Breathing Water (12 page)

“High-ranking policeman,” Rafferty says. “Full uniform, fat, looks a little like a monkey—”

“Thanom,” Pan says. “
Very
bad. He runs a little squadron of killer cops. They scare people to death. He was one of the top cops who resisted the crackdown on drug dealers because he was taking so much money off them. Millions of baht a month.”

“Why is he here tonight?”

“His wife is ambitious. Got a set of claws and uses them to climb. Also, we were in business once, he and I. When we were both younger and poorer.” His eyes scan the room. “But most people are here to show me I can’t chase them away. They would rather this fund-raiser had been held anywhere else in the world. They’d prefer a rat-infested slum or a mountain of rubbish. But since I outbid all of them to host the event, they have to show up to prove they’ve got the balls.”

“Dark suit, short, mostly bald. Not skinny but gaunt, got a face like a skull. Not eating or drinking anything.”

“Porthip. He’s the guy who owns the cranes you see all over the city. Imports steel for skyscrapers. His steel partners are Tokyo yakuza. Once or twice they’ve sent him help when he needed to persuade builders that they were buying their steel in the wrong place.” Pan seems to be enjoying himself. “Three or four years back, one of the reluctant customers was found in Banglamphoo. And Pratunam. And Lumphini Park.”

“I get it.”

“Something very sharp,” Pan says. “
Japanese
sharp.”

“Does he live on air or something? He can’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds.”

“He’s lost maybe twenty kilos in the past year or so. Word is he’s got stomach cancer.” Pan looks around the room. “It’s a good thing we’re not raising money to cure that. Half the people here wouldn’t give a penny until Porthip is dead.”

“This last one’s harder,” Rafferty says. “Maybe the best-dressed man here, really beautiful suit. Late forties, early fifties, goes to the gym a lot—”

“In the middle of a gang of bodybuilders?”

“Right.”

“Mmmmm,” Pan says, the pink lips pushed out.

Rafferty says, “Mmmmmm?”

Pan pulls a cigar case from his jacket, opens it, and takes one out. He snaps the case closed without offering one to Rafferty. Then he stands there, looking down at his hands as though the cigar and the case come as a surprise to him. He opens the case, drops the cigar back in, and shoves the case back into his pocket. He smiles at Rafferty and takes his arm.

“Let’s eat,” he says.

I
t takes Rafferty less than a minute in the privacy of Pan’s office to confirm that Thanom and Porthip are both on the yellow list.

While everyone eats and Pan proudly leads Rose around the room, Rafferty grabs Dr. Ravi. Dr. Ravi has a plate in his hand and doesn’t seem overly happy at the interruption.

“Where’s the list of the people who showed up tonight?” Rafferty asks.

“Down at the guardhouse.”

“Do me a favor? Call and tell them to show it to me. And can I borrow your swan?”

The swan starts with a purr. As Rafferty guides it back toward the gates, he becomes vividly aware that the stink from the pigpens has increased incrementally. Passing the ramshackle village, he sees the enormous fans that have been placed behind the pen, wafting the scent of
merde de cochon
toward the Garden of Eden.

The smell chases him up the long hill. When he crests it, he sees that the lighting in the garden has been shifted to create an island of bril
liance around the apple tree. The jeweled fruit gleams green and red through the leaves, and the verdant moss that surrounds the tree has been raked or fluffed up to make it seem deeper, lusher, more sensuous. As befits, Rafferty thinks, the spot where the world’s most pleasant sin had its world premiere. Half a dozen men are at work around the apple tree. Several of them are up on ladders and seem to be putting something into its branches. In the relative darkness on the far side of the garden, behind red velvet ropes policed by two uniformed guards, is a gaggle of people whom, from their cameras and casual dress, Rafferty identifies as members of the press. They have their own bar and are using it with some enthusiasm; its surface bristles with bottles, and the voices he hears have the tone-deaf loudness of the freshly drunk.

A guard gives Rafferty a few minutes with the RSVPs. About a third of the attendees are on the yellow list, the anti-Pan list, and about a fifth of them are on the list Pan gave him. He pulls out his copies of those lists and circles the names of the people who are present. He wants to get a look at as many of them as possible tonight. Pan’s line comes to mind:
It’s good business to know your enemies
.

