Timothy Hallinan - The Fourth Watcher

“He’s not going to settle for the rubies and the papers.” Rafferty is on his way home from Elson’s hotel, in the backseat of a cab. He chose a cab instead of a tuk-tuk in deference to the rain, which has achieved epic scale. In four blocks they have passed half a dozen stalled cars and two accidents. The sidewalk neons are shapeless smears of diluted color, echoed on the wet pavement.

“What about the money?” Ming Li’s voice comes from the bottom of a cave, and Rafferty has to press the phone harder against his ear to hear her. Frank has his cell phone on speaker.

“The money’s an extra. He’s not expecting it, so that could help. But let’s face it, what he wants is Frank.”

Ming Li says, “We’ve talked about this before. The answer is still no.”

Frank says, “Ming Li. Don’t talk, listen.” Then he says to Rafferty, “Where?”

“I’ll let you know in an hour or two.”

“You can’t give him Frank,” Ming Li says.

“Maybe you can think of something else.” A car speeds by in the opposite direction, throwing up a five-foot wave that shatters against the windows of Rafferty’s cab. His driver says the Thai equivalent of “fuckhead” and hits the horn in retaliation.

“At the very least, we need to know where it’s going to happen,” Ming Li says.

“You’re not going to know, until the last minute, and neither will I. I’m letting Chu pick the place.”

“Are you crazy? If he picks the place, we can’t set anything up.”

“That’s exactly right. He’s not stupid. One sniff of anything screwy and he’s gone. He’ll kill everyone and disappear. And he’ll still be after you. He’ll be after you until either he or Frank is dead. We have to end it here, and that means he thinks he’s in control and that he’s going to get everything he wants.”

“Poke’s right,” Frank says. “I know Chu. He’s not going to walk into anything that could be a setup.”

“So we’re going to let him set us up?” Ming Li says.

“He won’t get a chance,” Rafferty says. “I’m going to give him fifteen, twenty minutes between the time he sets the place and the time we walk into it. And I’m ninety percent sure I know where it’ll be.”

“How?” Ming Li asks.

“I’m going to force it,” Rafferty says. “Send Leung with the box. I’ll talk to you in an hour.”

He closes the cell phone, looks out the window, and resigns himself to the fact that he’s not going to be able to see where he is until he’s home. He digs a business card out of his shirt pocket and dials the number on it.

“Kosit,” says the leather-faced cop.

“This is Rafferty. How’s Arthit?”

“No word yet. The doctors are still in there.”

“I need to see you.”

“Um,” Kosit says, “I’m not sure I should leave here.”

“This is for Arthit. Believe me, he’d want you to do it.”

“What do you mean, it’s for Arthit?”

“It’s between you and me. Are you okay with that?”

“I might be. What is it?”

“Fine. You be the judge.” He tells Kosit about Noi, about Rose and Miaow, and about the meeting with Chu.

“Worse and worse.” Kosit sounds as drained as Rafferty feels. “What do you want me to do?”

“I’ll tell you at my place.”

Kosit says, “Somebody’s got to be coming out of Arthit’s room soon. Give me half an hour. If we don’t hear anything by then, I’ll leave. And listen, for Arthit I can get you a hundred cops, if you need them.”

“Thanks,” Rafferty says. “But I think Arthit would say we don’t need them.”

Only one jar of Nescafe this time. The color should vary. Rafferty stirs it in, examines the tint of the water in the washer’s tub, and rummages through the cabinets until he finds a tin of powdered green tea. He can hear the hair dryers whirring in the other room, broken occasionally by the sound of women laughing. Fon comes into the kitchen, lugging two very heavy-looking plastic bags from Foodland, conveniently open twenty-four hours.

“They’ve only got two left,” she says. “We’ve practically bought them out.” She grunts as she lifts the bags to the counter. “I got your glue, too.”

Rafferty adds half the green tea to the water and stirs with his hand. “What do you think?”

“I’m no expert,” Fon says. “When I see money, all I look at is the numbers.”

“Looks okay to me.” He reaches over and untwists the cap on one of the big jugs of fabric softener from Fon’s shopping bags and empties the entire bottle into the tub. “Let’s just use one this time,” he says. “Last batch got a little mushy.”

“Fine,” Fon says, looking down at the water. “Maybe there’ll be a bottle I can take home.”

“I’ll trade it for the basket.”

“Pretty expensive fabric softener,” she says. She bends down and comes up with a large plastic laundry basket, which she gives to Rafferty. He upends it into the washer. Crisp, flat money flutters down onto the surface of the water, and Rafferty pushes it under and adds more, repeating the process until it’s all in the tub. Fon takes the empty basket.

“I think we’ll use the delicate cycle,” he says, hearing the absurdity in the words. “It’s faster.” He is up to his elbows in water and money, so he says, “What time is it?”

“A little after two.”

“We need more people,” Rafferty says. He pushes “start” on the washing machine, dries his hands, and follows Fon into the living room.

Lek and three other women, all from Rose and Peachy’s agency, sit on the floor around another laundry tub. The tub is blue plastic with square holes in the sides. Two of the women reach in and toss the money like a salad while the others aim hair dryers through the holes. The floor is a snake farm of extension cords. When Rafferty went into the kitchen to start the new load, the basket looked only half full. Now, with the bills drier and not clinging to each other, they almost reach the top edge. As the dry bills are blown to the top, one of the women gathers them and carries them to the couch, which is covered from one end to the other in loose, dried money, nearly a foot thick. Rafferty goes to it, picks up a double handful, crumples them, then lets them drop.

They look and feel a lot better. Not ready yet, but better.

“We’re never going to finish at this rate,” he says. “Who else can we call?”

As if in answer, someone knocks on the door. Rafferty waves the women into the kitchen, realizes there is nothing he can do about the money everywhere, and pulls the Glock. He opens the door an inch and sees Lieutenant Kosit. “Oh.” He sticks the gun into his pants, behind his back. “It’s you.”

Kosit’s eyes are red-rimmed, his face tight enough to have been freeze-dried. He peers past Rafferty and pulls his head back a fraction of an inch in surprise. “What are you doing?”

“Laundering money,” Rafferty says. “To buy Noi back.” He pulls the door open, but Kosit stands rooted where he is, and Rafferty’s heart sinks. “News?”

“He’s in intensive care,” Kosit says. “The bullet hit the lung, but it also nicked a ventricle. If that tech hadn’t been on top of Arthit’s blood pressure, he would have bled to death internally.”

“What do the doctors say?”

“They don’t know shit. They’re talking about shock, infection, a whole list of stuff that could kill him. But I’ll get a call if anything changes.”

“Come on in.”

Across the hallway the elevator doors open, and Mrs. Pongsiri steps off, wearing a short black cocktail dress and carrying the world’s smallest handbag, on the surface of which five or six sequins jostle for space. Her eyes go to Rafferty and then travel to Kosit’s uniform, and she begins to smile. Then she sees the money spread over the couch, and the smile hardens into a mask. She says, “Oh, my.”