“That’s what it looks like, huh?”
“Dry your hand,” she says. Her lips are drawn so tight that they’ve practically disappeared.
He takes the towel and very gently pats the hand dry.
“Flap it around. Let the air get to it. Get it dry.”
“The film gets wet in my mouth. How come it can’t get wet now?”
“Just listen to the nice music and do what I say. Or go see a hand doctor.”
“Nobody listens to the Carpenters anymore.”
“I do.”
“Probably cheaper than anesthetic.”
Dr. Pumchang pulls the X-ray unit toward him. “Put the hand down carefully, fingers as close together as you can get them, palm flat, if you can do it, and
“So much for bedside manner,” Rafferty says, lowering his palm carefully onto the pieces of film and hoping she doesn’t notice how they spread out beneath his hand.
“Just be quiet and hold still.” She positions the lens over the center of his wrist, leaves the room, and Rafferty hears a short buzz. Then she comes back in and moves the lens a couple of inches. “I really don’t know why I’m doing this.”
“Because you’re a good Buddhist.”
“Don’t push it.” She leaves again, and Rafferty hears the buzz again. “By the time we finish this,” she says, coming back into the room, “you’ll probably be sterile.”
“Okay,” Dr. Pumchang says, “what you’ve got is two fractures. Second and third metacarpals.” She is peering at the pieces of film, which she’s joined together with transparent tape and clipped onto a light box. “They’re pressure breaks, like you’d get if you bit down too hard on a chicken bone. Can you visualize that?”
This was exactly what Rafferty hadn’t wanted to hear. “All too vividly.”
“The good news is that almost all the pieces are in place. In other words, the splinters are right where they should be. More or less. Properly cared for, the bones should knit without any real lasting damage.”
“And what constitutes ‘properly cared for’?”
“A splint, then a cast, a month or so of not using it.” She looks over at him. “Say something so I know you’re listening to me.”
“Okay. I’m listening to you. Here’s what I want you to do: I want you to take the case this awful Carpenters CD came in, and I’ll put my palm on it with my fingers jammed together, and you just tape the hell out of it. That way I’ll be back on the street in about ten minutes.”
“This is your
“For how long?”
“For the rest of your life.”
“Oh.”
“In the best prognosis, you might be able to use it as a Ping-Pong paddle.”
“Well, then,” Rafferty says, “you’d better tape it really well.”
Down on the street, it takes him three one-handed tries to bring up “recent calls” on his cell phone and press the “connect” button to dial Arthit. He puts the phone to his ear, looking down at the white adhesive-taped rectangle of his left hand, and waits.
“Hello,” says someone who is not Arthit.
The hair on the back of Rafferty’s neck stands on end. The tone is recognizable the world around. “Is Arthit there?”
Not-Arthit says, “Who is this?”
“I’ll call him back.” Rafferty folds the phone one-handed and puts it into his shirt pocket. There’s no question in his mind that Arthit’s phone has just been answered by a police officer. Immediately his phone starts to ring. He doesn’t even have to look at the readout to know it’s the cops, calling him back.
35
The envelope says, DON’T COME IN. CALL A FRIEND.
It sits, meticulously centered, on the coffee table in front of the couch in Arthit’s living room. It is the only thing on the table. The characters are written in thick black felt-tip. Noi’s usual handwriting was slapdash, the lines of text slanting up to the right in a way that Arthit always saw as optimistic. But these words are ruler-straight and meticulously formed. The kind of care she would take with the last thing she would ever do.
Where did she sit to write it? he asks himself, and immediately knows the answer: the kitchen table. There had been a half-drunk cup of tea on the table. He’d seen it before his foot slipped.
“Can I get you anything?” Kosit asks.
Sitting in the center of the couch, Arthit shakes his head. He says, “She didn’t finish her tea.”
Kosit blinks and says, “I hadn’t noticed that.”
“She was in a hurry,” Arthit says. “She wanted to make sure.”
“Sure?”
“That I didn’t come home too early. That the…that the pills had time to work.” He can’t find the voice to continue, so he clears his throat and looks back down at the envelope. He hasn’t opened it yet. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to open it.
The front door stands wide open, and an ambulance’s red lights blink on-off-on through the window. A few people have gathered curiously on the sidewalk. Arthit can hear the medical technicians talking in the bedroom. When they wheel Noi out, it will be the last time she ever leaves the house. Their house.
Of course he
After all, he’d come home early. She might still have been…
“A glass of water,” he says. His voice is husky.
“Sure,” Kosit says. He gets up but stops as two uniformed patrolmen come in. “What?” he asks. “Why are you here?”
“We got called. Fatality, right?” The senior patrolman is in his early fifties, nut brown. He’s got a nose as bulbous as a head of garlic, the skin covering it a miniature map of broken veins. Beneath a flop of dirty hair are tiny eyes, the whites a disconcertingly sweet pink. His younger partner looks embarrassed, his eyes fixed on the carpet.
“Suicide,” Kosit says. “The survivor is a cop. You’re not needed.”
“We got a call,” says the senior patrolman. “From headquarters.”
“It’s a mistake,” Kosit says. “Go away.”
“From whom?” Arthit asks.
“Excuse me?” The senior patrolman scratches the back of his neck, revealing a dark, damp circle under his right arm.
Arthit says, “I asked who put out the call.”
“You’re the husband, right?” says the senior patrolman. He waits for an answer, letting the silence yawn between them.
“I am,” Arthit says at last.
“Yeah, well, then, I don’t see that you need to know who put out the call.” His partner shifts his gaze from the carpet to the tops of his own shoes.
“You’re being offensive,” Kosit says. “This man is a lieutenant colonel on the force. We have a note, in the handwriting of the deceased.”
