"Arthit and I love you," Noi says in the same frayed voice, all strain and tendons. "Miaow and Rose are fine." Fon puts a sheltering arm around her and leads her slowly into the rain. Sriyat gives the suitcase a curious glance, puts one hand above his eyes to keep the rain out, and retreats, back the way he came.
Chu says, "One down." He is watching Fon's rear end. "If only I were younger."
"That would be nice," Rafferty says. "Maybe someone could kill you before you get to this point."
"There is no reason for this business to be any more unpleasant than necessary. We both want the same thing."
"Rose, now," Rafferty says.
Chu says, "Rubies."
Rafferty doesn't even look back this time, just raises a hand and brings it down again. Chu leans forward and says, "This one is prettier."
"If you want to see her up close, get Rose out here."
"Rose," Chu says. "Unusual name for a Thai girl."
Rafferty raises his hand again, the sign for Lek to stop. "Colonel Chu. As you say, I have to do business with you, but I don't have to make small talk with you."
"You're mistaken, laowai. If I want to chat with you, you'll chat with me. If I want you to hop up and down on one leg and do birdcalls, you'll do that, too." He leans forward, close enough for Rafferty to smell the cigarettes on his breath. "You can walk away when we're done. Until then you do as I say."
Rafferty can't look at him, can't let the man see his eyes. "Speech over?"
"If I choose it to be."
"And do you choose it to be?"
"For the moment." He whistles again. Rafferty is powerless to keep his head down. He strains to see past Colonel Chu, to see through the rain. To catch a glimpse of Rose.
"She's coming," Chu says. "It's interesting. You have no feeling at all for one family, but you'll put your life on the line for the other one."
"What do you want, Chu? Do you want me to agree that it's interesting? Okay, it's interesting. It's fucking fascinating. A lot more fascinating than this conversation. Can we get on with it?"
"Occasionally," Chu says, "I think it's too interesting."
"I chose one family," Rafferty says. "I was stuck with the other one."
"Mmmm," Chu says. "Here she is."
Sriyat has both hands around Rose's upper arm, but she pulls it away and gives him a look that, Rafferty thinks, should dissolve him where he stands. Rafferty signals for Lek to come the rest of the way. "Your goddamn rubies," he says.
"Not all of them," Chu says. "Some of them will be yours soon." He watches Lek come. When she starts to hand Rafferty the box, he snaps his fingers, and she looks up, confused. "To me," Chu says.
"When Rose is here," Rafferty says.
Lek steps back, the box clutched to her bare stomach. Unlike Fon, she is shivering. And then Rose says, "Hello, Poke," as though she's just come back from an hour at the library, and a band around Rafferty's chest breaks, and he throws his arms around her.
They hold each other for the space of a dozen heartbeats, and then Rose disengages herself and says, "Miaow." She kisses Rafferty on the cheek and looks beyond him and says, "Hi, Lek." Lek smiles like a lighthouse in the rain, gives Rafferty the box without a glance at Chu's outstretched arms, and holds out a hand to Rose.
"Let's get you dry," Lek says. "In fact, let's get both of us dry." The two women turn and move off, toward the car at the far end.
Rafferty hands Chu the open box, and Chu reaches straight to the bottom and pulls out the envelope. He opens it and thumbs through the papers, then slips it into the pocket of his slicker. His eyes come up to Rafferty's. Rafferty is trying to look surprised at the envelope.
"A detail," Chu says. "Nothing important." He is running his fingers through the rubies. Cupping the box against his body with his left arm, he reaches inside the slicker with his right, and Rafferty puts a hand on his hip, as close to the gun as he can get it without giving it away, but Chu comes out with a jeweler's loupe and a small flashlight. He screws the loupe into his right eye, flicks on the light, and examines half a dozen stones, taking his time. Then he removes the loupe, drops it into the box, and says, "I'll do you the honor of not counting them." He puts his left hand back under the box.
"If you're short," Rafferty says, "you know where to find me." He turns to look over his shoulder at Rose and Lek, most of the way to the end of the warehouse by now, and sees someone a dozen steps behind them.
Sriyat.
"Where's he going?" he asks Chu.
"I have an exit to arrange," Chu says. "This is the time to arrange it."
Rose and Lek turn right, around the corner of Warehouse Two. Sri- yat goes left, behind Warehouse One.
"Any more surprises?"
"Not from my end," Chu says. He is still holding the box of rubies, and Rafferty thinks, Both hands busy.
The thought must have shown in his face, because Chu says, "Now, now. We're doing so well."
"If you can see all that, how did you ever let Frank get away?"
Chu nods as though he's been waiting for the question. "This is a time of great opportunity. Expansion everywhere. New markets opening up. I took my eyes off him for too long. When the cat's away-"
"If I were you," Rafferty interrupts, "I'd stick with the canned Eastern wisdom, all those wheezes about enlightenment and confronting our fears, and leave the Western cliches to people with too much sense to use them."
"Let's not spoil things. I've actually enjoyed dealing with you. You have many characteristics I admire. You're devious, ingenious, energetic. You have a certain flair, which as far as I can see you're wasting completely." Chu eyes him speculatively, and then he laughs. "What I think you're doing," he says, "is stalling. Do I sense a little reluctance after all?"
"You have my daughter," Rafferty says. "I'd give you five copies of my father for her."
"One will do." Chu takes his open cell phone out of the pocket of his slicker and says to the fat cop, "Pradya. Bring him around."
"Tell Pradya to stop the moment he can see us," Rafferty says. "If he doesn't, I'll have him shot, and we'll see what happens after that."
Chu gives him the flicker of a smile and repeats Rafferty's command into the phone. Then he turns and shouts, "Come!"
The rain has lightened to the point where Rafferty can almost see the far corner of the warehouse. A form emerges, a larger form behind it. Like a color at three or four fathoms, shifted to the blue, Miaow's pajamas take what seems like an eternity to warm to pink, and when they do, Rafferty can't do anything about the catch of breath.
"A father," Chu says with considerable interest. "Selling a father."
The man grasping Miaow's neck is the one with the broken tooth. He steers her toward them and then stops, looking past them at something, and at the same moment Rafferty hears a shout behind him.
The fat cop is struggling with Ming Li, who has grabbed her father's arm and is pulling him back with all her strength. Her head whips back and forth in the rain, No, and her hair flies around her like snakes, suddenly frozen into sculpture by a flash of lightning. Chu says into the phone, "Point the gun at her, you idiot. I want both of them."
Pradya levels the gun at Ming Li's head, and she stops. One hand drops, and then the other, and all her strength deserts her, and she sinks to her knees at Frank's feet and cups her face in her hands.
"There's a lesson there," Chu says. "It's her father, after all. Pradya, bring her."
Rafferty says, "One at a time, remember?"
"I'm getting bored," Chu says. "Just take the rubies, and let's get it over with."
Rafferty shoots one more look at Ming Li, sees Pradya pulling her to her feet as Frank stands there, loose and empty, looking a century old. Rafferty dismisses the image and crouches down, sinking his hands into the loose stones in the box.