“Tetra,” I said.
“Tetra. I was supposed to be happy being made a staff scientist in a company to which my work gave life. Tom got together with Dustin Alberts. I became…bitter.”
I thought back to my days in the lab, to the infighting, the easy, ruthless, careless theft of ideas. If an exploited class exists amongst the educated elite, it is the grad student, the postdoc. And if you’re unlucky enough to nest in the aerie of a rotten principal investigator, you are going to be devoured, you are going to be exploited, stolen from, abused. I felt some sympathy for Fang.
“Tom didn’t know that I wouldn’t roll over,” Fang said. “He didn’t know that I had a cousin in China who was ‘connected,’ as they say.”
“Michael Kwong? Kwong was with a triad?”
“You love your research, don’t you?” He grinned at me. “Anyway, Mikey put me in touch with labs in Hong Kong, and I set up a shop over there. Then I came back here and opened up another operation.”
“And the shop in Hong Kong is still active?” I thought of the recent cases of fibrosarcoma in China that Millie Bao had mentioned.
“Of course. So much money to be made, right? Anyway, I wanted to get back to the good ol’ USA. Kwong connects me with Garheng Ho, who sets me up. Tetra’s still screwing around with preclinical work, so when Tom finds out I’m back in town, making money hand over fist with Beautiful Essence, he freaks. I was way ahead of them.”
“You were also illegal.”
“Of course I was. Tom decided to use that. He and his pal Alberts tell us they’re turning us in to the police if we don’t shut down. Problem was, they didn’t know who they were threatening.”
It started to come together. “Tom Bukowski gets murdered. And Alberts agreed to stay off your back,” I said. “And he let Garheng Ho—Uncle Tony—invest in Tetra.”
“You’re doing great, Doctor. Keep going: what’s the upside for Tetra? See if you can get it.”
“Tetra gets capital from the Chinese.” I thought for a second more, to the tissue in the freezer at Fang’s clinic, to something Jonathan Bly had said. “And they get data. They get data on how the FGF analog works in humans from the tissue you were taking.”
“Bingo. Prize to the doctor in the chair.”
It was a brilliant scheme. Truly. Tony and the Chinese had a protected market worth millions for Beautiful Essence, at least until Regenetine came out. When that was released, they would reap a fortune from an IPO. Or, if Tetra stayed private, from the proceeds of the biological.
“They know how to make money,” I said.
“Yeah. Qian. It’s all about qian for these guys, all these guys. Alberts, Garheng, Kwong. But for me, it was never about money. I’m telling you this because I think you can understand this.” The look on his face was almost desperate. He truly wanted me to understand: to understand his anger, to understand his need for revenge. He wanted the same thing I wanted from Paul Murphy ten years before: a little sympathy, a little respect.
“It was all working out. Then those bastards at Tetra got greedy. We had to call Kwong in.”
“How did he get here? There was a watch out for him.”
“He got here because I gave Cousin Kwong a new face back in HK. A little nip and tuck, a little FGF-fibroblast concoction. Looks good, don’t you think? Fifteen years younger. I took care of the acne scars, too.” Fang’s face, proud for a second, darkened. “I created my monster, didn’t I?”
I thought of monsters. “The fibrosarcoma…”
“About half a percent of the people who get the treatment get the DFSP. I can’t—” But Fang didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he said, “My idea, Dr. McCormick. My idea. But that’s not the worst of it. They made me do these things. All those people, all those tumors. They knew what was going on and they still made me do it. Such a beautiful idea and they poisoned it.”
I saw my opportunity. “Get back at them,” I urged him. “You can have your revenge.”
Fang shook his head.
“Let me go,” I said. “We’ll call the police—”
“Stop with the police.”
“Then, we don’t go to the police. We…we take them here. How many of them—”
“Shut up.”
“—How many of them are there?” My mind was scrambling for fantastic plans of escape and revenge. “You have a gun?”
Fang shook his head.
“There’s no choice, then. You have a cell phone? Call the cops. Call them now.”
