For the Dead

by Timothy Hallinan

  21

  You Don’t Know Anything

  MIAOW WON’T LOOK at him.

  He’s followed Arthit into the small room where she’s waiting, just a table and two chairs. Someone, probably being thoughtful, has brought in a little television and plugged it in, but Miaow hasn’t turned it on. She’s filthy, her arms and face streaked with dirt. She smells of sweat and rat urine. There are white tracks down her cheeks, where tears washed the dirt away.

  The door closes behind him and Arthit, but Miaow sits in the molded plastic chair and looks at her feet, one of which is bare. All Rafferty can see is the back of her neck, her shoulders, her blackened knees, and her hair, which has cobwebs and plaster and God only knows what else in it.

  He says, “Hello, Miaow.”

  She doesn’t move.

  “What happened to your shoe?”

  “What shoe?”

  “Do you want to go home?”

  In a voice so low he can barely hear her, she says to the floor, “Who cares.”

  “It’s over,” he says. “You were brave. You saved Andrew. You’re all right now.”

  He doesn’t think she’ll reply, but she says, “You don’t know anything.”

  “Well,” Rafferty says, shooting Arthit a glance, “why don’t you wait in here while I learn a little.”

  Arthit says, “Do you want something to drink, Miaow?” but Miaow doesn’t acknowledge the question. Rafferty opens the door and holds it for Arthit, and after a moment’s pause, Arthit passes through it.

  Arthit leads him two doors down, out of earshot, and then turns, his arms folded. “Okay,” Rafferty says, “is she just being dramatic, or is there some personal tragedy I don’t know about?”

  “The kid’s dad,” Arthit says. “Andrew’s dad. We called him first because we wanted the camera, and it was at their place.”

  “Wouldn’t have anything to do with his being a diplomat.” Arthit’s face flushes. “Even if it did,” he says, “you know I wouldn’t make that decision. If you don’t know that, you should.”

  “I’m sorry, Arthit.” Rafferty swivels his head, and his neck cracks like popcorn. “There’s a lot going on right now.”

  “The father heard the story, and he was pretty rough. Said they wouldn’t be seeing each other any more. Asked what kind of a girl knows about ruined hotels and old ventilation systems. What is she, he asked, a street kid? I thought Miaow was going to kick him, but it was worse than that. She just sort of disappeared. Pulled way, way inside herself, while he ranted on. And this, of course, was the girl who just saved his son’s skinny, helpless ass.”

  Rafferty sags against the wall. “Oh, no.” He looks down the hallway, at the door Miaow is behind. “For her, for Miaow, this is about the worst thing that could have happened.”

  Arthit pulls his head back in surprise. “Are they that serious? They’re pretty young.”

  “It’s just infinitely complicated. Yes, it’s that serious, at least for her. He’s all she thinks about. She barely talks to us any more, it’s just Andrew, Andrew. But I don’t think it’s all just romance. It’s like the fact that he cares about her makes her interesting, makes her into somebody else, someone who’s not a worthless street child pretending to be someone who matters. That sonofabitch really nailed her.”

  Arthit is looking down at the floor, but his head is slightly cocked and Rafferty can feel his attention.

  “And Andrew goes to her school, so she’s probably terrified about word getting around. Arthit, she’s invented up a whole different person for school. Her name is Mia, her mother is rich, her father is famous. She talks differently there. She’s spending most of her allowance on whitening creams. She’s bought little lifts for her school shoes to be taller. You’ve seen her hair. She’s twelve, thirteen years old, and she hates every inch of herself.” He massages the back of his neck, pushing back against his own hand. “Andrew is a nice enough kid. I like him, and she likes him, too, but I think, for her, he was partly proof that it was all working, that she was becoming someone—better.”

  He breaks off, squeezes his eyes shut and opens them again. “Hell, I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, maybe he’s really her first love. Maybe that’s all it is, she’s just brokenhearted instead of feeling exposed and dirty and terrified that this is going to get out at school, and everyone will be pointing at her. Looking at her like she needs to wipe something off her upper lip. Like she’s street trash. She’s been pretending to be a white-shoe rich girl. And here she is, someone who knows every filthy short cut in the asshole of Bangkok. So, no, I don’t think it’s just teenage heartbreak.”

