The Hot Countries Page 10

  Arthit says, without a lot of conviction, “Please.”

  Rafferty introduces them, stressing Arthit’s rank, and Sriyat follows the two of them through the living room, moving as if he expects to break something at any minute, to the wide opening into the dining room. Treasure has already risen, looking like she’s got one foot in the air, but Anna and Chalee are still in their chairs. Anna gets up hurriedly, swallows self-consciously against the embarrassment of speaking aloud to someone new, and says, “Have you eaten?”

  The big man makes a wai and says, “Yes, thank you,” in an unexpectedly soft voice.

  “I’ve known Sriyat for a long time,” Rafferty says. “Well, that’s not really true. We met each other a long time ago, but this is the first time we’ve seen each other since then.”

  “Really,” Anna says, every inch the hostess. “How did you meet?”

  “I think he was supposed to kill me,” Rafferty says, and Chalee’s jaw drops. Treasure is as still as a carving. Arthit looks at Sriyat appraisingly.

  Sriyat ducks his head and says, “Only beat you up.”

  Anna says, “My, my.” She sits down again, the social levels having been firmly established.

  “I’m assuming there’s a reason for Sriyat being here,” Arthit says.

  “He’s going to be outside all night, heavily armed,” Rafferty says, “and tomorrow night, too, and on Monday morning he’ll follow you to the shelter when it’s time for school. And in the daytime he’ll be replaced by a friend of his.”

  “My friend’s name is Pradya,” Sriyat says in his tissue-paper voice. Then he says “Pradya” again, as though he doubts anyone got it the first time.

  Arthit says, “Both of you are good shots?”

  “We’re all right,” Sriyat says modestly.

  “Our late acquaintance, Colonel Chu,” Rafferty says, and Sriyat tenses slightly at the sound of the name. “Chu could afford the best, and Sriyat and Pradya are the ones he chose. You actually talked to Sriyat once, on the phone when my father was in Bangkok with half of China chasing him. Sriyat and Pradya were supposed to take me out of the equation.”

  “Only beat up,” Sriyat says.

  Arthit says, “And you got his phone number?”

  “I got everything,” Rafferty said. “Every piece of ID, his numbers, address, everything. It was insurance. He thought I was going to turn them over to you.”

  “You were a cop,” Arthit says. “I remember now.”

  Sriyat ducks his head in apparent embarrassment. “Yes, sir.”

  Arthit says, “Mmmmm.” It’s noncommittal and disapproving at the same time. “Do you need a thermos of coffee?”

  “I have one.”

  “Something to—” He remembers that Anna and the girls are in the room. “To do . . . you know, into? A jar or something?”

  “Got one of those, too.”

  “Good, good. Well . . .”

  “Yes, sir.” To everyone else, he says, “I’ll be out there.”

  “What color is the car?” Arthit says.

  “Dark purple. Looks black at night.”

  “I’ll come out with you so I recognize it later.” Arthit gives Rafferty a parting glance that says, We’ll talk about this, and leads the larger man back out.

  There’s a short silence, and then the front door closes.

  Treasure says, “Paul could kill that man with his teeth.”

  “It’s what I could think of,” Rafferty says.

  Arthit says, “How do we know which side that man will be on a month from now? And now a crook—a fired ex-cop—knows where I live.” He’s on the couch, sitting forward with his palms on his thighs. Rafferty can’t help seeing the impatience and frustration behind the pose. “You should have asked me.”

  “I know,” Rafferty says. “Did I already say I’m sorry?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, well,” Arthit grumbles. “I wasn’t actually looking for an apology.”

  “Too bad,” Rafferty says irritably. “I needed someone fast, and he’s who came to mind.”

  Arthit waves it off. “Why do you think you can trust him?”

  “Because what he really wants,” Rafferty says, “is to be back on the police force.”

  “Well, good luck to him.” Arthit sighs and sits back. Anna, Treasure, and Chalee are in the kitchen, banging dishes around and cleaning up, although there’s not much talking. Rafferty is, as always, taken aback by the fact that Arthit never offers to help. He, Rafferty, is up to his elbows in soap after every meal.