Fang glanced at the door, then back to me. He sighed. “You don’t get it, do you? Either I go to jail or I die. You’re dead. One hundred percent dead. Accept it.”
“You think your family’s going to be safe when you’re rotting away in prison? You trust these guys who’ve already screwed you over? You’re a liability, your family is a liability.” That seemed to hit a nerve. He winced. At last, I thought, I got through to the guy.
“My family…” he said.
He reached into his jacket. I thought he was about to pull out his cell, end this mess. Instead, he produced a small black pouch. He unzipped it. Inside was a syringe and a vial. “Potassium chloride. For you. If you live through what they’re going to do to you.”
I guess I hadn’t gotten through to him.
If you have to go, getting a vein full of potassium chloride isn’t the worst way. It will burn going in, but once the cation reaches your heart, it sets up a nice arrhythmia, and you die of cardiac arrest. A minute or two at most. Much better than having your body sliced apart or battered to a pulp.
My heart began to pound and I felt my burst of hope spiral. What they’re going to do to you. I thought of Murph’s wife, his kids. Of the feel of a blade sawing through my tongue. Of metal puncturing my eyeball. Fang was offering me a way out.
“Don’t,” I pleaded.
“You get out easy this way. No knives. No pain.” He pulled the syringe from the case. “I’ll tell them you died from the blow to your head.”
He took a needle, put it on the barrel of the syringe, and uncapped it. He tore the metal tab off the top of the vial of potassium chloride.
I thought of blades and blood and screams, and Fang’s offer began to seem more attractive. The best option in a field of shitty options.
“Let me do this for you, Dr. McCormick.” Fang pushed the needle through the rubber stopper of the vial and took up a big dose of the liquid. “Please.”
But he never got the chance to help me out the easy way.
Two men stepped through the door of the loading dock. With them was Dorothy Zhang.
112
HER FACE WAS SWOLLEN, FROM the cancer, of course, and from crying. There was a tiny flutter, a brief uplifting of my spirits, when I saw her. At least she was not hurt. At least that.
A tiny sound escaped her mouth, the sound a child makes when she’s startled. She broke from the men and walked toward me, spitting something at them in Chinese. I recognized them. One wore the same baseball cap I’d seen him in outside Daniel Zhang’s apartment. The other had the same spiky blond hair. Slowly, the blond guy closed the door.
As Dorothy approached, Fang stepped back, slid the black case into his pocket. Dorothy shot him a hard look, then knelt in front of me.
“You’re all right,” I said. I tried to smile, felt the pain ricochet through my face.
Her hand went to my cheek, her touch unexpectedly light and comforting. In that moment, all I wanted to do was close my eyes, rest my head in that hand, and forget about everything except for the feeling of her skin on mine. “You’re not,” she said softly, her face contorting, bunching the knots of flesh around her eye, on her lip. “They promised they wouldn’t hurt you.”
“I’m pretty sure they don’t keep their promises.”
She wheeled around to the two men who’d brought her, barked in Chinese. Her words fell before them like dead birds out of the air.
“They asked for your help?” she asked, turning back to me.
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“Yes.”
“Well, help them, Nate. Please, help them. I’ll make sure they let you go.”
“They’re never going to let me go.”
“Nate, I’ll—”
“They are never going to let me go, Dorothy.”
“They have Tim,” she said. “You need to help them.”
I looked at the two men between Dorothy and the door, at Fang standing miserably next to a pallet stacked with boxes. Why had they brought her here to pick Tim up? Why not take him to her?
Because it was easy to clean blood off the concrete floor. Because, if you’re going to do your dirty work, why not keep it in one place?
“Kiss me,” I told Dorothy.
Fleetingly she looked surprised. In her hesitation, I thought she was remembering the night in the motel room, remembering my pulling away. It was her chance to rebuff me. Instead, she leaned forward. Her hair brushed my cheek, her lips touched mine. I felt the knotty flesh push into my skin.
“Now run,” I whispered.
