The Queen of Patpong (8 page)

Bohnert says nothing.

“One more chance,” Rafferty says, hoping the man will cooperate. He’s seeing little bright flashes at the corners of his vision, and he can hear his blood singing high and thin in his ears. His voice sounds distant, as though he’s hearing it through a wall. “One more chance for us both to walk out of here feeling relatively okay. Where’s Horner?”

Bohnert says, “You’re dead. You and the whore and the midget. You’re dead.”

Rafferty says, “I’m sorry you feel that way.” He puts his thumb tightly over the top of the bottle and shakes it vigorously as the women’s voices rise in expectation. When he can feel that the pressure’s increased as much as it’s going to, he brings the Coke bottle up to Bohnert’s nose, removes his thumb, and jams the bottle into the left nostril.

Coca-Cola spurts out of Bohnert’s nose and over Rafferty’s hand, and John’s knees unbend spasmodically, scissoring in both directions. Rafferty rises and steps back as Bohnert thrashes on the floor, coughing and choking, and then the chili hits, and he roars and jackknifes and then straightens, kicking his feet out so fast that he cracks both shins against the vertical support of the toilet cubicle, and he twists back and forth, rocking on his bound arms, hacking and spitting and sobbing simultaneously.

Rafferty’s voice feels like it’s being forced through a sieve. “Where’s Horner?” His phone begins to ring.

Bohnert’s eyes are streaming water, but he pulls his mouth tight and spits at Rafferty.

As his phone continues to ring, Rafferty bends over John and says between his teeth, “There’s lots left. Let’s try again.” He puts his thumb over the bottle and starts to shake it.

“No,” Bohnert says. It’s mostly breath.

The phone stops ringing. “Why were you following us?”

“See . . . where you went. Who you know.”

“Why?”

Bohnert’s nose is running, and he sniffs, which is a mistake that registers instantly. He blows out explosively and makes a retching sound that turns into another fit of coughing. When it’s over, he lies still except for deep, shuddering breaths, and Rafferty says again, “Why?”

“Pressure points,” Bohnert says. “Looking . . . for pressure points.”

Rafferty’s phone rings again. He looks at it and sees
ROSE
.

“What does Horner want with her?”

“Don’t know.”

“Fine.” Rafferty puts the phone into his pocket and shakes the bottle again. John is pushing back with his legs, trying to scrabble away, under the wall of the toilet cubicle. A couple of the women laugh.

“He . . . he says she tried to kill him.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know. Really,
really.
He wanted—Howard wanted—to marry her.”

“He . . .” Rafferty stands there, the bottle dangling heavy in his hand, feeling as if a building just fell on him. “
Marry
her?

“He asked her, she said yes. That’s what he says.”

“True or false?” He shakes the bottle again,

“True, true. Ask her. Ask
her,
not me.” Bohnert’s voice breaks like an adolescent’s.

“And where is old Howard?”

“I . . . I can’t.”

“Sure you can. Unless you want to sneeze blood for the next week.”

Bohnert’s face softens, and he starts to cry like a child, and Rafferty, with no pleasure, recognizes a self-shattering sense of shame. “He’s in . . . he’s in Afghanistan,” Bohnert says.

“CALL DR. RATT,”
Rafferty says into the phone. “Tell him—”

“You went after him, didn’t you?” Rose demands, her tone as sharp as broken glass. “That man, the one who was with Howard. How
stupid
can—”

“I’m not up for an argument.” The sweat he smells now is his own, his T-shirt wet and heavy beneath his arms. “Call Dr. Ratt. Get him and Nui there now.”

“And you got yourself hurt,” Rose says. “You
saw
them, you saw how they were, and now—”

“It’s not me. And will you please—” Beside him, on the backseat of the cab, Pim shifts her weight away from him and whimpers.

“Then who?”

“Goddamn it, will you please do what I’m asking you to do?” He is suddenly so furious that his mouth tastes like metal. “Will you just fucking do what I want?”

Pim pulls farther away, leaning against the door.

There is a long pause. Then Rose says, in a voice he’s never heard before, “You sound like a customer.”

He is trying to think of something to say when he hears her disconnect.

ROSE’S EYES ARE
stones when she opens the door, but the moment she sees Pim, her face softens. “You poor baby,” she says in Thai. “You’ve been crying.” Her eyes flick to Rafferty’s bandage, but she makes no comment, just gathers Pim in.

