by Mark Wheaton
By the time he was explaining where they’d stay for the night, she was asleep again. He watched her ragged breathing for a moment and realized that maybe he’d seen the real Jun the whole time. He hadn’t been seduced by the image but his subconscious recognition of the person within. And maybe, just maybe, that was something she found appealing, and not simply as a novelty.
It could be nice to be known.
He rose as gently as he could, allowing her to settle back onto the bed with little fuss. He realized he hadn’t delivered her the pills she needed but decided they could give them to her when she woke. He went to the bathroom and found them where Jiang had said they’d be.
And that’s when he realized what had come into the house for Jun that wasn’t shared with anyone else.
It took Luis ten minutes to finally get someone at Good Samaritan who knew who Susan was.
“Dr. Auyong? Oh, she went back to her clinic a little while ago,” the voice on the line said. “I have a cell number for her if you want to try her there.”
When she didn’t answer her phone, Luis got in his car and raced over as fast as he could. He pounded on the door for almost ten minutes before a bleary-eyed Susan opened up.
“You scared the hell out of me,” she said. “What do—?”
“The virus is being spread by pills,” Luis announced, barging in. “The victims are all taking tainted medications. That’s the link.”
“That’s not how SARS is spread,” Susan said after getting over her initial shock. “It’s through person-to-person contact. You can’t get it from a pill.”
“What if you could? You said yourself it could live on an inert surface. If the pills are generics from China or somewhere, they could’ve been infected overseas, then come here. I think this is what Father Chang was investigating when he was killed.”
Luis explained about Father Chang’s secret trips to Indonesia to track down Jiankang knockoffs and interview victims with Kirk Asmara. How he brought back samples, and how the whole thing was controlled by the various Southeast Asian triad organizations. He also laid out how many people had died.
“So, tell me. Of the victims you interacted with—Rabih Chaumon, César Carreño, and the girl in the squat house—were any of them taking these kinds of generics?”
Susan thought this over for a second, then led Luis to the receptionist’s desk, where she accessed patient files. She started with César Carreño. The file came up immediately.
“Jesus Christ,” she said. “He was on Hasix for hypertension.”
“Hasix is what Father Chang brought back from Indonesia. Is that Jiankang?”
“Yeah, but they call themselves Bumblebee Vigor or something in America,” Susan said, already typing in the next name. When Rabih Chaumon came up, she found the same thing. “Hasix.”
“That can’t be a coincidence. What about the stuff you took to the squat houses?”
“I’d bring Asozide, a generic diuretic, but also a compound vitamin called Biox with iron, folic acid, and so on—same thing I had the receptionist give to Esmeralda Carreño,” Susan recalled. “Two of the most harmless drugs imaginable.”
“Both made by this Bumblebee Vigor?”
“Yeah,” Susan said, leaping to her feet. “Come with me.”
Luis followed Susan down the hall to the supply room. There she opened cabinet after cabinet, revealing dozens of boxes with the logo for Bumblebee Vigor on the side.
“The turnover on this stuff is high, so it’s all recent stuff,” Susan said, grabbing a number of boxes. “Put on a mask and gloves. You’re going to help me with this.”
Luis said a prayer and did just that. Over the next fifteen minutes they batch-tested eighty pills using PCR kits Susan had on hand from Good Samaritan. The first seventy-nine came back negative. The eightieth, a pill that had been hermetically sealed inside a blister pack until three minutes before, tested positive for SARS.
When Susan tested the rest of that twenty-pill pack, three more came back positive.
“That’s it,” Susan said. “The smoking gun. And just this many pills means they could be all over the entire city by now. That’s literally hundreds of thousands of people at risk. Maybe even millions.”
“Time to call the cavalry,” Luis said.
XIX
Michael’s heart beat a mile a minute as he listened to first Luis then Dr. Auyong lay out their doomsday prediction on the phone.
“Is there any chance it can spread to those who haven’t taken the tainted medication? A carrier passing it like a normal virus?” he asked, unsure he wanted to hear the answer.
“We haven’t had a case like that yet, but that doesn’t mean it can’t,” Susan said. “If we don’t isolate the infected fast enough, that’s the doomsday scenario we could be facing.”
“How many people could someone unknowingly infect? Just themselves?”
“Entirely dependent on their daily social interaction,” Susan replied.
Michael estimated that people might interact with between ten and twenty others a day if they worked outside the house. If the distribution of the pills was as widespread as the doctor suggested it was, with up to a hundred thousand people potentially becoming carriers, the result was no less than an outbreak capable of wiping out every human being in Southern California.
“Can I speak to Luis again?”
The phone was passed. “Hello?” said the priest.
“I don’t know how you did it, but I appreciate the heads-up.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” Luis said.
“I know,” Michael admitted. “But if this is why they killed Father Chang, I promise you that our office will make sure that angle is front and center when we start handing down charges.”
“Great,” said Luis, then hung up.
Michael sat at his desk practically hyperventilating for a moment before grabbing the edge of his desk, as if to keep himself from falling off the earth. He had to think fast.
