The Fourth Watcher pr-2

by Timothy Hallinan

  Except for Ming Li, slowly sinking to her knees in the hallway. Behind her the older cop, Kosit, is staring down, his gun dangling forgotten in his hand. Leung says, “Cuffs here, now,” and Kosit tears his eyes away, comes into the room, and secures the Korean’s hands with flexible plastic cuffs, yanking them so tight that the Korean feels it even through the pain of his wounds, and grunts.

  Rafferty crawls on all fours to the doorway. Ming Li throws him a single terrified glance and then begins again to pump with all her weight, her hands cupped and centered over Arthit’s heart.

  37

  He Doesn’t Deserve You

  "It’s melted,” Miaow says accusingly. “So what?” Chu has three pistols partly disassembled on

  the crate beside him, and metallic fumes of machine oil compete with the deep-fried smell of the chicken and fries. The cleaning rod in his right hand slides through the barrel of the gun in his left. The cop who’d been on guard sits sulking on another crate, halfway across the warehouse. His upper lip is split and so swollen it has lifted to reveal his teeth. Every few minutes he probes the broken one with his tongue and inhales sharply at the pain.

  Chu pulls out the rod and studies the cloth it is wrapped in. Satisfied, he puts the gun down and picks up another. To Miaow he says, “Your father said you wanted strawberry because it’s pink. It’s still pink.”

  “You talked to Poke?” Rose asks.

  “We never stop talking,” Chu says, eyes on his work. “We should get a special rate from the cell-phone company.”

  “How is he?”

  “How would he be? He’s worried.”

  Miaow says, “He’ll get you.”

  Chu shakes his head but doesn’t look up from the gun. “I doubt that. Compared to some of the people who have tried to get me, he’s thin porridge.”

  Rose takes one of the chicken nuggets and feeds it to Noi, who chews it slowly, her eyes closed. She has refused to look at Chu since the moment he broke the guard’s tooth.

  “Poke’s not afraid of you,” Miaow says.

  “Neither are you.” Chu sights down the barrel of the gun. “But being brave isn’t the same thing as being smart.”

  Miaow regards him for a moment and then dredges a piece of chicken through her milk shake and eats it. She slides her eyes to Rose, waiting for a reproof.

  Giving the task all his attention, Chu serenely slides the rod into the barrel. His concentration is complete. He might be a doctor sterilizing his surgical instruments or a violinist tending to his strings. The door to the warehouse bangs open, and Pradya, the fat policeman, comes in. He’s soaked to the skin, and his wet hair has been blown stiffly to the left. It looks like something has been dropped, at an acute angle, on his head. He has to put his back to the door and push to close it against the wind.

  “Where have you been?” Chu says, irritated at the distraction. He pulls out the rod, glances at the cloth, and starts on the third gun.

  Pradya wipes his face. “All over the place. We picked him up a few blocks from the apartment, and then he sat with some woman in a restaurant. After a while a girl went in and sat with them.”

  “A girl?” Chu says. He is scraping at something on the trigger guard with the yellow fingernail on his right little finger, a nail so long it has begun to curve under.

  “A Thai schoolgirl. Young, maybe seventeen. They were watching a bank across the street.”

  Rose inhales sharply enough for Chu to hear her. He stops working on the gun.

  “A schoolgirl?” Chu asks her. “What’s he doing with a schoolgirl?”

  “How would I know?” Rose says. “I’m here.”

  Chu weighs the gun in his hand, but he is not thinking about the gun. “Is Sriyat still following them?”

  “Yes,” Pradya says, “but it’s hard. We had to do most of it with binoculars, from at least a block away. They’re all keeping their eyes open.”

  Chu turns his head an inch or two. He seems to be listening for something, perhaps in a corner of the warehouse. He says, “All?”

  Pradya shifts his weight uncomfortably. “Rafferty, the girl, and a guy they hooked up with later.”

  “Hooked up with where?” Chu glares at the cop and snaps his fingers. “This isn’t a television serial. Tell me the fucking story. What are they doing?”

