Sweat

by Mark Gilleo

  Jake looked at Tom Foti in his suit and glasses with the dark lenses sticking straight out, and wondered what in God’s name was going on. “I like Emerson.”

  “Emerson?”

  “Of course Shakespeare is the most influential writer in the history of the English language, but it’s basically unreadable to the average person. I like to read the thoughts of the great writers, not spend my time deciphering them.”

  “I’m partial to Shakespeare, actually,” Tom said. “Classic Literature was my main area of study in school.”

  There was silence as they measured each other.

  “What else do you know?” Jake asked. “You’re the second person this month to have a file on me.”

  “You must be busy.”

  “I am now.”

  “I would say so,” Tom added. “Born in Washington D.C., raised by your mother after your parents’s divorce. Currently working for your father, Peter Winthrop, at a company with the same name. A medical degree from Georgetown University.”

  “A medical degree?” Jake asked.

  “That’s what it says here. I even have a copy of your diploma.”

  “Sir, I don’t have a medical degree.”

  “You do today. And if that doctor out there starts asking questions about the girl in the wheelchair, just play along.”

  “Play along?”

  “I had the doctor brought in for procedural reasons. He is on our side. He’s American. But he may ask a few questions for show. If he does, say something that sounds medically viable. It makes a nice cover for the other ears in the room.” Tom motioned toward the CBP Officer and the future accountant.

  “Who is the girl in the wheelchair?” Jake asked.

  “The girl you came to take back to Washington.”

  Jake’s mouth opened and he stared out the glass wall of the office, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place. The message at the hotel desk. The CBP Officer at the charter terminal. Jake was just along for the ride.

  Tom let Jake zone out for a minute before continuing.

  “Her name is Wei Ling. As I understand it, she is the reason you are here.” Tom Foti pushed the folder toward Jake, and the former summer help for Winthrop Enterprises flipped through the documents. They were perfect in their illegitimacy.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “We wait for the girl to tell us she wants to go to Washington. If she does, there is nothing to stop you from taking her with you.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “Well, as much as I would like to help, that would be kidnapping.”

  “So we wait.”

  “We wait. The charter plane you came in on is fueled and standing by.” ***

  Captain Talua stepped from his police cruiser in front of the general aviation terminal and looked at the license plates for the two rental cars and at the government issued tags on the white four-door. He tugged his pants a fraction higher on his waist and put on his swagger. It was a full house in the charter terminal, and Captain Talua was the last card in the deck.

  “May I help you?” the young lady behind the counter asked, her mind trying to place the familiar face. A flash of his badge pried open her memory. The vertically challenged CBP officer and the State Department representative stepped to the counter, one standing on each side of the girl in her chair.

  “Captain Talua,” the CBP Officer said with a smile. He knew the captain—all the CBP Officers did. Customs and Border Protection used the police facilities on occasion to hold uncooperative visa violators. “How are you today?”

  “Not very well. Not very well at all,” the captain said, looking at the waiting room and the hodgepodge collection of characters. “Quite a scene at one of the factories this morning. One murder and one suspicious death.”

  “Related?” Tom Foti asked, butting in. He assumed the captain of Saipan’s police force recognized him.

  The pitfalls of assumption.

  “And you are?”

  “Tom Foti, Chief of the Liaison Office for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Saipan.”

  “The State Department.”

  “Yes, sir. We met last year when the president of the Philippines was in town for the weekend.”

  “Ah, yes. My apologies for not recognizing you,” the captain said, looking at Tom’s outfit as if that were the reason for his forgetfulness.

  “Not at all. In your line of work, you meet a lot of people. You can’t possibly remember them all.”

  “I guess I do,” the captain answered, liking the excuse Tom Foti offered better than the run-of-the-mill “premature senility” comment he was ready to use.

  “What brings you down here, Captain?”

  “I’m looking for someone,” Captain Talua said, glancing around the room. “A doctor who works at Chang Industries.”

