'You take me?' She looks hopeful.
'No,' Rafferty says. 'I'm married.'
'Ugly,' the girl says. 'Fat. Black.'
'Oh, give it a rest,' Rafferty says in English. In Thai he says, 'Walk. Watch the door to the Beer Garden for me. Look for a man. Taller than I am.' He lifts his hand, palm down, a couple of inches above his head. 'Very short hair, flat on top. White shirt with blue stripes. This wide.' He holds up thumb and forefinger, half an inch apart.
'Friend you?'
'No. He's not your friend either. If he comes out, don't get near him. Just watch where he goes, so you can tell me. And keep walking, okay?'
He waits until she starts to limp in a tight circle, toting her shoes in her hands and squeaking like a chipmunk, and then he turns and jogs to Sukhumvit. The pharmacy is about half a block to the right, exactly where he remembered it. He comes out a couple of minutes later, dry-chewing four aspirin and carrying a plastic bag containing some more loose pills, a roll of gauze, some bandages, and a tube of antibiotic cream. The young woman behind the counter had wanted to treat him right there, but he'd fought her off, although he was unable to prevent her from soaking some tissues in water and pressing the sopping wad into his hand. It drips down his bloody arm and onto his shirt as he works his way back through the crowd on the sidewalk, making pink stalactite-shaped stains on the front of his T-shirt like a souvenir of the Cave of Blood.
When he reenters the soi, the girl is at a table with a can of Coke in front of her, the can sweating in the humidity, and she's holding her left foot in both hands, turning it this way and that. She gives a little start when she sees his ruined shirt and then holds out both hands for the bag and the tissues. Even before he's fully seated, she's gently wiping his forearm with the wet tissues, folding them to get a clean surface and wiping some more, then patting the skin dry with napkins.
'Ankle better?'
'Small ow,' she says. She places a hand on his upper arm, and with the other she takes his wrist. With a practiced air, she bends the arm at the elbow and then straightens it, taking it through the full range of motion and ignoring Rafferty's grunt of pain.
'Him not come,' she says, indicating the Beer Garden with her chin. She returns her attention to his arm, pushing it so the elbow forms an acute angle. 'This okay. Not break.' To prove it she yanks the arm open and then closes it again, bringing Rafferty three or four inches into the air. 'Baby,' she says. 'All man baby.'
'Yeah, well, thanks for the help.' He reclaims his arm and opens and closes it gingerly, the pain slowing him like rust on the joint, and then he rotates it for a look at the elbow. He's got a swelling the size of a tomato, and the skin is torn in a jagged three-inch pattern that looks like lightning.
'No problem,' she says. 'Only dirty. I clean.'
'Wiggle your foot around,' Rafferty says. 'I mean, as long as we're playing doctor.'
'Foot okay. Ow, but okay. Same you.' With considerable precision she inverts the cap on the tube of ointment to puncture the top, lays a thin line of cream along the zigzag of the tear, and uses a small piece of gauze to spread the ointment on either side. She examines her work and then takes the roll of gauze and begins to mummify his elbow with it.
He says, 'Not so tight.'
She tugs the gauze a bit tighter and passes it under his arm again. Without looking up she says, 'Name you?'
'Poke,' he says. 'And you?'
'Pim.' She rolls the gauze around his arm four more times, nips the edge with small white teeth, and rips it neatly across. Then she folds the end under once, so no loose threads are exposed, smooths it flat across the mound of gauze swathing Rafferty's elbow, and expertly tapes it in place with two elastic Band-Aids. She eyes her work critically, smooths it again, and drops everything back into the bag. 'You no die,' she says.
'You've done this before,' he says.
'Have,' she says without meeting his eyes. 'Have many baby, my house.'
'In the bag,' he says. 'Three aspirin for your ankle.'
'Not like.'
'Nobody likes. But they'll keep it from swelling. Take them.'
She grimaces in protest but scrounges in the bag until she comes up with the pills. Then she gives them a dubious glance, looks at the Coke in her hand, fills her mouth with Coke, and drops the pills in. Then she swallows convulsively and immediately burps, her free hand splayed out over her sternum.
'There,' Rafferty says. 'You did great, but don't make it a habit.'
Pim puts the can down, blinking fast, and picks up the roll of gauze.
'I'll do it,' Rafferty says. 'Give me your foot.' She puts her foot in his lap, and he starts to wrap the ankle.
'More harder,' she says, and he tightens the spiral of cloth.
'Friend you, in there-' She jerks her head back, toward the entrance to the Beer Garden.
'Not a friend,' Rafferty says.
She says, 'No good?'
'No good.' He tugs on the roll, passing it under and over her ankle. 'I don't want him to see me, but I need to know where he goes.'
'Short hair,' Pim says. 'Shirt same-same…' She draws vertical stripes down Rafferty's T-shirt, then burps again. 'Old, not old?'
'Not old,' Rafferty says, and puts in the little barbed clamps to hold the gauze in place. 'But I don't think you should-'
'I look,' Pim says. She gets up and then squeaks, both hands grabbing at the back of her chair. Says, 'Oooo.'
'Skip it,' Rafferty says. 'Not a good idea.'
'You say I walking, yes?' Pim says. 'So okay, I walk.'
'Look.' He gets up. 'If you're going in there, make me a promise. Don't get anywhere near him. Go in, look around like you're supposed to meet somebody and he's not there. If you don't see him, come out and tell me. If you do see him-' He breaks off. 'You've got a cell phone, right?'
'Sure,' she says, slightly affronted. 'Have.'
'Give it to me.'
Her lower lip pops out, and for a moment he thinks she will refuse. She has no jewelry yet, no expensive clothes, just cheap, badly sewn junk from the vendors out at Chatuchak Market. At this stage of her life in Bangkok, her phone-the symbol of freedom, the first thing every girl buys-is the only trophy of her new career. She makes a sour face, forces a hand into a pocket in her hot pants, and brings up a thin silvery cell phone that Rafferty recognizes at once as the one Miaow's been asking for.
He has to tug on it twice before she releases it. He keys in his number, then hands it back. 'This is me,' he says. He puts a hand on her shoulder, a bid for full attention. 'If you see him, just turn your back to him and push 'send.' I won't answer-just let it ring once or twice and then hang up. That way you don't have to go right back out again, or get anywhere near me, or talk on the phone, or do anything that might catch his attention. Don't get close to him, don't talk to him, don't do anything that makes him notice you. You go in, look around, and if he's there, you press 'send' and you hang up, understand?'
'Go in, look around, press 'send,' ' she says with exaggerated patience, reminding Rafferty that she's just a kid. It's gotten darker now, and her makeup doesn't look quite so garish. He can see the mildly pretty, still- developing face beneath it. Not beautiful, not unforgettable, just the sweet, unassuming transitional prettiness so many young women share. She reaches up and pats the hand on her shoulder, then twists away and out from under it. 'I go.'
'Hold it,' he says. 'You had any customers today?'
She opens her mouth, closes it, and then says, 'No.'
'Okay.' He pulls a fold of money out of his jeans and peels off a reddish note. 'Here's five hundred baht.'
She avoids looking at the money and shakes her head.
'It's for taking care of me. And for checking it out in there. Why should you do all that for free?'
She raises her upper lip and sucks air through her teeth, making a little squealing sound. Then she takes the
