38
In the bland light of a restaurant, Toadface and Skeletor look more like regular cops and less like something that escaped from one of Raskolnikov's nightmares. They even have nicknames: Toadface is Chut and Skeletor, for some reason, calls himself Nick.
'Khmer Rouge,' Chut says without enthusiasm. Nick, in defiance of the no-smoking ban recently imposed in Bangkok restaurants, lights his second cigarette in five minutes. Rafferty doesn't like the smoke, but at least it keeps the man's hands above the table.
'Big-time Khmer Rouge,' Rafferty says. 'Should be worth a lot.'
Nick snorts a stream of smoke, nicotine disdain, and Chut says, 'Shows what you know.'
Rafferty feels a surge of homicidal anger and waits it out. 'Okay, well, you guys are the experts. But a lot of people would like to see her dead.'
'That doesn't make them millionaires.' Chut looks down at Nick's pack of cigarettes and pushes it halfway across the table and out of reach, and Nick speaks the second word Rafferty has heard him utter. He says, 'Hey.'
'So get a pool together. Everybody chips in. Show some fucking creativity.'
Chut puts two hands on the tablecloth and, with some difficulty, laces his fat little fingers together. 'And you think this lets you off the hook.'
'What I think is that Clarissa brought about six thousand to Bangkok and you guys got more than half of that. She's been living here ever since-what? About ten days? Figure it out. She's got maybe fifteen hundred dollars left. I'm offering you this person on a silver platter. Should be worth ten times that.'
'What's her name?'
Rafferty waits until the waitress puts two bowls of rice and some fish in front of Chut and Nick and a couple of scrambled eggs in front of him. He continues to wait until she has returned to pour coffee for him and Chut. Nick is drinking something that looks a lot like a tequila sunrise.
'You get the name, plus the address and a floor plan of the house, when we have a deal,' Rafferty says. 'You can find customers?'
Chut says something with his mouth full. Rafferty can't catch the words, but the gist seems to be 'piece of cake.' The man swallows, and says, 'Just for the hell of it, what's the deal?'
Rafferty takes a deep breath. This is not a position he ever expected to be in. 'One: She gets sold to someone who wants her dead. Two: Your problem with me is over. Three: I get one-fifth of whatever you sell her for.' He has a use in mind for the money, especially since Madame Wing won't be making her second payment.
Nick laughs. It starts out like a snake's hiss and turns into a cough. Chut says, 'You've got balls, I'll give you that.'
'I got off on the wrong foot with you guys,' Rafferty says. 'Not my fault, not your fault. I'm just trying to make it right.'
'And pocket a little money.' Chut picks up his bowl in both hands and drains whatever liquid was at the bottom. 'One-seventh,' he says. Rafferty pushes back his chair and starts to rise. 'Okay, okay. One-fifth.'
'Done.' He sits again, gives them Keck's address, and describes the layout of the house and grounds. Then he hands over a plan of the first floor, drawn from memory. The thin one, Nick, listens with his eyes closed, his upper lip grasped between his teeth. Chut takes notes in an elegantly leather-bound booklet. Rafferty finishes and waits for questions.
When one comes, it comes from Nick. 'How do you know you can trust us for the money?'
'Oh, please,' Rafferty says, getting up again. 'You're Bangkok's finest.'
On the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, he watches until the two of them are out of sight, trying to rationalize away the uneasiness he feels about having ordered someone's death as casually as if it had been on the menu. When he turns, he bumps against someone. Looking down, he sees the dark little man from the soi, the one who had hit him with the gun. Behind him are his three teammates. One of them-the man whose nose Rafferty tried to drive into his brain-is wearing a raccoon's mask that resolves itself into two black eyes that look borrowed from a cartoon. A long swelling, big enough to hide a baguette in, runs across his forehead, just above the eyebrows.
'Someone needs to talk to you,' the little man says. His right hand disappears into a small leather tote bag, secured by a shoulder strap. Protruding an inch or two from a hole cut into the side of the bag, a few inches from Rafferty's belly, is the barrel of a gun.
Rafferty says, 'It took her long enough.'
39
The fragrance of the flowers is so overpowering, Rafferty thinks, that it ought to tint the air-perhaps salmon, with halos of pink around the naked bulbs dangling from the bare electrical cords high overhead. The perfume seems thick enough to foam around his feet as he pushes his way through it, with two of the men in front of him and two behind.
There are obviously people here and there, but none in sight. The rows of flowers are too high, the aisles between them too narrow. He can hear voices occasionally, the energetic back-and-forth of bargaining, frequent bursts of laughter.
The five of them stop in front of a volcano of orchids taller than Rafferty. The small dark man, who has been directly behind Rafferty, steps forward and puts out a hand. He looks almost apologetic.
'Skip it,' Rafferty says.
'Those are the rules.'
'Make new ones.'
The man takes the gun from his bag, shows it to Rafferty, then drops it back in and zips the bag tightly shut. He walks several yards away and places the bag on a display table beneath a spray of exotic flowers that look like they evolved to snatch bats in midflight. Then he comes back and raises his arms to shoulder height, inviting Rafferty to pat him down. 'Do you want to check us? Lift your shirts,' he says to the others.
'Skip it. So I can see you haven't got guns? You'll have one when I give you mine, won't you?'
'Look around,' the small man says. 'This is a public place. Everybody in Bangkok who wants flowers is here.'
'Compromise,' Rafferty says. He slides the automatic free of his trousers, pops the clip, and hands the clip to the small dark man. Holding the gun between thumb and forefinger, he lets it dangle harmlessly in the air. 'That's the only clip,' he says. 'Trust me.'
'I don't actually have to.' The dark man hikes his pant leg to show Rafferty a small automatic tucked into an ankle holster and then he grins like a small boy doing a magic trick.
'On the other hand,' Rafferty says, bringing the barrel of the gun up beneath the man's chin, 'there's still the one under the hammer. Jesus. Every time you think mankind has evolved, you get slapped in the face with a dead fish.'
'Tell me about it,' says a voice from behind him. A woman.
'Soon as he gives me his gun.'
She sighs. 'Do you really think we'd bring you here to kill you?'
'It doesn't seem efficient. If I know anything about you, it's that you're efficient.'
'You came all this way,' Doughnut says, with the sorely tried air of someone forced to state the obvious. 'We might as well talk.'