She pulled her head back from me slightly, her eye caught mine, and I could see that she finally understood why she had been brought here. It wasn’t to retrieve her son; she was to be used to make me do what needed to be done.
And neither of us was going to live through this.
She straightened, composed herself. “Timothy,” she said to me. Then she turned to the thugs. “I left something in the car,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
The thugs looked at one another, and—thank God—I saw indecision on their faces. Go, I thought. Go.
She walked past the guy with the cap. She drew close to the guy with the blond hair, glances going back and forth between the two men. Not the sharpest tools in the shed, these two.
But sharp enough. The blond reached a hand toward her and locked it on her arm. “We wait,” he said.
Dorothy spoke sharply to him in Chinese. But he held tight.
“Let her go.” The voice came from across the loading dock. Tony stood in the open door with the tattooed Michael Kwong.
To Dorothy, Tony said something in Chinese. She stood there, abashed and afraid. Slowly, she moved meekly to her uncle, walking like a little girl, and stopped in front of him. And, as you would with a little girl, Tony kissed her on the forehead. I couldn’t help but think of Gethsemane, the betrayal in the garden.
“Who is Miles Pikar, Dr. McCormick?”
I said nothing.
Tony spoke in Chinese again, this time to the man on his left. Kwong stepped to Dorothy, grabbed her roughly, yanked her arm behind her back. She cried out. Kwong’s arm went around Dorothy’s chest, immobilizing her.
“You were such a beautiful woman.” Tony raised a hand to her ruined face, let his fingers fall lightly on her skin. “Who is Miles Pikar?” he asked me again, still looking at his niece, still fingering her flesh.
“Imaginary friend,” I said. “I got him a cell phone last Christmas, and he’s been blowing through minutes ever since.”
Dorothy said something in Chinese. It was angry and fearful at the same time. The only word I could make out in Tony’s response was “Timothy.”
“No,” she whimpered.
“I’m waiting, Dr. McCormick.” He spoke in Chinese again, and I watched as Dorothy’s knees buckled and she slumped against Kwong. A soft, high-pitched whine escaped from her throat.
Whatever Tony was saying to her, it had to do with her son.
“Tell him, Nate,” she begged. “Please…just tell him.”
I said nothing.
The stream of words from Tony continued as I watched the woman break and fracture in front of me.
“Tell him!” she sobbed.
I knew this was coming. I knew the boy would be used. I knew his mother would be used. But I didn’t expect it all to happen at once. I couldn’t see a way through this double-teaming of miseries. I needed more time to think.
“He’s a friend,” I said.
“Yes?”
“We play video games together. Had a date to play Black Nexus 4 tonight. Great…character develop…” The look of horror and fury on Dorothy’s face caused my voice to fail.
Tony frowned. His hand fell from Dorothy’s mutilated cheek and he said something softly to her, something that sounded like an apology. Then he turned away, removing a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his fingers where they had touched her face.
“We will expect your full cooperation, Dr. McCormick,” he said. “We have all night.” He swept his gaze from me to Fang, then crossed to the door and held it open for Kwong, who shoved Dorothy through it. He said something in Chinese, and I heard Dorothy whimper. The door closed.
“What did he say?” I asked, my eyes locking on Wei-jan Fang. “What did he say!”
Fang lolled his head toward me. “‘Knives.’ He said, “‘Get the knives.’”
113
I BELLOWED; I HOWLED. I pulled against the cable ties, burying them further into my wrists.
“Stop!” Wei-jan Fang shouted. “Just stop. Shut up.”
The blood in my mouth was nothing compared to the blood now on my hands.
Scripts were being written for me—for Ravi, for Jack Tang, for Dorothy and Tim. The only power I had left to me—the only way I could rewrite those scripts—was to say no. But I couldn’t say no forever.
Knives, Tony had said.
The futility of the situation was overwhelming. I should have taken it like a man, I supposed, looked fate in the eye, mouthed a calm “I regret I have but one life to lose” or something. But I couldn’t.
