The Queen of Patpong

Chapter 24

On the phone Arthit says, "We've found three so far."

Rafferty is jammed up against the door on the passenger side of the cab, the bandaged elbow lifted awkwardly over his chest so he doesn't lean on it. The driver's seat is pushed all the way back, so Miaow had volunteered to sit behind it, but now she's toppled sideways, her head on her arm and her eyes closed. She's probably exhausted from the energy she burned on the stage. Her yellowish chop of hair is inches from Rafferty's knee, and it takes an effort not to rest a protective hand on it. But he doesn't want to wake her, and she'd hate it anyway, so he concentrates on speaking quietly into the phone. "That was quick," he says.

"I found a Phuket cop who's been assigned to an inactive post, and I offered him money. You owe me ten thousand baht, by the way. And he's only started."

"Inactive posts" are a uniquely Thai way of saving institutional face while dealing with the inept or the haplessly corrupt who get caught in plain sight; they're assigned to an empty desk in front of a bare wall and have to show up every day to punch the clock and sit there as they slowly descend into madness. The poor guy in Phuket probably leaped at the offer.

"You think there will be more?" Rafferty is looking out the window at a surprising flow of traffic for 4:00 P.M. They're doing maybe ten, twelve kilometers per hour.

"What I think is that he found records of three dead girls in about four hours," Arthit says. "Horner has been coming in and out of the country several times a year for almost twelve years. So yes, I think there will be more."

"And they match his dates here."

"So far. All either while he was here or within ten days after he left. The one who was found late had been in the water longer than the others."

"Any identities?"

"No. But they're all in their late teens or early twenties. Right in the range."

Rafferty glances over at Miaow, whose eyes are still closed, and cups the phone, bringing it so close to his mouth that his lips brush it. "What about cause of death?"

"They all had knife wounds. No real autopsies, so we don't know whether they were alive when they went into the water."

"When you say knife wounds…"

"I mean carved. Thirty or forty cuts. Shallow, deep, straight, curved. Little designs here and there. Wounds that would have taken time. He enjoyed himself."

"There would have been a lot of screaming," Rafferty says, practically whispering. He feels the driver's eyes on him in the mirror, and he stares back. The man, a turbaned Sikh, returns his gaze to the road. "No wonder he keeps going back to those rocks."

Arthit says, "There will be more, Poke."

"Son of a bitch. He almost had Rose."

"And if she's right," Arthit says, "he's got another one picked out right now."

"I've got some thoughts about how to nail him. If he hasn't already killed the new one, I mean."

"Officer Inactive Post is looking now at the period of time when Horner took that girl Oom out of the Candy Cane. Rose says Oom had a little tattoo, a heart, on her shoulder blade. All the girls are tattooed these days, but it was unusual back then. Even without an autopsy, somebody would have made a note of the tattoo. He's going through the case files, such as they are. So we'll see."

"See what?"

"Whether we can make this official. Get cops on it, above the table, not like Kosit and Anand."

"I need to think about that."

"Poke, I'm a cop. If we've got a witness who says Horner tried to kill her, and a body that's got the same tattoo as a girl he took to Phuket, there's a solid case. I'm going to have to bring the department in."

"One thing at a time, okay?" Rafferty says, "So far you haven't got it all."

"But I might in about ten minutes," Arthit says. He speaks more softly, a sign he wants to be listened to. "And just to remind you, there may be a girl right now who's-"

"Hold it," Rafferty says. The cab is slowing and slanting left, toward the curb. "What's happening?" he asks the driver.

The man behind the wheel avoids looking in the rearview mirror and shrugs. He says, "Sorry."

"Sorry for what?" The car stops next to a black SUV, a Land Rover or some other hulk. "Why are you stopping?" Rafferty leans forward, over the seat back, and on the driver's seat, an inch or two from the man's thigh, is a small digital print of a color photo: him and Miaow emerging from Mrs. Shin's soi.

