The place is funereally quiet, the drinkers solitary islands of silence, except for Arthit and Rafferty, who whisper, heads together, in the corner. Now and then the gloom lifts as a car passes in the soi, the small street outside, with a sizzle of tires on wet pavement, its headlights throwing the drinkers near the door into sharp silhouette.
“Call him in the morning,” Arthit says, putting down the bottle for the fourth time. He’s knocked back about a third of the contents, and the ice over which he poured the first few drinks is now a memory. “Tell him you’ve changed your mind.” He hoists his glass.
“He gets his way too often,” Rafferty says. “He needs his goddamn face slapped.”
Arthit takes two long swallows, the way Rafferty drinks water. “Far be it from me,” he says over the rim of the glass, “to remind you of one of the foremost precepts of your adopted culture: Keep a cool heart.”
“Like you did,” Rafferty says, and immediately regrets it.
Arthit lifts his drink and sights the bar through it, turning his head slowly with the glass in front of one eye. He doesn’t speak.
Rafferty says, “Sorry.”
“You’re right,” Arthit says. He takes yet another numbingly large slug of Black. “I behaved like a child. And Pan should never have been in that game. I put Vinai in charge of choosing our pigeons, and I am-most-” He shakes his head. “
“He might have, if he hadn’t been so drunk.”
“Well,” Arthit says, and drinks, a sip this time. “He was.” He looks idly around the bar, just a cop survey, obviously not expecting anything interesting. “You don’t want to write the book.” His eyes wander to the glass in his hand, and he sets it on the table again and picks up the bottle.
Rafferty has seen his friend knock it back before, but never quite like this. “What’s that thing with his lips?”
“He got burned, don’t know how. You saw his hands. The file on him said the lip balm is psylochogical-psychological. He thinks they’re hot, his lips, so he cools them down with menthol.”
“If I’m going to quit, tell me what I’m missing. What’s the story I’m not going to write?”
Arthit closes his eyes, and for a moment Rafferty thinks he might be going to slump sideways, but then he opens them again, looking at a spot in the center of the table with an intensity that suggests that he’s trying to get the room to hold still. “Father was a farmer. Had some land, Isaan dirt, all rocks and scrub. Every year they’d work themselves to death, and every year they’d borrow money. They were going to lose everything. So Pan came to Bangkok.” He sits there, regarding the invisible spot on the table.
“And?” Rafferty prompts.
Arthit tilts his head back as though it is too heavy for his shoulders. “And he’s a tough boy. You can see that when you look at him, even now.”
“He’s gotten soft,” Rafferty says.
“He’s hard underneath it.” Arthit’s eyes go to the wall, and he squints slightly. “He came to Bangkok, I said that, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay. Good to know I didn’t imagine it. So.” He blinks heavily. “He chose three blocks in Pratunam, not far from where Rose and Peachy have their office now. Sidewalk market, lots of stalls. Remember, he’s about seventeen years old. He goes to the stallholders and tells them they need protection.” Arthit turns the glass in his fingers. “They say they’ve already got protection, and he says no they don’t. The next day the guy who’s collecting the protection money gets thrown out of a car in the middle of one of the blocks.”
“Dead?”
“
“Keep trying.”
Arthit presses the bottle to his cheek, as though his face is hot. “Of course, the guy who got tossed out of the car had a boss, and Pan gets grabbed and taken to him. They’re going to chop him up and prolly-probably-use him for bait, but the boss wants to take a look at him first. They’re all there, Pan and the three guys who grabbed him, in the boss’s office. And the boss, a management-level crook named Chai, asks Pan why he shouldn’t just be killed right there. Pan says, ‘Choose one of these guys.’”