  Pradya goes through it: the man from the bank, the Korean, the envelopes, the followers splitting up. He and Sriyat had split up, too. “I stayed with Rafferty, but Sriyat says the Korean guy met another guy from another bank. Same thing. They swapped envelopes, and after the Korean left, the girl followed him. The man with her grabbed the guy from the bank and took away the envelope. Then he got into a police car, with her husband”-he indicates Noi-“driving. Rafferty was in the car, too.”

  Chu thinks for a moment. The gun comes to rest flat on his leg. “Banks,” he says. His eyes close and reopen, focused on something that isn’t there. “Nothing to do with me.” Without looking down, he slides the automatic back and forth along his thigh, polishing it, as he studies the gloom in the corner. “But maybe Rafferty doesn’t know that.”

  After a moment Pradya says, “Whatever you say.”

  Chu stops the polishing and sits still. He pushes his lower lip forward. “I don’t like it. It must be important or he wouldn’t be wasting time on it.”

  Rose says, “I know what he’s doing. It’s not about you.”

  Chu looks at her, the sharp-cut eyes hooded. Daring her to tell him a lie. “Go on.”

  Rose tells him about the counterfeit money and the visit from Elson. “He’s trying to help Peachy and me,” she says.

  Chu leans back, tilts his head up, and studies the ceiling. When the words come, they are slow and dreamy, a thought spoken to the air. “And where did he get his help?”

  Rose sits a bit straighter. “I don’t know.”

  Chu’s gaze, when it strikes her, is as fast as a lash. “Where did he get his help?”

  “I told you, I don’t-”

  “Describe them,” Chu says to Pradya, his voice garrote tight. “The girl and the man. Describe them.”

  Pradya closes his eyes for a better look. “The girl, like I said, about seventeen, Thai school uniform, Chinese-looking but got something about her.”

  “That suggests she might be a mix,” Chu says. His voice could grate stone. He clears his throat violently and spits. “And the man is wiry, medium height, and very fast.”

  Pradya nods, licks his lips, and nods again, more vigorously.

  “Your husband has a snake for a mother,” Chu says. “He’s playing with me.” In a single fluid motion, he gets to his feet, snatches up a magazine, and slaps it into the gun in his hand. The barrel of the gun is pointed at Rose’s head. “I should kill you right now,” Chu says.

  Miaow deliberately puts down her milk shake, stands, and takes two steps, placing herself between him and Rose.

  “Good idea,” Chu says. “Save me a bullet.”

  Rose puts a hand on Miaow’s arm and pushes her aside. Miaow twists away and steps in front of her again. Rose steers her away again and says, “Not the child.”

  Chu lets the gun go back and forth between them, and then he spits onto the floor. He turns and kicks the crate he’s been sitting on. “Ahhhhhh,” he says. “He doesn’t deserve you. Either of you.” His eyes drop to the gun in his hand, and he puts it on the crate, beside the others. “And what good would it do?” For a moment his body goes loose, his face slack. “The girl,” he says, as though to himself. He turns to Pradya. “Get back there. Do whatever you have to do. I don’t care if you have to shoot people. Bring me that girl. And you,” he says to the one with the broken tooth. “Move these people. I want them out of here in an hour.”

  PART IV

  MILLION-DOLLAR MINUTE

  38

  We’ve Got People to Kill

  The mask is clear plastic, more terrible because it hides nothing. It cups Arthit’s nose, his slack mouth, and his chin. A t
ransparent tube runs into it, supplying oxygen; one of

  the medical technicians had carefully stubbed out his cigarette before turning the valve on the tank he had wheeled up behind him. The banging of the tank against the stairs is the first sound Rafferty can remember since the shot from Ming Li’s gun that put the Korean down. The ten or twelve minutes between the time he saw Arthit sprawled on the hallway floor and the bumpy progress of the tank up the stairs seem to have passed in complete silence.

  Rafferty, collapsed heavily on the couch, can’t look at Arthit’s paper-white face, can’t look at the mask. A pink froth of blood speckles the inner surface. It looks like Arthit chewed a pencil eraser and spit it out.

  “The lung,” says the medical tech who is holding the mask in place. He lifts one of Arthit’s eyelids, peers under it, and lets it drop. “The bullet hit the lung. Probably took a bounce off a rib. No exit wound, so it’s still in there somewhere. Maybe a.22, not enough velocity for a pass-through.”

