Ren licks his lips and winces as his upper lip brushes the burn on his tongue. “And there was an exit on the side of the building. Rafferty must have used that, because Dit waited in front for a long time. After he found the side exit, he started working his way up and down the block. Checked all the stores, anywhere Rafferty might have ducked inside. About twenty, twenty-five minutes later, he saw Rafferty, back on the sidewalk. He’d done something to his hand. He was holding it like he’d broken it or something. And then Rafferty went into a building that has a lot of doctors in it and took the elevator to the sixth floor. About an hour later, he came back down with bandages on his hand.”
“This is wonderful,” Ton says. “He goes missing for a few minutes and then shows up injured, and we don’t know how. Where is he now?”
“In the apartment,” Kai says, pointing at his headphones. “With his wife.”
“Well, that’s something,” Ton says. He turns to Ren. “You said twice, we lost him twice.”
“Right after he came out with the bandages. Some street kids stole Dit’s wallet, and he chased them.”
Ton says, “I am surrounded by idiots. Pull Dit off and put somebody better on it. In fact, pull off everyone who might know who you’re working for.”
“Dit’s the only one. What do you want me to do with him?”
“I don’t care. Give him something unpleasant to do.”
“Anyway, Rafferty went right back to his apartment. We heard him. So nothing happened.”
“Dit should be thankful for that,” Ton says. He opens the door again. “We’ll give Rafferty one more day, just to see how much closer he gets. By tomorrow night we’ll be done with him. But don’t lose him again. Don’t lose any of them.”
“After tomorrow,” Ren says, “what should we do with him?”
Without looking back, Ton says, “You didn’t ask me that question, and I don’t ever want to hear how it was answered.” The door swings closed behind him.
Ren waits a minute or two to make sure Ton isn’t coming back. He gets up and goes to the door and opens it on an empty hallway. Then he closes it and says, “This makes me very uncomfortable.”
“What would it take to make you comfortable?” Captain Teeth asks. “It could have taken you years to get this close to the man. You’re almost living in his pocket.”
“That’s what makes me uncomfortable.”
“You know why. He couldn’t involve a bunch of people in this thing. It’s too…” His voice trails off.
“It’s too what?” Ren prompts. “Too dangerous? How about ‘Get rid of everyone who knows who we’re working for’?”
Captain Teeth puts the other earphone in place and swivels to face the console. With his back to Ren, he says, “I’ll think about it.”
Rafferty reads the note and takes the pen. How long?
Miaow grabs the pen away from him and turns the page over.
Did you see any of them? Rafferty writes.
No. I wasn’t looking. She chews on the end of the pen until Rafferty reaches out and pushes it away from her mouth. But nobody sees street kids, she writes. And she watches Rafferty read her sentence three or four times and then sit back and stare at the opposite wall.
Wild cards, he thinks again. Street kids can follow anyone.
Rafferty says, “I like the hair.”
Miaow says, “Really? You’re not just trying to make me feel better? You don’t think it looks dumb? And fake?”
Rose says in Thai, “It’s very stylish. It’s not supposed to look real, Miaow, not any more than lipstick is. And it catches the light well. Lots of highlights.”
“Honest? I mean, you really think so? Do you think the kids at school will, um…?”
“If they don’t like it,” Rafferty says, “it’ll just be because they’re envious.”
“Oh, come on,” Miaow says.
Rose says, “It makes you look older.”
The morning light pours in through the sliding door to the balcony, bouncing off the glass top of the coffee table to create a rectangle of sunlight on the ceiling. Other than the sunlight, nothing in the apartment is moving. The small tape recorder is hooked up, via its expensive connectors, to Rafferty’s amplifier, and the voices come out of the bookshelf speakers on either side of the empty room.
Down on the fourth floor, Rose says, in person, “This is ridiculous. It’s way too big.”
She is wearing a gray uniform jacket and matching slacks. The slacks have a black stripe down each side. Under the jacket are a white shirt and a black clip-on tie. Her shoes are cheap black lace-ups with rubber soles.
“Hair down inside your shirt,” Rafferty says. “All of it. Tie it back with a rubber band or something.”
“So? Everything will still be too big.” She pulls at the waistband of the pants. “I’m swimming in it.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t be.” Rafferty goes behind her and tries to gather her hair between his hands but gives up immediately. “Two-hand job,” he says. “I’m disqualified.”
