A Nail Through the Heart

16

The guard at the gate has a tommy gun slung over his shoulder and the flat, unreflective look of someone who would enjoy using it. The guard station is twice the size of a telephone booth and sits beside the only break in a twelve-foot concrete wall, brightly whitewashed, that stretches half a block. Beside the booth is a sliding gate of black wrought-iron rods, sharpened to wicked points at the top. Broken glass dazzles atop the wall.

The guard studies the photo on Rafferty's passport and then Rafferty's face, as though he is waiting for Rafferty's disguise to melt. He reluctantly picks up a canary-yellow telephone, grunts into it, and hangs up.

They stand there. The guard looks at Rafferty, and Rafferty looks at the guard. "Get a lot of trick-or-treaters?" Rafferty asks.

"Don't talk to her like that," the guard says. "She'll have the skin off you." His English is accented but serviceable. The gate begins to slide open.

Standing on the other side is a man, possibly Thai, who looks almost startlingly like the individual Rafferty envisioned during his first telephone call to the house. A slender sixty, with steel-gray hair plastered to a narrow skull, he is immaculately dressed in a suit and tie, even in this heat. He has the erect carriage of a soldier and the eyes of a man who could watch colon surgery for laughs.

"You will follow," he says, turning away.

Rafferty does as he is told, trailing the man up a long curve of blacktop driveway toward one of the most beautiful houses he has ever seen. Huge, rambling, built in the old Thai style, it is shuttered against the heat and light of the day. Rafferty has studied Thai houses, and he guesses this one to be at least a century old. Banks of pale flowers foam up against its wooden sides, and an ancient tamarind tree shades the front. Half an acre of immaculate lawn creates a clean green sweep down to the swift, coffee-colored flow of the river. The house has a private pier with a speedboat tied to it, dragging against its rope on the downstream side. For some reason a hole has been dug in the lawn. As beautiful as the house is, it has a brooding air; as he approaches, Rafferty sees peeling paint and sagging steps. Looking at the roofline, he has no problem imagining bats flying out of it. The disrepair of the house surprises him, given the investment in the wall, the guard, and the gate.

The person who lives here needs serious security.

They walk-or, rather, Rafferty walks and the man marches-to the steps leading up to the front veranda. The man stops and turns to Rafferty.

"Madame Wing has fifteen minutes," he says. "You will address her as Madame. What questions will you ask her?"

Rafferty thinks of himself as someone who rarely dislikes anyone on sight, but in this case he's willing to make an exception. "I thought I'd start with the Big Bang," he says. "Everything else did."

"If you do not tell me the questions," the man replies icily, "she will not see you."

"She called me, remember? I think she'll see me."

Jeeves's mouth works several times, like a man trying to generate some spit. His eyes go past Rafferty and then dart up and to the left, looking up the steps they will have to climb. Rafferty thinks, He's frightened.

The man's eyes come back to him, flint black. "Please," he says between his teeth. "Please tell me what you plan to discuss with Madame Wing."

Oh, well. "I plan to ask her about a maid who used to work here."

It is not what the man expected. His eyebrows go up the width of a hair. "A maid? You could have talked to me about that."

"You didn't write the letter of reference. She did."

The look he receives is not without a hint of pity. He shakes his head. "Then come."

The two of them go up the stairs and through a wide doorway into the house. The dark interior space slowly resolves itself into a series of long, high chambers with richly grained wooden walls. Teak floors gleam underfoot, slatted with ribbons of sunlight flowing through the louvers over the windows. Although the air is not hot, it is stuffy and close, as though the house has not been open to the breeze for years. It could be the air in the Pyramids, Rafferty thinks. He follows Jeeves like a good soldier into a smaller room with a single easy chair in it, directly in front of a standing sandstone Buddha that is probably a thousand years old.

"Sit here," the man says, stepping aside and indicating the chair, as though he does not expect Rafferty to know what it is.

"What about Madame?" It is the only chair in the room.

"Madame brings her chair with her." Jeeves leaves the room. Outdoors he marches; indoors he glides.

