Bitter Paradise

by Ross Pennie

  “No buts, Habibti.”

  They would have to tread extremely carefully until he had a private talk with his high-tipping client.

  Chapter 50

  Zol poured three glugs of grapeseed oil into the frying pan and turned up the heat. It had been more than two weeks since his Salmon Wellington fiasco, and it was time he prepared his favourite fish again. He thought about baking it, but that would be tempting fate. He would have better control of the fillets in the cast-iron pan because he’d be watching them every second.

  He had the romaine lettuce and cherry tomatoes on five plates ready to receive the cooked salmon. The shaved Parmesan and his own version of Caesar dressing made without raw egg were waiting in the fridge. The wedges of Yukon Gold, Max and Trav’s favourite, were crisping in the oven. In a minute or two, attracted by the smell of oven-caramelized garlic and potatoes, the boys would be down here with their mouths open. If they didn’t appear without being called, it meant they were playing Fortnite, not doing their homework.

  In deference to Tasha’s as yet unannounced pregnancy, and the fact that it was a weeknight, everyone would have ice water instead of wine. Hamish wasn’t much for alcohol anyway. When he’d called half an hour ago to say he had some important news to share, Zol eyed the salmon and romaine and decided he could easily stretch the servings from four to five.

  “You know how I hate the phone,” Hamish said when he asked if he could come over. Who was he kidding? Hamish loved Zol’s cooking more than he hated the telephone, especially on the nights Al was working the late shift at the paper. And Zol suspected that Hamish might be happier for the company than he was willing to admit.

  As Zol was moving the salmon from the pan to a warm plate, Hamish rang the front doorbell and walked in. He hung his jacket in the closet and strode into the kitchen. The guy’s timing was perfect, but his hair was looking shaggy. Zol had never seen him go this long without a haircut. His flattop needed weekly attention to stay the way Hamish liked it. The murder of the Scarpellino cousins after Zol’s warning of Hosam’s potential involvement with the criminal underworld had Hamish giving Paradise Barbers a wide berth. And it looked like until he found another barber who was an expert at flattops, he was eschewing haircuts altogether.

  It was now a full two weeks since they’d seen a new case of polio. Before that, the longest hiatus in the outbreak had been four days. Had Dr. Elle felt the heat and suspended her practice? If so, how long would it be before she started it up again? He knew she was bound to. You didn’t go to the expense and effort of setting up a dental office and then abandon it forever.

  Thuy Nguyen, the outbreak’s most recent case, was still in the ICU on the ventilator, as were Jamila, Blessica, and Barry. Emmalita had improved enough to be discharged to the care of Filipino friends in Toronto. Bhavjeet had vanished from the hospital and apparently from the city. When Tasha tried to reach the family, there was no response from any of the phone numbers in his chart, and his uncle’s address turned out to be fictitious.

  “The table’s set,” Tasha told him as she gave Zol a peck on the cheek. “Anything else I can do?”

  “Is the ice water poured?”

  “Done.”

  “If you get the Parmesan and the dressing out of the fridge, I’ll plate the salmon. Hamish, will you go and call the boys?”

  Hamish ran a hand through his hair. His face tightened. “We got two more cases this afternoon.”

  “Of polio? Shit,” Zol said.

  “They’re twin sisters. Mid-teens. Refugees from Syria. They’ve been here a few months, so they didn’t bring it with them.”

  “How sick are they?” Tasha asked.

  “One was in the process of being intubated when I left, the other is close behind.”

  “Any connection with a dentist?” Zol asked.

  “Same story — parents don’t speak English, and the girls were too out of it to answer questions. But . . .” He paused and wagged his professorial finger. “They both had extractions within the past few days. I saw the sutures in their mouths.”

  “Any idea who their dentist is?” Tasha said.

  “None. An Egyptian woman came up from the pharmacy to translate for me after I found the stitches. But, same story. Parents were short on details, and the girls weren’t capable of even nodding yes or no.”

