Breathing Water (18 page)

Finally Kosit stubs out the filter and puts the ashtray back on the floor. He dips a hand into the bag and begins to pull out the items he has bought: two four-packs of long-life AA batteries, a handful of microcassettes, the overpriced connectors, and a glossy box decorated with a photo of a small recorder that Rafferty recognizes, with a pang, as identical to the one Elora Weecherat had used. He takes the box from Kosit, opens it, and shakes the contents free onto the bed. Yes, it’s exactly the same. He picks it up, expecting it somehow to be much heavier than it is, and slides open the compartment at the back, where the batteries go. Kosit picks up a thin black cord with a little square power brick at the outlet end and shows Rafferty where the male end of the jack slips into the recorder. He uses his index finger to flick a package of batteries and leans to whisper in Rafferty’s ear. “Insurance,” he says. It’s not much louder than a breath. “In case there’s a power outage.”

Rafferty nods, but he can’t take his eyes off the tape recorder. Weecherat’s daughter was seven, she had said.
It’s a magical age
.

Whatever it takes, whatever he has to do, he’s going to make Captain Teeth pay.

ON THE TRIP
to the abandoned apartment house, Da and Peep share the van with the woman and baby they had ridden with in the morning. There is no sign of the third woman. Before Kep gets into the front seat, the woman with the dark baby says, “They’re taking her somewhere else. They always move a woman when they change her baby.”

“Why?”

“They don’t want people talking too much.”

Kep climbs in, slams the door, and starts the van without so much as a glance at Da. But three or four times during the long ride, she feels his eyes on her in the rearview mirror. When she looks up to meet his gaze, he holds hers until it becomes necessary for him to pay attention to some kind of static on the road. And then, a few minutes later, his eyes are on her again, weighing her, appraising her. He has never looked at her like this before, and it brings a warm, faintly dirty-feeling prickle
to her neck and cheeks, as though she has not washed in several days.

She stops checking the mirror.

When he pulls to a stop in the dirt yard, the first day’s routine is repeated. As the women get out of the van, Kep holds out a heavy envelope to each of them. Each of the women empties into the envelope with her name on it all the money she has taken in, and Kep adds the bills he has seized during the day.

He adds no bills to Da’s envelope.

“Wait,” she says as he licks the flap.

Kep says, “Shut up.”

“You took eighteen hundred—”

Kep gives her a flat gaze. He looks sleepy. “I don’t remember that. Anybody see you give it to me?” He runs his thumbs over the moistened flap, sealing the envelope. Then he pulls the envelope back and brings his hand around, slapping her across the face with it.

It’s not a particularly forceful slap, but all the coins in the envelope have slid to the end that is moving fastest, and the hard weight of the jumble of coins strikes her cheekbone with enough force to jar her and bring tears to her eyes. Blinking to clear her vision, she takes an inadvertent step back, almost a stumble, and comes up against the hot, unyielding surface of the van. Kep follows her, his nose practically pressed to hers, and the sleepy look has been replaced by something dark and tightly focused, and Da recognizes it, with a sharp, sinking feeling, as joy.

“I
told
you,” he says. “You make as much as I say you make.” She can smell the alcohol on his breath, and out of the corner of her eye she sees the other woman backing away with a hand placed protectively over the eyes of the child at her chest. Da curves her spine, pulling her waist and pelvis away from him as far as she can, not because she fears him sexually but to make space for Peep, who is beginning to squall in alarm. “You’ve made almost nothing in your first two days,” Kep says. “Barely enough to feed yourself. And you haven’t been nice to me.”

“I don’t—” Da begins.

“We could get along much better,” Kep says, and he brings up a hand and brushes the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “Up to you. You can be nice to me, or maybe we should take the kid and give him to somebody else.”

She knows he sees her eyes widen in alarm, but she tries immediately to wipe it out. The only way to handle a bully, she has learned, is with a quick kick. She spits into her free hand and scrubs the cheek where he touched her. Then she snaps, “Fine,” and holds the baby up. “Take him now. He’s wet and he stinks, and I’m sick of him. Here.”

