removes the bundle and grasps one corner of the cloth, letting it unspool over the bed. The gun that hits the mattress is a Glock nine-millimeter, blue-black, with the forward-leaning lines that make so many guns look as if they are designed by small boys. Two spare magazines, already loaded, also tumble to the bed.
With a murder-perhaps two-plus a couple of renegade cops at the door, the gun seems like a sensible precaution. He is buffing it with the cloth when the door opens and Rose comes in with several sheets of paper in her hand. The sight of the gun stops her.
'Nothing to worry about,' he says. He checks the safety and slips the gun into his pants.
'Of course not. We've got the boy on our hands, you're doing errands for the police, and now you're carrying a gun. And my business is falling apart. Other than that, everything's fine.'
'What do you mean, the business is falling apart?'
She waves the hand with the papers in it in the direction of the living room. 'Three of them are going back to the bars. One of them is Fon.'
'Fon's too old to work the bars.'
'Not the blow-job bars,' Rose says. 'They might not take her if she was dead, but as it is, she'll get work fast enough.'
'This is about money.' The blow-job bars are the most dismal of Bangkok's commercial sex venues, tiny, filthy holes where customers belly up to a bar with a curtain beneath it and a woman parts the curtain, kneels, and services them as they drink. He does not want to think of Fon in one of them.
'It's always money,' she says. 'Why do you think they work the bars in the first place?'
'Come on. All the guys hear the same stories: Mama's sick, Papa drinks, little brother has to go to school, the buffalo skinned its knee. You know as well as I do, half the time Mama spends the money on a color television set or a year-round Christmas tree because she likes the way it sparkles.'
Rose's chin comes up. 'So?'
'Not exactly life-and-death issues.'
'To these girls Mama's color TV is the least they owe her. It's about family, Poke, not that I expect a farang to understand that. If a child can give something to the family, that makes merit, and it also makes Mama happy.'
'So we're in a world where this makes sense somehow: blow jobs for a permanent Christmas tree.'
She waves a hand as though she could scatter the words across the room. 'It's not really about money. It's about failure,' she says. 'My failure. I can't get them work.'
His irritation dissipates instantly. 'Rose,' he says.
She balls her fists, crumpling the papers. 'Don't comfort me. I really couldn't stand to be comforted right now.'
'You're just getting started,' he says. 'You can't expect it to work right away.'
'They're hungry, Poke. And, worse than that, their families are hungry. Whether it's for food or a new leather couch. Say whatever you want, you have to remember there are brothers and sisters who need to go to school. Those kids are real. Papa's drinking problems are real. And in the meantime these girls are hungry.'
'They can't work if they're hungry,' Rafferty says. 'How many of them are out there?'
'Thirteen. If Fon and the others haven't already left.'
'Three hundred dollars each,' Rafferty says, reaching for the wad in his pocket. 'That's thirty-nine hundred dollars. Tell them it's an advance.' He begins to count out the bills.
She watches him count for a moment, her eyes on the bills. 'This money,' she says. 'This is why you're carrying the gun?'
'Mmmm. Yes and no.'
She takes a step back. 'Well, keep it. I mean, give it back. Put the gun away and let's just go back to the way we were.'
'There,' he says, finishing the count. 'I can't give it back. The woman who's paying me is not someone I care to disappoint.'
'Well, I don't want it. They'll never be able to repay it.'
'Yes, they will. They'll be working in two weeks, most of them.'
'Poke, you're not listening. I can't do this.'
'That's part two of my plan,' he says. 'The advances are part one. Part two is to get you a partner.'
'A partner.' Her tone is flat, and she locks eyes with him, leans toward him, and takes a quick sniff. 'Have you been drinking?'
'I'll explain it all later.' He indicates the papers under her arm. 'What are those?'
She has forgotten she had them. 'They were on the floor. The paper tray on your fax is still broken.'
'I'm going to ask the boy to try to fix it. Hank Morrison says the trick is to make them feel useful.'
She hands him the papers, and he gives her the money. She glances down at it and shakes her head, and then she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him on the mouth. When she leaves the room, she is almost running.
Rafferty slips the remaining money back into his pocket. It is significantly slimmer than before. If his spontaneously generated plan for the partnership doesn't work out, Rose's business could leave him completely broke. He licks his lips, a little nervously, and tastes her lipstick, and the anxiety eases.
The faxed pages are from Arthit. The first is a Bangkok Police Department cover sheet addressed to LIEUTENANT PHILIP RAFFERTY, RCMP, probably using Poke's full name and giving him this entirely spurious rank for the benefit of the fax operators who actually sent the message. He scans the pages quickly and then reads them carefully.
Claus Ulrich lacks a police record and has never been mentioned prominently in the Bangkok newspapers. On the other hand, Immigration definitely records two Claus Ulrichs of the same age but with different middle names, one Australian and one British. Both passports have been scanned by Immigration multiple times over the past dozen years or so, coming from points of origin scattered around Southeast Asia-the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia. The most recent record of the British Claus Ulrich is a departure. Two weeks and three days later, the Australian Claus Ulrich reentered the country and has not left it. That was five months ago.
'So he's here,' Rafferty says. 'One way or another.'
There is less hard data on Madame Wing-to whom Arthit gives the cryptic designation 'unknown Chinese woman'-but the single paragraph is rich in implication. She had purchased the house in 1980 for the baht equivalent of $325,000, a tidy sum, especially since it was made in a single cash payment. The walls and gate-and, for all Rafferty knows, a moat full of crocodiles-were added almost immediately afterward with the appropriate permits, a euphemism for bribes. No police record, but several complaints of servant abuse have gone uninvestigated and eventually been dismissed. The source of her income is listed as 'unknown.'
It doesn't take much reading between the lines to see that Madame Wing is among the privileged few, those who are immune from police interference for anything short of mass murder. Arthit won't even put her name in a fax. Complaints are filed, but no one follows up. Either it's the weight of sheer wealth or she's connected. Or-third choice-she's paying through the nose.
If she were paying the police for immunity, though, wouldn't she have turned to them when her safe was burgled? Why involve a foreigner who doesn't even have official status in a matter that is apparently so important? Did the safe contain something even her protectors can't know about-something that would make the price of their services prohibitive?
That would have to be something, he thinks, with massive juju.
He draws a deep breath, wipes away the last of Rose's lipstick and licks it off his finger, and leaves the apartment to go terrorize somebody.
22
The bang the door makes when it strikes the wall is louder than the cannon in the 1812 Overture and has
