The Queen of Patpong: A Poke Rafferty Thriller

by Timothy Hallinan

  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 i
t 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.”

  Chapter 25

  The Continent of Red

  They’re down to three now—Rafferty, Miaow, and Kosit, since Anand is waiting for the tow truck. Miaow takes Rafferty’s hand as they cross the apartment-house lobby toward the elevator. After everything that’s happened, he’s not sure which of them the gesture is meant to comfort.

  “Don’t call Arthit yet,” he says to Kosit. “I don’t want him making a fuss.”

  “What’s the problem?” Kosit says. “These guys should get caught, and fast, and we—I mean, the cops—are better at that than you are.”

  “I’ll tell you and Arthit at the same time.” The elevator doors slide open. “I know that your people can probably catch him. What I’m worried about is whether they’ll hold him.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Later. I need to talk to someone first anyway.”

  “Who?” The elevator does its usual pre-ascent shudder of dread, and Miaow squeezes Rafferty’s hand, a sure sign that she’s still off balance. She’s ridden this elevator hundreds of times since he and Rose adopted her off the street. He squeezes back in what he hopes is a reassuring manner.

  “A guy with the American government, here in Bangkok.”

  “That little squeaker from the Secret Service?” Kosit has met Richard Elson and wasn’t impressed.

  “The very one.”

  “Why? What can he tell you?”

  “I don’t know. Right now let’s just go into the apartment, get Rose’s camera, and get out again. We need those pictures more than we need anything else.”

  Without looking up, Miaow says, “It’s nice to be back.”

  “We’ll be back for keeps in a few days,” Rafferty says.

  Miaow says, “How do you know?” and Kosit looks away to hide a smile.

  “Good question,” Rafferty says.

  “Don’t do that. I’m not a baby.”

  “Well,” Rafferty says, “you’re my baby.”

  Miaow says, “Ick.” The elevator stops and the doors open, and she drops his hand and bolts through, into the corridor, where she stops like someone who’s run into a punch. She says, “Oh, no.”

  Rafferty and Kosit shoulder each other getting off. They halt in unison behind Miaow.

  The apartment door has been split down the middle. It sags inward crookedly, hanging by one hinge.

  Miaow says, “The floor.”

  Rafferty looks down and sees a trail of bloody footprints coming out of the apartment, leading to the emergency stairwell.

  He grabs Miaow by the shoulders and shoves her at Kosit, then reaches past him to stop the elevator doors from closing. “Get her downstairs,” he says.

  Miaow pulls away, but Rafferty pushes her back, not gently, and Kosit gets a grip on her this time. He says, “Take my gun.”

  “You keep it. You’ve got her with you. Go, go.”

  The elevator doors close, and Rafferty can hear Miaow protesting all the way down. Not until the elevator stops moving does he turn back to the shattered door.

  He follows the bloody tracks with his eyes. Blood all over him, Miaow had said. There are two doors he needs to look through, but the one that terrifies him is the one leading into his apartment, so, moving parallel to the bloody footprints, he makes his way to the door to the emergency stairs. He yanks his T-shirt away from his belly and puts his hand inside it to turn the doorknob.

  Footprints lead down, two pair, undoubtedly Horner’s and dead John’s, fading as they go. He lets the door sigh closed and turns back around and almost chokes on his breath. The door to Mrs. Pongsiri’s apartment is wide open.

  He feels enormously heavy, nailed to the floor by his weight. He can see it all. Horner and John kicking in the door, Mrs. Pongsiri—already alerted by having found the red X—hearing the noise and going to investigate. She comes down the hall and into the apartment. They’re inside, knives in hand, ready to kill anyone who’s there. She’s seen them.

  He can’t face this. After everything that’s happened in the past few days, he can’t face this. He reaches for the phone in his pocket, thinking to call Kosit. Kosit’s a cop. He knows how to deal with these things.

  But Kosit’s with Miaow, and he can’t have Miaow up here. And then a wave of heat flows through him, and he thinks, She might be alive.