Kep has backed up as she thrusts Peep at him, and he takes another step back with her pursuing him, holding Peep at about the level of his face. “Take him,” she says. “Do me a favor and take him. I’m sick of him, I’m sick of the whole thing. Take him. You can eat him for all I care.” She keeps pushing Peep at him, hearing the child squeal and seeing the spark of panic in Kep’s blunt, dark face, and she knows that he’s frightened. He can get into trouble over this, she realizes, losing a new beggar, having to take back the child. It’s a problem, and the man in the office won’t appreciate a problem. Kep has put two feet between them now, and she uses it. “Here,” she says, holding Peep out and turning halfway away, as though to walk to the road. “I’m leaving. Is that what you want? You want me to leave?”

There is no response, and she turns to Kep and sees him looking not at her but up at the windows on the second story of the building. There are faces there, looking down, watching everything that’s happened. Some are laughing. Others stare openmouthed, waiting for the resolution.

And Da knows, sure as a fist in the stomach, that she has failed.

Kep can’t lose this kind of face in front of the others. She no sooner realizes this than she feels his fingers dig into the muscles at the sides of her neck. “Don’t be in such a hurry,” he says. He squeezes hard enough for her knees to go weak. “We’ve just begun our talk. And you’re not going anywhere, you little bitch. I’ve got someplace special for you tonight.”

He knots her blouse in his hand and half drags her around the van and toward the front door. Da struggles, but she can only do so much without dropping Peep. Finally she grasps the child with one arm and reaches out and twists her fingers through Kep’s thick hair. She yanks hard enough to pull some of it out.

And he rounds on her, his face flaming, and hits her in the face with his closed fist. The blow snaps her head to the left, and her ankles tangle as she tries to step back to keep her balance, and she goes down,
falling sideways to the left. It takes everything she has to land on her back, with Peep on top of her. The child is screaming. There is blood in Da’s mouth, salty and warm.

“You like to pull hair, huh?” Kep says. He is so furious that his eyes have practically disappeared. He knots his fingers into Da’s hair and hauls her to her feet. Then he drags her through the door and into the corridor and pushes her up against the wall on the left while he fishes in his pants pocket for something. When his hand comes out, it holds a jingling ring of keys. He chooses one and slips it into the lock on one of the doors that were closed the night Da first came into the building. He pulls the door wide, puts a hard, heavy hand on the back of Da’s neck, and shoves her through the door into the dim room. Then the door slams closed, and she stands there, swallowing blood and aching, the baby crying with all its being, in total darkness.

She hears the click of the lock.

T
his is silly,” Miaow says. She has been even crankier since Kosit saw her getting her hair dyed. The newly reddish hair, still slightly damp from the post-coloring shampoo, looks to Rafferty like a wig. He has to make a continuous effort not to stare at it.

He fights a surge of irritation. “I don’t care. Just do it. And don’t try to win an Oscar, okay? All you’re doing is talking to your mother.”

Miaow says what she’s supposed to say: “I’ve got a lot of homework.” Her tone is so flat she sounds like she’s reading.

Rafferty gets up from the green stool, which pinches him good-bye. He has to move around for a second or he’ll explode. When he has his breathing under control and all the little black spots have stopped swarming in front of his eyes, he says, “But not winning an Oscar doesn’t mean we’re going to act like we’re dead either. It just means we sound normal. We’re going to do this until I’m happy with it, if it takes until the sun comes up.” He looks at his watch. “It’s twenty past eleven, and even if we get all of it right the first time, it’s going to take us until one or two. It’s up to you, Miaow. Either you can help with this and get it over with, or you can sit here all night long.”

“Poke,” Rose says.

Rafferty holds up both hands. “We’re
doing it
, Rose. And that means Miaow’s doing it. As far as I’m concerned, we can all sleep on the floor down here, but we’re getting this done.”

“You don’t have to be a jerk about it,” Miaow says.

