Timothy Hallinan - The Fourth Watcher

“And then,” Ming Li says, “he’ll put your head on a spike.”

A bleating sound cuts through the mayhem on the television, and Pradya opens his phone. He says something, hangs up, and leans over to Leung. Leung gets up and comes over to their table.

“Klong Toey,” he says.

“He wants to kill Frank, and you’re just handing him over,” Ming Li says. She puts both hands on Rafferty’s arm. “He’s your father, and you’re giving him away.”

Rafferty gets up. “We’re going to see if we can’t make it a loan.”

They’re barely inside the warehouse complex when Rafferty gets the first indication that things are going wrong. “Keep coming,” Chu says into the phone. Blooming in the rain-dimmed headlights, directly in front of them,

is a long wall of corrugated steel with an enormous red 3 on it. “We’re at three,” Rafferty repeats. “Yes, I heard you. Keep coming. Turn between two and one. I’m

here.” “Fine,” Rafferty says. “Coming.” He leans forward, says to Leung,

who is at the wheel, “Stop beside number two.” “Two?” Leung doesn’t sound surprised, but it’s close. Rafferty presses his thumb over the phone’s mouthpiece to mute it

and says to Pradya, “You said three.” “Maybe he moved them,” says the fat cop from the backseat. Something about his tone accelerates Rafferty’s pulse. He settles back against the upholstery, taking long, slow breaths and looking at alternatives. There aren’t many, and he wishes he could be

alone for a minute or two. They are packed so close together he feels like his thoughts are audible. The car, which had looked big enough when it was empty, smells of anxiety and wet cloth. They’ve had to open all the windows a few inches to keep them from steaming up. Frank and Ming Li share the front seat with Leung, and Rafferty is bookended by Fon and Lek. Beyond Lek, jammed up against the door, is the fat cop Pradya, his empty gun in his lap. Lek is muttering resentfully as she works her jeans down over her thighs, lifting herself from the seat to get them below her knees. Pradya is watching with more than professional interest.

Kosit is a minute or two away in his own car, with Elson beside him.

“We’re at two,” Leung announces, slowing.

“Turn the car around,” Rafferty says. “I want it pointed at the exit.” He hands Pradya the magazine for his automatic and says, “You can load it now.” Then he reaches across Fon, yanks the door handle, and climbs over her into a world of wind and wet. As he starts to close the door, he feels Fon’s hand on his arm.

“It’ll be fine,” she says.

He gives her a nod, suddenly on the edge of tears, and closes the door. Lifting his face to the rain, he opens his eyes wide, letting the fall of water wash them clean. He returns the cell phone to his ear and says, “We’re here.”

Chu says, “I’m waiting.” Rafferty touches the Glock nestled into the small of his back and walks to the corner of the building.

The alleyway between the warehouses is wide enough for two trucks to pass each other, and about 120 feet long. Bars of yellow light stripe the asphalt as far as Rafferty can see through the rain, reflecting the bulbs set every ten or fifteen feet beneath the overhangs of the warehouse roofs. Rafferty has expected to be ankle-deep in water, but the entire area slopes down very slightly toward the river. Except for the occasional black puddle, which could be anywhere from an inch to a foot deep, there is almost no water underfoot.

Rafferty is trying to figure out whether the absence of water is good or bad when the rain eases for a moment, and he sees Chu, gleaming at him in a black rubber slicker that hangs almost to his feet. He is about sixty feet away. Chu lifts an arm and waves like someone in a home movie- Hi there! — and then the rain hammers down again, and Rafferty can barely make out his shape, just a vertical darkness drawing the eye like a cave behind a waterfall.

“Come on along,” Chu says into the phone. “I want to get a look at you.”

“This phone’s going to short out,” Rafferty says, moving forward. “It’s too wet. I’m turning it off now.”

“Up to you.”

Rafferty’s thumb finds the “disconnect” button and then, very quickly, he highlights the next number he will need. He slips the phone into a small Ziploc bag and puts it in his shirt pocket, buttons facing out. Instinctively he finds the “dial” button with his thumb. Then he does it again, walking all the time. He is about to do it yet again when Chu’s form begins to solidify in front of him. Rafferty drops his hands to his sides and flexes his fingers repeatedly like a pianist about to tackle something difficult. They feel as stiff as sticks.

Ten feet away he stops and waits. Chu waves him closer, Asian style, palm and fingers down, but Rafferty shakes his head. A moment passes. Rafferty can feel something extending between him and Chu, something taut that pulsates like a high-voltage wire. Chu mutters irritably and trudges forward. Once Chu is moving, Rafferty continues toward him.

Chu is frailer than Rafferty imagined, and older. Somehow he had continued to see the Colonel Chu his father had described from all those years ago in Wang’s room, not this papery retiree. The sudden image of Wang, stripped and shivering, being offered to dogs and horses, ignites a hot surge of fury. Rafferty damps it down as fast as he can, fearing it will travel the wire to Chu, and in fact Chu slows and regards him quizzically. But then he shakes his head again and smiles.

“You don’t look like him.” They are three feet apart.

“I thank my mother daily,” Rafferty says.

Chu’s face is a nest of creases, a topography of age folded into the skin around his eyes and mouth. His eyelids hang down at weary forty-fivedegree angles, the eyes behind them as dry and hard as stone. His neck is two vertical ropes, the tendons taut beneath the skin. Deep grooves have been carved on either side of his mouth, and they deepen when he smiles. He is smiling now, a kind, grandfatherly, yellow-toothed smile that makes Rafferty wonder how much strength it would take to snap his neck. Beads of water glisten on the hairs sprouting from his mole.

“You’re smaller than I thought you’d be,” Rafferty says.

“Our fears always are,” Chu says, “when we finally have the strength to look at them.”

“I’ll remember that.”

A gust of wind catches Chu’s slicker, billows it out, and snaps a corner up, throwing a spray of water at Rafferty. “This is a filthy city,” Chu says. “I’m quite ready to leave it. I assume you have everything you owe me.”

“And you?”

“I never go into a business meeting,” Chu says, “without the currency I’ll need. They’re all here, a little wet but otherwise well. Eager to see you. Shall we begin?”

“Let’s,” Rafferty says. “I’m ready for you to leave Bangkok, too.”

“First, though,” Chu says, and he waves his hand. A man comes around the corner of the warehouse behind him. He carries an automatic weapon slung from his shoulder. When he gets closer, Rafferty sees a swollen upper lip, pulled high enough to reveal a broken tooth.

“This is Ping,” Chu says. “He’s going with you, just to see whom you’ve left around the corner.”

Rafferty says, “The hell he is.”

“Be reasonable. For all I know, you’ve got a car full of cops.”

Rafferty looks at Ping. Ping sucks his tooth and winces.

“I thought you watched us come in.”

“You may not have noticed,” Chu says, “but visibility is limited. Ping is not negotiable. He takes a look or we both walk away right now.”