"Ah," Rafferty says.
"And there's no way it's not going to splash onto Rose."
A little chill of pure dread runs through Rafferty's chest and is immediately replaced by fury. "I'm going to see that it doesn't."
"So," Arthit says, rubbing his eyes. "It's Elson or the two cops, or someone they talked to."
"Too many. We've only got until Monday." Rafferty looks over at Arthit, red-faced and sweating opposite him. "Thanks for not leaving."
"There, there," Arthit says. "Let's not get emotional."
"But if this backfires, it could be serious for you."
"No. If this backfires, it'll be fatal." He slides the glass of soda toward the center of the table. "Could I replace this with something that contains an active ingredient?"
"It's your hangover." Rafferty flags the bartender. "Black Label?"
"Black seems appropriate," Arthit says.
"One more Black for my unwise friend," Rafferty says. Then, to Arthit, he says, "Go away. Finish your drink and distance yourself. You weren't at my apartment, we didn't go to any bars. I haven't seen you since this afternoon."
Arthit is watching the bartender make his drink. Spotting him in the mirror, she adds an extra slug. "And walk away from all this fun?"
"You have to decide," Rafferty says, "whether you want to hear what I'm about to say."
"If I wanted to go deaf, I would have done it earlier."
"Okay. We can't figure out the who by Monday, but whoever they are, I think I can fuck up their plan pretty thoroughly."
"Do tell." The drink arrives, and Arthit looks like he wants to kiss it.
Rafferty tells him.
"My, my," Arthit says. "That's genuinely devious. And you think you can do it by Sunday night?"
Rafferty shrugs with an indifference he doesn't feel. "I have to."
"Is all this running around tomorrow going to give you time to go on an errand with me?"
"Oh, sure. My time is your time. What did you have in mind?"
"I thought we might crack open Agent Elson's shell. Just a little. Sort of give us an idea of what's inside it."
"How?" Rafferty's cell phone rings, and he says, "Hold that thought," and answers it.
"Poke?" It is Prettyman's voice, and it sounds strained to the point of strangulation. "Get your ass over here. Right now."
20
Moby-Dick
What the fuck have you gotten me into?" Prettyman demands, leaning so close that Rafferty can see the gray in his Ming the Merciless goatee. Prettyman's well-established distaste for personal proximity is no match for the urgency he feels. Rafferty has seen the man under pressure before-in fact, Pretty- man's approach to life seems to be to create pressure and then cave in to it-but this is something new. The intensity even reaches his eyes.
And that makes Rafferty very uncomfortable. During their acquaintance Prettyman has revealed few admirable qualities, but he doesn't frighten easily. At the moment he is scared half to death. They are in the back room of the Nana Plaza bar, and the bass from the sound system thumps in two-four time through the wall, synchronized approximately with Rafferty's heartbeat. The room is empty except for the table at which they sit, the four chairs that have gathered around it for company, a wall full of framed photographs, and a Plexiglas box padlocked on a black stand. Beneath the box, displayed like an Academy Award, is a SIG-Sauer nine-millimeter automatic.
"I gather you had a nibble," Rafferty says.
"A nibble? It was like sinking a hook in fucking Moby-Dick." Pret- tyman shows a lot of teeth. It is not a smile. "First person I called, wham. All I did was mention the name, and I thought the guy was going to come through the line and grab my tongue. So I think, Whoa, slow down, and I get off the line. And three other guys call me within fifteen minutes." Prettyman hears the pitch of his own voice and sits back, eyeing the room as though he wishes it were much larger and, perhaps, made of steel. "A number I didn't think anybody had," he says, more quietly if not more calmly. Despite the coolness of the room, his shirt is patchy with sweat, and not just in the obvious places.
Rafferty gives him a minute in the name of tact and then says, "What kind of guys?"
"Not your problem." Prettyman seems to be regretting his volatility. He makes a show of straightening his cuffs. A cup of coffee toted in from the bar is cooling in front of him untouched, and a paint-thinner smell announces the brandy it's been laced with.
"It certainly is my problem, Arnold. Look, I'm not asking for names and addresses. Americans, Chinese, Thais, military, diplomats, spooks, cops, gangsters-what?"
"All of the above," Prettyman says in the satisfied tone of someone who predicted disaster and turned out to be right. "And with a lot of weight-very high-density guys." He drums the table with his fingernails. "What are those little stars called? The ones that are so dense?"
"Little dense stars?" Rafferty guesses. His heart isn't in it.
"Dwarf stars," Prettyman says. "A cubic inch of a dwarf star weighs as much as the earth. Think dwarf star. That kind of density."
"And what did these very heavy guys tell you?" Rafferty lifts his own coffee, pretends to sip. His hand is not completely steady, so he puts it on the table again.
Prettyman is still buying time by adjusting his clothes. "From one perspective they didn't tell me shit. No answers, not even rude ones. What they wanted was to know what I knew. From another perspective, of course, they told me quite a bit."
"For example."
"The whole world wants to get its teeth into Frank Rafferty. Way it sounded, they'd chew your father up and fight over the scraps."
Rafferty's initial doubts about involving Prettyman suddenly intensify. He pushes his chair back and gets up, feeling the other man's eyes follow him. Three or four steps carry him to the wall with the photos on it. A younger Prettyman stares out from each of them: in a jungle, wearing fatigues; centered and fuzzy in an obvious telephoto shot, talking to a woman on some Middle European street; posed dramatically in front of the Kremlin in a trench coat that might as well have SPY stenciled on the back. The others are all variations on the theme: spook at work.
"I didn't know you guys liked to have your picture taken so much," Rafferty says. "This looks like the wall at a local chamber of commerce."
"Fuck the pictures," Prettyman says.
"So they're eager," Rafferty says, still studying the photos. "So they've got a lot of weight. Puts you in an interesting position."
"Puts me right up the fecal creek," Prettyman says. Then he hears the implication. "You don't actually think I'd shop you, Poke?" Rafferty turns to see him widen his eyes, which succeeds only in making them bigger. They're still the eyes of someone who could spot an opportunity through a sheet of lead.