Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller

The man on the street counts balconies and corner windows until he gets to Rafferty’s floor. “The one in the living room.”

“Well, I can’t hear him.”

“Are the woman and the girl in there? I don’t see the guys who follow them.”

“No,” Captain Teeth says. “They went out ten, fifteen minutes ago. The guys are behind them.”

“So,” the man on the street says, “what’s the problem? There’s no one for him to talk to.”

“The woman got a phone call just before they went out,” Captain Teeth says. “And what it all adds up to is that we don’t really know where Rafferty is, and the building went for ten minutes or so with nobody watching it.” He sits back in his chair and takes the nail of his uninjured thumb between his straggling incisors.

The man on the other end of the phone says, “Kai?”

Captain Teeth-Kai-says, “I’m thinking.” The door to the office opens, and Ren comes in, looking sleepy. He’s breathing through his mouth to cool the burned spot on his tongue. He looks at Kai, with the phone to one ear, and raises his eyebrows questioningly.

“Go inside,” Kai says into the phone.

“And do what? Knock on his door?”

“Yes.”

“He’s in there, I’m telling you.”

“Based on what?” Kai hears something in his other ear. “Hold on,” he says. To Ren he says, “Grab the headphones.”

Ren pulls out his chair, sits, and clamps the phones to his ears. Together the two of them listen to a ringing telephone in Rafferty’s apartment.

Ren looks over at Kai and says, “So?”

“So some kids picked Dit’s pocket, and Dit chased them and lost Rafferty, and the other two followed the woman and the girl out of the apartment, and now it’s Dit’s best guess that Rafferty’s at home.”

“Sure he is,” Dit says on the phone.

“Then why isn’t he answering his phone?” Kai demands. “The fucking thing has been ringing for twenty or thirty seconds.”

Dit says, “Oh.”

“Get your ass up there. Knock on the door. If he doesn’t answer, pick the lock and take a look. If he does answer, just turn around and go down the stairs. Don’t answer any questions, just get out of there.”

“Wait,” Ren says. “Let me try something.” He takes out his own cell phone and dials Rafferty’s cell number. Listens as it begins to ring.

Fails to hear it in his earphones.

“Go in,” Kai says to Dit. “Go in now.”

“I took care of Miaow for a while,” Boo is telling Da. “Way before she met Poke. She was only four or five then, but she was already on the street. Four or five, right?” he asks Rafferty.

“That’s what she says. She also says you saved her life.”

“She could take care of herself, even then.” But Boo’s cheeks have gone pink. “And I didn’t take very good care of her when I started using yaa baa, did I?”

Da says, “You did what?”

“All day and all night.”

Rafferty’s cell phone rings.

“Why would you do that?” Da asks.

“I was crazy,” Boo says. To Rafferty he says, “Aren’t you going to answer that?”

“Not yet,” Rafferty says. It rings again.

“Then when?” Boo asks. “What are you waiting for? A sign of some kind?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Rafferty says. “Everybody except me knows what I should do.” He pulls out the phone and looks at it. His forehead creases for a moment as he looks at the number, and then he’s up and running toward the door.

“Stay here,” he says. “Don’t go anywhere, don’t open this door.”

He takes the stairs three at a time, catching his foot once and landing on his outstretched palms, and he screams at the pain, but even while he’s screaming, he’s pushing himself to his feet again and running upstairs for all he’s worth. If someone was watching the building, he has to be in the apartment. On the seventh floor, it suddenly occurs to him that the door to the eighth might be locked, and although he thinks it’s impossible for his heart to beat any faster, it accelerates in his chest anyway and doesn’t slow until the eighth-floor doorknob turns in his hand. He hurries down the corridor, fishing out his keys, and mutes the phone before slipping the key into the door.

Behind him the elevator moans and shudders into motion, bringing someone up.

He pushes the apartment door open slowly, breathing through his mouth to silence his panting. He pulls out the phone again, but it’s no longer ringing. Tucking the reinjured hand beneath one arm and forcing himself to breathe regularly, he closes the door slowly, tiptoes to the bathroom, and flushes the toilet. Then he closes the door sharply. Still in the hallway outside the bathroom, he mops his forehead and pushes the button to return the most recent call.

Rafferty’s voice in his earphones brings Ren bolt upright. Rafferty says, “Yeah?”

Kai has his cell phone to his ear. “Where were you?” He’s pulled the earphones off and is looking at them as though they’d suddenly started transmitting classical music.

“What do you care? And aren’t you supposed to know where I am? Something wrong with your terrific surveillance system?”

“You…ahhh, you didn’t answer.” Kai puts one of the phones back over his free ear.

“I was washing my hands, if you actually need to know. Something I usually do after I go to the bathroom.”

Kai turns to Ren and gestures frantically at his own telephone. Ren looks at him, bewildered, and Kai puts a hand over the mouthpiece of his cell phone and rasps, “Dit.”

“Oh,” Ren says, dialing. He waits as the phone on the other end rings.

“Huh,” Rafferty says. “Sounds like someone’s in the hall.”

“Oh, yeah?” Kai says. “You’re…um, you’re home, then?”

“Where else would I be? Hold on, somebody’s just standing out there while his cell phone rings.”

Ren says into his phone, “Dit. Get out of there.”

“It’s probably nothing,” Kai says. “How did the interviews go?”

“Are we chatting?” Rafferty says. “And don’t tell me it’s nothing when it’s at the door of my own apartment.” There’s a pause. “Well,” he says. “Nobody there. Didn’t even leave a copy of the Watchtower.” Kai hears the door close. “So was there a reason you called?”

“Just reminding you there’s a deadline coming up.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you.” He disconnects, and a moment later Ren and Kai hear him in their earphones, saying to the empty room,

“What a bunch of idiots.”

37

I Might as Well Be Fluorescent

His first stop, maybe a quarter of a mile from the house, is an ATM. He withdraws the limit on his bank card, then inserts a credit card and does it again. Standing with his back to the sidewalk and his head down, panting from the run and feeling his shirt plaster itself to his spine, he watches the crisp new thousand-baht notes slide through