  Tom Foti smiled, his white teeth stretching to the corner of his mouth. “Well Captain, it looks like it’s your lucky day.”

  Captain Talua squinted perceptively. A hint of disbelief on his face. “You’re kidding?”

  “Right over there,” Tom answered, gleefully pointing toward the corner as the doctor looked up.

  “And the girl. Is she from Chang Industries?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need to see her too. She might be a witness to a serious crime.”

  “The girl is incapacitated and under my supervision and care,” Tom Foti said sternly. “She will not be questioned today, Captain. It’s not a point up for negotiation.”

  “Mr. Foti, you have no jurisdiction over me.”

  “Perhaps you can step into the office for a moment,” Tom said, still smiling. “We can discuss jurisdiction.”

  The office door shut and the CBP Officer and girl at the counter were miffed for being cut out of the juicy part of the conversation.

  “Have a seat, captain.”

  “I’ll stand.”

  “Captain. I have no jurisdiction over you. I have no authority to arrest or investigate anyone. But I can sure as hell bring a shit storm to your door. A cloud of investigation the likes of which you cannot even begin to imagine.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “No. Not at all. But I would be interested in what the Department of Justice has to say about a police officer on a sweatshop owner’s payroll.”

  “I need to speak with the girl. There was a murder at Chang Industries this afternoon and the girl may have been the only witness.”

  “What is an incapacitated girl from a sweatshop going to know about a murder?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “No, you don’t understand. If you need to question someone, start with the doctor. Ask him about the bandage on his neck. Do your job. Believe me, when this girl starts telling her story, I don’t think you are going to want to have the questions streaming into your office. And I will make sure they do.”

  Captain Talua considered his options. On the off chance the man before him wasn’t bluffing, he folded.

  “Have a good day, Mr. Foti.”

  “And you, Captain.”

  The captain waited for two of his officers to arrive and lead the doctor away. As C.F. Chang’s personal physician exited the door, his hands cuffed behind his back, he yelled out over his shoulder to Wei Ling in the wheelchair. “You’ve got nowhere to run. C.F. Chang will find you.” ***

  It had been an hour since Wei Ling first opened her eyes—a brief visit to the conscious world before fading out seconds later. In the hour since her initial arousal, Tom and Jake took turns speaking softly to the girl in the wheelchair.

  “Wei Ling?” Tom asked, sitting in a chair, their faces on the same level no more than a foot apart. “Wei Ling?” he asked again with the same soft tone. The thin Chinese sweatshop worker with the child of a senator in her womb looked at Tom and nodded ever so slightly.

  “My name is Tom Foti and I work for the U.S. government. You are safe now. You have nothing to fear.”


  Wei Ling smiled a doped-up grin, hope radiating in her slowly clearing mind. Twenty minutes later, as she realized she was no longer captive, warm tears trickled down her cheeks. It was only a matter of time before the sedatives would wear off, and she would have to make a decision that would change her life forever.

  Another hour passed as Jake paced the floor. Tom Foti went outside to talk on his incessantly ringing cell phone. Wei Ling opened her eyes and said, “water.”

  Jake jumped from his seat, raced across the charter terminal, and fetched a paper cone cup of spring water. He handed her the water, sat down, and introduced himself to Wei Ling with a handshake. Her hand was weak, clammy, her fingers calloused.

  “My name is Jake. My father is Peter Winthrop.”

  Wei Ling looked at Jake with warm eyes. “I didn’t know Peter had a son.”

  “There are a lot of things you don’t know about him. There are a lot of things I don’t know about him.”

  “He sent you to get me?” Wei Ling asked, groggily.

  Jake paused. The question was a hopeful one. Jake didn’t want to be breaking hearts and trashing dreams, however misguided. He certainly didn’t want to be doing his father’s dirty work, telling women things his father wasn’t man enough to say himself. Jake swallowed and answered without elaborating. “No, my father didn’t send me. I’m sorry.”

  “How did you know about me?”

