"Think fast," Rafferty says. He flicks the safety and drops the gun to the asphalt. It lands with a clatter and a bounce. Chu takes a quick step back-a hop, really-and when his eyes come back, the grandfather is gone and there is murder in them.
"Don't worry," Rafferty says. "Nobody saw you jump except me. And old Ping here. Not much loss of face there." He turns to go and says, over his shoulder, "And if you're worried about Ping, you can always kill him later."
When they're ten or eleven yards from Chu, Rafferty says, "Have you thought about that? About him killing you later?"
"Shut up," Ping says, and then gasps. His tongue probes the tooth again.
"There must be something about me. Everybody tells me to shut up. How'd you break that tooth?"
No answer.
"Hard to break a front tooth like that. Usually it's a molar. Or did somebody else break it?"
Ping just slogs through the rain, but he brings a hand up to cover his mouth.
"You should have it looked at."
"I know."
"Of course, you may not need to get it looked at. You know how the triads cure a toothache? They amputate the head."
"She's just like you," Ping says. "Your daughter."
Rafferty looks at him quickly but can't find his voice to speak.
"Those pajamas," Ping says. He squints and puts the hand back over his mouth. "They've got bunnies all over them, and she acts like they're a suit of fucking armor. She even told him off. He went out and got her a milk shake or something, and she laid into him because it had melted."
The full weight of what he's doing-what he's trying to do-is suddenly pushing at Rafferty from all sides. He feels like a man walking the bottom of the ocean. The air and the darkness press in on him. His lungs are an inch deep. "Here we are," he says as they turn the corner.
Leung is standing by the car. He shades his eyes against the rain, sees Ping, and raises a hand, palm up, meaning, What the fuck? Rafferty says, "Get everybody out. Open the trunk. This is a paranoia check."
In a few moments, the car is empty. Fon and Lek, in bra and panties, huddle against the rain, which is hard enough to sting their bare skin. Ming Li and Leung face the car, their hands folded on their heads, while Pradya holds his gun-loaded now, Rafferty remembers-steady on Frank. Ping motions Rafferty to the trunk, where the suitcase and Chu's wooden box are stored. "Open them," he says.
"The suitcase," Rafferty says. "I don't know if I can close it again."
"Your problem, not mine."
"Fine. Be a hard-ass." He lifts the suitcase's latch, and the oiled lid pops up five or six inches as Rafferty holds his breath. Very carefully, he opens it the rest of the way and watches with some satisfaction as Ping's involuntary gasp sends him into a spasm of pain. Then Rafferty closes the suitcase gently and lifts the lid of the wooden box to display the rubies. "Okay?"
"Okay." The car sags suddenly as Fon and Lek scramble into it, ducking the rain. Ping pulls out his cell and dials. Chu takes his time picking it up. "It's fine," Ping says at last. "They've got everything, and no one is here who shouldn't be." The volume of the rain increases, and Ping says, "What?" He presses a palm against his free ear, screwing up his face to hear. "No. No weapons. Nothing obvious anyway." He listens for a moment and then tilts his chin at Pradya and hands him the phone.
Rafferty steps under the overhang of the warehouse roof and watches the sheet of water sliding over its edge. He is fighting for air.
"No problem," Pradya says into the phone. "Sure, sure he's here." He holds the phone out to Frank. "He wants to talk to you."
Frank snatches the phone as though he were planning to bite it in half. He puts his mouth to it and says, "I choose the people I talk to," and then shuts the phone and hands it back to the fat cop. "And fuck him," he adds.
Rafferty thinks, Introductions over. Forcing his mind to focus only on what he needs to do in this instant, he goes back to the trunk and lifts the suitcase out, holding it flat. He turns it carefully so the hinges are against his chest and Chu will be able to open it and see the money. To Ping he says, "Let's go."
He follows the man into the rain.
The bars of light on the asphalt again, the now-familiar landscape of looming warehouse walls, black sky, falling rain. Slowly the form of Chu emerges, shapeless and dark at first, then slender and almost frail, with the wind and rain lashing at him. Chu watches them approach, perfectly still except for the bottom of his slicker blowing around his legs.
Rafferty stops three feet away, lifts the suitcase an inch or two, someone presenting an infant to a priest. "Noi," he says.
Chu takes a step forward.
"Uh-uh," Rafferty says. "I see her first."
Chu raises two fingers to his lips, inserts them, and lets loose an ear- splitting whistle. Two people come around the far corner of Warehouse One. Rafferty keeps his eyes glued to Chu's until they are close enough to see clearly, and Chu raises a hand to stop them.
The thin cop, Sriyat, with Noi on his arm. She is bent in agony, one hand thrown up over her shoulder to hold her neck. Something kindles low in Rafferty's stomach.
"Your turn," Chu says.
Rafferty raises the top of the suitcase all the way, and Chu says, "Bring it."
When Rafferty has covered the space between them, Chu reaches into the suitcase and shoves aside the top few inches of loose bills, pulling out the ones beneath. Rafferty tries to keep his exhalation silent. He anticipated this. The real money, some of it wrapped, but quite a bit of it loose, is buried beneath a stratum of the laundered counterfeit bills. Chu rummages through the loose bills and removes five or six stacks, weighing them in his hands and then flipping through them, making sure there's nothing there except what should be there: no newsprint trimmed to size, no small bills slipped in among the big ones. He drops the packets and says, "More," and reaches this time completely through the top layers of money to bring up the stuff on the bottom, all of which is counterfeit. To Rafferty it still seems breathtakingly false, the color, despite all his efforts, too uniform, the edges too clean and straight. He smells the back-of-the-throat sweetness of fabric softener, but the wind is blowing toward him. A bright hair scrunchie, the color of a tangerine, circles the top stack in Chu's hand. Chu gives it a glance and a bemused snap, then drops it back into the suitcase.
Rafferty lowers the lid and puts the suitcase at Chu's feet. "I'll take her now."
Chu says, "Certainly." He waves Sriyat forward. They move slowly, Noi taking tiny steps as Rafferty's heart pounds angry fists on the inside of his chest. Hoping Fon is in position, he turns to gesture her to them and sees her, arms crossed and shoulders hunched against the cold, halfway to the end of the building. As she nears them, Chu registers her. He looks at her analytically and then brings his eyes, ancient and unsurprisable, to Rafferty. "You must have more charm than you've shown me," he says.
"Can the chat," Rafferty says. "Noi's got to lie down and get dry."
Fon is at his arm by now, returning Chu's interested appraisal with the kind of disdain that could freeze a bar customer at thirty feet. She is covered in goose bumps but not shivering, and Rafferty knows she is denying Chu any pleasure, however small, she can withhold. He wants to kiss her.
"Go with her, Noi," Rafferty says. "It's almost over."
"Poke," Noi says. Her voice is sandpaper on silk. "Is Arthit here?"
"Not yet," Rafferty says, surprised by the sudden spark in Chu's eyes, feeling that there's something wrong about it. He pushes it aside, forcing himself to stay focused on this moment, this exchange, the need to get Noi around the corner of that building and into that car. "We brought you some painkillers," he says.