  To Rafferty it seems that the tech is speaking very slowly. Everything that is happening in the tight knot of people gathered around Arthit seems to take an excruciatingly long time. He lowers his eyes again until he is looking at the suitcase between his knees. The suitcase is safe to look at.

  From Rafferty’s left, the older cop, Kosit, says, “It’s a.22.” Kosit has the Korean’s gun wrapped in a handkerchief.

  Rafferty knows he has to get up, knows he and Ming Li and Leung have to get out of there, but he can’t make himself move. Arthit going down; Arthit hitting the floor; the blood on Arthit’s shirt. .

  “What about him?” asks the other tech, thumbing the Korean, trussed and bleeding on the floor in front of the couch.

  “Fuck him,” says the first tech. “Let the second team-”

  “Blood pressure dropping,” says the second tech. His voice is tight.

  “Up and out,” the first tech says. “Now.” The two techs and their helpers lift the stretcher and carry it down the hall, moving fast. Rafferty hears their feet on the stairs, synchronized with the flashes of red on the ceiling, thrown by the lights on the ambulance below.

  He feels the young cop’s eyes on him. “I saw what you did,” the young cop says. “I saw you take the money.”

  “I did. . I did what Arthit would have done,” Rafferty says. In fact, he can barely remember his frenzied rush through the apartment, fueled by sheer terror at the thought of Arthit’s dying. He couldn’t help Arthit, but he had to do something. What he recalls is a blur of motion, punctuated by full-stop images: a closet filled waist-high with neatly stacked brand-new counterfeit bills, a canvas bag stuffed with loose money, dirty and well handled, a big hard-sided suitcase under the bed. He and Leung jamming money into the suitcase, Leung grabbing the canvas bag. But now that energy is gone. Now there’s nothing except the apartment, the sound of the men rushing downstairs, and the weight of his own body. He can’t lift his head to meet the cop’s stare. He remains focused on the suitcase and, beyond it, the bare feet of the wounded Korean. If he raises his eyes, he’ll see the broad smears of blood on the front of Ming Li’s white blouse, as though someone had wiped a paintbrush across it.

  Arthit’s blood.

  “You can’t just steal-” the young cop begins.

  Kosit says, “Stop it. Just shut up.”

  “You saw us together,” Rafferty says to the younger cop. He can barely form the words. “We’re friends. We did this together. I did what he would have wanted me to do.”

  “It’s true,” Kosit says. “Arthit talked about him all the time. They were friends.”

  “We are friends,” Rafferty says sharply. “He’s not dead.”

  No one replies. Kosit studies the floor.

  “Oh, dear sweet God,” Rafferty hears himself say.

  “We have to go,” Leung says from the window. “More cops will be coming.”

  “Coming?” Kosit says. “They should be here by now.”

  Rafferty says, to no one in particular, “I’m not sure I can stand up.”

  “Yes you can.” Ming Li is standing in front of him, although he isn’t aware of her having crossed the room. “You have to.”

  “What you have to do is get out of here,” Kosit says. “You’re just going to make things more complicated. Arthit is the only one who can explain why you were here in the first place. Not to mention why you’re with a couple of Chinese.” He goes to the doorway and looks down the hall. “If my colleagues find you here, they’ll take you all in. I’m not sure even Arthit could get you out of it. Even if Arthit. .” The words hang unfinished.

  “Listen to him, Poke,” Ming Li says. “If they arrest you, if you’re not there to meet Chu at five-thirty, your wife and daughter will die. I promise you. He’ll kill them.”

  Kosit turns back to the room. “Whatever this is about, get moving. And use the back door. We called in more than ten minutes ago. They’ll be here any second.” He fumbles in his pocket and comes out with a card, which he extends to Leung. “Give this to him. It’s got my name and number. You,” he says to Rafferty. “Wake up. Do what you’re supposed to do. You can call me later about Arthit, about how he’s doing.”

  “Poke,” Ming Li says. She bends down, bringing her face to his. He feels the warmth of her breath. “One thing at a time, remember? Right now we need to go. The only thing that matters is getting out of here.

