The Fear Artist pr-5

by Timothy Hallinan

  “Is,” Vladimir says. “You follow.”

  14

  I Gamble You, You Gamble Me

  “Murphy disappear after war in Wietnam,” Vladimir says. He’s got an enormous hamburger in front of him, three layers thick, accompanied by a deep-fried onion the size of a hand grenade and beer in a sweating mug. They’re in a restaurant that calls itself the Philadelphia Hamburger Pub and is unconvincingly decorated with old black-and-white pictures of a city that, Rafferty assumes, is Philadelphia. Kids in tattered clothing run through sprays of water from hydrants. Black people on stoops gaze warily at the camera. It’s a little bit of America, even if it’s not one of the bits the State Department peddles.

  “AWOL?” Rafferty has a beer himself, the first Budweiser he’s drunk in years. After the fat flavor of Thai beer, it tastes like carbonated butterfly urine.

  A shrug. “Don’t know. But many people looking for him.”

  “Why?”

  “You kidding me, yes? For kill him. Many people want to kill him. Ewen some people on his side want to kill him.” He takes an enormous bite out of the burger, chews on it for a moment, then parks part of it in his cheek. “But no, not AWOL. When he comes back, he is working with Americans. Maybe he is here all along, but out of sight, working for Americans.”

  “Government?”

  “No, no. I tell you, he is fixer, yes? He is fixer for business. So … priwate.” He tilts his head left, right, left. “Well, okay, maybe little bit CIA.”

  “Fine,” Rafferty says. “Fixing what?”

  “You pretty young, but maybe you remember then, after Wietnam, Southeast Asia wery poor. Cities smaller, farmlands bigger. America look here and see, ‘Hmmm, cheap labor.’ They still not talking to China then, so cheap labor here look wery good to them.”

  “And.”

  Vladimir’s eyebrows rise at Rafferty’s tone. “And also they think, ‘Southeast Asia, Communist ewerywhere. Domino, yes?’ So they make long plan. Make business, make gowernment people rich-you know, kickback and stuff-make economic ally and then bring in army, make military ally. This is why here, Thai army and American army wery close, ewen now.”

  Rafferty sees Murphy, sitting like a king in that official interrogation area. “So. Murphy.”

  “Yes. Murphy. American company want to open, mmmm, garment factory in … in Cambodia. They go to Cambodia, find space, give money to owner. But then someone call and say gowernor need money. Police need money. People who make permit need money. Many, many permit. Company think, ‘Hmmm. Maybe no good.’

  “So somebody, somebody American, say to company, ‘Talk to Murphy.’ And Murphy, he say, ‘Can do, give me money.’ He go to Cambodia, pay ewerybody, pay not so much as company because he pay all these people many time, yes? They see him, they make big smile and open their pocket. Some money left ower, Murphy take. Okay, now American company need sewing machine, many sewing machine. Sewing-machine company, maybe in Indonesia, need to pay police, need to pay gowernor, need to pay ewerybody. Murphy, he take care of them all, keep some money. You understand?”

  “Yeah. He’s the navigator, and he pockets some change every time the ship has to make a turn.”

  “But not finish yet. He goes to Cambodia customs office and pays them to let the sewing machine in, takes some money. He goes to labor contractor, gets him to lower money per hour and split difference, some for him, some for Murphy. Not give lady one dollar sixty for hour, give one dollar twenty. Ewery hour, forty cent, split fifty-fifty. Three hundred girl, forty cent ewery hour, one hundred twenty dollar ewery hour, ten hour ewery day, sewen day ewery week.” He closes his eyes for a second, lips moving silently. “So eighty-four hundred dollar ewery week, fifty-fifty. Small money, but ten factories, fifteen factories, not small anymore. Maybe forty, fifty thousand ewery week.”

  “Jesus,” Rafferty says, looking for the waitress to trade in his beer. “He could buy a new shirt.”

