White Ghost (9 page)

G
age and Faith arrived at the Stanford Hospital reception area at 7
A.M.
, an hour before his scheduled surgery. They found that the OR was as busy as Dr. Norman had predicted, and Gage was wait-listed, a standby passenger for a trip to the unknown.

He surveyed the room. The surgical patients wore their private hopes and terrors on their faces as they waited to be distributed among the operating rooms. Based on age, sex, fragments of quiet conversations, and the tears, grunts, and limps that accompanied them as they entered, he guessed what had brought some of them to this place: a mastectomy along the wall to his left, a hip replacement across from her, a heart bypass in the corner—

And a biopsy biding his time at the near end.

It wasn't until the early afternoon that Gage finally got his turn.

I
T SEEMED TO
G
AGE
that it was only moments after the anesthetic took effect that he awoke in the recovery room. He lay there unfocused, trying to recall what had brought him into this confusion of light and steel. He felt an itch under his chin,
then reached up and worked his fingers over the gauze wrapped around his neck and down a plastic tube protruding from the incision.

Now I remember,
Gage thought to himself.
Today's the day they're going to decide the course of the rest of my life.

Gage tried to look around to see if there was anyone to give him the answer he'd come for, but his head felt sewn to the pillow. He struggled against it and tried to sit up.

A hand gripped his shoulder from behind and locked him in place.

“Whoa there, partner,” a male voice said, “you're not quite ready for a walk in the park. Hang on a little longer. We're gonna be rolling you outta here in a few minutes.”

Gage looked up at the nurse, a skinny man who looked to be about thirty-five with a farm-boy face. “I was thinking I would step out for some coffee, Tex.”

Even to himself, his words sounded slurred, but the nurse's smile told Gage he'd understood.

“There are just two problems with that. One, despite this being California, the coffee in this place is lousy, and, two, you'd fall flat on your face.”

After the nurse released his grip, Gage felt himself drifting off again, and then arriving in a Costa Rican rain forest he and Faith had once visited. Lying in the hammock, he could feel the humidity, hear the rustle of leaves on the jungle floor, and smell the loamy soil. Faith was dressed in a floppy brown hat and was walking among the ferns beneath the tree-formed canopy listening to the chirps and songs of the birds, and peering down among the heliconias and up into vermilion poró trees.

He opened his eyes to see Faith standing above him.

“Graham? Graham?”

Gage blinked against the bright fluorescent lights. “What time is it?”

“It's about six.”

“When did we . . . How long have I been . . .”

“They brought you in here a few minutes ago.”

Gage blinked again and looked around the pale green hospital room. Dr. Norman was standing next to Faith.

“The operation went fine,” Norman said. “I was able to get into the tight areas and take out two lymph nodes more easily than I'd anticipated. I don't think there was any nerve damage.”

“I think that was my second question.”

Gage caught Faith's eye. She never could lie to him. He knew the answer and looked back at the doctor to receive it.

“I'm sorry. It's lymphoma. Non-Hodgkin's. I had pathology examine a sample during the operation. I think the nature of your work and where you've traveled interfered with our coming to the correct diagnosis sooner. It pointed us in the wrong directions like a broken compass, toward places where you might've encountered pathogens, instead of internally. It looks like you've had a slow-growing form for quite a while without knowing it, and then it transformed and turned aggressive. We'll have a more specific diagnosis by tomorrow.”

Gage looked over at Faith, “I guess the tail wasn't wagging the dog.”

Norman looked back and forth between them. “The what?”

“It's nothing, it's just the way he predicts the future.”

“Which is?” Gage asked.

“We can't know that until we do some staging to see how far its spread.”

F
AITH RETURNED FROM WALKING
D
R.
N
ORMAN
to the hallway in time to see Graham drift off again.

She'd also guessed that the tail wasn't wagging the dog. She'd thought she was prepared for the results, but she wasn't, and wasn't sure how anyone could ever be. She stared at his sleeping
figure, then sat down by his side, laid her head on his chest, and wept.

She'd already searched the National Cancer Institute Web site and applied the research skills she'd mastered over a lifetime to the diagnosis.

There wasn't a cure.

A
fter the nurse checked him out the next morning, Gage and Faith walked the long sidewalk from the hospital to the Stanford Cancer Center. They entered to find a series of glass-walled rooms—and he saw his future in the faces of those who'd arrived ahead of him: thin, pale, hairless victims of radiation and chemotherapy seated alongside their wives or husbands or children, some waiting for their doctors to take the measure of their lives, others waiting in their sickness to learn whether they were healthy enough to continue chemotherapy, still others deadened by failed hopes.

Gage gave his name to the receptionist, then he and Faith found two chairs along the wall.

