He turns idly in the direction that most of the foot traffic is moving in, looking for someplace where he can get a salad or something light. In this heat he’d rather eat a bowling ball than a chunk of meat. He figures he’ll grab a table big enough to write on, clear a space, and go back to work on his list. Maybe start playing with scenarios. He’s long known that he thinks more clearly when he writes, that the act of waiting for his hand to finish forming the words slows his thought processes in a way that opens them up, allows him to see three or four possible alternative paths rather than just the most obvious one.
One problem is that there’s been no time to reflect. This is Thursday, just minutes into P.M. The card game had been Tuesday night, the phone calls and the abduction in front of Miaow’s school had happened on Wednesday morning. Looking back, Wednesday seems a week long: the threats, the abduction, the office suite, leveling with Pan-which he still thinks might have been a mistake, especially in light of what Porthip had to say about him-the meeting with Weecherat and then with Arthit, the encounter at the party with Captain Teeth, the event in Pan’s sparkling garden.
Ton. The snake in the cabinet. Miaow’s terror. The microphones in the apartment.
And today: Learning about Weecherat’s murder. Arthit’s remoteness. The fourth-floor apartment, and then Porthip, the dying man, smelling of mold and bitterness behind his desk.
And almost willfully uncommunicative. Why had he been on the list?
The thought stops Rafferty midstep, and someone passes him, brushing him lightly, as though he or she had sidestepped at the last moment in order to avoid bumping into his back. Rafferty glances up as the person passes, but the question about Porthip claims his attention and leads to another question: What if they’re all like that? And then to a third: Does anyone actually want this book written?
And, if not, what the hell is going on?
But before he can begin to consider that, his consciousness is flooded by a detailed, high-definition visual memory of the person who had brushed past him. The shape of the shoulders, the way he carried himself, the color of his clothes.
The hair.
Rafferty breaks into a run, dodging between people, pushing his way through the crowd and the heat, not seeing anything ahead of him, no one that could be who he thinks it was. An alleyway opens to his right, and he stops.
Alleyways.
If it’s who he thinks it was, if he went into an alley,
He won’t be found.
Still, it could have been someone else. It probably was. In Bangkok there must be a thousand people who look like that.
And it doesn’t do Rafferty any good to wonder about it. He needs to get to a table, he needs to start writing. He needs to stop reacting and begin to plan. He needs to solve the problem of Rose and Miaow.
TODAY IT’S FLIES.
They land on Da’s wrists and hands and ears. They swarm Peep’s face and crawl toward the moisture in the corners of his eyes. He swings his fat little fists back and forth, but seconds after the flies take off, they land again. She hears their buzz even over the noise of the crowd, and that thought straightens her spine.
She’s grown accustomed to the sound of the crowd.
Was it
Was it yesterday that she met that woman across the street, with her skeletal, shining-eyed child? Remembering that the woman and the boy hadn’t been in the van that morning, Da scans the sidewalk across the street and sees her. But the boy’s not with her.
There’s no question that it’s the same woman who’s sitting there: same color blanket, same long, loose hair, same faded denim blouse. But she’s not upright, not up on her knees with her bowl out. She sits hunched over, like someone who’s been kicked in the stomach. And in place of the skeletal child, she holds a bundle, tightly wrapped in a blanket.
A passing schoolchild tosses a sidelong glance at Peep. Da has almost stopped noticing how people avoid her eyes; they look at the baby, they look at the bowl, but they don’t look at her. She is becoming used to this.
Da shakes her head, and Peep stares up at her. She
A schoolchild, she thinks. Kep may be eating. This is the time he disappears to eat; the woman said so.
