For the Dead

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For the Dead Page 19

by Timothy Hallinan


  “I don’t think it’ll work,” he says. Last time he looked into Treasure’s room, Dok and Chalee were asleep, Dok beside Treasure, and Chalee curled up across the foot of the bed, the drawing of Sumalee crumpled in her hand. Treasure’s eyes were open, fixed on Chalee, and she had the abstracted air of someone who has just been deafened by an enormous noise.

  He and Boo have been joined by a young African-American woman named Katherine who’s representing Father Bill and First Home. Boo is silent, letting Rafferty deal with Katherine. “I probably agree with you,” Katherine says, “but why do you say it?”

  “She doesn’t have the social skills.” He’s once again sitting on the corner of Boo’s desk, with Boo in the chair behind it and Katherine on one of the chairs the children dragged in. “You weren’t there, in her house, I mean. She was brutalized on every level. He slapped her, he punched her, he turned her into a ventriloquist’s dummy. Literally: he’d force her to sit on his knee with his hand on the back of her neck and press hard enough to cause pain, and when she opened her mouth he’d supply the words. Just completely overrode her will.”

  “Why? Why would anyone—”

  “Because he was a sick, evil fuck, and he could. She lived in that big, awful house with him and two Vietnamese servants, and her mother, who was in a haze all the time, just knocking over furniture, so that left Daddy. I think it’s amazing that she lets Dok and Chalee anywhere near her—”

  Katherine says, “She touched your hand.”

  “Almost. You saw that?”

  “I was in the hall, looking in through the door.”

  “I had no idea what to do.” Rafferty rubs his face with both hands. “And I’m not at my best. My daughter is missing.”

  Boo says, “It’s only been a few hours.”

  “I know, I know. She’ll be fine, she knows the city, blah blah. Still, it’s one thing to know all that and another to have her back home.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Katherine says, “but you’re an adult male, and she—reached out to you.”

  “I don’t understand it any better than you do.”

  Katherine shifts in her chair. “I hate to compartmentalize like this, but we need to figure out what to—”

  “I know. Okay, let me talk. I don’t think Treasure can get along in a bunch of kids, much less sleep in a room full of them. Dok and Chalee are exceptional. But, you know, in a group, there are—conflicts. It could be dangerous for her, it could be dangerous for them. She’s never been around people her own age. When her father wasn’t slapping her silly, he was showing her how to plan terrorist attacks. I worry about what kind of behavior someone in a group, someone who’s not as sympathetic as Chalee and Dok, might accidentally trigger. This is a girl who lit fire to her own house.”

  “We have to do something with her,” Katherine says.

  Boo says, in English, “He’s thinking about it.”

  “I have a lot of money that, I suppose, belongs to her,” Rafferty says. “I’ve been using it to try to get her mother sort of straightened up, but—” He puts his hands flat on the tops of his thighs and blows out a lungful of air. “But that’s not going to work. She’s past straightening up.”

  Katherine says, “You have her money? You’ve been taking care—”

  He raises a hand. “I had it all worked out, I thought. Put Mama in an apartment, pay someone to keep her straight. Mama would be fine, Treasure would show up, everything would work out. It’s so American. They’d all be sending out Christmas cards in a year or two.” He yawns. “I feel like I should work for Hallmark.”

  “Then stop thinking about you,” Boo says, still in English.

  Rafferty sighs and rocks back and forth in his chair, which squeaks. Closes his eyes and sees floating red spots. “I’ve got to go home. Okay, here’s where I am right now. Leave her where she is tonight. Tomorrow, if we haven’t thought of anything better, let her sleep in here.”

  Boo looks around the room. “In my office?”

  “Are you in here at night?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Then stop thinking about you. Put three cots in here and let Dok and Chalee stay with her. Find a way to close that door. Just temporarily.”

  Boo says, “We need to talk to Dok and Chalee first.”

  Katherine says, “They’ll agree. Kids love to feel necessary.”