  “So Dr. Elle’s back in business,” Zol said.

  “And hasn’t cleaned up her act,” Hamish said and went upstairs to call the boys for supper.

  The bad news was a conversation killer around the table, though Tasha tried her best to keep the mood upbeat for the sake of Max and Travis. The salmon Caesar vanished from every plate far too quickly. He’d mismatched the portions with the appetites. He’d have to fill them up with potatoes and ice cream.

  “More potatoes, anyone?” he said. “There are a few left in the oven.”

  “I’ll get them, Dad,” Max said, jumping up from the table. Zol wondered how many wedges the boy was going to sneak before he reappeared with the remnants on the baking sheet.

  Hamish looked at his watch and said, “Are you ready for my other update? It may be more positive.” He looked at the boys dividing up the potatoes as if unsure they should hear what he had to say.

  “Sure,” Zol said. “And don’t worry about the boys. They know almost as much about the outbreak as we do.”

  Max and Travis exchanged smirks pregnant with hidden meaning then stabbed at the few wedges on their plates with exaggerated gusto. With teenaged boys, everything had a subtext that was impossible to figure out. Zol imagined that life with teenaged girls would be infinitely more complicated. He glanced at Tasha and wondered what sort of little person she was carrying in her belly.

  Several days ago, a dark cloud began to hover over the happy thoughts of Tasha’s pregnancy. Hamish’s colleagues in entomology had confirmed it was an Aedes albopictus mosquito that had bitten Zol at Tiffany’s flower shop. And the virology lab had confirmed the presence of Zika virus in its bloody remains. It would be a month before he’d know for certain whether or not he’d been infected with the virus. For now, his intimate moments with Tasha were under drastic curtailment. Neither of them was willing to entrust the integrity of their baby’s brain to the flimsy walls of a latex condom.

  Chapter 51

  Ignoring the boys now passing bowls of chocolate ice cream around the table, Hamish fixed his gaze on Zol. “Did you ever meet Ahmed Khan? He was a trainee of ours. Sponsored by the Government of Pakistan.”

  Zol looked at Tasha. “Can’t say I remember him. Did he do a stint with us?”

  “Don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t recall any Pakistani nationals spending electives at the unit.”

  “He was born with a natural talent for medical practice,” Hamish said. “And we turned him into an excellent infectious disease consultant. He called me yesterday.”

  “From Pakistan?” Zol asked.

  “From Lahore. He took a posting at a university hospital there. Two or three years ago.”

  “The King Edward or the University of Health Sciences?” Tasha asked. Before the partition of British India in 1947, her family had been prominent members of Lahore’s medical community. Being Hindu, they had fled across the newly created border separating Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India.

  Hamish waved his hand dismissively. “King Something. Doesn’t matter.”

  “So,” Zol said, flatly, “did Dr. Khan have something interesting to say?”

  “He read about our polio outbreak on a newsfeed and wanted to compare notes.”

  “Don’t tell me they’ve been experiencing something similar over there?” Tasha said.

  “Surprisingly so,” Hamish said. “An outbreak of polio among adults and older children.”

  Zol had been reading a lot about polio lately. According to the WHO, there were only three countr
ies with ongoing poliovirus transmission: Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Almost all of the cases were non-immunized children less than five years old. What Hamish was talking about sounded quite different.

  Zol turned to Tasha. “How far is Lahore from Pakistan’s polio hotspots?”

  “Far enough,” Tasha told him, “but they do get an occasional childhood case in Lahore every year.”

  “So, until the outbreak, your friend Dr. Khan didn’t have a lot more experience with acute poliomyelitis than we did?”

  “As a physician who looked after adults, not children,” Hamish said, “he had no experience whatsoever.”

  “Did he and his colleagues assume the affected adults had received defective vaccine, which left them susceptible?” Tasha said.

