was most helpful in coordinating the medical care on Saipan. Under the circumstances, I felt somewhat responsible for my employee’s injury.”
“Lee Chang knows Saipan very well.”
“Yes, he seemed to be very well-connected. A very interesting man.”
There was a slight change in the nuance of the conversation, a mild shift in mannerisms Peter immediately recognized. “In what way, Senator?”
“I understand Lee comes from a very successful family.”
“Yes, he does.”
“So why Saipan? Running a sweatshop seems like, how should I put it…an underachievement.”
Both men jogged for position.
“The Chang family has manufacturing interests in a half-dozen Asian countries,” Peter said, pausing briefly to sip his brandy. “But Chang Industries on Saipan is the most profitable.”
“Lee has brothers, no?”
Peter knew the senator had been doing his homework. “The Chang family has a proud lineage in China going back too many generations to count. Lee has two elder brothers who are successfully running other business interests of the family.”
“In China?”
“Yes, on the mainland.”
“In Hong Kong?”
“No,” Peter answered.
“So only Lee resides outside of the country?”
Peter didn’t respond. Years of doing business with snakes taught him never to divulge all his information at once. The truth was simple. After Lee was caught with the underage daughter of a high-powered politician in the Chinese Ministry of Trade, Lee’s father had been forced to make a decision. And C.F. Chang chose money over his youngest son.
“Yes, Lee is the only son working outside of China on a full-time basis,” Peter finally answered, his mind filtering every word of the conversation, trying to gauge where the senator was going.
“What about money?”
Peter smelled blood. “I’m sorry, Senator?”
“Does Lee share in his family’s fortune?”
“I imagine he is well taken care of.”
Peter thought about the senator’s question and stored it in his memory bank. “Is there a problem?”
“No. No problem at all. I’m just gathering background information. I know I asked some questions about Chang Industries before our trip, but I wanted some more information on our host. I need to be prepared for the Senate Committee. You know how it is with politicians. Any imaginable question could come up.”
“I understand, Senator.”
“Of course you do, Peter. That is why you have your office right here in D.C., close enough to hear the whispers circulating the halls on Capitol Hill.”
“I’m not hiding my intentions, Senator. I’m into money, politics, and women. Usually in that order.”
“Please, there is no need to get defensive. I’m just saying that you could have your office anywhere, but you choose to keep it in D.C. Very prudent. Keep an eye on legislation that will affect your business. Very smart.”
“Senator, my home is D.C., but the world is my office.”
The senator had asked enough questions for one evening. He reached to the table and raised his glass. “To continued success.”
The two powerhouses clinked their glasses and sipped their drinks. They finished their cigars and brandy, dousing themselves in alcohol, thick smoke, and suspicion.
Chapter 7
The stainless steel handcuff dug into Wei Ling’s left wrist, leaving a purple bruise in the shape of a bracelet like a punk-rock fashion statement. Her backside was sore from lying hours on end, the only alternative she had to standing directly next to the bed. A bedpan in need of attention rested on the floor under the mattress, just beyond the outstretched toes of her bare feet. She was trapped in a world so narrow it made a cell in the solitary confinement block seem like a suite at the Four Seasons.
The middle-aged lady who took care of Lee Chang visited Wei Ling three times a day. She brought soup and rice for breakfast, noodles with a plate of steamed vegetables for lunch, and a full meal in the early evening. It was a balanced diet, and better than the food from the sweatshop kitchen served to the able-bodied seamstresses. Wei Ling’s food was coming directly from Lee Chang’s personal refrigerator. No bruised fruit. No vegetables on the verge of spoiling. Every dish contained real chunks of chicken, pork, or beef, a vast culinary improvement over the usual unidentifiable meat particles. Everything had its positive side, and for Wei Ling the food was the only thing she had to look forward to.
Food aside, Wei Ling knew she was in trouble. No one with your best interest in mind locks you in a storage room and chains you to a bed. The good doctor hadn’t come since the morning she was diagnosed as pregnant, and Wei Ling wasn’t holding her breath waiting for his next visit. With the bloated body of the doctor sitting on a slab in the morgue, skull caved-in, she was right to assume he wouldn’t be stopping by anytime soon.
Wei Ling wanted an abortion. She didn’t care that it would cost her five hundred dollars in penalty money to the Changs. The baby would bring shame to her own family, and her family’s honor had led her to Saipan in the first place. The honor of working overseas. Honor and a little cash to help her struggling family in Southern China’s Guangzhou region. Coming home with a baby, worse still a half-breed, was not an option. Her family would disown her, and she wasn’t from a place in society where a single mother would be met with open arms. She knew the path. Her family would disown her, she would be deemed unemployable, and she would end up on the street.
Having the baby wasn’t an option.
Lee Chang promised her daily that an abortion was on the way, per company policy. Two other girls had become pregnant since Wei Ling’s arrival at Club Paradise, and the doctor had acted quickly, under the orders of Lee Chang. So she waited for her fate in the recently transformed storage room, one arm cuffed to the metal bed frame. She was a prisoner, and like all prisoners, her life choices were limited. Worse, she was alone.
The seamstresses’ quarters, for all its rules, regulations, and downright mean spiritedness, was a hell of a lot better than where she found herself now. And she missed her friends. Shi Shi Wong and the other hundred seamstresses were her family. Misery loves company, and in the seamstresses’ quarters, they all helped each other to get by.
Her current isolation took away her only mental outlet. The handcuff on her wrist took away her physical ones. She never thought she would say it, but all she wanted was to have an abortion and be allowed back to work. She wasn’t asking for much, but Wei Ling had a growing suspicion she would never see the inside of the seamstresses’ quarters again. ***
Shi Shi Wong looked for her slippers in the piles of footwear scattered on the floor and stacked into four- foot-high bookshelves near the back door of the seamstresses’ quarters. She wedged her feet into her green- trimmed flip-flops and slipped out the unlocked door into the rainy night.
The grounds were off limits after lights-out, a nightly ritual marked with a five-second alarm blast at eleven- thirty sharp. The doors to the seamstresses’ quarters were locked some nights and open others, depending if the guards remembered to bolt them, which in turn was dependent upon the nightly poker game and how much the night guards drank.
But the locks were the least of Shi Shi’s worries. The guards kept an eye, albeit an inebriated one, on the property, and any girl on the grounds after hours was guaranteed a beating. No whips or batons—just a good old- fashioned, barehanded roughing up with a few kicks thrown in for emphasis. A beating bad enough to remind the guilty party and her co-workers of the rules. A beating just short of an injury that would prevent her from working. It was a fine line, and the guards needed to look no further than Lee Chang to see how it was done with precision.