Rafferty takes a good look at the Buddha, at the calm face with its upturned lips and almond eyes, the long earlobes a symbol of spirituality. It is, he realizes, possibly the best Khmer carving he has ever seen, a prize for any museum in the world. On the opposite wall of the room hangs a broken piece of stone, perhaps six feet in length and four feet high, covered from top to bottom with bas-reliefs: the everyday life of the tenth century, not that different in most respects from life in the Cambodian countryside today. People long dead and turned to dust sit at tables and drink, play games, roast a pig over a fire, plant rice, push a wooden cart. Spaced evenly along the stone's ragged edges are the remnants of holes bored to seat the low-yield explosives that were used to break the fragment free. Rafferty cannot look at it without anger, wondering which of Cambodia's extraordinary temples was plundered to decorate this airless room.

The silence is pierced by a thin, insistent squealing from somewhere in the house. Rafferty backs away from the fragment of temple wall and seats himself in the armchair. The sound grows louder, and a woman comes around the corner and into view. She is tiny and angular, her sharp joints folded batlike into a wheelchair that is too big for her. The chair stops in the doorway, without entering the room, and the squealing stops with it.

She regards him without expression. For a moment he actually wonders if she is blind, simply directing her eyes where she knows the armchair will be.

"Madame Wing," he says, just to break the silence.

Her chin comes up a quarter of an inch, and all the planes of her face shift. Her eyes actually register him for the first time. She is thin to the point of being gaunt, the bones of her face as sharp as a cubist painting, the skull slowly surfacing beneath the flesh. The hands grasping the rubber wheels are all knuckles. The skin stretched over them has turned a peculiar bruised-looking purple.

"You came," she says with a hint of satisfaction. The voice, low and rough, scrapes Rafferty's ears. Despite the grandeur of her home, there is nothing refined about the way she sounds. She rolls herself a foot or so into the room. The wheelchair squeals again.

"You should get Jeeves to oil that thing."

She stops the chair's motion and regards him coldly. He has been regarded coldly before-he thinks of himself as an expert at being regarded coldly-but this is something entirely new. She looks at him as he might look at a snake coiled on his pillow. "His name is Pak, and you do not tell me what to do."

"Just a suggestion."

"Not ever," she says. Now that he can see her eyes more clearly, he wishes he could not. They are extraordinarily luminous eyes, but the light in them seems all to be reflected. They have the shine of an animal that can see in the dark. He can see the white all the way around the circles of her irises. "You have questions to ask me before I come to my business. Ask them."

Her business? Rafferty doesn't want any part of this woman's business, whatever it is. "You had a maid here," he says. "She may know something about a man I'm trying to find."

She draws herself up in the chair. It makes her seem both larger and heavier, despite her apparent frailty. "What man?"

"An Australian named-"

"No," she says, closing the subject. She sits back. "I know nothing of Australians."

"Actually," he says, "it's the maid you can probably help me with." He holds up the note from Bangkok Domestics. "You wrote a letter about her."

She extends a skeletal hand, a knot of knuckles and rings. It is absolutely still. Whatever health problems she may have, none of them causes her hands to tremble.

Rafferty begins to unfold the letter, but she gives the hand a peremptory shake, and he finds himself getting up to give it to her. "Sit," she says, the moment she has it. She does not look up to see if he does as he is told.

As she unfolds the letter, he gets a chance to look at her without having to face those unsettling eyes. Her hair, still mostly black, is pulled back into a bun so tight it looks like it hurts. The emaciated face is dark but not heavily lined, and Rafferty revises his estimate of her age. At first sight he thought seventy. Now he thinks she could be anywhere from fifty to sixty.

"This girl," she says at last, precisely refolding the letter. "She is of no account."

"She may have information I need."

She drops the letter into her lap. "Why should I care?"

"Not a reason in the world. You said you'd see me, so I thought-"

"I do not care what you thought. The girl was dismissed because she could not accept discipline. I have no idea where she went."

"How long did she work here before you fired her?"

The gaze she gives him says the question is an impertinence. "Seven weeks, eight weeks."

"If you fired her, why did you write her a letter of reference?"