  Arthit says, “I’m so sorry.”

  “And it had to happen now, of all the times, it had to happen now.”

  “Why is that such a problem?”

  Rafferty says, “Arthit.” He feels like he could weep. “You should have been the first person to know this. I have no excuse for not having told you. It’s Rose. She’s pregnant.”

  “Poke,” Arthit says, and for a moment, he sounds like himself. “That’s—” He breaks off, and then he says, “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” Rafferty says. “In that regard, it’s just awful.”

  They stand silently for a moment and then Arthit says, “Walk with me,” and he puts his hand on Rafferty’s upper arm and they move down the ugly hallway, Arthit limping slightly against the muscle spasm in his back. “You have to keep these things separate, right? If there’s one thing I learned after Noi died, it was that problems aren’t really knotted together, they just seem that way. If you tangle them up they’ll paralyze you, they’ll get too big to see around them, to where the solutions are. So even though I don’t know much of anything, even though I may be making a huge mistake in my own life right now, let me talk for a few minutes, okay?”

  Rafferty says, “You have no idea how much I want you to talk to me.”

  Arthit squeezes his arm. “Okay, so here goes. First, you’ve been blessed. You have a wife you love, you’ve got a brave, resourceful, good-hearted daughter who just saved some little geek’s life, and now your beautiful wife is going to have a baby. There will be four of you, Poke. That’s where you’re actually standing right now. Does that sound about right?”

  “It sounds wonderful.”

  “Well, hang on to that. Okay, one thing at a time.” He stops where he is and taps his hard, round little belly a few times, not even aware he’s doing it. Rafferty has seen him do it a dozen times when he’s thinking. The dark-skinned face with its broad nostrils and downturned mouth is tilted toward the floor and he’s wiggling one foot side to side on its heel, another signal that he’s working something through. He looks up at Rafferty and starts to walk again. “First, don’t worry about the thing with the guys who wanted the phone. I’ll work on it all day tomorrow, and stay on top of what’s happening in the department, and I promise you, Miaow will be protected if it seems even halfway necessary.”

  The hallway branches left and right, and Arthit takes them right. “Now. Andrew.”

  Rafferty says, “Maybe Nguyen will back down. Maybe he’ll let them—”

  Arthit says, “Not quickly, he won’t. He’s got a whole tree up his ass. But maybe, just maybe, Andrew is stronger than you think he is. Maybe he’ll defy his father. There’s no love sweeter than the Romeo and Juliet kind.”

  “But remember, this whole thing started because he’s afraid of his father. That’s why they bought—”

  “That was stuff, that was a phone, that was something Andrew’s father could buy. This is Miaow. I’m not trying to sugarcoat anything, Poke, but she’s not like anyone Andrew’s met in his protected little life. Two fences, a hypodermic, and an air duct? In about fifteen minutes? And she did it for him, you know. Without him, she could have been halfway home by the time they started chasing her. Do you think he doesn’t know that?”

  Rafferty says, “Okay.”

  “So let’s say that the love tragedy is something you just park for
now. Love your daughter, stay out of her way unless she wants you in it. Wait for the phone to ring, wait for them to reach out to each other again, wait for her to come home from school looking happier. And in the meantime, here’s what you do about the baby. Nothing. You don’t tell her about it.”

  Rafferty says, “I’ve missed you.”

  “Let’s not get all teary. We’ve still got a problem between us. It’s Anna. She’s moved in with me.”

  “You know what?” Rafferty says, “That’s great. Do you love her?”

  Arthit says, “Maybe I do.”

  “Then I’ll learn to love her, too.”

  “Okay,” Arthit says, blinking fast. “Let’s get all teary.”

  “I’d hug you,” Rafferty says, “but we’re in a police station.”

