The Fourth Watcher

32

Peachy 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.”