  “And one more thing. Some small boss in maybe, Cambodia, gowernment boss, make problem. Murphy say, ‘Let’s talk,’ small boss say, ‘Fuck you.’ So maybe he gets acid attack, not too bad, only half of face, maybe only one eye. Small boss say, ‘Sorry, no more problem, ewerything your way.’ If he make more problem …” Vladimir points an index finger at Rafferty’s head and drops his thumb. “Poh.”

  The waitress is leaning against the counter, gazing wide-eyed at the opposite wall, so Rafferty gives up on ordering. “All this is private industry?”

  “Hah,” Vladimir says, leaning back in his chair. “Sure, priwate company, but information is ewerywhere, yes? And Murphy have operation ewerywhere now. Forty year he been doing this. Probably he hear more than anybody. Who is up, who is down. Where army is building camp. Where harbor is being dug more deep. ‘The business of America,’ ” he says, startling Rafferty, “ ‘is business.’ This is your Calwin Coolidge, yes? Business is the foot in the door. And eweryone buy information.”

  “You wanted to know who he was working with.”

  Vladimir says, “Sorry?”

  “When I described him. You asked me who he was working with.”

  Vladimir shrugs. “People will pay to know. Small money, but they will pay.”

  “But when I told you, you looked very surprised.”

  “Of course,” Vladimir says. “I think maybe you tell me DuPont or Ford or Reebok or something. But no. You tell me Major Shen.” He sits back and pokes his index finger into the cleft in his chin. “This is different,” he says. “This maybe ewen important.” He rubs at the cleft again, obviously thinking. “Tell you what: I gamble you, you gamble me.”

  “What’s the bet?”

  “I work first, you give me money later, this is okay. Like we say. But when you learn more about Major Shen and Murphy, about what they doing, why they come together, you tell me. Maybe I let you keep some of your money.”

  Rafferty says, “I trust you and you trust me.”

  For a moment Rafferty thinks Vladimir will smile. Instead he nods and says, “Yes. Like we friend.”

  In the back of the cab, he dials Helen Eckersley again, gets the same ring and the same request not to break her heart, which he again ignores.

  Something in him wriggles uneasily at the fact that she isn’t answering the phone. He waves it off and turns around again, looking through the rear window, trying to make sure that his new friend isn’t following.

  And it’s only because Rafferty is looking out the back window that he sees them.

  The cab is nearing Khao San, approaching the hotel where he slept the first night. As the cab passes it, two men come out of a doorway and watch the car go by. Then they turn and face the oncoming traffic.

  “Turn right,” Rafferty says. “Soon as you can.”

  The driver looks up into the mirror. He’s been chewing on an unlit cigarette for as long as Rafferty’s been in the cab, and it’s turned transparent and brown with spit. “But you said-”

  “I know, but I feel like turning right. Every now and then, I just need to turn right.”

  The driver says, “American?”

  “How’d you know?” The cab sways as the driver cuts the wheel.

  “I just know. Why do you keep looking behind you?”

  “Same thing. Sometimes I want to turn right, sometimes I want to look behind me. I’m an American conservative.”

  There’s another cheap hotel halfway down the block. Once again he sees two men, just loitering, wearing everyday clothes, but something about them announces they’re a matched set. “Tell you what,” Rafferty says. “I’m not happy with my hotel. Why don’t you drive me past two or three more, cheap but not too cheap. You don’t need to slow down-I can tell at first glance.” His imitation-leather bag and his changes of clothes are in the hotel room, and so, he realizes with a sinking sensation, is the theatrical makeup he uses to darken his skin every day. And his passport.

  “Which way?” the driver asks.

  “I don’t care, as long as we pass some
hotels.”

  “Turn right, then,” the driver says. “Make you happy again.”

  They’re waiting outside, he thinks. And they’re at two hotels at least.

  “On the right,” the driver announces, “the Happy Palace.”

  The Happy Palace is badly named, if appearances aren’t seriously deceiving. And this time the men are on opposite curbs, facing in different directions.

  He also sees a dark, unmarked car parked a few spaces from the hotel.

  Okay, three hotels, and probably more. They’re covering multiple hotels. They know he’s in Khao San but not where. And they’re undoubtedly carrying photos and showing them in the hotels, so at least the desk guy at his current hotel hasn’t identified him.

