The Fourth Watcher

33

The sky over Bangkok is as gray as Arthit’s disguise. The weather front has decided to acquire an address and stay. “It cost seven thousand, and it was worth it,” Rafferty says.

“Seven thousand? You mean U.S.?” Arthit is dressed in shapeless, style-free clothing that’s supposed to make him look like a maintenance man, and it might, from across the street. Up close, Arthit is cop all the way through; he has the look of a man who sleeps in his uniform. He picks up his coffee, gives it a sniff, and puts it down again.

“That’s what it cost to trade the Korean money for the real thing,” Rafferty says. “Thirty-one thousand in counterfeit for twenty-three thousand in genuine baht and bucks. I got a special rate, but I had to put in my rainy-day money to get the total up.” Rafferty is on the hassock, giving Arthit the place of honor on the couch. “Something wrong with the coffee?”

“The coffee’s not the problem. Did you have to do that thing with his glasses?”

“Yes,” Rafferty says. “I did.”

“You’ve made an enemy.”

“We weren’t on the same tag team to begin with. And he’s such a hypocrite. He’s carrying enough lube to service a Buick, eating at a no-hands restaurant, and making bar-girl cracks about Rose. And he hasn’t got any lips.”

Arthit smooths the unfamiliar shirt, which sports a patch over the pocket that says paul. “It’s bad policy to make people lose face unnecessarily.”

“It was the best moment of my week.”

“You may need him later.”

Rafferty waves it off, more brusquely than he intends. He’s been having second thoughts, too. “If I need him, I’ll get him. Petchara is the one I’m worried about.”

The light in the apartment thins, and the buildings on the other side of the sliding glass door begin to fade as a falling mist dims the day. “Petchara is spotless,” Arthit says. “No blots at all. Eighteen years on the force and not a complaint from anyone. They’re not going to give the Secret Service some hack.”

“Well, they did. And a crooked hack, at that.”

“I don’t doubt you.” Arthit picks up the coffee and blows on it, although it can’t be much above room temperature by now. He’s been toying with this one cup while Rafferty drank three. “I’m just telling you he’s not an easy target.” He puts the cup down again and glances at his watch, a shiny hunk of shrapnel on a band so loose that the watch continually slips around to the inside of his wrist. That’s where it is at the moment, so Arthit gives it a practiced flip to bring it into position. “Our guys should be on the scene by now.”

“And Ming Li,” Rafferty says, the doubt finding its way into his tone.

“She’ll be fine. The question is where Chu’s local help is at the moment.”

“You want a guess?”

“No,” Arthit says tightly. “But I wouldn’t mind some informed speculation.”

“At least two of them are keeping an eye on this building.”

Arthit gives him a That’s obvious shrug. “I’d hate to think I’m wearing this outfit if nobody’s watching.”

“Chu’s got to have someone on me. He can’t really believe I don’t know where Frank is.”

“That would be the easy way, wouldn’t it? Follow you to Frank and kill everybody, including you, right on the spot and then disappear.”

“Yeah.” Rafferty thinks about it for a second. “Shame I don’t have somebody else behind me.”

“One of ours?”

“Sure. Maybe we could take them.”

Arthit sticks his index finger into the coffee, licks it, and makes a vinegar face. “And the point would be. .? Other than getting Chu pissed off?”

“Corroboration. Suppose Chu’s not staying in the warehouse where they’re keeping Noi and Rose and Miaow. Maybe he’s too smart for that. Maybe he’s in the warehouse next door, or the one two over. I draw him out, he gets spotted, and a few hours later we hit the wrong warehouse. We might as well send in a truck with a loudspeaker: ‘Look, we’re coming!’ I doubt Chu has stayed alive this long by being stupid.”

Arthit picks up the cup, glares at it, and puts it down with a clatter. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”

“Sorry.”

“Damn it. I’m not thinking clearly.” Arthit gets up and goes to the glass door. He opens it, shoving it hard enough to bang it against the frame. “Great following weather,” he says nastily. “Can’t see across the street.”

“Arthit. It’s the weather we’ve got.”

