Timothy Hallinan - The Fourth Watcher

As Arthit dials, Leung leans forward in the backseat. “What’s in the other envelopes? The ones the big guy kept.”

Rafferty turns to him, feeling the stiffness of exhaustion in his neck and shoulders. “My guess is that it’s real money. The tellers pass the bad stuff and pocket good bills to balance it out. Say you withdraw five thousand baht. They give you five thousand in counterfeit and then pull the same amount out of the cash drawer and put it into the envelope. They’ve got the withdrawal slip, the drawer is minus the right amount of money, and they’ve passed the counterfeit. Everything adds up at the end of the day, and Mr. Korea’s envelope is full of real money.”

“ Yes , now,” Arthit says into his cell phone. “Soi 38, stay out of sight.”

“And they keep the tellers quiet by threatening their families,” Rafferty says. “Poor schmucks.”

“Schmucks?” Arthit says, dropping the phone onto the seat. “Is ‘schmucks’ English?”

“English is a polyglot tongue,” Rafferty says. “A linguistic hybrid enriched by grafts from many branches of the world’s verbal tree.”

Arthit nods gravely. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“Anything I can do,” Rafferty says, closing his eyes and leaning back, “to illuminate the path of the ignorant with the torch of knowledge.”

“He talk like this a lot?” Leung asks.

“Inexhaustibly,” Arthit says. “If bullshit were oil, Poke would be OPEC.”

Rafferty, eyes still closed, says, “I think this is going to work, Arthit.”

“What’s going to work?”

“I don’t know yet.” He feels himself start to drift sideways, like a boat on a tide, and forces his eyes open. He turns to Arthit. “But look what we’ve got. Half a million bad baht plus almost forty thousand counterfeit U.S., and probably more where that came from. We know where the women and Miaow are, where Chu is. We’ve got-maybe-a couple of people inside, unless those two cops get really stupid. We didn’t have any of that eight hours ago. I’ve got a door opener for Elson, if I can figure out how to use it.”

Arthit says, “Why would you want to?”

“Weight. Just plain old weight.”

“A bullet weighs a lot if you put it in the right place,” Leung says. “Why not just kick the door in? Get your women. Kill Chu.”

“We might,” Rafferty says. “But if we do, I want to make sure one more time that they’re where we think they are. And I want to know who’s holding the gun on them.”

“There’s one thing we don’t have,” Arthit says. “Time.”

“Yeah,” Rafferty says. His watch says they have less than three hours left. “Right now I’d trade rubies for time.”

Half an hour later, Rafferty, Ming Li, Leung, and Arthit sit in Arthit’s car, around the corner from the Korean’s guesthouse. Water from Ming Li’s long hair is dripping onto the upholstery, sounding like a leak in the car’s roof. Arthit has a window cracked open so he can smoke.

“My hair is going to stink,” Ming Li says, waving the smoke away.

“Be glad it’s not a pipe,” Arthit says.

“You should really quit.” She is haloed by the headlights of the police car that has pulled up to the curb behind them. The wet skin on her neck gleams. Two of Arthit’s most trusted cops sit in the second car while a third, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, sits behind the wheel of a tuk-tuk and waits in the rain outside the guesthouse, keeping an eye on the door.

“You know, quitting is at the very top of my to-do list,” Arthit says. “Right after I get my wife back and ice Colonel Chu. Oh, and figure out what to do about this counterfeiting thing.” He looks at his wrist, flips the watch around so he can see it, and says, “He’ll call any minute now.”

“Why don’t you buy a shorter band?” Rafferty asks.

“It gives me character, makes me memorable,” Arthit says. “The same way some men wear bow ties.”

“That’s kind of sad,” Ming Li says, wringing out her hair. “Why don’t you get some cowboy boots or something? Or let your eyebrows grow together above your nose?”

“This is a carefully calculated affectation,” Arthit says. “It calls attention to the weight of my very masculine watch. It shows that I care what time it is but I’m not obsessed with it. It has a certain enviable flair.”

“What it does,” Ming Li says, “is make you look like a kid who borrowed his father’s watch.”

“Speak right up,” Arthit says. “No need to be deferential.”

“It is so not the bomb,” Ming Li says. To Rafferty she says, “Did I get that right?”

“It’s about as dated as Crosby, Stills and Nash.”

Ming Li says, “Well, how am I supposed to know? I’m from China, for heaven’s sake.”

Rafferty’s phone rings, and when he opens it, Chu says, “Where is he?”

“No idea.”

“That’s very sad. My watch says-”

“The nice thing about watches,” Rafferty says over him, “is that you can reset them. They’ve got that little stem you can turn, right next to the three.”

Chu’s voice is cold enough to lower the temperature in the car. “And why would I do that?”

“Because you have to. Frank just called me. He’ll meet me at five-thirty in the morning.”

“Where?”

“He didn’t say.”

“When will he say?”

“He’ll call me at five.”

Rafferty can almost hear Chu thinking. “It sounds like he doesn’t trust you.”

“Probably afraid I take after him.”

“Why so early?”

“My guess would be he thinks it’ll be easier to tell whether anyone’s with me.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I’m not crazy about it either.”

“Get him to change it.”

“You think I didn’t try that already?”

Chu says, “This feels wrong.” Rafferty can hear people in the background and the clatter of dishes and silverware. Chu is in a restaurant.

“Where are you eating?”

“McDonald’s,” Chu says.

“You’re a regular Yank.”

“They’re all over China. I got used to the food.”

“Quarter Pounder or what?”

“Big Mac and fries. Is this an attempt at friendly conversation?”

“We’re stuck with each other,” Rafferty says. “No sense in wasting testosterone. At least not until it’s time for us to kill each other.”

“I suppose not,” Chu says. Then he says, “Actually, since we’re being candid, I hate McDonald’s. Everything tastes like it’s fried in whale fat.”

“Then why are you there?”

“Takeout. Your little girl was hungry.”

Rafferty’s heart seems to have leaped intact into his throat, where it’s hanging on for dear life. He attempts to clear it away. When he’s sure of his voice, he asks, “What did she want?”

“Chicken McNuggets and a large order of fries. And one of those chemical milk shakes.”

“What flavor?”

“Is this a quiz? Strawberry.”

“Pink,” Rafferty says. He hears the word as though from a great distance, and Arthit turns at the rasp in his voice.

Chu says, “Excuse me?”

“My girl,” Rafferty says. “She likes pink.”

“She’s braver than she should be,” Chu says. “They both are. Don’t take this as a threat, please. I would hate to have to hurt them.”

“We’ve covered this before.”

“Just reminding you. It’s in your hands. I’ll expect to hear from you at five.” The line goes dead. Rafferty lets the phone fall into his lap. He exhales so hard that the entire windshield fogs.

“Anything new?” Arthit says.

“Same old stuff. Death threats and a strawberry shake.” He picks up the cracked phone and closes it, opens it, and closes it again. “I can’t actually see anything. This is like putting together a puzzle without a picture on it. All we can do is grab as many pieces as we can get our mitts on.”