  Yet. There are a lot of cheap hotels down here.

  The pictures were bad, Arthit had said.

  How did they learn he was in Khao San?

  Another hotel, no one outside this time. Inside, talking to the desk clerk? Or perhaps they don’t have enough men to cover all the hotels from outside, so they’re taking them in stages.

  If it’s the latter, maybe he can …

  “Go to the Regent, please.” It’s the hotel he stayed in last night and to which he had expected to return that evening.

  “Anywhere you say.”

  “And please throw out that cigarette and start a new one. That one looks awful.”

  “Smells good, though.” But the driver lowers the window and tosses the wet cigarette.

  The block the Regent is on looks empty. “Drive past,” Rafferty says, “and make the right.”

  “Sure. You speak Thai very well.”

  “Not really, but thank you.” There’s no one on the sidewalk on either side of the hotel. No parked car. The driver makes the right, and Rafferty says, “Let me out here.”

  When they’ve come to a stop, the driver says, “One hundred twenty.”

  “Fine.” Rafferty hands him two hundreds and then shows him a five-hundred. “Drive around the block nice and slow, three-no, four-times. If you don’t see me, stop here and wait for five minutes. I’ll have you take me somewhere else, and I’ll give you this as a tip. Okay?”

  “Like a movie,” the driver says. “No problem.”

  As he rounds the corner toward the hotel, Rafferty feels as if every pore on his body has opened. He can feel the faintest stirring of the air, he can hear the ticking of the rain on pavement and the legs of his trousers brushing each other. He keeps his head motionless, but his eyes scan the block. If they’re here, Shen’s men, they’re out of sight and keeping still. The fact that they’re not here now-if they’re really not here-doesn’t mean they won’t be here soon.

  All this anxiety for a couple of tubes of greasepaint and a useless passport. No, he corrects himself, it’s to keep them from seeing the greasepaint. It’s the color of his skin that keeps people’s eyes moving, keeps them from looking twice. He’ll lose that advantage if they get his bag.

  And he might still need his passport.

  But his body is arguing with him. His feet feel like they’re encased in cement, and he seems to be walking into a wind. When he gets to the four steps leading up to the Regent’s tattered lobby, he can’t force himself to climb them. He keeps walking, all the way to the end of the block, and then turns the corner and collapses against the side of the nearest building.

  He’s breathing as though he’s run a couple hundred yards, and his heart pounds in his ears like a drum at the bottom of a swimming pool. He wipes his face, and his hand comes away wet and brown with makeup. A car turns in to the street a block away, tires hissing on the pavement, and Rafferty pushes himself off the building and goes back the way he came, turning onto the street the Regent is on. He’s a quarter of the way along when a sweep of headlight announces that the car has made the same turn, right behind him.

  He thinks, despairingly, Rose. Miaow. The muscles at the base of his spine contract.

  He slows, staggering a little bit ostentatiously, and wraps an arm around a lamppost, just a drunk whose world is turning too quickly, and lets his head droop in the pre-puke pose. The car hums past, not slowing in front of the hotel, glowing straight away into the wet night, going someplace where people probably aren’t frightened, and Rafferty says to himself, That’s it. That’s the sign I needed, and he climbs the steps to the Regent Hotel. He pushes on the door, gets a squeal of protest that could wake the dead, and pulls instead. Pasting a smile onto his face, he goes in.

  Anna’s weight against his shoulder has already become familiar. Arthit is already comfortable with the brush of her thick, short-cut hair on his cheek. He could recognize her perfume in a crowd.

  How in the world did he get here so quickly?

  This is the fourth night in a row he’s left work and driven to the school where she teaches. All the way across Bangkok tonight, he’d imagined the way her face lights up when she sees him, as though she secretly hadn’t expected him to come.

  She leans forward a couple of inches, turns down the car’s air conditioner-which she thinks is a waste of money-then nestles against him again. She traces a question mark in the air: Is that all right? He says, “Yes,” knowing now that she can interpret the vibrations.

  She brushes his cheek with her fingertips and then draws a question mark on that, too. “Yes,” he says again, and she laughs low in her throat.