  “I know they’ll agree,” Boo says, in Thai this time. “I want them to suggest it to her. Tell her that they’ll all have their own beds or something, that it’ll be—I don’t know—fun.”

  “Tomorrow,” Rafferty says. “Leave them where they are tonight.” He gets up and shoves a hand into the pocket of his jeans and works out a wad of money. “Here’s twelve thousand baht. Get some new pads for those cots, new sheets. Pillows. She used to live in a nice house. Put something colorful on the walls. Magazine pictures of girls with friends. She had them all over her hiding place. I’ll send you more money tomorrow morning. Buy Dok and Chalee whatever they want.”

  “She needs more help than two little kids can give her,” Katherine says.

  “Obviously, but she’s letting them help. That counts for a lot. For now, anyway.”

  Katherine says, “She needs a long-term solution.”

  “Tomorrow,” Rafferty says.

  “It’ll have to be—” Katherine says, looking past Rafferty, and then breaking off. “Who’s this?”

  Rafferty turns to the doorway to see Miaow, looking at him with no pleasure at all.

  Miaow says, “What are you doing here?”

  28

  The Cord

  “A KNIFE,” HE says to Rose. “The son of a bitch had a knife.”

  Rose is occupying virtually all of the couch, sitting dead-center, her knees folded to the left, her long arms extending along the sofa’s back. It’s a position he’s learned to avoid from across a room.

  Miaow, who has paused behind him, apparently to judge Rose’s reaction, pushes past him toward her room.

  “If you go back there,” Rose says, “you can stay there until your next happy birthday for all I care.”

  Miaow says, “He chased me with a knife, or didn’t you hear that part?”

  “I heard it. I would have chased you with a knife myself if I’d been the one who spotted you.”

  “Nice to be home,” Miaow says, heading for her room again.

  Rose brings her head forward a lethal inch or two. “I wasn’t joking, Miaow. Go back there and close that door, and we’ll have a real problem.”

  Rafferty says, “Rose—”

  Over him, Miaow says, “What’s a real problem? If he’d caught me, if he’d stabbed me out on Soi Whatever it was, would that have been a real problem?”

  “Here’s a real problem,” Rose says. “The whole world is about you. The whole world and everything in it exists just so Miaow can tell us all whether it’s good or bad. We all just wait, hanging uselessly from strings, for her to give us the word. She goes to a school most kids would give their teeth to be in, a school full of kids from all over the world, and it’s all about Miaow. Andrew has a father who’s got a head made out of rock, and that’s all about Miaow. Poke and I are going to have a baby, and that’s all about Miaow. My own baby is about Miaow.”

  “That’s not fair. You didn’t even—”

  “I’ll give you this, you had more class than Andrew’s father. You were winning there for a minute while he was here, even though you’ve been a complete hairball for the past couple of months. But then what happened? You learned something that you knew made Poke and me happy—or leave me out of it, if you want, something that made Poke happy, Poke, who’s turned himself inside-out for you—and what do you do? You make it all about Miaow and you storm out of this apartment. And I’ll tell you, since I’m angry enough not to keep it from you—you humiliated us in front of that Vietnamese toy soldier who acted like he’d honor our home by shitting in the middle of the floor. You acted like the girl he thou
ght you were. Just tell me, eye to eye, since I have to ask a question I never thought I’d have to ask, are you even the tiniest bit happy for us?”

  Miaow’s eyes fill most of her face and her shoulders are trembling.

  Rafferty says, “I think that’s enough, Rose.”

  “Do you?” Rose straightens her legs and puts her bare feet on the coffee table. “What I think is that this is a conversation between women, and maybe you should get some rest after chasing all over Bangkok to find the missing princess.”

  Rafferty says, “No,” just as Miaow says, “Yes.”

  Rose says, “Two to one. Get yourself a beer and go into the bedroom.” She looks over at him, and her face softens. “Please.”

  Rafferty says, “We do have to talk about the knife.”

  “We will. First, Miaow and I need to get some of the smoke out of the room.”

  Poke says, “Do you want something? Either of you?”