He works as fast as he can. The booth is hot, even this late in the evening. His shirt is damp by the time he finishes. He refolds his lists and pockets them, thinking that by tomorrow morning it may all have proved to be a waste of time. Elora Weecherat’s article will be out by then, with its hidden threat: If anything happens to Rafferty and his family, the paper has information that could lead to the person responsible.

If he weren’t American, he thinks, it wouldn’t have a chance of working. The potency comes from the threat of the embassy pushing the Thai investigation along. And if Arthit is right and this has something to do with the national political scene, pressure from the United States is the last thing the people who are threatening him would want.

During his time in Bangkok, he’s learned not to take too much comfort from a string of hypotheticals, but it’s all he’s got.

HE APPROACHES THE
policeman, Thanom, first. The picket fence of protectors parts as though he’s expected, and Thanom offers him a wet hand to grasp and a fat-faced smile of welcome that almost makes his
flat little eyes disappear. “Certainly,” he says. “I’d be happy to talk to you. Anything to help a writer with such an interesting subject.”

“Isn’t it?” Rafferty says. “And of course I want to do it well.”

“I’m sure you do,” Thanom says, and one of his guys snickers. Thanom’s smile remains in place, but his eyes, when he turns them to the man who laughed, look as if smoke should be coming out of them.

When Rafferty reaches the other side of the room, the living skeleton, Porthip, is more difficult. “No time,” he says.

“I’m sure you’re busy—”

“I have
no time
. Didn’t you hear me? I’m working twenty hours a day as it is. And Pan no longer interests me.” There’s a tremor to his voice that could be lack of breath support. It could also be pain.

One of Porthip’s guardians puts a hand on Rafferty’s arm, and Rafferty shakes it off. “That’s going to disappoint some people,” he says. The guardian takes Rafferty’s arm again.

“Who?”

“Tell you what,” Rafferty says. “Rather than discuss a bunch of names in front of everyone, I’ll have one of them call you tomorrow.”

Porthip extends a shaky hand and touches the shoulder of the man whose hand is on Rafferty’s arm. The man lets go. “Do that,” Porthip says. “If they’re the right people, I’ll talk to you. But you arrive ready to work. No matter who calls me, I can only give you an hour. If that.”

“That’ll be fine,” Rafferty says. He turns away.

“Wait,” Porthip says. “Who is she?”

“Who?”

The tip of his tongue touches his lower lip. “You know who.”

“Oh,
her
,” Rafferty says. “She’s a spirit of the forest. She only assumes human form when the moon is full.”

Porthip looks past him, to where Rose towers over Pan, yellow fire at her throat. “The moon isn’t full.”

Rafferty says, “I guess I was misinformed.”

The third man, the beautifully dressed man whose name Rafferty doesn’t know, won’t allow Rafferty anywhere near him. The bench-pressing phalanx that surrounds him simply stand, massive shoulder to massive shoulder, a human Stonehenge, several feet in front of their employer, and stare Rafferty down.

“At least let him tell me himself,” Rafferty says.

One of the musclemen says, in English, “Fuck off.”

“Is that message from you?” Rafferty calls over the muscleman’s shoulder.

The beautifully dressed man simply turns away. Rafferty has been snubbed before, but this is a whole new level. He starts to push between two of the men in front of him, but the one to his left, a short, wide, dark-skinned man whose teeth stagger drunkenly across his mouth, leaning in all directions, reaches around the side of Rafferty’s neck and digs an iron thumb into a spot behind Rafferty’s jaw, just below his ear. Pain radiates outward in all directions. Rafferty lets his knees go loose, trying to drop out of the hold, but the other man grabs his necktie and holds him up. It has taken almost no movement, nothing to draw attention, but Rafferty’s entire awareness is focused on pain. By the time the two men release him, the beautifully dressed man is gone.

“Next time,” says the one with the drunken teeth, “you’ll be limping for a week.”

Then he brings up his right hand and, with his index finger, flicks Rafferty across his open left eye.

The pain is dazzling, enough to take Rafferty to his knees, both hands cupped over the assaulted eye. Tears stream down his face. After what seems like ten minutes, he becomes aware of an open hand extended down to him.