Behind Rose, Dr. Ratt’s wife, Nui, gives Pim a sharp-eyed glance. “It’s a new one,” she says in English, calling toward the kitchen. Rafferty can hear water running, so the doctor is probably washing his hands.

“How long have you been in Bangkok?” Rose has wrapped a long arm carefully around the girl. Pim’s chin is dimpling at the sympathy.

“Three weeks,” she says. Even less time than Rafferty had guessed.

“And what’s the problem?” Rose asks in Thai. “Did my husband beat you up?”

“No,” Pim says. “He was wonderful. He stuck a bottle right up the man’s nose.”

“Did he?” Rose says, without a glance at Rafferty. She guides Pim toward the counter between the living room and the kitchen. “Sometimes he’s nice by accident.”

“Ahh, our patients have arrived,” Dr. Ratt says in what he imagines to be a soothing tone but has always sounded to Rafferty like the voice of an amateur who’s somehow gotten on the radio. “Who needs to be looked at first?”

“Sorry to disappoint everyone,” Rafferty says, “but this is nothing.” He raises the bandaged elbow. “I’m fine.”

“Oh, well. That won’t last long, the way you live. Who’s our little friend here?”

“My name is Pim,” Pim says, looking dazzled. Dr. Ratt and Nui are dressed like a cross between medical personnel and slumming angels, he in a white tunic that looks like something Nehru might have worn if Nehru had been a doctor, with a stethoscope gleaming around his neck for effect, and Nui in the latest of a long line of hand-tailored all-silk nurse’s outfits. The two of them have made a fortune by defeating Bangkok’s fearsome traffic, putting multiple teams of doctors and nurses in cars twenty-four hours a day on the assumption that often enough, when a call comes in, there will be a team nearby. A lot of the profit has gone into clothes. Faced with their soigné urban elegance, Pim folds her arms around her middle to cover some of her bare brown skin and appears even more uncomfortable than before.

“Mmmm,” Dr. Ratt says, giving her a closer look. “Dislocated, is it?”

“It is,” Rafferty says.

“When I need a layman’s opinion.” Dr. Ratt says, without glancing up, “you probably won’t be the layman I ask.”

“When everyone hates you,” Rafferty says, “drink beer.” He goes into the kitchen and pulls the refrigerator door open.

“Well, now,” Dr. Ratt says, with a “come here” glance at Nui. Between them they maneuver Pim onto one of the stools at the counter and then swivel the stool so she’s got her back to the kitchen and is facing into the living room. She sits there, hunched over protectively, looking from one of them to the other, as though she’s trying to decide which of them will bite her first.

“This is going to hurt,” Dr. Ratt says, taking her left wrist. “Only for a second, though, and then it’ll be fine.”

“But—” Pim says, just as Dr. Ratt brings the arm up, twists it slightly, and pushes, and it pops into the socket, accompanied by a squeal from Pim that goes through Rafferty’s ears like a smoking wire.

“There,” Dr. Ratt says. Pim is bent double, holding her shoulder. “Better?”

“Yes,” she says, “but it hurts.”

“Well, I lied about that. It’ll be sore until tomorrow. But it doesn’t hurt like before, does it?”

“Oh, no.”

“He did this to her?” Rose asks. It is an accusation.

“John,” Rafferty says. “The other one. John Bohnert. He’s not as dangerous as he thinks he is.”

“Don’t you fool yourself,” Rose says.

“He told me something interesting.”

“Hard to believe,” Rose says. Dr. Ratt, Nui, and Pim are watching the two of them, unwilling to interrupt.

“What?” says a new voice, and Rafferty looks around the kitchen door to see Miaow. “What was that noise?” Miaow gives Pim a glance that takes in the garish makeup and the cheap clothes, then dismisses her. “And who’s
this
?”

“Her name is Pim,” Rose says, all ice. “Not ‘this.’ ”

“You’re grumpy,” Miaow says, turning back toward her room. “And he’s got bandages on and he’s drinking beer. Call me when dinner’s ready.”

“Hello,” Pim says, but Miaow keeps walking.

“You were just spoken to,” Rose says to Miaow’s back.

“Well,” Dr. Ratt says, “if no one else is hurt, we should probably be going.”

“Yeah, hello,” Miaow mumbles, without slowing.

“You turn around
right now,
” Rose says. “Who are you to be so rude?”

“It’s all right,” Pim says.

Miaow stops, wheels around, and impales Rose with a glare. “Why are you so
mean
?”

“That’s it,” Nui says, grabbing her husband’s arm. To Rafferty she says, “Call us if this gets medical.” She hauls Dr. Ratt toward the door.

