The Fear Artist

attention to him.

This can’t keep up forever. Sooner or later he’s going to look up and find the eyes that are trained on him.

He doesn’t recognize the number on the display. He scans the block again and says, “Hello.”

“Where are you?” It’s a woman’s voice.

“Who is this?”

“Older brother, shame on you, not recognizing my voice. Where are you?”

“I’m in Bangkok.”

“Well, yeah, but where in Bangkok?”

A terrible conviction seizes him. “Where are you?”

“I didn’t want to go to your apartment in case it was uncool or something,” Ming Li says, “so I’m standing around in the rain with a bunch of money in my pocket. And I’m hungry.”

“You’re in Bangkok?” Rafferty says. “But the phone number-”

“Hopeless, you’re hopeless. You need me so badly. It’s a global phone, silly. And it is soooo cool to be here. Asia, I smell Asia again. I thought I’d never smell anything except America as long as I lived. Fabric softener and frying fat, mixed together, that’s what America smells like. Come get your little sister. Buy her something to eat.”

19

Not a Creepy-Looking Solo Guy

“Oh, my God, I’m here,” Ming Li says. They’re in a tiny restaurant off of Silom, empty but for them, and she’s got four entree dishes and a bowl of rice in front of her. Two of the dishes are already empty, and the one that’s currently claiming her attention is a hellacious mix of stir-fried basil, crisp pork, and enough tiny red chilies to bring moisture to her brow. “Nothing in America tastes like anything. It’s like reading about food, not eating it.”

He feels like he’s still catching up with the fact that she’s here. And he can’t stop looking at her. She was a striking girl two years ago, and she’s turning into a beautiful young woman. “So, you got through immigration with no problem?”

“I’m eighteen. It says so on my passport.” She breaks off and looks quickly down at the bowl in front of her. The tips of her ears are scarlet. “Boy, this is good,” she says. “Nothing like it in, um, America.”

Rafferty says, “Eighteen. Chinese eighteen or American eighteen?”

“Chinese,” she says to the tabletop.

“So. That makes you seventeen, counting the American way.” He watches her make piles of food at the edge of the bowl. “And when you were here almost two years ago, you were twenty-two.”

She says, “Would you have let me help? If you’d known?”

“Probably not.

She looks up at him for the first time. “And did I make any mistakes? Did I screw up?”

“No.”

“See? I spared you a lot of unnecessary worry. And anyway, you bought it.”

“Actually, I didn’t. I checked it. I asked your-sorry, our-father, and he said …” He breaks off. “Sure,” he says, “Dad said. I should have known right there.”

“Before you beat up on Dad, here.” She reaches into a purse so big that Rose would envy it, pulls out a well-worn American passport, and slides it across the table. “Hello, Bob.”

Rafferty opens it and finds the picture of himself from the back of his books-a good copy this time-and the name Robert Delacroix. It expires in seven months.

“Courtesy of some people in his shop,” Ming Li says. “Although they don’t know it. It’ll be good for hotels and stuff, but I wouldn’t cross any borders.”

Rafferty is flipping through the pages to see where he’s been. “Delacroy or Delacwah?”

“How would I know? I’m from China.”

“Maybe old Bob is from Louisiana.”

“I wouldn’t know that either.” She stops the spoon halfway to her mouth, fans herself with her free hand, and says, “So. Good or no good?”

He smiles at her. Every now and then he catches, in her Asian features, a glimpse of his own, courtesy of their father. “Good. Very good.”

She empties the spoon, then turns it upside down and licks it. “And are you glad to see me? No matter how old I am?”

“I’m … surprised.”

“Don’t go overboard. I fly a hundred thousand miles to bring you a stack of money and a passport, and you don’t even hug me.”

He kisses the tips of his fingers, reaches across and plants them on her forehead, then gives a little shove. He gets a basil-green grin in response. “I’m very, very happy, okay? I’m a little perplexed, because this is a dangerous place.”

Her eyes widen. “Bangkok? You mean, the flooding? It doesn’t seem so-”

“No. Sitting at this table. Being near me.”

“Look,” she says, holding out a rock-steady hand. “I’m shaking. You haven’t actually asked about Dad.”

“How’s Dad?”

“Ehhhhh.” She swivels the hand back and forth. “Fifty-fifty. I just wanted you to ask.”

“And your mom?”

“She’s better than he is.” She picks up the dish and pours a pool of cooking oil, all that’s left of the basil and pork, onto the rice and shovels it into her mouth. Around it she says, “She found a Chinatown somewhere near us, and she goes there on the bus every morning. She plays mah-jongg with a bunch of old ladies, and they cheat her, and then she buys a whole chicken from a Chinese grocery, one they’ve killed in front of her, and brings it home and uses it for soup. She’s very heavily into soup these days.”

“What kind of soup?”

“Who knows? They’ve all got chicken in them, though. Healthy soup. They’re black, mostly, and they’ve got cloud’s ears-that’s a fungus-in them and some shells and I suppose whatever was wearing them and some stringy greens, and they smell kind of awful. They’re good for reducing heat and wind, she says.”

“Well, that’s nice, I guess.”

“It would be if I were hot and windy. But I don’t eat them, and Dad doesn’t really eat them, and-oh, well, it’s all pretty sad. They don’t even talk to each other.”

“He didn’t talk to mine either.”

“So you’ve told me. Over and over.” She leans forward and puts her hand on top of his. “Older brother, how would you feel if he came back here to live?”

“I’d feel like moving.”

“He misses Asia even more than I do.” She gives his hand a businesslike pat. “Think about it for a while. Get used to the idea.”

“I’m already used to it. Asia’s a big place. There are lots of continents available to him.”

She puts her spoon aside for practically the first time since they sat down, and he feels a little pang of guilt. “All right, all right,” he says. “I’ll think about it, but don’t get optimistic.”

“Don’t you want to know how much he sent you?”

“Why, yes, I would, Ming Li. How much did he send me?”