Snakehead (17 page)

Hrycyk was clearly striving to come back at her with some caustic comment. But nothing came to him. He said lamely, ‘The hairdresser’s.’

She looked at the hairdressing salon. A brightly lit picture window gave on to the interior of the salon. They could see what looked like a group of women sitting waiting to take their turn in the chair. ‘Looks like they’re waiting for a perm,’ she said.

Hrycyk sneered. ‘Those aren’t women in there,’ he said. ‘That’s men waiting their turn in one of the back rooms. Massage, they like to call it. But anything goes, depending on how much you’re prepared to pay. Still takes a lot of blow-jobs to pay off your snakehead, though.’

They heard the squeal of tyres, and two white INS vans and three black and whites careened across the lot, brakes burning rubber as they drew up in front of the salon. They saw the silhouettes in the window jump to their feet, alarmed. White-suited figures poured from the back of the vans and into the salon. Uniformed police officers got out of their vehicles and stood around outside, hands on hips, daring anyone to interfere.

‘Time to go,’ Hrycyk said. And he got out of the car. Li and Margaret followed him across to the hairdresser’s. By the time they got inside, the half-dozen male customers were sitting down again sheepishly on the bench. Hrycyk grinned at them. ‘In for a haircut, boys?’

One of his agents emerged from a corridor leading to the back shop. ‘Three rooms in back, chief,’ he said. ‘Two of them occupied. Just giving them time to make themselves decent. Apparently the girls live in. There’s an apartment up the stairs.’

‘Let’s take a look,’ Hrycyk said.

They went down the corridor past two shut doors on the left. A third, on the right, stood open to reveal a small room almost filled by a makeshift massage table covered with white towels. There was a single chair against the back wall, below a cracked mirror. The other walls were scarred and dirty and pasted with old posters from Chinese movies. The air was heavy with the unpleasant smell of human body odour. And there was something else in the air, Margaret thought, high-pitched and disagreeable. The stink of sexual slavery.

A narrow staircase at the end of the corridor dog-legged up to the second floor. Another corridor with two bedrooms off it, a bathroom, and a sitting room at the far end. A couple of INS men were escorting one of the girls down the hall. She was wearing an obscenely short sleeveless blue cotton dress and white, high-heeled shoes. There were bruises on her arms and legs. Her face was hidden by the long black hair that flowed across it from her bowed head. As they approached, she threw her head back defiantly, flinging the hair out of her face. She was a pretty girl, late twenties, but her face was thin and haunted. Her eyes met Li’s, and she stopped in her tracks, and for a very long time they stood staring at each other.

Hrycyk looked from one to the other. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’

Suddenly the girl bolted, breaking free from the grasp of the INS agents. She threw herself into the bathroom, slamming the door shut in their faces. They heard the key turn in the lock.

‘Hey!’ One of the INS men rattled the door handle.

Li pulled him roughly aside and threw his right shoulder squarely against the door. There was the sound of splintering wood, but the door remained intact.

‘For Christ’s sake, Li, what are you doing?’ Hrycyk screamed.

Li ignored him and threw himself at the door again. This time it burst open, in time for them to see the girl climbing out of the bathroom window. Li shouted at her, but none of them knew what it was he said.

The girl dropped from view, and they heard her land on a tin roof below. Li was across the bathroom in two strides. He put his foot through the glass, smashing the frame and started climbing out after her.

‘Li, if you don’t stop, I’ll fucking shoot you,’ Hrycyk bawled after him. ‘You’re just an observer here.’

But like the girl before him, Li dropped from view and clattered on to the tin roof below. Hrycyk ran across the bathroom and peered out after him. Margaret followed and craned to see over his shoulder. The tin roof covered a small outbuilding that housed the bins. The girl had jumped down into the alleyway at the rear, kicked off her shoes, and was running barefoot toward high mesh gates at the end, caught in the full glare of security lights which had snapped on. Li was going after her like a man demented.

Hrycyk turned to Margaret. ‘What the hell’s he doing?’ he hissed.

Margaret was at a loss. ‘Damned if I know.’

‘Jees…!’ He turned and ran back down the stairs, breathing heavily, Margaret following in his wake.

Out back they saw that the girl had reached the gates. But they were locked. She turned, her back pressed against the mesh, and watched Li approach. He had slowed to a strange, almost loping gait. Hrycyk, his breath coming now in stertorous gasps, ran after them.