Rafferty grabs the driver's shoulder, but the doors to the black SUV open and two very large men climb out. They're wearing camouflage pants, tight T-shirts, and motorcycle helmets with reflective visors, and the nearest one yanks open the door of Rafferty's cab and wraps big hands around Miaow's ankles.

She comes awake with a scream, instinctively kicking at the man's hands, but the man manages to snag the cuff of her jeans, and then he grasps the leg in both hands and pulls, putting his back into it, and Miaow, flailing with her one free leg, starts to slide across the backseat as the cab glides slowly into motion again. Rafferty manages to get his hands beneath her arms and pull, but the door behind him opens, and he pitches backward until he bumps up against someone-the second man-and an unyielding arm goes around his throat. The arm tightens until it cuts off his air, and he reflexively reaches up with one hand to pry it loose. Miaow pops out of his grip. She's snatching at everything in sight, but she's no match for the other man's strength, and she slips away, toward the open door. Flailing wildly, she starts to scream again, but then her shoulders clear the edge of the seat and she falls, the back of her head striking the bottom of the door with a sound like a cracking egg, and the next thing Rafferty knows, she's lying faceup on the pavement. The car continues to creep forward.

The man bends down to pick her up.

Rafferty reaches behind himself and finds the handle of the open door. He bangs it repeatedly against the man who's choking him, hitting his bad elbow against the front seat each time, but he hasn't got a good enough angle to do any damage. Still, it's an irritant, and the man shifts his weight to yank Rafferty out, and instead of resisting, Rafferty jams his legs against the driver's seat and shoves himself backward with all his strength. The man behind him, prepared for resistance, is sent staggering, obviously into the traffic lane, because there's a squeal of brakes, and he lets go of Rafferty's neck.

Rafferty turns and grabs the man's nearer hand, yanks it into the cab, and slams the door on the wrist, which is full of delicate little bones. The door rebounds open, and there's a rewarding bellow of pain, followed by the clamor of crumpling metal and breaking glass as one car rear-ends another.

Rafferty's almost out of the cab, pulling himself through the door Miaow vanished through, but she's four or five feet behind now, because the cab has continued to creep forward. As he slips through the door, he leans over and slugs the driver as hard as he can on the nape of the neck, just beneath the edge of the turban. The man's head snaps back and then forward, and he instinctively jams on the brakes so that Rafferty, prepared to move forward when he hits the pavement, is left windmilling his arms for balance.

The man who pulled Miaow from the cab is crouching beside her, slipping his arms beneath her shoulders and knees, so he's defenseless when she rolls onto her side and sinks both hands into his trousers at the crotch. His knees straighten convulsively, and Miaow comes up with him, dangling from his testicles, as the other man, the man whose wrist Rafferty just tried to break, blindsides Rafferty and knocks him sprawling. Rafferty lands heavily on the asphalt, his head ringing, and the man sidesteps to Rafferty's midsection, lifts a booted foot, and drives it into Rafferty's solar plexus. Then he does it again.

Rafferty's head and knees snap upward as though he's being folded in half. He feels like he's been yanked inside out and everything he's ever eaten in his life is coming back up, and he's vaguely aware of the cab rolling around the corner of a soi.

He rolls to one elbow-the bad one-to vomit, but the man above him grabs Rafferty's hair with both hands, hauling his shoulders up off the asphalt, and Rafferty reaches back, squeezes the bad wrist, and twists, trying to rotate the damaged bones. The man roars and tries to yank free. The other guy is backing away from Miaow now, dragging her along on the road's surface, her hands knotted on his scrotum. She's emitting a high, earsplitting squeal, as even and unvarying as an electronic alarm. Her assailant brings up a hand and hits her with a heavy slap that rocks her head and loosens her grip, and she pitches forward onto her stomach. The man brings back a foot to kick her.