“Michael?” Naomi said, her voice full of alarm as she stepped into his office.
“I don’t even know the right person to call about this one,” he finally managed to say. “I think it’s going to have to be the mayor.”
“It’s getting late. I’m not sure—”
“Find him,” Michael demanded, his voice rising. “Right now. I need him on this phone within a minute. I’m not kidding. This needs to happen right now.”
Naomi hurried from the office. Forty seconds later Michael’s phone buzzed.
“The mayor’s on line one.”
Michael picked up the phone and got right to the point. “There’s no easy way to say this, sir, but we have to figure out a way to tell everybody taking prescription medication in the City of Los Angeles that they may be in serious danger without setting off mass panic.”
There was a long pause. Then the mayor asked to hear the whole story as he added his aides to the call. Michael repeated exactly what Luis had just told him, relieved now to have only carried the burden of the city’s fate for less than five minutes. When he was done, no one said a word.
“If this is true, Michael,” the mayor began, “it’s not Deb who’s got to worry about you taking her job, it’s me.”
Michael wasn’t sure whether to laugh or vomit that the mayor’s first thought was to his political future.
“Before I make any kind of announcement, we need to test—”
“Dr. Auyong is having a mobile team from the CDC come to her clinic to test the pills. We should have confirmation within the hour. They’re calling me directly.”
“Well done, Michael,” the mayor said. “That’s really good news. Let me know the moment you hear. I’ll have my deputy call you right back to begin prepping my statement. The city is in your debt.”
The city is in my debt?
The line went dead. Michael shook his head, wondering if he hadn’t properly expressed the danger to the population. His head was still swimming.
But t
hen one thought knifed through all the others.
My children, he thought. If anything happens to my children . . .
It wasn’t the biggest house Oscar had seen. Not the house with the highest resale value. Not the place with the most perfect amenities, greatest views (though the view was spectacular), or even the most easily accessible.
But it was the best house.
When Helen had texted Oscar about meeting her up on Outpost, overlooking Hollywood, to see a house that night, he’d kept it in his mind all day as he oversaw the recruitment and placement of a hundred of his local crew guys, men and boys who were used to the high-adrenaline thrill of boosting cars and getting them out of the city, into jobs as glorified delivery boys. Though the pay was more than fair, the work was boring, and the guys got unruly fast. They thought it was a joke having to do this kind of shift. They were crooks specifically because they didn’t want to put on a uniform and do wage work. Time and again Oscar had to bring the hammer down and get the guys in line.
But the day was finally over and he got to see her.
Even as he checked the address on his GPS, Oscar feared he’d get a text from Helen begging off for whatever reason. A babysitter, something at work, her husband. But it never came. Instead, only a quick text asking him which wine he preferred, with an accompanying photo of different bottles.
When he arrived twenty-five minutes later, the place was completely empty, the owner having already moved out, save for a large dining room table with two chairs. Candles were burning on the table, and a beautifully catered meal was set out from one end to the other. Helen came out of the bedroom, turning off the lights as she did. The house was soon dark, except for the two candles and the moon visible out over the city.
“How are you?” she asked, giving Oscar a peck as he wandered in.
“Good,” he said. “Great.”
If this had been one of his old girlfriends, she would’ve been waiting for him in, say, four-inch heels and nothing else. Helen wore a blouse and pants. She might’ve thrown on lipstick, too, but he couldn’t tell.
“Have a seat before it gets cold,” she said, sitting opposite him. “And tell me about your day.”
They talked for two hours. It was maybe the longest conversation they’d ever had. Maybe the longest conversation he’d ever had with anyone, Oscar thought. Sure, he was still thinking about the moment at which he’d lift her from her chair, kiss her like mad, and carry her to the balcony, where they’d have sex, but there was something else, too.
“I love you, Helen,” he said as they split a dessert.
Her fork stopped just above the cake, then continued its trajectory through the frosting. When she didn’t say anything, Oscar figured he’d screwed up. But then she took a bite of the cake, leaned over to him, and kissed him on the mouth.
“I think I love you, too, Oscar,” she said.
She took his hand now and led him away from the table. At first, Oscar thought they were heading to the bedroom but then saw the large hammock swaying in the light breeze on the balcony.
“We can see the stars better out here, don’t you think?” Helen asked, taking off first her shoes before moving on to her blouse.
Ah, Oscar thought. I do.
An hour later, with Helen tucked into the crook of his arm, Oscar finally looked up to the dark sky and saw the stars. Up here away from the lights of the city, there seemed to be millions more.
Just for the rich, Oscar thought.
“We forgot the dessert,” Helen said.
Oscar laughed and kissed her. Then he kissed her again.
In the living room Helen’s cell phone began to ring. She let it go for a moment, then finally broke away.
“It might be the babysitter,” Helen said, rising from the hammock. “Don’t move.”
Oscar watched as Helen went to her purse, took out the phone, rolled her eyes at the caller ID, then answered with an annoyed-sounding “Hello?”
