Timothy Hallinan - The Queen of Patpong

"The very one."

"Why? What can he tell you?"

"I don't know. Right now let's just go into the apartment, get Rose's camera, and get out again. We need those pictures more than we need anything else."

Without looking up, Miaow says, "It's nice to be back."

"We'll be back for keeps in a few days," Rafferty says.

Miaow says, "How do you know?" and Kosit looks away to hide a smile.

"Good question," Rafferty says.

"Don't do that. I'm not a baby."

"Well," Rafferty says, "you're my baby."

Miaow says, "Ick." The elevator stops and the doors open, and she drops his hand and bolts through, into the corridor, where she stops like someone who's run into a punch. She says, "Oh, no."

Rafferty and Kosit shoulder each other getting off. They halt in unison behind Miaow.

The apartment door has been split down the middle. It sags inward crookedly, hanging by one hinge.

Miaow says, "The floor."

Rafferty looks down and sees a trail of bloody footprints coming out of the apartment, leading to the emergency stairwell.

He grabs Miaow by the shoulders and shoves her at Kosit, then reaches past him to stop the elevator doors from closing. "Get her downstairs," he says.

Miaow pulls away, but Rafferty pushes her back, not gently, and Kosit gets a grip on her this time. He says, "Take my gun."

"You keep it. You've got her with you. Go, go."

The elevator doors close, and Rafferty can hear Miaow protesting all the way down. Not until the elevator stops moving does he turn back to the shattered door.

He follows the bloody tracks with his eyes. Blood all over him, Miaow had said. There are two doors he needs to look through, but the one that terrifies him is the one leading into his apartment, so, moving parallel to the bloody footprints, he makes his way to the door to the emergency stairs. He yanks his T-shirt away from his belly and puts his hand inside it to turn the doorknob.

Footprints lead down, two pair, undoubtedly Horner's and dead John's, fading as they go. He lets the door sigh closed and turns back around and almost chokes on his breath. The door to Mrs. Pongsiri's apartment is wide open.

He feels enormously heavy, nailed to the floor by his weight. He can see it all. Horner and John kicking in the door, Mrs. Pongsiri-already alerted by having found the red X-hearing the noise and going to investigate. She comes down the hall and into the apartment. They're inside, knives in hand, ready to kill anyone who's there. She's seen them.

He can't face this. After everything that's happened in the past few days, he can't face this. He reaches for the phone in his pocket, thinking to call Kosit. Kosit's a cop. He knows how to deal with these things.

But Kosit's with Miaow, and he can't have Miaow up here. And then a wave of heat flows through him, and he thinks, She might be alive.

He's running without even knowing it, and he plunges through the door and sees the small figure dead center in the continent of red that's been mapped onto the far end of his carpet. She's facing away from him as though she's reclining on the floor, idly looking out through the cracked sliding glass door. Her wig-he never knew she wore a wig-has been wrenched sideways, and the hair beneath it is steel gray and cropped as short as a Buddhist nun's. Her neck looks slender enough to break with a pencil.

She's not moving.

He tracks his way around the blood. She's so tiny. She's wearing a loose, flowery print dress that's multicolored on the top of her body but a rusty brownish red beneath. It's been torn, he sees, the hem ripped right off it.

When he's in front of her, he drops to his knees, trying to make sense of what he's looking at: The strip of cloth from her dress, wrapped around her arm, the arm outstretched on the carpet. The broom, which he had left standing beside the balcony door, protruding through the cloth, which has been twisted tight. The long gash in her arm.

It's a tourniquet. She made a tourniquet. It's held tight by the weight of her arm on top of the rigid broomstick. She made a tourniquet that wouldn't loosen even if she passed out. He leans in and sees her nostrils flare.

He jumps up, dialing the phone as he goes. In the bedroom he rips a blanket from the bed and drags it behind him into the living room, doubles it for extra warmth, and throws it over her, seeing the other cuts, five or six of them, as he does so. When the emergency response service answers, he gives them the address and the apartment number and then hangs up and dials Kosit.

"Get up here. Don't let Miaow come in."

He hangs up and runs to the closet, sweeps everything from the front of the top shelf, and stretches for the box. He's got the little yellow camera in his hand by the time Kosit comes in and freezes at the sight of the draped blanket in the circle of blood, the little head sticking out of it.

"My neighbor," Rafferty says. "They cut her a few times and slashed her wrist, but she's alive. Anything you can do?"

"I can call for an ambulance."

"I've done that." He hands Kosit the camera. "Take Miaow and get to Arthit's as fast as you can. I need the pictures from this thing now, whatever it takes. And tell Rose I need the women from her agency there, as many as possible, around six-thirty. Go on, go on, get out of here."

"What are you going to do?"

"Stay with her. Wait for the ambulance."

"What are you going to tell the cops?"

Rafferty says, "Go."

He hears a gasp from the doorway and turns to see Miaow, holding on to the jamb as though she's about to go down. She says, "Who… who…?"

"Mrs. Pongsiri. She's alive. Kosit, please get out of here. Miaow, you're going with him."

"Where?" She's staring at the blanket, at the broadening stain on the carpet.

"Arthit's. I'll be there in a little bit." Neither of them moves. "Miaow, I need you to go with Kosit. Both of you, get out of here."

He turns his back on them and goes to sit in front of Mrs. Pongsiri. He puts his hand on top of her outstretched arm. When he looks up, they're both gone.

He stays there, holding the warm, smooth hand and willing life into her, until he hears the siren growl to a stop in the street below. Then he says to Mrs. Pongsiri, "They'll take care of you," and gets up. Being careful not to step in the blood, he goes back into the corridor and through the door into the stairwell. When he hears the elevator doors open, followed by the emergency medical technicians' voices, he climbs the stairs to the ninth floor and then takes the elevator down. He passes through the glass doors of the apartment house without a glance at the waiting ambulance and fades down the street, into the thickening dusk.

Arthit says, "You're putting me in an impossible position."

Rafferty has dried blood on his hand from when he pushed himself up from the carpet beside Mrs. Pongsiri. The sight of it makes him dizzy with anger. "Well, I'm sorry about that, but I don't know what else I can do."

"What else you can do? You're leaving a trail of bodies across Bangkok, and you won't even talk to the cops."

"Body," Rafferty snaps. "One body. Mrs. Pongsiri is alive. And the other one, John, fuck him. Anybody disagree with that?" He gets up from the armchair, too rattled to sit. "And would you like to tell me what I've done? Did I kill someone? Seriously, Arthit, you want to tell me how I'm responsible? And where are those pictures?"

He, Arthit, and Rose are in Arthit's living room, Arthit on the couch and Rose in the armchair that matches the one Rafferty just vacated. There's a clatter from the kitchen, where Miaow and Pim are unpacking take-out food and laying out plates and utensils. It's quarter past six.