Breathing Water

by Timothy Hallinan

  Rafferty says, “Go ahead. Talk as though I’m not here.”

  “Get used to it,” Pan says. “No one’s even going to notice you.”

  “Since someone has to have some manners,” Rafferty says, “this is my wife, Rose. Rose, this is—”

  “I know who he is,” Rose says. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

  Pan says, “And you’re the…” He pauses, screws up his eyes, and says in English, “…whipped cream on the evening. You’re so beautiful it’s almost wasteful.” He glowers at Dr. Ravi. “Why didn’t you think of this?”

  “I hadn’t seen her.”

  “No, of course not.” Pan looks at Rose again and actually rubs his hands together. “I’ve made a life out of excess,” he says. “Improving the lily—”

  Dr. Ravi says, “Gilding the lily.”

  “Actually,” Rafferty says, “it’s ‘painting.’ Painting the—”

  “Oh, fuck the lily,” says Pan. He leans in toward Rose as though to whisper in her ear. “I have an idea for you, something that will ruin the evening for most of my guests. We know they think of Isaan as mud. Let’s remind them that mud is where the lotus grows.” He turns and says over his shoulder, “Please, please come with me.”

  Rose and Rafferty follow Pan’s broad yellow bottom up the steps as Dr. Ravi climbs back into the swan and heads for the gates. Pan leads them at an angle, chatting with Rose all the way, partly in Lao, which Rafferty doesn’t understand. They top the steps to the left of the door and follow Pan around the side of the house. Halfway back they come to a marble wall with an iron gate in it. Beside the gate is a combination pad, which Pan prods with a sausagelike index finger for a second, and then Rafferty finds himself in the garden he’d seen that morning from Pan’s office.

  “This will take me a minute,” Pan says, shoving a glass door aside and motioning them to file into the office. He comes in behind them and closes the door. “But, believe me, it’ll be worth it.” A few steps take him to a corner, where he opens a closet door, revealing a safe the size of a refrigerator.

  “I don’t give up easily,” Pan says to Rose as he twirls the dial, “but I was beginning to think I’d have to return these. You’ll know what I mean at a glance. Not just anybody can wear them. They’d look ridiculous on someone who isn’t tall, for one thing. How tall are you?”

  “Almost two meters,” Rose says.

  “You should think about modeling, except you’d have to kill eight or nine society girls to get a job.” The door swings open without a murmur, although it must weigh three hundred pounds. “And even most tall women would disappear behind these. Just vanish, like the stars when the sun is out.” He pulls out a long, gray box covered in velvet and pops it open.

  Rose emits something that sounds like a long hiss.

  “They’re canaries,” Pan says, looking closely at her face. Draped over the swirl of burns on his fat little hand is a concentration of golden light: solid yellow drops of brilliance chained together somehow. “Average size is four carats,” Pan says, “but the one in the center is six. Canary diamonds this size are very rare, I’m told. I don’t know anything about it. I just thought they were pretty.”

  “Why…why are you showing me these?” Rose asks.

  “To wear, of course,” Pan says. “Oh, don’t worry,” he says to Rafferty. “I’m not trying to dazzle your wife with presents, although I would if you weren’t here. These are a loan for the evening, just to give those snobs out there something to stub their noses on. Let’s show them an exquisite Isaan girl, the most beautiful woman in the room, wearing three million dollars’ worth of yellow diamonds.” He holds up the necklace. “What do you say?”

  Rose reaches out a hand and says, “Let’s make their teeth hurt.”

  RAFFERTY’S FIRST IMPRESSION when Pan plunges into the thick of the gathering, dragging him and Rose in his wake, is that everyone is surface, brought to a high polish. Everyone shines, everyone glistens, everyone seems to reflect everyone else. Gold, jewels, hair, the shimmer of fabrics, the mysterious gleam of money. He practically squints in self-defense.

  The men are a mixed lot, although all have the sheen of power he noticed in the poker game. Despite the occasional immaculate uniform, glittering with medals, most of the men wear suits, sober garments with the effortless drape achieved through highly paid effort. The men are mostly in their fifties and early sixties and look like they would put on a suit to pull a dandelion.

