Timothy Hallinan - The Fourth Watcher

“What are you doing?”

“We’re standing here. I’m a rich schoolgirl on the phone, and Leung is my faithful servant. He just took the books so I could make a call, and now he’s standing a respectful distance away, appropriate to our class difference. Ouch. ”

“What happened?” Rafferty and Peachy are stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, people parting left and right to get around them.

“Leung pinched me.”

“You had it coming. What I mean is, why are you with Leung? You’re supposed to be on either side of the big guy. What happened to the old tweezers?”

“He noticed me. Looked at me a couple of times. Probably got a thing for schoolgirls. So I had to pass him. Don’t worry, he’s written me off. He’s watching your little wet man, and the little wet man keeps

looking behind him.”

“I need to know everything they do.”

“Gosh,” Ming Li says. “Everything? I’m just a girl.”

“This is the big leagues.”

“Okay, here he comes. The big one. I think you can come around the corner now.”

Rafferty grabs Peachy’s sleeve and hauls her behind him, with Peachy apologizing to everyone they bump into. They round the corner, and Rafferty sees the big man take the arm of the teller and drag him to the curb. There is a quick verbal exchange, the big man bending down to get his face close to the teller’s, and the teller nods eight or nine times, very fast, and then attempts some sort of argument, which is broken off when the big man shakes him like a rag mop. The teller looks like he is going to burst into tears. Then the big man reaches into his suit coat, and the teller mirrors the movement. Each comes up with a manila envelope.

Ten or twelve yards beyond them, Ming Li chatters brightly into her phone, right foot lifted and hooked behind the white sock on the left ankle. With her free hand, she toys with her hair, rolling a wisp of it between her fingers as though nothing in the world were more urgent than split ends.

The men exchange envelopes.

“Ming Li. You and Leung stay with the big guy. I don’t care what it takes, don’t lose him.”

“Big brother,” Ming Li says. “I’ve been training for this all my life.”

“Good. Keep your phone on.”

The big man gives the teller a shove, just enough to make him stagger back a step, and heads off down the sidewalk. He passes Ming Li and Leung without a glance but then sneaks a look back at Ming Li. The teller exhales heavily, wipes his face, and pulls out a cell phone.

“Go, Peachy,” Rafferty says.

Reluctantly Peachy covers the distance to the teller, as slowly as someone navigating a forest of thorns. She has lifted a hand to touch him politely on the shoulder when he looks up and sees her. The cell phone drops from his hand and hits the pavement, and the battery pops out. He takes a quick step back, mouth open, as though Peachy has fangs, claws, and a snake’s forked tongue. A second backward step brings him up against Rafferty. Rafferty has already pulled his wallet out, and when the man whirls to face him, Rafferty lets it drop open and then flips it closed again before the man can register that the shiny object inside it is a large silver cuff link.

“Give me the envelope,” Rafferty says in Thai.

Half a dozen emotions chase each other across the teller’s face, but the one that stakes it out and claims it is despair. He slowly closes his eyes and reaches into his jacket. Eyes still shut, he holds it out. Rafferty takes it, opens it, looks inside, sees the bright new money, and says into the phone, “You still with the big guy?”

“He’s waiting outside another bank, half a block down,” Ming Li says. “I’m putting my hair up.”

“Gee, that’s interesting.”

“Well, who knew he liked schoolgirls? Probably hangs around playgrounds. Leung has a different jacket for me, too. And some glasses. I’ll look like an office lady.”

“Good,” Rafferty says. “If he meets someone, let Leung take the one he meets, and you stay with the big guy. When Leung’s got whoever he talks to, I want him to call me. You just follow the Chinese guy-”

“I think he’s Korean.”

“I don’t care if he’s a Tibetan Sherpa. You stay with him. I mean this, Ming Li, you can’t lose him. He could be your father’s emergency exit.”

“Poke?” Ming Li says.

He brings the phone back to his ear. “What?”

“He’s your father, too.” She hangs up.

Rafferty stares down at the phone and then dials Arthit’s number.

Headlights are blossoming on the oncoming cars. Arthit reaches down and flips on his own.

“There has to be more than one teller at each bank,” Arthit says. He is balancing two fat manila envelopes in his lap as he drives. “No single teller could pass a quarter of a million in one day.”

The two envelopes, one taken from the little wet teller and the other from the teller the Korean grabbed outside the second bank, contain a total of five hundred thousand baht in brand-new counterfeit bills, plus thirty-eight thousand dollars in bogus American hundreds.

“I was wondering about that,” Rafferty says. He has his cell phone against one ear, with Ming Li on the other end, but he is talking to Arthit. “Elson found something at the other teller’s station. Probably the distributor-the Korean weight lifter-contacts only one teller directly, and that teller gives it to the others. So Petchara handed Elson someone who has no idea where the junk money comes from. As much as that might interest Elson, I don’t give a shit. I personally don’t care about the mechanics. What I care about is what we’re going to do with the money.”

“Which is what?” Arthit asks.

“I’m thinking about that.”

“Americans are so collaborative.” Arthit makes a turn against an oncoming stream of traffic, and Rafferty closes his eyes. Leung, alone in the backseat, laughs. On Rafferty’s cell phone, Ming Li says, “I’m pretty sure he’s finished.”

“Why?”

“He’s home, I think. A guesthouse, two stories. A light just went on, second floor right.”

“You’re extremely good.”

“Tell that to Frank. He’d like to hear it.”

“I will. Where are you?”

“Soi 38, half a block off Sukhumvit.”

“We’ll be there in-” He looks out the window. Neon signs glow above the sidewalks now, beacons in the premature dusk. Arthit hits the switch for the wipers, and for what seems like the thousandth time since Rose and Miaow were taken, Rafferty inhales the sharp smell of newly wet dust. He locates a landmark. “Make it ten, twelve minutes.”

“It’s a shame we couldn’t get the third teller,” Ming Li says.

“We got two,” Rafferty says. “That’s two more than we had an hour ago.”

“We should have had Frank with us.”

“No. Frank needs to stay where he is. He’s out of sight, and he needs to stay out of sight.”

“He must be going crazy.”

“Call him,” Rafferty says. “Let him know what’s happening.”

“I don’t know what’s happening.”

Rafferty says, “Why should you be different?” He hangs up.

“Where?” Arthit says.

“Soi 38. Can you get us some help there?”

“Cops?” Arthit’s reluctance is both visible and audible.

“Unless you have connections with the army.”

Arthit brakes behind a bus and drums his fingers impatiently against the wheel. “Do we think he’s alone?”

“We don’t have the faintest idea.”

“It’s hard to believe,” Arthit says, cutting around the bus, “but I’m slowly becoming comfortable with that condition.” He picks up his own cell phone. “I can get three I’d trust to keep things to themselves.”