Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller полностью

“He’s a cop also?” Pan says, glaring at the dealer. He grabs the glass of brandy in front of him but doesn’t drink. “Is he? A cop?”

“Why?” Arthit says. “Are you going to get him fired, too?”

“I might,” Pan says. “What was the point of all this?”

“We, by which I mean the Bangkok police, arranged this game at the request of some people you know, actually-two of the guys who run the casinos on the Cambodian border. They face this stuff all the time.” He pauses, glances at Rafferty, and adds, “Also, in the interest of full disclosure, there’s Mr. Rafferty’s book.”

“A book?” This is one of the businessmen. “He’s writing a book?”

“He is,” Arthit answers. He is answering the businessman, but he’s watching with thinly veiled pleasure as Pan’s face turns an even deeper red. “What’s it called, Poke?”

“Living Wrong,” Rafferty says. “I apprenticed myself to seven different kinds of crooks and then went along on an operation. Tip here is the last of my mentors.”

Pan seems to be having trouble breathing. “I’ll have you sweeping streets for this,” he says to Arthit. Kosit, the other cop, has been counting out chips and has slid several stacks toward Pan. Pan backhands them, scattering them across the table, then turns to Rafferty. “And you,” he says, “I’ll have you run out of the country.” He takes the cigar from his mouth, drops it on the carpet, and steps on it.

“That’s going to cost you,” Rafferty says in Thai. “Somebody’s got to pay for the rug.”

“One more word out of you,” Pan says, “and I’ll put my foot on your head.” This is a violent insult for a Thai.

“Sorry,” Rafferty says. He is so angry he feels like his throat has been sewn half shut. “I forgot that you’re used to dirt floors.”

Arthit says, “Poke!” and Pan brings back his hand and slings the cognac, glass and all, at Rafferty. The glass strikes Rafferty in the center of his chest. Cognac splashes down his jacket and onto his trousers, and before he knows it, he’s up and leaping at Pan even as the bodyguards push in front of him, and then there’s an earsplitting bang and all eyes turn to Arthit, who’s just put a hole in the ceiling.

“That’s enough of everything,” he says. “The evening is over. Each of you just take your money and go somewhere else to play. Is that clear?”

Rafferty is chest to chest with the nearer bodyguard. Everyone is now standing.

“I said, ‘Is that clear?’” Arthit demands.

The two businessmen are already backing away from the table, but Pan takes a step forward. “Colonel,” he says to Arthit, “do you doubt I can have you fired? Do you doubt I can have this cheat’s visa canceled?”

“I think money usually gets its way,” Arthit says, his eyes as hard as marbles. “But not without consequences.”

Pan’s flush deepens. “You’re threatening me?”

“Oh,” Arthit says, “I think we’re past threats.” To Kosit he says, “Shoot the bodyguards if they so much as move.”

Even the businessmen who were backing away from the table stop. Someone’s cell phone begins to ring, but no one makes a move to answer.

Most Thais have an exquisitely accurate ability to read the emotional temperature of a confrontation and to veer away, even if it’s at the absolute last moment, from the point at which no one can back down without a serious loss of face. In the part of Rafferty’s mind that is functioning clearly, he knows that the line has just been crossed. And he knows that-since he’s not a Thai-he’s the only one with no significant face at stake, the only one who can step back, the only one who can retreat to the safe side of the line.

Slowly he eases himself away from the bodyguard and toward the table. He raises his hands, palms out, and sits. Then he looks down at his sport coat and brushes beads of cognac off it. The movement draws the attention of everyone in the room. “Since I offended you,” Rafferty says to Pan, “what could I do to calm you down?”

Pan licks the pink lips. The look of uncertainty is back. “What…what could you…”

“What would it take?” Rafferty says. “To wrap this up, to send you home happy.”

Two heavy blinks. “There’s…there’s nothing…”

“Sure there is,” Rafferty says. “You’re too busy and too important to waste time making trouble for us, and Arthit doesn’t want to have to deal in consequences. And neither do I. So what would it take? An apology? A promise to leave your name out of the book? What?”

“Ah,” Pan says. His eyes dart around the room, and then he says again, “Ah.” He moves to the table and picks up some chips, then lets them trickle through his fingers, apparently giving them all his attention. “An apology,” he says, as though the concept is new to him. He brings his eyes to Arthit’s and says, “You. Would you apologize?”

“Sure,” Arthit says, although the word seems to hurt.

“And you, farang? Would you apologize?”

“I’ll apologize for playing unfairly,” Rafferty says. “And for being rude. Would that do it?”

For a moment he thinks it will work, but then Pan shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “I want a fair game.”