As Li finally approached the girl, she seemed to cower below him. He stood for a long moment, then lifted his open hand as if about to strike her.

‘Li!’ Margaret screamed. She overtook Hrycyk and drew level with Li. ‘What are you doing?’ She looked at the strange, almost twisted expression on his face. She had never seen him look that way before. He stood breathing hard, unable to take his eyes off the girl. Margaret turned her gaze toward her and for the first time thought that there was something vaguely familiar about her.

Hrycyk caught up with them, several INS men running up behind him. His gun was in his hand, but hanging loosely at his side. Years of smoking and the strain of being a hundred pounds overweight, had taken their toll. Gasping for breath, he said, ‘For fuck’s sake, what is going on…?’

Li still had his eyes fixed on the girl, something like hatred burning in them now. He said, ‘She is Xiao Ling. My sister.’

Margaret looked quickly from one to the other in astonishment. She had met Xiao Ling only once, in a tearoom in Beijing two years ago. She doubted if she would have recognised her.

Hrycyk was unmoved. He nodded to his men. ‘Take her away.’

Li stepped in front of them. ‘I don’t think you understand,’ he said with a dangerous intensity. ‘She is my
sister
.’

‘I don’t care if she’s your sex-change uncle,’ Hrycyk told him happily. ‘She’s an illegal-fucking-Chinese-alien-prostitute, and she’s going to jail!’

III

The lights of Huntsville were spread out below like clusters of fireflies dancing in the warm Texas night. Margaret could follow the line of the Interstate snaking north by the headlights of the cars. But at this time it was not busy and there was little traffic. She saw the landing lights of the tiny Huntsville airfield, and on the other side of the highway the blaze of light around the perimeter of the Holliday Unit, where the Texas Department of Criminal Justice processed criminals also suspected of being illegal aliens. Some comedian had nicknamed it the Holliday Inn, and the name had stuck. Now the facility had been turned over exclusively for the use of the task force.

The small army helicopter touched down gently on the tarmac. A journey that would normally have taken an hour had been accomplished in less than fifteen minutes. Ducking under the downdraught, Margaret ran toward the lights of the terminal building, little more than a shed with windows. She crossed through the headlights of the car that was waiting for her and climbed in the back. The army driver turned and nodded. ‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘you wanna go straight there?’

‘Please.’

He engaged the shift and as he turned the car, its lights raked across the runway, illuminating rows of tiny single-engined aircraft lined up along either side. They drove slowly over a pitted road past playing fields, rows of bleachers erected to accommodate the faithful who came to watch the Huntsville Hornets on a Saturday.

They turned right past a filling station and the lights of the Hitchin’ Post restaurant before making a left and passing under Interstate 45. In less than two minutes they were on the access road to the Holliday Inn, which shimmered silver under the floodlights raised around its perimeter, light glinting on miles of shiny razor wire curled around the top of high mesh fencing. As they pulled into the brightly lit car park out front, Margaret could see the guard in the watchtower above the main gate following their progress. She stepped out into the glare of lights that bathed the prison in what felt like permanent day and walked toward the gate.

The guard called from the tower. ‘Stand below.’ Margaret did as she was told, and watched as he lowered a red plastic bucket on the end of a rope. ‘Put your ID in the bucket,’ he shouted. She dropped in her plastic photocard from the Medical Examiner’s Office, and he drew the bucket back up the tower. He took several moments to examine the ID before making a phone call. ‘You’ll get it back on the way out,’ he called. ‘Stand by the gate.’

As she reached the gate, she saw a black female officer approaching it through a corridor of fencing that led from the administration offices in H block. She unlocked an inner gate, before opening the outer gate to let Margaret in. They shook hands.

‘I’m Deputy Warden Macleod,’ the officer said. ‘You gonna have to get in one of these white suits to go in back. But I guess there ain’t much I have to tell you about that.’ She locked the gates behind them, and as they walked toward H block she said, ‘You people don’t hang around. They tell me they’re going to have the first hearings tomorrow morning. Usually it’s a week before we’re processing people over to Goree.’

Margaret said, ‘They’re not going to Goree. The Immigration Court there’s too small, and we can’t exactly evacuate a whole prison unit to keep these prisoners isolated.’

Deputy Warden Macleod looked surprised. ‘Where you taking them then?’

Margaret said, ‘The dean at the College of Criminal Justice has agreed to let us use their courtroom. It’s bigger, and they’re just going to shut down the college for the day.’

