“Well, I am sorry about him. I didn’t know him that well.” He’s talking directly to her, 90 percent certain that he’s being swindled, but what’s the alternative? Even if it’s only 10 percent likely that the woman is who Vladimir said she is, he should do this.
Anyway, it’s Murphy’s money.
“I know that money can’t replace someone you love,” he says, taking a very fat envelope from his pocket, “but I hope this … um … this gesture will make things easier for you.”
Mrs. Janos is looking at the envelope. So is Vladimir. Rafferty hands it to her and gets up, saying to Vladimir, “It’s thirty thousand dollars.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a twenty, which he drops on the table. “For the burgers.” To Mrs. Janos he says, “Good-bye, and I really am sorry.”
She startles him by taking his hand in both of hers and bowing until her cheek is touching the back of his hand and saying,
Rafferty looks over at Vladimir, whose big cleft chin is puckering. “Please,” Rafferty says, “Please.”
And he turns and flees.
By four o’clock that afternoon, Hwa is out looking for an apartment and Neeni is curled up on the side of the bed Rose sleeps in, drinking a weak whiskey-soda. Ming Li, with four aspirins and a quart of coffee in her system, is running a roller over the wall that ends at the entrance to the kitchen while Poke turns the longest wall a nice uniform shade of Apricot Cream. The short walls-the one between the living room and the bedroom and the one with the sliding glass door in it-are glowing with new color, and even Rafferty has to admit it’s nice.
“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
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.
36
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
“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?”