  “It is a long story. But I guess your friends were looking out for you.”

  Tom Foti came back into the room and interrupted. His jacket was off. The perspiration under his armpits dripped down to his elbows. “Jake, we need to get moving. There are some forces at work that can’t be held at bay forever.”

  Jake nodded.

  “Wei Ling, Jake needs to ask you a serious question. As a representative of the U.S. State Department, I assure you that you can answer freely. Either way, I am here to help you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Jake moved closer to Wei Ling and put his hand on the arm of her wheelchair. “Wei Ling. If you want, I would like to take you back to Washington, D.C. I will make sure you receive medical care from the best doctors.”

  “Can I stay here?”

  “Yes, you can,” Tom Foti answered. “If you want, you are welcome to stay here. Or I can arrange for you to go home.”

  Wei Ling thought about her parents in Guangzhou. “Why Washington?”

  “The chance to save a thousand girls just like you,” Jake answered.

  Tears welled up in Wei Ling’s eyes. Her mind played a mini-film of the two years she had been on the island. Five days off in two years. A hundred other girls just like her, locked up with no money, no power, no options.

  “Then I will go.” ***

  The preparation for departure was short.

  “Do you need anything, Wei Ling?” Tom asked as Jake, Wei Ling, Tony, and the Castello brothers prepared to exit the waiting room. Wei Ling refused to sit down in the wheelchair in which she had arrived. She had had enough immobility. Her healing bedsores hurt. Jake held her by one arm, guiding her steps toward the door.

  “Can you call my parents?” Wei Ling asked.

  “I can do that. What do you want me to tell them?” Tom Foti answered.

  “Tell them don’t worry.”

  “It’s done.”

  Tom Foti watched Wei Ling shuffle out the door. “Hey Jake.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Say hi to Al for me.”

  “Sure. I will. And thank you.”

  “Do the right thing,” Tom said, sounding suspiciously like Jake’s homeless counterpart.

  “Always,” Jake answered.

  Chapter 42

  With the eastwardly jet stream pushing the Gulfstream G550 nearly four hundred mph, and the outside temperature at twenty-five below zero, Wei Ling curled up into the reclined seat of the private aircraft. She slipped both hands under her head, something she hadn’t been able to do for weeks, and dreamt the dreams of someone set free. Heavy breaths, followed by drool, followed by a light rhythmic snore.

  Jake was buried in medical books, dog-earing pages, taking notes, slapping sticky notes on appropriate pages. He read every passage scrawled in Kate’s handwriting on the cheat sheet she had given him. It was a crash course in pregnancy and neonatal care. Armed with a stethoscope, thermometer, and a blood pressure gauge, it was as close to practicing medicine as he was going to get. A doctor for the day, now complete with a fake diploma.

  Jake looked at Wei Ling and felt relieved. Her face had good color, a basic indicator of proper health. At least according to his grandmother. The healthy hue was Jake’s medical ace-in-the-hole. Sure Wei Ling was thin, but she wasn’t play-her-ribs-like-a-xylophone thin. And if her spirit were any indication of her physical well being, the girl would be fine.

  Tony, the heavy-hitting bone-breaker, looked at Jake with a hint of respect. A young kid who just went halfway around the world and, only God knows how, managed to pick up a girl who was ill. What had transpired in the airport was beyond Tony’s comprehension. All he knew was that Sorrentino had ordered him and the Castello brothers to accompany this kid for a couple of days and see to it that he stayed out of trouble. Tony was following orders. But when he looked at Wei Ling in her chair, and then at Jake in his seat with a pile of books and paper, for a human moment Tony considered that perhaps he had missed the opportunity to do something with his life.

  “She’ll be all right, won’t she?” he asked toward Jake, who was almost startled by the sudden question.