Husband, Oscar realized.
But her features turned serious after that. She spoke for only a moment more before hanging up and hurrying to the balcony.
“I need to speak to you about your work,” she said, her mind clearly racing. “I know that’s off-limits, but this is an emergency.”
Not what Oscar expected to hear.
“I don’t want to say, in case you have to lie about it later,” he protested.
“This is so much more important than that,” Helen said. “Michael was calling to warn me that we should get the kids out of town, as the outbreak might be worse than everybody thought. Then he told me why. You mentioned that you’d taken over some deliveries for your Asian partners, which includes deliveries to hospitals and pharmacies, right?”
“Um, yeah,” Oscar replied unhappily. “What’s that got to do with Michael?”
“I need the list of places where the deliveries were made. All of them. And I need to get them to my husband as soon as humanly possible.”
“Wait. Why?” Oscar said, getting defensive. “That’s hundreds of stops. He’s not busting people, is he?”
“The pills are spreading the disease,” Helen explained. “He’s going to need to know where the boxes went and who took what. You’re only the delivery system, so no one’s going to care about your connection to this. What he’ll need to know is who else took possession of them. That’s all.”
Oscar didn’t like this at all, beginning with Helen getting off the phone with her prosecutor husband, then coming over to tell him what he was or wasn’t going to do.
“Oscar,” Helen insisted. “There are thousands of lives at stake, maybe even millions. People will die, and others could become infected. You do this and you’re saving people. No one will ever have to know where the information came from, but this city will owe you forever. You will be bulletproof. If you stay away from violent crime and narcotics, there won’t be a cop in LA who gives you a second glance.”
“I’d be ratting out my partners.”
“They are going down already,” Helen said. “It wouldn’t be anything you did. But imagine if you did nothing and a week from now it comes out that, say, their drugs killed a thousand people. They’d all get the chair. You’re saving them, too.”
Oscar still didn’t like it, but Helen’s words rang true. She took his hand.
“You trust me, right?” she asked. “This is the right move. I promise.”
When Luis got off the phone with Michael, Susan grabbed her car keys.
“Come on,” she exclaimed.
Before he could ask where they were going, she pulled him out of the clinic and toward the parking lot. Ten minutes later they were racing toward Chinatown.
“Once word gets out, the clinics will put their stock on lockdown, which is great. All that stuff will be burned immediately,” she said. “What we have to make sure is that the supply line gets quarantined, too. No more pills leave any of the warehouses, and if there are any still on ships in the port, they’ve got to go down, too.”
“We’re just going to barge in and seize all these pills?” Luis asked. “Shouldn’t we leave this to the police?”
“Time is of the essence,” Susan said. “That, and I don’t think these distributors will just hand over their stock when LAPD rolls up. Besides, customs was supposed to be checking all this stuff, and they missed it. Worse, since the outbreaks of a few years ago here in America, the FDA has been flying over to China to test their factories there, and they missed it, too. If we want to stop this, it might be up to us.”
“That’s what I don’t get,” Luis said. “If there was a SARS outbreak in China, wouldn’t we have heard about it? These people weren’t infected by one pill. They got it from diuretics, vitamins, beta-blockers, and their diabetes medication. How do all of them become infected with SARS?”
Susan stared through the windshield, slowly shaking her head. “I don’t know.”
The warehouse took up two blocks in a south corner of Chinatown. Susan circled
once, then parked on the street.
“We’re not protected here,” Susan warned Luis. “I don’t know who’s here and who isn’t, but I guarantee you the triad wouldn’t like us snooping around. Especially now.”
Luis nodded. He followed Susan as she checked various side doors, finding them all locked. The only way in was through the large open garage doors of the loading bays. Luis couldn’t imagine these would be unattended.
But as Susan peered toward a group of workers milling around in front, she lightened.
“I know that guy,” she said.
Ushering Luis to a concrete ramp leading into the warehouse, she waved down one of the men.
“Hey, you deliver to my clinic, right?” she asked.
The young man, who’d been pulling on beers with his friends, rose from an upturned bucket and eyed her through the dark.
“Yeah, that’s me,” he said. “What’re you doing down here?”
“My boss has the place locked up tight because of the SARS scare,” Susan lied. “But patients need their pills. People are getting sick without them. I just wanted to grab a couple of boxes from our supply.”
The deliveryman looked skeptical.
“Who’s this?” he asked, nodding to Luis.
“He’s helping me with home visits.”
Luis waited for this to be the deal breaker. Then Susan peered at the young man.
“Didn’t you . . . didn’t you used to live on Woosung?” Susan added. “In Yau Tsim Mong District.”
“Um, yeah, I did,” the deliveryman said, surprised. “How’d you know that?”
“I grew up on Kwun Chung,” she said. “I thought you looked familiar the other day.”
“Yeah, that’s me. Jordan, huh? Small world.”
“Small world.”
She waited. He finally nodded to the warehouse. “Make it fast. Seriously.”