He looks up with his good eye to see a man in his early fifties with long, wavy hair, worn brushed back without a part, in a senatorial style. His hand is framed by half an inch of immaculate white French cuff fastened by a link of lapis lazuli set in gold. “Please,” the man says. “Let me help you up.”

“Thank you.” Rafferty reaches up to give the man his hand and is more or less hauled to his feet.

“I saw that,” the man says. “Filthy trick.”

Rafferty mops his face with the sleeve of his jacket. The vision in his left eye is badly blurred. “And he’ll have an opportunity to regret it.”

The senator smiles gently. “Don’t say it too loudly. There are people in Bangkok who could wipe you up like a spill, and Ton is one of them.”

“Ton?”

“Oh,” the senator says, dropping his eyes to adjust an immaculate
cuff. “I thought you knew.” When he looks back up, he is smiling. “Given the beauty of your companion, you have good reason to stay alive. If I were you, I would think of Ton as a wrecking ball and stay out of his path.” He nods slightly. “Please excuse me.”

The senator moves off, doing a little genteel glad-handing here and there, and Rafferty turns to find Rose standing behind him. “Nice-looking man,” she says.

“He returns the compliment. In fact, everyone returns the compliment. You’re all anybody here wants to talk to me about.”

“That’s not surprising, considering that one of your eyes is bright red. You look better when they match. What happened?”

“I ran into a finger.”

“Who was it attached to?”

“Captain Teeth.”

Rose says, “Is this something
else
I have to worry about?”

“Worry?” Rafferty says, blinking against the pain. “In a gathering like this one?”

T
he evening’s final act begins about nine-thirty as Pan steps up onto the orchestra’s platform. He raises both hands, gesturing for silence. The fiddlers desist.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Pan says. “On behalf of the Malaria Relief Fund, I want to thank you all for coming and invite you out into the garden for our closing presentation. I’m sure you’ll find it worthwhile.”

He steps down and weaves his way through the crowd, as conspicuous in his awful clothes as a peacock among pigeons. He winks at Rose as he passes. They wait a bit and then go out and down the steps, following the crowd along the narrow paved track, and the little village is to their left. “By the way,” Rafferty says, “the votes have been tallied, and it’s official. You obliterated every woman here.”

“I already married you, Poke,” Rose says. “But don’t stop just because of that.”

Someone jostles Rafferty’s shoulder roughly and pushes past him. It is Captain Teeth, the man who flicked Rafferty’s eye. He turns back to stare at Rose and makes a loud slurping noise with his tongue.

“If you learn how to swallow,” Rose calls to him, “you won’t have to do that.”

“He knows how to swallow,” Rafferty says, his eyes on the man’s. “He eats shit every time the boss loosens his belt.”

Captain Teeth flushes and starts to pivot, but the man next to him grabs his arm and gives it a yank. With his upper lip pulled back to bare his awful teeth, Captain Teeth makes a V with his index and middle fingers, jabs them in the direction of Rafferty’s eyes, and then allows himself to be dragged away. The beautifully dressed man is not with them.

Rose says, “Would that be—”

“It would,” Rafferty says.

“He doesn’t like you much.” She fans her hand beneath her nose. “Ohhh, those pigs.”

“Half an hour ago, Pan had wind machines, like in the movies, set up behind them, just to move the smell around.”

“He doesn’t trust much to chance, does he? The diamonds for me, the fans for the pigs. He really piles it on.”

They are cresting the hill that slopes down to the garden. “It’s probably a good thing it didn’t occur to him to put the diamonds on the pigs,” Rafferty says.

“We should suggest that for next time.” Rose passes her fingertips over the stones. “It was nice to wear them once, though.” Rafferty doesn’t say anything, and Rose hits him in the ribs with her elbow. “You dummy,” she says. “You say
one word
about how you wish you could buy me something like this and I’ll stick my finger in your other eye.”

“At least they’d be the same color.”

“Look at
that
,” Rose says, stopping. Rafferty stands there, feeling the crowd part around them and flow past, apparently unimpressed by the sight below.

The garden is an explosion of light. Six-story palm trees, gilded by light, dazzle against the black sky. Enormous ferns are transparent green, backlit by thousands of watts. Apples glisten in the foliage of the tree, and a pinspot picks out the snake as it winds its silver spiral down the trunk. The whole thing nestles like an emir’s jewels against the dark velvet wall of greenery. It is vulgar, ostentatious, biblically ridiculous, and absolutely beautiful.