“Hey, it's the coffee drinker,” a man seated to the right of Gage said in a familiar drawl.

Gage looked over. “Tex? I mean, what is your name?”

“Tex'll do.”

“What are you doing here?”

“This is what got me into nursing. I got leukemia about ten years ago. Came out here from Dallas for treatment. I loved the place, loved the people. Felt like it was time for a career change.
So here I is.” Tex smiled. “This is what I call sweaty palms Wednesday. Every couple of months I walk over here and they check me out.”

“How many times you been through chemo?”

“Twice and a bone marrow transplant.”

“And how do things look now?”

Tex shrugged. “I'll find out in a few minutes.”

Gage watched Tex's eyes go vacant for a moment. He suspected that Tex knew more than he was saying.

Tex changed the subject. “I heard from the surgeon that the grim reaper is looking you over, too. You here to get signed up for treatment?”

Gage shook his head. “This is just an oops-made-a-mistake-so-sorry-you-don't-have-cancer-we'll-all-do-lunch-and-laugh-about-this-later appointment.”

“That's what we call a big mistake meeting, and they don't have those here.”

“How about a small mix-up meeting instead?”

“They had that yesterday.”

“When's the next one?”

“There isn't a next one, they're always yesterday.” Tex tilted his head toward the bandage covering Gage's incision. “Which kind you got?”

“Non-Hodgkin's. It was slow growing for a long time, then it went a little nuts.”

“Ouch. That's the tough one. Even if they clear out the wild stuff, you're still gonna be left with the creeping cancer you started with—and it's gonna get ya.”

“You know if they take trade-ins?”

Tex smiled again. “Only on small mix-up days.”

A nurse carrying a file folder called out Gage's name.

“See you around, Tex.”

“Good luck, partner. I'll be pulling for you.”

The nurse escorted Gage and Faith to a counter where a clerk sat in front of a computer monitor.

“You've been assigned to Dr. Stern. She'd like to see you right away. I should be able to squeeze you in this morning.”

“Anytime is fine.”

“I think maybe by 11:30?”

“That sounds pretty close to anytime. We'll be here.”

“Stop by on your way out and I'll give you a radiology requisition form for an MRI of your head. You'll need to get it done in the next few days.”

Gage felt Faith's hand tighten in his. They both guessed that the point of the MRI was to determine whether the cancer had reached into his brain. They walked back to the main hospital building, bought coffee at the café, then went outside to sit on benches in the flower garden near the entrance.

“You didn't seem surprised by the diagnosis,” Faith said, “and it wasn't just because of the anesthesia hangover.”

Gage shrugged. “We'd pretty much run out of other possibilities. I figured that's what it had to be, so I decided I'd better just get used to it.”

They drank in silence watching patients and those with them coming and going, knowing that they, too, would be among them for the rest of Gage's life. After fifteen minutes, Gage stood up, tossed their empty coffee cups into the recycling bin, and looked back at Faith.

“You ready?”

Faith leaned forward and rested her arms on her thighs. She then took in a long breath, let it out, and rose to her feet.

“Ready.”

Gage took her hand and they walked back inside.

S
ylvia and Alex Z were waiting for Gage in the conference room when he arrived at the office the next day. Even though he wore a turtleneck sweater under his sports jacket to conceal the tape-covered incision, he could tell when he entered that Ah Tien wasn't the first item on their agenda.

“What's going on, boss?” Alex Z asked.

“I do the same thing for a living that you do,” Sylvia said “and I know something is up.”

“I was going to talk to you about it in a few days. But I guess now is okay.”

“Thanks,” Alex Z said, “we've really been worried about you.”

Gage closed the door behind him and sat down.

“But let's keep this among ourselves; the rest of the staff doesn't need to know yet. Everyone's jobs are secure, and I don't want them distracted from their work.”

“It's not our jobs we're worried about,” Alex Z said.

“I know.” Gage folded his hands on the table and tapped his thumbs together. “I've got lymphoma. It's a blood cancer that attacks the immune system. It seems I've had it a long time, but it's only now showing itself.”

Alex Z and Sylvia leaned forward.

“Have they decided on what kind of treatment you'll get?” Sylvia asked.

“Not yet. I have more tests coming up.”

“But it's going to be all right,” Alex said. “I mean, they're going to stop it, aren't they?”

“There'll be some ups and downs, but it'll be okay in the end.”

Alex Z exhaled. “You had me scared for a minute.”

Gage watched Sylvia's gaze lower and he knew what she was thinking. Unlike Alex Z, who'd spent years only questioning data, Sylvia had spent her career questioning people, listening to them lie.

Sylvia slammed her fist on the table, then looked up again. “It's not fair. How come the scumbags live forever and it's the good people that get hammered like this.”

