Sweat (23 page)
The doctor used both hands to roll Wei Ling's small frame and lost the first knuckle of his middle finger in the rotting flesh of a festering bedsore. Wei Ling's scream could be heard on the sweatshop floor over the machinery and the cursing foreman. Upstairs, the blood-curdling wail pierced Lee Chang and he knocked a small plate of orange slices off his lap onto his morning paper. The prolonged agony ringing in the air propelled Lee Chang downstairs to the infirmary. He needed to check on his most-prized possession.
“How is she?” Lee Chang asked, out of breath, meeting the doctor in the main room of the infirmary.
“We need to move her,” the doctor said plainly, digging through his black bag of medicinal goodies on the desk.
“Why. Is she ill?”
“No. But she has been restricted for a long time.”
“You said she could be fed through the nose tube,” Lee Chang said hastily.
“She can. But you aren't trying to keep
her
alive. It's the child your father wants.”
“I told you to give her enough food through the tubes to feed both. It can't be that difficult.”
“Her appetite is not my concern. Even if we stop feeding her through the tube, her hunger strike is not likely to kill the babyâ¦without killing her. But there are other concerns. The feeding tube is causing breathing difficulties and irritation. The body's natural reaction to having a tube where one isn't needed. Wei Ling also has bed sores. Serious ones.”
“Bedsores?” Lee Chang asked.
“Bedsores. Rotting flesh. They can form in less than a week of immobility, and Wei Ling has been tied up longer than that.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“Not as dangerous as pneumonia which can take root in half that time, with the right conditions, in the right environment,” the doctor said, thinking aloud. “But, yes, bedsores can be dangerous.”
“I've never heard of them.”
“They usually afflict patients in comas and victims of paralysis, but even a broken leg on an elderly person can prove immobilizing enough to develop them.”
“What's the treatment?”
“With all the modern medicine and medical techniques available, flipping the immobilized patient twice an hour, twenty-four hours a day, is still the best prevention. Wei Ling has been on her backside for ten days, give or take. I added antibiotics to the IV drip, but there is no guarantee the infected sores won't get worse. If this happens and she starts to run a fever, we could have trouble. Pregnancy is a fragile thing. Even when there are no signs of complications, it can be precarious for both mother and child. But we are talking about a woman who can't move about freely, who is refusing to eat, and who is being fed through a tube. This puts stress on both the mother and the fetus. While self-forced starvation alone is not likely to cause a miscarriage, her body could reject the fetus in an act of self-preservation under a combination of circumstances. The body works in mysterious ways.”
“Doctor, you were hired by my family to keep her alive.”
“Yes, and I can keep her alive, but not here. Not under these conditions. Not in a storage closet. I need to move her back to Beijing. Put her in a hospital where we can keep her well and provide around-the-clock care. Your father can arrange it.”
“I will call and discuss it with my father.”
“Please. Time is of the essence.”
Lee Chang walked across the infirmary and peaked in the storage room. Wei Ling looked over at the partially open door. “Let me out of here, you bastard,” she said in a surprisingly strong voice.
Lee Chang wasn't sending Wei Ling to Beijing or anywhere else for that matter. She was his guarantee back to a real life. If he sent her back to China, he would be sending back his leverage, and with it, all hope that his father would find it in his heart to bring him back into a position of power within the family. He needed Wei Ling. He needed the senator's baby. The doctor wasn't going to take her away.
Lee Chang spent the morning trying to find a medical bed on the island that allowed the patient to be rotated like a pig on a spit. The hospital in Garapan had two such beds. Both were occupied and they weren't for sale. The nearest medical supply company, in Guam, could have one delivered in a week. Lee Chang thanked the medical supplier with surliness, ordered the three thousand dollar bed, and looked for other options in the meantime. He stared out the back of his apartment at the warehouses and piles of discarded fabric spools.
Maybe I could make a bed
, he thought. As Lee Chang considered an infirmary improvement project, the doctor downstairs drained the pus from Wei Ling's bedsores.
Lee Chang called his father and ran through the week's impressive numbers. Output had never been higher. It was amazing what a workforce under lockdown and pulsating with fear could do. Lee polished over the deterioration of Wei Ling's condition and ignored the medical opinion of the old doctor his father had sent to keep her alive. According to Lee Chang, all was well.
C.F. Chang finished the conversation as he had every call since finding out about the pregnancyâ“keep that girl healthy”âand then hung up.
Lee Chang put down the receiver and bounded down the stairs.
The doctor was sliding into his white rental van when Lee Chang approached.
“I spoke with my father.”
“What did he say?”
“He agreed with me. For now, moving the girl to Beijing is too risky. Besides, it will take time to arrange for her to stay at a hospital without raising suspicion.”
“I understand,” the doctor said, fully aware of the lie. C.F. Chang, the family laoban, could arrange for the girl to stay at a hospital with a wave of his hand. The doctor knew to be careful around Lee Chang. Slyness and mental instability were a dangerous combination.
The doctor stuck to his schedule until his evening visit to Chang Industries. When Wei Ling's blood pressure started to rise unexpectedly, the doctor knew it was time to act. From the phone in the infirmary, the doctor called C.F. Chang directly, speaking in a whisper.
