Timothy Hallinan: The Fear Artist

“Warms up the room,” he says as paint runs down the underside of his forearm.

With her eyes on the wall she is painting, Ming Li says, “What that man was doing, what he was doing to Treasure.”

Rafferty keeps painting. He doesn’t think she really wants him to look at her.

“It’s sort of like, I mean, what you said about me and-It’s a little like, it’s kind of like …”

“No, it isn’t. Nothing like it.”

“How? I mean, why do you say-”

“Murphy destroyed Treasure. He turned her into a mirror, someone he could see his reflection in, someone who would be him when he was gone. He didn’t love her. Well, maybe he did. Maybe he loved her when he ran into that house, but I don’t know, maybe he was chasing himself. Anyway, he’s not Frank and you’re not Treasure. What Frank was doing was protecting you, in a dangerous place, the best way he knew how. By teaching you what he knew. He did it because he knew he might not always be there to take care of you, and he wanted to give you gifts you could use when he was gone. He did it because he loved you.”

Ming Li says, “Oh.”

“And he turned out a really amazing young woman.”

He hears a long sniff. Then she says, “I shouldn’t drink. I get soft when I’ve drunk too much.”

“Frank and I both love you,” Rafferty says.

She sniffs again and says, “I need some more paint.”

“I’ll bring it over.”

He gets up, can in hand, and there’s a knock at the door.

“It’s probably not the police,” he says, pouring paint into Ming Li’s roller pan. He puts the can down and goes to the door.

Andrew has put gel on his hair and spiked it up in twenty directions. He wears a painfully white, painfully new T-shirt with two handprints on it, one in blue and one in pink, and a pair of jeans so stiff they look like he stole them from the mannequin in the store window. He leans back to look up at Rafferty and says, “They’re coming. They’re coming. Miaow called me to say they’re coming.” He blinks a couple of times, centers his glasses, and tries it again. “They’re coming.” As he did all those days ago, he leans to one side to look around Poke, and his face falls, and he says, “Aren’t they?”

“Great shirt,” Rafferty says.

Andrew’s cheeks turn bright red, and he looks at his feet. “The pink hand is Miaow’s,” he says. “The blue one is mine. We sneaked into the craft room at school to make it.”

“Well, I’ve got something you can put on over it.” He steps aside, and as Andrew comes in, he says, “Do you know how to paint trim?”

By six o’clock that evening, Miaow’s room looks like the inside of an old bruise, and Andrew has pronounced the color cool. The pigments on the walls are even and flat, and the trim has a certain youthful flash and abandon, nothing Rafferty can’t paint over later. He is washing the rollers in the sink when Andrew comes in, back in his two-hand T-shirt, and says, “What time will they be here?”

“About ten tonight.”

Andrew’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open, and the look he gives Rafferty is rich in betrayed promise.

“Trains,” Rafferty says, feeling guilty. “They can’t get here ahead of the train. Anyway, that gives me time to put everything back, get it all pretty again.”

Dolefully, Andrew says, “I guess.”

From the living room come the sounds of Ming Li herding Hwa and Neeni out the door, taking them to a hotel to free up some beds.

Rafferty says, “You’ll get to see her tomorrow. Tell you what. I’ll keep her out of school tomorrow. You guys can spend the whole day together.”

“Mr. Rafferty,” Andrew says, “tomorrow is Saturday.”

“Why, so it is,” Rafferty says. “You lose track of time when you get old. Don’t worry, you’ll see her tomorrow, and trust me, you have no idea how happy she’s going to be. Excuse me for a minute, would you?” And he goes into the living room and forces himself to make the call he least wants to make.

The rain is dense enough to distort the neon across the street like a wet oil painting that’s been smeared by the side of someone’s hand, but the soi outside the Beer Garden is still full of men.

“Sexual desire,” Rafferty says, “is waterproof.”

Arthit grunts. He has a beer in front of him, untouched, and he hasn’t said ten words since he sat down.

“Thank you for coming,” Rafferty says. “I think it’ll mean more if it’s both of us.” Arthit doesn’t reply, and Rafferty blunders ahead to fill the silence. “Both of us talking to her, I mean. If she even comes.”

“I still can’t have her back. It won’t work.”

“I said I could take care of it. I have some money I don’t know what to do with.”

“Good for you.” He downs the first swallow of beer. Rafferty’s is mostly gone.

Rafferty says, “What’s happening with … with you and Anna?”

Three soaked men run by, hooting at one another, and crowd into the bar.

“She told me all about it this morning, before she left. And when she was finished, I wanted her to leave. So what could be happening? Nothing. She was someone else. She wasn’t who I–I suppose I was more vulnerable than I should have been, because …” He drinks again and puts the bottle down. The muscles at the corners of his jaws bunch. “And I have no idea how I feel about that scene you played two nights ago. I suppose on some level it didn’t concern me at all, but you stood in my living room and lied and lied and lied, and you knew what was happening, and you never said a word.”

“I couldn’t.”

“I’m a big boy. Were you afraid of breaking my heart?”

Yes , Rafferty thinks, and says, “No. I was hoping I was wrong. I’m not the one who figured it out. I never would have thought of it. It was one of the spies. And the way they put it, it made sense, and I-”

“And you didn’t tell me.” The rain rattles the awning above them.

Rafferty feels his friend’s gaze, but there’s no way he can return it. “I couldn’t. Just because they said it, that didn’t make it true.”

“ And you needed to get a message to Shen, remember? If you’re being honest, I mean, and if you don’t mind my saying so, it’s about time.” Arthit tilts back in his chair, the front legs lifting off the cement. “Anyway, it worked, didn’t it? Shen’s backed completely away from Murphy’s death.” He picks up his bottle and watches two girls run by, sheltering together under a piece of plastic sheeting. He puts the bottle back down, untasted. “I’m glad the … the strategy succeeded,” he says. “And I know that what she did almost got you killed and that I’m probably a bad friend for not putting that first. But I can’t pretend I like the way you handled it.”

Rafferty can think of no reply, so he says, “I’m sorry.”

“Yes. Well, I’m sorry, too, but that doesn’t fix anything.”

A young woman trots by beneath an umbrella, but Rafferty is so distracted he forgets to look at her. Too late, he turns his head to see her retreating back.

“Not her,” Arthit says.

“Arthit. What can I do?”

“I’m not sure you can do anything. Maybe we need to leave each other alone for a while. Let the bruises heal. Right now it’s like a cold sore. I keep prodding it with my tongue because I can’t believe how much it can hurt. Maybe I just need to get used to the idea it’s there, and then I’ll be able to leave it alone. Maybe even forget it.”

“I haven’t got anything to say. Anything that would matter.”

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but she did it for her country. The oldest excuse of all, the one they sell us over and over. They told her it was to fight the killings in the south, try to bring some peace down there. They showed her pictures of what was happening, bad enough that she had to ask them to stop. They made it all about children and monks being killed, bombs in Buddhist temples, you know. They said you and I were either one thing or the other, either bad guys or medium guys who were being used by the bad guys, and that she could help, she could save lives, by making friends with me and telling them what was happening. So I asked, ‘Did they tell you to sleep with me?’ She said no, said that she had no idea she was going to fall in love with me. She said, ‘It just happened.’ She said, ‘All that other stuff is over now, but I still love you.’ ” He leans forward, and the legs of his chair bang down on the cement. “That’s what she said.”