The Fourth Watcher

10

"Young or old?” Arnold Prettyman asks. “Youngish,” Rafferty says. “He’s like what someone said about Richard Nixon: He’s an old man’s idea of a young man.”

“Nixon got a bum rap,” Prettyman says, toying with an eighteen-inch-long tube of rolled paper on the table between them. He has eyes the color of faded denim, as remote as the eyes of a stuffed animal. Rafferty always half expects to see dust on them. His features have bunched for company in the center of his square face, below wavy, rapidly receding, light-colored hair he brushes unpersuasively forward. Lately he has cultivated a pointed little goatee apparently inspired by Ming the Merciless. Before he sprouted the chin spinach, people occasionally told him he resembled the singer Phil Collins, but to Rafferty he’s always looked like what he is, or was: a spy. He spends way too much time staring people directly in the eyes when he’s talking, a trait Rafferty associates with Scientologists and liars, such as spies. He’s fairly sure Prettyman isn’t a Scientologist.

“As hard as it may be to believe, Arnold,” Rafferty says, “I didn’t come halfway across Bangkok to reopen the file on Nixon.”

“Just taking a stand,” Prettyman says. “Anyway, the young ones are the worst. They all think they’re Eliot Ness. Probably carries a pearl-handled gun and is dying to put a notch in it.”

“But you don’t know him.”

“Richard Elson,” Prettyman says, without much interest. He pulls the tube of paper toward him and raps out a quick three-finger rhythm on one of the rolled edges. “Nope. Never heard the name. Not that I really hung with the Seekies. The Service keeps to itself.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Rafferty says, “why would a theoretically secret organization call itself the Secret Service? Kind of lets the cat out of the bag, don’t you think? I mean, why not something innocuous? The Adolphe Menjou Fan Club or the Mauritanian Triangle Stamp League or something?”

“If you’re looking for logic in Washington, I envy your optimism.” Prettyman lifts one end of the roll of paper and lets it drop again. “Don’t forget, these guys want to be important. They’re like twelve-year-olds. If they had their way, they’d probably call it Heroes Anonymous.”

“Okay, so forget Elson personally. What’s the Secret Service doing in Bangkok?”

“Under this administration, anything they want. Mostly, though, they come here about counterfeiting. It’s a little weird, since you’d expect Treasury to be in charge of counterfeiting, but it’s the Seekies’ job. That’s what I mean about logic in Washington.”

“Well, counterfeiting is what he kicked my door in about.”

Prettyman’s eyes have not left Rafferty’s since he looked up from the roll of paper, but now they dart away for a tenth of a second and come right back, and there is real interest in them. He leans forward an eighth of an inch, which for Prettyman is an expansive gesture.

“American currency?”

“No, that’s what I can’t figure out. Thai.”

“Thousand-baht notes,” Prettyman says.

Rafferty squares his chair so the sunlight reflecting off the mirrored wall won’t hit him in the eyes. “Very impressive, Arnold.”

“You don’t want to fuck around with this at all,” Prettyman says. “I know that’s hard for you, but resist the impulse.”

“Why so ominous, Arnold? And what do you know about counterfeit thousand-baht notes?”

“North Korea,” Prettyman says. His lifeless eyes wander the room. He and Rafferty are sitting in a small bar on the second floor of Nana Plaza, a three-story supermarket of sex off Sukhumvit Road. There’s not much affection in Prettyman’s gaze; few places are more forlorn than a go-go bar in the light of morning. He recently either bought the bar or didn’t, depending on which day he’s asked. Rafferty waits; Prettyman is a miser with information. He parts with it as though wondering if he’s spending it in the right place. Eventually he says, “The American government, and especially the Seekies, is obsessed with North Korea.”

Rafferty gives it a beat to see whether anything else is coming. When it’s apparent that Prettyman is finished, he says, “I think it’s pretty interesting myself, but what’s the connection with bad thousand-baht notes?”

Prettyman grimaces as though the prospect of answering the question causes him physical pain. “That’s where they come from. The NKs turn them out by the tens of thousands. And they’re not bad. Aside from the fact that they’re not real money, they’re better than the real thing. That’s one way they spot them: The engraving is actually too good.” He glances at himself in the mirror opposite and feathers his hair forward with his fingertips until he looks a little like Caligula. “Do you know anything at all about this?”

“About North Korea? Or counterfeiting?”

“Both.”

“Not enough,” Rafferty says. “So clue me in.”

“Fine.” Prettyman gives his head a quarter turn, right and left, to check the tonsorial repair job and then sits forward, crossing his hands. “Are you paying me?”

