City of Strangers (Luis Chavez Book 2) (17 page)

“As that is literally against the First Amendment, I’m pretty sure it won’t fly with Deb,” Michael said, hanging up on the caller, this one a city councilwoman from El Sereno.

As he leaned back in his chair, incredulous at just how quickly those meant to lead the populace during a crisis could wind themselves up into a tizzy, Naomi knocked on the door.

“If this is about more coffee, I think I’ll die if I have another cup.”

Naomi poked her head in and nodded back toward the lobby. Though it was only six o’clock, the building was buzzing with activity.

“You have a walk-in,” she announced.

“That doesn’t sound promising.”

“It’s Jing Saifai,” Naomi replied.

Michael sat up straight. “About what?”

“I have no idea. She was very apologetic and said she’d wait to work around your schedule. All she needed was five minutes.”

Michael’s mind raced.

What the hell does she want? This couldn’t still be about Yamazoe, could it?
That felt like ancient history.

“Put her in the conference room,” Michael said. “Tell her I’ll be fifteen minutes. Tell her we’re out of coffee.”

“Got it.”

“Then come back and get me in thirty minutes.”

Michael got back on the phone. Over the next half hour he had Naomi phone the assistant closest to the conference room to report back what Saifai was doing. It was always the same: nothing. No phone, no rifling through her bag, nothing.

Time to say hi.

“Sorry for making you wait, but I hope you understand,” Michael said in his most unapologetic voice when he finally swept in a moment later. “It’s a bit crazy here right now.”

“Of course,” Saifai replied. “I only want a few minutes of your time.”

“What’s this about?” Michael asked, disinterested as possible.

“There were a number of raids on buildings this morning,” Saifai began. “They were allegedly being used for illicit activities.”

“If you expect me to confirm this, I can’t,” Michael said.

Saifai waved these words away. “I represent the pool of owners of these buildings. My clients had nothing to do with this and were in all cases far removed from the process. In the case where the most bodies were recovered, the property was already being transferred, as it had become so troublesome. These are prominent businessmen, however, and it would hurt their reputations should they be associated with something like this.”

Am I hearing this?
Michael thought.

“Let me get this straight. You want me to strike names from potential indictment lists to shield your clients’ reputations? I’m sorry, but that’s cra—”

“We have been told that you’re considering a run for district attorney next year,” Saifai said, interrupting. “My clients have unique access to some of the largest voting blocs in the city. Your election would be guaranteed.”

Michael knew who she meant, a handful of the largest unions in town, likely the dockworkers, the textile workers, and the hotel and restaurant employees union, but also the Asian-American community in general. He knew she couldn’t deliver every one of those votes, but if she even brought in a fraction she was right about him winning the election.

“I need to inform you that you are attempting to bribe a public official,” Michael said. “You can be arrested as soon as you walk out the door.”

“‘Can’ suggests that we are past ‘attempts’ and entering into the negotiation phase,” Saifai said. “If I remember correctly, when I presented the current DA with a similar offer before she ran eight years ago, she threatened me with arrest in the very courtroom I’d approached her in. She even called over a bailiff. Yet here we are.”

Michael was blindsided by this revelation. Saifai could tell and almost cracked a smile. But when Michael thought about it a little more, his stomach knotted.

Is that how they knew when Yamazoe was set to be transferred? Did Deb set me up?

“Forget it,” Michael said, getting to his feet. “If it was any other day than one where I’m dealing with a crisis like this, I’d throw the book at you. But right now I’m just too busy. Please show yourself out, and never try to pull that kind of thing with me or anyone else in this office again.”

Jing Saifai rose from her seat and eyed Michael indignantly. Just as she was about to say one more thing, however, he turned and exited the room.

Luis awoke in the cemetery. It hadn’t been by design. He’d meant to take a taxi back to St. Augustine’s after he left Oscar’s body shop and had walked a good half mile down Sunset looking for one. But every time a cab came along, his arms stayed by his side and his feet kept walking. He eventually found himself at the back gate of the cemetery where his mother was buried and crept inside. When he reached the plot she shared with his brother, he leaned against their headstone, closed his eyes, and fell asleep, warm in her imagined embrace.

