Timothy Hallinan - The Fear Artist

“It’s not a big crime.”

“Rose. This is a country that fired a prime minister because he made an omelet on television.”

“No they didn’t, they fired him for political-Okay, right, you’re right.”

“Plus, I’m under surveillance.”

“That’s why you’re not using your own phone. Whose number is this?”

“Mrs. Pongsiri’s. I want you to toss your phone and get a new one up there. When you’ve got it, hang on to it, and I’ll figure out how to get you my new number.”

“You can call my mother.”

“You’re not going to be at your mother’s. Do you remember where you went after Howard Horner? Don’t mention any names. You know the place I mean?”

“Oh, no,” she says. “Yes, I remember it. Somewhere else where everyone’s nose will be running. Why can’t we go to … I don’t know, someplace sunny?”

“Go to that village. Stay there until I get in touch with you.”

“I’ll go, but I don’t know if they’ll let us stay.”

“They did before.”

“I didn’t have a twelve- or thirteen-year-old vegan with me before.”

“They’ll love her.”

Rose says nothing.

“Pay them money,” Rafferty says.

“And where am I going to get money?”

“Right, good thinking. No ATMs. Call those people’s daughter on your new phone and tell her I’ll be in touch with her to get your number, then ask her to send a few thousand baht up to you.” The place he wants her to go to is the home of the parents of a woman nicknamed Fon. Soon after coming to Bangkok, Rose had taken refuge with Fon’s family when she had to hide from one of the psychopaths who batter their way through the bars every now and then.

Rose says, “I hate this.”

He doesn’t know what to say, so he says, “I’m sorry.”

“I should have married Walter.”

“Who’s Walter?”

“The little fat one with the rubbery lips who’s lost most of his hair. You’ve met him three times.”

“I don’t remember him.”

“That’s the point,” Rose says. “Nobody remembers Walter.”

“Oh, well,” Rafferty says, “if it’s safety you want …”

“I’ll call when everything is set.” Rose hangs up, and Rafferty stands there with the phone at his ear, feeling like he’s just stepped into thin air.

He puts the phone back on the table, and he’s still staring down at it when Mrs. Pongsiri comes back in. She’s got a glass of something dark in her hand, and she presses it upon him.

“Here,” she says in a tone of command. “You drink.” Her face is a masterpiece of the painter’s art. It doesn’t look natural, and it’s obviously not supposed to. What it says is skill . What it says is determination . The makeup tells a customer everything he could want to know about a bar owner: She’s attractive, meticulous, accomplished, in control. The women who work for her are going to laugh at a man’s jokes, and in the right places. “Coke,” she announces. “American always want Coke.”

Rafferty loathes Coke, but he needs something and he accepts it gratefully.

“Problem?” she says. She’s speaking English, as she almost always does with him.

“I think so.”

“Sometimes we think have problem but not have.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he says. He knocks back about half the Coke, which is room temperature, trying not to make a face.

She gives him a reassuring smile and starts to pad back into the bathroom but stops in midstep and holds up a hand, her face the blank mask of someone who’s trying to hear something faint. “You have friend?”

“Jesus,” he says. “I hope so.”

“I mean now? You have friend come your house now?”

“No,” Rafferty says with a sinking feeling.

“You listen,” she says.

He listens. She has better ears than he does, but after a couple of moments he hears male voices in the hall.

Mrs. Pongsiri pats the air in his direction with her upraised hand: Stay there . She goes to the door and slides aside a little metal disk at eye level and peeks through the opening. Then she turns to him, puts a finger to her lips, and waves him toward her, fingers curved down.

“Special,” she whispers, moving aside for him. “Super wide angle.”

The lens is practically a fish-eye. Off at the far left, he sees three of them in uniform, as curved as the letter C by the edge of the lens. One of them, wearing a sergeant’s chevron on his sleeve, is stooped slightly forward, unlocking the door of Rafferty’s apartment. The other two have their weapons unholstered, hanging at their sides.

Rafferty says, without even thinking about it, “Shit.”

“You move,” Mrs. Pongsiri says, practically shouldering him aside. He looks down at her midnight-black hair, seeing the gleam of silver at the part and catching the scent of her, a scent so heavy she’d probably retain it after a sandblasting. He endures a cold wave of guilt for what she went through for him once before, for the danger she might be in right now. She’s tiny, she’s old, she’s valiant, and she doesn’t deserve any of this.

“He go in,” she whispers. “This one.” She draws the sergeant’s chevron on her sleeve with her index finger. “Other two wait. One look in, one look at elevator. Both look stupid.”

Rafferty wants to see for himself, but when he puts a hand on Mrs. Pongsiri’s shoulder, she shrugs it off. “He come out now. Talking, talking, door still open. Stand around. Cops so lazy, all same-same. Want everything free, act like big deal, sleep standing up, take money, money, money. Okay,” she says. “He close door, they all stand around some more. They put gun away.” She looks up at him. “You have trouble.”

“Well,” Rafferty says, “yes.”

She gives him the dubious eye, the eye she’s probably trained on a thousand customers who might or might not be deadbeats. Then she shakes her head.

“They waiting for you, yes?”

“Afraid so.”

“Okay,” she says. She goes into the living room and glances at her reflection in the beveled mirror that hangs over the couch. Yanks at her hair so a few long strands hang untidily over her face and then uses the heel of her right palm to smear her eyebrow makeup on that side, just a little. When she turns back to him, she looks like a woman who drinks away much of her day.

“You stay,” she says, and goes into the kitchen.

“What do you mean, I stay?” He’s whispering so sharply he’s half afraid they can hear him. “What are you-”

“Cops,” she says. “I no like. I like you, I like Rose, I like Miaow. Cops no good.” She drops into an effortless squat and pulls open the cabinet doors beneath her sink. “O kay,” she says again, and it sounds like a mantra of commitment.

“Listen,” he says as she pulls out a blue plastic trash bag, about half full. “I can take care of this myself.”

“Yes? How?”

“I’m working on that, but you’re-”

“When I come back,” she says, closing the top of the bag with a knot a mariner would envy, “you tell me how you handle.” She hoists the bag to her shoulder, Santa Claus style, and stands.

Rafferty blocks the door. “No way. I am not hiding behind an … an, uhh …”

“Old?” Mrs. Pongsiri whispers with a sweet smile. “Old woman?”

“No. I mean yes, a woman, I’m not hiding behind a woman.”

“Why you marry such a big one, then?” She elbows him out of the way, and he moves, mostly because he can’t imagine getting into a pushing match with someone her size.

But he takes her arm before she reaches the door and says, “No. I’m serious. I don’t want you to go out there.”