  Rose closes her eyes and says with enormous patience, “We both know where it all is.”

  He has to say something, so he says, “Well, then.” He goes into the kitchen, pops the cap on a Singha, and stands irresolute in front of the open refrigerator until Rose calls out, “Don’t forget to close it, like some people do.”

  “Righty ho,” Rafferty says, feeling as clueless as Bertie Wooster. “I have an idea,” he says, going back into the living room. “You go talk in Miaow’s room, and I’ll watch a little TV.”

  Miaow is sitting on the hassock now, her legs crossed tightly beneath her, leaning forward with her hands on her knees, not a restful pose. The two of them give him identical looks, looks that make him feel like something they regret buying, and Rose says, “Goodbye, Poke.”

  When the door closes behind him, both of them wait until they’re certain he’s kept going, that he’s not standing on the other side with his ear pressed to it. Miaow’s gaze falters, and she looks down at her crossed legs.

  “Let’s begin,” Rose says, “with me saying I know you’re having a hard time.”

  Miaow blinks heavily, as though she’s been slapped.

  “This is a miserable time for a girl. I know nobody wants to hear this, especially not from her mother, but you’ll live through it. If I lived through it, anybody can.”

  “You?” Miaow says. “You’re beautiful.”

  “I was the town joke,” Rose says. “I was too tall, I was all knees and elbows, I was half blind. I squinted at everybody. Stork is not a flattering nickname.”

  “I’m a dwarf,” Miaow says. “A black dwarf.”

  Rose says, “Oh, shut up,” and Miaow rocks back. “You’re going to be beautiful. Go look at your eyes. Look at the shape of your mouth. Go suck in your cheeks, because those are going to disappear. Your nose is perfect.”

  “I barely have a nose.”

  “You act like there’s a hole in the middle of your face. Listen to me. This isn’t just about what you look like. You don’t even know what you look like. This is about you not liking who you are, and I know everything about that. I was a tall, ugly child whose own father tried to sell her, and then I was a whore. Your turn, tell me what you’ve got to compare with that.”

  Miaow is using the tip of her index finger to write something invisible on the glass surface of the table. Rose can’t see her eyes, and she’s pressing hard enough to turn her fingernail white.

  Rose says, “Do you actually think we don’t love you?”

  Miaow stops moving. Then she brings her knees up and wraps her arms around them and lowers her head until it rests on her knees. “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. We both love you more than we love anything else in the world. Every day, we wake up happy just because you’re here. Both of us, we’re only really ourselves when you’re with us.”

  “When were—” Miaow begins, her head still down.

  “When were—when were we going to tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Miaow. I’ve only known for three days. I was only sure on the night before you and Andrew got into all that trouble.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Do I lie to you?”

  Nothing. Just the top of her head with its fading dye job, the chopped haircut growing out to the point where her natural center part is beginning to reassert itself. The shoulder seam of her angry-duck T-shirt separating a bit to show the brown shoulder beneath.

  Rose says, “Do I?”

  “No.”

  “No, I don’t. And now,” she says, lowering her voice, “here’s the reason I made Poke leave. This isn’t a lie I told him, it’s just something I haven’t talked about yet. That means you’re the only person who knows about it. And you have to promise me that you’ll let me be the one to tell him.”

  Miaow raises her head. When she sees Rose’s face, she nods.

  “This baby I’m carrying, this is the second.”

  Miaow’s eyebrows come together in a question, and then her mouth opens and she looks quickly down at the floor, but Rose can see that she’s listening all the way to her toes.

  “The first one, when she was about three months along,” Rose says, and grabs a breath, “she decided not to be born. I didn’t lose her on purpose, she just didn’t want the life I could have given her. I had a—a miscarriage. Until a few days ago, I didn’t think I could have another child.”

  Miaow has knotted her hand in her hair and, apparently, forgotten about it. Her hair is bearing the entire weight of her arm.

  “When I knew about the baby—this baby—I thought she was my first, coming back to be born.”

  Miaow says, “Maybe it is.”