“I haven’t paid you,” Rafferty says.

“For that? Forget it.” Nui is already opening the door, but the doctor puts a hand on the jamb to keep from being towed out of the room. “If you get a chance,” he says, “mention us in one of those magazines you write for.” He nods to Pim. “Nice to meet you, young lady.”

Pim gives a high
wai
of respect to the door, which is already swinging shut behind him. She calls out, “Thank you,” but the closing of the door cuts the phrase in half. To Rafferty she says, eyes shining, “He’s a real doctor.”

“He is,” Rafferty says. “And he’s got manners, too.”

“Oh, blah, blah, blah,” Miaow says. “Why doesn’t
everybody
just yell at me?”

“Miaow,” Rafferty says, “I know it’s hard, at your age, to believe that there’s anything that’s not about you, but it’s true.”

“Oh?” Miaow says, and her chin juts out in challenge. “So you’re yelling at me because of what? Because of Rose? Or maybe
her
?” She flips a thumb at Pim. “Or the guys in the restaurant? Or whoever hurt your stupid arm? Like, what, it’s an accident that
I’m
the one you’re yelling at? If someone else was standing here, would you be yelling at them instead of me? Fine. I won’t stand here anymore. One of
you
can stand here and let him yell at
you.
” She turns and stalks down the hall, and a moment later the door to her room slams.

Rose stands, looking after her as though she’d vanished through a wall. She seems distant enough to be reconsidering her entire life. Rafferty drains his beer and thinks about getting another. Then Rose says to Pim, “We’re not usually like this.”

Pim glances at Rafferty, looking for help, but he’s staring into the refrigerator. She says, “Oh.” She makes fluttering gestures with her fingers, but no words come.

“This is not a good job,” Rose says, her voice flat. “What you’ve come to Bangkok to do. It’s not good for you.”

“My parents,” Pim says. “And there are five kids.” She puts a brown hand flat on her bare knee, fingers spread wide, and stares down at it. She swivels on the stool, and her hot pants glitter. “Everybody needs money,” she finally says.

“I know,” Rose says. Then she says, “Poke. Get me a beer.”

“Gee,” Rafferty says. “You’re speaking to me.” He pulls a Singha out of the refrigerator and says to Pim, “Want one?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t drink.”

“See?” Rose says over the hiss and fizz as Rafferty pops the cap. “You’re a good girl. I know it feels like there’s nothing else you can do, but you’re wrong. You have no idea how wrong you are. You think you’ll do it for a while, a few years, and then it’ll all be over, but you’re wrong. It’s never really over. I haven’t danced in more than five years, I’m married, I have a husband and a daughter, and it still comes up and kicks me in the teeth.”

“
You
danced?” Pim says. She blows out a deep breath of admiration. “You must have made big money. I’ll bet you got all-nights, maybe even weeks. I’m not beautiful like you. I usually have to wait until they’re drunk before one of them picks me, and then it’s a short-time. Nobody ever wants me to stay all night.” She rubs her palms over her thighs as though she’s cold. “I hate going home after, at three or four in the morning with money in my pocket, dressed like this. It frightens me.”

“It should
all
frighten you,” Rose says, taking the beer from Rafferty. “You see how disrespectful my daughter just was? That’s because she’s ashamed of me. My
daughter.
She could barely look at you because of what you do. And she was a street kid just a few years ago, so it’s not like she shits silk. Is that what you want? Someday, after you fuck a thousand drunk men, and defend yourself against the ones who hate women, and avoid getting AIDS, and save your money, and maybe even buy a little house, if you’re not like all the other girls who spend the money as fast as it comes and lose it at cards and give it to boyfriends who beat them up. If all that happens, if you live through it and take care of everybody and keep a little money somehow, then your daughter is disgusted with you.”

“Miaow’s a kid,” Rafferty says.

“What do you think Pim is?” Rose says, just this side of a snap. “And don’t say ‘Oh, that’s different,’ because it wouldn’t have been, not if you hadn’t come along. What do you think Miaow would have been doing at— How old are you, eighteen?”

“Sort of,” Pim says.

“What would Miaow have been doing at seventeen or eighteen, do you think?” Rose demands. “Running for office?
Look
at her, Poke. She even looks a little like Miaow.”

Rafferty looks at the girl, and Rose is right. They’re both small, brown, and shaped by the distinctive gene pool of the northeast, with rounded features, broad nostrils, and the fine, dark, flyaway hair that Miaow used to part and slick down with water. “A little,” he says.