  You can’t help Arthit now.” He feels her hands on his arm, feels the strength flowing from them, and somehow he finds himself on his feet. Leung has come from nowhere to grasp his other arm, and Rafferty hears a grunt as Leung lifts the suitcase with his free hand. Ming Li has picked up the canvas bag. Propelled between them, Rafferty sees the straight lines of the door grow nearer, as though the wall were coming toward him in some amusement-park mystery house, and then the hallway slides past and he is on the stairs, the world tilting downward. Leung moves in front of him to catch him if he falls.

  Outside, car doors closing, men’s voices.

  “Faster,” Ming Li says, and then they’re through the back door.

  Rain slaps Rafferty in the face. His eyes sting.

  Two steps lead down to a small garden: broad-leaved palms whipping around in the wind, tall ferns blown almost flat against the ground, black water standing a few inches deep. In one corner the spirit house, made of rough wood, has toppled over. The garden ends in a low, unpainted wooden gate, and beyond and above it there’s a streetlight, a yellow flame in a halo of rain.

  “Don’t move,” Leung says. He drops the suitcase in front of them and goes through the gate without a backward glance. The gate squeals open into a narrow alley and then is blown shut. In seconds, Leung is invisible, a shadow wrapped in rain.

  “Are you here, Poke?” Ming Li asks. Her hair clings to her face in long tendrils. “We need you to be here.”

  He lifts his face to the rain, lets it needle his eyelids and cheeks. “I’m here.”

  “Hate,” Ming Li says. She pinches his arm and gives the pinch a twist. “What you need is hate. Hate will keep you moving.”

  “I’ve got enough hate for that,” Rafferty says.

  “Good. Hang on to it. Feed it. Hate got us out of China. It’ll get your wife and little girl back.”

  “And Arthit’s wife,” Rafferty says raggedly. “Noi. He’ll want. . he’ll want her near him.”

  “He’ll have her,” Ming Li says. She lets go of his arm and steps back, searching his face. “By the time he opens his eyes, he’ll have her.”

  Rafferty wraps his arms around her and hauls her so close that he can feel her spine pop. She stiffens, and then her arms go around him and they stand there, hugging each other, as the rain pours down on them. Ming Li says, “It’s all right, older brother,” and something dark blooms in Rafferty’s chest, spreads long, soft wings, and then seems to vaporize and disappear, escaping into the night on an endless breath.

  “Okay,” he says, releasing her. Her gaze locks with his, and the muscles
beneath her eyes tighten in recognition. She takes a step away, turns her head to look at him again.

  “Let’s move,” he says. “We’ve got people to kill.”

  The plainclothes cop’s tuk-tuk, which Leung has borrowed without asking, makes an uneven popping sound, one of its cylinders misfiring occasionally, as it threads through the rain-slowed traffic on Silom. The water falls in sheets, the windshield wipers sluggish with the sheer weight of it. Rafferty and Ming Li sit side by side in the back. Ming Li holds on her lap the canvas bag full of older, well-used money, and Rafferty squeezes the big suitcase between his knees.

  Rafferty has no way of knowing how long they’ve been traveling: It could have been ten minutes or ten hours. He seems to have been journeying through some internal space, the space between thoughts. The space between gunshots. He feels vast and icily empty inside, but he is intensely aware of the mass of his body as it presses against the seat, of the touch of Ming Li’s thigh against his, of the cold wetness on his skin. The hardness of the suitcase, the contents of which Arthit may have died for.

  “We’re almost there,” Ming Li says.

  Rafferty shakes himself, the way he sometimes does when he wakes from a dream gone wrong. A dream Rose would want to hear every detail of, looking for the scraps of meaning that might help them avert disaster. The movement brings him back to himself, in a tuk-tuk, on a wet night, next to his new sister, in a world where disaster has already struck. He leans down to peer beneath the tuk-tuk’s sloping roof. “Twice around,” he says. “I need to see if we’ve got watchers.”

  “No one following!” Leung shouts over his shoulder.

  “That’s not going to help if they’re already here. Do the block twice, like I said.”