“We need to move the girl back to Beijing.”
“Why? What's the problem?”
“I thought your son explained it to you,” the doctor asked, expectant of the answer that was forthcoming.
“No, he didn't.”
“I was under the impression that he had,” the doctor reiterated intentionally so there was no mistake.
“Tell me why you want to move the girl.”
The doctor ran through Wei Ling's condition and the risks, the dangers associated with infection being at the top of the list. The discussion on the fragility of a fetus made C.F. Chang uneasy. He understood the doctor's request perfectly.
“I will arrange things with the hospital and with immigration at the Beijing airport. It shouldn't take more than a day or two. Feel free to sedate her for the trip. Do whatever it takes, doctor. If you need to take measures that will only guarantee the long-term survival of the baby, I fully understand. I want to see this child playing with my own grandchildren one day.”
Earl Wallace thrashed on top of the sheets until his wife hit him with her pillow and told him to either quit his epileptic flip-flopping or follow the well-worn path to the sofa. He tried to lie still for another hour, stood, and slipped on his pants.
The answers to the questions in his head could wait until morning.
Detective Wallace couldn't.
Wallace rang the doorbell three times before a light came on in the rectory. There was shuffling on the other side of the door, the usual routine of the drowsy awoken in the dead of night. Any time someone answered the door on the first ring in the middle of the night, sirens went off in Wallace's head. With the exception of strippers, call girls, drug dealers, and pimpsâand of course detectivesâthe rest of the world slept at night. His mother always told him that nothing good happened between midnight and six. After twenty-two years on the force, he knew his mother was right.
Father McKenna opened the door, exposing his bare toes through the end of his leather slippers. He looked surprisingly dapper in an Irish-supporting green bathrobe with gold trim. “May I help you?”
“Good evening. I am sorry to disturb you at such a late hour.”
“I believe it is more early than late,” Father McKenna answered, neither perturbed nor trying to be funny.
“I guess you're right, my apologies. My name is Detective Earl Wallace with the First District.”
“Good morning, Detective. Father Thomas McKenna. Please come in.”
“Thank you.”
Detective Wallace followed the Padre to the small living area in the rectory. The leather sofa was worn, a place where life, death, marriage, and baptism were discussed daily. Father McKenna turned on a small standing lamp near a statue of St. Joseph, and fumbled through the kitchen drawers just beyond the living area.
Detective Wallace walked around the quiet rectory and stopped to read a framed document on the wall titled “Desiderata.”
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
The words were hypnotic and therapeutic. Detective Wallace finished reading and started at the beginning again before Father McKenna interrupted the most religious experience the detective had had since a child had fallen, before his very eyes, four floors from an apartment balcony, bounced once, and landed unharmed.
“How do you take it?”
“I'm sorry?” Wallace said, his trance broken.
“How do you take your coffee, detective?”
“Black is fine, Father.”
Father McKenna joined the detective in the living area, balancing two cups of coffee that were filled to the brim.
“That is a very inspiring piece,” Detective Wallace said, nodding to the framed document on the wall.
“Yes, it is.”
“Where is it from? I don't recognize it.”
“There's a lot of mystery behind it. It gained notoriety under the misconception that it was penned by a saint in the eighteen hundreds. In fact, it was written much later, by a common layman. Common except for the skill to be able to write something that people put on their walls. Something that people fold up and put in their wallets.”
“It is inspirational,” Wallace said, stressing the middle word.
“Yes it is.” Father McKenna stirred his coffee and set the cup down.
“How can I help you, detective?”
“I had some questions about a possible parishioner. Do you know a Marilyn Ford?”
Father McKenna paused for a split second. “Yes, I knew her. She was not a regular, if you will, but I knew her.”
“Do you know all of your parishioners who aren't regulars?”
“No, not all. We have a few lapsed Catholics who are on their forth or fifth relapses. I don't know them all, but I did know Marilyn. I understand she passed away last week. Very tragic.”
“Yes, very tragic. Did you perform a ceremony for her?”
“No. I believe her brother flew her body back to Wisconsin rather hastily.”
“What do you know about the circumstances surrounding her death?”
“Just what I have heard.”
“Which is?”
“That she had an accident in a Metro station involving the escalator.”
“That's it?”
“That is all. Yes.”
“Well, Father, we have reason to believe that you may be able to help us determine if she was a victim of foul play. On the morning of the sixteenth, I received a call from this rectory inquiring about the official filing status and the cause of death in the case of Marilyn Ford.”
“And you suspect me?”
“God no, Father,” Wallace said before catching himself. “I mean, no Father. But maybe one of your parishioners's guilty conscience got to them. Maybe they came in for confession, cleansed their souls, and then made a call from a phone here on the premises.”
“Detective, the confessional is not a place to start an investigation. I wouldn't tell you anything, even if I could. Those are acts of contrition between man and God.”
Wallace saw the dead-end sign in his mind and slammed on the brakes. “I understand, Father. Could I ask if you saw or heard anything suspicious last Monday morning? Any strangers around the church? Anything at all?”