The deputy warden raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, that’s a new one on me.’

Margaret said, ‘They used it once for a real-life capital murder trial. Some guy from Conroe with financial problems. Kidnapped his neighbours’ kid for ransom, but ended up killing the child. They found him guilty and gave him the death penalty.’

The deputy warden whistled softly. ‘You know, I ain’t never been too sure that we got the right to take a man’s life, no matter what he’s done. I figure the Big Man’s the only one with the right to make that judgment.’

‘Then you’re in the wrong job, in the wrong town,’ Margaret said. ‘They say it’s going to be a record year for executions over at the Walls Unit.’

Deputy Warden Macleod pressed her lips together in an expression of silent disapproval.

In the main hall of H block, the floor was polished to such a shine Margaret could see her reflection in it. A large notice read: HARD WORK APPLIED WITH INTELLIGENCE AND RIGHT THINKING WILL LEAD TO SUCCESS. The deputy warden followed Margaret’s eyes. ‘Warden’s a religious man,’ she said. ‘We believe in encouraging all our prisoners to take the right path.’ Clearly a shiny one, Margaret thought. The deputy warden opened a door to their left. ‘You can get changed in here.’

After she had passed through the security ‘airlock’ gates leading to the rest of the prison, Margaret was met by another female officer in a Tivek suit and face mask. ‘All of the staff beyond this point are suited up,’ the officer said. ‘We got Department of Health people advising us on everything we do.’

They walked down a long, broad, tarmacked area between low prison buildings on either side, passing through locked gates in fences that cut the main drag into sections. ‘They call this Main Street,’ the officer said. ‘This is where the prisoners get their exercise.’

Almost on cue, a group of immigrants emerged from a building away to their left, led by a single officer in a protective suit. There were, perhaps, a dozen of them. They were sorry figures in their white prison-issue jackets and trousers, several sizes too big for their slight, Chinese frames. At least, Margaret, noticed, they looked cleaner.

The officer said, ‘We’re feeding them in batches. Never seen such a compliant bunch of prisoners. They just do what they’re told. No questions.’

They passed through another gate. This one had a sign attached to it. THE USE OF PROFANITY IS A DECLARATION OF STUPIDITY. And below it, in Spanish and English, NO HABLAN; NO TALKING. They were going to have to start thinking about getting Chinese translations, Margaret thought grimly. They had three hundred beds here. But it was never going to be enough. This place was going to start filling rapidly.

In the processing block, at the top right-hand side of main street, sad Chinese faces sat in a caged area waiting to be interviewed, fingerprinted, photographed and documented. They displayed no curiosity about the white-suited figures with their plastic face masks. That uniquely Chinese sense of fatalism that had served them through five thousand years of turbulent history, and most recently the insanity of the Cultural Revolution, had descended on them like a soporific cloud.

Li sat in an office on his own through the back. Margaret closed the door behind her and sat opposite him at a scarred desk. Somewhere, in the hours since she had last seen him, he had acquired a pack of cigarettes. The air was laden with his smoke, an ashtray overflowing in front of him.

‘I thought you gave up,’ she said.

‘So did I.’ His eyes met hers only for a moment before flickering away again.

They sat in silence for a long time before she said, ‘The news isn’t good, Li Yan. INS have been pulling in illegal Chinese immigrants all over — in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco…Seems most of them crossed the border from Mexico. Houston’s just a staging post for moving on.’ She paused. ‘Early intelligence from interviews suggests they’ve been getting “vaccinated” as they crossed the border for nearly three months now. That could mean as many as twenty-five thousand illegal Chinese infected with the virus.’

Li looked at her. He heard the despair in her voice. He knew what it meant. These were numbers that it would be almost impossible to deal with. But right now he found it hard to care. He tried to focus on what she was saying. ‘…and because they’re illegal, they’re not going to come forward, no matter what kind of appeal we make. Even when they get sick. Jesus…!’ She stood up, unable to contain her frustration. ‘These poor bastards really are the ideal delivery system for a bioterrorist attack. I mean, how are we supposed to deal with these numbers? We’re going to have to
build
a quarantine facility, never mind the legal implications of trying to keep them all locked up. And your government’s not going to want them back. Christ, can you imagine what’s going to happen when this all gets out? As it will. There’s going to be panic. There’s going to be vigilante groups hunting down and murdering Chinese — whether they’re illegal immigrants or not.’