“Oh, Arnold,” Rafferty says. “After all these years.”

Prettyman dismisses the appeal without a moment’s thought. “You know what Moliere said about being a professional writer?”

“No,” Rafferty says. “But I’ll bet it’s fascinating.”

“He said, ‘First we do it for love. Then we do it for a few friends. Then we do it for money.’ ”

“Sounds like prostitution.”

“I left that out,” Prettyman says. “That’s what he was comparing writing to.”

“I can see why you might have skipped it.”

“The operative word was ‘professional.’ I’m a professional. Twenty thousand baht.”

“Ten.”

“Fifteen.”

“Twelve-five, and that’s it. You’re not the only spy I know.”

“I’m not a spy,” Prettyman says automatically. “Okay, North Korea. The Norkies have almost no foreign trade. First, they don’t make much of anything, and second, most countries won’t do business with them. And why not, you ask?”

“I do,” Rafferty says. Prettyman reflectively chews his lip as though wondering whether to renegotiate. Rafferty asks, “Was that enough of a response, or would you like me to actually formulate the question?”

Prettyman does a minimalist head shake, little more than a twitch. “Because they’re nuts, that’s why. Just completely, totally, off-the-wall nuts. If North Korea were a person, it would be wrapped in an old blanket, muttering to itself on the sidewalk. Relief organizations send them boats full of rice, since half the fucking country is starving to death, and the Norkie navy sinks the boats. They buy stuff from other countries and don’t accept the shipment, or they accept it and don’t pay for it. This is not a policy that’s going to produce large streams of foreign revenue.”

“Sort of like opening a store and keeping the doors locked.”

“And shooting the guy who delivers your merchandise.” Prettyman picks up the tube of paper and holds it to one eye, like a telescope, then lowers it. “But they need money. The Socialist Paradise-that’s what the Norkie government calls it-spends every nickel it can generate on the military, which, as you might guess, leaves a hole in the budget when it comes to luxuries like food. So they raise money by counterfeiting stuff.”

“You’re telling me that a government is producing funny money.”

“It’s not a government, it’s the Sopranos. You want a statistic?”

“Not particularly.”

“Well, here comes one.” He holds up the roll of paper and says, “Remind me to ask you about this. So. . the statistic: North Korea makes more foreign revenue from counterfeiting than it does from

trade.”

Some sort of response seems called for. Rafferty says, “Gadzooks.”

“Prescription drugs, cigarettes-your girlfriend smokes, right?”

“Like Pittsburgh.”

“Marlboros?”

Rafferty nods.

“Well, your girlfriend’s cigarettes come straight from Kim Jong Il. In 1995, agents intercepted a boat on its way from Taiwan to North Korea carrying cigarette papers with the Marlboro logo. Wrap them around some junk tobacco, and there were so many papers they’d have brought one billion dollars on the street. That’s billion with a b. Nine-tenths of the Marlboros in Southeast Asia are forgeries, courtesy of Office 39, which reports directly to the little guy with the Eraserhead haircut.”

“Another reason for her to quit.”

“But your Mr. Elson doesn’t care about cigarettes, or fake Viagra, or AIDS drugs that don’t actually do anything. He cares about money, American money. The same printing plant in Pyongyang that makes the extra-fancy thousand-baht bills makes American fifties and hundreds that are so good they’re called ‘supernotes.’” Prettyman shakes his head in what might be admiration. His eyes briefly border on expressive. “You have to give them credit. These things are so perfect the Seekies had to blow them up to about twenty feet long and project them on a floor in Washington to find the telltales. They even got the ink right. You heard of color-shifting ink?”

“Is this going to cost me extra?”

“Look at it from different angles, it’s different colors. Green and black, mostly. We use it on the new bills now, because it was supposed to be impossible to counterfeit. Well, it isn’t. And the paper is the same, with a cloth fiber content of three-quarters cotton and one-quarter linen.”

“I thought the paper was a secret, like the formula for Coca-Cola.”

“The Norkies were bleaching one-dollar bills for a while but they finally figured the hell with it, that was too expensive, and analyzed the paper six ways from Sunday. Then they started making it on their own. They’re printing this stuff like mail from Ed McMahon. Why do you think American money’s gotten so fancy all of a sudden? Office 39, that’s why. And don’t bother getting used to the new bills, because they’ll have to change again in a few years.”

Rafferty glances at his watch. “So Elson is in Bangkok because the same North Koreans who are making the American play money are also making the Thai stuff.”

“And because they pass a lot of the American counterfeits here.”

“In Bangkok? Why?”