  Seen from six or eight feet away, the women seem younger than the men, and some of them actually are—trophy wives or favored mia noi, “minor” wives who have been towed into public as a treat. Silk is everywhere, bordered at neck and wrists by the hard sparkle of precious stones. Young or old, most of the women are variations on a theme. They are grimly slim and brilliantly made up. Noses too broad in the bridge have been subtly shaded to appear narrower. Thin lips have been plumped up and thick lips minimized. White skin is the ideal, and those who do not have it wear pale, almost ghostlike powder to simulate it. Hair is architectural: sculpted, layered, lacquered against gravity. Perfume is everywhere. In the midst of the crowd, Rafferty feels like he is being attacked by flowers.

  Rose, her face scrubbed and gleaming, the diamonds dazzling at her throat, towers above the women and most of the men as Pan hauls her and Rafferty along behind him, introducing them right and left as proudly as if he’d just whipped them up in the kitchen. He pretends not to see the stiffness with which they are met.

  It usually takes a moment for the stiffness to set in. Rafferty can almost see the thoughts chase each other through people’s heads as they first look at Rose: She’s beautiful. Maybe she’s someone I should recognize. Hmmmm, very dark-skinned, low bridge of the nose—Isaan. Oh, of course, she’s one of Pan’s little popsies.

  Pan not only ignores the stiffness, he intensifies it. He has a trick of taking between both of his hands one of the hands of the woman he is greeting and then, when he introduces Rose, putting Rose’s hand into the woman’s. Some of the women manage the situation; their breeding comes to the fore, and they hold on to Rose’s hand and make conversation as though they had grown up neighbors, rather than on the opposite sides of one of the world’s widest gulfs of power and possession. The others—mostly, Rafferty thinks—those who fought their way into rooms such as these, go rigid. They actually tilt slightly backward, as though Rose smelled bad, and they snatch their hands away the moment Pan lets go.

  At first Rafferty is worried about how Rose will handle the rejection, but this is a woman who stepped onstage nightly in a crowded, testosterone-filled bar, wearing little more than an attitude. The women who try to escape her learn that she is eagerly friendly, that she will follow them, puppylike, as they back away across the marble floor. She asks them the kinds of questions they would be asked in a small village: How many children do they have, how old, were the births painful, how do they get their hair to do that?

  The woman Rafferty likes least retrieves her hand and wipes it on her thigh. Her eyes go to Rafferty and then back to Rose, and he can almost see the word “whore” form in her mind. “I’ll bet there’s a fascinating story here,” she says in English, for Rafferty’s benefit. “Where in the world did you two meet?”

  “The King’s Castle,” Rose says, the English name of the Patpong bar she danced in.

  “The Royal Palace,” Pan translates into Thai.

  “Really,” the woman says, her eyebrows elevated. “Were you on a tour?”

  “Oh, no,” Rose says. “I worked there. For years.”

  The woman hesitates for a second, weighing the probabilities, then says, “Doing what?”

  “Guest relations,” Rose says with her sweetest smile.

  The woman says, “Ah.”

  Pan says to Rose, “You don’t need me,” and disappears.

  Rafferty snags a passing waiter and grabs two flutes of pink champagne, and he and Rose wander the crowd. There is no question that Pan was right: Rose
is easily the most beautiful woman present. The yellow diamonds throw hard little points of golden light on the flawless skin of her neck and the underside of her chin. Most of the men follow her with their eyes, and most of the women watch the men, although their gaze eventually floats to Rose. But Pan was wrong about one thing: Even when Rafferty is standing right beside Rose, there are people who pay attention to him. Men, three of them. He can feel their eyes on him and see them slide away when he turns.

  They are scattered throughout the crowd as though some sort of territorial imperative were in operation, keeping them apart. Orbiting each of them is a muscular little knot of men, three or four of them, wearing dark suits of anonymous cut. These men keep their eyes in motion. Some of them wear discreet earplugs. When one of the men in the center wants a drink, one of the satellites peels off and goes to get it. When the drink bearer returns, he stands like a human tray with the drink extended until the top dog condescends to notice him.

  The three men’s eyes keep flicking to Rafferty.

  At eight-thirty the little orchestra, which is seated on a raised platform midway down one of the room’s walls, strikes up the triumphal march from Aida, and two long screens, painted with gold bamboo and blindingly iridescent hummingbirds, are folded back to reveal a room filled with food and white-jacketed waiters. There is a general movement toward the buffet, and Rafferty takes advantage of the shift in focus to navigate through the crowd to Pan’s side.