Movement beyond the garden catches Rafferty’s eye. The members
of the press have been released from their eighty-proof cage and are streaming toward the lights like moths. Nipping at the heels of the press, herding them like a border collie, is Dr. Ravi. He and two guards shepherd them to an area on the opposite side of the tree from the crowd.

“This could be interesting,” Rafferty says. “Look, he’s set it up so the guests are in the picture.”

Pan emerges from the greenery and steps up onto a wooden platform, about eighteen inches high, positioned beneath the tree. Flashbulbs explode, making Pan’s movements as jerky as stop-motion animation.

“Welcome to the garden,” Pan says. He is wearing a microphone on a headset, and his voice echoes. “And to Net Profits.” He says the words in English and then reverts to Thai. “You’ll see why we’re calling it that in a moment. When the Malaria Relief Fund proposed this event, I decided immediately that we should end the evening here, in the Garden of Eden.” He pauses as Dr. Ravi and the two guards finish jamming the press into their assigned area and then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a fan of three-by-five cards. “Most of us here tonight are Buddhists. But for Christians and Muslims, this garden was the setting of creation.” He is reading now; the words—which, Rafferty thinks, he obviously didn’t write—sound stiff and uncomfortable in his mouth. “It was here that the Deity shaped, from clay and divinity and a rib, the creatures who would sit on the throne of the world He made. They were perfect in form and perfect in health. And they were perfect in their innocence.”

A murmur starts to run through the crowd, and Rafferty sees heads turn, sees people step back and bump into those behind them. He hears Rose start to laugh, and say, “Oh, no.”

The thick ferns to Pan’s left part. Adam and Eve enter their garden, holding hands. Neither of them is a minute over nineteen, and they are as naked as the day they were born except for a couple of strategic and mysteriously adhesive leaves. As the beautiful couple walks to the base of the tree, seemingly unaware that the garden is full of overdressed millionaires, every flashbulb in Thailand goes off, and it suddenly occurs to the people in the front of the crowd that they have just been captured in a front-page photo. There are more attempts to back away, and Pan has to raise his voice to speak over the protests.

“But there was something else in the garden,” he reads from the cards, “a creature whose sting we continue to feel even today. And no, ladies and gentlemen, it wasn’t the snake with his shining apple of temptation. It was a much smaller creature, a tiny, seemingly harmless creature, that finds us at our most vulnerable.” Adam and Eve lie down together on the moss at the base of the tree. Their arms intertwine as the flashbulbs reach the intensity of antiaircraft artillery. The people at the front of the group are trying to back away while the people at the rear are pressing forward for a better look.

“The anopheles mosquito,” Pan says. He starts to grin but fights it down. “It took its first drink of human blood here in the garden, and it went forth and multiplied. It multiplied by the millions and became a swarm that fills the night with the world’s number-one killer. The humblest, bringing down the most mighty. But it could have been stopped right here, ladies and gentlemen—” Adam has wrapped both arms and one leg around Eve, and a fig leaf flies into the air from between them and dawdles its way down again. Now the crowd is seriously trying to get out of camera range, and Rose is laughing so hard she has to lean against Rafferty.

“It could have been stopped here, but it wasn’t, because
one thing
was missing from the garden.” Pan raises his hand and makes a magical pass at the tree, and a glittering gold net drops from it, covering Adam and Eve only seconds before the pictures would have become useless for news purposes. Movement continues beneath the net. Pan takes advantage of the diversion to light a cigar. “A
net
, ladies and gentlemen,” he says through a haze of smoke. “A simple net. A net that still stops malaria today, that can help us to eradicate it from the face of the earth. And I’m proud to announce that my own initial contribution to Net Profits will be ten million baht. That’ll buy one hundred and fifty thousand nets, but that’s just a beginning. I’m hoping we’ll buy a
million
nets with the money we raise tonight, and, fortunately, there are people here this evening—good friends of mine, each and every one of them—who will make me look like a tightwad.” He creases the cards up the middle and tosses them over his shoulder, then glances down at the golden net, which is still in motion. “So,” he says, “why don’t we give these kids a little privacy and go up to the house and write some checks?”