“Drop dead.”
“An easy favor. I need a script for OxyContin.”
“Oh, man. You kidding me? You woke me up to—”
“Ravi, I need it now.”
He paused. “You can’t write for it?”
“Not in California. Not yet.”
“It’s triplicate,” he moaned.
Certain drugs—the narcotics, the drugs liable to be abused—have to be written on special triplicate pads. One copy to the patient, one to the doctor’s records, and one to the government.
“Who’s this for?” Ravi wanted to know.
“A friend. But make the script out to me. If you get any heat, tell them it’s for my hand.” The silence on the other end of the line told me what Ravi thought of that. “It’s for a friend. Trust me. I need it.”
There was some harrumphing, the rustling of movement. For a moment, I thought he was going to hang up on me, but there was more movement. “Okay, Rush Limbaugh, I’ve got my pad. Come and get your damn prescription.”
Ravi’s place was only a ten-minute drive from the motel. He met me outside in slippers and a terry-cloth bathrobe that lacked a belt. One hand clutched the robe closed in front of him; the other held a piece of paper.
“You’re asking me to commit fraud,” he said, shaking the paper at me. “You tell me who this is for, I give you the script.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” I said.
“Don’t make me be an asshole.”
I looked up and down the quiet block. Not that anyone was around, but still…“I can’t tell you, Ravi.”
He looked at the script in his hand, looked at me. “You’re not even going to scratch my back, are you? What’s the problem, you don’t trust me?”
No, actually, I thought, I don’t trust you. By talking to the press, Ravi had put himself out on a limb with the fibrosarcoma thing. His bosses were pissed; he’d embarrassed them; they figured he was full of shit. If Ravi wanted anything at this point, it was to deliver them some fresh meat. Dorothy Zhang would be the perfect offering, but putting her in the headlines would be worse than calling the police. Much worse.
“Your bosses interested yet?” I asked.
He gave me a lopsided grin, knowing I was changing the subject. “Mildly. We found the Kaiser guy today. Face blown apart like a battlefield.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Slammed the door on me when I told him where I was from.”
“What did the powers that be say?”
“They were like, ‘Hey, that’s interesting. You making any progress with the flu plans? You going to help out with the salmonella outbreak in Mendocino?’ Everybody here is up to their elbows in shit. Who cares about a few isolated cases of sarcoma when you got the pandemic brewing and people crapping their guts out from bad chicken?”
“They weren’t upset that the Kaiser guy didn’t talk?”
“They thought it was weird, but what can we do? Nobody wants to label this a public health situation yet. We can’t compel the guy to talk. And we don’t have a scrap of evidence that his not talking is endangering anyone else.”
So, the public health writing was on the wall: I tell Ravi about the clinic, about Dorothy Zhang’s biological meltdown. That tips the scales enough to interest the public health commanders. There might be a raid on the clinic, there might not be. But I didn’t trust public health to move quickly or quietly enough. Dorothy would be served up, that much was clear. Her kid? Well, we could just hope that Tim stayed alive until the bureaucracy could get in gear and find him.
If Dorothy believed the life of her son depended on not involving the police, she’d certainly think it depended on not involving public health, since the good doctors there wouldn’t be able to raise the cavalry and go in and save her son. Still, I needed to arrange the chessboard so that public health would be ready. Ready for what, I wasn’t yet sure. “You got to trust me on this,” I told Ravi. “These are not isolated cases.”
“I think that. You think that. No one else does.”
“What about the pictures Murphy had?”
“No one’s sure it’s a cluster. We don’t even know where they’re from, man. Those pics could just be some sicko’s fascination with tumors.”
“That’s what your bosses are saying?”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
“They’re wrong. And we just need to make sure your ass is covered when they find out just how wrong they are.”
78
AT THE TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR pharmacy, the pharmacist gave me a long, pharisaical glance down the nose. No surprise there, considering the state of my shirt and post-pepper-sprayed eyes. Just another yuppie junkie coming in for his fix, I guess.
“It’s for my hand,” I said, waving my scarred left paw at him as proof.
“Sure,” the pharmacist said. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy flagged the prescription and Ravi got a call in the morning.
The motel room was dark. When I stepped inside, I heard nothing and hoped that Dorothy had finally fallen asleep. I sat on my bed, the one closest to the window, removed my shoes, and began peeling off my shirt. A voice—wide awake—came from the other bed. “Where were you?”
“Clubbing,” I said. “After a long day, I like to go out and shake the booty.” I got up and stood by her bed, shook the pill bottle lightly, then set it on the pillow. “You don’t need to use these,” I said. “Just in case.”
“You got me some Ecstasy at your club. How sweet.”
“OC, baby. Killers. The good stuff.”
“You didn’t go back to my apartment?” she said, instantly wary.
“I’m not that stupid.”
“I’m not so sure. You went to your friend?”
“Yes.”
I heard her lift the bottle from the pillow. “You didn’t need to do this.”
“I know.”
There was nothing but breathing for a few moments, and I moved back toward my bed, removed my shirt and pants. I crawled under the sheet and lay there, awake. Five minutes passed before I heard the pills rattle again, then: “I’ve come to like the dark.”
