City of Strangers (Luis Chavez Book 2) (13 page)

“SARS?” Tony hissed into the phone. “Are you kidding me? Who’s saying there’s a SARS outbreak? That’s the kind of thing that makes it into the news.”

“There’s some emergency directive from the FAA and the CDC that just hit,” Shen Mang said quietly, the noise of the airport in the background. “They’re trying not to panic anyone. But there have apparently been three deaths already. They’re now testing other suspicious deaths from the last twenty-four hours or so.”

Tony didn’t know what to think. There were flu outbreaks, the measles outbreak tied to the antivaccination crowd. He’d even heard of the occasional listeria or scarlet fever epidemic. But SARS was a boogeyman akin to Ebola or bird flu. People sat up and took notice.

“Right now they’re just talking about posters for incoming passengers, but there’ll also be screenings for anyone coming in from an Asian country or carrying an Asian passport. If you have anyone arriving in the next few weeks, you’re going to have to get word to them of what they can and can’t say to Homeland Security, or they’ll be pulled aside and really questioned.”

Just when things were starting to look up, too.

“Keep me informed,” Tony said. “If I don’t hear from you by this evening, I’ll call back.”

“You got it, Mr. Qi.”

Tony hung up and glanced around the office for solutions. He knew in an instant what a SARS outbreak could mean for both of his businesses and those of his brethren. The losses could be staggering.

He had to get out in front of it.

Picking the phone back up, he dialed the cell of the hotel’s general manager, Garth Rinker. It was the middle of a workday, so Tony figured he was on the links at the Hillcrest Country Club around the corner.

“Sir? It’s Qi. I need to put something on your radar.”

Twenty minutes and several brief conference calls later, the hotel’s corporate office in New York had confirmed with the Los Angeles city government that a press conference announcing the quarantine of patients with SARS-like symptoms would begin momentarily. The crisis communications group they had on retainer was looped in, and a strategy was outlined in broad strokes.

“When SARS hit Toronto, the losses to the hotel business were in the tens of millions,” said one crisis manager. “I think with the proper response we can greatly reduce our exposure to something like that. In the short term you need to tell your front-end managers like Mr. Qi that the staff needs to lead by example. Guests are going to have questions immediately. We’re not going to have all the answers. What we can provide is calm.”

“A good thing we have Qi in place then,” Rinker said. “Nobody’s calmer in a storm than he is.”

Tony beamed. “Thank you, sir.”

“All right,” the crisis manager said. “The press conference is getting underway. Let’s all watch and circulate questions. Mr. Qi, please keep us in the loop as directly as possible. We’ll help you with any responses or special cases that arise. And when it comes to cancellations there’ll be a lot of reactionary ones, and we have to just let that go. The better we handle things on that end, the better they’ll feel about coming back when this all blows over.”

Everyone hung up. Tony unmuted the television he had on across the room as a man in a gray suit with thinning hair was introduced by no less a personage than the mayor of Los Angeles as a representative from the CDC.

Why did it have to be SARS?
Tony fretted.

Though it stood for something else entirely, Tony didn’t know a person who didn’t think the SA stood for “South Asian” the way the ME in MERS stood for “Middle East.” Because it was thought to have come from Asia, it might as well have.

“SARS is contagious only through direct contact with bodily fluids, such as mucus or other respiratory secretions emitted during sneezing or coughing from an infected individual,” the CDC rep on the television was saying. “Washing your hands and avoiding contact—”

Tony’s cell phone rang and he lowered the volume on the TV. He figured it was his general manager calling him back. It turned out to be an assistant to Wanquan Yang, the San Gabriel Valley’s Dragon Head.

“There’s going to be an emergency meeting tonight. Your attendance is mandatory.”

“I’ll be there,” Tony said.

As photos of Esmeralda and César Carreño, Rabih Chaumon, and then a fourth victim, a five-year-old girl named Meredith Boyers, flashed on the screen, Tony sank into his chair. If the bosses were already calling an emergency meeting, it might be worse than he knew. If SARS in Toronto hurt the hotel business that bad, what about all the businesses that kept the hotels supplied? And Asian-owned businesses in general?

He thought about this for a long moment. But then a plan—a wide-sweeping, almost mad but amazingly complete plan—formed in his mind.

He grabbed his cell phone and made what he hoped would be the most important call of his life.

XIII

“You’re very lucky, Father,” a doctor, who’d introduced herself as Dr. Sohmer, chided as she examined Luis. “You never touched her. You weren’t masked, but that hardly matters with SARS, unless she sneezed or coughed directly into your face.”

“I’m in the clear?” Luis asked.

“I’ve learned to never say never, but there’s another matter at play here,” she said. “The media knows there was a priest who ministered to a very sick woman at personal risk. As we let people know about how SARS spreads, using you as an example of someone who had safe contact is helpful.”

“I apologize for all that. I’m not sure what came over me.”

“Of course you are,” the doctor said. “Everybody in the room saw. It was compassion. I’m sure you converted more than your share in that moment. Did you find the son she mentioned?”

