Timothy Hallinan: The Fourth Watcher

“Deal,” Rafferty says, watching her handle the pan. “By the way, ‘happy’ and ‘birthday’ are two words, not one.” The words somehow arrived in Thailand permanently joined, linguistic Siamese twins in Siam.

“That’s nice,” Miaow says. “What about the man with the gun?”

“Do you want to hear this, Birthday Girl? ” Rafferty asks.

“You come home smelling like something hanging from a rearview mirror,” Rose says, “and you don’t think I want to hear the excuse?”

“Okay,” Rafferty says. Miaow puts down the pan and goes to the hassock to join Rose, and Rafferty leans against the kitchen counter. “It was for my book.” As little as he wants to talk about this on Rose’s birthday, it at least postpones the moment he is dreading, the moment he is certain Rose doesn’t expect. He switches to Thai for Rose’s benefit. “I’m writing about living. . um, sort of outside the law. Not really doing anything terrible,” he adds as Miaow’s eyebrows contract in her Executive Vice President Expression. “Not hurting anyone, but not exactly behaving either. It’s called Living Wrong. ”

“So you got shot because you were being bad,” Miaow says in English.

“I was learning how to be bad,” Rafferty says. “I’ve found nine people who are. . well, they’re crooks. Each of them will teach me how to do something that’s against the law-just a little bit, Miaow, don’t get crazy-and then I’m going to do it one time. I’ll write about learning how and then about doing it.”

“Does somebody want to read about that?” Miaow asks doubtfully.

“I don’t know. All I know is that my publishers are paying me to write it. I never ask whether people want to read it until I’ve cashed the check.”

“But what kinds of things are you doing?” Miaow demands. “What were you doing when you got shot with the perfume?”

“Learning to be a spy. Arnold Prettyman is teaching me how to be a spy.” Prettyman is a former CIA agent who, like hundreds of other spooks orphaned by the thawing of the Cold War, rolled downhill into Bangkok. “Arnold’s teaching me to follow people around Bangkok without getting caught, and once in a while he has someone follow me. I’m supposed to spot the people who are following me and then get away from them. Today I spotted three. I lost two of them, but the man who caught me shot me with a squirt gun.”

“Why perfume?” Rose asks, fanning the fumes away with a tapering hand.

“Better than a bullet,” Rafferty says. “Anyhow, it’ll help me remember not to make that mistake again. A nice faceful of White Shoulders.”

Miaow makes a roof out of her fingers and looks at it as though she is daring it to collapse. It is not a carefree pose.

“So,” Rafferty says in what he hopes is a light tone, “that’s all there is to it. I was practicing being followed, and I got it wrong, and I got squirted with perfume. Nothing dangerous about it.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Rose says, a tone so neutral it shimmers with menace.

“But-” Miaow says, and stops. “You didn’t want to tell me about this. Why would anybody write a book they can’t tell a kid about?”

“I’d like to know that, too,” Rose contributes. She has long been of the opinion that Rafferty’s books inspire bad behavior in tourists, a conviction he privately shares.

Miaow shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she says. “Why don’t you write about bears? Or fish? Or elephants that can sing? Why don’t you write something that makes people happy?”

“Not everybody can write Fluffy Bunnies in Bubble Land, ” Rafferty says, hearing the defensive edge in his voice. “People write about what they’re interested in. This is what I’m interested in.” He avoids the strongest argument, which is that he needs the advance his agent has negotiated for Living Wrong. His savings, never particularly robust, have become positively tubercular.

“ What’s what you’re interested in?” Miaow challenges.

“What I always write about. What goes on at the edges.”

“Of what?”

“Of everything.” He takes a breath and slows himself. “Look,” he says. “You walk down the street, any street, and nine out of ten people are doing the same thing you are: They’re shopping, or looking through windows, or going to meet somebody, or just getting from one place to another.” He looks across the counter at Miaow. “Right?”

“So what?” Miaow says.

“That’s exactly right. So what? Those nine people aren’t interesting. But the other one, the tenth one, is doing something else. He doesn’t want us to know what it is. He’s afraid of something. He’s waiting for someone he’s not supposed to see. He’s just broken the law, or he’s just about to. He rigged the lottery. There’s a tarantula in his pocket. He put broken glass in his shoes that morning as a religious penance. He looks around a little too much. He licks his lips a lot. He’s the one I’m interested in.”

“I’m not,” Miaow says promptly. “That was me. When I was begging, or cutting purses, or sneaking behind some restaurant where they threw good food away. Or running away from some man who wanted me to be bad with him. That’s not interesting, it’s ugly.” She looks around the small room. At him, at Rose, at the cake pan on the counter. At the walls keeping them safe and together. “ This is what’s interesting.”

“I agree,” Rose says.

“Then the two of you can write your own book,” Rafferty says. “That’s not what I do, okay?”

For a moment nobody speaks. Miaow is looking at him with a puzzled expression. Finally Rose says, “My, my.”

“Well,” Rafferty says, “you asked.”

Rose curves a defensive arm around Miaow. “When you touch a dog and he bites,” Rose says, “you’re usually touching someplace that hurts.”

“What if it wasn’t perfume?” Miaow’s voice is pitched a half tone higher than usual. “What if it was a real gun?”

“It wasn’t,” Rafferty says, feeling the whole evening go south. He reaches out and defiantly scoops frosting from the bowl.

“I don’t want a fight on my happybirthday,” Rose says. “Poke, you promise to stay alive for Miaow and me, and, Miaow, you stop worrying so much. You’re going to be an old lady before you’re ten.”

“I’ll be careful, Miaow,” Rafferty says. “Honest.”

Miaow starts to argue, but Rose lifts a hand. “Miaow,” she says, “you said you could get the cake out of the pan. Can you?”

“Sure,” Miaow says, her tone making it clear the discussion isn’t over. She slides off the hassock and comes around the counter, so she is standing next to Rafferty. She turns the pan over and says, under her breath, “Fluffy bunnies.” Rafferty puts a hand on her shoulder, but she steps sideways, out from under it, and says, with the same muted vehemence, “Bubble land,” and then she does something fast with her thumbs to the bottom of the pan. The cake falls onto the plate with a surprising clunk and immediately breaks in half. Miaow gives it a critical look and says, “I’ll fix it with icing.”

From his vantage point on the sidewalk eight stories down, the fourth watcher is bored.

Lights snap on and off in the windows of the apartment he has been gazing at as the people living there move from room to room. He wishes the child had left the apartment empty during the day so he could have installed the little microphones. That would be much more interesting than this.

Anything would be more interesting than this.

He turns into the department-store doorway in which he stands, mannequins frozen fashionably in the dark windows, holding their poses as though they hope he’ll take notice. He shields the striking match with his body, worried not about the wind but the brief flare of light, which he knows-from personal experience-lasts long enough for a good shooter to do his work. Normally he wouldn’t smoke so much on the job, but this particular assignment is testing the limits of his ability to remain sane. It’s his first time in Bangkok, a city that he’s been told is the world’s largest brothel, and he’s never been so bored in his life.