Gage shrugged. “There are a lot worse kinds of cancer. I wish I'd found out sooner, but that's life.”

Alex Z looked at Sylvia. “What do you mean?”

Gage answered for her. “She just means that it may be a tough road.”

Sylvia didn't respond for a moment, and then said, “Yeah. Sure. That's just what I meant.”

G
AGE WATCHED HIMSELF
as they returned to the conference room after filling their coffee cups in the kitchen. He felt a hollowness, as if work had become abstract and he with it. He knew he'd always had a tendency to see the world in relationships, almost graphically, but now he felt himself to be at once the artist, the object, and observer.

He sat down across from Alex Z and Sylvia. “Why don't you take us through what you picked up from Winston.”

Despite the gray haze of cancer that filled the room, Sylvia began.

“The key things seem to be Ah Tien's passport, a visa application, part of a cell-phone bill, and a bunch of incomplete invoices and bills of lading for a company called Sunny Glory and shipping instructions to InterOcean customs brokers.”

Sylvia slid over a packet of forms.

“These bills of lading are for garlic from a Sunny Glory branch in Taiwan to their branch in the U.S. There are more for rare mushrooms, but the names of the companies are left blank. Ah Tien listed someone named Chau at Sunny Glory in Taiwan as a reference on his business visa application when he renewed it a couple of months ago.”

“What about his passport?”

“It reads like a road map. Taiwan, Hong Kong, China. Five trips in the last five years. The passport control stamps show he always entered China through Shanghai.”

Gage examined the papers lying on the conference table. He didn't want to try to draw too many conclusions from them, but one thing seemed clear.

“Either he was too grief-stricken to know what he was doing when he packed his briefcase or he was trying to send a message that only someone looking for it would understand.”

He tapped the Sunny Glory forms.

“And my guess is the latter. He knew he was taking a risk by coming back to San Francisco. He held Ah Ming's whole offshore operation in his hands. He's the guy the FBI would want to catch and roll. He knew it and Ah Ming knew it.”

Gage imagined Ah Ming as a wolf caught in a steel trap, chewing off one of his own arms to escape. Except he knew Ah Ming was the sort of monster who could grow another one.

“If Ah Tien was able to bury his father and get out, then these papers wouldn't mean anything. Even if Ah Ming happened to get a look at them, it would only appear that Ah Tien had been sloppy.”

“Why didn't he just send a letter to somebody he trusted outlining the scheme?” Alex Z asked. “Like in the movies. Don't open unless something happens to me.”

“First, because it would be evidence of disloyalty. Ah Tien might've been wrong about Ah Ming's intention to kill him. And second, it's a matter of face, not face like
mianzi,
what the Chinese call prestige, but
lien,
moral character, personal responsibility. He would've risked the life of whoever he sent it to.”

“
Moral character?
” Sylvia said, her tone rising in sarcasm. “Tell that to Peter Sheridan's mother.”

“Take it easy.” Gage raised a palm toward her. “You need to look at this from within Ah Tien's world and try to understand what he was thinking and what he was likely to do.” He pointed at her. “You really think he'd put it all in a letter?”

“Based on what we know now . . .” Sylvia shrugged. “Not very likely.”

“And there's something else. If we go out hunting because we wrongly believe a letter exists, Ah Ming will find out and start looking, too. And if the letter doesn't exist, the body count could get pretty high while he fails to prove the negative.”

“And Winston and his mother will be lying on the bottom of the pile.” Sylvia bit her lower lip for a moment. “I think I screwed up. I should've set up security for Winston.”

“The time may come, but it's too soon. Ah Ming has no reason to think anyone has focused on him in connection with either Ah Tien's murder or the chip robbery.”

Gage gestured toward the papers.

“Ah Tien left us a road map. The question is whether it represents the road he already followed or the road we're supposed to follow to catch his killer.”

“There's another question,” Sylvia said. “Don't we need to turn all this stuff over to SFPD?”

“They had a chance to take the briefcase and chose not to.
We're under no obligation to give it to them. That's the law. For now it's ours. If Winston tells us the detectives have come back for it, then we'll return it to him to turn over to them.”

“You're talking like you'll be able to finish this,” Sylvia said. “You think you'll be able to?”

Finish.

The word startled him. He almost didn't hear the question that followed it. He knew what she meant: finish Ah Ming. But he knew that in her sense he hadn't even begun. He'd told himself from the start he was only going halfway. Just far enough to make the link between Ah Ming and the robbery, then get out.

He thought of his coming medical appointments, the staging of the disease to determine how far it had spread, and the coming decisions about treatment.

He knew that either way, the answer would be the same.

“That's out of my hands.”