Timothy Hallinan - The Fear Artist

“I suppose-”

“But that’s not the point, is it? It’s that you’re doing the big tough-guy cowboy act: This town’s not big enough for both of you.”

“I’m not sure it is.”

“ I’d be here,” Ming Li says.

“And that would be great,” he says.

A silence claims the room. She’s curled up in her chair, looking at him. Her head is pulled back on her neck as though she half expects him to take a swing at her.

“You know,” he says, “if it was okay with Frank, and if it wouldn’t bring him across the ocean, I could probably work out a way for you to stay here.”

Her eyes widen, and she doesn’t make a sound, but when she blinks, a tear slips down her cheek. Then she’s up, and her arms are around him. “You don’t know,” she says, “you can’t know, how much that means to me.”

“It’s just an-”

“I don’t belong anywhere-not America, not even China, not anymore. I’m a nuisance to my mother, and Frank … well, Frank doesn’t need me. He’d go anywhere in the world that appealed to him and never even ask if I wanted to go. He’d forget to pack me.”

Poke says, “Vladimir is crazy about you.”

She laughs and backs off, wiping her nose. “I know. But he’s not exactly what I have in mind.”

“And I’m crazy about you, too.”

“Thank you,” she says. She squares her shoulders and rubs her face with her forearm. “I won’t hold you to it, but thank you. All right, I won’t go with you to Arthit’s. I’ll be around the corner in the car, with the motor running, just in case.”

“Can you drive?”

“Better than you, in a pinch. Nobody drives like a teenager.”

He nods. A moment ticks by. He says, “And you can hold me to it.”

“Well,” she says, and takes a shaky breath. Then she abandons the sentence and goes to the bed. “You wanted small,” she says, all business. “Mrs. Ma had a lot of Chinese guns, but Frank always called them ‘three-finger specials’ because they blow up all the time, so these are both Colts. They’re kind of beat up, and this one fires hot, Mrs. Ma said, but they work.” She picks up the smaller and racks it, the slide smooth and precise-sounding. “Forty-five. Kicks like a horse, according to Mrs. Ma, so I figure this one is yours.” She taps the barrel on a box. “Ammo here. And the other one is mine.” She drops the gun back on the bed and licks her lips, looking down at them. “She said hello, by the way. Mrs. Ma did.”

“I couldn’t have gotten through this without you,” he says.

“I know that. But don’t make me cry anymore. It messes up my self-image.”

“Fine.” He pushes off from the wall. “I’m going to put on a dry shirt, and then we’ll go.”

“I’ll drive.”

“No,” he says. “Let’s save that weapon until we need it. Which we probably will.”

“I went around the block half a dozen times,” Rafferty says. There are candles burning on the living-room table, and Arthit clearly hadn’t been expecting anyone. He feels very much like the uninvited guest, so he’s making small talk to soften his entrance. “Nobody seemed to be watching the house.”

“It’s kind of surprising,” Arthit says. He blows out the candles and glances at Anna, who immediately drops her eyes in a way that probably looks demure to Arthit but to Rafferty looks like a plain old guilty conscience. “I keep checking,” Arthit says, turning on the lights. “It’s been that way for days, which is odd. There’s nothing my superiors would rather do than hang me out the window in the rain.”

Anna holds up her pad, aiming it at Poke. It says, You’ve been careful? When she glances up at Poke, she catches him staring and gives him a tentative smile. He smiles back, his face as stiff as cardboard.

“Careful as I can be,” he says.

Arthit hasn’t sat yet. He says, “You want a drink?”

“Beer would be nice.”

“Fine.” He turns toward the dining room, but Anna is up and on her way, motioning Arthit back to the couch.

“I feel guilty,” Arthit says as he sits down.

“About what?”

“All this.” He raises his chin in the direction Anna took. “I’m here, feeling like I’m living in a greeting card, while you’re out there with half the world looking for you.”

“I’m doing okay,” Rafferty says. “And you have a life to live.”

“I hope so. I mean, I know so. And I know that this will be over soon, and we’ll all be back to normal. But I wish Rose had been around to get used to … this …” he says, with a vague circular gesture that takes in the two of them and Anna, in the other room. “I wish she could have gone through it in stages, like I did, instead of being presented with it in full bloom, so to speak, when she gets back.” His tone is light, but his eyes hold Poke’s. “She loved Noi so much.” He stops and swallows. “Will she be okay with it?”

“I can’t say,” Poke tells him. “We’ll have to let time sort it out.” He feels the coldness of the answer. “Everything is … good with the two of you?”

Arthit says, “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it.” He turns his head a few inches toward the dining room and continues. “She’s not Noi, I know that, but no one is. No one ever could be. But she’s not like anyone I’ve ever known, and-” He looks down at his knees and crosses his blunt, dark hands in his lap. The lamp makes his gold wedding band gleam. He shrugs. “And I think she loves me.”

There’s no way around it. “I’m sure she does.” His throat feels so tight he’s surprised Arthit can’t hear it.

“I didn’t mean to talk about this,” Arthit says, “You’ve got all these problems, and I’m rattling along about being in love. Please forgive me. You’ve got something important to talk about.”

“It’s all important,” Rafferty says, automatically. While Anna’s still out of the room, he asks, “Did Kosit follow Eddie Bland from the airport?”

“Straight to a big house that turns out to be Murphy’s. Still there. And he’s booked back to Kuala Lumpur at midnight, so he’ll probably stay put till then.”

“I guess Kosit can go home, then,” Rafferty says, getting up as Anna comes into the room, a middle-height, sturdily built woman who moves like a very light one. The businesslike chop of her hair bares her face, her smooth brow, her wide-set, guileless eyes. She hands him the beer in a bottle and smiles, then closes her eyes and screws up her face with effort.

Arthit watches with an expression halfway between apprehension and fierce pride.

Anna, her eyes still closed, says, slowly and tonelessly, “No … glass.” Her eyes fly wide open and go to Arthit’s, and he’s beaming from ear to ear. She drops her head to hide her own smile and turns deep red, and Rafferty wishes lightning would strike him where he stands.

Anna gives him a shy, quick glance and hands Arthit a glass with a good four fingers’ worth of whiskey in it. Then she mimes wiping sweat off her forehead and collapses beside him on the couch, letting her head drop onto his shoulder.

“We’ve been working on that,” Arthit says. He rests his free hand on her thigh. “She thinks she sounds ugly when she talks. But she doesn’t.” He catches himself and shakes his head. “Please. Let’s talk about your problems.”

“Well, first,” Rafferty says, sitting, “I’m very happy for both of you.”

Anna says, out loud, “Thank you.” She drags out the a on “thank” a bit experimentally and gives both words the same pitch and the same stress, but her voice is low and pleasant, coming from someplace in the center of her chest. Arthit’s face, as he watches her, is as transparent as water.