Mendez did not miss it. ‘What?’ he asked quickly.
She said, ‘He needs me right now, probably more than I ever needed him, and there’s not a damned thing I can do to help him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s a long story, Felipe.’
Mendez grinned ruefully. ‘I’m awake now,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘Me, too.’ Her eyes were gritty, and her limbs felt like lead, but that overwhelming sense of sleep that had threatened to engulf her when they first got in had somehow passed. So she told him about Li and his sister. The whole sad tale of Xinxin, and how fate had somehow contrived to bring Li Yan and Xiao Ling together again in the most bizarre of circumstances — Xiao Ling, an illegal immigrant, paying off her debt by working as a prostitute, infected by the virus. ‘She’ll be detained with all the rest,’ Margaret said. ‘Locked up for God knows how long. I don’t know how Li Yan’s going to deal with that.’
‘She can apply for bail at the immigration court,’ Mendez said.
‘She’s infected, Felipe! They’re not going to let her, or anyone else, back into circulation. They’re going to be kept in isolation. Quarantined. We don’t know what triggers the flu yet. I mean, you know that better than anyone.’
‘It’s true,’ Mendez nodded solemnly. ‘We don’t know what triggers it. But we’re already building up extensive intelligence about what doesn’t.’
‘How do you mean?’
He said, ‘Department of Health and INS interviewers have been instructed to question people already taken into custody on what they’ve been eating and drinking since they arrived in America. That way we should be able to establish very quickly a list of “safe” foods. A diet that we know will not trigger the virus.’ And Margaret remembered her almost prophetic words to Steve. If Chinese food triggered the virus it would have happened by now. Of course, it made sense. Mendez went on, ‘Under proper supervision, there’s no reason why someone like Xiao Ling couldn’t be released into the protective custody of her brother. And I don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t be able to claim political asylum either. On the basis of what you’ve told me, she could easily argue that she was persecuted in China under the one-child policy.’
He stood up. ‘I know a very good lawyer in Houston,’ he said. ‘Owes me a favour or two. I’ll call him.’
‘What? Now?’ Margaret had been caught by surprise at how quickly this had all turned around.
‘Sure.’
‘Felipe, it’s the middle of the night!’
Mendez grinned. ‘If I’m not in my bed, I don’t see why anyone else should be.’
Chapter Eight
I
They drove past dilapidated wooden huts and old trailers set back among the trees on University Avenue. Battered pick-up trucks looked abandoned in dirt drives cluttered with rusted car wrecks and accumulations of trash. The occasional shiny new satellite dish stood pointing incongruously toward a leaden sky, the first red light of dawn creeping into it from the east.
As they went up the hill toward Main, they passed, on the left, the unimpressive offices of the District Attorney. Across the street the old county jailhouse was now home to a law firm.
Mendez chuckled. ‘Most folks would say that all lawyers should be put in the local jailhouse.’ Which was ironic, because they were on their way to meet the lawyer they hoped was going to get Xiao Ling freed from custody. He and Margaret had driven straight up to the Holliday Unit, while it was still dark, to collect Li. Li had spent a sleepless night there wrestling with the conflicting options that confronted him. Margaret’s phone call had come like a bright light shining into a very dark place. Now she sat up front, beside Mendez. Li sat in the back staring gloomily from the window. His initial hopes had since faded with news that the INS was almost certain to oppose Xiao Ling’s release.
They passed a mural on a side wall depicting the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto, at which Sam Houston had led his Texan army to victory over Santa Anna and freedom from Mexico. They took a right into Main and drove past the impressive square of the Walker County Courthouse dominating the centre of Huntsville, then left into Sam Houston, drawing in beside a colourful display of birds of paradise set behind a low brick wall. The morning air was still cold as they stepped out on to the sidewalk, and laced with the smell of fresh coffee drifting down from the Café Texan. They walked past Scottie’s antique store, a window cluttered with bits of pottery and old furniture, shelves piled high with cheap bric-a-brac the owner liked to call ‘memorabilia’. The nonsmoking section of the café was empty. A sign in the window read NORMA’S SKIN AND NAILS UPSTAIRS. Margaret had seen the sign often and always wondered where the rest of Norma was kept.
The Café Texan was an old-fashioned Southern breakfast-diner. Low stools lined up along a red counter. Pots of Kona coffee sat on hotplates behind it. A large-breasted girl in hotpants served eggs over easy and grits and pancakes with maple syrup, to customers in Wranglers and Stetsons. Country music played over the sound system. On execution days and for several days beforehand, the Café Texan played host to the country’s media whose reporters would cram the place in the early hours speculating on whether or not there would be a last-minute reprieve. In recent years, those had been few and far between, and they were drawn now only by the crowds of protesters that gathered outside the Walls Unit in the run-up to controversial executions.
Li attracted some curious looks as an older woman with steel grey hair came up to them and said, ‘How y’all doin?’ and took them to a table at the back where a pasty-faced middle-aged man in a crumpled suit stood up to greet them. He had cut himself shaving, and his thinning grey hair was a little dishevelled. ‘Jesus, Felipe,’ he said. ‘You any idea what time I had to get outta my bed to get here?’
Felipe grinned and shook his hand. ‘No rest for the wicked, Dan.’ He turned and introduced Margaret and Li, then told them, ‘This is Daniel L. Stern, attorney at law, smartest lawyer this side of the Mississippi, and just as crooked.’
‘You only ever gotta be as crooked as the law itself,’ Stern said, grinning back at Mendez. He sat down again. ‘Damn, this is good grub. What you folks having?’
But none of them was hungry. Li and Margaret ordered coffee, and Mendez an iced tea. They watched Stern devour a double helping of grits smothered in maple syrup.
‘Don’t get a chance to eat like this too often,’ he said. ‘Wife says I gotta watch my waistline.’ And almost without pausing to draw breath, he added, ‘So this is some case you’re throwing at me, Felipe. Scary stuff. Jesus, if this ever gets out, there’ll be rioting in the streets.’ He looked at Li. ‘And you people had better run for cover.’
‘Then you know how important it is to keep this under your hat,’ Mendez said.
‘Hey,’ Stern chided him. ‘I think I know a little bit about client confidentiality, Felipe.’ A serving of French toast arrived, and he poured on more maple syrup. ‘So the way I see it, we have here a young woman who was forced to leave home in order to have her baby. Could the authorities have forced her to have an abortion?’ He raised a hand to preempt any reply. ‘Never mind, we’ll say they could.’
Margaret studied Stern with distaste as he shovelled French toast into his face. He was a fast-mouthed conveyer of ersatz justice, delivered on tap to the man with the most dollars in his hand. She glanced at Li and knew that he did not like him any better than she did. But with his sister’s freedom at stake, he was keeping his feelings to himself.