He slept fitfully, his thoughts turning on the events of the past several days. When morning came, he prayed over the graves one last time before heading back out to grab one of the first crosstown buses of the morning.

Once on board he plucked out his cell phone, now almost completely drained of its battery life, and called Susan. Though it was six in the morning, he imagined she’d been up all night.

“Nan?” she asked, her voice spectral and exhausted.

“No, it’s Luis,” he said. “How are you?”

“Not great. There are two more dead in Encino. A husband and wife. The thin bit of good news is that we’ve started to have some who are merely infected coming into the hospital for treatment. While the prognosis is dire, we’re at least able to map their interactions and reach out to others they might’ve infected or been infected by.”

“The other two addresses, the ones where they found the other bodies—did you visit those, too?”

“Not me personally, but I think clinics that were closer probably sent people over.”

“Do you remember how you first got the address of the place originally?”

Susan thought for a moment. “No, not really. Probably came from our administrator, Clover Gao. She might’ve been threatened by local enforcement over something, and she decided to cover her ass by doing something positive for the community.”

“How’s that covering her ass?”

“If it’s a triad squat, it’d be her way of doing them a favor.”

“But you don’t know that.”

“No, I don’t know that for sure. What’re these questions?”

“I only have one more.”

“Fire away.”

“Would Father Chang have visited all of these squats?”

“Oh God, you can’t think he was infected, can you?”

“Hadn’t he recently returned from Indonesia?”

“Weeks ago!” Susan cried. “But if he’d been sick with something as fast moving as SARS, I would’ve known it. He was healthy as a horse. You don’t actually suspect that he infected anyone, do you?”

“All the doctors in the city can’t figure out what the pattern is here, but I’ve found one. There is a link between at least a couple of them that couldn’t have come in contact any other way.”

“I’m all ears, Father,” Susan said.

“You, Dr. Auyong,” Luis said. “The squats, the Carreños, the man at the dry cleaner. You interacted with them all.
You’re
the link.”

PART III

XVII

The patient zero’s name was Yanan Su, this according to a hasty investigation launched by the ICE liaising with the State Department. She was nineteen years old, born in Wuhan to a father who worked at the Wuchang shipyards and a mother who passed away when she was six. Yanan had come to America with her boyfriend, Xugang Sun. He left her two days after they arrived. She was dead four days later.

But the City of Los Angeles didn’t mourn her passing. They made her a scapegoat.

Before the raid Tony knew his businesses and those of his brethren would come under attack. This almost wasn’t a question.

Oh no, racist people are racist!

But stupid people were stupid and they fell for simple work-arounds like new deliverymen and painted-over trucks.
Fronts.
Those were things that could be handled with a couple of conversations and a few handshakes. It was a done deal.

Now that the population had not one but several patients zero—all illegal Chinese immigrants, spread in three locations across the city—work-arounds were a thing of the past. The media had its scapegoat and it wanted blood. There was a tangible enemy now, whereas before it was simply a virus. Law enforcement agencies were leaned on, congressional representatives were called, and the media demanded action on illegal immigration.

See? It’s not just about immigrants taking your jobs away anymore. It’s your life, too!

And Tony knew it would work the moment it happened. The FBI, ICE, LAPD, and any number of other alphabet agencies had been waiting for a moment like this to come after, among other organizations, the LA triad. It was not going to be easy. The triad was entrenched, it had powerful friends, and even more importantly, the best lawyers. An incident like this, however, was like when it was a police officer’s kid that got shot.
All
overtime, no matter how tangential, suddenly got approved. Need more manpower? You got it! High-tech equipment? Hey, let me fill out that requisition form for you! You want one warrant? How about fifty? In fact, how about I just sign a bunch and leave them blank so you can fill ’em out later?

It was open season. All Tony could do was hold down the fort at the Century Continental and wait for the revolving door to turn and usher four uniformed LAPD officers into the lobby with his name on their warrant. Until then he’d reassure guests, helpfully cancel reservations, and get his office affairs in order to allow a smooth transition once he was gone.

Of course, his mind wasn’t entirely on himself. It was with the young pregnant woman somewhere overlooking the city with her jetliner views and teetering health. He was surprised by how much he longed to be beside her. To be the one who would tell her that she was going to be all right. That the baby was going to be fine. Or even just to amuse her with funny stories until she felt better.

