The Fourth Watcher

23

Months later, when Rafferty looks back on the three days that followed their abandonment of the apartment, what he will remember is the blur of movement, the weight of exhaustion, and the smell of rain. Bits and pieces of what happened will stay with him, hard and flashbulb bright, sharp-edged and fragmentary as reflections in bits of a broken mirror.

Snapshots in a loose pile, random and unsequenced.

Maybe, he will think, it is better that he remembers it that way. Better he doesn’t have to carry with him the fear and the fury, the desperation and the moments of soul-sinking hopelessness when he knew for a certainty that everything he cared about in the world was about to be destroyed, scattered, irretrievably lost.

He doesn’t remember the call he placed to Arthit after his shots chased the three intruders away, but he retains a vivid mental image of the blinking cherry lights on the police cars, four of them, that Arthit dispatched to the basement parking area beneath his building. Cars that took him in one direction and Rose, with Miaow bundled in her arms, in another, the two cars without passengers screeching up the driveway and vanishing aimlessly into the night. He wasn’t there to see it, but he knows that the car carrying Miaow and Rose disappeared into the parking lot of Arthit’s police station. Five minutes later three cars came out again, each taking a different direction. When the driver of the car with Rose and Miaow in it had done enough figure eights to be satisfied that any possible watchers were following the other cars, he took them to Arthit’s house, where Noi let them in, and she and Rose put Miaow to bed.

Rose said it took more than an hour, with both her and Noi sitting at Miaow’s bedside, for the child to fall asleep.

Rafferty remembers very clearly how he felt when Rose told him that. He wanted, slowly and creatively, to kill Arnold Prettyman.

Another detail: the pouches of weariness beneath Arthit’s eyes, shaded a poisonous green by the fluorescent lights bouncing off the walls in the interrogation room where he and Rafferty talked after Rose and Miaow had been safely tucked away. The room is painted that peculiar shade of spoiled pea soup that’s been sold by the millions of gallons to government institutions around the world. Rafferty, whose mind is searching desperately for something neutral to focus on for a moment, finds himself wondering what the salesman’s pitch might possibly be: “It starts ugly and gets worse”?

“He was terrified,” Rafferty says.

Arthit slides a big cop shoe over the scuffed linoleum, producing a gritty sound that makes Rafferty’s teeth itch. “You don’t actually know that, do you? He was a medium-level spook, Poke, delusions of grandeur aside. They’re good actors. Their critics kill them if they’re not convincing.”

“No,” Rafferty says. “He was sweating like a pig.”

“Do pigs sweat?” This is the kind of thing that interests Arthit.

Rafferty makes a show of pulling out his notebook. “That’s a fascinating question, Arthit, one I plan to look into as soon as I have the time.” He writes it down in large letters.

“Curiosity is an essential part of the good policeman’s armament,” Arthit says sententiously, and Rafferty realizes that his friend is trying to calm him. “Almost as important as a strong bladder.”

“So yes, I believe him. I think he was frightened enough to sell me.”

Arthit closes his eyes. He is clearly exhausted. “Before we go shoot him through the head, run it past me again. Just the high points.”

Rafferty begins to check off his fingers, starting with his thumb. “My sainted father emerges from the mists of time-”

“A coelacanth dredged from the depths,” Arthit suggests through a yawn. “The alluvial ancestor of the pangolin.”

Rafferty waves him off and goes to finger number two. “I ask Arnold to employ his skills. Many people who terrify Arnold express interest. He perspires extravagantly and keeps making eyes at his gun.” He raises finger number three, which happens to be the middle one. Arthit eyes it expressionlessly. “The Three Musketeers appear.”

“Well, if you put it like that. .” Arthit says.

Rafferty rests his chin on his hand, realizes it is a mistake, and sits upright. That way, if he goes to sleep, the fall will wake him. “What are those things scientists look for? Starts with a v.”

“Variables,” Arthit says, stressing the patience. “As you know perfectly well.”

“Well, there haven’t been any other variables in my life.”

Arthit sits forward. “You don’t call a U.S. Secret Service agent and thirty thousand in counterfeit money a variable? Your life must be much more interesting than mine.”

“Those people have a plan in place. It has nothing to do with busting into my apartment in the middle of the night with guns in their hands.”

Arthit’s hands are flat on the table. “About your father,” he says. “How much of this do you intend to share with us?”

“With the cops in general, not bloody much. With you personally, everything.”

“And the reason?”

“I still don’t know about those two cops with Elson.”

Arthit is still for a moment, and then he gives Rafferty a minimal nod. “So. We’ve done the A-plus-B thing and come up with C. What about your intuition?”

“What is this, Down with Reason Week? First Arnold, then Rose, now you. Is this some sort of plot to accelerate the decline of the West? Replace the scientific method with feelings?”

“The question stands,” Arthit says.

