Li sat in the front seat beside Hrycyk, Margaret in back. The tension in the car was tangible. They still wore their Tivek suits and HEPA filters, each aware of how ridiculous they appeared to the other. There might have been something faintly comic about their situation were it not so grave. They were waiting for the vans to go in first.
Finally, Margaret could contain her curiosity no longer. ‘Which one’s the whorehouse?’
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.