“I did.”

The doctor’s eyes widened a little. “And?”

“The boy’s father is taking him to the doctor immediately.”

She clasped his hands together. “That was a very good thing you did. Thank you.”

Luis listened attentively as the doctor proceeded to give him a list of symptoms and informed him that if he felt any of them, even ones he assumed were born from suggestion, he should come back in. She then told him he was free to go.

But as he went to the door, she moved to him tentatively.

“Will you maybe pray for us? Say a blessing or whatever it is you do? This could be nothing, an isolated incident, or it could be very bad for a lot of people. We don’t know yet.”

Luis nodded. He blessed the doctor and her hands. He blessed the hospital. He prayed for the other doctors, nurses, and orderlies. Then the two of them prayed against the disease.

As Luis made his way to the parking lot a few minutes later, he passed an orderly pushing a frail old woman in a wheelchair. She glanced up to the priest in surprise, then took his hand. She said a few faint words that he couldn’t understand until he leaned closer.

“Got hot zikh bashafen a velt mit klaineh veltelech,”
she said in what Luis recognized as Yiddish.

God created a world full of many little worlds.

“He did indeed,” Luis replied, patting her hands. “He did indeed.”

Oscar had been scouting a new house with Helen when Tony called. It was a magnificent four-story affair in the Palisades with a trail leading to a beach and a breathtaking view of the ocean from the fourth floor. What more could anyone want?

“If you’re eight months pregnant, you don’t want to do the stairs,” Helen had said, leading Oscar away from the eager realtor, who’d seen the gleam in Oscar’s eyes. “So the view’s irrelevant. The view out the back windows on the first two floors is of the base of the embankment a dozen yards away, like looking at the wall of a prison. I vote no.”

Oscar had fumed. This was the first house he had found rather than having to rely on Helen. That he’d missed all of this made him feel embarrassed in front of the one person whose opinion he cared about. But sensing this, she’d moved into his eye line and touched his hand.

“That’s why I’m here, Oscar,” she’d said lightly. “That’s why we’re a team. But so you know, I’m not interested in being with someone who makes me feel like I have to worry about hurt feelings every time I say something that might stroke his ego in the wrong way. If you want somebody to just shut up and do whatever you say, tell me. I can probably point you to the right person. But it won’t be me.”

Oscar had stared at her, wanting to take her up into his arms and kiss her, but had refrained, as he’d heard the realtor’s soft footsteps in the hall.

“You’re right,” he’d finally said.

“I know,” Helen had replied, leaning in to kiss him on the lips even though the realtor had walked into view.

As they’d pulled away, Oscar’s cell phone had rung. It was Tony Qi asking if Oscar could meet him in about an hour. He was to come alone. When Oscar agreed, Tony had texted him a map point of an area called Shadow Hills, a remote location deep in Auyong Valley. Oscar had immediately feared some sort of trap but had no idea what Tony would have against him.

Contrary to his better judgment, Oscar drove out on his own.

When he got to the spot on the map, he thought what it chose to designate a “road” was overly generous. It was more of a sandy trail marked by ATV tracks and the hoofprints of horses.

Now I know it’s a trap,
Oscar thought.

He checked the pistol in his glove box, the one in the magnetized holster under the driver’s seat, and a tiny and an ineffectual-at-best .22 two-shot Derringer he kept in the sunshade, and pressed on. But then he saw Tony Qi’s car parked up ahead and its owner sitting alongside an old and twisted tree. It was just about the only thing that broke up the vast empty vistas. There was clearly nowhere to hide an ambush, unless they’d tunneled underground or would drop from the sky.

Oscar parked and climbed out of his car, his feet sinking into the soft sand. Tony rose and came to meet him, extending his hand. Oscar shook it.

“Tony Qi,” Oscar said by way of greeting.

“Thank you for coming all this way to meet me,” Tony said. “I thought you’d enjoy seeing this tree.”

Oscar thought Tony must be joking. When he realized that he wasn’t, he shrugged.

“Okay.”

Tony led him over to it and patted the trunk. “This tree is five thousand years old. It is literally one of the oldest living things on the entire planet. It predates not only most of what exists in this region but civilization as we know it.”

Oscar was already bored. The sum total of his knowledge of China was formed by watching Jet Li and Jackie Chan movies. He figured this must be some kind of Chinese honor thing tied to tradition. He also expected a long speech of some kind. He’d given up a quickie with Helen on some side street in the Palisades for this? Maybe he was the one who was there to shoot Tony.

“I asked you here to negotiate an alliance,” Tony said.

“Don’t we have one?” Oscar asked.

“One that extends far beyond our agreements relating to the houses we’re buying,” Tony explained. “It is one between my society and your organization.”

Organization?

Oscar scoffed. “I’m not sure who you think I am, but you should know that it may not be who you think I am. There is no organization. There’s me and my shops, my guys, a few affiliated crews, but that’s it. Maybe a hundred men.”

