"You know," Poke says, "it's an interesting story, and it probably would have held my attention about twenty years ago, but now? It doesn't have anything to do with me."
"Just shut up," Ming Li says. "He's obviously got a point."
Rafferty continues over her. "I've got a family now-I won't bother telling you who they are, since you've spent all that time paddling around in the usual channels-but they're going to get worried if I don't get back to them. So cut to it, okay? What's happening that's so important you had to kidnap me? You want to tell me about the past, write a letter."
"We're going to get to it," Frank says. "In a second." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cell phone, then holds out his other hand to Leung, who reaches into his own pocket and brings out Rafferty's. Frank turns on Rafferty's phone, dials a number on his own, and waits until Rafferty's rings. Then he turns off Rafferty's phone again and hands it back to Leung. "In case you need my number," he says.
Rafferty says, "I'll give you a call on Father's Day."
"Fine. Until then Ming Li's right. Shut up. There's a point here. We grabbed you the way we grabbed you because you were being followed all the time, and we didn't know by whom. Did you know you were being followed?"
"Yes," Poke says.
"Who is it?"
"Nothing to do with you."
"I'd like to be the judge of that."
"We'd all like something," Rafferty says. "But what we get is each other."
"Poke." Frank leans back, and the light catches the puffiness beneath his eyes and a new heaviness under the chin. Suddenly, Rafferty sees that time and gravity have gotten to his father after all. "I can't apologize to you. I can only explain. Okay, so I'm not Father of the Year. But I owed something to Wang. I made her a promise. You can't just walk away from something like that. Still, I waited. I waited until you were almost grown and away from home, and I waited until there was enough money for Angela. Then I took what I needed, and no more than I needed, and I went back."
"And when I came after you-"
Frank's head is still resting against the wall behind him, his chin raised, but his eyes drop to Poke's. "Did it ever occur to you," he says, "that I was ashamed to face you? That I left it to Wang because I was a coward?" He reaches over and takes Ming Li's hand, and she turns to face him. "Also, I have to tell you, I saw no reason to bring my families together."
"Until now," Rafferty says.
Frank rubs the top of his head as though it aches, and he closes his eyes. "Well, yes," he says. "Until now."
"But you forgot something, didn't you?"
"What?" Frank asks, his eyes still closed.
"You forgot to ask us." He pushes Leung aside and keeps pushing until the man is all the way out of the booth. Then he stands. "Go back," he says. "Wherever you came from, go back."
Frank's eyes open. "They're after me, Poke. The ones I stole Wang from. They're after me."
"All these years later? Boy, some people really hold a grudge."
"It's a triad. It's not about Wang anymore. I have something they want."
"Then you'd better give it to them, hadn't you? Or keep running. I hear Malaysia's nice."
"This is why we needed to talk, why I had to tell you that story." He puts both hands on the table, one on top of the other. Takes a deep breath. "Trying to find me," Frank says, "they could come for you."
Rafferty steps forward so fast he hits the edge of the table. Ming Li's tea slops out of the cup. Leung steps toward him but stops at a glance from Frank.
"You listen to me, old man," Rafferty says. "If anything happens to my family because of you, I will personally beat you to death." He reaches down with both hands and lifts the edge of the table, sending Frank's coffee cup into his lap. "Are we clear on that?"
Despite the coffee spreading across his lap, Frank does not take his eyes off Poke. Rafferty can feel them on him all the way out of the restaurant.
17
The Leading Sphincter on the Planet
Rafferty?" Prettyman says, knitting his brow in a way that would make most people look thoughtful. "The same last name as you?"
"He's my father, Arnold," Rafferty says, trying not to grind his teeth. "As I told you a minute ago. Maybe you should speak English more often."
Prettyman tears his eyes away from the front door of the bar. He's been watching it the same way Leung watched the door of the restaurant, and probably for the same reason. Eighteen years' worth of CIA training dies hard.
Ignored by both of them, three lightly clad girls dance listlessly on the stage. Except for their shoes, which are high-heeled, calf-hugging boots, they are saving a fortune on clothes. They shuffle their feet and hang on to the vertical chrome poles as they endure "Walk of Life" for the three-thousandth time. Their exposed skin, and there is quite a lot of it, is goose-bumped; the bar is aggressively air-conditioned. Rose once told Rafferty the bar owners kept the places cold so the girls' nipples would stand out.
One of the girls wears a large triangular plastic watch, and the others glance at it from time to time. Two of the bar's other main attractions sit in the laps of overweight customers, and another has been sufficiently lucky, or unlucky, to be taken behind the curtain in one of the booths.
"So you're asking me to check up on your father?" Prettyman asks, having apparently reviewed the conversation in his mind. His eyes flick to Rafferty's for confirmation. "Not a very close family, is it?"
"I barely remember the man," Rafferty says, wishing it were true. "He disappeared into China more than twenty years ago. Not a lot of cards and letters. But here's the thing, Arnold. He's got-how should I put this?-he's got skills."
"Living in China for those particular years would take some skills," Prettyman says listlessly. A Steely Dan riff punches its way through the speakers, and he turns to eye the girls onstage as though he is wondering about their Blue Book value. "Where in China?"
"Shanghai and Shenzhen. Yunnan, Fujian. Also, apparently, a little time in Pailin. In Cambodia." Frank had mentioned Pailin in the tuk- tuk on the way to the restaurant.
Prettyman looks remotely interested for the first time. "Pailin is old Khmer Rouge and rubies. Fujian is people smuggling. Shanghai and Shenzhen are everything we can both think of, and lots we can't. You think it's any of that?"
"For all I know he makes Garfield the Cat in a plush-toy factory. That's what I'm asking you to find out, Arnold." He decides, on the fly, that the word "triad" might dampen Prettyman's enthusiasm. Such as it is.
Prettyman's lifeless eyes go back to the door. Then he says, "Money, of course."
"Of course. Twenty thousand now and twenty more when you come through."
"Thirty. When I come through, thirty."
"I'm a little squeezed at the moment, Arnold." Nothing like understatement.
Prettyman nods. "Then you'll owe me."
One of the girls onstage stumbles, grabs the arm of the one next to her, and they both go down, laughing, in a tangle of elbows, thighs, and buttocks. Rafferty turns at the sound.
"You want one?" Prettyman is following Poke's gaze. "Add it to your tab."
"Thanks anyway, Arnold. I'm sort of booked up."
"Suit yourself." Prettyman regards the girls another moment, looking like a man counting his change, then seems to come to a decision. "China," Prettyman says. "I'm still connected in China. I don't know about that money, though. Seems pretty short."
Rafferty touches Prettyman's arm, and Prettyman yanks it back, all the way off the table. "Arnold. I'm not in a mood to be fucked around with. It'll cost exactly what I said it would cost."