The Fear Artist (32 page)

“He dyed his hair to match hers,” Rafferty says. “I’ll bet he didn’t ask permission.”

Nguyen almost smiles. “I wondered where the color came from.”

“It’s Miaow’s way of trying to be different.”

“Actually,” Nguyen says, and this time he lets the smile all the way out, “I don’t think that being different is going to be one of life’s problems for your daughter.”

“I don’t mean different from other people,” Rafferty says. “She’s got that aced. I mean different from herself, different from who she sees herself to be.”

Nguyen closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them again. “Of course.”

“This is all really sweet,” Ming Li says, “but we’ve sort of got an agenda?”

Nguyen looks at her again, leaning forward slightly as though to see her better. “You’re … what, little Auntie?” he asks. “Half Vietnamese?”

“Half Chinese, half American. Poke’s part Filipino. We share a father. What else do you want to know?”

“If you grew up in America,” Nguyen says, “your attitude is typical. If you grew up in China, you must know that you’re being extremely rude.”

Ming Li sits up and puts her hands in her lap and inclines her head. “I’m sorry.”

“On the other hand,” Nguyen says, “I admire you for it. But still, a conversation must be allowed to shape itself, to allow each of us to discover whom we’re talking to. Don’t you agree?”

“You’re completely right. I forgot myself.”

“Well, we’re past that now. Who were the survivors?”

“Two women and three children,” Rafferty says.

“How did they escape?”

“An American soldier got them out.”

“A white knight,” Nguyen says. “Or perhaps a black one. It’s a shame there weren’t more of them.” He looks down at his legs, uncrosses his ankles, and recrosses them the other way, with the left on top. “This was a terrible crime, but it happened decades ago. In wartime. Even if there’s no legal statute of limitations on war crimes, there’s an emotional limit. I have to tell you that I don’t know whom you should talk to. Vietnam is a different country than it was in the 1970s. And, as you may know, the snatch-and-snuff teams, as your soldiers called them, were partly an imitation of tactics used by the army of North Vietnam. Neither side had a monopoly on terrorism.”

“Well,” Rafferty says, “that’s a very even-minded attitude.”

“The heat of passion has cooled,” Nguyen says.

“Let’s see if we can’t strike a match,” Rafferty says. “About a week and a half ago, one of the survivors was murdered in the United States.”

Nguyen lifts his eyebrows. In a face as controlled as his, it looks to Rafferty like a tectonic shift.

“By the same man,” Rafferty continues. “Or, rather, by people working for him.”

“Can you prove that?”

“I can make an excellent case.”

“Was she still a citizen of Vietnam?”

“I don’t know. But her sister and her sister’s daughter are. And the two children who got away. And this man is after them, too. Now, today. Here, in Thailand.”

Nguyen fingers the knot in his tie, and Rafferty is certain he has no idea he’s doing it. His eyes are on his feet but focused about halfway down, on something only he can see. “And what do you want from me, Mr. Rafferty?”

“I may lose this fight. If I do, I just want to know that somebody else is going to kill him.”

“You must want it very badly.”

Rafferty says, “I do.”

“When I saw you at the door,” Nguyen says, “my first impulse was to make you wait for coffee while I called the police.”

“Yeah, I was getting a little antsy out here.”

“It would have been difficult for me to explain to Anh Duong why I turned Miaow’s father over to the police.”

“It’s not exactly the police.”

“No, it isn’t. And the implication of that—of the people who are looking for you—is that you’ve somehow brushed up against the War on Terror.”

“That’s the implication.”

“And then you talk to me about someone who was involved in the Phoenix Program. I’m assuming that what happened in that village was the Phoenix Program.”

“It was.”

“This is freshly interesting, since the Phoenix Program is one of the blueprints for the War on Terror.”

“Something done badly is worth doing badly twice. An American saying.”

“The man in the village is the man who’s after you?”

“He is.”

“I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for that, but I think I’ll dispense with it and go with my conviction that you’re in the right.” He looks at Ming Li. “Which is, in turn, based on the way you’ve presented yourselves—both of you—during this conversation. Instead of talking to my colleagues about you, I’ll focus on the recent murder of a current or former citizen of Vietnam and a present-day threat posed to other Vietnamese citizens, living here in Thailand. By a man who also happens to be a war criminal.” He shifts his weight onto one hip, reaches behind him, and pulls out a slender black wallet, which he opens to reveal a notepad and a thin gold pen. He removes the pen, clicks the point into position, and says, “Name?”