Something breaks through the edge of Rafferty's vision, more a blur than an image, and the younger cop, Anand, flies through the air and hits the man above Miaow low in the abdomen, with a broad shoulder. The man has one leg upraised to boot Miaow, and he goes down, landing with all his weight on his left knee. He lets loose a red, throat-shredding scream, as much rage as pain, and grabs the knee, trying to rise, and the man whose wrist Rafferty is squeezing brings one of his knees into Rafferty's spine, just beneath the shoulder blades. Rafferty yanks on the damaged wrist, pulling the man sideways, to his left, and then tugs the wrist straight down, and the man drops helplessly to his knees, his free hand scrabbling in the pocket of his jeans and coming up with a leather sheath, about six inches long. Rafferty sees the bone handle of the knife and twists the wrist, trying to grind the bones to splinters, but the man doesn't seem to feel it as he uses his forearm to raise the visor on his helmet a few inches and pops the clasp over the handle with his teeth.

The square jaw is enough to confirm to Rafferty that the man is Horner.

At the sight of that face, Rafferty feels himself double in size with pure, burning fury. Nothing hurts, nothing is stiff or sore. The day brightens before his eyes, and his mind is moving so fast he can see the specks of dust floating between him and Horner, so fast it gives him time to plan the move that brings the palm of his free hand up sharply beneath the tip of the leather sheath, driving it up, tearing Horner's lip and maybe breaking an incisor, then smashing into his nose. Horner's mouth goes wide with pain, and blood spurts from his nose, and Rafferty grabs the sheath and jerks it away, but the knife slips out of it, glinting in the sunlight, still in Horner's hand. Feeling as though he has all the time in the world, Rafferty slaps both hands on the sides of the helmet and lifts up, popping the helmet off like a bottle cap, and then he slams Horner's forehead with the heel of his hand, driving it into the door of the stopped car behind him, and when Horner's head bounces back, Rafferty does it again as the car's driver twists her own head around, looking horrified. When the head bounces this time, Rafferty can see the dent in the door.

But as he raises his hand to strike again, there's a scuffling sound, and he snaps his head around to see Anand with his arm encircling the throat of the man-it has to be John-who pulled Miaow from the cab. John uses the strength of panic to bend forward sharply enough to pull Anand off his feet, turning him into a sort of human knapsack, then straightens abruptly and brings his head back trying to smash Anand's nose.

Motion to the left, and Rafferty instinctively jumps away. Horner leaps toward Rafferty with a deep grunt of effort, the knife slicing air in a long arc that barely misses Rafferty's face and chest. All Rafferty can do is retreat as Horner slides forward without raising his feet, the knife cutting from side to side like jagged writing in the air, and then Rafferty feels his shoulder strike something or someone, and Kosit shouts into his ear, "Don't move!" He's beside Rafferty, his gun extended, pointing at the center of Horner's chest.

Rafferty glances over and sees Anand holding a gun on John as Miaow gets to her feet. Her cheeks are wet and shiny, and the left side of her face is scarlet where she was hit, but she seems more angry than frightened.

Kosit says, "Drop the knife."

Horner's eyes shift left and right, and he finds himself in front of the gap between the grille of the black SUV and the trunk of another car. Behind him the sidewalk is dense with people, even more than usual, since dozens have stopped to watch the fight and the rear-end collision. Horner takes a deliberate step back, between the cars.

Kosit says again, "Don't move."

Horner grins, his teeth large and square. He says, "Fuck you."

"I'm telling you-" Kosit says.

Horner retreats another step, putting him close to the crowd. People are trying to move away now, but they're held in place by the press of bodies behind them. "Nine-millimeter," Horner says, stepping back again. "Let's say you hit me. Odds are, it'll go through. You ready to kill whoever's behind me?"

Kosit says, "I'll risk it."