“All right. In deference to your cultural orientation, I’ll play. My intuition tells me that my father got himself into some very deep shit in China and it’s chased him to Bangkok. And that Arnold got leaned on by the chasers and decided it was easier to sell me than to get his bones broken one at a time.”

“That’s a fair summary,” Arthit says. He cups his hands on the table as though he’s trapped a grasshopper under them. “A little thin on feelings, but fair.”

“Boy. And to think I’ve been selling feelings short.”

“My own personal feeling,” Arthit says, “is that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The Arabs say that.”

“I’m sure they do, but I have no idea what it means in this case. I mean, who’s the enemy?”

“Your enemy,” Arthit says.

“Who’s the other enemy?”

Arthit’s gaze flickers. “You, I suppose.”

“I thought we were friends.”

“No. You’re their enemy.” He sketches an invisible diagram on the table with his fingers and stares at it. “The. . um, enemy’s enemy,” he adds.

“The other enemy,” Rafferty says by way of clarification. “I mean, if I’m an enemy and they’re an enemy, who’s the friend?”

Arthit pulls in the corners of his mouth. “I am?”

Rafferty nods. “Do you know any other Arab sayings that burn to be spoken at the moment?”

“A good friend is like water in your camel,” Arthit says at once.

“I’ve heard that one a million times.”

“Wise people, the Arabs,” Arthit says, nodding sagely.

“They discovered zero,” Rafferty replies, “although I’ve never been sure why that’s anything to write home about.”

“Back to my feelings,” Arthit says, erasing the invisible diagram with his palm. “I feel that this is a good time to go take a tire iron to Arnold.”

“Jesus,” Rafferty says. “I thought you’d never feel that.”

Arnold Prettyman’s top-secret hideaway, which it had taken Arthit fifteen seconds to locate on a computer, is situated in a drab, two-story squat of poured cement. The street-level floor has a slide-down metal door, which is open six inches at the bottom, allowing a splash of light to paint the sidewalk. American screech rock, all guitars and tight-jeans falsetto, is playing loudly inside.

Arthit closes the car door quietly and motions for Rafferty to do the same. He pulls his gun.

Rafferty puts his hand on the grip of his own gun, but Arthit stops him.

“Don’t even think about it,” he says. “If anybody’s going to get shot tonight, he’s going to get shot by a cop.”

Rafferty shakes his head, and Arthit leans in. “Use some sense here,” he hisses. “There’s only so much I can do, Poke. I can’t protect you if you kill someone.”

He holds Poke’s eyes for a moment and then shifts the gun to his left hand, slips his right under the edge of the door, and slams it upward.

Two teenage boys jump to their feet, register Arthit and the gun, and put their hands on top of their heads as if they know the drill. They are covered in grease.

Rafferty scans the shop and sees six or seven motorcycles in various stages of dismemberment. The reason for the boys’ fear is obvious. This is a chop shop, where stolen motorcycles are broken up and combined into new ones.

Arthit wiggles his gun, pointing the barrel at the floor. “Sit,” he says. The boys sit at once, hugging their knees, hands in plain sight. Arthit and Poke zigzag between fragments of motorcycle until they are standing directly over the boys. Arthit studies them for a second and points his gun at the more obviously terrified of the two.

“You. Anyone upstairs?”

“Don’t know,” the boy says. The smears of black grease surrounding his eyes make them a brilliant porcelain white. “People come and go.”

Arthit glances at Rafferty, who shrugs.

“Both of you,” Arthit says. “Give me your wallets.”

The boys shift awkwardly to get their wallets out of their hip pockets and hand them over. Arthit passes them to Rafferty, who pulls out the identity cards and compares them to the faces staring up at him. Allowing for the grease, the boys’ faces match the ones on the cards.

“You’ll get these back when we come down,” Arthit says. “If you’re not here, I promise you a nice long time in the monkey house.

Clear?”

“Clear,” says the tougher of the boys.

Arthit lifts his chin toward the back of the shop, where there is a narrow flight of very steep concrete stairs. Poke follows him, and the music chases them up, echoing in the passageway.

Six feet from the top, Arthit stops and says, “Oh, no.”

By the time Poke smells it, a sharp char of flesh, Arthit is already through the door, his gun extended. He stops there as though he has run into a wall of glass, and Poke stops behind him and looks over his friend’s shoulder, looks at one of those snapshots that will stay with him forever. A single glance brands it on his brain, and he turns away, very quickly, trying to look at anything else in the world. Then he forces himself to face it again.

Arnold Prettyman is wired to a chromium-backed chair, the wire cutting deeply into his arms and shoulders. His hands, wired tightly together, rest in his lap, if “rest” is a word that can be used to describe fists. His head lists to one side at a contortionist’s angle, and the left side of his face is black. His faded blue eyes look at Poke as though Poke were a window. The stench of burned flesh is overpowering. Poke gags.

Arthit automatically looks at his watch and says, “Four-twentythree.” Then his shoulders sag and his head droops forward. “You,” he says to Poke without turning. “Get out of here.”