fine. If I take a wrong step, I'll fall. What happens to me is not important, but what happens to my family if I fall is very important. But, Poke? You're balanced on top of a wall, too. I don't want to be…to be what you trip over.'
'I'll walk carefully. And I'll look out for you, too.'
'Then listen to me now. I won't talk about this again.' Her eyes close slowly, and when she reopens them, she is looking at a spot on the floor, midway between them. 'I danced on that stage a long time. There were a lot of men, hundreds of men. To them I was Number 57.' She brings her eyes up. 'Your wife. Number 57.'
'My wife. Rose.'
'We'll meet them,' she says. 'They're everywhere in Bangkok.' She extends a hand, mimicking an introduction. ''This is my wife, Number 57.'' She widens her eyes in mock surprise. ''Oh, I see. You've already met.' It'll be you and Fon all over again, except that the girl will be me. Your wife.'
'Do you honestly think I'd feel that way?'
'Or suppose Number 58 comes along.'
'That's not going to happen.'
'No,' she says, pulling her hair back again. 'It probably won't. You're an honorable man.'
'Then is that it?'
She sighs. 'Poor baby,' she says. 'That's it. But promise me you'll think about it, Poke. About all of it.'
'Fine, but I'm going to ask you to think about something, too.'
'What?'
'Miaow.'
She puts long fingers to her eyes and rubs them gently. Without looking at him, she says, 'I think about Miaow all the time. Almost as much as I think about you.'
'I know you do.'
She gives him the smile that starts with her eyes, slowly finds its way to the corners of her mouth, and always makes his legs wobble. 'You know what I think about, do you? Then what am I thinking right now?'
He grins back at her. 'You're thinking about kissing me.'
'You are paying attention. How about it?'
'A kiss is a viable option,' he says in English. He takes a step toward her.
The telephone rings.
'Wait a minute,' Rafferty says to the phone without picking it up. He wraps his arms around her, feels the long, strong back, the deeply rounded gully of her spine. She tilts her head, and their lips meet. The tip of her tongue traces the shape of his lips and then darts into his mouth. He tastes her sweetness and breathes in the faint fragrance of her skin. Her cheeks are dusted with baby powder.
She steps back, her face flushed. 'You'd better get that now, or you won't get it at all.'
Rafferty picks up the phone. In the background he hears a shrieking that sounds like a thousand rusty hinges, like a convention of crows, like nothing human.
'You must come,' says Pak. 'You must come this minute.'
30
He can hear her screams even while he is talking with the guard at the gate. Pak meets him halfway up the drive, dripping sweat, with panic widening his eyes. They head toward the house at a run.
'What is it?'
'She will tell you.' Pak is out of breath. He has to fight to get the words out. The back of his jacket is soaked with perspiration.
The front door stands open, light pouring out into the night. Pak leads him to the right, toward the screams. 'You must be patient with her,' he says over his shoulder. 'Madame is in an excitable state.'
'Thanks for the bulletin.'
They enter the small room where he first met Madame Wing. She is crumpled in her wheelchair with her knees drawn up to her shoulders, looking as angular and insubstantial as a swatted spider. A blanket covers the lower half of her body. Two enormous male servants are in the room, their heads bowed, as Madame Wing pours her fury on them, a shrill stream high enough to make dogs howl. When Rafferty comes in, she breaks off and gives him a glare that is intended to nail him to the wall.
'You,' she spits. 'What have you been doing? What earthly good are you? Your mother should have aborted you.'
'I'm fine, thanks,' Rafferty says. 'And you?'
'Idiot. You took my money and you have done nothing. I placed my faith in you-'
'And I identified the man who robbed you in less than twenty-four hours. By the way, his name is Chouk Ran.'
'A lot of good that does. A name.' She almost chokes on the word. 'What use is a fucking name? I need that man's skin.'
The hell with it, Rafferty thinks. Take the fifteen K and walk.
She strikes at the arms of her wheelchair with the gnarled hands as though she could beat the truth out of it. 'He made a demand,' she snarls. 'He had the effrontery to make a demand. If you had done your job-'
'When did the demand come?'
She breaks off, her mouth open and quivering. She swallows loudly enough to be heard across the room. 'Early this morning.'
'Excuse me? Did you say early this morning?'
'Are you deaf as well as useless?'
'No, I'm just having a little trouble believing my ears. I thought you said it came early this morning-'
'That is what I said-'
'— and, see, that doesn't make sense, because I know you would have called me. Since I'm working on this for you, remember? It would have been stupid not to call.'
Pak inhales sharply behind him.
Madame Wing stares at him with something like disbelief. Finally she says, in a tone so cold he can almost see her breath cloud, 'You were not needed.'
'Apparently I was. Or am I missing something? He made a demand, and you met it, and he kept what he stole from you. Something along those lines?'
'Mr. Rafferty-' Pak begins, but Madame Wing silences him with a look.
'Yes,' she says. She is watching him, the dark eyes flat and still as a snake's.
'What did he want?'
The steel returns to her voice. 'Ten million baht.'
'And you sent it to him. Who took it?'
Her mouth twists as though she would spit at his feet. 'A maid,' she says.
'Bring her.'
'That is not necessary.'
Rafferty is suddenly so angry his throat is almost blocked. 'How about this? How about bring her or I leave?'
She blinks as though she has received a blow to the face. 'Leave?'
'Go home. Send your fucking money back and let you deal with this yourself.'
For a moment Rafferty thinks Madame Wing will fly out of her wheelchair and straight at him, but instead she settles back and, in a voice like a grinding knife, says to Pak, 'Get her.'
'Did he send you anything?' Rafferty asks when Pak is gone.
'Oh, yes,' she says. 'He sent me something.' She reaches beneath the blanket on her lap and withdraws an envelope. She holds it out, and he crosses the room and takes it from her. Her hand is shaking for the first time. In the envelope are three sheets of cardboard, very much like the ones that came in the shirts he bought for
