Timothy Hallinan - A Nail Through the Heart

"After," Miaow says in English. She does not say it loudly, but her tone is final.

The plastic bags hang heavy in his hands. "Fine. But not too much after, okay? Where's Rose?"

"Using all your soap," Rose says in Thai, coming into the living room. "This boy has so much dirt on him I'm not sure there's anyone underneath." Her sleeves are rolled up, and soapsuds gleam on her dark arms. An archipelago of splash marks decorates the front of her shirt.

"He doesn't have a house," Miaow says fiercely to the fire. "How clean would you be if you had to wash yourself on the street and they chased you away all the time?"

"We get the point," Rafferty says. "Nobody meant that he-"

"I was dirty," Miaow snaps. She still has not looked at them. In the rigidity of her back, Rafferty sees the fury of the powerless. She knows that the decision, whatever it is, will come from the adults.

"And look how nicely you cleaned up," he says as Rose rolls her eyes. "Here's some special shampoo," Rafferty says to Rose, pulling the bag open to show her a bottle of Kwell. "There's some…ah, salve in there, too."

"For bugs," Miaow says disdainfully in Thai, without a glance. "As though bugs matter."

"Bugs do matter," Rose says sharply.

The words bring Miaow's head around sharply. Rafferty is startled at the fury in her face. "What's more important?" she demands. "Not having bugs or not letting people…play with you?"

"We're not fighting with you, Miaow," Rose says.

Miaow shrugs and folds herself into an even smaller knot, hunkering down over her knees. Sharp shoulder blades protrude on either side of her spine, curled back like stunted wings. The movements of her hand as she stirs the flames are short and jerky. Misery emanates from her like a fog. The sky darkens behind her, its lower edge torn jagged against the silhouettes of buildings as the night skyline of Bangkok blinks into being, rectangle by rectangle, one office block of lights at a time.

"I bought him some new clothes," Rafferty says helplessly. Female unhappiness is as mysterious to him as plant disease. He knows it when he sees it, but he has no idea what to do about it.

Miaow sniffles, and Rafferty takes a step toward her, but Rose grabs his arm.

"You're being stupid," Rose whispers in Thai. "She's manipulating you." She yanks at his arm, not gently. "In the kitchen."

He follows her, still lugging the plastic bags with their bottles of medicated shampoo and whatever else the lady at Siam Drugs foisted off on him. He drops them onto the counter, and Rose puts an exploratory hand on the bags and the other on her hip. "You're both acting like children."

"One of us is a child, Rose."

"Not the way you mean. Miaow is short and she has a high voice, but she's not anything you mean when you say 'child.' She can take care of herself better than you can." Rose swipes her forehead with the back of a long brown forearm and leaves a lacy pattern of soapsuds in her hair. "You can't let her act like a baby all of a sudden."

"So what am I supposed to do?" Rose's eyes widen at the frustration in his voice. "Explain the laws of adoption to her? Maybe bring in a lawyer? Run a spreadsheet to show her how much the kid will cost? A pie chart to illustrate what I have in the bank? How exactly do you think I should deal with this, Rose?"

Rose puts her fingertips against the front of his throat and begins a gentle downward smoothing motion, the Southeast Asian remedy for unseemly emotional displays. Thais take equanimity very seriously, and no one loses face faster than someone who gets angry. "You deal with it the way you should deal with everything," she says, soothing him. "With a cool heart. You look for what's best for everyone. You create a situation where you can earn merit."

"So we don't just clean the kid up, dress him in new clothes, slip him a twenty, wish him luck, and put him back on the street."

Rose looks past Rafferty at the balcony, where Miaow has let her head fall all the way forward onto her chest. "You can't," Rose says. "I think you'll lose Miaow if you do."

The words straighten Rafferty's spine. "You don't know what I've heard about this kid. Tik says he killed someone."

"That wouldn't surprise me," Rose says.

Rafferty abandons the rest of his speech and stares at her.

"I can see it. When I was dancing, there were men who came into the bar, and I knew immediately I shouldn't go with them. They hated women, and the hatred steamed off them like heat from a road. It rippled. I knew I shouldn't let them buy me drinks, shouldn't let them talk to me, shouldn't give them any reason to think they were going to get me out of the bar. I tried to tell the other girls, but some of them went anyway. They came back with cigarette burns on their arms, a missing tooth, a broken nose, razor cuts on the webbing between the fingers. And those men only shimmered. This boy's aura is a very dark red. It boils the air around him. He's like a cat that's gone wild again and can't decide whether it wants to kill or be fed." She holds out her arm to display a red crescent of bruising, not bad enough to break the skin but bad enough to triple Rafferty's pulse. "He bit me," she says.

Rafferty slaps a palm against one thigh. "That's that. He's gone."

A hand on his arm. "Miaow will go with him."

"She won't." He is whispering, and he can see Miaow straining to hear him. "She's not going to run away with a killer."

"Even if he is a killer," Rose says, "we don't know who he killed."

"And?" Rafferty says. "If we knew, that would make everything okay?"

"There are people who should die." Rose might be discussing the price of milk. "Americans have a hard time with that, because they think everyone who is bad got broken somehow and someone else is at fault. Whoever broke them. But in the real world, people know life would be better if some people were removed from it."

"Jesus," Rafferty says. Her face is calm and clear. "I feel like I'm back in the States, listening to talk radio."

"I don't know what that means. But I know you'll lose Miaow if you don't keep your heart cool. Learn what you can. The boy has been hurt terribly. Just listen and go gently, and look for a chance to do something good." She leans forward, kisses his cheek, and taps the nearest plastic bag. "And give me the shampoo."

He hands it to her and watches her straight back as she leaves the room. The kitchen is immaculately ordered, everything part of a set, everything in the right place. If anything broke, he thinks, it would create disorder and incompletion as obvious as a missing tooth. But, of course, there's nothing in the kitchen that couldn't be replaced.

"Unless my eyes deceive me, we're burning clothes." Framed in the doorway, despite a yellow polo shirt and a pair of checkered slacks loud enough to draw stares even on a golf course, Rafferty's friend Arthit still looks like a cop. "Are we trying to make someone disappear?"

"Actually, we're attempting a rebirth," Rafferty says.

"If you figure it out, let us know," Arthit says. "There are a few hundred thousand people who'd give their all for it." He looks hollowed out, almost to the point of transparency. Total exhaustion identifies honest cops in the days following the great waves, in stark contrast to the sleek cheeriness of their corrupt colleagues. The tsunami has made many of them extremely rich. "How are you, Miaow?" Arthit calls over Rafferty's shoulder. "If you sit all bent over like that too long, you'll fold your lungs." Miaow does not answer, but she straightens a tiny amount and stirs the fire. Arthit brings his eyes to Poke's and says, "I'd love to come in, thanks. And did you say something about a beer?"

"Sorry, Arthit." Rafferty steps aside and lets Arthit in. The trousers make him look like a giant Scotch tape dispenser. "Take whatever's in the fridge."