  He’s running without even knowing it, and he plunges through the door and sees the small figure dead center in the continent of red that’s been mapped onto the far end of his carpet. She’s facing away from him as though she’s reclining on the floor, idly looking out through the cracked sliding glass door. Her wig—he never knew she wore a wig—has been wrenched sideways, and the hair beneath it is steel gray and cropped as short as a Buddhist nun’s. Her neck looks slender enough to break with a pencil.

  She’s not moving.

  He tracks his way around the blood. She’s so tiny. She’s wearing a loose, flowery print dress that’s multicolored on the top of her body but a rusty brownish red beneath. It’s been torn, he sees, the hem ripped right off it.

  When he’s in front of her, he drops to his knees, trying to make sense of what he’s looking at: The strip of cloth from her dress, wrapped around her arm, the arm outstretched on the carpet. The broom, which he had left standing beside the balcony door, protruding through the cloth, which has been twisted tight. The long gash in her arm.

  It’s a tourniquet. She made a tourniquet. It’s held tight by the weight of her arm on top of the rigid broomstick. She made a tourniquet that wouldn’t loosen even if she passed out. He leans in and sees her nostrils flare.

  He jumps up, dialing the phone as he goes. In the bedroom he rips a blanket from the bed and drags it behind him into the living room, doubles it for extra warmth, and throws it over her, seeing the other cuts, five or six of them, as he does so. When the emergency response service answers, he gives them the address and the apartment number and then hangs up and dials Kosit.

  “Get up here. Don’t let Miaow come in.”

  He hangs up and runs to the closet, sweeps everything from the front of the top shelf, and stretches for the box. He’s got the little yellow camera in his hand by the time Kosit comes in and freezes at the sight of the draped blanket in the circle of blood, the little head sticking out of it.

  “My neighbor,” Rafferty says. “They cut her a few times and slashed her wrist, but she’s alive. Anything you can do?”

  “I can call for an ambulance.”

  “I’ve done that.” He hands Kosit the camera. “Take Miaow and get to Arthit’s as fast as you can. I need the pictures from this thing now, whatever it takes. And tell Rose I need the women from her agency there, as many as possible, around six-thirty. Go on, go on, get out of here.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Stay with her. Wait for the ambulance.”

  “What are you going to tell the cops?”

  Rafferty says, “Go.”

  He hears a gasp from the doorway and turns to see Miaow, holding on to the jamb as though she’s about to go down. She says, “Who . . . who . . . ?”

  “Mrs. Pongsiri. She’s alive. Kosit, please get out
of here. Miaow, you’re going with him.”

  “Where?” She’s staring at the blanket, at the broadening stain on the carpet.

  “Arthit’s. I’ll be there in a little bit.” Neither of them moves. “Miaow, I need you to go with Kosit. Both of you, get out of here.”

  He turns his back on them and goes to sit in front of Mrs. Pongsiri. He puts his hand on top of her outstretched arm. When he looks up, they’re both gone.

  He stays there, holding the warm, smooth hand and willing life into her, until he hears the siren growl to a stop in the street below. Then he says to Mrs. Pongsiri, “They’ll take care of you,” and gets up. Being careful not to step in the blood, he goes back into the corridor and through the door into the stairwell. When he hears the elevator doors open, followed by the emergency medical technicians’ voices, he climbs the stairs to the ninth floor and then takes the elevator down. He passes through the glass doors of the apartment house without a glance at the waiting ambulance and fades down the street, into the thickening dusk.

  Chapter 26

  No Commonly Accepted Index for Improbability

  Arthit says, “You’re putting me in an impossible position.”

  Rafferty has dried blood on his hand from when he pushed himself up from the carpet beside Mrs. Pongsiri. The sight of it makes him dizzy with anger. “Well, I’m sorry about that, but I don’t know what else I can do.”

  “What else you can do? You’re leaving a trail of bodies across Bangkok, and you won’t even talk to the cops.”

  “Body,” Rafferty snaps. “One body. Mrs. Pongsiri is alive. And the other one, John, fuck him. Anybody disagree with that?” He gets up from the armchair, too rattled to sit. “And would you like to tell me what I’ve done? Did I kill someone? Seriously, Arthit, you want to tell me how I’m responsible? And where are those pictures?”