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--The Game of Wei-Chi
Chapter Twenty-three
His wife was getting worse.
It was now early evening and Wu Qichen had sat for the past hour on the floor next to the mattress and bathed his wife's forehead. His daughter had painstakingly brewed the herbal tea he'd bought and together he and the girl had fed the hot liquid to the feverish woman. She'd taken the pills too but there seemed to be no improvement.
He leaned forward again and wiped her skin. Why wasn't she getting better? he raged. Had the herbalist cheated him? And why was his wife so thin to start with? She wouldn't have gotten sick on the voyage if she'd eaten right, gotten more sleep before they left. Yong-Ping, a fragile, pale woman, should have forced herself to take better care of herself. She had responsibilities . . . .
"I'm frightened," she said. "I don't know what's real. It's all a dream to me. My head, the pain . . . " The woman began muttering and finally fell silent.
And suddenly Wu realized that he was frightened too. For the first time since they'd left Fuzhou, a lifetime ago, Wu Qichen began to think about losing her. Oh, there were many things about Yong-Ping that he didn't understand. They had married impulsively, without knowing much of each other. She was moody, she was sometimes less respectful than his father, say, would have tolerated. But she was a good mother to the children, she was dependable in the kitchen, she deferred to his parents, she was clever in bed. And she was always ready to sit quietly and listen to him--to take him seriously. Not many people did.
The thin man glanced up and saw their son standing in the doorway. Lang's eyes were wide and he had been crying.
"Go back and watch television," Wu told him.
But the boy didn't move. He stared at his mother.
The man stood. "Chin-Mei," he snapped. "Come here."
The girl appeared in the doorway a moment later. "Yes, Baba?"
"Bring me some of the new clothes for your mother."
The girl disappeared and returned a moment later with a pair of blue stretch pants and a T-shirt. Together they dressed the woman. Chin-Mei got a clean cloth and wiped her mother's forehead.
Wu then went to the electronics store next door to the apartment. He asked the clerk where the closest hospital was. The man told him that there was a big clinic not far away. He wrote down the address in English, as Wu asked; he'd decided to spend the money on a taxi to take his wife there and needed the written note to show the driver; his English was very bad. When he returned to the apartment he said to his daughter, "We'll be back soon. Listen to me carefully. You are not to open the door for anyone. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, Father."
"You and your brother will stay in the apartment. Do not go outside for any reason."
She nodded.
"Lock the door and put that chain on it after we leave."
Wu opened the door, held his arm out for his wife to cling to and then stepped outside. He paused, heard the door latch and the rattle of the chain. Then they started down Canal Street, filled with so many people, so many opportunities, so much money--none of which meant much of anything to the small, frightened man at the moment.
*
"There!" the Ghost said urgently, as he turned the corner and eased the Blazer to the curb on Canal Street near Mulberry in Chinatown. "It's the Wus."
Before he and the Turks could find their masks and climb out of the vehicle, though, Wu helped his wife into a taxi. He climbed in after her and the cab drove away. The yellow cab was soon lost in the busy traffic of rush-hour Canal Street.
The Ghost eased back into traffic and parked in a space directly across from the apartment whose address, and front-door key, Mah's real estate broker had given him a half hour ago--just before they'd shot him to death.
"Where do you think they've gone?" one of the Turks asked the Ghost.
"I don't know. She looked sick, his wife. You saw how she was walking. Maybe to a doctor."
The Ghost surveyed the street. He measured distances and noted particularly the number of jewelry stores here at the intersection of Mulberry and Canal. It was a smaller version of the Midtown diamond district. This troubled the Ghost. It meant that there would be dozens of armed security guards on the street--if they killed the Wus before the stores closed they might expect one of them to hear the gunshots and come running to the sound. Even after-hours, though, there would be risks: he could see the square boxes of dozens of security cameras covering the sidewalks. They were out of sight of the cameras here but to approach the Wus, they would be well within range of the lenses. They'd have to move fast and wear the ski masks.
"I think here is how we should handle it," the Ghost said in slow English. "Are you listening?"
Each of the Turks turned his attention to him.
*
