Sweat

“You have reached the voicemail of Captain Talua. I’m sorry that I’m unavailable to take your call. If you leave a detailed message, I will get back to you as soon as I am able.” A long beep followed and Jake prepared himself for his speech.

“Yes,” Jake stammered. “My name is Jake Patrick and I wanted to ask the police to check on the whereabouts and well-being of a Saipan resident. The resident’s name is Wei Ling… I have reason to believe she may be in trouble.” Jake left his name for the second time and then repeated his work number twice slowly. That should get the ball rolling, he thought to himself. Just an inquiry to see if the notes stashed into the pockets of the imported shorts were a scam. If Marilyn wouldn’t help, fine. He had no problem doing the right thing. ***

Captain Talua, a hefty man in his early fifties with a dark complexion and shallow wrinkles around the corners of his eyes, opened the blinds to his small office and looked out the window, taking in the depressing landscape across the police impound lot. A lone impounded truck, towed in a year before and never claimed, rested in the seashell-filled lot beside the skeletal remains of three police cruisers. Recent budget cuts on the island hit the police department hard. Fewer funds meant fewer officers and less equipment. The island was currently policing its seventy thousand residents with a fleet of five cars, most of them in need of repair. The cars in the growing graveyard behind the building were being cannibalized one part at a time to keep the current fleet on the road.

Captain Talua poured coffee into his favorite mug, brown stains stretching over the edge, dripping until they reached the emblem on the front, the University of Hawaii’s official crest. His son went to UH, and every time he looked at the mug, it reminded him that his son would make something of himself. Get off the islands. See the world. The mug also reminded the captain that a tuition check was due in another month.

Armed with a cup of java and a view of paradise, Captain Talua pressed the button next to the blinking red light on his phone. The first call was from the local loony, Karliya Momali, a main figure on the streets of Saipan’s main city, Garapan. Every morning Ms. Momali led an invisible tour group to all the island hotspots. It was the same routine rain or shine—the beach in the morning, the tourist trap souvenir shops in the afternoon, after-tour drinks down at Breakers for dinner. Captain Talua listened to the message from Ms. Momali informing the captain that a member of her make-believe tour entourage had gone missing. She would be waiting by the phone for the captain to call her back. Captain Talua knew Ms. Momali’s memory wouldn’t last as long as the message.

The second voicemail was from the captain’s brother-in-law, a pain in the ass of such proportions that the captain had more than once considered divorcing the love of his life just to get away from him. His brother-in-law was calling to see if he could press charges against his neighbor. A coconut had fallen from the neighbor’s tree, which straddled their property line, and hit one his free roaming chickens. The captain deleted the message as his brother-in-law explained in detail how the chicken was now walking in circles and may have to be put down. The captain shook his head. The things you should know before you say, “I do.”

The third message was Jake’s and the captain listened to the voice-mail in its entirety. On the second pass, Captain Talua wrote down the girl’s name, and on the third try, he managed to catch Jake’s name and number. Wei Ling, he said to himself, followed by a surly grunt.

He pushed his rolling chair around his desk with his feet and pulled a file from a stack on the corner table near the window. No sirens went off in the captain’s head. No warning bells of suspicion rang in his ears. The phone calls were not uncommon. They usually came from family members looking to make contact with a relative who was incommunicado. Saipan averaged two murders a year, and in his fifteen years as captain of the police force on the island, every killing had been committed by spouse, family member, or a boyfriend. Sure, there were accidents, people on the run passing through the island, lost causes looking for a place to be lost. But when the captain got a call looking for an Asian woman, he always checked the Chang Industries list first.

The captain opened the file and flipped the piece of paper with his scribble on it next to the file. He looked down the list, looked back at the name on the piece of paper, and checked the list again. Employee number one hundred eighty-seven. Wei Ling. Seamstress. Chang Industries.

As I thought, the captain said to himself.

The captain looked at the folder and reminded himself that he needed an updated list of the girls at Chang Industries. It was summer and time for the arrival of a new shipment of hard-working sewing princesses. He made a note to stop by and see Lee Chang. He could pick up a new list and see if the Chang Industries coffers were in the mood to contribute to the captain’s family education fund.

Captain Talua went to the john for his morning constitution, and then returned the call to Jake’s office. He left a short message stating that the girl in question was present, accounted for, and in good health.

Chapter 11

C.F. Chang ordered Chow Ying back to Beijing with a ten-second phone call that lacked explanation. The Mountain of Shanghai worked directly for Lee Chang, but everyone worked for C.F., also called “laoban,” loosely translated as “boss” in Chinese. And when C.F. Chang called, you went, no questions asked. Chow Ying closed his mobile phone, packed a single leather bag he had bought in Hong Kong a decade before, and grabbed his passport. Chow Ying, all two hundred thirty pounds of chiseled muscle, sat in the airport until a seat was available on a connecting flight through Seoul, and boarded the last plane out for the day.

Ten hours later Chow Ying checked into the top floor of the five-story Emerald River Hotel, twenty minutes from Tiananmen Square in downtown Beijing. He slept for a few hours in bed, got up for a glass of water and went back to sleep on the small sofa, legs hanging over the sweeping arm of the worn furniture. He woke from his slumber, took a shower, and tied a slightly stained hotel towel around his waist when he finished. He wiped the moisture from the mirror with his bare hand, leaving a streaking smudge in the glass, and looked at his reflection. He wondered what had happened to the carefree boy who once enjoyed school, sports, and his friends.

He checked the time and called down to the front desk to order a taxi. The young lady at the front desk answered in rough Chinese that the taxi would be there in five minutes. Chow Ying answered in an equally gruff tone, “I’ll be down in four.”

The humidity in Beijing was stifling, sucking dryness from the air and everything in its grasp. A shiny coat of fresh moisture immediately replaced the sweat that Chow Ying wiped from the back of his neck. He slipped on a light pair of cotton pants, a lighter-weight shirt, and reached for his eight-inch hunting knife resting in its leather sheath on top of the TV cabinet. C.F. Chang could be demanding, but Chow Ying had yet to attend a meeting with laoban that wasn’t professional. He threw his knife back on the sofa as he left the room.

The hall was empty when Chow Ying pulled the door shut and rattled the handle to make sure it was locked. He swaggered toward the elevator at the end of the long corridor with its communist red carpet and outdated lamps mounted sparingly on the walls. He thought about what he was going to have for dinner. Chow Ying was primitive. He operated on sleep, food, and gambling. He would take a woman too, if one found her way into his reach.

The elevator door opened with a quiet “ding” and Chow Ying joined two other male guests in the six-by-six foot lift. The door shut and the elevator dropped with an initial, prolonged chug.

Then all hell broke loose.

The man behind Chow Ying reached up and wrapped his arm around the thick neck of his target as the second man hit the stop button on the elevator. The lift lurched to a halt abruptly, causing Chow Ying and his attackers to momentarily lose their balance. The glimmer of a massive knife blade reflected in the mirror trim of the elevator control panel provided all the warning Chow Ying needed. The two would-be assassins didn’t have a prayer.

When the elevator stopped on the second floor, Chow Ying casually stepped out, brushed himself off, and straightened his disheveled shirt. With the pulse of a surgeon about to perform an operation, he walked the three flights of stairs back up to his room to collect his meager belongings.

The female half of the young Chinese couple standing arm-in-arm in the lobby shrieked when the elevator door opened. Two male bodies were propped against the walls in opposite corners of the elevator, their arms resting in their laps like a warped rendition of Buddha in his meditative pose. The Mountain of Shanghai had a sense of humor. The knife, the intended weapon of the attackers, rested on the floor between the two bodies, spotlessly