“No, I have a clear picture,” Tony said. “A hundred men is precisely what I need. About a hundred of yours that can replace a hundred of mine. And quickly. Very quickly.”

“Wait, what’s this about?” Oscar asked, alarmed. “I don’t want to get in the middle of some kind of power struggle.”

“It’s not that at all. Necessity makes strange bedfellows, as they say. But perhaps we can build to something mutually beneficial. You see, it’s about to be open season on Asian businesses in Los Angeles. Boycotts, picketing, possibly even violence, though I doubt it’ll get that far. And the businesses I’m related to can’t afford that.”

“Whoa,” Oscar said. “That’s crazy. Are you guys paranoid or something?”

“Have you heard of SARS?” Tony asked.

“Yeah, it’s like bird flu. You guys invented it, right?”

“Therein lies the problem. An hour ago the CDC confirmed a SARS outbreak here in Los Angeles. Two Hispanics, a Lebanese man, and a young Caucasian girl have already been positively identified as carriers. All four have died.”

“So you think they’re going to look at you and not a bunch of Hispanics or Lebanese people? I mean, they’re not going to look at white people, of course. But you’re crazy if you think they’re going to go after Asians.”

“All right, then let me be crazy,” Tony said. “My motivations aside, would you consider deepening our relationship?”

“Are these illegal businesses?” Oscar ventured.

“Not at all,” Tony said. “Food deliveries, restaurant supplies, linens, liquor distribution, and so on. I need a few people in warehouses, but more importantly, I need different trucks, different drivers, and different men carrying the boxes into these businesses.”

“Different as in non-Asians?”

“Yes.”

Oscar thought about it. His commission for rounding up a bunch of guys to drive around the city to make a bunch of paranoid triad guys happy would probably be significant. Also, the fact that Tony had brought him out to some five-thousand-year-old tree as if to imply the strength and longevity of this new agreement meant that, aside from being a drama queen, he was also desperate. This meant Oscar was in the catbird seat.

“One big caveat,” Oscar said. “I can’t have my guys involved with narcotics. That’s a deal breaker. If I’m not willing to do the sentence for a crime, I’m not going to send my guys out to do it. And heroin’s a bad, bad rap. Also, we’d start running into territorial issues with some of our own.”

“No drugs, I assure you,” Tony said, shaking his head. “It is only a question of perception. When news of the outbreak reaches far and wide, no restaurant can allow its customers to see our deliverymen. It’s that simple. Perception, Oscar. That’s all. And if it wasn’t for decades of ‘yellow peril’ racism associated with incidents like this, I might agree with you about being paranoid. But if there’s any constant in this world, it’s that people are always looking for ways to be exclusionary and xenophobic, as pack animals do, and this is a golden opportunity.”

As much as he didn’t want to admit it, some element of what Tony was saying rang true. He nodded.

“I’ll do it for the money, but I don’t want this to be a temporary stopgap,” Oscar said. “We keep your trains running on time, we get to keep a couple of routes after this SARS deal blows over. We have the pack mentality, too, and if it’s our people in our neighborhoods making the delivery money, I’m sure I can get a few restaurants added to your list. Maybe even in areas of the city you haven’t been able to crack. What do you think?”

When his counterpart didn’t reply, Oscar wondered if he’d overstepped. Then Tony rose and offered a solemn handshake.

“If my associates agree,” Tony declared, “maybe this will turn out to be a blessing in disguise.”

Oscar nodded amicably. He’d worked with a lot of people in his day. But this Tony Qi guy took the cake.

Susan had been Federico Carreño’s doctor for more than half his life. She’d seen him through ear infections, a broken finger attributed to school sports (which the doctor would later learn was a result of a wrestling match with his drunken father), and a handful of other childhood illnesses. But she’d only really ever thought of him as a name on a chart. He’d come in, she’d look down to remind herself of who he was, then ask him about school, summer vacation, or plans for Christmas break, depending on the season. If forced, she doubted she could pick him out of a lineup.

But now she was faced with determining whether he carried a disease that had already decimated his family.

“And did you come over to the house after your grandfather fell ill?”

“I did. With Mam
á
.”

“Did you see him?”

“She made me stay downstairs,” he recalled. “She didn’t want me to miss any school.”

Thank heaven for small miracles.

“And your mother? Did she make you stay away from her, too, after she got sick?”

The boy’s father shifted in the examination room doorway. Federico sniffled. Tears formed in his eyes. Susan kicked herself for not finding a better way to frame the question.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I know this is hard, Federico, and you are being very brave.”

What she didn’t want to say, what she
couldn’t
say, was that she needed to know all this to determine if he might be infected, too. But that was too much to put on this boy’s mind. If he was sick, there wasn’t much she could do. There were no antibiotics, no vaccines, no cures. The only thing to be done was to try and keep the infected patient’s organs functioning long enough for the virus to pass through the body.

“When she came back from the hospital after
abuelo
died, she was really sad,” Federico said. “She climbed into bed with me. She wasn’t coughing, though, not like
abuelo
.”