But he wasn’t wanted there any more than he was needed. Part of him just wanted to leave the city, but the “and go where?” question wasn’t easily answered. He settled on Geneva. He had the money. At least, money enough. That there would be no going back, that it would be the same as when he washed up on shore in San Diego so many years ago, a stranger in a strange land with no friends or references, kept him paralyzed and at his desk.

It was just past nine when his cell phone rang. He saw that it had the +852 of Hong Kong and was briefly relieved at the prospect of talking to someone Chinese. When it turned out to be Kuo Kuang—not a subordinate, not an adviser but the crime boss himself and father of Jun Tan’s baby—Tony almost lost his composure.

Almost.

“Good day,
géxià
,” Tony said, just the right amount of obsequiousness in his voice.

“Jun,” Kuang said.

“She is at the house,” Tony replied. “She is in the care of our doctor. There are no complications with the pregnancy. I’m sure you’ve heard of the outbreak here.”

Four unimpeachable statements.

“Shen Mang, your man at the airport. He has called me. He has said that America’s agents are at his airport asking questions, looking at flight logs, and viewing security footage. They think the disease came from China.”

Tony wondered which agents these might be.
Homeland Security? FBI? ICE? INS? CDC? FAA? All of the above?

“I have received no such reports,” Tony replied. “And no one has come to see me.”

“Does Shen Mang know where Jun is being housed?”

“He does not,” Tony said, stretching out the last word. “Should he?”

“Shen Mang said that he feared arrest,” Kuang continued. “And made it clear in clumsy terms that to ensure his silence about Jun and this operation, all I needed to do was send a first-class ticket for him back to Hong Kong as well as twenty thousand dollars in expenses money. Is that what it would take to ensure your own silence, Mr. Qi?”

“Absolutely not,” Tony assured him. “There are no illegalities here. None at all. This is about the outbreak. All they can do is harass, but to get to Jun or even you—”

“They cannot get to me,” Kuang interrupted.

“To get to Jun they’d have to get through me,” Tony stated. “And I won’t allow that to happen.”

Kuang went quiet. Tony hoped this was enough to appease him.

“Do your assurances extend to this driver you’ve hired for them?”

So Kuang knew about Archie.

“They do. He’s a trusted member of our organization and—”

“He is not Chinese,” Kuang said.

“No, he is Samoan,” Tony replied. “But he has done work for us for years.”

“All right. But does your assurance extend to Shen Mang?”

Tony thought fast. Shen Mang should never have tried to blackmail Kuo Kuang. The next time he saw him, Tony knew he’d have to lay into him for such an impertinent move. Still, he had allowed Mang into the operation and couldn’t pretend otherwise now for fear of looking like a poor manager.

“Of course,” Tony said, but with a light touch. “He is the functionary of that airport and supports all our efforts there. He is of our brethren, so I consider him above reproach.”

“Shen Mang is dead,” Kuang said. “And if anything happens to my unborn son, you will die next.”

The phone line went dead. Tony sat for a long moment thinking about his next move. No, he might not be able to keep Jun alive, but someone had infected her. At the very least he could discover who.

Chan Yip, Raymond Shaw, Kwok Kwong, Lo Kwan Deshuai, Moses Li, Chui Songwei, Wanquan Yang, and Chan Hui. These were the owners or co-owners of the three squats where the patients zero were found. Well, not
directly
. The actual buildings were owned by a number of shell and holding companies whose origins were obscured with carefully strung webs of red tape.

If Michael—or more accurately, his newly corporate-busting assistant Naomi—didn’t know what they were looking for, it could’ve taken weeks if not months to decipher the real ownership. But as Jing Saifai had delivered a barely veiled inference on a silver platter, it took only half a day.

“They are all alleged organized crime figures,” Naomi said. “And once you really start reaching for connections, you see how immigrants got there in the first place from the ports. You’ve got men who own ships, others who run import/export businesses, and still others that control swaths of real estate. If you are trafficking in humans, you don’t need much more than that.”

“How hard do we have to hit that ‘alleged’ part?” Michael asked.

“Not very. The papers will do it for us. You give them something like this at a moment like now, and they will write whatever you tell them to and thank you later.”