Rafferty says, “Murphy. Haskell Murphy.”

Nguyen puts the pen back without writing anything. He says, “Well, of course.”

“D
ID WE JUST
accomplish anything?” Ming Li says. The rain is back, and whoever sat on the cab’s backseat before them was very wet. The damp has already seeped through Rafferty’s jeans.

“I can only stir the pot,” Rafferty says, beginning to dial the phone. “And see what comes to the top.”

“You sound like Charlie Chan.”

“The Vietnamese are efficient people,” Rafferty says. “Nguyen’s official diplomatic nonsense notwithstanding, they’re not known for turning the other cheek. And he’s already heard of Murphy, so yes, at the very least we’ve created an awkward situation for Mr. Murphy, turned a few more eyes on him. Hang on.”

“Before you push those buttons. Are you frightened?”

“Scared senseless.” Rafferty punches in the final numbers and presses
SEND
.

Ming Li watches the plume of water thrown up alongside the cab as Rafferty says, “Hello, Jiang and Thuy, this is Poke. Hope you’re both okay. Someone will probably call you from the Vietnamese embassy. You’ll know the call is the one I’m talking about because they’ll say they’re calling about Helen. Then it’s up to you whether to call them back, but I think we should try to shine light on Murphy from as many directions as possible.” He glances over to Ming Li, eyebrows raised.

“Just tell them hello.”

“Ming Li says hi,” he says, and disconnects. “What I want to do right now,” he says, keying in another number, “is make Bangkok
feel very small to Mr. Murphy.”

He checks the number he’s dialed against the one on his list, but before he can make the connection, the phone rings in his hand.

“Yes, Arthit.”

“Well, this is interesting,” Arthit says. “The man who called the TV news director spoke English, and the news director was pretty sure he was an American.”

“And the name. I’m assuming he got a name.”

“He did,” Arthit says. “His name was Frank Rafferty.”

“I
S TRAP,”
V
LADIMIR
says, making it rhyme with “pep.” He’s shiny with alcohol sweat, and his eyes are so glazed he looks like a baked fish. Across the table Janos does his chameleon act, blending into the upholstery.

“Of course it’s a trap,” Rafferty says, putting down a mug of weak coffee. “The woman is dead, and she wants to meet me. The question is how close we can get to her without stepping in it.”

“Why you want to get close to her?” Janos asks.

“Look,” Rafferty says, “and you look, too,” he says to Ming Li, “whatever your name is supposed to be—”

“Minnie Lee,” Vladimir says with a ghastly attempt at a smile. The door to the restaurant opens, and all eyes go to it and look away as a stranger comes in. A gust of air strikes the table, rich with the fatty smell of frying bacon. Vladimir’s eyelids drop as though in self-defense.

“You look, too, Minnie,” Rafferty says. “I haven’t got a master plan, okay? The goal is to pull Murphy offside, to get him into territory where he’s vulnerable. To create a
lot
of territory where he’s vulnerable. To get a bunch of people thinking about him and wondering whether he should be here at all.”

“And this woman fits in how?” Ming Li asks.

“She’s an opening. She’s something he’s investing energy in. If he hangs her out there somewhere, she’s going to have a hook in her. And Murphy’s going to be on the other end of the line.”

“And you’ll have a hook in your mouth,” Ming Li says.

“Maybe not. Maybe we’ll steal his bait.”

“And after you make him uncomfortable? After you steal his bait? And then?” Vladimir says.

“Well, ideally,” Rafferty says, “we kill him or put him in the position where someone else will do it. That seems like the simplest solution.”

Vladimir shakes his head, very carefully. “They will still be looking for you. Shen and his people, they will still—”

He breaks off as the waitress sets down a plate of fried eggs for Rafferty and a stack of pancakes for Ming Li. To Janos she says, “Oh, sorry, I forgot about you,” but as she turns, Vladimir grabs her sleeve.

“Beer,” he says. “Big one.”

“This is Breakfast House,” the waitress says, pronouncing it “Hout.” “Beer not have.”