  Arthit says, “Have you got any more surprises for me?”

  “This isn’t about you.” Rafferty hears the frustration in his own voice. “It’s about Treasure, okay? It’s about trying to make Treasure a little less frightened. I didn’t actually need to spend time doing this, Arthit. I have a pregnant wife and a daughter of my own to think about, and they’re probably in danger from Varney, too.”

  Arthit says, “And what are you doing about that?”

  “Worrying about it. What else can I do, hire a platoon of hit men? I only got Sriyat here tonight because Treasure was so frightened.”

  Arthit regards him for a moment, and then he sighs, and Rafferty can practically see the tension flow out with the breath. Arthit says, “And of course it never occurred to you that easing her mind might make this whole evening, this whole situation, a little easier for Anna and me.”

  Rafferty says, “No. Never gave it a moment’s thought.”

  “I knew it was going to be difficult,” Arthit says, lowering his voice, “but not like this. What am I supposed to say to her? To either of them? I know how much Anna wants this to work, but ever since we got here, I’ve been stiff as a board. And she can barely look at me. She’s afraid of me.”

  “She’s afraid of every adult man in the world. You know what she went through with her father.” He reaches out and touches his friend’s arm. “Just let Anna take the lead for a while, and you stay in the background until the kid can relax.” He feels a little hypocritical, offering his friend platitudes. “Look,” he says. “It’s not going to be easy. But if it works out, it’ll be the best thing that could happen to Treasure.”

  “And Anna,” Arthit says.

  “And the thing about talking to them? Just do it the same way you’d talk to an adult. Ask them what they think about things. I can guarantee you no one ever asked either Treasure or Chalee for an opinion and then listened to it.”

  “Is that what you do with Miaow?”

  Rafferty almost laughs. “Among many, many other things. You’ll see.”

  Arthit says, “I hope so.” Then he shakes his head and says, “Miaow. Maybe you should be home.”

  “Maybe she and Rose should be somewhere else. Listen, you’ll be okay with all this. You’ll work it out.”

  The noise level in the kitchen drops, and Arthit lowers his voice. “If Chalee wasn’t here, I don’t think Treasure would stay in this house for a minute.”

  “Having Chalee here is a good idea,” Rafferty says. “Except—”

  “I know, I know.” Arthit leans forward within whispering distance. “You think I haven’t been worrying about that? How is Chalee going to feel when we adopt Treasure but not her? I mean, if we—”

  “She’s had a hard time,” Rafferty says over him, but now they’re both whispering. “Her sister’s suicide, her family dissolving. She survived all that.”

  Arthit says, “It’s so awkward. She’s a wonderful kid. She deserves a good life. But Anna—Anna has taken Treasure to heart in a way I don’t completely understand. I’m not saying I don’t . . . care for Treasure, too. Of course I do. But to leave Chalee, and Dok—”

  “I’d take Dok in a minute,” Rafferty says. “If Rose weren’t pregnant, if I knew ho
w Miaow would react, if I were rich, if, if, if.” He sits back but promptly leans forward so he can whisper again. “In the end, I guess, you’ll just have to accept that you can’t rescue everyone.”

  “It’s one thing not to rescue them,” Arthit says between his teeth. “It’s another thing to wave it around under their noses and then yank it away, and that’s what I feel like we’re doing with Chalee.”

  “Let’s just think about one thing at a time,” Rafferty says, and then he lifts a finger to his lips, and Chalee comes in with a silver tray. On it are two mugs of coffee.

  “These are for you,” Chalee says proudly. “I made the coffee myself. I had help, but I did most of it. I poured all the water.”

  Arthit’s glance at Rafferty says, essentially, Shoot me.

  “It smells so good, Chalee,” Rafferty says. “Which one is mine?”

  “The one you want,” she says.

  He squints at the cups, looking racked by indecision, “Mmmmmm, no. I can’t decide. You pick one for me.”

  “Okay,” Chalee says with certainty. “The blue one.”