Christ on the cross,
Michael thought.

“Can you give me a moment?”

Naomi nodded and exited the office. Michael leaned his chair back and stared out the window overlooking the south end of the recently completed Grand Park. He remembered what Jeff Lambert said when they first spoke, that Deborah had tried to “use” the triad bust to keep herself in office. So either Jai Saifai was lying, or Deborah thought them toothless enough that she could turn on them without consequence.

He figured it was the latter.

Now that he had a real case linking SARS to the triad, starting with a bunch of dead bodies piled up in their dilapidated buildings, this would be front-page news, and he would be way out front. But there was no way Saifai wouldn’t hit him back however she could. He’d need backup with political capital once the triad bosses began pulling the strings of everyone they had in power.

He checked his contact list for a number and hit “Call.” Lambert picked up on the second ring.

“Hey, Story,” Lambert said, sounding winded. “Wish I had time to talk shop, but everything’s a bit in flux over here. People are in full-on panic mode, though I’m not entirely sure what they think their local political party reps will be able to do about it.”

“The patients zero paid the LA triad to bring them over from China, they made the crossing on triad-owned ships, and they were put up in triad-owned buildings.”

Lambert went so silent, Michael thought he might’ve passed out. But then he came roaring back, his exhausted tone all but gone.

“You’re shitting me.”

“Was just looking at the shell company records. They’ve got their fingers in businesses all over town.”

“‘Marshak Prosecutor Targets Triads, Saves City.’ Jeez, Michael. When you decide you want to get elected, you really go all out, huh?”

“Yeah, but you know they’re going to come back guns a-blazing.”

“Good point,” Lambert said. “Ideally you’d be on that podium between the mayor and the chief of police.”

“I want the mayor to make the statement.”

“Not you?”

“Too early. Let the mayor say it, then let the papers connect it to me. CNN won’t run my face, but they will run the mayor’s, and that’s what we want, right? Even better, he’ll owe me.”

“You are a crafty bastard, Prosecutor,” Lambert said. “But you’re also right. I’ll call the mayor right now. You gin up a briefing so he knows what he’s saying. You ready to make any arrests?”

“Nah, I don’t want old guys in their golf gear getting pulled out of their suburban houses with kids and grandkids crying in the background,” Michael said. “We put the word out and we wait. The first one—and you know there’ll be one—who tries to hop on a plane back to China we give the whole treatment to. News vans, big cameras, bewildered-looking guy in handcuffs frog-marched out of the terminal, the works. The kind of thing that shoots bail up to the stratosphere, as they’re all known flight risks. The trial might not happen until after the election. We’ve got to get all the play we can out of it now.”

Lambert laughed. “If I had ten of you, I guarantee I could get one of ’em into the White House in ten years. You’re dangerous, Mr. Story.”

“Don’t you forget, Mr. Lambert,” Michael said, then hung up the phone.

Luis sat opposite Susan in her clinic’s tiny lab as she tested her own blood for SARS. Due to newfound interest from law enforcement in these unlicensed clinics as they related to the spread of the plague, Clover Gao had told the staff to take the next few days off. Most had already gone after the Carreños’ deaths, but the last holdouts were now gone, too.

“Moment of truth,” Susan said, checking the sample she’d taken from within her nasal cavity with a commercial polymerase test kit. “Ah, looks like I’m not Typhoid Mary. Sorry to disappoint you.”

Luis was surprised. He’d thought the connection was too spot-on to be a coincidence. “But you’re the only one who can tie your patients’ cases to the squat house.”

“That we know of,” Susan said. “This could just mean there are far more unreported cases than we’ve seen so far.”

“And you’re sure it’s not Father Chang?” Luis asked. “Could he have been a carrier but not gotten sick?”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Susan said. “Also, due to the sexual nature of the accusations against him, they would’ve taken tissue samples at the coroner’s office—blood, seminal fluid, and so on. They would’ve found SARS.”

“Are you sure?”

Susan took a moment and called a friend of hers working with the CDC team at Good Samaritan. She outlined Chang’s potential involvement in the vaguest terms possible. The doctor on the other end said he would call over to the coroner’s office and check. Five minutes later the phone rang again. The verdict was negative. Father Chang’s samples were SARS-free.