the little poof as the gas ignites. Arthit comes in through the dining room. 'We'll drink some Nescafe, and then you can help me straighten this place up.'
'Any other time-'
'Don't be obtuse,' Arthit says, trying to look cheerful and looking instead like someone whose smile is stuck in place and who's panicking behind it. 'You'll bring them here.'
Curtains wide, daylight washing the room like water, floor wide and empty. The magazines have been stacked by size in two plumb-straight piles. Three white plastic trash bags have been stuffed with spoiled food, cartons, disposable plates and utensils, used paper towels, empty Kleenex boxes, and old newspapers. The dining- room table is bare and shining. When Rafferty aimed the spray can of wax at it and pushed the button, releasing the scent of lemon, Arthit froze in the living room, bending over the coffee table as though his back had gone out and he couldn't straighten.
Rafferty had said, 'Arthit?'
Arthit stayed where he was for a few seconds, and then he straightened, and with his back to Rafferty, he sniffled. 'She loved that smell,' he said.
'I remember. I never use this stuff without thinking of this house.'
Now Arthit bends again as though to dust the table and then straightens again. 'I haven't been waxing much.'
'Gee,' Rafferty says, watching his friend's back. 'You'd never know.'
'You have such a light hand with the irony.'
'Want to do the kitchen?'
'Sure, it'll be easy. I've barely used it.'
Rafferty picks up a couple of the garbage bags and throws them over one shoulder. The kitchen, located directly behind the dining room, can be reached either that way or through a hall that bypasses the guest bedroom, the bathrooms, and the room in which Arthit and Noi had slept. When Rafferty went past that room, half an hour ago, the door had been standing open, and he saw the bed, made up but wrinkled, with a little canyon on the bedspread and two dented pillows showing where his friend had been sleeping on top of the covers. Rafferty had a detailed vision, a tenth of a second long, of Arthit deciding every night not to turn the blankets down, and his breath caught in his throat.
He crosses the kitchen and opens the back door, not looking at the abandoned garden, and puts the bags outside. Arthit comes in through the hallway with the other plastic bag and a wad of damp paper towels, detours around Rafferty, and goes through the door to set them out. He straightens and stands there for a moment, hands on hips, looking at the wasteland that used to be a garden.
Rafferty runs water and passes a musty-smelling sponge under it. The kitchen, as advertised, is relatively neat, although dusty. He squeezes the extra water from the sponge and swipes it over the kitchen counters. 'We're going to need some more paper towels.'
From the doorway Arthit says, 'Under the sink.'
Kneeling hurts Rafferty's back, reminding him that he was up, sitting essentially in one position, all night long. The pain sharpens his memory of Rose's story and brings a question to the surface. 'He's here, Horner is. He's got to want to get to Rose, maybe all of us. Why hasn't he done anything?'
He opens the cupboard door and settles back on his heels, his question forgotten.
'Something to think about,' Arthit says, coming in. He looks down at Rafferty, who's staring at the space beneath the sink and says, 'Shit.'
'This is impressive,' Rafferty says. He pulls out a big plastic tub piled high with empty whiskey bottles.
'You should see the ones I left in the bars,' Arthit says. He comes over to Rafferty. 'Give me that.'
Rafferty slides it over to him, and Arthit picks it up with a little grunt.
'Maybe it is impressive,' he says, putting it down again and dragging it across the floor toward the back door.
Rafferty's phone rings. He stands, fishes it out of his jeans, and says, 'Ahh, my skyscraper darling.'
'We're on the way,' Rose says. 'All of us.'
'Good. We're pretty much ready.' He thinks for a second about what she's said, and he asks, ' 'All'? What happened to 'both'?'
'All,' Rose says.
Rafferty says, 'Oh. Well, don't forget the circling and double-backs and all that.'
'Thanks,' Rose says. 'I never would have remembered.' She hangs up, and he folds the phone and turns to Arthit, who's coming back in. He says, 'I'm sorry about this. I think we've got one extra coming.'
Arthit stops, obviously processing the information, and then he tries on the smile again. It looks like he's got gas. 'No problem,' he says. 'Invite everyone you know.'
Chapter 22
Poke asked an interesting question a while ago,' Arthit says. He's showered and shaved and changed into a white dress shirt, tan slacks, and an awful pair of tartan plaid socks. He has a huge collection of bad socks, given to him by Noi as a birthday joke every year. 'He knows where you live. He painted the door to tell you he could get to you, and then he disappeared. What's he doing?'
'It's only been a few days,' Rose says. 'Since Saturday.' She's sharing the couch with Miaow and Pim, whom she's apparently adopted permanently. Pim hasn't raised her eyes from the floor since the moment she realized she was in a cop's house. They've all got glasses of iced coffee, rich with sweetened condensed milk, except for Miaow. Miaow brought two six-packs of Cokes just in case and is working on her second can.
Rafferty, framed in the sunlight that's streaming through the front window, settles into his armchair, takes a polite sip, fights down a grimace at the sugar, and says, 'You're the only one who knows him. Is he someone who sits around and waits for things?'
'No. He decides to do something and he does it. He wants things when he wants them. He's not careful, at least not about things that might be dangerous. He goes skydiving, he climbs rocks. And look at the way he came back into the Candy Cane to get me so soon after he took Oom. That wasn't careful.'
'It was impulsive,' Arthit says. 'But if he's impulsive, why hasn't he tried to get to you? He had that guy, that guy-'
'John,' Rafferty says.
'John. He had John following Poke-and maybe you, for all we know-just getting information. But he already knew where you lived. He and John, the two of them, could have waltzed into that apartment in the middle of any night of the week and done whatever they wanted.'
'Not to be immodest, but I was there,' Rafferty says.
'These guys aren't going to worry about a travel writer,' Arthit says.
'Well,' Rafferty says, 'I'm not just a travel writer.'
'Of course not.' Rose passes her fingertips over the condensation on the side of her glass and pats the side of her neck with the cool water. In Thai she says, 'But they have no way of knowing how lethal you are.'
'You think he's a soldier,' Arthit says to Rose, ignoring Rafferty. 'But his visas say 'businessman.' And what kind of soldier gets so much time off?'
'He's a soldier,' Rose says.
'Jesus, we're slow,' Rafferty says. 'He's both. He's a mercenary.'
'The talon,' Arthit says, sitting up. 'I knew I'd seen it before. He's Grayhawk.'
'They're both Grayhawk,' Rafferty says.
Rose says, 'What's Grayhawk?'
'Contractors,' Rafferty says. 'Hired guns. The guys who kill people on behalf of the Land of the Free when a war is unpopular and the president doesn't want military casualties. The guys who shot a lot of those folks in Iraq