  “Exactly,” Hamish said, “but when the number of cases grew to more than thirty, and many of the victims were people of significant means with a history of good quality health care, they realized they had something new on their hands.”

  “An emerging pathogen,” Zol said. “Same as us.”

  “What did they find?” Tasha asked.

  “Zika,” Hamish said. “In every case.”

  “Fascinating,” Zol said. “What about Parvo-W?”

  Hamish raised his hand. “Not yet, but I’m getting to that. Zika infection is widespread around Lahore, but the polio cases were confined to one section of the city. Ahmed began to suspect that a second pathogen might be involved, so he looked further into the particulars of the affected individuals.”

  Hamish raised his eyebrows to be sure he still had Zol’s attention, then paused for a couple of mouthfuls of ice cream.

  When Hamish dipped into his bowl for a third time, Zol said, “Come on, Hamish. Enough with the chocolate. Spill the goods before I burst my gut.”

  “Okay, okay. You’re never going to believe this, but in just about every case, the patient had visited a dentist within three weeks of the onset of illness.”

  From across the table came a series of clatters and crashes. Max had been lifting his bowl for another scoop of Chocolate Heaven from Travis when both boys dropped everything on the floor.

  “Steady, boys,” Zol said.

  Travis collected the ice cream and broken dishes and carried them to the kitchen. A moment later, he reappeared, caught Max’s eye, and pointed to the ceiling. Both boys raced upstairs.

  “What was that about?” Hamish said as Max’s bedroom door closed with a deliberate thud.

  “I have no idea,” Zol said. “But I’m getting them back to help with the dishes.”

  Tasha folded her serviette, placed it on the table beside her empty bowl, and smoothed it with her palm. She turned to Hamish. “To finish your story, what did Dr. Khan and his colleagues find in the dentists’ offices?”

  “So far, nothing. Their public health resources are zero to none, and the dental lobby is making inspections of their equipment close to impossible.”

  “That’s why he called you, eh?” Zol said. “He was hoping you could point him toward something specific to search for.”

  “All I could do was tell him about our Parvo-W,” Hamish said, “and wish him good luck.”

  Moments later, the boys were back. Max’s face was as long as the Trans-Canada Highway — St. John’s to Victoria. Travis had the upright posture and solemn brow of a young man who has just won an argument but isn’t certain that’s a good thing.

  Max stood behind Tasha’s chair and gripped the back of it with his right hand. Travis angled himself behind Max and, being that much taller, looked over Max’s head.

  “We’ve got something to tell you,” Max said, his voice cracking. “Travis wanted us to say something before, but we promised a friend on our grandmothers’ graves not to say a word.”

  “Sounds serious, boys,” Zol said. “What’s this about?” The salmon and garlic were churning in his stomach.

  “It has to do with what Uncle Hamish said is happening in Pakistan.”

  “Pakistan?” Zol said.

  “You know we have a Fortnite friend named Omar, right?”

  “Didn’t you tell me he was a refugee from Syria, not Pakistan?”

  “He is from Syria and lives here now. We message each other on Facebook.”

  “Okay.”

  “And his dad . . . well, his dad is Hosam from the barbershop.”

  Images of mobsters, drive-by shootings, and gory vendettas flashed in Zol’s mind. “Oh my God, boys, has your so-called friend got you in trouble with the mob?”

  “No, Dad. Nothing like that. He only knows me by my Fortnite name, KB. And he has no idea where we live.”

  Travis frowned and whispered in Max’s ear. Max shook his head in response and continued. “Omar’s dad is a doctor, right?”

  “Well, he was,” Zol said. “Back when the family lived in Syria.”

  “So he knows about medical things?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, he, um . . . he told Omar not to go into the garage or he’d come down with polio and maybe die.”

  “What garage?” Zol said.

  “The one where . . . um . . .” Travis gave Max a nudge in the ribs. “Where his mother has her dentist’s office. It’s attached to their house.”