  “I don’t know, Tony,” Jake answered, flipping through pages. “She should be fine through the flight. She has bedsores, which look pretty bad. Of course, I have nothing to compare it to other than a picture here in this book. She is also running a slight fever, which could be a sign of infection,” Jake said checking his notes. “But the thing that worries me is her high blood pressure. One sixty over one twenty. According to the book, this could be the symptom of something called pre-eclampsia. This can lead to seizures and even death,” Jake added with a serious tone that was at least partially contrived.

  Tony nodded.

  “Did you know that it is possible for pregnant women to have diabetes during their pregnancy? It’s called ‘gestational diabetes.’”

  “I had no idea. Makes you thankful guys aren’t the ones getting knocked up.” And with that statement, Tony turned toward the window and shut his eyes.

  The cabin of the plane was quiet, the flipping of pages, the hum of the ventilation system, and the occasional squeak of leather under Tony’s heavy frame were the only sounds. Twenty-four hours without sleep, and Jake shut his eyes with a pull-out diagram of the female reproductive organs spread in his lap. Now that he had the girl, things were bound to get interesting. In a moment of pride, and with thoughts of a senator on his mind, Jake smiled. In five weeks, he had gone from a graduate student who had just buried his mother to a twenty-four-year-old with serious ambition. The latter was infinitely better than the former. In the fifth grade, his mother had dragged him to the Boy Scouts because she thought there were some skills her son needed to learn that she just couldn’t teach him. Twenty-four years old and Jake Patrick, still a Boy Scout at heart, was about to bump bellies with a senator. ***

  After refueling in Sapporo, Anchorage, and Denver, the private Gulfstream touched down and taxied to the general aviation terminal at the southeast end of Reagan National. Tony stepped off the twin-engine private jet first, his frame filling the small doorway, noticeable from the gate window nearly fifty yards away. Al and Kate, self-introduced in the lobby an hour before, stood side-by-side, their faces reflecting in the glass window.

  “I can’t believe it,” Al said, giddy. “You have done it now, Korgaokar. Trouble with a capital ‘T,’” he said out loud, using his own last name. “You’ve unzipped your fly and are about to piss on a spark plug.”

  “Trouble?” Kate asked, looking at Al with concern over his mental hea
lth.

  “With a capital ‘T’,” he repeated. Al stared straight ahead, eyes fixed out the window.

  With the intuition of a woman, Kate pressed for details. “What have you two done?”

  Al didn’t answer. He stood tall and smiled proudly like the father of a son who had just left the house on a date with the prom queen.

  Jake walked Wei Ling down the stairs of the aircraft, and Al cherished the moment. With a strong breeze blowing her loose fitting clothes, Wei Ling stepped on the tarmac and looked out across the Potomac at the illuminated white dome of the Capitol Building in the distance. The center of power in the free world was lost on her. She was trusting a complete stranger, the son of someone who had thrown her to the wolves. All she knew was that being locked to a bed had changed a lot of things for her. A chance to save a thousand girls just like her. The words Jake had thrown out there meant everything.

  Still smiling, Al looked at Kate. “I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

  “What doesn’t matter?” Kate answered. She had been waiting for an answer since Al had started talking to himself.

  “You know the girl is pregnant,” Al asked.

  “Jake mentioned it.”

  “Did he tell you who the father is?”

  “I figured it was his father,” Kate said, trying to connect with Al, still waiting for the punch line.

  “Are you familiar with Senator Day from Massachusetts?”

  As soon as Al’s words registered, Kate longed for the state of ignorance-is-bliss. “Don’t tell me…”

  “Right there on the tarmac. In the flesh evidence that will ruin a man’s life.”

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. Suddenly, it all made sense. The night on the bed with Jake and the news on TV, the secrecy over the last few weeks, the paranoid behavior—it was both clear and unbelievable. She didn’t know if she liked Jake more or less than before. “Oh my God,” she repeated, touching her lips lightly with the palm side of her fingers.

  “I don’t think God has anything to do with it…but I guess there is no harm in asking for His help. Though I’ll be the first to tell you it hasn’t done me much good.”

  “You shouldn’t have let him go.”