  “Three men,” Rafferty says. “I’m going to describe them, but don’t look for them while we’re talking.”

  “I won’t have to,” Pan says. “It’s good business to know your enemies.”

  “High-ranking policeman,” Rafferty says. “Full uniform, fat, looks a little like a monkey—”

  “Thanom,” Pan says. “Very bad. He runs a little squadron of killer cops. They scare people to death. He was one of the top cops who resisted the crackdown on drug dealers because he was taking so much money off them. Millions of baht a month.”

  “Why is he here tonight?”

  “His wife is ambitious. Got a set of claws and uses them to climb. Also, we were in business once, he and I. When we were both younger and poorer.” His eyes scan the room. “But most people are here to show me I can’t chase them away. They would rather this fund-raiser had been held anywhere else in the world. They’d prefer a rat-infested slum or a mountain of rubbish. But since I outbid all of them to host the event, they have to show up to prove they’ve got the balls.”

  “Dark suit, short, mostly bald. Not skinny but gaunt, got a face like a skull. Not eating or drinking anything.”

  “Porthip. He’s the guy who owns the cranes you see all over the city. Imports steel for skyscrapers. His steel partners are Tokyo yakuza. Once or twice they’ve sent him help when he needed to persuade builders that they were buying their steel in the wrong place.” Pan seems to be enjoying himself. “Three or four years back, one of the reluctant customers was found in Banglamphoo. And Pratunam. And Lumphini Park.”

  “I get it.”

  “Something very sharp,” Pan says. “Japanese sharp.”

  “Does he live on air or something? He can’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds.”

  “He’s lost maybe twenty kilos in the past year or so. Word is he’s got stomach cancer.” Pan looks around the room. “It’s a good thing we’re not raising money to cure that. Half the people here wouldn’t give a penny until Porthip is dead.”

  “This last one’s harder,” Rafferty says. “Maybe the best-dressed man here, really beautiful suit. Late forties, early fifties, goes to the gym a lot—”

  “In the middle of a gang of bodybuilders?”

  “Right.”

  “Mmmmm,” Pan says, the pink lips pushed out.

  Rafferty says, “Mmmmmm?”

  Pan pulls a cigar case from his jacket, opens it, and takes one out. He snaps the case closed without offering one to Rafferty. Then he stands there, looking down at his hands as though the cigar and the case come as a surprise to him. He opens the case, drops the cigar back in, and shoves the case back into his pocket. He smiles at Rafferty and takes his arm.

  “Let’s eat,” he says.

  20

  Wrecking Ball

  It takes Rafferty less than a minute in the privacy of Pan’s office to confirm that Thanom and Porthip are both on the yellow list.

  While everyone eats and Pan proudly leads Rose around the room, Rafferty grabs Dr. Ravi. Dr. Ravi has a plate in his hand and doesn’t seem overly happy at the interruption.

  “Where’s the list of the people who showed up tonight?” Rafferty asks.

  “Down at the guardhouse.”

  “Do me a favor? Call and tell them to show it to me. And can I borrow your swan?”

  The swan starts with a purr. As Rafferty guides it back toward the gates, he becomes vividly aware that the stink from the pigpens has increased incrementally. Passing the ramshackle village, he sees the enormous fans that have been placed behind the pen, wafting the scent of merde de cochon toward the Garden of Eden.

  The smell chases him up the long hill. When he crests it, he sees that the lighting in the garden has been shifted to create an island of brilliance around the apple tree. The jeweled fruit gleams green and red through the leaves, and the verdant moss that surrounds the tree has been raked or fluffed up to make it seem deeper, lusher, more sensuous. As befits, Rafferty thinks, the spot where the world’s most pleasant sin had its world premiere. Half a dozen men are at work around the apple tree. Several of them are up on ladders and seem to be putting something into its branches. In the relative darkness on the far side of the garden, behind red velvet ropes policed by two uniformed guards, is a gaggle of people whom, from their cameras and casual dress, Rafferty identifies as members of the press. They have their own bar and are using it with some enthusiasm; its surface bristles with bottles, and the voices he hears have the tone-deaf loudness of the freshly drunk.