Miaow is on the wobbly chair in front of the pink blanket, and Rose is on the solid one. The tape recorder is on the battered coffee table. More than an hour ago, they all said good night to one another upstairs, and then Rafferty led them to the elevator and down to the fourth floor. Until the anger picked him up and towed him around the room, Rafferty was balanced on the stool. Now he goes to the table and sits on the threadbare carpet, in the least confrontational stance he can adopt.

“We’re in some trouble,” he says to her. “I don’t want to go into detail, but it’s about that book, okay? Just take my word that what we’re doing is important, that I wouldn’t be asking you to do it unless it was important. Do I often ask you to do things that aren’t important?”

“All the time,” Miaow says. “And I do them.”

“Then put yourself out there one more time and do this one for me, too. And then, someday, you can ask me to do something stupid, and when I don’t want to do it, you can remind me that I owe you one.”

Miaow says, “Promise?” This is her kind of currency.

“Absolutely. Here, in front of Rose and everything.” Without taking his eyes from hers, he pushes the “record” button, counts silently to three, and says, “I like the hair.”

“Really?” She puts both hands against it, palms down, and smooths it. “You’re not just trying to make me feel better? You don’t think it looks dumb? And fake?”

Rose says in Thai, “It’s not supposed to look real, Miaow, not any more than lipstick is. It’s
stylish
. And it catches the light well. Lots of highlights.”

“Honest? I mean, you really think so? Do you think the kids at school will, um…?”

“If they don’t like it,” Rafferty says, “it’ll just be because they’re envious.”

“Oh, come on,” Miaow says, but she looks happier than she has all night long.

Rose says, “It makes you look older.”

Miaow grabs the thought with both hands. “How much older?”

“Ten,” Rose says, and Miaow’s face falls. “Maybe eleven.”

“Eleven.” Miaow’s expression is deadly serious, and Rafferty suddenly realizes there are several conversations going on at the same time.

“Why is that important, Miaow?” he asks. “What’s so magical about eleven?”

“I, um…” She looks down at her lap. “I didn’t want to tell you this until I was pretty sure, you know? I didn’t want to be the kid who yelled…who yelled, uhhh…”

“Wolf?”

“Yeah. Wolf.” She still hasn’t looked up. “What’s a wolf?”

“It’s like a tiger, but not. Go ahead with the story.”

“Well, Mrs. Paris, that’s my teacher?” Her head comes up halfway, and her eyes go back and forth between Rafferty and Rose.

“We know Mrs. Paris,” Rose says.

Miaow finds a thread loose on the elastic waistband of her pajamas and picks at it, giving it all her attention. With her head down, she says, “Well, I’ve…um, I’ve been having some trouble in class.”

“Really.” Rose’s voice is cool. “What kind of trouble?”

“Just, you know.” Miaow wraps the thread around her index finger and tugs at it. “Uh, talking, writing notes to other kids, drawing a lot, making jokes when I shouldn’t. Going…um, going to sleep.”

Rafferty says, “Going to
sleep
?”

“Only twice.” Miaow lets go of the thread and holds up two fingers.

“But your grades,” Rose says. “Your grades are better than ever. They’re practically perfect.”

“That’s what Mrs. Paris says. She says—” Miaow grabs a breath. “She says I’m not paying attention in class because I’m ahead of the level. Because it’s too easy for me. Even though it’s fourth grade and I’ve only been in school three years.” She is wearing her bunny pajamas, looking all of five to Rafferty, although apparently this is not the time to point that out. “Anyway, about a week ago, she—Mrs. Paris—said she thought maybe I should skip up to fifth grade.”

Without thinking, Rafferty says, “You’re shitting me.” Rose’s glance hits the side of his face like a slap, and he amends it to, “I mean, that’s amazing.”

“But she wanted to talk about it first with the Dragon—sorry, Mrs. Satharap, the principal. And she did, and the Dragon said it was okay and that she was going to talk to you about it. That was yesterday? So she’ll probably call tomorrow. And, I mean, I’m really happy about it, but…but…”

“But what?” Rafferty says. “You
should
be happy about it. I never got asked to skip a grade.”

