Breathing Water (34 page)

“Poke,” Arthit says, but the door is suddenly crowded with men, and in front of them, with Captain Teeth’s arm around her throat and his gun at her head, is Da. Even with death touching her temple, she keeps an arm wrapped tightly around the cashmere shawl that holds Peep.

Boo takes an involuntary step toward her, but one of the men racks his automatic, and the boy freezes.

“Not one move,” Captain Teeth says. “Nobody. Not one move. Anybody twitches and the girl and the kid are dead on the floor, got it?”

No one speaks. The only sound is the husky growl of the dog, its head now low as it looks up at Captain Teeth.

“I count three guns,” Captain Teeth says. “I want those guns turned around slowly, so you’re holding them by the barrel. Do it now.”

Rafferty, Arthit, and Kosit reverse their guns so the handles are pointing toward Captain Teeth.

“Good. Now hold them up in the air, way up. Good, good. And turn around so your backs are to us. Now bring down the hands with the guns, hold them out shoulder length, arms stiff, by the barrel. I don’t want to see any bent elbows. Bring the arm slowly behind you and just stay there.”

Rafferty hears feet moving, and then the gun is removed from his hand. A moment later Captain Teeth says, “All of you, turn back around. Slowly. All the way around.”

When Rafferty is facing the door again, he sees Captain Teeth, still clutching Da, at the center of a group of five men, three of whom hold automatics. They have come several feet into the room, with the door at their backs. Kosit, Arthit, and Rafferty are several feet apart, and eight or ten feet beyond them, near the podium on the other side of the hill of burned shoes, are Pan and Dr. Ravi. Nearest the gunmen, the dog at his side, is Boo.

Captain Teeth makes a show of looking inquisitively around the room. “Where are they?”

“Where are who?” Rafferty says. “The whole world’s here.”

“Your honey. And the kid. We know they’re here.”

“You’re wrong,” Rafferty says.

“Okay, fine. Be an asshole. You,” he says, giving Da a shove that nearly makes her stumble. “Over there. With Fatso and the little guy.” He points his gun at Boo. “You, too, hero. Over there. Take your dog with you.” As Boo moves, the dog resists being led, holding its ground and growling. Boo lets go of him and joins the others. Captain Teeth turns back to Rafferty. “And you and your friends. Over there, with everybody else. Makes you easier to shoot.” He waits there as people
move awkwardly through the obstacle course of shoes and melted machines. “Nobody behind anybody, okay? Side by side.” He looks at the setup. “What were you going to do, make a movie?”

“I want to talk to Ton,” Pan says.

“I’ll bet you do. But right now I’m more concerned with our missing girls. One more time,” he says to Rafferty. “Where are they?”

“They’re not here.”

“Bullshit. It was your sweetie’s phone that got us here in the first place. I’m not asking again, I’m just shooting somebody. You, Mr. Policeman.” He aims at Kosit.

“Wait,” Da says. “I had the phone. I took it, and when you called, I answered it.”

“Sure.” Captain Teeth turns to Rafferty. “You ready to see your cop friend die?”

“It was me,” Da says in a strangled voice. “Someone called, and I said hello, and then they hung up.”

Captain Teeth stares at her for a moment. “How many times did you say hello?”

Da swallows. “Once.”

Captain Teeth says, “Show me the phone.”

“I…I don’t have it. He, I mean Boo, he took it away from me, and—”

“Fine. Right. You had it but you don’t have it. You two,” he says to two of the men with guns. “Go through this building, every fucking room. Look under stuff. Look up at the ceilings. There’s a woman and a kid here somewhere, and I need them.”

One of the men glances around and says, “I’d rather stay here.”

“And I’d rather be in bed with five college girls. But I’m not. Get going, or I’ll leave you here when we go back to the city.”

“Okay, okay.” The man who argued looks at the other man who’s been chosen. “Do we have to split up?”

“You can go piggyback for all I care. But find them.”

With obvious reluctance the two men leave the lit room and enter a hallway that leads to the back of the building.

Pan says, “You’re making a mistake.”

“Well, you’ve got the experience to know,” Captain Teeth says. “You’ve fucked up so bad that nobody needs you anymore.”

“Ton,” Pan says. “I need to talk to Ton. He and I can work this out.”

“He’s finished with you. Just shut up and wait. Someone shut that dog up.”

“It doesn’t belong to anybody,” Boo says. “It lives here.” The dog is showing its teeth now, the hair along its spine bristling.

“Well, let’s fix that.” Captain Teeth lowers the barrel of his gun and sights over it. There’s a sudden movement in the group of people between the sewing machines, and within the second it takes Captain Teeth to look up again, Pan has his arms wrapped around Da’s shoulders and is crouched behind her, using her as a shield as he backs toward the door.

“I’m leaving,” he says. He takes a few more steps backward, pulling Da along next to him. Da’s eyes scour the room, looking for help.

“Fuckup,” Captain Teeth says, and he brings the gun up and shoots Da.

