Orphan X

55 Silent Work

Later that night, after restitching his wound at home and cleaning himself up, Evan exited the elevator at the sixth floor of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center on Sunset Boulevard. Smiling at the charge nurse posted at the station, he lifted two weighty bags filled with mediocre food from the cafeteria downstairs. “Just coming back in with chow for my fellow car-crash victims.”

She noted his black eye and nodded him past.

A research session in the Vault had fulfilled his worst expectations, leading him here.

Strings of silver tinsel adorned the halls, Christmas decorations that felt more like an afterthought. Room 614 came up on his right, and he snatched the chart off the door and shouldered through the curtains, unsure how bad it would be.

A man lay unconscious, his head mummy-wrapped, his right arm in a cast, one leg in traction. A tracheal tube disappeared down his throat, but a quick glance at the screens showed him to be breathing above the ventilator.

Memo Vasquez had finally landed in the system.

Evan eyed the charts, noting the fractures, contusions, the collapsed lung, the intestinal perf. The drug dealers had exacted a payment for their missing drugs from Vasquez’s body. But had they also fulfilled their promise?

Evan set a hand gently on Memo’s arm, and a moment later the man stirred. Dark eyes peered out from beneath the bandages. His hand lifted an inch above the sheets, and Evan took it. Memo squeezed weakly. His head was cocked back at an uncomfortable angle.

Evan said, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” He braced himself, then asked, “Did they take Isa?”

The ventilator shoved air into Memo’s lungs. Memo released Evan’s hand and made a small writing gesture. Evan brought him a pen and pad.

In a trembling hand, he wrote, “sí.” Then, painstakingly, he wrote, “yor face?”

“You should see the other guy,” Evan said. “Now, can you tell me where to find the bad men?”

The hand moved again. It took the better part of five minutes for Memo to write out the location of a warehouse. Not an address but a rough set of directions, a mix of Spanish and phonetic English. It would be sufficient.

Evan tore off the top sheet of paper. “Everything will be fine now.”

Memo gestured again for the pencil. With a loose grip, he etched a few more words. “they will deport us. i hav no kard i am ilegul.”

Evan set down the pad by his hand. “Not anymore,” he said. “Your name found its way onto the approved list in Immigration Service’s database. They’ll be mailing a green card to your house in the morning. A gift for the holidays.” He gave the chart a last glance and set it down on the tray. “They really worked you over.”

The stubby pencil scratched some more. “U shud see ather guy.”

Evan smiled. He sensed a glimmer of amusement in Memo’s eyes before they darkened with concern.

“Rest up,” Evan said. He patted the wrapped hand and turned to leave. “I got this.”

From the asbestos roof of the condemned warehouse, Evan slipped through the high, double-hung window, pivoting to grab the inside sill. His boots dangled ten feet above the concrete floor. He pushed off and landed on bent knees, letting his body collapse to the side so it wouldn’t absorb the impact all at once.

Though there was a torn twin mattress in the corner, the girl was sleeping on the floor. The small storage room was vacant, an excellent makeshift cell.

Bare walls conveyed the sounds of men arguing from the dilapidated manager’s office down the corridor. Through a skylight Evan had observed the three of them squabbling over digital scales — teardrop tattoos and prison ink and a security camera that possibly streamed to an off-site location. The rest of the former sweatshop was abandoned, one wall of the main floor collapsed, rubble strewn across rusted industrial looms.

Rising to his feet in the tiny space, Evan walked quietly to Isa, not wanting to startle her. As he drew near, he saw that she had forsaken the bed so her stuffed animal could sleep there. The pink teddy bear with the chewed ear was tucked in cozily beneath the sole sheet, its head resting on a pillow.

Evan rested a hand gently on the girl’s shoulder.

She roused. She might have been fourteen or fifteen, but it was hard to tell given her condition. The upward slant of her eyes, like they were smiling.

“Your father sent me,” Evan whispered.

She nodded, her tongue protruding slightly over her bottom lip.

He gestured to the pink teddy bear. “What’s her name?”

“Baby.”

“You’re taking care of her well.”

The words came soft and slurred. “Sí. She get scared easy.”

“She’s lucky to have you,” Evan said.

A bright, proud smile and a stubby thumbs-up.

“I’m going to go,” Evan said. “You stay here with her and make sure she feels safe, okay?”

“Uh-huh.”

Evan reached into his cargo pocket. “I’m gonna put this mask on now. Don’t let it frighten Baby. It’s not to frighten her.” He pulled on one made of black Polartec that covered his face, save for the band of his eyes.

“A mask.” She beamed up at him. “Like a superhero.”

“Like a superhero.” Evan unfolded his monocular night-vision headgear. It fit snugly, hugging his scalp, the high-res lens positioned over one eye, leaving both his hands free.

“Are you okay here alone for a little while?”

She pointed to the bed. “I’m not alone.”

“Of course.”

The sheathed combat knife pulled reassuringly at his belt. Gunshots would scare her. His work was going to have to be silent.

He set his hands gently on her shoulders and looked down at her with his Cyclops eye. “The lights are going to go off. But the cops will get here really soon after that. I’ll make sure of it. Okay?”

“Uh-huh.”

He drew the lock pick from his back pocket and tapped it against his knuckles. “You are a very brave young woman,” he said, turning to focus on the door handle.

“La puerta,” she said. “It’s locked.”

“That’s okay.” He jiggled the torsion wrench, sliding the rake pick home. “I can go through doors.”

She blinked, and he was gone.

Later that night, back home in the open enclosure in his master bathroom, Evan set his palms against the tile, leaning into the punishingly hot blast. Water poured from the rainfall showerhead, washing dried crimson flecks from his face. He scrubbed at his hands and forearms, freeing rivulets of red. There was a lot of blood.

None of it was his.