The Fourth Watcher (19 page)

W
hoever is in charge of the rain has turned it up and provided an enhancement in the form of random bursts of wind that send people running for cover. The rain falls through a pinpoint mist that diffuses the light from the neon signs above them and scatters it through the night like a fine, colored powder.

“So what do you think of Dad?”

“I think he could be useful,” Arthit says, lighting up and blowing smoke through his nostrils like a cartoon bull. The smoke fills the car, and Rafferty takes a surreptitious secondhand hit. “I'll suspend further judgment until we see just
how
useful he is.” The rain spatters the top of Arthit's car and sends rivulets racing each other down the windshield. The sidewalk where they are parked is deserted except for one beggar huddled under a bright blue plastic sheet, and the car smells of wet cloth.

“If I'd had any idea Noi would be in danger—” Rafferty begins.

Arthit holds up the hand with the cigarette in it. His face is hard enough to deflect a bullet. “Stop it. It was my decision, not yours. We can either sit here and comfort each other or we can do something.
That means focus on the data. Despite what I said to you last night, one thing cops learn is to ignore leaps of intuition and look at the data.”

“And one thing writers learn is to ignore the data until a leap of intuition tells you what it means.”

“So somewhere between us, we ought to be able to figure out what to do next. I just wish I shared your father's conviction that Chu doesn't have time to learn how connected I'm not.”

“I suppose it depends on who
he's
connected to. On the force, I mean.”

Arthit puts two fingers on the wheel and wiggles it left and right. Cigarette ash tumbles into his lap. “These guys get a lot of protection. That's not something you can get from a sergeant. And the cash flow is tremendous. Enough to buy a lot of weight.”

“The three at my apartment,” Rafferty says. He has wanted to say this before but has been reluctant to do so. “They were dressed like farmers, but they moved like cops.”

“Probably were. Probably street cops.” Arthit makes a fist and slams it against his own thigh. “In case you had any doubt about how good his connections might be, ask yourself where he got my address and the information that Rose and Miaow were there.”

Rafferty says, “Here's something that might matter: My father thinks Chu will have kept this whole thing a secret. Nobody's supposed to know that he's arranged an escape route. His colleagues would see it as a betrayal.”

Arthit thinks about it, takes a drag, and then nods. “I guess that's interesting.”

“So Frank thinks Chu's traveling solo, with no Chinese foot soldiers along. And he won't want word to get back that he's chasing some
laowai
who ripped off his retirement plan.”

Arthit takes the two fingers from the wheel and holds them up. “Two assumptions.”

“Here's another one: He might not kill Noi anyway. The main reason kidnappers kill their victims is to keep from being identified. We already know who he is.”

“Unfortunately,” Arthit says, “the other reason is revenge.”

“Right,” Rafferty says. The cramps that have been at work in his belly since he saw Arthit's open door pay another visit.

“So we have to get them back.” Arthit checks the sidewalk, just a cop's reflex. “By the way, you're fortunate in your women.”

“Meaning?”

“Rose and Miaow, of course. And your sister is, as they used to say in England, crackerjack.”

Rafferty watches Bangkok ripple through the windshield like a ghost city. “I guess so.”

“We'll get them,” Arthit says. “Your father is right: One thing at a time.”

“Set up the watchers.”

“Two cops and Ming Li,” Arthit says.

“I still think he might recognize her.”

“He hasn't seen her since she was ten,” Arthit says. “And even then, your father says he didn't pay any attention to her.” He cracks the window, gets a faceful of rain, and rolls it up again. He takes another puff in self-defense. “Anyway, half the cops I could pull aren't as good as she is.”

“She's a kid.”

“A very smart kid. And there's one more thing to recommend her: Unlike some cops, we know she's not on Chu's payroll.”

“I wish I were certain Leung isn't.”

Arthit shakes his head. “Doesn't make sense. If Leung were working with Chu, none of this would be necessary. Your father would be ten feet underwater and halfway to the gulf by now.” He starts the car and slides the lever to kick up the air-conditioning. Then he stares out through the windshield and sighs deeply. “You don't know this,” he says, “but my father was a cop.”

Rafferty looks over at him. Arthit fiddles with the temperature controls.

“On the take, of course.” Arthit still does not turn to face Poke. The air conditioner seems to require all his attention, and the cigarette burns forgotten in his free hand. “All Thai cops were on the take in those days. He took from everybody. He took money to keep people out of jail. The old one-two-three: Get the case, crack the case, take a bribe. Pimps, thieves, hired muscle. Twice, or at least twice that I know of, a murderer.” The rain kicks up, shaped by a sudden gust of wind into a curtain of faintly colored mist that ripples and curls in front of
Rafferty's eyes like the aurora borealis. “Of course, usually that meant other people went to jail. See, when a cop takes a payoff, the crime doesn't go away. Somebody's got to take a fall.”

