A Nail Through the Heart

15

No," says the man on the phone for the second time.

"I only need a few minutes," Rafferty says for the third time.

"She will not see you."

"Then I'll talk to her on the phone."

"Madame does not speak to people." It is an older man's voice, stiff as wire. They are speaking Thai. Rafferty has a vision of a sort of Southeast Asian Jeeves, tall and long-fingered and immaculately shaven, possibly even wearing a morning coat.

"You haven't asked her."

"I am not paid to ask her."

"Then let me leave my number," he says. "Tell her I'm investigating a disappearance here in Bangkok and I need ten minutes of her time. It's important. I'm trying-"

"The number?" the man interrupts.

Rafferty recites his phone number and says, "My name is-" He is talking to a dial tone.

"Thanks for your time," he says, hanging up.

The day is, inevitably, bright and hot, with so much light pouring through the glass door that Rafferty has to squint against it. Rose has trudged off somewhere, visibly depressed by the failure of yesterday's potential clients to hire any of the faded flowers in her labor pool. Her despondence worries him. He suspects she has been lending the women small amounts of money to keep them from going back to the bars.

She should know better, he thinks, and then mentally slaps himself in the face. Like he knows better. Like he's a shining example of knowing better than to try to help people who probably can't be helped.

For example, Superman.

The events of the previous evening, welcoming Superman provisionally into the family, were bad enough to make Rafferty wish he could reformat his memory. He was up half the night trying to think of something, anything, he could do with the boy that won't break Miaow's heart.

After Miaow brought him up from the garage, the boy had greeted without visible enthusiasm the news that he could stay with them. He had gazed at Rafferty through the good eye and the swollen eye as though Rafferty were a dirty window with nothing interesting on the other side. When Rafferty had finished his little speech, Superman had waited to see whether there was going to be more talk, then turned and stalked down the hallway to Miaow's room.

Rafferty hadn't said anything, but his big, scrutable half-Anglo face evidently had, because Miaow said, "He's happy."

"Give him time," Rose said.

"That's exactly what I am giving him," Rafferty had said. He thought that both the words and his tone had been reasonable, but he saw from their expressions that he was facing the familiar wall of female solidarity, rooted in some profoundly obvious emotional reality that was completely invisible to him.

"You have to give it from your heart," Rose said.

Rafferty said, "I'm having trouble getting my chest open."

That exchange had been the high point of the evening. It had been, on the whole, an evening to be forgotten as quickly and completely as possible.

"If I were Claus Ulrich," Rafferty asks himself aloud, "where would I be?" He crosses to his desk and idly opens and closes the screen on his laptop. "Or," he amends, "if I were Claus Ulrich, who would I be?" He lifts the screen again.

As he sees it in the highly overrated light of morning, the errand he has undertaken can have five outcomes:

(1) He can find Uncle Claus alive and make Clarissa happy.

(2) He can find Uncle Claus dead and make her unhappy.

(3) He can find an Uncle Claus who is radically different from the one she thinks she knows, and break her heart.

(4) He can fail to find Uncle Claus at all and leave everything unresolved.

Or (5) Arthit's renegade cops could kill him.

The dinner with Superman-the First Supper, as he's beginning to think of it-had been well beyond grim.

The children had sat on one side of the table and the adults on the other. Rose had talked enough for four, and Miaow had eaten enough for two. The boy, for the most part, had stared at his food as though he expected it to start wriggling on the dish. At one point Miaow had broken a spring roll in half and reached over and put it in his mouth, and he had removed it and dropped it on her plate as though it were a stone. Rafferty had fought the impulse to pull the cloth off the table, dishes and all.

"You have to eat something," he finally said. "Rose cooked this food for us, and you have to eat something."

The boy had looked at Rafferty for a good count of ten and picked up the half a spring roll and put it in his mouth. Then he had chewed it, noisily and deliberately, for at least five minutes. He had swallowed it three times. Then he pushed his chair from the table and sauntered down the hallway to Miaow's room.

This performance had been followed by a long silence. Rose ate as though nothing had happened. Rafferty counted to a hundred. Miaow stared at her lap.

"He wants to show you he won't eat much," she finally said.

"He's smoking yaa baa," Rafferty replied.

"He's just confused," Rose said placidly, helping herself to some more noodles. "He doesn't know what he's supposed to do, and that makes him angry. He needs time."

"Not smoking," Miaow said very softly.

"How do you know?" Rafferty had asked.

"Not smoking," Miaow repeated more loudly.

"Fine," Rafferty retreated. "He's not smoking. Tell him he has to eat, Miaow. It's the only way I'm going to know."

"He's not smoking," Rose said. "He just doesn't know what he feels."

And they left it there. The boy had slept on the couch in the living room, with Rafferty rejecting Miaow's repeated offer to give him the top level of her bunk bed, and when Rafferty woke up, he was gone. Rafferty secretly hopes he won't return.

He has started a game of solitaire on the computer when the phone rings.

"Poke," Arthit says. "Do you have a pencil?"