The bullet lifts her off her feet and slams her back against Pan. He grabs her by instinct, but then her legs crumple beneath her and she’s dropping, her mouth open in amazement, as she tries to bring the other arm up, tries to get it under Peep. Pan staggers forward, pulled off balance by her weight, and he looks down at her face, at her wide, sightless eyes. The generator, which has been coughing outside, shuts down, and slowly, in the new silence, Pan lowers Da to the floor, his eyes on hers all the way down. At the last moment, he slips a hand beneath her head as it nears the concrete. When she is flat on her back, he eases his hand out from under her and his head comes up, his mouth gaping, and a scream rips itself loose from the center of his belly, a scream that threatens to empty even a man so large, and he stands and spreads his arms, making an even bigger target, moves carefully around Da, and takes two steps toward Captain Teeth.

Captain Teeth fires again, and Pan staggers a half step back, arms still spread as though in invitation, and then moves forward again. Captain Teeth fires again and again, and as Pan shudders and falls, there are shots from Rafferty’s left, and he turns to see Arthit pouring fire into Captain Teeth, using the gun he took from Pan, and as Captain Teeth goes down, Arthit turns and fires at the three men left in the room, dropping one of them, and the other two break for the door and disappear into the night.

The dog ignores the shooting and goes to the heap of clothes and blood that is Da, standing over her as Peep starts to cry. The dog begins to howl.

Kosit goes to Captain Teeth’s body and grabs his gun, then charges back into the factory, after the other two men. Rafferty and Boo drop to their knees on either side of Da, and Boo picks up Peep and rocks him, tears streaming down his face. Rafferty is probing Da’s wrist for a pulse when he hears the shots from the rear of the factory. And then it’s quiet except for the dog’s howls.

THE FACTORY IS
a flickering wash of red and blue lights. “It’s over,” Rafferty says into the phone. He is sitting in a patrol car. “It’s not the ending you wanted, but it’s over.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ton says on the other end of the phone.

“Pan’s dead. So are three of the people you sent after him. You might want to be on the lookout for the other two. This place is wall-to-wall cops. There’s nothing to tie any of it to you—”

“I should think not.”

“Except a videotape of Pan talking about his arrangement with you. The quality’s not real high, but there was plenty of light, and what he said will have quite a bit of news value.”

A pause. When Ton speaks, Rafferty can hear the strain in his voice. “No one will use it.”

“Maybe not. Maybe not for a couple of years, maybe not until things have changed. But things
will
change, and when they do, these tapes will just be waiting. And do you think there’s a chance the new guys will want to nail you by the wrists and ankles to the pavement on the expressway and back a truck over you?”

“Hypotheticals.”

“Here’s something that’s not hypothetical: My wife and my daughter and I are going home, and we’re going to live there safely and happily, without worrying about looking over our shoulders. And as long as we stay that way, happy and safe, the copies of these tapes will be at the bottom of the ocean. So to speak. But the minute something happens to any of us, they’ll bob up again. These are people you’ll never
in a million years be able to identify, people I don’t even know, two or three removes from me, who will know exactly what to do with the tapes, who to give them to. And they will do it, if anything happens to my family and me. Is that clear?”

“As I said, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that.”

After a moment Ton says, “I don’t deal well with irritation. The tapes sound irritating.”

“Well, they won’t be, as long as you—”

“And what about you? You have the potential to be irritating.”

“I won’t be. I’ve got people to protect.”

“Yes, you do,” Ton says. “Go home.” He hangs up.

Rafferty folds his phone, closes his eyes, and listens to the ambulance siren die away in the distance.

T
he living room of Arthit’s house is crowded and noisy. The seat of honor—the reclining chair Arthit bought to watch the American cop shows he and Noi used to laugh at—is occupied by Noi’s mother, a tiny woman with a prodigiously concentrated energy field that keeps her daughters and grandchildren spinning in tight orbits around her. Her wispy silver hair, thinning and uncontrollable, creates a formless nimbus of light around her head that Rafferty thinks is an appropriate effect for a gathering that follows a cremation.

Arthit sits in full uniform on the couch, behind the coffee table. His eyes are red-rimmed, but he’s laughing almost unwillingly at something that’s just been said by the husband of one of Noi’s sisters, an appointed official in a minor province, someone who would have been on Ton’s side if it had come to that.

“He’s going to be all right,” Rose says, following Rafferty’s gaze. “He’s a good man, and he had years and years with a good woman. Everything but the end was a blessing. And who knows about the end? Karma is complicated. Maybe that was a fire they both had to go through.”

“At least he can be a cop again,” Rafferty says. “The kids’ video makes him a hero. He’s the one who took down the thug who killed Pan.”

“That’s such a
man
reaction,” Rose says.

“Well, he’s a man. What do you want me to do, enroll him in the Chrysanthemum-of-the-Month Club until he feels better? He told me he’d find his way back at his own speed, and having something to do will help. Men have spirits, too, Rose. We’re not floor lamps. Men’s spirits just heal better behind a screen of activity. As of the Sunday-night TV news, he’s the most famous cop in Thailand, and there’s nothing Thanom can do except try to crowd into the newspaper pictures alongside him. The people in the northeast would probably vote for him for prime minister. Not that he’s crazy enough to do anything about it.”