This wasn’t what I expected to hear.
“But it is so lonely,” she said. “I’m so tired of being lonely.”
“You know,” I said, “this mattress is way too soft. Like sleeping on oatmeal.”
“This one’s much better,” she said. “Like sleeping on guacamole.”
In my boxers now, I moved slowly from my bed to Dorothy’s. I slid under the covers, into a bed soft as guacamole. In the inky dark, I could barely make out the rippled, ruined flesh of her face.
She moved close to me, snaked an arm over my chest, a leg across mine. She pulled me tight into her, pushed the curve of her cheek to my shoulder. The movement felt desperate, like I was the only man on the planet and she was the only woman and if we pulled apart we would die.
Her head moved, and I felt her breath on my face. My body stiffened.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Sorry for what?”
I rolled away from her. What was I sorry for? Was it Brooke? An unwillingness to betray her when the détente between us was so new? Or was it repulsion at the thought of Dorothy’s mangled lips touching my skin? Was I a card-carrying member of the culture I took so much pleasure in denigrating, the culture of US Magazine and America’s Next Top Model and stupid PerezHilton.com? Or even worse, was I a hypocrite? A man who believes he’s able to see past the face and skin to the person underneath, but for whom that bitch Beauty really is queen?
I pulled Dorothy’s arm over me, laced my fingers into hers, hoping the small gesture would assuage my guilt. I felt her body hesitate for a second, then mold to my back. In the dimness, I focused on her small hand, the pink nail polish. I knew I would not be able to turn to her.
Disgusted with myself, I closed my eyes.
79
I WAS AWAKENED NOT BY a
n alarm or by sunlight, but by movement in the bed. There was a scramble, the quiet purr of a cell phone vibrating.
Dorothy was out of the bed, pawing in the darkness.
“Yes?” she said. I could hear the tension in her voice.
Nothing for a moment, then Dorothy said something in Chinese. Again, silence. Then a few words in Chinese.
“I have to go,” she said. This was to me, not to the phone.
I flipped on the light: 4:48 a.m. Dorothy was in panties and a bra; the luminous skin of her body was a shock after seeing the ruined landscape of her face.
“Where?” I asked.
“Don’t ask questions I’m not going to answer.”
“Who was that?”
She didn’t reply. She pulled on jeans, pulled on her blouse.
“I’m coming with you,” I said.
“You’re not. Where are my car keys?”
I grabbed my pants from the floor. “I’m coming with you,” I repeated.
“I need to do this myself.”
“Do what?”
“You can walk to your car from here. Give me the keys.” She put out her hand.
“My car is still in front of your place. I can’t take the chance. What is this about? Tim?”
She nodded.
“I know a cop named Tang, he’s a good—”
“No!” she snarled. “Why do you think Paul is dead, Nate? Because he wanted to go outside, because he contacted you. You do not go to the outside with these people. People die when you do that.”
“You were going to go outside with the pictures.”
“I was going to do it when Paul and I had enough so that we could bring everything down at once. Can’t you see that? You can’t just wound them. They get scared when they’re wounded. Paul moved too quickly. He told me he was going to contact you, but I didn’t think it would be so soon. He scared them. And people died because they were scared. I will not let you get my son hurt.”
“You need to go to the police with what you know. Let them—”
“Don’t be an idiot! They have my son, Nate. They know where each and every person who has this sarcoma is. Can you guarantee me that the police will swoop in and grab Tim and protect him? Can you guarantee that your public health friends will protect all of those who are sick? No. There’s no time for warrants and investigations and questioning. They have my son. Can’t you see that?”
I thought about the little kid with the “path-o-gens” obsession, about where he was now, about the threat he was under. And I thought about why he was under that threat. Though Dorothy didn’t say it, this started when I visited the apartment in Napa. Or earlier, when I talked to Murph. It started with me.
I felt I’d become toxic. And I’d do my damndest to change that.
“I’ll drive,” I told her, and headed for the door.
80
WE HAD CROSSED THE BAY Bridge and were pushing our way into San Francisco, the city just beginning to blink and stir from slumber. Only delivery vans and sleek cars piloted by financial guys—the ones keyed to the market in New York—rocketed through empty streets.
“Promise me you’ll stay in the car,” she said.
“I can’t do that.” I accelerated through a yellow light.
Suddenly, she undid her seatbelt, fumbling for the handle on the door. I felt the pressure in the car change as the door opened.
“Okay, okay!” I shouted. “Close the door. You win. I’ll stay in the car.”
She slammed the door.
I waited till I heard the seatbelt click before I said, “Who called, Dorothy? Who did you talk to? Your uncle?”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want my son to get killed. Turn left here.”
I glanced at her. “You need to trust—”
“Park here,” she interrupted. It was a no-parking zone just beyond the green-topped arch that beckoned tourists to make the climb up Grant Avenue and into the commercial heart of Chinatown. “Keep the engine running.”
“Where—”
She was already out on the sidewalk. The white hat was back on, so were the sunglasses. If you didn’t look too closely, and if you didn’t know it was before dawn, you would think she was just another shopper out for the day.