"Of course," he says. "I'm a writer."

"While you try to find one," Arthit says, "here's an update. No results on the photograph yet in either Phuket or Phang Nga. There are four guys working on it now, but there are a lot of people to talk to. So far, though, no one recognizes him either alive or dead."

Rafferty is opening and closing drawers. "That's because he wasn't down there."

"Maybe not. Got the pencil yet?"

"Yeah, yeah." The one that has come to hand is dimpled with the tooth marks Rose always puts into it when she subtracts her assets, little indentations of anxiety.

"Here comes the first part of your favor: 555-0475. That's Hank Morrison's number. Do you know Hank?"

"Pilot or something. Runs that school for street kids."

"He puts the kids through a few years of basic schooling," Arthit says. "He-what's the word? — socializes them. You know, teaches them not to kill each other over who gets the first helping of noodles. And then he arranges their adoption. I've told him to expect your call."

"Adoption? You mean, like adoption?"

"Have some coffee," Arthit says sympathetically. "Crank up those verbal skills, then give him a call. And keep working on Claus Ulrich."

Rafferty is already dialing when he realizes he hung up on Arthit without saying good-bye. The phone feels slick. His palms are sweating.

After two rings the telephone is picked up. Nobody says anything, but Rafferty can hear the shrieks of what sound like a million children on a roller coaster. "Hello?" Rafferty says. The squeals rise in pitch as the roller coaster, or whatever it is, reaches the top of its arc. "Hello?"

On the other end of the line, somebody laughs. From the sound of the laugh, its possessor is less than three feet tall and easily amused.

"Is Hank there? Khun Hank, is he there?" Rafferty asks in Thai.

After a deliberative pause, the person on the other end says, "Yes," and hangs up.

Rafferty counts to twenty to give the child time to become interested in something else and wander away, and then he dials again. Four rings this time, and then a deep male voice says, "Hello."

"Hank Morrison? This is Poke Rafferty."

"Hey, Poke. Did you just call?"

"Sort of."

"Natalee said someone had called. She's got the basic idea, but she's a little shaky on the drill."

"You're training them early," Rafferty says.

"You don't have to train them at all. They fight to help out. One thing about kids, they like to feel useful."

"Hank, I need to ask you a couple of questions."

"This is about what Arthit mentioned."

"Actually, the first thing is business."

"Fire away. Listen, if you hear me drop the phone suddenly, hang on. It just means I'm intervening in one of the day's near-death situations. We've got prospective adoptive parents coming through today, and it gets the kids kind of worked up."

"Okay, the business. I'm looking for a guy as a favor for Arthit. He's supposed to be active with kids here. Do you know anyone named Claus Ulrich?"

"Claus…"

"Ulrich."

"Can't say I do. What organization does he work with?"

"I have no idea."

"Might help if you could find out. But I've never heard of him, and I think I know most of the folks who are really doing something. Maybe he's an angel."

"An angel?"

"You know-doesn't do the work but gives the money. Is he well-off?"

"Seems to be."

"Okay, I'll ask around and get back to you. Now, what about the child Arthit mentioned? How old?"

"She's eight," Rafferty says. "I think."

"A little girl," Hank says carefully.

"That's right, Hank," Rafferty says, suddenly angry. "An eight-year-old female is often called a little girl."

"Sorry, Poke. It's more…complicated with girls. How did you get involved with her?"

"I met her in Patpong, selling gum. She didn't have a place to live, and I didn't want her on the street. I put her in a rented room for a while, and I set her up in one of the international schools. After a while I cleared out my office, here in the apartment, and she moved in."

Morrison clears his throat. "Is she still in school?"

"Yes, and she's doing great."

"Poke, what did you tell the school about her? What have you been telling people in general?"

"Not much. It doesn't come up that often, actually. I have a long-time girlfriend who's here a lot, and that sort of takes some of the curse off. When someone asks-at the school, for example-I say she's my adopted daughter."

"Mmmm," Morrison says. "You want to be careful with this."

"I know. I worry about it." The person he worries most about is one of the people who lives on his floor, a Mrs. Pongsiri. A regal-looking lady of a certain age who works very peculiar hours, leaving in the afternoon and coming home late at night, Mrs. Pongsiri never misses an opportunity to gaze speculatively at Miaow. She has demonstrated a vast repertoire of ways to purse her lips. Since she is essentially the central switchboard for the apartment house's gossip network, her interest is disconcerting.

"You should worry about it. And for the meantime you want to avoid rubbing people's noses in it. What's your girlfriend's name?"

"Rose."

"Well, it would be a good idea to take Rose along when the two of you go out. This is a serious relationship?"

"I'd marry her in a minute. She's the one with reservations."

"Well, good for her. Marriage is supposed to be for life. But adoption really is."

"Yeah, I know. That's fine. I mean, I want to see her grow up and everything, while I get old, just like I'm supposed to. I want her to have some kind of life. She's an amazing kid, Hank."

"They're all amazing," Morrison says. "That's the hard part."

"So, then, what? I mean, what do I do?"