  He laughs, too. There’s a quick contraction of guilt-Noi-but it passes. Noi wouldn’t want him to mourn forever.

  The first night, she’d chosen the restaurant, a white-tablecloth, Vivaldi-Muzak Italian place on Sukhumvit, the kind of place Noi loved but that always made Arthit feel awkward, as though he were moments away from dropping the four-pound fork onto the wooden floor and drawing the eye of everyone in the place, all of whom would wonder, What’s he doing in here?

  In fact, the staff of the restaurant had barely glanced at him, but they treated Anna like royalty. From the moment the maitre d’ walked right around a waiting couple to lead them to a flower-bedecked window table, they received a level of service that made Arthit feel almost important. A cool nod at the maitre d’ and a smudged glass had been swept out of sight and replaced by one that looked as if angels had been buffing it for days. It wasn’t the kind of servile, resentful attention his uniform usually draws; it was more as though the restaurant had opened in the sole hope of attracting people just like Anna, and here one was at last. He felt throughout the meal like the obscure princeling of some minor but emerging royalty.

  She’d seemed completely unaware of the staff’s eager attention, and he’d thought, This is how it is wherever she goes.

  He’d tried to avoid looking at the prices on the menu, felt his tension mount, and wondered what “piccata” and “tagliatelle” meant. Even during his time in school in England, he’d stuck to Asian and, when unavoidable, English food. Beyond a few obvious dishes, he had no idea what to order, and yet it seemed as though dealing with the waiter was going to be his job.

  It became clear that she had the situation under control when she passed him her menu with her finger on something called “osso buco” and then put up a second finger and tapped the menu with them twice, just in case he’d missed the first sign.

  After the waiter left, she extended a hand as though inviting him to cover it with his own, but as he reached for it, it was withdrawn, leaving a square of paper. His reflexes, for once, were operating, and he put his hand over the paper with almost no hesitation and drew it toward him. It said, Meat, right? You look like you eat meat. He’d raised his eyes to hers and burst out laughing.

  She’d laughed with him and then widened her eyes and fanned her face as though to say, Near escape.

  “I’ve eaten Italian before,” he said, and then qualified it, “Pizza.” She’d started to laugh again, and he’d added, “And spaghetti.”

  Her gaze on his lips felt like a cool breeze. He said, slowly, “A lot of spaghetti,” just to prolong the feeling.

>   They’d traded spoken words and written notes through three courses, dessert, and a bottle of wine. In his memory the entire evening seems to have been candlelit. A high, silent room lit by candles with Anna in the center of it.

  He still can’t believe how much he learned about her across that table. It all felt so natural, so effortless that he can almost hear the tone of her voice as she told him about herself, although of course she never spoke a word. Forty-three, divorced, the mother of a twelve-year-old boy whose much richer and higher-ranking father had simply taken the child. The boy, she’s told, is beginning to be a problem, but she’s not being consulted on how to help, which seems to be the only aspect of her life that frustrates her.

  Like Noi, she was born and educated in the city, first at schools for the deaf and then, defying all predictions, at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok’s best. Unlike Noi, who’d quit not only school but her entire family to marry a policeman, Anna had graduated and then won a doctorate from their school of education.

  She’s been deaf her entire life. Arthit’s immediate reaction when she told him that was, She’s never heard music. It was the only moment of pity he’s had for her since they met. She’s too capable and too complete to pity. And it occurred to him on their second night together that she’s been spared the clashing, senseless, cacophonous sound that Bangkok is rich in. She lives, he’d thought, in a bell of silence.

  The car purrs to a stop, and he waits for her to lift her head from his shoulder and tilt her face to his. She’s done it two nights running, and tonight makes it three. He kisses her lightly on the lips, and she reaches up and squeezes his earlobe. He wraps his fingers around her wrist, turns her hand toward him, and kisses her palm, directly below the thumb. He says, in English, “Mount of Venus.” Then, in Thai, “It tells me whether you have qualities like kindness, harmony, love. And sensuality.” He presses it experimentally with his fingertips and shakes his head. “Oh, well. You could still go into politics.”