Timothy Hallinan - The Fourth Watcher

The cops look at each other, and one of them shrugs.

“Want some help?” Rafferty asks.

“What I’m saying, ” Elson says, “is that it doesn’t matter which one of you gave her the money. It came from both of you, since you both own the business.”

Rose seems to be reviewing the sentence in her head. Then she shrugs. “Not understand. Fon need money. Her want eat, you know? Pay for room. Same you.”

“Right,” Elson says. He slides the gleaming glasses down and rubs the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Fon needed the money. So let’s go over this. Miss. . um, Fon got the money from you and your partner, right?”

“From Peachy,” Rose says stubbornly.

Elson shakes his head. “From your company. The company you own part of. And your partner got it where?”

Rose spreads her hands, the bewildered peasant girl “Maybe bank? Bank have money, na? ”

Elson turns his head and says something like, “Pssshhhh.”

“Oh, come on,” Rafferty says. “No matter what this is about, how can you even say that’s the same money Fon was paid? I mean, is it special-issue, just for her? Does it say ‘Fon’ on it or something?”

Elson slips the money back into the envelope and closes the flap. “Which bank?”

“Have many bank,” Rose says. She scratches her head at the unreasonable nature of the question. “Have bank too much.” She points through the window and down toward the street. “Have bank there, and there. . ” She points farther off. “And there, and-”

“Okay, okay,” Elson says. “Banks all over the fucking place. So you don’t personally handle the money.”

“Me?” Rose asks, giving up on the street and pointing at herself. “I talk you already, me no give money. And ‘fuck’ talk no good. Not polite.”

Elson emits a sound that could be a groan.

“Same question,” Rafferty says. “How can anyone be sure this is the actual money Fon got this morning?”

For a moment Rafferty thinks Elson is not going to answer him. He gives Rose one last despairing look and then flicks a finger at Fon. “It’s not just old Fon here. Three of the women who work for Miss Punchangthong’s company took money to the bank today.”

“They probably all did,” Rafferty says.

“But I was only at the bank three of them used,” Elson says. “And unless all three of them stopped and swapped bills with someone for some reason, every bill they deposited was counterfeit.” He smiles at Rafferty, the smile of the smartest kid in class, the only one with the right answer. “And that’s a problem.”

“Fine,” Rafferty says. “So three women walked into a bank with a few thousand baht in counterfeit money. And that’s worth a visit at five a.m.? And it’s Thai money, so what the hell does it have to do with the United States government?”

“Quite a lot, Mr. Rafferty,” Elson says. “As you’ll find out.” He looks around the room again, as though he is memorizing it. “And now you can go back to your English lesson or whatever you were doing.” He gestures for Fon to get up, and the two policemen flank her again. Elson goes to the door.

“Have good night,” Rose volunteers from the bedroom doorway. “Maybe you find girl, you boom-boom, you feel better.”

Elson ignores her, but his nostrils are white and pinched, and his lips vanish again. “Just so we’re clear,” he says to Rafferty. “We know where you are if we need you.” Holding open the door to the hallway, he motions Fon and the cops through it. He pauses in the doorway as the cops ring for the elevator. “And don’t think about going anywhere outside Thailand,” he adds, “because as of about ten minutes from now your passport won’t even get you into a movie.”

"H e’s just a bully.” They are in bed again, but the glow they shared an hour earlier is a fading memory. Rafferty’s fury, however, is still very much alive.

“He’s a government, ” Rose says. The sky has paled during the time it took him to talk her into trying to get some rest. Early light leaks balefully through the gaps in the tape over the space around the window air conditioner. Rose gives the new day the look she reserves for uninvited visitors and follows her train of thought. “Worse, with those policemen along, he’s two governments. I may not have written a bunch of books, Poke, but I know you don’t punch a government.”

“I didn’t punch him.” He can’t bring himself to tell her what Elson said to provoke the aborted attack. “And I’m not the one who told him to go get laid.”

“He needs it,” Rose says.

“I don’t think so. He probably jerks off to a spreadsheet.”

“What mean ‘jerk off’?” Rose asks, reverting to pidgin. “Same-same ‘beef jerky’?” She takes another drag on the cigarette and hits the filter. “He has very bad energy,” she says in Thai. “He likes power too much. He needs to spend some time in a monastery. And you should have been more careful. You should have kept a cool heart.”

“He had it coming. His behavior was, as they say, ‘inappropriate.’ ” He uses the English word because he can’t think of a Thai equivalent.

“What does that mean?” Rose lights a new cigarette off her old one, not a good sign. That was the way she smoked when he met her.

“ ‘Inappropriate’ is government talk.” He slides the ashtray closer to her so she can stub the butt. The stink of burning filter fills the room. “It means someone has fucked up on a planetary scale. When an American congressman is videotaped in bed with a fourteen-year-old male poodle, his behavior is usually described as inappropriate.”

“Fourteen is old for a dog,” Rose observes.

“Gee, and I thought you weren’t listening.”

“I’m listening, Poke. I’m even thinking.” She shifts her back against the pillow propped behind her. The cloud of smoke she exhales is penetrated in a vaguely religious fashion by the invading fingers of light, good morning from Cecil B. DeMille. “This could be very bad for us.”

“Oh, relax. It’s not like you and Peachy are printing money in the basement. Today they’ll go to the bank where she got the bills, and that’ll be the end of it.”

“Maybe.” She pulls the sheet up over her shoulders as though she is cold.

“Sure it will. It was an accident. Bad luck, that’s all.”

She does not reply. But then she shakes her head and says, “Luck.”

He slides his knuckles softly up her arm. “Okay, it’s not luck, it’s a kink in somebody’s karma. Worse comes to worst, you have to replace the counterfeit junk with real bills. Come on, Rose. It’s only money.”

She does not look impressed by the insight.

It didn’t cheer you up either, Rafferty thinks, and then, pop, he’s got something he’s sure will distract her. “Listen, did I ever tell you that it was money that first made me want to come to Asia?”

“Really.” She takes a drag and blows the smoke away from him. “I thought you came here because you were destined to meet me.”

“Ah, but destiny moves in strange ways.” He laces his fingers together on top of his chest and lets his head sink into the pillow, his eyes on her profile. “In my case it was money. When I was a kid.”

Now he gets the full gaze that always makes his spine tingle. “You never talk about when you were little.”

“Well, I am now. You want to hear about it?”

“Of course.” She gives him the first smile he has seen since Elson drove his snowplow through their evening. “Since it’s my job to help you become human.”