"Why does that matter?"

"It's a natural question. The letter got her hired by someone else, and now that person is missing, and so is she."

Something very unpleasant happens to her mouth. "Are you suggesting that this might involve me?"

"It involves you to the extent that it brought me here."

"I brought you here," she says imperiously. "Not this stupid girl."

"And if I came, so will others. Who knows who they'll be?"

The hands drop to the chair's wheels as though she intends to leave the room. Instead she moves it forward several inches, squealing her way closer to Rafferty. When she is close enough to make him wish he could move the armchair backward, the squealing stops and the silence of the house once again presses against his ears, like water.

"And who do you think they might be?" she asks.

The intensity of the question unnerves him. "Could be anyone. The police, the Australian embassy."

She nods a tenth of an inch. Her lids drop slightly, hooding the eyes for a merciful moment, and then she turns to the carved stone on the wall. Her gaze travels left to right, like those of someone reading a newspaper. When she has finished, she says, without looking at him, "That's hardly anyone." Then she lifts her hands and claps once. The sound is still ringing in Rafferty's ears when Jeeves steps into the doorway.

"This horrible girl," she says, handing him the letter. "Bring the file."

Pak doesn't bow, but it's close. "Yes, Madame Wing." He is gone, and she shifts her eyes to Rafferty. The whites are a nicotine yellow. "The man is probably dead," she says, with no change in tone. "Everybody dies. It is the only thing we have in common."

Not many replies spring to mind. "Why did you write the letter?"

"She was making a lot of noise."

"But you knew she wasn't good at her job."

She looks puzzled. "What does that matter to me? At any rate, other people's households are not as disciplined as this one."

"Mine certainly isn't," Rafferty says. He is wondering who she thought might come knocking on her door, who it was who was not included in his "anyone."

She does not respond to his remark. She simply looks at him while she waits for Pak to return. The shining eyes do not shift or waver. Rafferty takes it as long as he can and then studies the bas-reliefs on the opposite wall. Life, action, argument, laughter, war, love. All in silent stone, as silent as this house. He can hear himself swallow.

Rafferty is on the verge of saying something, anything, to break the stillness when Pak appears with a file in his hands. He presents it to Madame Wing two-handed, as though it were on a cushion.

"You have a pencil," she says, opening it. Pak melts away into the hall.

"Tippawan Dangphai," she reads. "Twenty years old. Nickname…" She peers at the page as though the type has begun to square-dance.

"Doughnut," Rafferty supplies, pulling out his pad.

She shakes her head at the name. "From Isaan. The town is called-" She lets loose an avalanche of Thai syllables, which Rafferty does not even try to follow. He is not going to Isaan, no matter what. "This was her first position in Bangkok." She turns the page. "She still had mud between her toes," she says.

Rafferty is unsure how to react, but it might have been a joke. "What address did she give you?" Hoping it's not the Bangkok Bank.

"She was staying with a sister in Banglamphoo." She reads an address. "Have you got that?" The question is severe, as though she is daring him to say no.

"And you have no idea where she is now?"

"No." She closes the folder. "Now to my business." She rolls her chair backward and reaches behind her to close the door. The room seems much smaller. "Something has been stolen from me," she says. Her face is suddenly white and pinched, her voice strangled. Rafferty is looking at pure, distilled rage. "You will find it."

"Afraid not," Rafferty says, getting up. "I'm pretty much booked up."

"When you find it, you will return it to me. You will not look at it."

"I'm not even going to find it."

She says, "Ten thousand dollars."

Rafferty sits. Miaow's adoption, he thinks.

"I had a safe buried outside. It had something in it that I need. You will find it, and you will find the man who took it."

"I don't know," Rafferty says, but he does. Ten thousand dollars would feed Rose's hopefuls until they find work. It would pay for Miaow's schooling for two years.

It would fund Hank Morrison.

"You will bring them both to me, the man and the thing he stole."

He takes another look at Madame Wing. The eyes settle it.

"The police-"

"I cannot go to the police. The thing that was stolen-" She hesitates for the first time since they began to talk. "It is private. I cannot trust the police with it."

