Boo has wheeled around to face the sound. While his back is turned, Da hops off the bike and taps the driver on the shoulder. He glances at her, takes the money in her hand, and pops the clutch. By the time Boo’s head snaps around, the bike is ten meters away, accelerating into the night.
Boo glares at Da. Da reaches into the shawl, brings up Peep’s hand, and waves it from side to side at Boo. The other boys start to laugh, then cover their mouths to muffle the sound. Da is grinning, too, but Boo’s lips are a tight line. He stands perfectly still, waiting for silence.
“We’re doing this my way, and anybody who thinks I don’t mean that can find a new bunch of friends and a new way to buy food tomorrow.” His voice is a sharp-edged whisper. “Everybody understand that?” He looks at Da. “Everybody?”
Nods all around. The boys study their feet. Da busies herself with Peep, but she makes a syllable of assent.
“I’m going through the gate first. You all”-he focuses on Da again-“all of you, you wait until I wave you in. Once we’re all in, you do what I say unless I’m dead, and then it’s up to you. Anything there you don’t understand?”
“Yes,” Da says, for all of them. “You’re not supposed to go in. Rafferty said we were just supposed to watch.”
“And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to watch. And if I see anything I don’t like, I’ll come back out and we’ll wait.”
“You will not,” Da says. “You’ll show off, do something brave. And stupid.”
“You know,” Boo says, “I was doing just fine until you came along.” He turns and faces the road, a dark ribbon in the moonlight. “We’ve got some brush on this side of the road. Stay close to it, and duck in if you hear a car.” Without waiting for a response, he starts toward the factory.
“It’s the cell network guy,” Ren says, holding out the cordless phone to Ton.
“Give me the phone number for Rafferty’s woman,” Ton says. Into the phone he says, “Hi, Poy. Thanks for calling. I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, but this’ll just take a minute. Listen, I’ve had a theft from one of my businesses… No, nothing serious, but you can’t let these things go. Got to make an example, or other people start to get ambitious, you know what I mean?” He laughs, extending a hand for the slip of paper on which Ren has written Rose’s phone number. He opens and closes the hand quickly several times to hurry Ren. “She’s got her cell phone on,” he says into the telephone, “and I need a location.” He takes the slip of paper from Ren, glances at it, listens for a moment, and says, “Wait.” To Ren he says, “How long since you checked to see whether she’s still got the phone?”
“Kai called a few hours back.”
“Call again, now.”
“But we already-”
“Do it. I’m not going through all this and then sending out a bunch of people to find a phone that’s in a trash can somewhere.”
“Fine.” With a glance at the paper from which he copied the number, Ren dials. He closes his eyes as he waits and then opens them, listens, and disconnects. “The little girl answered,” he says.
“Fine. They’ll be together.” Into the phone Ton says, “Here’s the number. How close can you get?” He goes to the big desk, sits down, and powers up a computer. “No,” he says. “I doubt she’s got a GPS phone. Probably just some junk she bought used. Does it matter?” He clicks a mouse to bring up Google Earth and positions the cursor over Bangkok. “Really,” he says. “Within fifty meters? That’s amazing. Listen, give it to me in coordinates if you can. I want to try to locate it on the computer.”
Kai comes into the room and looks first at Ton and then at Ren.
“It’s the guy at the phone company,” Ren says quietly. “Tracking down the woman and the girl.”
“I’m ready,” Ton says, with a pencil in his free hand. “Just read it to me.” He writes some numbers on the pad and says, “As close as fifty meters, huh? Well, I owe you. And I’m sorry about the bother. Go back to your party.” He drops the phone on the desk and starts to punch numbers into the computer. “Where are you?” he asks out loud. “Let’s just zoom in a little bit-” The sentence ends in a surprised puff of air. He sits perfectly still, staring at the screen. Both Kai and Ren are looking at him.
Finally Ton tears his eyes from the computer. “Get me four guys right now,” he says. “Guys who don’t much care what they have to do and don’t have any idea who you work for. You won’t believe where you’re going to take them.”
“Whoever it was,” Da says, looking at the phone, “they hung up.”
“Where did you get that?” Boo says, taking the phone out of her hand.
“It was on the floor at the shack.”
“And you picked it up.”
She reaches for it, but he puts it behind his back. “Nobody wanted it,” she protests. “Everybody else had one.”
“And you left it on.”
“Well,” she says, “what good is it if it’s off? Oh, come on, I never had one before.”
“And you haven’t got one now,” Boo says. He powers the phone off, brings his arm back, and throws it over the nearest fence.
“Hey,” Da says.
He steps toward her, showing her a face that’s all muscle. “Suppose it had rung while we were inside? Suppose we’re watching something we’re not supposed to see, and your damn phone rings. Has anybody else got one that’s on?”
One of the boys holds one up. “It’s on silent.”
“Turn it off.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Anything else stupid?” Boo asks. “Any alarm clocks? Talking dolls? Anybody got squeakies in their tennis shoes?”
Nobody answers him.
“When we get to the gate, you two”-he points at Da and one of the boys-“you wait across the street. Get behind some bushes. You,” he says to the other boy, the smaller of the two. “You come just inside the gate and to one side of it. Keep your eyes on me as long as you can. Relay any signal I give you. If I want you, I’ll just wave you in. Two fingers means call some more kids. But if there’s trouble”-he holds up his right hand, fingers splayed-“five fingers means run for your lives, got it? In different directions. When you know you’re clear, get back to where we got off the bikes and find a place to hide there. We’ll meet up there and figure out what’s next.”
Nobody says anything. Boo holds up his hand again, two fingers extended. “Means what?”
“Phone kids,” says the smaller boy.
“And?” He displays all five fingers.
“Run,” Da says.
Boo looks directly into her eyes. “And you’d better.”
After Ren and Kai leave to pick up their muscle, Ton remains at his desk. It seems like a long time since he’s been alone in this room. He interlaces his fingers and rests his chin on them, and then he closes his eyes to eliminate distraction while he works his way through a conversation he does not want to have.
The position he’s in now is the one he dreamed of when he was a young man, the outcome he’d hoped for when he married into a ranking family by taking the scandal daughter, the one no one could manage, the woman who has become the wife he never sees. It’s taken him years of patient labor to build the trust of those above him, but he’s in his element now: behind the scenes, working in partnership with the kingdom’s most powerful men to maintain the order of things. To keep the kingdom secure, to keep the proper class-the educated class, the traditional leaders-in charge. To keep the nation moving forward. Thailand is already the wealthiest state in Southeast Asia, and Ton has become an important part of the group that has worked in an unbroken line, generation after generation, to accomplish that.
And, of course, he’s gotten very rich doing it.
But there are things about it he hates. There are times in the past week when he’s felt like a thug. Having to associate with Ren and Kai-having them in his house-has been almost physically painful at times. But there was no alternative. There was no possibility of allowing the usual four or five levels of management to know about the arrangement with Pan. It would have been in the papers within weeks of their agreement. He’ll have to do something about Ren and Kai, but he can worry about that later.