  “Aaaaahhhh,” Arthit says, and they hug each other, and then Arthit steps back. “While I still have some reputation left,” he says. He rubs his eyes with his sleeve. “The thing to do with Miaow is to be infinitely patient. And don’t understand her too much. Kids hate that. Not that I’m an expert on kids. But I sure hated it.”

  “Got it,” Rafferty says. “Love her, don’t over-understand her, and wait for true love to find a way. Cross my fingers that word doesn’t get out at school. And keep quiet about the baby for the moment.”

  “Until Rose just can’t hold it back any more.”

  “Should I talk to Andrew’s father?”

  Arthit says, “Do you think it’ll do any good?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Well, then, sure,” Arthit says. “Odds like that, you’ve got to try.”

  “Thanks, Arthit.” Rafferty throws an arm over his friend’s shoulder. “Let’s go get my daughter.”

  22

  The Opposite of a Cover-up

  IT’S GOTTEN DARK out, but not so dark that the cabbie doesn’t turn his head, his eyes wide, as Miaow climbs into the backseat. She startles Rafferty by baring her teeth and growling, and the cabbie’s head snaps forward.

  He lowers his window against the smell.

  Miaow has her door halfway open before Rafferty can reach past her and slam it closed again. She says, “Let me out.”

  “Soi Pipat,” Rafferty says.

  The driver, his eyes on the mirror, says, “She wants to get out.”

  “Well, she’s not going to. Let’s go.”

  The driver says, “No. Here’s what. You both get out.” He thinks for a second. “Or you get out and I’ll take her where she wants to go. For free, if I have to.”

  Miaow says, “It’s okay.”

  “Is he trying to take you someplace you don’t want to go?”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere,” Miaow says. “But I might as well go with him.”

  The driver says, “I don’t do that.”

  Miaow says, “Look at me, please. In the mirror.” She waits until his eyes are on her, and then she makes a wai. “Thank you for being worried about me. I’ve had a very bad day and I know how dirty I am, and I’m sorry for being in your cab, but this is my father, and he just wants to take me home.”

  “Yes, Miss,” the cabbie says, and Rafferty finds himself staring at Miaow. She’s never stopped surprising him, but this is a voice he hasn’t heard before. He thinks, This is who she is at school. And he wants to put his arms around her.

  She won’t look at him. As the cab pulls away from the curb, she sits with her knees pressed together and her hands folded tightly in her lap, presenting the smallest possible amount of surface to the world. Her eyes are open, and she’s staring directly at the back of the driver’s seat, as though she thinks it’s the direction bad news is least likely to come from.

  “Do you want me to get your mother out of the way so you can clean up before she sees you?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Miaow says.

  “It might matter to your mother.”

  “Up to you.” She turns away and looks out the window of the cab.

  “Okay, then I’m deciding. You wait outside for a minute and come in when I tell you, and then you can go get in the shower or whatever you want.”

  “Whatever I want.” She puts nothing into the words.

  “Okay, what I want,” Rafferty says. “And that would be a shower.”

  “You already won,” Miaow says.

  Rafferty says, “I have to say this, even though I know you don’t want to hear it. I’m so proud of you I could burst into tears.”

  She doesn’t turn to him, but she swipes the back of a filthy hand across her cheek. “Well, don’t.”

  “I won’t,” Rafferty says, wiping his nose. “I’m a grownup. I’m even a man. We don’t cry.”

  The cabbie is looking at him in the mirror, and when Rafferty catches his eyes, he gives a little shrug that Rafferty reads as, Oh yeah?

  “If it’s all right with you,” Miaow says, “I don’t want to talk.”

  “No problem.”

  She starts to cry. He puts a hand on her shoulder, but she pulls away from him and brings up her knees, turning herself into a ball of knees and elbows, and she sobs as though something much bigger than she is, much too large for her to contain it, is trying to force its way out.

  In the mirror, Rafferty and the driver share a glance of helpless complicity.

