Timothy Hallinan - The Queen of Patpong

The woman calls after him, but by the time anyone has registered what he's doing, Rafferty is balanced on the table, feet on either side of the sewing machine. The table is a little more than three feet high, so he can get both arms over the top of the wall and haul himself up. The woman is still yelling at him and drawing a crowd, so he extracts yet another hundred-baht bill and lets it flutter down.

Because of the bottle tucked into the back of his pants, he has to go over the wall on his stomach. He hears women's voices, indignant and scolding, behind him, and when he turns, he sees a group of eight or ten Beer Garden regulars, women of various ages and shapes, tightly clustered around an open door. They look angry and upset, and some of them are trying to push others forward, through the door. The women at the front hold back, obviously unwilling or afraid to go in.

One of the women at the rear spots Rafferty and waves him to hurry. He palms the bag of chili sauce and covers the distance at a run. The women part, and he's looking into the men's room.

It's not much-a row of urinals with those round pink cakes in them that somebody somewhere thinks smell better than piss, a filthy once-white tile floor, a couple of sinks to the left of the door, and three toilet cubicles with a great many words scratched into them.

John is standing with his back against the wall of the center cubicle. He's sweating heavily, and there's a mean-looking six-inch knife in his hand, which he's using to try to get the crowd of women to back up. Crumpled on the floor beside him, leaning against the door of the right-hand cubicle, her face a twist of pain and her left arm hanging uselessly in her lap, is Pim. Her shoes lie on their sides next to her, and the bandage around her ankle is soiled from the floor. Tears have eroded deep, wet tracks through her cakey makeup from her eyes to her jawline. A teardrop dangles from her chin.

Rafferty eases the last woman aside and says to John, "Get away from her."

"The hero," John says. "Send in a girl. What an asswipe. Come on in here, asswipe."

"You're fucked," Rafferty says. "I don't think Howard is going to like this at all."

"The hell with Howard," John says, but he sounds less certain. "Get in here."

"Yeah? What do you think you're going to do? Cut me in front of all these ladies? Fight your way out of here with me bleeding in the bathroom? Howard will love that, his fifth-rate jerkwater backup in jail, charged with stupidity. What were you supposed to do? Follow me. Find out where I went. Get a little information. Report back to Howard, wherever Howard is. Instead here you are, stuck in a toilet with a knife in your hand." Rafferty comes just inside the door. "Where's Howard?"

John says, "Fuck yourself," and flourishes the knife, doing a gleaming, professional-looking, little back-and-forth razzle-dazzle, but Rafferty ignores it. Either the man will use it or he won't.

"I asked you a question."

John puts the tip of his tongue to his upper lip and then retracts it. "And I told you what you can do, if your dick is long enough to stick it up your ass."

"I also told you to get away from her."

"Man," John says, "you are so not listening."

Rafferty's got no moves that will protect him from a blade. What he can do, if he can work up the courage, is to offer John another target. He takes a longer look at Pim, who is staring up at him wet-eyed, slumped slightly to the side to try to ease the weight of her damaged left arm. He flips a mental coin, and it comes up heads: John would prefer not to use the knife. So Rafferty grabs a deep breath and brushes past the man as though he's not there, barely bothering to sidestep the knife, and bends down over Pim, practically waving in John's face the freshly bandaged left elbow.

John seizes the advantage, grabs the bandages, and squeezes for all he's worth, with explosive results. Rafferty lets out a bellow of pain, straightens convulsively, and through a sort of red haze he brings his right hand, with the plastic bag in it, up into John's face. When the straw is pointed at the other man's eyes, Rafferty squeezes the bag.

His own cry is still ragged in his throat, but even so he can hear John howl. John yanks his head back, slamming it against the wall of the toilet cubicle and scrubbing at his eyes with his forearm as Rafferty reaches back, lifts his T-shirt, and brings out the heavy soda bottle, clutching it by the neck. With an effort that begins at the soles of his feet, he slams the bottle against the side of John's head, so hard that the bottle almost flies out of his hand. There's a surprising crack, a sound that nearly persuades Rafferty he's broken the man's skull. John's knees accordion outward like he's doing a dance step, and he goes down. Rafferty whacks him again for insurance as he drops, hitting his ear this time. John crumples on the floor like a loose sack, looking as though he has no muscles in his body.

Rafferty stands over him, panting, making sure the man is out. From beneath John's head, blood begins to pool across the tile floor. The women standing in the doorway break into applause.

Taking it one deliberate step at a time, Rafferty puts the bottle down carefully, not spilling the remaining soda, and kneels beside John. He pries the knife from the man's hand, tosses the blade against the opposite wall, and puts a couple of fingers over John's pulse, which is reassuringly strong and steady. As if on cue, the man moans, and Pim lets out a squeak of terror and scrabbles away from him, using her good arm to pull her along.

"I need a belt," Rafferty says in Thai to the women in the doorway. They're pushing at each other now, peering in at the flattened man and the injured girl. A woman in front, older and tattooed and somehow familiar, unbuckles her belt, slips it free of her jeans, and throws it to him.

She says, in English, "Here, Poke," and Rafferty takes his eyes off the belt to look at her, and it falls at his feet, the heavy buckle making an echoing clank as it hits the tile.

"Move," Rafferty says to Pim, and when she's scooted farther away, he rolls John over onto his stomach, yanks his arms behind his back, and makes a tight figure eight with the belt, wrapping it around and between the arms just above the elbows, Khmer Rouge style, where John won't be able to reach it with his hands. When he's tugged it as tight as he can, he secures the buckle and takes a quick look at John's scalp. The bottle broke the skin, but there doesn't seem to be any real damage, just the usual aggressive bleeding from a scalp wound. He rolls John onto his back again.

"Hold still," he says to Pim. He puts his hand on her left shoulder and probes it gently. She lets out a shrill yelp. "Dislocated," he says. "Stay where you are."

Pim says, around a sniffle, "But-"

"Do what I say. If you move around, it'll hurt more." He turns to the woman who threw him the belt. He's suddenly immensely weary. "I'm sorry. I know you, but I can't remember your name."

"Lan," she says. "I dance King's Castle long time. Before, me friend for Rose."

"Right, right. Sorry, Lan. Where's security? They should be here by now."

"You want?"

"No, I don't. If they come, try to keep them out, okay?"

"Okay. Him." She points her foot at John, a gesture of contempt. "Him boxing her. Bang, take her hair, pull her."

"Well, he's not going to enjoy the next few minutes." John moans again, and Rafferty gets up, turns on the water in the sink, cups his hands beneath the spout, and throws the water at John. He does it three or four times, and then John's eyes are open. He struggles once against the belt, takes a quick look around the bathroom-at Rafferty, at the huddled Pim, at the band of angry women. His eyes find the knife on the other side of the room, and he goes still. He's not even looking at Rafferty.