Horner clears his throat and spits at Rafferty. Then he says, "No you won't." With a quick, fluid movement, he's up on the curb, straight-arming his way into the crowd. His head, with its distinctive, short-cut helmet of hair, rises above the dark hair of the Thais, but there's little Kosit can do except watch him shoulder a path for himself until he's broken through, and then he begins to run.

Kosit takes off after him, staying in the street, and then something cracks against the side of Rafferty's head, knocking him sideways, and he looks up to see John run past him, only slightly favoring the knee he landed on. John dodges into traffic, and Rafferty sees the same broad back he had chased into the Beer Garden-how many days ago?

Across this very road.

Anand is already chasing John, but Rafferty grabs the back of his shirt and shouts, "Stay with Miaow!" then plunges into the traffic, in time to see John leap onto the center island, his arms extended to his left, palms out, to signal the traffic on the other side to stop. Miraculously, it does, and John darts across the three center lanes, still looking to his left when he enters the last lane, the reverse-direction lane where the traffic is coming from his right, and there's a tremendous rush of air under pressure, a loud, rasping horn, and a panicked squeal of brakes, and a bus slams into John, knocks him, limp-jointed, about eight feet, and then runs over him. The bus is still fighting to come to a stop when the truck that's following it hits what's left of John like he's a speed bump.

Rafferty is at the center island by then, and he realizes that Kosit is standing beside him, panting with his jaw hanging open. John is crumpled across the asphalt, his silhouette so broken he looks like clothes draped over a scattering of rocks. A wide pool of dark liquid surrounds his head.

Rafferty snatches at Kosit's sleeve and says, "Come on."

"But," Kosit says, "he's-"

"If you're a cop for sixty years," Rafferty says, "you'll never see anyone any deader. Let's get out of here."

He tows Kosit back through traffic that has come to a total stop as drivers gape at the accident on the other side. "Horner?" he asks.

"Gone. The cab was waiting for him."

"Well, hell." They jog over toward Miaow and Anand.

Kosit says, "When you tell Arthit about this, make something up. Something where Anand and I come out looking good."

"Horner's a pro," Rafferty says. "This is what he does for a living. There's one down anyway." Miaow sees him coming and drops Anand's hand. She runs to Rafferty and throws both arms around him. He hugs her so tightly she squeaks. "Are you all right?"

She wriggles free. "I have a headache."

"We'll get you to a doctor."

Miaow steps back to get a better look at his face. "It's a headache. I don't need a doctor."

"Well, you're going to get one."

"What's he going to say? 'Looks like you bumped your head'?" Then, with no transition, she's crying, and Rafferty kneels in front of her, his hands on her shoulders.

Anand comes up to them, seeming younger than ever. "Sorry, sorry. I looked at the one who ran first, and my guy clobbered me." He glances across the street, eyebrows raised in a question.

Rafferty says, "Over there."

"I heard the brakes. Dead?"

"By a broad margin." Rafferty rises, a hand on Miaow's shoulder. "Come on."

"We're cops," Kosit says. "We should-"

"You do what you want. I'm leaving. Although maybe Anand should stay and take care of having the SUV towed, get somebody tracing its papers. Anand, you don't know anything about the guy across the street, okay?"

Kosit and Anand exchange glances.

Rafferty says, "There's no way to explain this without bringing it all down on Arthit's head."

Kosit nods. "You didn't see anything," he tells Anand. He starts toward his car and says over his shoulder, "You'll both ride with me."

"Fine," Rafferty says. "Now."

Anand says, following, "Both of those guys, when we first saw them, did you notice?"

"Thanks for helping Miaow," Rafferty says, rubbing a circle in the center of her back.

"She was helping herself," Anand says. "Did you notice their clothes?"

"No. There wasn't time to-"

Anand looks questioningly at Kosit, who's opening the door of an unmarked car. Kosit says, "I didn't notice anything either."

"I did," Miaow says. She sniffles and wipes her face with her forearm. "The man who pulled me out of the car had blood all over him."