  THANOM, WHO HAS worked all day Saturday, has not been asked to change his uniform, and he feels the slight the moment he steps into the high, airy entry hall. Through the wide archway to the left, the room glimmers with medals and jewels, the rainbow of the women’s clothes and the white dress jackets, glittering with decorations, of many of the men. Thanom stands there in his wrinkled day uniform and feels his face burn.

  He hears music: a string quartet, not a recording. This is the life he’s always wanted, and he’s being reminded forcefully that he doesn’t have it.

  The servant who opened the door and left him standing here is better dressed than he is.

  People glance at him but their eyes keep moving; he’s no one worth looking at.

  So he looks at the floor, his hands clasped tightly together in front of him, until the servant reappears and says, “Please follow me,” and leads him away from the big bright rooms and the music, Mozart, he thinks, since he always guesses Mozart, and he cringes internally at his own pretentiousness. Showing off for himself and failing to impress.

  Up a short flight of stairs to a landing. The servant stops at a closed door, knocks once, indicates with a gloved hand that Thanom is to open it.

  Thanom waits until the servant is partway down the stairs. Then he pushes the door open and enters the room.

  “Close it, please,” says the man behind the desk.

  Thanom’s heart suddenly pounds in his ears. He’s never exchanged a word with this man before, and up until this very moment he hadn’t realized he should have been grateful for that fact.

  “Sir,” he says, his back to the closed door.

  “So,” the other man says. “This Sawat situation won’t go away, will it?” He’s slender and fair-skinned, black hair cut medium length, parted on the left and trained to fall casually over a scholarly forehead. He wears a pair of rimless glasses with slightly smoked lenses. There’s something ascetic about him, although rumor says he has women stowed in apartments all over Bangkok. He’s younger than Thanom—early fifties—but every cell in his body seems comfortable with the disparity in their stations. He should be, since he’s a princeling, presently the highest-ranking princeling in the department, the third son of a family that misses being ancient but has, for several generations, been very, very rich. The room is lined with books, with a gleaming ebony desk and a dark, thick carpet. The only spots of color are four framed photographs on one wall, formal portraits of two boys on the verge of becoming teenagers.

  Thanom says, “We’re making progress, sir.”

  “ ‘Progress’ is a strong word for ‘accident,’ ” the other man says. Thanom can’t see his eyes through the gray lenses.

  “W
e have descriptions and photos now, of both of them.”

  “No,” the younger man says. “You already had, on videotape, the one who committed the murders. The other is just hired street muscle.” He waits, but Thanom says nothing. “I’d like you to tell me what you saw on that phone.”

  Thanom masks his surprise at the question. “Photos of Sawat and Thongchai, several of each, and two pictures of two of the men who chased those children.”

  “Is that all?

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Nothing or no one else?”

  “No, sir.” He can actually feel his blood pressure mount. “Although the phone was only in my possession for a few hours.”

  An economical nod. “That’s correct. And you won’t be seeing it again, either. You’ll also find that the copies of the photos you put on your office computer have been deleted.”

  “Sir. I’m supposed to be leading this investigation.”

  “Well, no one will know otherwise unless you tell them, will they?” He slides a palm over the surface of the desk, as though he’s seen some dust. “In fact, you will be working quite closely with me.” Thanom says, “Yes sir,” keeping his voice flat.

  “And since you’ll be helping me, tell me something. At the moment, what should our objectives be?”

  “I’m writing a report—”

  “Don’t.” The slender man makes a graceful side-to-side motion with his right hand, a polite discouragement. “I know your first impulse, everyone’s first impulse, is to write a report, but don’t. Just tell me. Give me a sense of your prioritizing skills. What are the two things we need most to do?”

  Thanom feels his face heat up and hopes he’s not about to break into a sweat. “To find the person behind the murders, and to stifle speculation about the department’s involvement in what Sawat did all those years ago.”

  “That’s good, Colonel. I’d put them in the opposite order, but that’s a quibble. Please,” he says, pulling out the chair behind the desk and sinking into it, “sit down.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Thanom sits in one of the two plush chairs set in front of the desk.