“But I’m so
short
,” Miaow says. “I’m a
baby
. And everybody’s practically
eleven
, and I barely look nine. I’m a pygmy. And I can’t get any taller, and I’m going to be in the class with all those really big kids. So I thought…”

“Oh, my gosh,” Rafferty says, having rejected half a dozen less acceptable expressions of delight. “I’m so
proud
of you. Fifth grade. My God, you’ll be in junior high before I have to shave again.”

Rose says, “Do the girls in fifth grade wear makeup?”

“
Rose
,” Rafferty says.

Miaow looks at Rose as though she’s just turned into a Christmas tree. Her eyes are shining. “A little.”

Rafferty says, “
How
little?”

“Like, you know”—Miaow passes the tip of her index finger over her upper lips—“a little lipstick, kind of pale, and maybe some—what do you call it?—some stuff on their eyelashes.”

“It better be very pale,” Rafferty says.

“Poke,” Rose says, “it’s not going to surprise anybody that Miaow has lips.”

“That’s not the point.”

Rose says, “What
is
the point?”

“The point,” Rafferty says, knowing he has no chance whatsoever of prevailing in this discussion, “is that I’m proud of Miaow, but I’m not having her going to school looking like the Queen of Patpong.”

Rose bursts out laughing. “The Queen of—” And she’s laughing again, and then Miaow starts to laugh.

“Okay, okay,” Rafferty says. “Not the Queen of Patpong. But, you know, too much makeup on a young girl looks…um, tarty.” And at the word “tarty,” Miaow laughs even harder, her arms crossed low over her stomach.

“Trust me, Poke,” Rose says. “Mia will be beautiful.” The name “Mia”
ends Miaow’s laughter as though a door has been shut on it. “Your own mother would like the way she’s going to look.”

“That’s not actually much of a recommendation,” Rafferty says. Then he says, “Mia?”

“You mean,” Miaow says to Rose, with a quick detour glance at Rafferty, “you mean I can buy some makeup?”

“Tomorrow,” Rose says. “I’ll go with you tomorrow.” She slides her eyes to Rafferty, daring him to say anything. “Does that sound okay, Mia?”

An hour and a half later, Rafferty turns off the tape recorder, and they take the elevator upstairs and go to bed for the second time, more happily than they had the first time.

“SOMEONE’S UP,” CAPTAIN
Teeth—Kai—says. He’s had the phones on so long that he’s stopped feeling them against his ears. “I hear moving around.”

“So someone’s going to the bathroom.” Ren is stretched out on the couch, facing the cushions on the back, with a throw blanket over him. The air-conditioning in the big house is more than he can take. “Give up for the night. You trying to earn points or what?”

“Fuck you,” Kai says, without much heat behind it.

“Anybody flushed yet?” Ren speaks carefully, but his tongue feels as if a nail’s been driven through it, and to Kai it sounds like he’s got rocks in his mouth.

“No mikes in the bathroom, remember?” Kai says. “She can be a little bitchy, huh?”

“Who? What do you mean?”

“This afternoon. When she told him to go in the other room and leave her alone. Kind of bitchy.”

“It’ll add spice.” Ren plumps up the throw pillow beneath his head. “When she’s tied to the bed. Beauty’s fine, but spice is better. You want it a little hot.”

Kai shakes his head. “Never happen.”

“Stop listening to that crap. Nothing’s going on. Just let it record. I’ll fast-forward through it tomorrow. Get some sleep.”

Kai takes off the phones. “You going to stay here?”

“I think so. They get up early. The little girl’s up before seven. And that way, when Four-Step comes down from upstairs, he sees me sitting here being vigilant.”

“Up to you,” Kai says, rising. He stretches.

Ren pulls the blanket higher so it covers his shoulders. Unfortunately, that exposes his feet. He says, “Do you really think we’re going to have to kill them?”

“After what happened to the reporter?” Kai says. “Sure.”