Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller полностью

Rafferty takes the pen and turns the page over. On the clean side, he writes, I’ll move us soon. Without even showing it to Rose, Miaow grabs the paper and scribbles How? hard enough to rip the paper.

Rafferty writes, I don’t know.

Snarls of dust, smeared windows, grit on the linoleum, the tiny brown cylinders of mouse droppings. In the middle of the floor, a three-inch cockroach, dead and belly-up, its legs folded as precisely as scissors. The smell of damp.

Rafferty says, “It’s fine.”

“It needs cleaning,” says Rafferty’s landlady, Mrs. Song. She looks even more worried than usual.

“I’ll clean it.”

“No, no, no.” Mrs. Song pats the air in Rafferty’s direction to repel the remark. “I’ll have a crew come in.”

“Today?”

“Well,” Mrs. Song says, giving the word tragic weight. The morning light seeps through the dirty windows like sour milk. “Maybe not today,” she says.

“That’s what I thought. I’ll take care of it.”

“But you’re not moving,” Mrs. Song says. Change petrifies her. She’d probably be happiest if the building were empty and sealed. She clamps her purse firmly against her side with her upper arm as though she expects it to try to escape.

“No. I want this one and the one upstairs. Both of them.”

“But why?”

Rafferty says, “Because people can’t see through walls.”

AS THE ELEVATOR doors slide closed behind him, Arthit says, “Have you seen this?” A copy of the Sun is folded under his arm. He is in street clothes, since Rafferty didn’t want the people who are watching the place to see anyone in uniform. Mrs. Song, trailing anxiety like a perfume, has gone down to the utility closet in the underground garage for mops, pails, and cleaning supplies.

“I haven’t gone out yet today.” Rafferty is holding a roll of paper towels. “But there’s no story. The guy who called last night said that there would be no story.”

“Oh, there’s a story,” Arthit says. His mouth is pulled into an inverted U so pronounced that it makes him look like a grouper. He hands the Sun to Rafferty, who tucks the roll of towels under his arm to take the paper. It is folded tightly around a front-page piece beneath the headline SUN REPORTER KILLED.

Dark spots swarm in front of Rafferty’s eyes, and he is suddenly light-headed. He hands the paper back and says, “I can’t read it.”

“It’s who you think it is,” Arthit says. “Hit-and-run. Driver fled the scene.”

Rafferty pivots away from Arthit, crosses the hall, and kicks the elevator hard enough to dent the door and send a telegram of pain all the way up to his quadriceps. “She had a daughter,” he says. His voice feels like it has had knots tied in it. “Seven years old.”

“A son, too,” Arthit says. “It was a hit-and-run in the most literal sense. The guy who hit her couldn’t get the car going, so he climbed out and ran. Which is how we know the car that hit her was a taxi, and that it was stolen.”

“So it wasn’t an accident. What a surprise. I don’t suppose there was a witness.”

“It’s not in the story, but there was. The driver was short and very wide in the shoulders.”

Rafferty looks up quickly. “And?”

“And?” Arthit screws up his face a moment. “Oh, yeah, and. He closed the car door on his finger, and he apparently snarled or something, because the witness saw his teeth.”

“They were crooked,” Rafferty says.

“I’d ask how you know that,” Arthit says, “but I don’t want to hear the answer.”

“Give me the paper.”

Arthit hands it to him, and Rafferty drops the roll of towels to the floor and scans the story about Weecherat, then flips through the pages until he comes to the third section. Pan’s fund-raiser owns the front page, above the fold. Rafferty tilts toward Arthit the two-column color photo, which shows Adam and Eve from behind, stark naked from that angle, ambling toward a conspicuously horrified crowd of well-dressed millionaires. “Right here,” he says, putting his fingertip above Captain Teeth’s head. “And this is the fucker he works for. I don’t know his full name, but his nickname-”

“-is Ton,” Arthit interrupts. “How do you know this is the guy?”

“He’s got teeth like he ate a grenade. They go all over the place. And it makes sense, because Ton wouldn’t talk to me last night.”

Arthit takes the paper and refolds it carefully, as though the task were important, as though it were the national flag. He avoids Rafferty’s eyes. “That’s your evidence? Ton wouldn’t talk to you? He’d refuse to talk to the prime minister if he felt like it. And get away with it.”

“He didn’t talk to me because he knew I’d recognize his voice. He’s the guy who ordered me to write the book.”

Arthit is still looking at the newspaper. “And you can prove that, of course.”

“Check his office. He’s on the thirty-sixth floor of whatever building it is. I’ll bet you anything you want.”

“There’s nothing I want,” Arthit says. “Which is a good thing, because I’m not making that inquiry.”