Timothy Hallinan - The Fourth Watcher

“Hip-hop? MTV?” Ming Li looks at her father and shakes her head. “The Internet? Can’t be Internet addresses, can’t be chess moves.”

“I’d recognize chess moves,” Frank says. “If you’re right, if you’re close to being able to read this and I’m not, then it’s something generational. Something you do, something you know, that I don’t.”

“I’ve been trying to reach a guy who works with codes,” Rafferty says. “I could try to phone him again.”

Ming Li looks up. Her eyes are slightly glassy. “Phone?” she says.

“Yeah,” Rafferty says. “You know, small object, you push a bunch of buttons and put it to your ear. Then somebody says-”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Ming Li says. She extends a hand. “Give it to me.”

Rafferty passes her his phone. For a moment her eyes go back and forth between the phone and the note, and then her face splits into a wide grin.

“Your little girl is really smart,” she says. “And you guys are so old .” She looks at the phone again, her lips moving. “It’s a text message,” she says. “Somebody get me a pencil.”

“Once you see the pairs, it’s obvious,” Ming Li says. “There are no three-digit numbers, there’s no second number higher than four. I should have recognized it the minute I looked at it. Look. The first number in each pair is the number on the button. The second one is the number of times you push to get to the letter you want. So ‘6’ is the six button, and if you push it one time, you get M. Push it twice, you get N. Three times is O. ” She points at the paper, isolating the one pair of numbers. “Here, the first time she writes it, it’s ‘61,’ so that’s M. ” They are all gathered around her. “And the ‘4,’ the one that’s not in a pair?” Rafferty asks.

“It’s just what it looks like, silly,” Ming Li says. “It’s a four.” She finishes writing, puts dashes between the words, and pushes the pad away so they can all see it.

It says: 4-men-guns-mole-kl

Tears spring to Rafferty’s eyes. He turns his head to blink them away, but he can’t do anything about the sudden catch in his throat. Miaow.

“You should be proud of yourself,” Ming Li says. “That’s some kid.”

He swallows, hard. “I can’t take the credit,” he says.

“She was interrupted,” Arthit says, bent over the pad.

Rafferty grabs a ragged breath. “She needed time to fold it, time to put it someplace, probably hide it in her hand, so she could drop it.”

“KL,” Ming Li says. Her eyebrows are contracted so tightly they almost meet.

“Look what she gives us,” Arthit says. “Everything is important. A count, a description. She tells us there are guns. She’s got no time. What else is that important?”

Rafferty says, “Destination.”

Leung speaks for the first time. “Kuala Lumpur?”

Rafferty and Ming Li say, in unison, “No.” Then Rafferty says, “He’s here, obviously. And he’ll stay here for this swap or whatever it’s going to be.”

“It has to be a destination,” Frank says. “Maybe. .” His voice trails off.

“I’m not even sure Miaow knows Kuala Lumpur is two words,” Rafferty says. “I think she probably would have started with Ku or something.”

“I know where it is,” Frank says. “I know what she was writing.”

“So do I,” Arthit says. “Klong Toey.”

“Where their ships come in,” Frank says. “Where they offload everything. Illegal immigrants, illegal pharmaceuticals, endangered animals, aphrodisiacs made from endangered animals, weapons, truck parts, hijacked American cars, Korean counterfeit money. They’ve got three warehouses down there, prime position near the docks.”

“Three,” Ming Li says. “Two too many. We could watch all week.”

“No,” Rafferty says. “All we have to do is get some eyes on them and then pull him out.”

“Pull him out?” Frank says. “How?”

“He’s set it up himself.” Rafferty holds up his phone. “I call him.”

Whoever is in charge of the rain has turned it up and provided an enhancement in the form of random bursts of wind that send people running for cover. The rain falls

through a pinpoint mist that diffuses the light from the neon signs above

them and scatters it through the night like a fine, colored powder. “So what do you think of Dad?” “I think he could be useful,” Arthit says, lighting up and blowing

smoke through his nostrils like a cartoon bull. The smoke fills the car, and Rafferty takes a surreptitious secondhand hit. “I’ll suspend further judgment until we see just how useful he is.” The rain spatters the top of Arthit’s car and sends rivulets racing each other down the windshield. The sidewalk where they are parked is deserted except for one beggar huddled under a bright blue plastic sheet, and the car smells of wet cloth. “If I’d had any idea Noi would be in danger-” Rafferty begins.

Arthit holds up the hand with the cigarette in it. His face is hard enough to deflect a bullet. “Stop it. It was my decision, not yours. We can either sit here and comfort each other or we can do something.

That means focus on the data. Despite what I said to you last night, one thing cops learn is to ignore leaps of intuition and look at the data.”

“And one thing writers learn is to ignore the data until a leap of intuition tells you what it means.”

“So somewhere between us, we ought to be able to figure out what to do next. I just wish I shared your father’s conviction that Chu doesn’t have time to learn how connected I’m not.”

“I suppose it depends on who he’s connected to. On the force, I mean.”

Arthit puts two fingers on the wheel and wiggles it left and right. Cigarette ash tumbles into his lap. “These guys get a lot of protection. That’s not something you can get from a sergeant. And the cash flow is tremendous. Enough to buy a lot of weight.”

“The three at my apartment,” Rafferty says. He has wanted to say this before but has been reluctant to do so. “They were dressed like farmers, but they moved like cops.”

“Probably were. Probably street cops.” Arthit makes a fist and slams it against his own thigh. “In case you had any doubt about how good his connections might be, ask yourself where he got my address and the information that Rose and Miaow were there.”

Rafferty says, “Here’s something that might matter: My father thinks Chu will have kept this whole thing a secret. Nobody’s supposed to know that he’s arranged an escape route. His colleagues would see it as a betrayal.”

Arthit thinks about it, takes a drag, and then nods. “I guess that’s interesting.”

“So Frank thinks Chu’s traveling solo, with no Chinese foot soldiers along. And he won’t want word to get back that he’s chasing some laowai who ripped off his retirement plan.”

Arthit takes the two fingers from the wheel and holds them up. “Two assumptions.”

“Here’s another one: He might not kill Noi anyway. The main reason kidnappers kill their victims is to keep from being identified. We already know who he is.”

“Unfortunately,” Arthit says, “the other reason is revenge.”

“Right,” Rafferty says. The cramps that have been at work in his belly since he saw Arthit’s open door pay another visit.

“So we have to get them back.” Arthit checks the sidewalk, just a cop’s reflex. “By the way, you’re fortunate in your women.”

“Meaning?”

“Rose and Miaow, of course. And your sister is, as they used to say in England, crackerjack.”