but as it is, he can’t.
“That’s funny,” Peachy says.
“Not very,” Rafferty says, craning to see around the girl.
“She shouldn’t be standing there. She’s very pale. Why would she stand in the sun like that?” Thais are keenly aware of skin color, with the pale end of the spectrum being the most desirable.
“Pale, is she?” Rafferty asks, being polite. He still can’t see Elson, but the bank manager comes into view from some office somewhere, carrying a cardboard box full of small pieces of papers-deposit slips, Rafferty would guess.
“Pale as a Chinese,” Peachy says, and makes a tsk-tsk sound. She puts her fingers to her cheek. “She’s going to ruin her skin. Prem always says-”
Rafferty says, “Chinese?” He leans forward and raps the glass twice, sharply, with his ring.
The girl turns and smiles. It is Ming Li. She gives him a snotty little schoolgirl wave, just the tips of her fingers, and heads for the door.
In the bank across the street, Elson is also waving, waving a piece of paper beneath the nose of the unfortunate teller. The teller takes it, and his face falls. He looks at Elson, and his shoulders rise and drop down again, the universal gesture for Huh? Then Elson does a Come here gesture to the cops and holds out his hand for the slip.
“Food any good?” Ming Li slips into the booth.
“Depends,” Rafferty says, watching the bank. “When was the last time you ate?”
“Last night. We had to be at the warehouses pretty early.”
“Not long enough,” Rafferty says. “Give it a week and come back.”
Ming Li studies Rafferty’s plate. “What have you got?”
He ignores her, intent on the scene across the street, but she bangs the edge of the plate with a fork as a prompt, and he says, “Gristle, fat, elderly tomatoes, and some sort of roots with dirt on them.”
“Yum,” Ming Li says. She picks up his chopsticks, dips them in his water glass, and wipes them on a napkin. He turns to watch her tweeze some shreds of meat and put them into her mouth. She chews experimentally and swallows. “Awful,” she says, taking more.
Peachy jams a finger into his arm and says, “Look.”
Elson has brought the teller out of the enclosure and into the lobby area. The two cops pat the man down, then take him by the elbows and steer him toward the doors to the sidewalk. Elson follows, being trailed by the bank manager, who’s obviously protesting. Something he says stops Elson, and the Secret Service man turns to him. The two of them have a somewhat heated exchange.
“Do you know about the other guy?” Ming Li asks with her mouth full.
“The other guy,” Rafferty says.
“I knew you hadn’t spotted him. I passed him a couple of times, just leaning against a building a couple of shops up and looking through that same window. Big, broad in the shoulders, maybe some kind of weight lifter. Looks like a steroids poster. Scarred face, broken nose. Maybe Chinese, maybe Korean.”
“You passed him twice? And he didn’t see you?”
“Actually,” Ming Li says, using her fingers to scrub dirt from the roots of whatever she’s eating, “I passed him three times. And no, he didn’t see me. Why would he? You didn’t.”
“You didn’t pass me three times.”
“If you say so.” She wipes her fingers on the napkin and looks at the smear of dirt. “Can I have some of your coffee?”
“It’s not actually coffee,” Rafferty says. “It’s a cup that might have held coffee in 1973, and hot water has been poured into it.”
Ming Li picks it up and drinks anyway. Then she looks down at the cup and says, “That’s nasty.” She reviews the word for a moment and says, “Nasty? Is that what they say?”
Looking out the window, Rafferty says, “Is that what who says?” Elson, his argument over, makes an impatient wave at Petchara and the other cop, and they hustle the teller through the doors.
Ming Li gives Rafferty a little whuffing sound to indicate how obvious it is. “Those hip-hop singers on MTV.”
As the doors close behind him, Elson calls for the others to wait, pulls out a cell phone, and punches a number.
Rafferty says, “I’m not really the go-to guy on hip-hop. If you want to know anything about OFR, though, I’m your man.”
“What’s OFR?”
“Old Fart Rock.”
“No, thanks. Except, how long do you think until the Rolling Stones are doing ads for Viagra? Maybe use that song-what’s it called? — ‘Start Me Up.’”
“The young are so cruel.”
Ming Li is watching Elson and his crew approach the corner, the teller arguing at every step. “So we’re not going to follow those guys?”
“They’re not going anyplace interesting. See the guy three seats away from the empty window?”
Ming Li counts chairs. “The one with the wet shirt?”
“Him,” Rafferty says. “I think he’s going someplace interesting. And my guess is that your steroids guy is going there, too.” He glances at his watch. “About forty-five minutes left. Can you get Leung here?”
Ming Li picks up some more of the greens between her chopsticks, touches the roots, and rubs her fingers together. “I know they grow vegetables in dirt, but this is silly.”
“Leung,” Rafferty repeats. “Can you get Leung here?”
“He’s here already,” she says. She chews, and he can hear the grit between her teeth. “If you can’t see Leung, it means he’s here.”
Forty minutes later, Rafferty says, “This is it.” He is watching the bank. “You straight with it?”
“Sure,” Ming Li says. “Leung’s half a block from here, on the other side of the big guy. I dawdle my way up there, looking demure and harmless. Just chillin’.”
“Jesus,” Rafferty says.
“So the big guy’s between us, in the tweezers,” Ming Li says. “That’s what Frank calls it, the tweezers. You and Peachy pick up the teller. Then we see what happens.”
“Okay, good,” Rafferty says. “Are you armed?”
Ming Li lifts the cover of the book on top of her stack to reveal a recessed square cut into the pages. Nestled into it is a small automatic, maybe a twenty-five-millimeter. It’s been blued, but the bluing has worn off around the grip and trigger guard to reveal the shine of steel. It’s seen some use. “School’s fierce. Got to watch out for the homeys.”
“And you can shoot that thing?”
“Better than I can pitch.”
The lights in the bank lobby flicker and dim, and the manager opens the door for the last couple of customers.
“Here we go,” Rafferty says, but Ming Li is already out the door. He throws some bills on the table. A moment later the bank door opens again, and two men and a woman exit. The last one out is the man they want. Peachy says, “I’m not sure I can do this.”
“I’m not sure you can either,” Rafferty says. “But I haven’t got anybody else.”
36
"The little wet man’s coming toward us,” Ming Li says on the phone. “Don’t turn the corner. He looks over his shoulder all the time.”
“What are you doing?”
“We’re standing here. I’m a rich schoolgirl on the phone, and Leung is my faithful servant. He just took the books so I could make a call, and now he’s standing a respectful distance away, appropriate to our class difference. Ouch.”
“What happened?” Rafferty and Peachy are stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, people parting left and right to get around them.
“Leung pinched me.”
“You had it coming. What I mean is, why are you with Leung? You’re supposed to be on either side of the big guy. What happened to the old tweezers?”