"Are her parents dead?"

"She doesn't know. She's been on the streets practically her whole life."

"That makes it harder. Normally, to qualify for adoption you need to be able to demonstrate either that both parents are dead or that they've consented to the deal."

Rafferty emits three frustrated little pops of breath. "Well, we can't do that."

"Probably not the end of the world." Morrison puts a hand over the phone and calls out to someone, using a tone that has a lot of military starch in it. "Listen, don't take this wrong, Poke. Arthit says you're a good guy. But before I can do anything at all for you, I have to see you and her together. And I have to spend time with her alone. At least a couple of hours."

"Do you really think you can do something for us?"

"It's possible. But one thing at a time. Before we can do anything, I have to talk to both of you."

Rafferty is up and pacing the room. He feels light enough to float. "Jesus, Hank. Thank you."

"I'll need some money. The paperwork isn't cheap."

"How much?"

"The low thousands."

"Is that all?" Rafferty asks, and then realizes that his total net worth at the moment can be placed in the very low thousands, especially with the drain of Rose's business. And Miaow's school claims a chunk every month, too.

"That's it. But don't get your hopes up too fast. It's a bumpy track. We'll talk in a day or so."

"Hank, one more thing. There's another kid."

"Poke, are you writing books or doing day care?"

"This is a boy, about ten. He took care of my little girl for a few years, starting when she was four or five, and now she's trying to return the favor."

"What's his problem? Because there is one. I can hear it in your voice."

"Amphetamines," Rafferty says. "And violence."

"What kind of violence?"

"Ganging up on pedos who like little boys, which I can live with, actually. Stealing. And biting."

"Oh, good Lord, Poke," Hank says, "we're not talking about Superman, are we?"

"Um…" Rafferty says.

"Because if we are, forget him. He can't be helped. I know that sounds cold, but I learned early on that you have to conserve your strength. There are a lot of kids to take care of, and you can't burn yourself out on one. That boy is a black hole."

"I don't have a lot of kids to take care of," Rafferty says stubbornly.

"And you don't want him around your little girl either. He's a terrible influence on everybody he gets close to."

"Does that mean you wouldn't take him? If he cleaned up his act, I mean?"

"I wouldn't have him here under any circumstances."

Some of the lightness goes out of Rafferty's spirits. "Do you know anywhere else?"

"No. The toughest place in town wouldn't take him. Listen, the would-be parents are due any minute. Is that everything?"

"When will the parents be gone?"

"Couple of days."

"I'll call then. And thanks, Hank. More than you know."

"Oh, well," Hank Morrison says. "I think I probably know."

Rafferty puts the phone down, and the room is suddenly too small. He feels a need to be outdoors, but more than anything he needs someone to whom he can tell his news. He knows he should be concerned about Superman and Uncle Claus, but all he can think about is the possibility of adopting Miaow. Not worrying about the cops or the bureaucrats or even Mrs. Pongsiri. Knowing that Miaow is his, and he is hers, by law.

It's almost-but not quite-enough to send him to Hofstedler and the others at the Expat Bar. He wishes he weren't so solitary by nature, that he had a dozen friends he could call with the news.

But the person he most wants to tell is Rose.

Rose, who adopted him as he staggered his way through the go-go bars of Patpong. Rose, who taught him the first rules of Thai life he learned. Rose, whose little sister Lek he and Arthit had rescued from one of the seamier upstairs bars on Patpong and frightened all the way out of Bangkok. Rose, whom he has come to love.

And the thought strikes him, not for the first time since the tsunami stretched out its careless blue hands and slapped thousands of lives to tiny pieces: We can be a family.

He has to do something, and it might as well be something to earn the favor Arthit promised. He grabs his wallet, a few hundred baht, his cell phone, and a pair of sunglasses and checks the apartment for anything he has forgotten. He will go see Heng, an antiques dealer. The man is certain to be in his shop in an arcade at the Oriental Hotel, doing a brisk trade in Khmer treasures that have been chiseled off the walls of Angkor or other, less-well-known temple complexes in the dead of night. If Claus Ulrich was seriously in the market for black-market art, Heng will probably know.

As he opens the door to leave, the phone rings. Rafferty deliberates for another ring and then double-times across the room to pick it up.

"Your name," says a voice on the other end. A demand, not a question.

"You called me," Rafferty says. It is a woman's voice, deep, but definitely a woman.

"Your name," she repeats impatiently. She speaks Thai, with some kind of accent.

"Why don't we start over?" Rafferty says. "You made the call. You probably know who you want to talk to."

"You're the investigator," she says.

Under other circumstances he would correct the assumption, but he knows who it is.

"My name is Rafferty," he says.

"You want to see me."

"You changed your mind," he says.

"That does not concern you. Come here now."

"Where is 'here'?"

"My home. Give your name at the gate."

The gate? "I need your address."

"If you need my address, I do not need to talk to you." The woman hangs up.

Rafferty grabs the letter of reference with the address on it, folds it, and puts it into his pocket. Then he goes out into the promise of the bright new day.