  “That’s the one I really wanted,” Rafferty says, taking it. “How did you know?”

  “I just did,” Chalee says, looking pleased with herself. “So is this one all right with you . . . uhhh, sir?” she says to Arthit, holding out the tray with the remaining cup.

  “That’s the one I wanted,” Arthit says, glancing at Rafferty as though for approval. He takes the coffee, and Chalee wheels around and runs out of the room, balancing the tray on her head.

  Rafferty says, “You’ll learn,” and as the tray clatters to the floor in the dining room, his phone rings. He fishes it out of his pocket and holds up a Just a second finger. “Hello?”

  “Poke. This is Leon talking. You are coming?”

  “I hadn’t planned on it.”

  “But Wallace is here. I told you Wallace would be here. And the other one, Varney. Varney was here and left something for you.”

  “What is it?” He looks around the room, surprised to find himself on his feet. Arthit is staring up at him.

  “It is an envelope,” Hofstedler says primly. “Sealed.”

  “I’ll get there as fast as I can.” He repockets the phone and says, “Varney. He left something for me at the Expat Bar.”

  Arthit gets up, nodding in the direction of the living-room windows. “Maybe you should take the killer out there with you.”

  Rafferty says, “Maybe I was right before. Maybe I should hire a dozen of them.”

  11

  Only Half Blind

  The rain, which had taken a break for a smoke or something while Rafferty was at Arthit’s, has made a reappearance, and in the taxi he flags down, the wiper on the driver’s side has lost its rubber blade, forcing the cabbie to lean sharply to his left to see out of the far half of the windshield. In Thai, Rafferty says, “Why don’t you get out and switch them?”

  “I’d get wet,” the driver says, steering around a bus and missing it by a couple of coats of paint.

  “Better than being killed.”

  “I am very good driver,” the driver says in English.

  “I’m sure you are,” Rafferty says. “But think how much better you’d be if you were behind the steering wheel.”

  “Every time have rain,” the driver explains, “I think I should change. But then rain stop and I forget. Do something else.”

  “So don’t switch them,” Rafferty says, still in Thai. “Buy another one. That way they’ll both work. Listen, I’ll get out here.”

  “Two block more,” the driver says.

  “This is fine,” Rafferty says, opening the door while the car is still moving. He reaches over and drops some bills on the driver’s seat, and the cab comes to a stop. “Fix that thing,” he says, climbing out into the rain, too far from the curb and directly in front of an oncoming motorbike. Rafferty slams the door and leaps out of the bike’s path, landing between two cars idling at the curb, and stops there, taking several long, deep breaths. He knows he’s been apprehensive, even nervous, ever since the moment in the bar when he opened that note with the number on it, and this is not a state of mind that’s optimal for survival. He needs to be calm and, to use a phrase he’s borrowed from Rose, within his center. At the moment his center feels like a swarm of gnats.

  So the thing to do is to be where he is, right now, to steady his breathing and his attention, to open himself to what’s happening around him. To be as dispassionate and observant as a camera so he can see whatever’s coming in time to jump out of its way.

  He allows himself to feel the rain hitting his face and his bare arms. He listens to the sounds of the traffic, breathes in the distinctive monoxide bouquet of the Bangkok night. Lets the people on the sidewalk flow by, paying enough attention to them to resolve them into individuals without allowing his attention to snag on any of them. Inhales and exhales slowly and regularly, feeling his heart slow, the muscles in his shoulders and neck relax, his mind quiet itself. A long time ago, watching Rose as she diced vegetables with a large, razor-sharp knife, the blade moving so fast it was a gleaming blur, he waited until she paused and then asked her how she avoided cutting herself, and she said, “This is the chopping meditation.” And now, he thinks, time for the walking-and-watching meditation, and he takes his first step, up onto the curb and into the river of people on the sidewalk.