  Tasha looked aghast. Red blotches flared across the base of her neck. “What’s Omar’s mother’s name?”

  Max turned to Travis, and they both shook their heads. “We don’t know.” Max’s face was a beet-red lantern. His body was shaking, and he was holding onto Tasha’s chair as if his life depended on it. “But Omar says if the government finds out she’s working as a dentist, they’ll put her in jail. Then send her back to Syria.”

  For the first time in years, Max’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Please, Dad, don’t let them send Omar’s mom back to the war.”

  Chapter 52

  It took Zol the entire morning to secure the warrant to search “The Domestic Premises and Attached Garage at 2029, Elgin Street, City of Hamilton, Province of Ontario.”

  First, he had to find someone at the police station who was willing to talk to him. Then, he spent an hour helping them complete the warrant application with enough specific details to impress a magistrate. It took another hour with the magistrate and her assistant to successfully plead his case. Both the police and the magistrate were troubled by the fact that Zol didn’t know the dentist’s first or last name. The hearsay nature of his evidence against this unnamed person almost had the magistrate laughing him out of her office. She warned him that if the warrant was later successfully challenged in court, any evidence he collected would be inadmissible. Zol told them he was not bothered by the outcome of any court case, all he cared about was preventing further polio cases in his city. In the end, the three beautiful teenaged girls among the seven people currently on ventilators in Caledonian’s ICU struck a chord with the magistrate, who had photographs of her grandchildren on three walls of her office.

  He found it frustrating that no one could imagine that a dental office would be the scene of a crime other than sexual assault. If he had claimed that the dentist in question was engaging in sex with her patients, the police would have been in there in a flash. It was difficult to interest them in the transmission of microbes, no matter how deadly.

  The warrant in hand, he located Detective Sergeant Kathleen Bergman at the Hamilton Police Service and asked her to help him execute it. The two of them had crossed paths during the arrest of a murder suspect on the Grand Basin Indian Reserve a couple of years earlier when she worked for the Ontario Provincial Police. She had trusted his judgement then, and, thank God, she was willing to trust it today. It seemed her promotion to detective sergeant in the city’s force gave her new authority and flexibility.

  She agreed to pick him up with Tasha at the Health Unit at one thirty. Her police partner, Constable Rodrigues, w
ould be coming with them. They’d be driving an unmarked car.

  In the car, he and Tasha summarized the evidence implicating the phantom dentist they were calling Dr. Elle. He explained that her husband, the barber/surgeon, would be at work this time of day. Their teenaged son, Omar, hadn’t been attending school lately and would likely be at home with his mother.

  “You’ve got photos?” Sergeant Bergman asked. “So we’ll know them when we see them?”

  “Sorry,” Zol said. “Not even a description. We do know the son is fifteen and lived through the Syrian civil war.”

  “So, let me get this straight,” said Officer Bergman. “We’re looking for a woman who may be a dentist and probably looks Middle Eastern plus a person who could’ve been misrepresenting himself to your son online. This so-called kid could turn out to be a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound MMA master with anger management issues.” She nudged her partner who was riding shotgun beside her in the front seat of the Chevy. “Good thing they brought us along, eh?”

  Constable Rodrigues turned to her and patted his holstered handgun. Although he said nothing, the broad smirk on his face revealed a set of unnaturally white teeth that said everything.

  The sergeant had no trouble finding Elgin Street and the two, six-unit townhouse blocks that Jesse had described. Number 2029 looked exactly as it had in Jesse’s surveillance video, including its attached garage.

  “Remember,” Sergeant Bergman said, stopping in front of the driveway’s entrance and catching Zol’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Rodrigues and I are executing the warrant. You two are here as consultants to the police. We take the lead. That means we knock on the door, we do the introductions and, to start with, we ask the questions.” She turned around. “Understood?”

  Zol tapped Tasha’s arm and nodded for both of them. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But we can touch things, right?” Tasha said. “And have a good snoop?”