“Maybe the CIA does,” Rafferty says.
“He’s just trying to pry a few more baht out of you,” Dr. Evil says, leaning in again. “But you really should know all this, since the guy you saw is probably Murphy. Sometimes they don’t want to turn Charlie or kill him. They want information. What does the double know? Any operations coming up? Where are the village’s weapons hidden? Where are the supply trails? What’s the chain of command? Who else should they be talking to?”
“Right.”
“And let’s say the old electric clips on the scrotum or getting beaten half to death doesn’t open the man up.”
“Cuts,” Vladimir says. He sounds like he’s sulking.
“Or cuts. Murphy loves to cut. He was the best America had at making very long, very shallow cuts that hurt forever. Some people who can handle being punched and kicked for days go all jelly inside when somebody takes a knife to their skin.”
“Eyes,” Vladimir says.
“More of the same,” Dr. Evil says, “but worse. One thing Murphy liked to do was try to frighten villagers out of keeping Charlie’s secrets. He loved to cause fear. His favorite trick was to cut off Charlie’s eyelids and then haul him into the middle of the village and announce, ‘This man closed his eyes to what the Vietcong is doing here. He closed his eyes when I looked into them to see if he was telling the truth. Now he’ll never close his eyes again. Don’t close your eyes, or I’ll be back.’ That was one of the things that made other people in Phoenix refuse to work with him.”
“One of many,” says Janos.
“Okay, helicopter,” Vladimir says, reclaiming center stage. “Wietcong won’t talk, yes? Nothing is working. So Murphy send ARVN for somebody, anybody, some farmer or carpenter. Take both men, farmer and Cong guy, up in helicopter, beat both of them up, ask questions, beat up some more. Other man, he don’t know shit, don’t know nothing, but Murphy still ask question, beat up more and more. And then open door of helicopter and throw other man out. Maybe one hundred, two hundred meters up. Scream all the way down. Take first man and drag him to door. Suddenly he talking. Tell ewerything, tell about soldiers, guns, wife, children, ewerything.”
“So,” Janos says, with an undercurrent of satisfaction. “That’s Murphy.”
Rafferty sits back against the wall between the booths, taking the weight off his spine, and shuts his eyes.
“Enough?” Dr. Evil asks.
“I’m thinking.” His throat feels half closed.
“While you thinking,” Vladimir says, trying for casual and missing by a wide margin, “Murphy. He is here?”
Rafferty opens his eyes and looks at the man for a long moment as he brings himself back into the room and out of the world Murphy had haunted. When he knows that his voice will be there when he wants it, he says, “You’re asking me for information?”
Vladimir winces. Then he nods.
Rafferty says, “One more description.”
“After,” Vladimir says.
Rafferty says, “First.”
Dr. Evil lets out a ribbon of air, his eyes on Vladimir’s.
“Sixty-five, maybe a little older,” Rafferty says. “Big, six-four or so. Light brown hair, not quite blond, going gray, cut military but longer. Blue eyes, wide, thick nose, maybe broken. Big chin. Fat now, but probably not when you knew him, if you did.”
“Could be five hundred people,” Vladimir says. “Anything more?”
Rafferty brings back the man’s face but can’t find anything distinctive. “No.”
“My turn,” Vladimir says. “Do you know who Murphy is working with?”
He can think of a million reasons not to tell them, but who else is he going to talk to? “You know a Major Shen?”
Vladimir says, in an almost-worshipful tone, “Shit. You are joking?”
“I’ll give you that for free. No.”
Vladimir taps his fingertips against his lips and says something that sounds like “Yooey, yooey, yooey. You have another question?”
“Where has Murphy been since Vietnam?”
Vladimir says, “This is not enough money for that question.”
“It’s what I’ve got.”
“Then we trade.”
“Okay. Where has Murphy been since Vietnam?”
“Here. Southeast Asia. Not usually Thailand.”
“Where, usually?”
Vladimir seems to be weighing the value of the answer. “Other countries in the region. China, too.”
“Doing what?”
“Fixing.”
“Fixing what?”
“Major Shen,” Vladimir says. “Him and Murphy. Working on what?”
“Fixing what?”
“I give you this instead,” Vladimir says. He slips two bills off each stack and hands them to Rafferty. “Working on what?”
Rafferty waits, but no one objects to being short-stacked, and if they’re willing to lose money, it’s unlikely they’ll tell him what he needs to know. They’re all looking at him. “A guy who was killed yesterday.”
Dr. Evil says, “The one who wasn’t in the papers.” It isn’t a question, so Rafferty doesn’t volunteer anything.
Rafferty puts one bill back on each stack. “Can you guys get me more information?”
“Not going near Murphy,” Vladimir says.
“No. But you must know somebody who knows somebody who-You know.” He holds out the remaining bills.
“We do.” Janos says, staring at the money.
“Then I’ll just top these up,” Rafferty says. He looks Vladimir directly in the eyes. “And when one of you gets something or thinks of something, call my cell and leave a message.” He writes his number on each of the three bills still in his hand and puts one on top of each stack. “Are we even?”
The men pull the money to them, and Vladimir says, “Until you owe us again.”
Rafferty gets up, then leans forward and touches his fingertip to the cleft in Vladimir’s chin. “How do you shave in there?”
“Not shaving,” Vladimir says. “I hit them with hammer and bite them off inside.”
As he opens the door, Rafferty hears Vladimir say, “Hah.”
9
The Diamond Sutra . He forgot the Diamond Sutra, the laundry ticket the dying man slipped into his shirt pocket. It’s still in his apartment house, taped above the door leading to the stairs.
He gives the cabbie the address and settles back. He won’t know whether he can get in if he doesn’t try.
Money is an issue. He’s going to have to get some, and it’ll have to be right away, in case they put a stop on his cards. He’s pretty certain that Shen’s outfit could do it with a phone call.
Somebody who could squash you by snapping my fingers, Murphy had said.
Power in the dark.
What scares him most about Murphy is that he’s an American and he had official American help, in the person of Elson. That means that Rafferty’s Get Out of Jail Free card, the American embassy, is probably off-limits. Not that he’d ever go there; that would mean good-bye to Rose and Miaow and his life here, since the only thing the embassy could do for him, in an extreme situation, is to spirit him out of the country, and that’s never been an option.
Still, part of him had been aware that the option was always there, and now it isn’t.
Maybe he’s reading the situation wrong. Maybe he’s caught paranoia from Shen and the trio at the no-name bar, and this whole thing is actually blowing past him, not at him. After all, he really doesn’t know anything. Maybe by morning he won’t be on anybody’s mind.
He hangs on to that thought like it’s a life preserver until the cabbie makes the turn into Soi Pipat and he sees the red lights strobing-two police cars and a military van pulled up in front of his apartment house. He says to the driver, “Keep going. Change of mind. Take me down to the Indian district.”
It’s a long haul, and the driver’s eyes, flicking to him in the rearview mirror, don’t make it any shorter. He’ll remember Rafferty’s face. The evening’s traffic is in between waves, the business traffic thinning and the night traffic building, and the average speed is probably seven or eight miles per hour. Rafferty’s legs are crossed, and his dangling foot bobs up and down mechanically. He stills it, and a minute later it’s in motion again. He puts both feet on the floor for the remainder of the ride.