She climbed the steps alongside the arch and disappeared from view.
I cursed myself for being manipulated by her, cursed myself for white-knuckling the steering wheel and forcing myself to stay put in the car.
Then I thought of those thin strong arms pulling me a few hours before. I pushed the thought from my mind.
Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty. The interior of the Malibu, with its soft fabric seats, its rental-car smell, suddenly felt too close. I got out, walked over to the arch. Grant Avenue slowly came to life—metal rollup doors were being raised, patches of sidewalk were being swept and hosed. Chinatown stretched and yawned, ready to bring the world another offering of cheap fans and plastic toys and paper lanterns.
Behind me, someone yelled.
I swung around, heart thudding.
It was a jerk in a delivery truck, gesturing furiously at the car, barking away in a language that, in San Francisco at least, passed as English. Choosing not to engage with him, I waved, then backed the car to the other side of Grant.
Out of the vehicle again to take up my post in the shadows at the bottom of the hill.
And that’s when I saw him. Tiny, bobbing down the hill as if he walked on springs instead of legs. From that distance, the kid seemed to have no bones in his body.
Tim. He had a backpack, and as he came closer, I could see the tiny set jaw, the eyes locking on me.
I ran toward him, calling his name. He saw me, recognized me, but didn’t—couldn’t?—move faster, just kept a steady, bobbing pace. “Where’s your mother?” I asked.
The muscles in his jaw bulged. His eyes blazed.
“Tim, where is she?” I bent to him, grabbed both his arms, shook him a little. “Where? Where’s your mom?”
His lips tightened.
“Where—”
And I stopped myself because I knew what had happened. “No, no,” I said, straightening. “No, no, no.”
Dorothy Zhang had just traded herself for her boy. And I’d stood by while she’d let them take her hostage. Uncle Tony—whoever the hell he was—had reduced his risks by one.
I knelt back down, tried to force calm into my voice. “Tim, are you hurt?”
“What do you care?”
“This isn’t a joke. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’s your mother?”
In answer, he raised his hand, which held a black piece of cloth.
A hood. The bastards had hooded an eight-year-old. I felt a spark of anger—that revenge thing kicking at my gut—and took the cloth away from him, wanting to strangle someone with it.
“Let’s go.” I grabbed the boy’s hand and began pulling him up Grant Avenue, his legs moving double-time to keep up with me. I stopped at the corner of Grant and California, next to an old church. “Did you come from here? Where did you take off the hood?”
He pointed down the block, to a section that had not yet come to life. “Show me,” I said. We walked twenty yards and stopped in front of a steel rolling door between two other steel rolling doors, each one spattered with graffiti.
“Here,” Tim said.
“Did you come out of a building? Did you get out of a car?”
“Car.”
Shit.
There was an old man sweeping the sidewalk near the far end of the block. I seized Tim’s hand and tugged him toward the sweeper.
“Excuse me,” I called, and began hammering the old guy with questions about a car, a woman, the boy next to me. The man shook his head in tiny motions and, as the volume of my voice escalated, I realized he had no idea what I was saying.
“Come on, Tim,” I said, and began to walk. Dutifully, the kid fell in next to me. I got the sense he was holding it together
a lot better than I was.
“You’re supposed to call the hospital,” he told me.
The sentence was such a non sequitur, I was thrown. “What? Which hospital?”
“You’re supposed to ask for Dr. Michaels.”
“What’s Brooke—?”
But I didn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t even finish the thought before I was yanking at Tim’s hand and fumbling in my pocket for the cell.
81
I DROVE FAST, STRAIGHT TO the university hospital—no zigzags this time, no detours through mall parking lots. The speedometer in Dorothy Zhang’s car was pinned, and my fingers were choking the steering wheel. Anxiety ripped through me as vehicles wiped past in a blur. I half hoped that some unfortunate cop would pull me over so I could do something stupid—scream, fight—something to vomit up the impotent rage I was feeling.
Tim was silent in the seat next to me. His small hand gripped the door handle and his eyes stayed locked on the scenery blowing past him.
On the phone, the hospital functionary had told me Brooke was in the ICU, on the neurosurgery service. He wouldn’t tell me anything else.
In the hospital, I tugged Tim by his arm through the corridors. In the ICU, I didn’t bother with the nurses, didn’t bother to respond to their Can I help you, sirs. A big whiteboard was mounted behind the nurses’ station, names written in dry-erase marker. Halfway down, Michaels was printed tidily in green, followed by the name of the nurse caring for her.
“Where’s bed five?” I asked the ward clerk.
“Visiting hours aren’t until—”
“Tim, stay here.” To the ward clerk, I snapped, “Watch him for me.”
I left Tim, walked quickly along glass-fronted rooms housing the poor souls teetering between death and life. Behind me, I heard commotion as the staff tried to decide what to do with the sweaty, distraught white man and the small Asian boy he’d just dumped on the ward clerk.
Room 5. The nurse—tiny, Filipina, charting madly at a small desk next to the room—looked up and said something I didn’t hear.
At the sight of Brooke, words came out of my mouth—“Oh, God,” I think—but I was hardly aware of them.
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