“If I were you,” Rafferty interrupts, “I’d stick with the canned Eastern wisdom, all those wheezes about enlightenment and confronting our fears, and leave the Western cliches to people with too much sense to use them.”
“Let’s not spoil things. I’ve actually enjoyed dealing with you. You have many characteristics I admire. You’re devious, ingenious, energetic. You have a certain flair, which as far as I can see you’re wasting completely.” Chu eyes him speculatively, and then he laughs. “What I think you’re doing,” he says, “is stalling. Do I sense a little reluctance after all?”
“You have my daughter,” Rafferty says. “I’d give you five copies of my father for her.”
“One will do.” Chu takes his open cell phone out of the pocket of his slicker and says to the fat cop, “Pradya. Bring him around.”
“Tell Pradya to stop the moment he can see us,” Rafferty says. “If he doesn’t, I’ll have him shot, and we’ll see what happens after that.”
Chu gives him the flicker of a smile and repeats Rafferty’s command into the phone. Then he turns and shouts, “Come!”
The rain has lightened to the point where Rafferty can almost see the far corner of the warehouse. A form emerges, a larger form behind it. Like a color at three or four fathoms, shifted to the blue, Miaow’s pajamas take what seems like an eternity to warm to pink, and when they do, Rafferty can’t do anything about the catch of breath.
“A father,” Chu says with considerable interest. “Selling a father.”
The man grasping Miaow’s neck is the one with the broken tooth. He steers her toward them and then stops, looking past them at something, and at the same moment Rafferty hears a shout behind him.
The fat cop is struggling with Ming Li, who has grabbed her father’s arm and is pulling him back with all her strength. Her head whips back and forth in the rain,
Pradya levels the gun at Ming Li’s head, and she stops. One hand drops, and then the other, and all her strength deserts her, and she sinks to her knees at Frank’s feet and cups her face in her hands.
“There’s a lesson there,” Chu says. “It’s her father, after all. Pradya, bring her.”
Rafferty says, “One at a time, remember?”
“I’m getting bored,” Chu says. “Just take the rubies, and let’s get it over with.”
Rafferty shoots one more look at Ming Li, sees Pradya pulling her to her feet as Frank stands there, loose and empty, looking a century old. Rafferty dismisses the image and crouches down, sinking his hands into the loose stones in the box.
“In fact,” Chu says above him, “we’ll take them all.”
The gun in his hand is aimed between Rafferty’s eyes.
“I just can’t make it work,” Chu says, shaking his head. “I know that Western culture doesn’t honor old people, and I know that you and your father have had problems. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t believe that you actually intend to let me take him.”
“Believe it.” Rafferty looks over his shoulder again, sees Sriyat and two other men shepherd everyone around the corner. Fon and Lek are half dressed. Rose has her arm around Noi. Leung’s hands are once again on top of his head. Sriyat and the two others have weapons trained on all of them.
“And even if I could believe it, there are all these
“You forgot Arthit,” Rafferty says. “You haven’t got Arthit, and he knows everything.”
“I have the hospital’s name, the room number. A policeman of his rank gets shot, everyone knows.”
Rafferty shifts a millimeter or two, centering his weight over his heels. “So what? Only cops can get anywhere near him.”
“That’s right,” Chu says. “Only cops. And tonight he’ll be visited by two he’s not expecting.”
“More information than I need,” Rafferty says, just as Ming Li screams again, in anger this time, and beyond Chu he sees the man with the broken tooth pull a gun and shove Miaow violently to the pavement, and as she falls, there’s another whiplash of lightning and a burst of wind, and Rafferty clamps his teeth tightly, closes his eyes, and presses down on the lever at the back of the suitcase.
He hears a little metallic click, not much louder than someone flicking a lighter, and opens his eyes to see the bottom of the suitcase pop up, maybe three inches, maybe four, and a few loose bills flutter up and get caught by the wind.
The barrel of Chu’s gun touches the center of Rafferty’s forehead, and he looks up to see Chu studying the suitcase quizzically. “What was that?” he asks. “Special effects?” And the pressure of the gun on Rafferty’s forehead lessens slightly as Chu pulls back on the trigger.
And then it’s as though the suitcase somehow contains all the light that’s falling on the other side of the world, the bright side, and the light abruptly expands and escapes, cracking open the darkness with a dazzle that turns Chu stark white, followed by a deep, percussive boom, and suddenly the bottom of the suitcase is five feet in the air, and rubies and money are everywhere: rising against the rain, whirled and tossed by the wind, and pelted earthward by the weight of the falling water.
Chu was looking down when the bottom of the case exploded, and now he backs away, blinded, the hand without the gun in it clawing at his eyes, a shining-wet black figure in a downpour of water, money, and precious stones. Some of the money is plastered to Chu’s slicker.
Rafferty hears two shots from behind and sees Chu trying desperately to focus his eyes just as a massive strobe of lightning freezes money, rain, and rubies in midair. Past Chu, Rafferty sees Miaow, flat on the pavement with Ping lying across her, the gun in his hand. Rafferty has his own gun out now, and he leaps across the suitcase and brings the gun up two-handed with everything he has, raking it across Chu’s throat, trying to crush the larynx, then slamming it back against the man’s cheekbone, and Chu’s head whips around, taking his shoulders with it, the slicker billowing out like a magician’s cloak. Rafferty is on his feet now, seizing Chu’s gun hand at the wrist, grabbing his elbow, and bringing up a knee to break the arm across it.
Chu screams, pivots, yanks the broken arm back, and screams again as a bullet hisses through the rain, just missing his ear, and he freezes. Ping, still covering Miaow with his body, sights to fire again. Rafferty holds out a hand, palm up, to stop him, then kicks Chu’s legs out from under him. Chu goes down, a slight, crumpled form in a wet black shroud, twisting in pain as money rains upon him.
Rafferty reaches down and takes Chu’s gun and pats him for another. Chu hisses at him but doesn’t move. Once he’s satisfied that Chu has nothing else, Rafferty turns to see one of Chu’s men flat on the ground, arms and legs splayed, and the other with his hands in the air. Pradya, Sriyat, and Leung all hold guns. Frank has Ming Li in his arms. Rose is half carrying Noi back to the car, with an over-the-shoulder look at Miaow.
Rafferty tosses Chu’s gun a few yards away and pulls the Ziploc bag from his pocket. He removes the cell phone and pushes the “dial” button. It is answered on the first ring. He says, “Between Warehouses One and Two. Come now.” He closes the phone, kicks Chu once, hard, in the area of the kidneys, just by way of letting off steam, and waves at Ping to bring Miaow. After an evaluative moment, Ping rolls off her, and Miaow gets up, her pink pajamas wet and filthy, and extends a hand to help Ping up. Ping stares at the hand for a second and then gives her an enormous broken-tooth grin, followed by an agonized grab at his mouth with his free hand. Miaow pats his arm and leads him, hand in hand, to Rafferty.
“This is Ping,” she says. “I told him he wouldn’t shoot us.”
Rafferty picks Miaow up and hugs her so tightly she grunts. Her arms circle his neck. She says, “Is your father all right?”
“He’s fine.” He kisses the part in her hair, feeling like his heart will explode.
“That’s good,” Miaow says, pulling away. She hates being kissed on the head. She takes a sniff at herself, makes a face, and says, “I want a shower.”
“If you want it,” he says, putting her down, “you’ve got it.” He turns to Ping. “Can you take her to the car?”
“I don’t know,” Ping says. “Miaow, can I take you to the car?”
“You’re silly,” Miaow says. She gives him her hand. As they walk away, Rafferty hears her say, “Does your
