Miaow says, 'Fine.' She grabs the Coke, downs what's left in a single long series of gulps, and then tosses the empty can over the counter and onto the kitchen floor with a clatter that makes Rose straighten galvanically. Miaow pushes herself off the stool and leaves the room without a glance at either of them.
Rose is very focused on getting another cigarette. Although Rafferty hasn't moved, she says, 'Let her go.'
He gets up in the silence and goes into the kitchen. Miaow had crumpled the can in her hand. He picks it up and puts it, very quietly, into the plastic recycling bag. A thought knocks on his head, goes away, and comes back, so he gives it voice. 'Do you want something to drink?'
From the living room, Rose says, 'Whiskey. A big one.'
'I'll join you,' he says, although he never drinks whiskey and Rose rarely takes anything stronger than a few sips of beer. At the back of one of the shelves above the counter, he locates a bottle of Crown Royal, a gift from somebody, still unopened in its blue velveteen bag. He's been moving it to look behind it for more than a year. Now he takes it down, tussles thick-fingered with the bag's tightly knotted drawstring, slips the bottle out, and opens it. Two eight-ounce water glasses, soldiers in Rose's hydrating campaign, are drying upside down in the drainer. He fills each of them about one-third full. As he picks them up, tucking the bottle beneath his arm, he realizes that one reason he doesn't drink whiskey is that he hates the smell.
He comes back into the living room to find Rose firing up the new Marlboro. Two in ten minutes is heavy, even for her, but this doesn't seem like the time for Mr. Healthy Habits to make an appearance, so he just puts down the glasses and the bottle and sits beside her. She looks at the glass, and her brow furrows doubtfully for a moment, but then she picks it up.
Rafferty extends his own, feeling like a character in a 1940s film. They clink rims, and Rose tosses back almost an inch's worth. She lowers the glass to her lap and sits back, blinking as her eyes water. 'Oh,' she says, mostly breath. 'Oh, that's awful.'
'Here goes.' Rafferty gulps some down. The two of them sit there, squinting at each other in shared misery.
'Together this time,' Rose says, and there's a glint of grim humor in her eyes. 'On the count of three. One. Two. Now.' The glasses come up, the heads go back, and then the glasses come down again and the two of them stare across the living room with the kind of expression they might wear if the floor had disappeared. Rose opens her mouth wide and breathes out to clear the fumes, then says, 'Why do people do this?'
'Well,' Rafferty says, 'why are we doing it?'
'Right,' Rose says, and drinks again. Rafferty joins her.
'Or'-Rose makes a face-'maybe it's not worth it.' She puts the glass on the table.
Rafferty says, 'Actually, I'm getting the hang of it.' He takes another slug.
'He couldn't have followed us here,' Rose says. She lets the sentence hang in the air for a moment and then reaches forward and picks up the glass. She sips it this time, but she takes three sips. She pats at her sternum until she can talk, then says, 'For now, we're safe.'
'If he wanted to find us, how would he do it?'
'He'd start at Patpong,' she says. He'd go into every bar on the street. He has-or anyway he had-pictures of me. He'd show them to people and ask if they know where I am now.'
They both drink to the idea, and Rafferty says, 'He'd find someone who knows you in ten minutes.'
'Especially because of the employment agency,' Rose says. 'Lots of girls know about Peachy and me. They think about us as someone they can come to if they ever decide to quit.'
'But they'd know where the office is, not the apartment.' He leans over and picks up the bottle, pours some for Rose, and then drinks directly from the bottle's mouth, feeling a fine line of fire burn its way through the center of his chest.
'Most of them don't even know the office,' Rose says. She takes the bottle out of his hand and pours a couple of fingers' worth into his glass. 'They've got a telephone number written somewhere. Half the time they won't even have that-they probably wrote it on the palm of their hand and then washed their hands before they copied it onto anything.'
'Okay, but let's say he gets the number,' Rafferty says.
'Because he will,' Rose says.
'He dials it. Either he gets Peachy in person and he asks her for the address, which she gives him, or he gets the answering machine, which tells him he's called your agency. Then he goes to a phone book, and he's got the address. Either way he knows where the office is.'
'Then he waits there,' Rose says, and they both drink.
'So you don't go,' Rafferty says.
'But Peachy would. And Peachy's been here.'
'Peachy wouldn't tell-'
'Peachy would tell him anything he wanted to know.' She raises the glass and lowers it again, the whiskey untasted. 'You don't know him, Poke. He'd make her tell. He can make anyone tell him anything.'
There's a sniffle in the hallway, and Miaow says, out of sight, 'He'd hurt Peachy?'
'You might as well know, Miaow,' Rose says. 'He'd hurt anybody.'
Miaow sticks her head around the corner and looks at them. The teary look gives way to the aspect of her personality Rafferty calls the Disapproving Executive. She says, 'You're drinking that stuff?'
'It's an anesthetic,' Rafferty says. 'It makes us braver.'
'Then I want some,' Miaow says, coming the rest of the way into the room. 'And don't tell me I'm a kid. I'm more scared than you are.'
Rafferty can't think of a good enough reason to say no, so he gets up and goes into the kitchen to get Miaow's special glass, which has a color picture of the South Korean pop star Rain printed on it, his shirt strategically open to display the best set of abs on earth. The image bothers Rafferty, but not enough to make an issue out of it. When he comes back into the living room, Miaow is sitting on the couch, leaning against Rose with her eyes closed, and Rose is smoothing her choppy hair. Rafferty guesses he missed the apology.
Miaow opens her eyes as he sits. He holds up the glass and says, 'Are you sure?'
Miaow says, 'Why not?'
Rose gives Rafferty a disapproving glance. 'You'll learn the answer to that question in a minute.'
Rafferty pours a splash into Miaow's glass.
Miaow says, 'Up to his belly button.'
'Taste it first,' Rafferty says, and hands it to her. He and Rose pick up their own glasses, and the three of them, in response to some psychically shared impulse, hoist and drink at the same time.
Miaow says, 'Eeeeeewwwwww.' Her face is so twisted it looks like it's being wrung out.
'It doesn't get better,' Rose says.
Miaow lifts the glass again and sniffs, then quickly puts it down. She scrapes her tongue against her top teeth, trying to get rid of the taste. Then she says, 'I'm still scared.'
'He's not going to find this place tonight,' Rafferty says. 'And tomorrow we'll start making it harder for him to find it at all. But tonight we're okay. We'll wake up early tomorrow and get to work.'
'And I'll tell you about it then,' Rose says. 'In daylight.'
'Anybody want more?' Rafferty has picked up the bottle. When no one answers, he grabs his glass in his other hand and goes into the kitchen. He turns from the sink to see Miaow standing behind him, holding the other two glasses. He takes them from her and puts them into the sink, and she wraps her arms around his waist and presses the side of her head against his side. He looks down at the raggedy-yellow crop of hair. Sure enough, he can see her part.
'We're okay,' he says. 'Go to bed, and everything will be fine.'
Miaow says, 'I want to sleep with you and Rose.'
'Fine,' Rafferty says, hoping she can't hear his heartbeat double in fury. 'We've got lots of room. But don't worry. He won't find us.' IT'S A SHARP smell, one he knows he should recognize, but he's functionally impaired until the coffee electrifies his nervous system, and he's still muzzy from the evening's whiskey. The flat, dead reek of Rose's cigarettes takes the edge off the smell and makes it an irritant, like a word he's used a million times and suddenly can't remember. So he stands in the kitchen, his bare shoulder against the cool refrigerator door, and watches the coffee drip.