Poke wants to put an arm around Arthit's shoulders but is sure it wouldn't be appreciated. “I know.”

“So the guilty got off and the innocent got screwed,” Arthit says. “That's what my father did for a living. He did it practically every day. But you know what, Poke? There was always food on the table. My brother and I went to school. I wound up in England, getting a very expensive education paid for by crooks and, I suppose, by the people who were stuck in those cells for things they didn't do.” He puts his face near the window and exhales a cloud of smoke onto the glass, then wipes it clear with his sleeve. “Because of where my father was, who he was. That was what he had to do to live, to take care of the people he loved. And he did. He took care of all of us.”

Poke says, “I know why Noi married you.”

“Really?” Arthit says. He stubs out the cigarette in the ashtray, so hard that sparks fly. “I wish I did.”

 

IT SEEMS SILLY
at this point not to go home, now that the only things worth protecting have already been taken. So when Arthit heads for the station to line up his two cops, Poke goes back to the apartment.

The place feels immensely empty. When he first rented it, almost three years ago, it seemed like the perfect size for a man on his own. He filled it completely. He had a bedroom, a kitchen, a living room, and an office. He rattled happily from one room to another, doing his work, making his mess, and cleaning it up. He ate at the kitchen counter and drank his morning coffee on the balcony overlooking the Chinese cemetery his landlady had proudly pointed out as the source of the building's dubiously good feng shui. Never once had it felt too big for him.

Now it seems enormous.

There's nothing in it anymore that is his alone. His office is Miaow's room. The bedroom is the secret space he shares with Rose. The living room, the kitchen, all the objects in them—they belong to his family. The pencils have Rose's tooth marks on them. Miaow's sneakers have
left ghost marks on the carpet. The surface of the sliding glass door has reflected all of them.

Living on that barren acreage in Lancaster, enveloped in his father's silences, Rafferty grew used to being alone. His mother was affectionate one moment and distant the next. Frank's attention was thousands of miles away. The solitary child who lived in the space between these adults developed into a solitary man. In many ways he had enjoyed it. Being alone gave him freedom. He did what he wanted, when he wanted. After he discovered Asia, he
went
where he wanted. A passport and an airline ticket were the only traveling companions he needed. Rafferty persuaded himself gradually that he had chosen to be alone, that this was the life he had created for himself, a life he filled completely. Now, standing in the center of his empty living room, he asks himself whether he could survive being alone again.

He has things to do to prepare for the next day—one thing at a time, as the world keeps reminding him—but first he goes down the hall into Miaow's room. The cardboard smiley face she drew to mean “Come right in” is hanging on the doorknob, its companion, the frowny face temporarily banished to one of her drawers.

Except for the mussed bed, abandoned in the middle of the night, her room is, as always, immaculate. Her shoes are in a regimentally straight line. There are still times when Miaow sits in the center of the floor, carefully lining up her shoes so she can scatter them and line them up again. For most of her life, she went barefoot.

Drawings in colored pencil are taped to the walls, along with a few older ones in crayon. Here and there he sees a version of the cheerful house below a blue sky and a fat primary-yellow sun that children everywhere draw, but most of the pictures are of the three of them: Rose, preternaturally tall and slender; Rafferty in an ugly T-shirt; and between them—always between them—Miaow, her skin darker than theirs, the part in her hair drawn with a ruler. The wall above the dresser is filled with pictures, but lower and to the left Rafferty spots a brand-new one. He leans down to take a closer look. It shows a lopsided birthday cake, candles gleaming, with three people barely visible in the darkness behind it. In the center of the cake, written in the inevitable pink, is the number 9.

Rafferty lets out more air than he knew he had in him. The cake.
It feels to Rafferty, at that moment, like they had baked that cake and lit those candles months ago. But they had celebrated Rose's birthday on Friday night, and this is Sunday night. It had been only forty-eight hours.

“I'll bring you back,” he says to the room. “Both of you. I promise.”

He closes the door behind him gently and goes into the living room to call Peachy.

P
eachy and Rafferty are watching from a stall four doors away when the two uniformed cops and Elson, looking sharp and mordantly businesslike in his black suit, enter the building at 8:10 on Monday morning. Peachy is perspiring as anxiously as someone waiting for a firing squad, and Poke carries a wrinkled brown supermarket shopping bag. When she sees Elson, Peachy takes a step back, and Rafferty grabs the sleeve of her blouse to make sure she won't keep going.

She has already been upstairs once, at 6:15, to open the more daunting of the two locks, so they wait only three minutes—enough, Rafferty is sure, for the cops to pop the easy lock—and then he more or less hauls her through the street door and up the stairs. Rafferty stands to one side and puts an encouraging hand in the small of her back. When Peachy tries to slip her key into the lock, the door swings open.