"Then how do you know you can trust me with it?"

"You are one man," she says.

"And that means?"

She smiles at him. "You have one neck."

"Well, that's that," Rafferty says. He pushes his chair back.

"Twenty thousand."

"Madame Wing," he says, "you just threatened me."

"You can only threaten yourself," she says. "If you bring it to me unopened, you will have no problem."

"And how will you know if I've opened it?"

She puts the gnarled hands in her lap. "Your face will tell me." Then she says, "Twenty-five thousand." She settles back in the chair, completely relaxed.

"I don't work for people who threaten me."

"I did not intend to threaten you." She lowers her head. "Please forgive an old woman who has lost something very precious to her."

"Excuse an American expression," he says, "but you have impressive juju."

The chin comes up. "What is 'juju'?"

"Power. Like a kind of magic."

Madame Wing looks pleased. It is not a change for the better. "I had juju once," she says. "But that was a long time ago. Now I am old and helpless. Someone has taken something from me. He came here at night and stole it. Do you think this should be allowed? Do you think men should be able to steal things from old women who have nothing left but memories?"

Well, put that way. "Of course not."

"Thirty thousand dollars," she says. "That's as high as I will go. In cash. Half now and half when you bring me the thing that was stolen and the man who took it."

Fifteen thousand dollars. In advance. "I don't deliver people," Rafferty says.

"You will tell us where he is, then."

"What happens if I can't find it?" He is thinking in terms of being drawn and quartered.

She looks at him with those nocturnal eyes. "Then you do not receive the second payment. But I am certain you will find it."

"I have conditions."

She settles in. They've moved to negotiation. "They are?"

"If I find it, whatever it is, I'll return it to you or to whomever you choose, in a public place at a time I designate. You'll pay me then and there. I won't deliver the man to you unless I know you're not going to harm him. And, finally, I'll give it a week."

"Two."

Now it is his turn to wait her out. He forces himself to hold her gaze.

"One, then," she says. "I have conditions in return. I will require a daily report, on the telephone, since you are not comfortable coming here." Something about a light-year away from amusement flickers in her eyes. "The report will be detailed. You will tell me where you have gone, what you have done, whom you have spoken with. You will tell no one else at all, no one in the world, what you are doing for me. Is this acceptable?"

"I guess," Rafferty says. "Sure. It's acceptable."

"Good." She claps her hands again, three times, and the door to the room opens. Pak floats in, carrying a fat envelope, which he presents to Rafferty.

"Fifteen thousand dollars," Madame Wing says. "All hundreds, no counterfeits. You may examine them."

"Is there a price written on my forehead?" Rafferty asks. "What if I had stopped at twenty?"

She smiles, a new vista of awfulness. Her teeth are long and crooked, the color of mustard. "I would have clapped twice."

"What am I looking for?"

"An envelope. Not like the one I just gave you-bigger. Heavy brown paper, tied with twine. There is nothing written on it, but three old stamps have been pasted in the upper right corner. You are not to open it."

"You've made that point quite eloquently."

"The man you are looking for is a Cambodian. He will be between forty and fifty-five. He may be physically damaged in some way. He will be in Bangkok."

"How do you know all that?"

The eyes come up, hooded. "It is my life. Who would know better?"

"The safe was in that hole out there?"

She nods.

"How did he get in? You have guards-"

"He came on the river, at night. The guard at the dock was caught unawares and struck with a stone. The fool. He is no longer here, of course."

"I'll need to talk to him."

"He can tell you nothing. We talked to him for several hours. He did not see the man."

"I still want to talk to him."

She seems to be considering alternatives, but then she nods. "Pak will give you the address when you leave."

"How long ago did this happen?"

"Two nights."

"Were you here?"

"If I had been here," she says venomously, leaning toward him, "he would be dead."

Well, okay. "Two nights ago. Cambodian. How do you know he'll stay in Bangkok?"

She folds the gnarled hands, calm again, and looks at the carved stone. "He has to stay here," she says. "The robbery is only the beginning. He means to destroy me."