flat against the wall. Light came from one of those portable construction lights with spring clamps attached to the head frame of the bunks. I had seen better-looking graves.
'How much you pay for this?' I said.
Liang looked at Mei Ling. She translated. He answered. 'Liang pays one hundred dollars a month,' she said.
'So does the other man.' She nodded at the top bunk.
'And there's four other cubicles like this?' I said.
Mei Ling translated. Liang nodded.
'Rent-controlled, the place costs the landlord maybe two, two fifty a month,' I said more to myself than to Mei Ling. There were no surprises here for Mei Ling.
'Gives her seven fifty, eight hundred a month profit.'
Liang spoke to Mei Ling.
'He wants to show us the rest,' Mei Ling said and we followed him along the hall to the kitchen. There was an ancient gas refrigerator in there, and a gas stove, and a darkly stained porcelain sink.
The faucet dripped into the sink. The refrigerator didn't work. The stove did, but there was no evidence that anyone used it. Past the kitchen was a toilet with no seat, and a shower stall with no curtain.
'He got a job?' I said to Mei Ling.
'Yes. He sells fruits and vegetables,' she said.
'From a stand. He could afford to live better, but he doesn't choose to. He chooses to save his money.'
She spoke to Liang. He answered with a lot of animation.
'He earned $31,000 last year, and saved $25,000. He pays no taxes. He has already paid off the smuggling fee. Next year he says he will bring his wife from China.'
'Ask him how he got here,' I said.
Mei Ling talked. Liang looked at me covertly as she spoke. He answered her. She shook her head. Spoke again. Liang nodded and spoke for several minutes.
'Liang is from Fujian Province,' Mei Ling said.
'He saw the local official, who arranges such things. He sent Liang to Hong Kong, and then to Bangkok. From Bangkok, Liang flew to Nicaragua. He went in a truck to Vera Cruz, Mexico, and went on a boat to the United States.'
'Where'd he land?' I said.
'Liang was brought ashore in a small boat at night in Port City.
He stayed there for a week and then came to Boston. The trip took him three months.'
We were standing in the dismal kitchen, with the steady drip of the leaky faucet the only sound other than our voices. Several cockroaches scuttled across the one countertop and disappeared behind the stove. I looked at Liang. He smiled politely.
'Three months,' I said.
'Some it takes much longer,' Mei Ling said.
'They have to stop each place and work. Some have to smuggle narcotics, or go back and smuggle others in to pay for their passage. If there are women, they often have to be prostitutes to pay.'
'Does he know the name of the man in Port City in charge of the smuggling?'
She spoke to Liang. Liang shook his head.
'He says he doesn't,' Mei Ling said.
'You believe him?'
'I don't know,' Mei Ling said.
'But I know he will not tell you.'
'Lonnie Wu?' I said.
Liang looked blank.
'Of course it is,' I said.
'We all know it. But even if Liang would tell me it was, he wouldn't say so in court.'
'Yes, sir,' Mei Ling said.
'That is true.'
I looked around me.
'This was originally a studio apartment,' I said.
'Now ten men live here.'
'Yes, sir.'
I shook my head. I wanted to say something about how this wasn't the way it should be. But I knew too much