Men's startled voices, Peachy expressing surprise. Rafferty counts to ten and gives the door a shove.

Peachy is up against the wall to the left of the door. One of the cops
has the top filing drawer open, and the other is going through the papers on Peachy's desk. Elson stands beside the cop at the desk, one hand extended to Peachy, palm out, meaning
Stay there
. The door hinge squeals as Rafferty pushes in, and all of them look up.

“What the
hell
are you doing?” Rafferty says, bringing the paper bag protectively in front of him. And then he watches their eyes.

Elson glances down at the bag and opens his suit coat. Rafferty can practically see the word “weapon” form in his mind. One of the two cops—the one at the filing cabinet—looks at Rafferty and goes back to work. The cop sitting behind Peachy's desk sees the bag, and his jaw drops. His hand starts to go for the middle drawer and stops.

His nameplate, pinned on the left side of his chest, says
PETCHARA.

“We're conducting a legal search, under authority of the Bangkok police,” Elson says. “Stand over there, next to your friend, and stay there. Where's Miss, um…?”

“She's up north,” Rafferty says, going to stand next to Peachy. “The buffalo is in the hospital.”

“Excuse me?”

“The family buffalo,” Rafferty explains. “Fallen arches, very painful. It's something of a crisis for a farming family. She's gone up to offer moral support.”

“Moral?” Elson asks.

“That's twice,” Rafferty says. “One more remark like that and I'll break your glasses in half and show you how to use them as a suppository.”

“It's too bad for the rest of us,” Elson says, “that someone once told you that you were amusing.” His voice is level, but there are pinched little white lines on either side of his nose. “Get back to it,” he says to the cops, and they return to work, although Officer Petchara has to tear his eyes from the paper bag first.

“Why are you here, Mr. Rafferty?” Elson asks. “I didn't think you were in the domestics business.”

“Sloppy research,” Rafferty says. “I own twenty percent of the company.”

Elson smiles. His front teeth are uneven and pushed in slightly, a characteristic Rafferty has always associated with thumb suckers. “Your name's not on the license.”

“Gee,” Rafferty says, “am I in trouble?”

“You're willing to admit you're part owner?”

“I just did.”

“In writing,” Elson says.

“Sure,” Rafferty says. “Though I doubt anyone will ever read it.”

“What's in the bag?”

“My supplies.” Rafferty starts to open it. Elson puts his hand inside his coat, and Petchara looks like he will slide off Peachy's chair.

“Very slowly,” Elson says. His hand comes out with an automatic in it. “Open it very slowly, and don't put your hand inside. Tilt it and show it to me.”

“I'm afraid you're going to feel a little silly,” Rafferty says. “Of course, you're probably used to that.” He holds the bag wide open and tips it toward Elson. It contains what looks like the back half of a rooster.

“What in the world is that?” Elson says.

Rafferty tilts the bag back and looks down into it. “My feather duster,” he says. “Monday is cleaning day.” He takes one of the feathers between two fingers and pulls, and the duster comes out. “You want to be careful,” he says. “Might get dust on that nice budget suit.”

“Let the bag drop,” Elson says. Rafferty does, and it drifts to the floor and lands with a hollow little popping sound. “So. You clean, too. Maybe the agency should find you a job.”

“Golly, Dick. Was that a joke? Is that Secret Service humor?”

“You're just making my job easier,” Elson says.

“Glad to hear it. If it were any harder, they'd have to give it to someone else. And then I'd have to start creating rapport all over again.”

“Just stand there and shut up. Keep your hands in sight. Come
on,
” he says to the cops. “This isn't worth the whole day.”

“Take your time,” Rafferty says. “It isn't often I get to watch my tax dollars at work.”

The cop at the filing cabinet pulls out folder after folder and flips through them. Papers float free and drop to the floor. The cop at the desk—Petchara—picks up one piece of paper after another, glances at it, and throws it aside. Within two minutes there are papers all over the floor, and Peachy has begun to tremble.

“You guys going to clean this up?” Rafferty asks.

Elson is watching the cop at the filing cabinet. “I told you to shut up.”

“I forgot.”

“Would you like to be handcuffed?”

“It might be more effective to gag me.”

“Mr. Rafferty. One more word out of you and you'll be gagged, cuffed, and sitting on the floor.”

Rafferty nods and mimes zipping his mouth shut.

Officer Petchara opens the middle drawer.

“What's this?” he says to Rafferty, pulling out the paper bag. His hands are shaking slightly as he opens it.

“I don't know. What's that, Peachy?” Rafferty asks.

“I can explain,” Peachy says.

“Of course you can,” Elson says, elbowing Petchara aside and sitting behind the desk. He reaches into the bag and pulls out a pile of crisp new bills. Since both his hands are full, he clears a space on the desk with his elbows and drops the money there.

