Timothy Hallinan - The Fourth Watcher

Rubies, he thinks. Even the word has a shimmer around it. Just behind

the shimmer, he can see something, something that looks a little bit like daylight. He has no idea how to get to it yet. But he does know what he has to do: He has to leave it alone for a while, close the door on it, and let it grow unobserved. He either will or won’t have it-whatever it is-when he needs it.

Half an hour after Frank opened the box that contains the rest of Chu’s life, Ming Li and Leung led Rafferty out into the rain and through a dizzyingly complicated route that eventually took them, unobserved as far as any of them could tell, to Sukhumvit. If there was a single back alley that they missed, Rafferty doesn’t know about it.

It is now almost three o’clock. Since leaving the Home Away from Home, Rafferty has made the stop he planned the previous day and has broken at least three laws in at least two countries. The tote bag he filled at the apartment is marginally lighter. He has reached a new and previously unimaginable level of exhaustion and is considering calling Arthit to ask for help getting to a bed when his phone rings. He pulls it out, checks the caller ID, and opens it.

“Time to go snoop on your Agent Elson,” Arthit says. “He’s just gone to eat something. The Erawan Hotel, and make it quick.”

“On the way.” Rafferty hails a cab, thinking, It’s a sign. The rain stopped.

“The rooms on either side?” Arthit demands.

The assistant manager who has been delegated to let them in says, “What about them?”

“Both occupied?”

“Room 134 is,” the assistant manager says. A little finger brushes his lower lip. He’s tall, slender, and too handsome for his own spiritual good, and he knows it. He has a habit of touching his face as though he wants to make sure it’s still there. The fingers of his other hand are curled elegantly around a slender cell phone, which he checks between trips to his face.

The phone makes Rafferty nervous.

Arthit wiggles his fingers for attention. “And 138? On the other side?”

The assistant manager massages the tip of his chin with a fingernail that’s been coated in clear polish. Both the finger and the chin make Rafferty want to hit him, or maybe he’s just tired. “It’s empty.”

“Adjoining door?” Arthit asks.

“Yes, of course. So we can open it into a suite.”

“We’ll take the suite,” Arthit says. “Unlock the door to 138. Then let us into 136 through the adjoining door.”

If he touches his face again, Rafferty thinks, I’ll belt him. Now, though, the man’s fingers stop at the knot in his tie, which he adjusts. He takes his time, weighing the demand. He’s been told to open one room, not two. On the other hand, Arthit has his cop face on. “Fine,” he says at last. He floats down the hall to 138 and opens the door, politely stepping aside.

“You first,” Arthit says. “You’ve got another door to open for us.”

Rafferty says, “And we wouldn’t want to get between you and the mirror.” Arthit looks down at his shoes.

Inside, the man unlocks the connecting door to 136 and waits.

“You can go,” Arthit says. “We’ll let you know when we’re done.”

A reluctant nod, and the man leaves. Rafferty watches to make sure his shoes actually touch the carpet. Arthit goes into Elson’s room.

“What was all that with the phone?” Rafferty asks, following Arthit.

“Probably waiting for a call from MTV,” Arthit says. “Or the Miss Universe Pageant.”

Elson’s room is immaculate and dim, the curtains drawn against the sun. Rafferty opens them a few inches. The room still seems clean. “What are we searching for?”

“An edge,” Arthit says. “Doesn’t have to be a sharp one.” He goes to the laptop on the desk and powers it on. “You check the suitcase.”

The suitcase is open, centered on the bed nearest the window. Elson has not bothered to unpack, and Rafferty immediately sees why.

“Jesus,” he says to Arthit, “this guy safety-pins his socks together.” He pulls out a pair. “What do you think, he’s afraid they’ll have a fight and separate or something?” There are six pairs of socks, each pair pinned, identical black calf huggers so new that the writing hasn’t been laundered off the bottom. Below the socks are two narrow black ties, folded precisely into thirds. Then several sheets of dry-cleaning film, each enclosing an immaculate white shirt.

“Shit,” Arthit says from the desk. “He’s got a password program.”

“Figures.” Rafferty lifts the shirts to check beneath them. “This goes beyond neat. This is diseased.” He runs his hands over the lining of the suitcase, not expecting anything fancy: Elson will have been walked through Thai customs as though he were radioactive. The Secret Service, he’s pretty sure, doesn’t get searched much. At the bottom of the suitcase is an envelope and a pair of shoes, black lace-ups similar to the ones the agent wore the night he barged into Rafferty’s apartment. Rafferty removes the envelope and the shoes. He puts the envelope aside and experimentally inserts his fingers into a shoe. He hits something hard and cold and oddly slick. He slides it out, makes a face, and then looks in the other shoe.

“What do you think?” he says to Arthit. “An edge?”

Arthit closes the laptop and comes to take a look. Rafferty is holding a deck of condoms, at least twenty of them, and an economy-size tube of lube.

“If he went to the trouble of hiding them,” Arthit says, “it’s an edge. What’s in the envelope?”

The envelope isn’t sealed. The flap has just been tucked, very neatly, into the opening. Rafferty worries it open, intentionally wrinkling it a little. “Credit-card receipts,” he says. “Mr. Organized, tracking his expenses.” He picks one at random and opens it. “The Lilac,” he says. “On the back he’s written ‘ Dinner with Thai police liaisons.’ ”

“Read me another,” Arthit says. He looks like he’s on the verge of a grin.

“Wattana Enterprises,” Rafferty reads. “The note is ‘Souvenirs.’ ”

“Come on, Poke,” Arthit says. “I know you haven’t slept, but still. The Lilac. Wattana. ”

“Wattana,” Rafferty says. “Isn’t he that guy who ran for the senate a year back? The. . the- Oh, good Lord, I must be tired. The massage-parlor king.”

“And the Lilac,” Arthit says, “is a no-hands restaurant. You know the drill: You’re seated between two girls and you’re not allowed to use your hands to eat anything while they feed you, but you can do anything else with your hands that might occur to you.”

“They’re on his government-issued credit card,” Rafferty says.

Arthit says, “There’s your edge.”

Rafferty puts everything back into the suitcase except the condoms, the credit-card receipts, and the lube, then goes to the desk. He takes a hotel pen and writes a single word, all caps in large print, on a sheet of stationery, then drops it dead center on top of the stuff in the suitcase. He places the condoms on one side, the lube on the other, and the envelope beneath, so they frame the word.

The word is “HI!”

About the same time Rafferty is searching Elson’s suitcase, Arthit’s wife, Noi, is awakened, as she is so often these days, by the pain of her nerves burning away as multiple

sclerosis licks at the sheathing tissue that covers them. She has come to think of the disease as a fire in her body, sometimes banked and sometimes burning out of control, whipped up by something she does not understand. When the disease is raging, especially late at night, it seems there is a third person in the room with her and Arthit, someone who knows how to fan the flames just by staring at her. She feels his emotionless, clinical gaze through the darkness at times when Arthit is sleeping beside her, and on those nights she chews on the corner of her pillowcase to keep from moaning. Noi does not want Arthit to know how fierce the pain has become.