“About the only thing they haven’t figured out is how to get tons of the stuff into the States. About three hundred thousand dollars showed up in Newark on a boat from China a year or so ago, and another seven hundred thousand got snagged in Long Beach. Peanuts, probably just trial runs. So they pass them here, or in the United Kingdom and a bunch of other countries, anywhere they can get them in by the boatload.”

“Still,” Rafferty says, “how many billion U.S. bucks are in circulation? This has got to be like putting a drop of iodine in a swimming pool.”

“People in the Bush administration referred to it as an act of war.”

“To the Bush administration, double-parking is an act of war.”

“Elson’s a Seekie,” Prettyman says. “The guys in the Service are the president’s men, remember? They tend to take the executive branch’s perspective pretty seriously. Also, here’s a chance for them to make headlines. I mean, how often does someone take a shot at the president? You can put on those suits and plug in that earpiece and scan the crowd for your whole career without ever feeling like anything except a civil servant whose feet hurt. But lookie here, a chance to put an end to an act of war.” He fingers the goatee experimentally. “So I’m telling you, don’t get in Elson’s way. He’s gonna run over you like a cement truck hitting a feather. And the Thais won’t lift a finger.”

“I think it’ll be okay. The bills came from a bank. Elson will talk to Rose’s partner, and she’ll clear the whole thing up.”

“You’d better hope so. Speaking of money.” He rolls the tube of paper back and forth beneath his palms.

“Got it,” Rafferty says. He pulls out a wad of money with a rubber band around it. “Two consultations, and what you told me you were paying your guys.” He reaches into his pocket for more. “And the twelve-five.”

“Speaking of my guys,” Prettyman says, taking the money, “they pretty much had you for breakfast yesterday.”

“You heard about that.”

“I didn’t need to hear about it. I can smell it.” He flips through the bills. “No thousands, right?”

“You’re kidding.”

“Uh-uh.” He peels off two thousand-baht bills and hands them back. “Give me five-hundreds. Last thing I need is the Seekies.”

As Rafferty makes the change, Prettyman surveys the room again. It follows the basic scheme: a square bar in the center, surrounding a raised and mirrored stage on which several scantily clad young women sleepwalk each night, more or less rhythmically. The sole distinguishing feature is at the far end of the room: three curtained booths where customers can retire with the sleepwalker of their choice for the house specialty, which requires the sleepwalker to service the seated patron for however long it takes heaven to arrive. This is exactly the kind of bar from which Rose rescued Fon.

“Thinking about an upgrade,” Prettyman says.

“Hard to imagine,” Rafferty says. “The booths are an interesting touch. Curtains and everything. Very upscale.”

“Thanks. But, you know, times change. I think maybe new lights and speakers, maybe a mirror on the stage floor. Old guys get stiff necks trying to look up all the time.”

“Next thing you know, you’ll be serving fruit shakes.”

Prettyman regards the room for another moment, eyes half narrowed to make it look better, then seems to come to a decision. “Tell me what you think of this,” he says, unfolding the paper and turning it so it faces Rafferty. It is a chalk drawing that depicts a neon sign, obviously in the design stage, with penciled measurements in meters scribbled here and there. Most of the space is taken up by a large crimson word in balloon type.

“ ‘Gulp’?” Rafferty says, reading.

“Too subtle?” Prettyman asks. He is frowning down at the page.

“It’s too a lot of things, Arnold, but subtle is not one of them. What’s wrong with ‘Charming’? That’s been the name of this place for years.”

“Fails the basic criteria of business communication,” Prettyman says.

It sounds like he’s reciting something somebody said to him. “Doesn’t tell you anything. Not memorable, not distinctive.”

“But Gulp? As in, ‘Whaddaya say, guys, let’s go down to Gulp?’ Or, ‘No problem, honey, I stopped off at Gulp?’ I don’t know, Arnold.”

Prettyman looks disconcerted. “I was thinking about calling it ‘Lewinsky’s,’ ” he says, “but somebody’s already using it.”

“It’s dated,” Rafferty says, just to mollify him. “Gulp is. . um, timeless.” He looks down at the paper again. “But what’s with the bird?”

Prettyman studies the picture. A blue, somewhat lopsided bird with its wings outstretched hovers above the G in “Gulp.” “Nobody gets it,” he says with some bitterness.

“At least I’ve got company.” Rafferty checks his watch once more.

“You in a hurry?” Prettyman rolls up the paper with uncharacteristic vehemence.

“Come on, Arnold. Tell me about the bird. For once in your life, hand out some free information.”

“It’s a swallow,” Prettyman says shortly.

“I take it all back,” Rafferty says, rising. “You are subtle.”