“A big withdrawal,” he says to Peachy. “I'm sure the people at the bank will remember it clearly.”

“I didn't—” Peachy begins, and then she grabs a new breath and says, “I didn't get it at the bank.”

Rafferty says, “Peachy. What the hell?”

“Still so eager to sign a statement that you own part of this business?” Elson is messing the bills around on the desk with both hands. He looks almost happy.

“As you said, Dick, it's not on the license. I must have remembered incorrectly.”

“Doesn't matter,” Elson says. He dips back into the bag and comes up with more money. “My colleagues heard your admission.”

“I guess you've got me, then,” Rafferty says, watching Officer Petchara, whose head has snapped forward on his neck at an angle that looks painful. He is staring at the money as though it has spontaneously burst into flame.

Elson feels the attention and glances at Petchara, then looks down at the money in his hand. Some of it is old and soft, crumpled from use. He drops it onto the desk and reaches into the bag again, bringing up more well-worn money. He looks from the money to Petchara and down at the money again. Then his eyes swing up to Rafferty's.

“I didn't know about any of this,” Rafferty says.

Elson says, “Goddamn it, shut the fuck up,” and picks up some of the bills. He examines them, one at a time, and then drops them and picks up some more. And then he is scrabbling through the older bills to get to the new ones, smoothing them out, turning them over, holding them to the light. After what seems like ten minutes, his hands drop to the desk.

“You lucky son of a bitch,” he says to Rafferty.

“I've always been lucky. Some are, some—”

“The horses,” Peachy interrupts faintly. “I play the horses.”

“You.” Elson is blinking fast. “You play the horses.” He sounds like someone who has learned a language by rote.

“I thought she had it under control,” Rafferty says. “But, golly, I guess…”

Elson doesn't even glance at him. He paws listlessly through the money, nodding to himself, picking up bills at random and holding them up, then letting them drop again. “I don't suppose,” he says to Peachy, “that you paid the girls out of this money.”

“No,” Peachy says. “I told you that I went to the bank.”

“Rose told you that, too,” Rafferty contributes.

“The bank,” Elson repeats. He looks up at Officer Petchara in a way that makes Rafferty happy the man isn't even standing near him. “The bank,” Elson says again. “Where we could be
right now.
”

Petchara has dark half-moons of sweat beneath his arms. His eyes flick to Rafferty's and away again. “Right. The bank.”

Elson begins mechanically to shovel the money back into the bag. To Peachy he says, “You have backup for this?”

Peachy winces. “Backup?”

“You know—winning tickets, disbursement slips, anything to show you really won it.”

“No,” Peachy says as though she barely understands the question.

“Peachy doesn't go to the track,” Rafferty says. “This is street betting. As an industry it's really meticulous about not keeping written records.”

“Of course,” Elson says lifelessly. To Petchara he says, “Can you arrest her for this?”

Even Petchara looks surprised. “For betting?”

“They'd have to arrest half of Bangkok,” Rafferty says.

“Maybe that would be a good idea.” Elson lets the rest of the money drop to the desk and stands up. He looks at Rafferty for several seconds, his mouth pulled in at the corners, and then says, “We're not going to find anything here, are we?”

“Not unless Peachy had a really terrific week.”

“That wouldn't surprise me at all,” Elson says. He kicks idly at the nearest leg of the desk. Then he buttons his jacket, lifts the bag a couple of inches, and lets it drop again. “You know,” he says, shaking his head, “you shouldn't keep this much money in a paper bag.” He slides his palm down his tie, straightening it.

“Why?” Rafferty asks. “Will it spoil?”

“A safe,” Elson says absently. “A strongbox.”

Rafferty says, “Haven't got one.”

“A briefcase, then. At the very least. With a lock.”

“People leave paper bags alone,” Rafferty says. “I mean, not people like you, of course. Real people. But they open briefcases. There's something about a briefcase that just begs to be opened.”

“Whatever you say.” Elson steps around the desk.

“They're like suitcases,” Rafferty says, and Elson stops dead, so abruptly he looks like someone caught by a strobe. “It's amazing,” Rafferty continues. “The things people put in suitcases.”

Elson slowly swings his head toward Rafferty, and Rafferty gives him the Groucho Marx eyebrows, up and down twice, very fast. Elson's eyes narrow so tightly they almost disappear, and a dark flush of red climbs his cheeks.

Rafferty steps up to him. “Anybody ever do this to you in high school?” he asks, and then he puts his index and middle finger into his mouth, pulls them out again, and draws a line of spit down the center of the lenses of Elson's glasses. Elson inhales in a slow hiss. Then Rafferty leans in and whispers, “If I were you, I'd keep an eye on Officer Petchara.”