Mark Gilleo - Sweat

Vincent DiMarco watched the white van turn left at the end of the road leading to Chang Industries, followed by the rumbling of two, five-ton trucks, shaking the ground, stirring up a cloud of dirt and bugs. DiMarco’s rental car was littered with surveillance mainstays: binoculars, grease-stained fast food bags, an assortment of coffee cups and soft drink cans. He was a man of habits, and in the hours he spent on surveillance, DiMarco drank his caffeine, chewed his gum, and smoked his cigarettes—all with equal passion.

He sweated through three shirts a day, and the smell of perspiration and bad food in the car was growing rancid. Worse still, DiMarco was becoming immune to his own funkiness. He had briefly visited the stage where he could smell himself and he knew he stunk. He was now at the point where he knew he reeked, but smelled nothing. It was all downhill from there. He could step in a pile of fresh dung and it wouldn’t affect him in the least. The population of indigenous flies was enjoying the Wop from Boston like a rotten-flesh buffet.

The small park with a semi-unobstructed view of Chang Industries was one of three famous suicide spots on Saipan. During WWII, when the Japanese knew that the U.S. offensive on the island wasn’t going to end with the honor of victory, the cliffs earned the nickname that has haunted them for half a century.

Facing impending doom, ruthless Japanese soldiers convinced the local population that the Americans would torture, rape, pillage, and burn. Believing that a certain and most unpleasant end was at hand, the island’s population—a mix of Pacific Islanders with a history of Spanish, German, and Japanese colonization—started throwing themselves from the top of what are now called “suicide cliffs.” When the bodies stopped raining and the waves below washed away the crimson evidence, twenty thousand islanders had killed themselves. Those residents who had resisted suicide of their own volition were simply thrown off the cliffs by the Japanese military. By comparison, twenty-four thousand Japanese soldiers and three thousand American G.I.s had died in the weeklong battle for the island.

DiMarco stood and for the hundredth time read the landmark sign identifying the cliffs and their infamy. He threw away his coffee cup in the green basket trashcan that buzzed with two-winged activity and looked over the edge of the cliffs with an extended neck.

Surveillance was boring but necessary, and the isolation of the cliffs was perfect for staying low. The oppressive heat kept most tourists at the beach, away from the scorching sun. And when the odd tourist or history buff did infringe on his activities, DiMarco got out of his car and headed down the narrow trail that lead to an even smaller scenic overlook. The trail was narrow and treacherous enough to scare a billy goat, much less beachcomber tourists in flip-flops. A ten-minute walk by DiMarco was usually enough time for the crowds to move on.

Now armed with a photocopied picture of Lee Chang liberated from the circulation stack at the local library, DiMarco kept his eyes glued to the back end of his binoculars. On his fifth day of surveillance, the Bostonian from Southie realized Lee Chang wasn’t coming out, and even if he did, he certainly wasn’t coming out with the girl. He had noted the two guards on duty during the day, and the team of four that patrolled the lot at night. The girls who worked in the factory walked from the building on the left in the morning, and returned at night. There was little else to see, with one exception. For the fifth day in a row, he watched the white van arrive, the driver retreating into the smallest building on the company grounds. The van and its driver left an hour later. It was a routine repeated three times a day—morning, noon, and night.

DiMarco stood by his car and felt the breeze on his face. He shooed away a persistent horsefly that attacked by stealth, twice making a getaway with a small bit of flesh. DiMarco slapped his leg and missed his target, never taking his eyes off the facilities. Maybe I just found my way in, he thought.

Chapter 38

DiMarco followed the white van into town, blending in easily with the island traffic in his rented American two-door. The Chernobyl-red sunburn on his driver’s side window left arm was his biggest risk to being spotted.

The van obeyed the speed limit and signaled when turning. DiMarco kept pace. Years of driving in Boston—a mix of Indianapolis raceway and demolition derby, with extra points for nastiness to your fellow commuter—made driving on the island almost boring.

DiMarco followed the van to the Seaside Breeze Resort, an establishment neither grand enough for a resort nor close enough to the ocean to be seaside. The garbage cans in front of the hotel were full from the tourists who walked down the main drag, launching trash missiles in the hotel’s direction. At night the empty beer bottles, thrown by teenage gangs with nothing better to do, rained down. The pool was empty, a green sheen on the remnants of water resting on the bottom. The pink paint on the balconies of the hotel peeled, begging for a new coat. The van pulled into the parking lot, past a set of palm trees with dangling brown leaves, its roots no longer able to find an ample water supply.

The doctor pulled his van into the small parking lot wedged between the hotel and the moped rental shop and miniature golf course next door. DiMarco found a space near the back of the lot that allowed him to keep one eye on the empty pool, the other on the white van. He took a walk around the lot to stretch his back, peeked into the back of the van as casually as he could, and walked across the street for more fast food. The stakeout continued, only the location had changed. Tonight the bucket seat would be his mattress.

The doctor strolled out the front door of the hotel at six-thirty. DiMarco, already up for an hour with back pain, stood from the park bench on the side of the hotel near the pool, leaving his two-day-old newspaper on the table and throwing his half-eaten honey bun in the grass for the already circling seagulls.

The doctor pulled the handle on his van, the door sliding smoothly back on its rollers. He threw his little black bag on the back seat, shut the door, and rolled down the manual window. The knife on the side of the doctor’s neck snapped him awake much quicker than the black cup of Hawaiian coffee and shower he had already had.

The doctor looked at DiMarco out of the corner of his eye, the knife touching his skin a fraction of an inch from his jugular. “What do you want?”

“If you do exactly as I say, you will live. If you don’t, you won’t. Those are the rules. The only thing keeping you alive is that I am not interested in you.”

“Take my wallet and the car.”

“I’m not interested in money.”

“What do you want then?”

“You are on a need-to-know basis.”

“I think you’re making a mistake. I’m just a doctor. It is my job to help people. Take the car and my wallet. I won’t call the police.”

“Well, doctor, if you are in the business of helping people, then you’re perfect. You’re going to help both of us. I have told you the rules. You can take them or leave them.”

“That’s not really much of an option.”

“I was hoping you would see it that way.”

DiMarco slid the side door open and switched knife hands, the blade now touching the skin at the base of the doctor’s skull. All DiMarco had to do was grab the doctor’s head, pull it back, insert the knife and scramble his brains. The doctor, fully aware of the anatomical danger, kept his hands on the wheel as instructed.

“Where are we going?”

“According to my schedule, you have to be at Chang Industries by seven. Let’s get moving.”