“I don’t even know who I’d call.” Arthit’s hands are jammed into his pockets. From the bulges they make, they’re curled into fists.

Rafferty joins him at the door, and the two of them gaze into the gray. “There are times when I hate this city,” Arthit says. “I don’t know why we stay here. Noi would be happier in some three-buffalo village where I could be the big whistle, chief of police. Get to know everybody’s face, break up the occasional fight, nab the occasional motorcycle rustler, get fat and sloppy, and enjoy the time we have left.”

“I guess that sounds good.”

“I’d be bored senseless, of course. But Noi and I would have more time together.”

“One thing at a time,” Rafferty says. “That seems to be the theme. First, let’s get them back.”

The mist is heavier now, the air is the soft gray of goose down. “Make the call,” Arthit says.

Rafferty spots them through the glass doors of the lobby the moment he gets off the elevator. Two of the three probable cops who showed up at his apartment the night he, Rose, and Miaow ran: the fat one who had the knife and one of the two gunmen, not the leader. They are huddled in a doorway across the street and a few doors down. He turns up his collar, pushes the door open, and goes in the opposite direction without a backward glance.

Colonel Chu should call back in ten or twelve minutes.

Rafferty walks fast, trying to look like a man who knows where he’s going. The mist has intensified to a drizzle. He crosses Silom, dodging cars until he is beneath the elevated track of the Sky Train, hearing brakes behind him as drivers slow for his followers. Prettyman’s laws swarm in his mind, and one floats to the top: Stay out of blind alleys unless you want one.

He wants one.

A left takes him up Patpong, its neon dark, the sidewalks deserted now except for the occasional wet, resentful tout waiting to lure some hapless newcomer into a second-story rip-off bar where he’ll be charged ten dollars for a Coke and a nonexistent floor show. Rafferty waves them off and picks up the pace.

Minus the obstacle course of the night market and the distracted throng of bar customers, Patpong is a surprisingly short street. He reaches Suriwong in about a minute and turns right. Maybe nine minutes now. He reflexively checks his watch, and on the way back down, his hand brushes the Glock jammed into the front of his pants. When he put it there, he made sure the safety was on. Now he’s having some doubts. He can feel the tension gathering beneath his heart, coiling like a living thing in a space too small for it.

The drizzle is shouldered aside by a light rain.

It’s not even noon. Normally the sidewalks would be jammed, but now they gleam almost empty except for the food vendors, busily putting up the plastic tarps that will keep their charcoal burning despite the damp. Smoke and steam mingle into a single, needle-sharp smell.

The tarps are bad for visibility, so Rafferty slows slightly, fighting the urge to make it as difficult for them as possible. The few pedestrians are not taking the rain cheerfully: They glance at the sky, shield their eyes with an open hand, and mutter to themselves. One fat and extremely drunk farang, his shirt half tucked in, his eyes as unfocused as poached eggs, bumps heavily into Rafferty and mumbles an apology that seems to be all consonants. A moment later Rafferty hears it again as the fat man lurches into the pursuers.

Just to get them wetter, Rafferty stops at an ATM. Sheltered by the overhang, he fumbles slowly with his wallet, takes out the wrong card, puts it into the wrong slot, pulls it out, puts it into the right slot backward, tries to force it, then withdraws it, a man defeated by technology. He turns around, watching out of the corner of his eye as the fat cop scrambles back between two parked cars. Wallet in hand, Rafferty stands there, looking irresolute. Then he spends a minute arranging his credit cards in alphabetical order before deciding it’s more harmonious to organize them by color. Then he does it in ascending order of the balance due. The chore done, he slips the wallet back into his pocket and loiters comfortably beneath the overhang, safely out of the rain. He checks the sky and then his watch, then the sky again. With a little surge of malicious pleasure, he sees the rain intensify. He slips his hands into his pockets and leans back against the ATM to wait it out, and his cell phone rings.

The display says chu. Rafferty takes two fast, deep breaths, flips the phone open, and says, “I still don’t know where he is.”

“You brought me out in this weather to tell me that?”

