corners of his vision, and he can hear his blood singing high and thin in his ears. His voice sounds distant, as though he's hearing it through a wall. 'One more chance for us both to walk out of here feeling relatively okay. Where's Horner?'
Bohnert says, 'You're dead. You and the whore and the midget. You're dead.'
Rafferty says, 'I'm sorry you feel that way.' He puts his thumb tightly over the top of the bottle and shakes it vigorously as the women's voices rise in expectation. When he can feel that the pressure's increased as much as it's going to, he brings the Coke bottle up to Bohnert's nose, removes his thumb, and jams the bottle into the left nostril.
Coca-Cola spurts out of Bohnert's nose and over Rafferty's hand, and John's knees unbend spasmodically, scissoring in both directions. Rafferty rises and steps back as Bohnert thrashes on the floor, coughing and choking, and then the chili hits, and he roars and jackknifes and then straightens, kicking his feet out so fast that he cracks both shins against the vertical support of the toilet cubicle, and he twists back and forth, rocking on his bound arms, hacking and spitting and sobbing simultaneously.
Rafferty's voice feels like it's being forced through a sieve. 'Where's Horner?' His phone begins to ring.
Bohnert's eyes are streaming water, but he pulls his mouth tight and spits at Rafferty.
As his phone continues to ring, Rafferty bends over John and says between his teeth, 'There's lots left. Let's try again.' He puts his thumb over the bottle and starts to shake it.
'No,' Bohnert says. It's mostly breath.
The phone stops ringing. 'Why were you following us?'
'See… where you went. Who you know.'
'Why?'
Bohnert's nose is running, and he sniffs, which is a mistake that registers instantly. He blows out explosively and makes a retching sound that turns into another fit of coughing. When it's over, he lies still except for deep, shuddering breaths, and Rafferty says again, 'Why?'
'Pressure points,' Bohnert says. 'Looking… for pressure points.'
Rafferty's phone rings again. He looks at it and sees ROSE.
'What does Horner want with her?'
'Don't know.'
'Fine.' Rafferty puts the phone into his pocket and shakes the bottle again. John is pushing back with his legs, trying to scrabble away, under the wall of the toilet cubicle. A couple of the women laugh.
'He… he says she tried to kill him.'
'Why?'
'Don't know. Really, really. He wanted-Howard wanted-to marry her.'
'He…' Rafferty stands there, the bottle dangling heavy in his hand, feeling as if a building just fell on him. 'Marry her?
'He asked her, she said yes. That's what he says.'
'True or false?' He shakes the bottle again,
'True, true. Ask her. Ask her, not me.' Bohnert's voice breaks like an adolescent's.
'And where is old Howard?'
'I… I can't.'
'Sure you can. Unless you want to sneeze blood for the next week.'
Bohnert's face softens, and he starts to cry like a child, and Rafferty, with no pleasure, recognizes a self- shattering sense of shame. 'He's in… he's in Afghanistan,' Bohnert says.
'Call Dr. Ratt,' Rafferty says into the phone. 'Tell him-'
'You went after him, didn't you?' Rose demands, her tone as sharp as broken glass. 'That man, the one who was with Howard. How stupid can-'
'I'm not up for an argument.' The sweat he smells now is his own, his T-shirt wet and heavy beneath his arms. 'Call Dr. Ratt. Get him and Nui there now.'
'And you got yourself hurt,' Rose says. 'You saw them, you saw how they were, and now-'
'It's not me. And will you please-' Beside him, on the backseat of the cab, Pim shifts her weight away from him and whimpers.
'Then who?'
'Goddamn it, will you please do what I'm asking you to do?' He is suddenly so furious that his mouth tastes like metal. 'Will you just fucking do what I want?'
Pim pulls farther away, leaning against the door.
There is a long pause. Then Rose says, in a voice he's never heard before, 'You sound like a customer.'
He is trying to think of something to say when he hears her disconnect. ROSE'S EYES ARE stones when she opens the door, but the moment she sees Pim, her face softens. 'You poor baby,' she says in Thai. 'You've been crying.' Her eyes flick to Rafferty's bandage, but she makes no comment, just gathers Pim in.
Behind Rose, Dr. Ratt's wife, Nui, gives Pim a sharp-eyed glance. 'It's a new one,' she says in English, calling toward the kitchen. Rafferty can hear water running, so the doctor is probably washing his hands.
'How long have you been in Bangkok?' Rose has wrapped a long arm carefully around the girl. Pim's chin is dimpling at the sympathy.
'Three weeks,' she says. Even less time than Rafferty had guessed.
'And what's the problem?' Rose asks in Thai. 'Did my husband beat you up?'
'No,' Pim says. 'He was wonderful. He stuck a bottle right up the man's nose.'
'Did he?' Rose says, without a glance at Rafferty. She guides Pim toward the counter between the living room and the kitchen. 'Sometimes he's nice by accident.'
'Ahh, our patients have arrived,' Dr. Ratt says in what he imagines to be a soothing tone but has always sounded to Rafferty like the voice of an amateur who's somehow gotten on the radio. 'Who needs to be looked at first?'
'Sorry to disappoint everyone,' Rafferty says, 'but this is nothing.' He raises the bandaged elbow. 'I'm fine.'
'Oh, well. That won't last long, the way you live. Who's our little friend here?'
'My name is Pim,' Pim says, looking dazzled. Dr. Ratt and Nui are dressed like a cross between medical personnel and slumming angels, he in a white tunic that looks like something Nehru might have worn if Nehru had been a doctor, with a stethoscope gleaming around his neck for effect, and Nui in the latest of a long line of hand- tailored all-silk nurse's outfits. The two of them have made a fortune by defeating Bangkok's fearsome traffic, putting multiple teams of doctors and nurses in cars twenty-four hours a day on the assumption that often enough, when a call comes in, there will be a team nearby. A lot of the profit has gone into clothes. Faced with their soigne urban elegance, Pim folds her arms around her middle to cover some of her bare brown skin and appears even more uncomfortable than before.
'Mmmm,' Dr. Ratt says, giving her a closer look. 'Dislocated, is it?'
'It is,' Rafferty says.
'When I need a layman's opinion.' Dr. Ratt says, without glancing up, 'you probably won't be the layman I ask.'
'When everyone hates you,' Rafferty says, 'drink beer.' He goes into the kitchen and pulls the refrigerator door open.
'Well, now,' Dr. Ratt says, with a 'come here' glance at Nui. Between them they maneuver Pim onto one of the stools at the counter and then swivel the stool so she's got her back to the kitchen and is facing into the living room. She sits there, hunched over protectively, looking from one of them to the other, as though she's trying to decide which of them will bite her first.
'This is going to hurt,' Dr. Ratt says, taking her left wrist. 'Only for a second, though, and then it'll be fine.'
'But-' Pim says, just as Dr. Ratt brings the arm up, twists it slightly, and pushes, and it pops into the socket, accompanied by a squeal from Pim that goes through Rafferty's ears like a smoking wire.
'There,' Dr. Ratt says. Pim is bent double, holding her shoulder. 'Better?'
'Yes,' she says, 'but it hurts.'
