Kosit goes to Captain Teeth’s body and grabs his gun, then charges back into the factory, after the other two men. Rafferty and Boo drop to their knees on either side of Da, and Boo picks up Peep and rocks him, tears streaming down his face. Rafferty is probing Da’s wrist for a pulse when he hears the shots from the rear of the factory. And then it’s quiet except for the dog’s howls.
THE FACTORY IS a flickering wash of red and blue lights. “It’s over,” Rafferty says into the phone. He is sitting in a patrol car. “It’s not the ending you wanted, but it’s over.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ton says on the other end of the phone.
“Pan’s dead. So are three of the people you sent after him. You might want to be on the lookout for the other two. This place is wall-to-wall cops. There’s nothing to tie any of it to you-”
“I should think not.”
“Except a videotape of Pan talking about his arrangement with you. The quality’s not real high, but there was plenty of light, and what he said will have quite a bit of news value.”
A pause. When Ton speaks, Rafferty can hear the strain in his voice. “No one will use it.”
“Maybe not. Maybe not for a couple of years, maybe not until things have changed. But things
“Hypotheticals.”
“Here’s something that’s not hypothetical: My wife and my daughter and I are going home, and we’re going to live there safely and happily, without worrying about looking over our shoulders. And as long as we stay that way, happy and safe, the copies of these tapes will be at the bottom of the ocean. So to speak. But the minute something happens to any of us, they’ll bob up again. These are people you’ll never in a million years be able to identify, people I don’t even know, two or three removes from me, who will know exactly what to do with the tapes, who to give them to. And they will do it, if anything happens to my family and me. Is that clear?”
“As I said, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re going to have to do better than that.”
After a moment Ton says, “I don’t deal well with irritation. The tapes sound irritating.”
“Well, they won’t be, as long as you-”
“And what about you? You have the potential to be irritating.”
“I won’t be. I’ve got people to protect.”
“Yes, you do,” Ton says. “Go home.” He hangs up.
Rafferty folds his phone, closes his eyes, and listens to the ambulance siren die away in the distance.
The living room of Arthit’s house is crowded and noisy. The seat of honor-the reclining chair Arthit bought to watch the American cop shows he and Noi used to laugh at-is occupied by Noi’s mother, a tiny woman with a prodigiously concentrated energy field that keeps her daughters and grandchildren spinning in tight orbits around her. Her wispy silver hair, thinning and uncontrollable, creates a formless nimbus of light around her head that Rafferty thinks is an appropriate effect for a gathering that follows a cremation.
Arthit sits in full uniform on the couch, behind the coffee table. His eyes are red-rimmed, but he’s laughing almost unwillingly at something that’s just been said by the husband of one of Noi’s sisters, an appointed official in a minor province, someone who would have been on Ton’s side if it had come to that.
“He’s going to be all right,” Rose says, following Rafferty’s gaze. “He’s a good man, and he had years and years with a good woman. Everything but the end was a blessing. And who knows about the end? Karma is complicated. Maybe that was a fire they both had to go through.”
“At least he can be a cop again,” Rafferty says. “The kids’ video makes him a hero. He’s the one who took down the thug who killed Pan.”
“That’s such a
“Well, he’s a man. What do you want me to do, enroll him in the Chrysanthemum-of-the-Month Club until he feels better? He told me he’d find his way back at his own speed, and having something to do will help. Men have spirits, too, Rose. We’re not floor lamps. Men’s spirits just heal better behind a screen of activity. As of the Sunday-night TV news, he’s the most famous cop in Thailand, and there’s nothing Thanom can do except try to crowd into the newspaper pictures alongside him. The people in the northeast would probably vote for him for prime minister. Not that he’s crazy enough to do anything about it.”