In the dining room, Boo carries Peep in one crooked arm. He’s resplendent in the new clothes Rafferty bought him for the ceremony. Da shines in a pale yellow dress that Rose helped her pick out, with Miaow’s sullen help. The once-spotless sling that supports the cast on Da’s left arm has already been decorated by Boo’s crew with a broad range of enthusiastic drawings that range from flowers and hearts and bright yellow suns to daggers and teeth dripping blood. The other kids, here at Arthit’s insistence, cluster defensively in the breakfast room, wearing clothes so new they creak, and never getting farther than four or five feet from the food.

Boo and Miaow have avoided each other. Not a word has passed between them.

And Rafferty has lost his Carpenters album and gained a cast on his own left hand, courtesy of the doctor who took care of Da. When he’d gone to the hospital to pay for her care, the doctor had taken one horrified look at the bandages and said, “Who did this? A plumber?”

“A dentist,” Rafferty said, and the doctor grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back into an examination room.

Rafferty’s cell phone rings. It’s his old phone, the one that’s been off for most of the past two days.

“Sorry,” he says to Rose. “I’ve got to go outside to hear this.” He opens the phone and says, “Hang on a minute,” then crosses the living room and steps through the front door into a warm, violet evening. “Hello.”

“Hello.” It’s a man’s voice. The English is unaccented. “I’d tell you who I am, but you don’t know me. I’ve been asked to call you to make
sure you’ve noticed that everyone you love is alive and well. I assume you’re aware of that.”

Rafferty says, “Resoundingly.”

“Good. I’ve also been asked to point out that their present good health is in the nature of a favor. That, essentially, you’ve been done a good turn.”

“That’s one way to look at it. Another way is to say we had an agreement.”

“Don’t overvalue the strength of your deterrent. It was a favor. You’re undoubtedly aware that favors are usually returned. It’s called ‘quid pro quo’ in Latin, I believe.”

“Very impressive.”

“Thank you. A time may come when you’ll be asked to return the favor. The gentleman who asked me to call says to tell you he expects a thoughtful response. And in the meantime look at it this way: Someone in Bangkok will be keeping an eye out for you. Not much point in being owed a favor by someone who’s dead, is there?”

“Not unless you’re very patient.”

“And he wants you to redeposit his money. He’ll work out a wire transfer to a safe account.”

“Can’t do it,” Rafferty says. “It’s gone.”

“What? All of it?”

“Pretty much. Got a few hundred left.”

“What did you do with it?”

“Paid some hospital bills. Gave a bunch of it to some street kids and to the children of a reporter who got killed. Oh, and I bought a baby.”

“The man who asked me to call you is not easily amused.”

“What can I tell you? It’s all true.”

“Well,” the man on the other end says, “looks like you owe us a bigger favor than we thought.”

“Looks like,” Rafferty says. “So that’ll give him an extra reason to worry about my safety.” He thinks for a moment and then says, “Interesting how quickly another Isaan businessman stepped up to the plate, isn’t it? Politically, I mean.”

“Times are changing,” the man says. “We all have to change with them. Just remember, you owe us a favor.”

The man hangs up.

Rafferty puts the phone into his pocket and stands there, looking in through the window at the bright room, at the people assembled to remember someone whose life was faithful and compassionate and good. Like, he thinks, 99 percent of the Thai people. Like Boo’s kids will be, if they get a chance.

Standing near the window, on her own at the edge of the crowd, her hands folded in front of her, is Miaow. Without discussing the situation with either Rose or Rafferty, she has apparently made a decision. She wears the “schoolsiest” dress she owns, and yesterday she bought a hair rinse that would emphasize her new highlights. Her hair is even redder than it was before. She does not look toward Boo or Da.

She’s tough,
Rafferty thinks.
But that doesn’t mean she can’t break your heart.

The front door opens, and a group of people emerge, calling out words of parting. There is a general movement inside, people getting ready to go back to their lives. Soon enough, Rafferty knows, Arthit will be left alone to spend the first night in this house without Noi by his side. To begin something new.

IT’S ON THE
coffee table, centered in front of him, still sealed. The side of the envelope that told him not to come into the bedroom is facedown, revealing the sealed flap. Kosit stands to one side of the sofa and Rafferty to the right. It seems wrong somehow for them to come too close to him right now.

Arthit looks up. He says, “Well.”

“Well,” Rafferty says. The look on his friend’s face makes him want to burst into tears.

Arthit breathes deeply, leans forward, and uses both hands to pick up the envelope. As he does, Da comes into the room, stops suddenly, and then goes to Rose and whispers something to her.

“What?” Arthit says.

“Oh,” Da says, blushing scarlet, “it’s…um—”

Rose tells him, “She says there’s someone sitting next to you.”

Arthit’s eyes go to Da. He blinks as though to clear his vision, and then he says, “Thank you.”

He opens the envelope.