  It’s just another bright, garish, noisy, drunken Patpong night. The rain hasn’t put much of a dent in the crowd, even though it’s still relatively early: only a little before ten. In unusually clear focus, he sees the same night-market vendors he’s seen a thousand times, flogging the same cheap crap in the booths, the same bar girls arm in arm with their interchangeable sweethearts, heading for the night’s first or second hotel. He’s momentarily distracted by a sudden certainty that Rose’s story about Campeau could have been told more accurately in the first person, Bamboo Telegraph or no Bamboo Telegraph, but he waves it aside; it’s been years since he’s stopped taking personally all the things that happened to Rose, although the addition of Campeau—someone he knows and has never much liked—gives the topic a kind of fresh immediacy. He’d worn his attitude smooth, and suddenly it’s gritty again.

  Still, that has nothing to do with the walking-and-watching meditation, so he lets it float past like a puff of smoke and reorients himself, just in time to intercept a sweet smile, apparently genuine, from an extremely pretty girl in a short, swirly dress the color of violets. He’s returning the smile when he realizes that the girl is Lutanh and that the guy who’s got his arm wrapped possessively around her shoulders is giving him the stony eye. Rafferty turns the smile on him and says, “Be nice to her,” and steps aside to let them pass. The man, who just might be pushing the masculinity a bit, bristles at him reflexively but then gives him a sudden, surprisingly sweet, co-conspirator’s grin, and Lutanh stretches up and kisses the side of the man’s neck in approval. As they move away, she leans her head against her companion’s chest, wiggling bye-bye fingers at Rafferty behind her back, and he finds himself hoping the evening works out for her.

  Whatever that means. Rose was with Campeau?

  Two doors away from the Expat Bar, he steps up onto the sidewalk and sees Pinky Holland slouching toward him, folded forward against the rain. His bald head, beaded with water, makes him look wetter than anyone else on the street. Pinky extends a hand, palm out, to stop Rafferty from coming any farther. He tiptoes to the window and cups his hands around his eyes so he can see past the dismal little Christmas lights, another of which has burned out, and then steps back, looking satisfied. He says, “Coast clear,” and opens the door. Rafferty waves Pinky through first and catches the door one-handed as it swings shut so he can pause and take a last sweep of the street. There’s no bar girl with a birthmark, no bright blue eyes above a black mustache. Everything seems to be normal
, or at least Patpong normal, which would qualify as headline-quality bizarre anywhere else in the world.

  But he sees nothing he’s reluctant to turn his back on, so he pushes the door the rest of the way open and goes in.

  And has the sense, as he so often does when he first enters this room, that all motion in the place has been frozen since he was here last, that it’s been as inert as the inside of a refrigerator. Now that his arrival has broken the spell, they can all resume the long-suspended moment: Toots mixing a drink behind the bar; Campeau, sitting and scowling where he always sits and scowls; the Growing Younger Man sipping something green enough to have been skimmed from the surface of a fetid pond; the silver-haired guy who might be named Ron resting his chin on his fist, like Rodin’s Thinker, probably minus the thought; Pinky sliding into his pumpkin-colored booth; and, on the stool beside Leon, the only real change in the room: the slumped, once-powerful form of Wallace Palmer.

  Wallace’s hair, which had been curly and receding when Rafferty first met him, is now sparse and long and pasted so tightly across his scalp that it might have been ironed there. Its loss is cruelly offset by tufts of hair that seem to have taken refuge in his ears, from which they bristle aggressively. He’s still slender and fit-looking, except for the slope of his shoulders, and his chin remains square and angular, but the skin below it falls in tight little accordion folds to an Adam’s apple that protrudes as sharply as a chicken’s beak, and the strong bone structure of his face seems to be surfacing, emerging as though it might soon push its way through the skin altogether to reveal the bony grin beneath. Everyone in the bar has grown older, Rafferty thinks, but Wallace seems to have been picked up by time and hurled forward, through several stages of hale old age, directly into infirmity.

  “Hey, Wallace,” Poke says, pulling up the stool beside him.

  “Look, Wallace, here is Poke,” Leon says, too loudly and with a kind of ghastly geniality, accompanied by a smile as empty as a pumpkin’s. “You remember Poke, Wallace, yes?”