“Here,” Vladimir says, holding out a bill. “Is twenty dollar. You go across street, buy beer, bring here, keep change. You do this, you go to heaven.”

The waitress takes the twenty, turns it over to check the back, and shrugs. She heads for the front door.

“Drinking last night,” Vladimir says apologetically. “But Shen—”

“I’m not thinking about Shen yet.” Rafferty leans forward, his elbows on the table. “I have to do this one step at a time. Right now Murphy’s what I need to think about. He’s driving this train, and, what’s more, the son of a bitch is overdue.”

“Getting personal, no good,” Vladimir says.

“Me?” Rafferty cuts into his eggs. “Personal?”

“Speaking of personal,” Ming Li says, “I want to try something out on Vladimir and … and this gentleman.”

“Janos,” Janos says.

“Thank you.” Ming Li gives him a smile that makes him smooth his shirt and sit straighter, and Rafferty realizes she’s got it calibrated, and that was about a 6.8. He thinks,
God, what’s she going to be like at twenty?
She says, “I’ve been wondering about the time they almost caught you in that hotel near Khao San. It doesn’t feel right to me.”

“Ahhh,” Vladimir says, nodding. “This is talent.”

Ming Li says, “You, too?”

“How could I not?” Vladimir says. He passes an open hand over his brow, reducing the shine somewhat. “It doesn’t work.”

Rafferty says, “What doesn’t?”

“This is the way it’s
supposed
to look,” Ming Li says. “This is what you’re supposed to think happened. Shen watched the house until Arthit left, and then he went in and tricked the seventeen-year-old maid into telling him which neighborhood you were hiding in. Is that about it?”

Rafferty nods.

“And the maid knows this,” Ming Li continues, “because
nothing
is kept secret from her in that house, even though Arthit’s contact with you could put him in jail. It’s nothing he’d keep from a maid.”

“Well,” Rafferty says, feeling uneasy, “Pim and I have a history. I put her there.”

“Baby Spy wery smart,” Vladimir says. “This is not something Shen could know. That you and small-girl maid have friendship. How? What record is this on? What paper, where?”

Ming Li says, “Ventriloquism.”

Janos says, “Obviously.”

“What?” Rafferty says. It’s almost a snap. “What’s obvious? It doesn’t do me any good if all you spooks sit there nodding sagely at one another and looking wise. What’s ventriloquism? I mean, other than that parlor trick Murphy can apparently do.”

Ming Li says, “You’re not going to like this.”

Rafferty says, “I’m getting good at living with things I don’t like.”

“This is a lecture from Frank, almost word for word. Let’s say you have a piece of intelligence you want to act on. You can’t be completely sure it’s going to bring your problem to an end, and if it doesn’t, if the problem isn’t solved, then the fact that you
have
the information will tell the other side who your source is. And you don’t want that, because if the plan fails, you need that source to remain in place.”

“So you pick dummy,” says Vladimir. “Same like wentriloquist.”

“Wait a minute,” Rafferty says.

“They set Pim up,” Ming Li says, so deliberately that she seems to be laying the words on the table one at a time. “And they did it so well that even
she
thinks she gave you up.”

“She did give me—”

“When all along,” Ming Li says over him, “there was someone else in the house. Someone who heard all of it. Someone, in fact, who came straight to Arthit from Major Shen and didn’t even pretend otherwise.”

Rafferty says, “No.” And feels a deep throb of certainty that says,
Yes
.

Everybody looks at him. Their eyes, the clatter of silverware, the noise and the smells of the restaurant, the bright yellow of his egg yolks—it all crowds in on him. He hauls himself to his feet, fighting a wave of nausea. “I’ll be back.” On the way out, he pushes past the waitress carrying Vladimir’s large Singha back to him.

Out on the street, he goes half a block before he registers that it’s still raining. He edges toward the storefronts on the theory that rain doesn’t fall straight down and there’s at least a possibility that it’s slanting away from the buildings.

The strategy’s failure distracts him from his panic about Arthit and Anna. By the time he makes the first right, having apparently decided subconsciously to walk around the block, his clothes are already clinging to him. He thinks about buying an umbrella and then forgets about it, seeing in his mind’s eye Arthit, how happy he looked with Anna; seeing Pim, the loss and the devastation in her face outside the Beer Garden. The pimp and, waiting for her later, the pipe.