“What the hell?”
“Look at the other papers.”
The deed to a house in Richmond, Virginia, also in the name of Irwin Lee. Credit-card statements, some of them showing activity less than a month old. Irwin Lee is a vigorous consumer. Rafferty says, “This is a whole life.”
“It’s Chu’s future,” Frank says. “He’s had someone being Irwin Lee for almost fifteen years. Creating a space for Chu to slip into, like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle.”
“It’s his retirement plan?” Rafferty asks.
“He’s more than seventy,” Frank says. “There’s a generation behind him that’s getting impatient. They’re entrepreneurs, Poke, like so many people in China today. They’re tired of the old ways and the old men who won’t let go of them. If Chu doesn’t make a move of some kind, he’s going to get the ax, and that’s probably not a figure of speech.”
“Jesus,” Rafferty said. “Why didn’t you just kill him?”
Frank is silent, but Ming Li says, “Because we wanted him to suffer first.”
“You have to understand, Poke,” Frank says. “We never thought he’d come here. We were only going to be in Bangkok long enough to sell the rubies, and then we were going to disappear off the face of the earth.”
Poke says, “But I talked to Arnold.”
“Yeah,” Frank says. “And Arnold was a stumblebum.”
“Let’s assume you can still get out of here. Do you actually know somebody who has a million on hand to pay for a box of rocks?”
“Sure,” Frank says. “The North Koreans. Anything that’s discounted right now, anything they can turn around-”
Rafferty slices the air with the edge of his hand, and Frank stops in mid-word. “How do you know the North Koreans?”
“My shop, so to speak,” Frank says, as though it were obvious. “And shops like my shop. They’re among the very few people in the world who’ll do business with the North Koreans.”
Rafferty reaches out, grabs a handful of his father’s peanuts, and gets settled. He smiles at Ming Li, who gives him a puzzled smile in return. “Do tell,” he says.
27
Rubies, he thinks. Even the word has a shimmer around it. Just behind
the shimmer, he can see something, something that looks a little bit like daylight. He has no idea how to get to it yet. But he does know what he has to do: He has to leave it alone for a while, close the door on it, and let it grow unobserved. He either will or won’t have it-whatever it is-when he needs it.
Half an hour after Frank opened the box that contains the rest of Chu’s life, Ming Li and Leung led Rafferty out into the rain and through a dizzyingly complicated route that eventually took them, unobserved as far as any of them could tell, to Sukhumvit. If there was a single back alley that they missed, Rafferty doesn’t know about it.
It is now almost three o’clock. Since leaving the Home Away from Home, Rafferty has made the stop he planned the previous day and has broken at least three laws in at least two countries. The tote bag he filled at the apartment is marginally lighter. He has reached a new and previously unimaginable level of exhaustion and is considering calling Arthit to ask for help getting to a bed when his phone rings. He pulls it out, checks the caller ID, and opens it.
“Time to go snoop on your Agent Elson,” Arthit says. “He’s just gone to eat something. The Erawan Hotel, and make it quick.”
“On the way.” Rafferty hails a cab, thinking, It’s a sign. The rain stopped.
“The rooms on either side?” Arthit demands.
The assistant manager who has been delegated to let them in says, “What about them?”
“Both occupied?”
“Room 134 is,” the assistant manager says. A little finger brushes his lower lip. He’s tall, slender, and too handsome for his own spiritual good, and he knows it. He has a habit of touching his face as though he wants to make sure it’s still there. The fingers of his other hand are curled elegantly around a slender cell phone, which he checks between trips to his face.
The phone makes Rafferty nervous.
Arthit wiggles his fingers for attention. “And 138? On the other side?”
The assistant manager massages the tip of his chin with a fingernail that’s been coated in clear polish. Both the finger and the chin make Rafferty want to hit him, or maybe he’s just tired. “It’s empty.”
“Adjoining door?” Arthit asks.
“Yes, of course. So we can open it into a suite.”
“We’ll take the suite,” Arthit says. “Unlock the door to 138. Then let us into 136 through the adjoining door.”
If he touches his face again, Rafferty thinks, I’ll belt him. Now, though, the man’s fingers stop at the knot in his tie, which he adjusts. He takes his time, weighing the demand. He’s been told to open one room, not two. On the other hand, Arthit has his cop face on. “Fine,” he says at last. He floats down the hall to 138 and opens the door, politely stepping aside.
“You first,” Arthit says. “You’ve got another door to open for us.”
Rafferty says, “And we wouldn’t want to get between you and the mirror.” Arthit looks down at his shoes.
Inside, the man unlocks the connecting door to 136 and waits.
“You can go,” Arthit says. “We’ll let you know when we’re done.”
A reluctant nod, and the man leaves. Rafferty watches to make sure his shoes actually touch the carpet. Arthit goes into Elson’s room.
“What was all that with the phone?” Rafferty asks, following Arthit.
“Probably waiting for a call from MTV,” Arthit says. “Or the Miss Universe Pageant.”
Elson’s room is immaculate and dim, the curtains drawn against the sun. Rafferty opens them a few inches. The room still seems clean. “What are we searching for?”
“An edge,” Arthit says. “Doesn’t have to be a sharp one.” He goes to the laptop on the desk and powers it on. “You check the suitcase.”
The suitcase is open, centered on the bed nearest the window. Elson has not bothered to unpack, and Rafferty immediately sees why.
“Jesus,” he says to Arthit, “this guy safety-pins his socks together.” He pulls out a pair. “What do you think, he’s afraid they’ll have a fight and separate or something?” There are six pairs of socks, each pair pinned, identical black calf huggers so new that the writing hasn’t been laundered off the bottom. Below the socks are two narrow black ties, folded precisely into thirds. Then several sheets of dry-cleaning film, each enclosing an immaculate white shirt.
“Shit,” Arthit says from the desk. “He’s got a password program.”
“Figures.” Rafferty lifts the shirts to check beneath them. “This goes beyond neat. This is diseased.” He runs his hands over the lining of the suitcase, not expecting anything fancy: Elson will have been walked through Thai customs as though he were radioactive. The Secret Service, he’s pretty sure, doesn’t get searched much. At the bottom of the suitcase is an envelope and a pair of shoes, black lace-ups similar to the ones the agent wore the night he barged into Rafferty’s apartment. Rafferty removes the envelope and the shoes. He puts the envelope aside and experimentally inserts his fingers into a shoe. He hits something hard and cold and oddly slick. He slides it out, makes a face, and then looks in the other shoe.
“What do you think?” he says to Arthit. “An edge?”
Arthit closes the laptop and comes to take a look. Rafferty is holding a deck of condoms, at least twenty of them, and an economy-size tube of lube.
“If he went to the trouble of hiding them,” Arthit says, “it’s an edge. What’s in the envelope?”
The envelope isn’t sealed. The flap has just been tucked, very neatly, into the opening. Rafferty worries it open, intentionally wrinkling it a little. “Credit-card receipts,” he says. “Mr. Organized, tracking his expenses.” He picks one at random and opens it. “The Lilac,” he says. “On the back he’s written ‘Dinner with Thai police liaisons.’”