the door. The speaker crackled.

“Lee. Could you come down to the infirmary for a moment, please?”

“I'll be down in just a minute, doctor.”

DiMarco pulled the doctor to the corner of the room and pulled out a second knife, a heavily weighted, perfectly balanced Spanish piece of steel that DiMarco used with the precision of a surgeon. DiMarco stood by the door, behind the doctor, a knife in each hand. He looked up at the ceiling as Lee Chang's footsteps made their way across the second floor and down a flight of stairs.

As promised, a minute after being called on the intercom, Lee Chang entered the room and the door shut behind him. Lee Chang looked around the room, and as he turned to the corner over his left shoulder, the kid from Southie kicked the inside of Lee Chang's knee. A quiet snap accompanied the tearing of ligaments. It was DiMarco's signature move—years of practice told him that an injured knee took the fight out of most people.

“Lee Chang?” DiMarco asked, moving the doctor and himself to the middle of the room. DiMarco tried to determine if the face of the man in pain on the floor was the same one he had seen in the local paper.

Lee, sprawled on the tiles, grabbed his knee and grunted through the agony.

“Yes,” Lee Chang answered. “And you'll never make it off this island alive.”

DiMarco raised his arm and flicked his wrist with a powerful follow-through. Five inches of steel stuck in Lee Chang's neck, blood spilling on the tile floor like a broken liquor barrel in a prohibition raid. Lee Chang looked up at DiMarco and tried to speak. Only gargles escaped. Lee Chang's hands moved from his knee to his neck as he choked on the blood that flooded his throat. DiMarco, and the doctor in his grasp, watched as Lee Chang bled out—choking and spitting blood.

“Nothing personal,” DiMarco said into his dying eyes.

DiMarco had the doctor's attention.

“Now what?” the doctor asked. “You said you would let me live.”

“I will, but I'm not finished yet. I'm looking for a girl. Her name is Wei Ling. You deliver her and I will keep my end of the deal,” DiMarco lied. “Call the work building and have her sent over.”

“I can't do that. I'm just a doctor here. The foreman only takes orders from Lee Chang.”

DiMarco cut the side of the doctor's neck and blood trickled down. A flesh wound for compliance, which the doctor quickly understood.

The doctor moved slowly, never turning around, keeping the distance between himself and DiMarco constant. He sidestepped Lee Chang on the floor and moved slowly toward the storage room. With each deliberate move of his feet, the doctor measured the movement of the killer on his shoulder. The doctor wasn't afraid. He wasn't rattled by the Boston accent, the scar, the tattoo, or the knives.

“I need to get a key out of my pocket,” the doctor said.

“Do it slowly.”

The doctor twisted the key in the lock and pushed open the door. Wei Ling shook her shackled hand and muffled something inaudible through her taped mouth.

The doctor's demeanor didn't change. DiMarco had done him a favor by killing Lee Chang. It was something he was going to have to do anyway. A father can only be embarrassed by his son so many times. Whether DiMarco knew it or not, the doctor had allowed him to kill Lee Chang. Lee Chang's death was one that wouldn't be on the doctor's conscience, on the outside chance that the practicing atheist found himself standing in line to chat with St. Peter.

Wei Ling was different.

“Now may I leave?” the doctor asked again.

“Not yet,” DiMarco said, pushing the doctor into the room in front of him. “Is your name Wei Ling?” DiMarco asked looking at the girl with the taped mouth, the IV in her arm, the shackles on her wrists and ankles.

Believing that DiMarco was a savior coming to rescue her, Wei ling nodded vigorously, shaking her hands and arms, rattling the metal that held her in place.

The split second DiMarco stepped toward the girl and moved the knife off the doctor's neck was the last mistake of his professional life. The doctor reached up, grabbed DiMarco's knife-wielding hand, and jammed his powerful fingers into a precise location on the underside of DiMarco's right wrist. The nerves in the muscles that controlled his metacarpals flexed, and the knife fell to the floor. Another finger to the side of the neck and DiMarco crumpled to the floor.

The doctor quickly went to business with a series of pressure point holds that DiMarco wished he knew. With Wei Ling watching in horror, the doctor placed one hand on the side of DiMarco's throat and applied a second finger to the side of his neck under his ear. The tough guy from Southie lost consciousness without a whimper.

The doctor moved swiftly, wrapping Wei Ling's already taped mouth with enough medical adhesive to re-attach a missing limb. He rummaged through the medicine cabinet and filled the needle with an elephant-sized dose of potassium. He dragged DiMarco's body into the main room of the infirmary and injected the full contents of the syringe into the unconscious man's leg, shoving the needle into the upper thigh and the major artery that ran straight into the heart. He waited three minutes, checked for a pulse, and made the medical determination that DiMarco was dead. The poison would baffle the police for a while. An unnamed Caucasian stabs a local businessman then falls dead of a heart attack. It would take days to figure out what happened.

Wei Ling watched with tears running down her cheeks, her mouth so tightly covered that the muscles in her face couldn't move. The doctor prepared to move Wei Ling. He couldn't have police milling about the premises with a girl tied to the bed. The police, as understanding and appreciative as they were to Chang Industries and the family, would not overlook a girl gagged and chained to a bed.

Not with two dead men on the floor.

Wei Ling was going back to her mother country. The doctor picked up the phone and called C.F. Chang. “We are coming home. Get me on a charter flight out. Have people at the airport in Beijing. This afternoon.”

“It is done,” Laoban answered. “And my son?”

“As you ordered.”

The doctor filled a clean syringe with Seconal, walked up to Wei Ling, and delivered a measured dose in her moving arm. Just enough to knock her out until they were on the plane, safely in the air over international waters. Once back in China, he could do anything he wanted with her, as long as the baby was born healthy.

The doctor went to the bathroom and put an adhesive bandage on the small present he had received from DiMarco, the blood from the cut on his neck already beginning to dry on the edges. He went back to the murder scene, opened the drawer in the desk, and pulled out Wei Ling's file and passport. He put the file in his medical bag and flipped open her passport. There were two stamps on the first page and a valid work visa for the U.S. Just a Chinese citizen going home before her visa ends.

The Saipan Police questioned every non-seamstress employee on duty, and started contacting the long list of guards who had worked for Lee Chang in the past. No one came forth with any clues as to the identity of the dead white man on the infirmary floor next to Lee Chang. The girls were locked in their rooms while the police questioned the foremen and guards, employees untrained and unskilled in any form of security other than keeping a hundred girls in line.

Police Captain Marco Talua arrived as the bodies were removed from the premises. Saipan's only official coroner vehicle, used by its only coroner, carried Lee Chang in its long rear section. The dead American with a scar on his neck and a tattoo of the grim reaper dressed as Santa Claus rode in an ambulance, covered in the obligatory white sheet. Captain Talua walked over to the soon-to-be transported bodies and took a look at their faces.

Looking at Lee Chang, the captain bowed his head for a moment of silence. He stared at the white American, forewent any visible indication of prayer, and gave the nod for the bodies to be moved. He turned toward the facilities of Chang Industries and stopped one of his officers on the scene.