  A guard gives Rafferty a few minutes with the RSVPs. About a third of the attendees are on the yellow list, the anti-Pan list, and about a fifth of them are on the list Pan gave him. He pulls out his copies of those lists and circles the names of the people who are present. He wants to get a look at as many of them as possible tonight. Pan’s line comes to mind: It’s good business to know your enemies.

  He works as fast as he can. The booth is hot, even this late in the evening. His shirt is damp by the time he finishes. He refolds his lists and pockets them, thinking that by tomorrow morning it may all have proved to be a waste of time. Elora Weecherat’s article will be out by then, with its hidden threat: If anything happens to Rafferty and his family, the paper has information that could lead to the person responsible.

  If he weren’t American, he thinks, it wouldn’t have a chance of working. The potency comes from the threat of the embassy pushing the Thai investigation along. And if Arthit is right and this has something to do with the national political scene, pressure from the United States is the last thing the people who are threatening him would want.

  During his time in Bangkok, he’s learned not to take too much comfort from a string of hypotheticals, but it’s all he’s got.

  HE APPROACHES THE policeman, Thanom, first. The picket fence of protectors parts as though he’s expected, and Thanom offers him a wet hand to grasp and a fat-faced smile of welcome that almost makes his flat little eyes disappear. “Certainly,” he says. “I’d be happy to talk to you. Anything to help a writer with such an interesting subject.”

  “Isn’t it?” Rafferty says. “And of course I want to do it well.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Thanom says, and one of his guys snickers. Thanom’s smile remains in place, but his eyes, when he turns them to the man who laughed, look as if smoke should be coming out of them.

  When Rafferty reaches the other side of the room, the living skeleton, Porthip, is more difficult. “No time,” he says.

  “I’m sure you’re b
usy—”

  “I have no time. Didn’t you hear me? I’m working twenty hours a day as it is. And Pan no longer interests me.” There’s a tremor to his voice that could be lack of breath support. It could also be pain.

  One of Porthip’s guardians puts a hand on Rafferty’s arm, and Rafferty shakes it off. “That’s going to disappoint some people,” he says. The guardian takes Rafferty’s arm again.

  “Who?”

  “Tell you what,” Rafferty says. “Rather than discuss a bunch of names in front of everyone, I’ll have one of them call you tomorrow.”

  Porthip extends a shaky hand and touches the shoulder of the man whose hand is on Rafferty’s arm. The man lets go. “Do that,” Porthip says. “If they’re the right people, I’ll talk to you. But you arrive ready to work. No matter who calls me, I can only give you an hour. If that.”

  “That’ll be fine,” Rafferty says. He turns away.

  “Wait,” Porthip says. “Who is she?”

  “Who?”

  The tip of his tongue touches his lower lip. “You know who.”

  “Oh, her,” Rafferty says. “She’s a spirit of the forest. She only assumes human form when the moon is full.”

  Porthip looks past him, to where Rose towers over Pan, yellow fire at her throat. “The moon isn’t full.”

  Rafferty says, “I guess I was misinformed.”

  The third man, the beautifully dressed man whose name Rafferty doesn’t know, won’t allow Rafferty anywhere near him. The bench-pressing phalanx that surrounds him simply stand, massive shoulder to massive shoulder, a human Stonehenge, several feet in front of their employer, and stare Rafferty down.

  “At least let him tell me himself,” Rafferty says.

  One of the musclemen says, in English, “Fuck off.”

  “Is that message from you?” Rafferty calls over the muscleman’s shoulder.

  The beautifully dressed man simply turns away. Rafferty has been snubbed before, but this is a whole new level. He starts to push between two of the men in front of him, but the one to his left, a short, wide, dark-skinned man whose teeth stagger drunkenly across his mouth, leaning in all directions, reaches around the side of Rafferty’s neck and digs an iron thumb into a spot behind Rafferty’s jaw, just below his ear. Pain radiates outward in all directions. Rafferty lets his knees go loose, trying to drop out of the hold, but the other man grabs his necktie and holds him up. It has taken almost no movement, nothing to draw attention, but Rafferty’s entire awareness is focused on pain. By the time the two men release him, the beautifully dressed man is gone.