Rafferty leans forward. “What has Chu said about Frank?”
“About Frank? That’s the one thing he’ll talk about. Says he doesn’t understand it, can’t figure out why Frank betrayed him. They were friends, he says. Says he’d have made Frank his successor if Frank had been Chinese.” He starts to add something and thinks better of it.
“What?” Rafferty demands.
“The, um, story about Chu insulting Frank’s wife. I mentioned it as a way of suggesting why Frank’s loyalty might be a little weak, and Chu said it never happened.”
“Of course it didn’t,” Rafferty says. He can feel the blood rise in his face. “I can’t believe I fell for it. You’d think, by now, I’d know. It’s always about my father. Whatever it is, whatever is happening, it’s always about my father.”
“I’m not following you,” Elson says.
“He took the goddamn box in the first place because he wanted to be Irwin Lee. The rubies were a bonus. All the stories about Chu being the worst thing since Grendel’s mother were his way of justifying himself to me. His way of making sure I was on his side. He needed Chu either dead or put away forever, so he could be Irwin Lee. And I could help, so he sold me that line of crap.”
Arthit says something that comes out as a croak, and Rafferty says, “Arthit. Don’t try to talk.”
But Arthit lowers a heavily bandaged hand-the doctors had to do a little emergency repair where he yanked out the intravenous line-and pushes a button that raises the top third of the bed to a forty-five-degree angle. As he comes up, he ages ten years; he has lost fifteen pounds in three days, and his face has slackened and droops downward as it comes toward vertical. His throat is as loose and rippled as a theater curtain. When he is upright, he reaches for a small carton of apple juice, sips it through a straw, closes his eyes for a moment to gather some strength, and says, “Dangerous. Chu. . dangerous.” The words are barely audible, not much louder than someone tearing paper.
“You bet he is,” Elson says. “He’s got fangs like a wolf spider. Your friend’s right. Your father wanted you to be afraid of Chu, wanted you to realize how dangerous he was. He was doing you a favor.”
“If you believe that, don’t spend too much time with him,” Rafferty says. “He’ll have you nominating him for the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
“You’re overreacting,” Elson says.
“Irwin Lee,” Rafferty says, and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “My father is going to be Irwin Lee. Do you know what Lee means?”
“No idea,” Elson says.
“The character used to write it,” Rafferty says, the sentence not coming easily, “is a tree over a child. It’s an image of parental care.”
“That’s nice,” Elson says. “I can’t see the immediate usefulness of the information, but maybe something will come to me.” He crosses his legs and looks approvingly at the shine on his shoe. “We’re flying him back to America tomorrow. Get him out of here and put him somewhere safe. So we’re going to have to take him away from you, just when you guys have sort of gotten together again.”
“Take him today,” Rafferty says. “That way I don’t have to feed him dinner tonight.”
Arthit says, “Poke.” He puts a hand to his throat and tries to clear it. The effort obviously hurts. “He’s. . your father.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“So anyway,” Elson says, “he’ll be leaving. And I won’t forget that I owe you.”
“Yes,” Rafferty says with some vehemence. “You do.”
“Well, don’t get too comfortable with it.” Elson turns and looks out the window, which opens onto a world of merciless sunlight. The monsoon has moved on, and it is so hot outside that the air-conditioning in the hospital room is producing a misty film of condensation on the inside of the glass. “You may have overachieved.”
“That’s the curse of talent,” Rafferty says, still furious, and Arthit lets go with something that sounds like a toy steam engine releasing its first little puff. It’s a laugh, Rafferty realizes, and in spite of everything he finds himself grinning at his friend so hard he feels like his face will split. Arthit has a hand pressed to his chest, damping down the pain of the laugh, but he laughs again. This one doubles him up, and when he sits upright again, he shakes his head and wipes the sweat off his brow and says, “Over. .” He breathes. “Achieved. .” He grabs another breath. “How?”
“Remember how I hated the monsoon?” Elson says to Rafferty. “Well, I hate this heat more. I hate everything about this climate. I hate the traffic here. I hate the food-it gives me the squirts, and they feel like lighter fluid. So what’s my reward? I’m an expert, they say. I’m the guy with the map, they say. I’m being assigned here for a year.”
Arthit, who has been sipping at the apple juice, suddenly spurts a substantial amount of it through his nostrils and into his lap. He bends forward, making the puff-puff sound again, and Rafferty takes the apple juice out of his hand and puts it on the tray, letting his free hand rest on his friend’s shoulder.
To Elson he says, “I’ve got a great maid for you.”
47
Four hours later Rafferty opens the apartment door and finds himself in the Seven Dwarfs’ cave. Little white lights create a rectangle of diamond sparkle to frame the evening
sky, darkening through the sliding glass door. Small colored lights- rubies, emeralds, sapphires-have been strung to outline the inside of the front door. Looking around, focusing through the dazzle, he sees that his desk has been cleared and polished, that the dirt worn into the white leather hassock has been scrubbed away, that three new chairs have been crowded around the living-room table. A white candle flickers on his desk, and another gleams on the coffee table, beside a large crumpled plastic bag from Bangkok’s new Book Tower.
The room smells like someone is cooking flowers.
And it is empty.
Going farther in, he sees a partial explanation for the fragrance of frying lilies. The counter between the living room and the kitchen is teeming with flowers, enough of them to create an optimistic send-off for a midlevel Mafia don. Beyond the flowers, on the kitchen side of the counter, is a sloping ziggurat of cookbooks, all open. Rafferty has never seen a cookbook in the apartment. He starts curiously toward them and remembers the Book Tower bag on the table. He gives the living room a second survey.
The door to the bedroom opens, and Rose comes in. She stops at the sight of him, so abruptly that for an instant he thinks she has failed to recognize him. Then her eyes clear, and she comes up to him and kisses his cheek, leaving a faint coolness behind. Rafferty touches it involuntarily and quickly pulls his hand away. Rose’s upper lip is damp with perspiration.
This is practically a first. He has seen her weave through a crowded Bangkok sidewalk in the full glare of the sun, carrying Miaow’s weight in plastic shopping bags, without popping a bead of moisture. When she does deign to perspire, it’s always at the edge of her hairline. He resists the urge to check.
“How’s Arthit?” she says, but her eyes are everywhere in the room.
“He’s fine. He’s amazingly fine.”
He watches her hear the tone of his voice, her mind a mile away, and then put the words together. She gives him the smile that always puddles him where he stands. “That’s wonderful. Noi must be so happy.” Then her gaze wanders off again.
“Rose?”
Her eyes come to his, then slide down to take in his clothes. Her lower lip is suddenly between her teeth.