“They’re going to kill us!” I yelled. “They’re going to kill us, damn it!”
The blond guy smirked; I wanted to cut the lips from his face.
“You think they’re going to let you off the hook here, Wei-jan? Why would they do that?” I persisted. “You’re going to do what they need you to do, and then you’re dead. Just like me and everyone else. You realize that? What have you told your wife? That you were running a little medical clinic? You think they don’t know that she knows, too? You think when you’re in jail, they’ll trust her to keep her mouth shut? You think they don’t know what she’ll do?”
Fang’s eyes were now as dead as the Mings’, as dead as the Murphys’. He’d thrown up a wall in the past few minutes, and I was never going to break through. His fear was bone-deep. Yet, I continued, “They played out all the scenarios, Wei-jan. They’re not going to take any chances. They have never taken any chances. You know that even better than I do.”
Fang’s impassivity infuriated me. Not only was he killing himself, perhaps his family, through his inaction, he was killing me, killing Dorothy. And Tim. Tim. Knives were being unsheathed.
Fang patted his jacket. “I need a smoke,” he said to no one in particular. He pulled a pack from his jacket, slid a coffin nail from the cardboard box.
The baseball cap stepped between Fang and the door. “We’re supposed to stay here.” He sounded like a surfer. Pure California all the way.
“I’m going outside for a damned smoke,” Fang told us, lipping the cigarette. “Unless you idiots can’t watch a guy in a chair by yourselves.”
I saw irritation cross the thug’s face.
The blond guy, the cool one, said, “Smoke here.”
“I can’t, you moron.” He pointed to the tanks along the wall. “You know what happens if that oxygen catches fire? That nitrogen?”
Well, oxygen can make things burn faster, but it won’t blow up. Nitrogen isn’t flammable. For a moment, I was confused about why Fang needed to be outside. Then I got it: to make a call. To get us help.
“There are butts on the floor,” the observant man with the blond hair said.
“That was Tony,” Fang said.
“He smoked here, you smoke here.”
“Tony is an idiot,” Fang said. He pointed to the large No Smoking sign over the door.
The blond guy contemplated, then repeated, “Smoke her
e.”
Fang shrugged. “Don’t blame me if we go up in flames.” The baseball cap produced a lighter, flicked it. Fang sighed, then bent over. He pulled the smoke into his lungs, blew a cloud.
And the phone would stay in Wei-jan Fang’s pocket.
I watched the doctor take a few puffs, then wander over to the side of the loading dock, near a collection of metal cans. The two thugs watched him, then lost interest. They began talking about baseball, about the Giants’ rout of the Padres the night before.
Fang took a seat on a stack of boxes next to the cans. He caught my eye, glanced quickly at the cans, nodded once.
From all those years in the lab, I recognized the colors and shapes of the containers. Even without being able to read the lettering, I knew what was in them. Still, I didn’t know what Fang was trying to say.
He inhaled deeply, then took the cigarette from his mouth. His hand drifted toward the cans.
It was then that I realized what Fang was doing. And I realized what I had to do.
I watched the cigarette arc to Fang’s lips, watched the coal on the end glow brightly.
Now.
I toppled my chair onto the concrete and plastic. I yelled. Lying there, I flailed. I cracked my head against the floor, the pop echoing through my skull. I cracked my head again. My ears began to ring. I tasted blood in my mouth again.
I began to sing the first thing that came into my mind—unfortunately, the theme song from Sesame Street. “Sunny days, sweeping the clouds away…”
“What the hell?” the guy with the cap said, and ran over to me. He grabbed at my shoulders, and I thrashed. I banged my head against the floor, trying to hit it hard enough to be convincing but not hard enough to do any real damage. Pain tore through my skull and broken face with each knock on the concrete.
“Give me a hand here!” the guy shouted. “He’s trying to kill himself.”
Hands encircled my head from the back and held it firm; powerful hands clamped onto my arms. I sang the rest of the first verse of “Sesame Street,” the interior of my skull buzzing as though filled with bees.
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