“This is nothing,” Rafferty says. “By Bangkok standards this is sunny.”

“According to my watch, you have a little less than nine hours left.”

“It might as well be nine days. I’ll never find him.”

“This is your problem, not mine.”

“Really? I thought you wanted him.”

“You’re his son,” Chu says. “He came to Bangkok because you’re here. He’ll get in touch with you again.”

“I doubt it. I pretty much told him to go fuck himself.”

“You said that to your father? I’m glad you’re not my son.”

“That’s two of us.”

Chu clucks in disapproval. “No one should speak to his father like that.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t know him like I do.”

“I think I know him much better than you do. Until recently, I actually liked him.”

“I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry you have problems with your father,” Chu says slowly. “That’s a terrible thing. But believe me, he’ll try to overcome it. Put yourself in his shoes. You’re a father now-”

“Don’t,” Rafferty says. “You, of all people. Don’t say another word.”

“Time is passing, Mr. Rafferty.”

“He didn’t come here to see me,” Rafferty says.

“Of course he did.” Chu actually sounds surprised. “Why else would-”

“I was an afterthought. As usual. He came here to sell something.”

There is a silence on the line. Rafferty scans the street and sees the fat cop still huddled behind the parked car. Then Chu says, “He told you that?”

“That was one of his topics.”

“Did he tell you what it was?”

“I didn’t care enough to ask.”

“It will be extremely unfortunate for you if he succeeds.”

“If it’s any comfort to you, I didn’t get the impression he was in a hurry.”

“Oh, he’s in a hurry,” Chu says. “And you should be, too. Don’t call me again unless you have something to tell me.”

“Got it.”

“And if I don’t hear from you, I’ll make sure you know where to find them. What’s left of them.” Chu hangs up.

Rafferty’s heart is pounding in his ears like a battering ram, and his lips feel thinner than Elson’s. He jams his finger at the button to return the call, and the phone rings for a long time before Chu picks it up and says, “What?”

“You don’t get the last line,” Rafferty says. “Listen to me. If you kill the cop’s wife, you’re dead. This is a guy who knows everybody. He’s assigned to help the United States government on terrorist issues, the Muslim unrest in the south, and all that. He’s connected like a fucking octopus. And I personally guarantee you that if anything happens to my wife and daughter, I will devote my life to finding you and killing you. And don’t think I can’t find you. You were the other thing my father talked about.”

“I’m terrified. Are you finished? I’m getting wet.”

“No, I’m not finished. You hurt them and you’ll spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.”

“I already spend my life looking over my shoulder. But thanks for the tip about the cop. And don’t call back until you’re ready to tell me where Frank is.” Lightning freezes the day for a second, and there is a burst of static on the line. When Chu comes back, he is saying, “Tick, tick, tick.” Then he hangs up again.

Rafferty slams the phone closed with such force he cracks the display screen on the outside of it. Black paramecia swarm through the rain in front of his eyes. He grabs his wallet, turns back to the ATM, pushes in a card, and then reaches down and flicks off the safety on the Glock. He keys in his PIN, waits, snatches the ten thousand baht from the machine’s jaws, and pockets it, along with his card. Then he walks straight across the sidewalk and into the street. A truck is lumbering past, and Rafferty slants past it as it roars by, then darts behind it and runs alongside for a quarter of a block before peeling off and crossing the rest of the way to the sidewalk. He slows to a quick walk without looking back.

Half a block past Patpong, the sidewalk borders a construction site for a building that has been going up for years. Hiding it from the sidewalk is an ugly fence of rippled metal. It has an opening in it just wide enough for one person to slip through, and Rafferty snags his shirt as he squeezes through it. He finds himself in an expanse of mud, liberally pockmarked by puddles too wide to jump: red-brown mud and the slate gray sky framed on the surface of the standing water. The skeleton of the building stretches skyward to disappear into the rain and mist. The floors and the elevator shafts are in place. Rafferty thinks briefly about the elevator and then dismisses it. All they’ll have to do is wait at the bottom.

He needs them closer.

