Timothy Hallinan - A Nail Through the Heart

"Does he have money for jail?"

"He will."

There is a pause long enough for Arthit to take his own temperature. "Poke," he says at last, "tell me you're not supplying it."

"Okay, Arthit, I'm not supplying it."

Arthit starts to say something, but he is cut off.

"Is this the one?" Chouk asks from the living room.

"Chouk, this is Arthit," Rafferty says, "and vice versa. You know which is which." A wave of dizziness overtakes him. "Why don't you two boys chat while I get rid of this beer?"

When he has finished vomiting the beer into the toilet, he washes his mouth out with Listerine and brushes his teeth hard enough to make his gums bleed. His mouth still tastes foul. He grabs the envelope from the bed and goes into the living room, where Chouk and Arthit have claimed the couch.

"Here." He pitches the envelope to Chouk. "That's fifteen hundred U.S. I'll have more in a couple of days."

"I can't take this," Chouk says, not touching it.

"It's Madame Wing's," Rafferty says. "The rest of it will be Madame Wing's, too. In a manner of speaking."

"You're going to want money in jail," Arthit says to Chouk. "It makes a big difference. A cell by yourself, maybe a carpet, a girl every now and then." He gets up and pulls the wrinkles out of his trousers. "Let's leave Mr. Sunshine here and get you to jail, where people are pleasant."

When they are gone, Rafferty sits absolutely still at his desk for the better part of fifteen minutes. He does a quick survey of his life and comes up with three shining exceptions to the landscape of flat tires, tin cans, and free-floating injury he's been inhabiting since his talk with Doughnut: Rose, Miaow's adoption, and the progress with Superman.

The moment Superman enters his mind, the phone rings.

"Poke?" Hank Morrison says. "Is this a good time?"

"Depends on you. Is there anything new?"

"I think I've got a guy at a school who'll take Superman," Morrison says. "But he's a little iffy. I think some shock therapy will push him over the edge. Do you still have those pictures?"

"Until I figure out how to throw them away. They're not something you toss in the trash."

"Well, e-mail me a couple of the ones with the boy in them. Nothing too hair-raising. I want to convince him, not give him a heart attack."

"Jesus, Hank, that means I have to look at them again."

"Up to you," Morrison says. "But it'll help."

"Hang on a minute." Rafferty gets up, phone in hand, and forces himself to go into the bedroom. The closed door to the safe looks far too benign, considering what it's hiding. Rafferty reluctantly puts his hand on the key hanging around his neck.

"Okay, Hank. Look for them in a few minutes, and for Christ's sake don't let anyone else open your e-mail."

"Thanks, Poke. I'm pretty sure this will do it."

Morrison hangs up, and Rafferty works the chain off his neck and opens the safe. The CDs slide out in a long spill across the surface of the bed. He flips open the cases as though they contained venomous snakes and finds the two he thinks the boy's photos will be on, then carries them back into the living room.

It takes him five or ten dreadful minutes to find what he's looking for. He chooses two from relatively early in the sequence, before the bestiality reached its crescendo, and mails them off. Then he closes the lid of the computer in self-defense and carries the cases back into the bedroom. As he gathers up the ones on the bed, he decides the best way to dispose of them will be to give them to Arthit and let the police destroy them. He feels slightly lighter as he relocks the safe.

Back in the living room, he realizes he wants to tell somebody about Hank's possible breakthrough. Miaow is in school. Arthit is at work. Superman isn't reachable, and Rafferty wouldn't tell him anyway without the matter being resolved. That leaves the person he really wants to talk to, and he dials Rose's cell number.

"Hello?" Her tone is brisk.

"How long has it been since I told you I love you?"

"Ah," she says, a bit coolly. "What a nice surprise."

"It is not. You've known it forever."

"Yes. I suppose I have."

"You're a world I want to enter," Rafferty says.

"And I'll hold the door."

"There's something I want to tell you."

"Something good?"

"I think so."

Rose covers the mouthpiece of the phone and says something. Then she says, "Can it wait?"

"Sure," Rafferty says. "You're somewhere where you can't talk."

"Absolutely correct."

"At Bangkok Domestics?"

"Actually," she says, "I'm at Peachy and Rose's Household Agency."

"Peachy?"

"The canned kind, I think. By the way, your last conversation was extremely productive. Just a complete about-face. You may recall that there had been a certain prickliness."

"On Peachy's end."

"Yes. Oh, and I remember having said something to you recently about keeping a cool heart. Well, a hot one works occasionally, too."

"Peachy and Rose, huh? That has a nice ring."

"And two more situations have been found for members of the labor pool. Turns out some people actually prefer attractive maids."

"I know I would."

"Oh, good," Rose says sweetly. "We can send you someone you already know. You won't even have to learn her name."

"Rose, our Cambodian guest is gone. You can come home."

"Hmmm. That means the bed is free?"

He is up and pacing, feeling better than he has all day. "Why not come right now? We'd have the place to ourselves."

"I'd love to." She lowers her voice. "You have no idea how much I'd love to." Back at a normal volume, she says, "We're meeting with a designer about the new letterhead and business cards, and then I've got two interviews to supervise."

"The demands of success," Rafferty says.

"A good businessperson puts business first."

"I guess she does."

"A good businessperson also pays her debts," Rose says. "And, of course, the interest. Have you got a payment coming."

He finds himself grinning at the phone. "I'll change the sheets."

"Hardly seems worth it." Rose lowers her voice again. "We'll probably have to throw them away when we're done."

With nothing to do and a recently emptied stomach, Rafferty discovers he is ravenous. He hasn't eaten since the breakfast with Chut and Nick. By now, he thinks, they should have some buyers lined up.

He kills ninety minutes at a restaurant called Banana House, eating as much chili as the waitresses dare to serve a foreigner, since all Thais secretly believe that farang live on mayonnaise and warm milk. He sits back in the chair, burps fire, and thinks about the past few days.

Chouk is in jail, partially provided for. Action is being taken to close Madame Wing's long-overdue account. Clarissa Ulrich is poised for her heartsick flight home. Rose is designing the graphics for her new business. Hank Morrison is knee-deep in adoptive parents. Miaow is at school until three.

Doughnut is making a life, he supposes, either selling flowers or not. Whatever it is, he hopes it will be less interesting than the one she has had so far.

On his way out of the restaurant, Rafferty finds himself at a complete loss. The day stretches in front of him, hot and featureless as the Gobi, although he's never seen the Gobi. He's pretty sure it's hot and featureless, though, and if it's not, it must be a miserable excuse for a desert.

Well, the boy might be back by now.

It takes him just twenty minutes, a world record, to get home. With no need for hurry, the Bangkok traffic moves like lightning. He nods out in the back of the tuk-tuk and revises his plans as it lurches to a stop at the curb. He'll sleep until the end of the world, or maybe a little longer.