The fourth watcher

reflexively lifts his hands, Leung gets his own hand around the center of the gun above the trigger guard and twists violently. Even over the ringing in his ears, Rafferty can hear fingers break. The gun comes free. Leung puts both barrels- his and the Korean’s-against the man’s head, and everything goes still.

Except for Ming Li, slowly sinking to her knees in the hallway. Behind her the older cop, Kosit, is staring down, his gun dangling forgotten in his hand. Leung says, “Cuffs here, now,” and Kosit tears his eyes away, comes into the room, and secures the Korean’s hands with flexible plastic cuffs, yanking them so tight that the Korean feels it even through the pain of his wounds, and grunts.

Rafferty crawls on all fours to the doorway. Ming Li throws him a single terrified glance and then begins again to pump with all her weight, her hands cupped and centered over Arthit’s heart.

37

He Doesn’t Deserve You

'It’s melted,” Miaow says accusingly. “So what?” Chu has three pistols partly disassembled on

the crate beside him, and metallic fumes of machine oil compete with the deep-fried smell of the chicken and fries. The cleaning rod in his right hand slides through the barrel of the gun in his left. The cop who’d been on guard sits sulking on another crate, halfway across the warehouse. His upper lip is split and so swollen it has lifted to reveal his teeth. Every few minutes he probes the broken one with his tongue and inhales sharply at the pain.

Chu pulls out the rod and studies the cloth it is wrapped in. Satisfied, he puts the gun down and picks up another. To Miaow he says, “Your father said you wanted strawberry because it’s pink. It’s still pink.”

“You talked to Poke?” Rose asks.

“We never stop talking,” Chu says, eyes on his work. “We should get a special rate from the cell-phone company.”

“How is he?”

“How would he be? He’s worried.”

Miaow says, “He’ll get you.”

Chu shakes his head but doesn’t look up from the gun. “I doubt that. Compared to some of the people who have tried to get me, he’s thin porridge.”

Rose takes one of the chicken nuggets and feeds it to Noi, who chews it slowly, her eyes closed. She has refused to look at Chu since the moment he broke the guard’s tooth.

“Poke’s not afraid of you,” Miaow says.

“Neither are you.” Chu sights down the barrel of the gun. “But being brave isn’t the same thing as being smart.”

Miaow regards him for a moment and then dredges a piece of chicken through her milk shake and eats it. She slides her eyes to Rose, waiting for a reproof.

Giving the task all his attention, Chu serenely slides the rod into the barrel. His concentration is complete. He might be a doctor sterilizing his surgical instruments or a violinist tending to his strings. The door to the warehouse bangs open, and Pradya, the fat policeman, comes in. He’s soaked to the skin, and his wet hair has been blown stiffly to the left. It looks like something has been dropped, at an acute angle, on his head. He has to put his back to the door and push to close it against the wind.

“Where have you been?” Chu says, irritated at the distraction. He pulls out the rod, glances at the cloth, and starts on the third gun.

Pradya wipes his face. “All over the place. We picked him up a few blocks from the apartment, and then he sat with some woman in a restaurant. After a while a girl went in and sat with them.”

“A girl?” Chu says. He is scraping at something on the trigger guard with the yellow fingernail on his right little finger, a nail so long it has begun to curve under.

“A Thai schoolgirl. Young, maybe seventeen. They were watching a bank across the street.”

Rose inhales sharply enough for Chu to hear her. He stops working on the gun.

“A schoolgirl?” Chu asks her. “What’s he doing with a schoolgirl?”

“How would I know?” Rose says. “I’m here.”

Chu weighs the gun in his hand, but he is not thinking about the gun. “Is Sriyat still following them?”

“Yes,” Pradya says, “but it’s hard. We had to do most of it with binoculars, from at least a block away. They’re all keeping their eyes open.”

Chu turns his head an inch or two. He seems to be listening for something, perhaps in a corner of the warehouse. He says, “All?”

Pradya shifts his weight uncomfortably. “Rafferty, the girl, and a guy they hooked up with later.”

“Hooked up with where?” Chu glares at the cop and snaps his fingers. “This isn’t a television serial. Tell me the fucking story. What are they doing?”

Pradya goes through it: the man from the bank, the Korean, the envelopes, the followers splitting up. He and Sriyat had split up, too. “I stayed with Rafferty, but Sriyat says the Korean guy met another guy from another bank. Same thing. They swapped envelopes, and after the Korean left, the girl followed him. The man with her grabbed the guy from the bank and took away the envelope. Then he got into a police car, with her husband”-he indicates Noi-“driving. Rafferty was in the car, too.”

Chu thinks for a moment. The gun comes to rest flat on his leg. “Banks,” he says. His eyes close and reopen, focused on something that isn’t there. “Nothing to do with me.” Without looking down, he slides the automatic back and forth along his thigh, polishing it, as he studies the gloom in the corner. “But maybe Rafferty doesn’t know that.”

After a moment Pradya says, “Whatever you say.”

Chu stops the polishing and sits still. He pushes his lower lip forward. “I don’t like it. It must be important or he wouldn’t be wasting time on it.”

Rose says, “I know what he’s doing. It’s not about you.”

Chu looks at her, the sharp-cut eyes hooded. Daring her to tell him a lie. “Go on.”

Rose tells him about the counterfeit money and the visit from Elson. “He’s trying to help Peachy and me,” she says.

Chu leans back, tilts his head up, and studies the ceiling. When the words come, they are slow and dreamy, a thought spoken to the air. “And where did he get his help?”

Rose sits a bit straighter. “I don’t know.”

Chu’s gaze, when it strikes her, is as fast as a lash. “Where did he get his help?”

“I told you, I don’t-”

“Describe them,” Chu says to Pradya, his voice garrote tight. “The girl and the man. Describe them.”

Pradya closes his eyes for a better look. “The girl, like I said, about seventeen, Thai school uniform, Chinese- looking but got something about her.”

“That suggests she might be a mix,” Chu says. His voice could grate stone. He clears his throat violently and spits. “And the man is wiry, medium height, and very fast.”

Pradya nods, licks his lips, and nods again, more vigorously.

“Your husband has a snake for a mother,” Chu says. “He’s playing with me.” In a single fluid motion, he gets to his feet, snatches up a magazine, and slaps it into the gun in his hand. The barrel of the gun is pointed at Rose’s head. “I should kill you right now,” Chu says.

Miaow deliberately puts down her milk shake, stands, and takes two steps, placing herself between him and Rose.

“Good idea,” Chu says. “Save me a bullet.”

Rose puts a hand on Miaow’s arm and pushes her aside. Miaow twists away and steps in front of her again. Rose steers her away again and says, “Not the child.”

Chu lets the gun go back and forth between them, and then he spits onto the floor. He turns and kicks the crate he’s been sitting on. “Ahhhhhh,” he says. “He doesn’t deserve you. Either of you.” His eyes drop to the gun in