He hears the corrugated fence creak as the two of them force their way through the opening.

Work on the site has been called on account of the rain, but in a small trailer all the way across the site a light gleams through the falling water. The door is on the far side, and he heads for it, his feet slipping in the mud. It seems to take much longer to reach it than it should, and his back feels like it’s six feet wide and painted bright orange, but eventually he is there, and he circles around, climbs the first two of the four steps leading to the trailer, and tries the door.

It opens. The light inside is a leathery yellow, an incandescent bulb in a lampshade the color of parchment. No one home.

Moving quickly, he climbs the last two steps, leaving muddy footprints on them, and plants his boots on the floor. The trailer sags slightly beneath him. He moves left, all the way to a door, which he opens. It’s a bathroom. He leaves the door ajar and then pulls off his shoes and backtracks, avoiding his footprints. At the top of the stairs, he jumps. The mud underfoot is amazingly cold.

He figures they will split up and come around both sides of the trailer, so he drops to his belly and slithers beneath its center, pulling himself along on his elbows until he is facing back the way he came. In a moment he sees their boots approaching.

They pause in front of the trailer and hold a whispered conversation. The one on the right-the thinner one, Rafferty guesses-is in charge. He has the last word. They do as Rafferty expected, one going left and the other right. Silently, Rafferty pulls himself around 180 degrees so he is looking at the side of the trailer where the door is.

The two pairs of boots trudge through the mud, pausing cautiously at the trailer’s corners, approach the steps, and stop. They are probably listening. Then one of them disappears behind the steps, followed by the other. Rafferty can no longer see their feet.

But he can hear them. More whispering, followed by the sound of one pair of boots climbing the steps. The door opens, hard and fast. An instant later the other follows.

Rafferty is out from under the trailer in two seconds flat, clawing at the gun. It is in his hand as he steps through the door and realizes immediately that he has made a mistake.

The fat one is to his left, in front of the bathroom door. He turns in surprise as the trailer dips beneath Rafferty’s weight, glances at the gun, and brings his hands up, but he’s not the one Rafferty is thinking about as the door creaks behind him. A point of ice touches the back of his neck.

“Put the gun on the desk,” the man behind him says in Thai. The fat one smiles. He has a merry smile.

“Or what?” Rafferty says, not moving.

“Or I’ll shoot you. It’s not what I’m supposed to do, but right now your gun is all I’m thinking about.”

“How about this? How about you give me your gun, or I shoot your friend.”

“That’s his problem,” says the man behind him. The fat one’s smile slips a notch.

“Shoot me and Chu will kill you.”

“Chu’s not here,” says the fat one. “You are.”

Moving slowly, Rafferty puts his gun on the work desk to his right. “Now what?”

“Now is a little awkward,” says the man behind him. “Why didn’t you just let us follow you? Why did you have to make fools of us?”

“With all due respect,” Rafferty says, “I just put my gun down, and you didn’t. I think that makes me the fool.”

“It’s a problem,” says the fat one, not entirely unsympathetically. “You spotted us, you pulled us into this place. Our superiors won’t be happy.”

“Why don’t we just keep it to ourselves?” Rafferty says. “Go somewhere, get dry, maybe have a cup of coffee.”

“You’re joking,” says the one behind him. He prods Rafferty’s neck with the gun. “Take three steps forward.”

“I’ll buy,” Rafferty says. Once he has moved, there will be no way he can reach the gun.

“You shouldn’t have embarrassed us,” says the fat one.

Another prod. “I said move.”

“Oh, come on. There’s got to be a way-”

“Now.”

Rafferty steps forward, and as he does so, he sees the fat one reach behind himself, sees his hand come back with the long knife in it.

The fat one shrugs an apology and starts to move in, and Rafferty balances on the balls of his feet, ready to leap forward. Then the man behind Rafferty gasps, and the cold spot of the gun barrel disappears. The fat one backs up hastily, fast enough to bang his back on the bathroom door.

Rafferty turns, sees the arm around the thin one’s throat, the gun at his temple, and behind him the cold, calm eyes of Leung.