  “No,” Rose says. “It isn’t. I worked out the time, Miaow, and I realized that it’s you.”

  Miaow starts to say something, stops, and asks, “What is?”

  “You’re my first baby, Miaow. You came back so you could find your way back to me. To us.” Her face is wet but she doesn’t seem to be weeping. “It was thirteen years ago, Miaow,” she says. “You found us all the way across this city. Like water running downhill.” She blots her cheeks with the heel of her hand. “I’ve always been your mother. So, you see, this really is your little brother or sister. It can’t come between us.”

  Miaow says, “I thought. I mean, I thought—there would be a cord between you and your baby, when the baby came out, and that cord would be there forever.”

  “Miaow,” Rose says, “do you really think there’s no cord between us?”

  “IT’S OBVIOUSLY SAFE in here,” Rafferty says from the doorway.

  Rose has moved to the end of the couch, and Miaow is on her side with her knees drawn up and her head on Rose’s lap. Without looking up, Miaow says, “I love you, Poke.”

  “I know,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear it. I love you, too.”

  Miaow says, “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “Okay,” Rafferty says. “What’s a guy supposed to say?”

  Rose says, “Is there any of that awful whiskey left?”

  “Unless you drank it.”

  “Three glasses,” Rose says.

  “Are you sure?”

  “This is a special occasion,” Rose says. “Miaow’s allowed.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about Miaow,” Rafferty says. “Miaow can have as much as she wants. It’s you that—” He’s started toward the kitchen but he stops so suddenly he might have reached the end of a rope. “You haven’t been smoking,” he says.

  Rose says, “I thought you’d never notice.”

  “Well, that’s amazing and I admire the hell out of you for it, but I still don’t think you should have a drink.”

  “Is eating still okay? Breathing?”

  “Anything in the world you want is okay except smoking and drinking.”

  Miaow says, “There’s nothing left,” and Rose laughs softly and smoothes Miaow’s ragged hair.

  “Two whiskeys,” Rafferty says, “Coming up.”

  “If
Rose can’t have it, I don’t want it, either.”

  “Well, I sure as hell don’t want it. I was only drinking it to keep my twelve-year-old daughter company.”

  “Thirteen,” Miaow says.

  “Historians are divided on that.”

  Rose says, “Thirteen.”

  “We have a new source?” Rafferty says. “Something I don’t know about?” Miaow smiles and snuggles in Rose’s lap. “Well, okay, there’s always something I don’t know about. Since I’ve been spared the whiskey, I’ll have a beer.”

  “Diet Coke for me,” Miaow says.

  “And how about you, little mother?” Poke says, suddenly feeling as happy as he ever has in his life. “A nice glass of warm tap water? I could scatter some powdered yeast over it.”

  “Nine months,” Rose says. “I have to put up with you for nine months.”

  AN HOUR LATER, with Rose and Miaow in bed, Rafferty sits at his cramped little desk, in the long rectangle of gloom cast by the television. All the lights in the living room are on the other side of the screen, so he’s turned on the pinspots above the breakfast counter.

  As soon as he was alone he allowed himself to give in to the waves of panic that had been lapping at him all evening, ever since he learned about the knife. What in the world can he do? He doesn’t know who these people are, or where, or why they want to kill his daughter.

  And then there’s Treasure. Anna is right; if he promises something to that child, who’s never been given anything but sorrow in her miserable life, he had better be one hundred percent certain he can make it happen.

  And sustain it. She’s not going to get up in a week, say, “I’m all right now,” and apply to a prep school.

  Just as he’s feeling his smallest and least effective, a whole swarm of other concerns begins to swirl around him, dive-bombing like hornets. What he wants is another beer. What he does is open a drawer and pull out two sheets of paper and a pen.

  What Arthit had said, about it being an illusion when problems swirl together into one, that’s what he’s facing. Keep them separate, Arthit had said.

  Aloud, Rafferty says, “How hard is that?” He thinks he hits just the right tone of voice. Anyone who heard it would think he was confident.

 

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