A Nail Through the Heart (20 page)

He is looking for Miaow.

This
is something she would never talk to him about. She would never talk about it to anyone. If it is here, if
she
is here, he has to
know it before they meet with Hank Morrison in—what? Three or four hours? He has been here, in this hell, for hours.

If she is among these tiny victims he needs to know it, before he forces her to tell this story to Morrison. Face after face, scream after scream, he searches for her.

And finds Superman.

He is one of only four boys. Uncle Claus definitely preferred to torment girls. He gave special attention to the boys, however. They presented a different set of anatomical possibilities. What he did to Superman passes Rafferty’s understanding so completely that it seems like the work of a different species.

Sixteen hundred photos. At least forty children.

By the time Rafferty turns off the computer, he could kill Claus Ulrich himself.

THE PHONE RINGS
deep in the pocket of Rafferty’s jeans, hard to fish out in the cramped backseat of a
tuk-tuk.
He doesn’t even hear it at first. He is trying to lose himself in the heat and light of the day, trying to leave the morning and its bright, terrible screen behind. It is a window he wishes he had never opened.

He wrestles the phone free on the fifth ring and surveys the traffic in front of him. If they don’t get a break, he is going to be late meeting Miaow.

“Poke,” Arthit says. “There’s a lot happening. The stains in the bathroom are blood.”

“Good.”

“Excuse me?”

“The man was a pig. No, that’s not fair to pigs. I’ll tell you about it when I see you.”

“And another thing. The address for Doughnut’s sister was real, but she’s moved. A while back, one neighbor says. But, Poke? The blood changes things. I’ve got two patrolmen talking to everyone in the building. She must have told someone where she was going.”

“That’s great,” Rafferty says. He has to force himself to pay attention.

There is a pause, Arthit undoubtedly evaluating Rafferty’s tone. “Are you okay?”

“Peachy. By the way, the Cambodian definitely got Madame Wing’s attention.” He tells Arthit about the note and the suitcase.

“Ten million baht?” Arthit sounds like he is trying to swallow a whole chicken, perhaps alive. “
Shredded?
That’s a whole new kind of hatred.”

“Let’s hope it was only nine million and he kept a million to pay the guard.” Rafferty heaves a sigh that seems to come from the navel. “For now I guess the thing to do is to find the sister.”

“If we get something, where will you be?”

“Adopting a child,” Rafferty says.

T
aking the chain from around his neck, Rafferty unlocks the cabinet and puts the CD-ROMs, minus their bootleg cases, inside. They fill the space. He does not return the gun.

A sport coat he never wears conceals the bulge at his waistband. In the mirror he sees himself pale-faced and drawn, overdressed and already perspiring.

He flops heavily down on the couch to wait, wondering how he can face Superman. For that matter, he’s not sure he can look Miaow in the eyes. What he has seen is such a horrific violation of the most basic human trust that all adults should be ashamed.

Some people deserve to die,
Rose had said. What blight destroyed Claus Ulrich so completely? Did he grow around something vile and alien, like a knot in a tree?
Clarissa,
Rafferty thinks, with a sudden surge of nausea. Clarissa’s loving Uncle Claus. He leans forward to rest his face in his hands, trying to rub away the images he has just seen and the image of Clarissa’s face.

He knows the popular Western psychology: Everybody is a cloud
of inner children and warring adults. Rafferty has met sadistic policemen who loved their kids, corrupt lawyers who took care of their aging parents. He has come to expect the beast beneath the skin and to respect those who keep it under control. Rose had talked about karma, about people whose reality was stripped from them by some tremendous event, cutting them adrift like ghosts, forcing them to seek their reality in sensation.

No matter how you explain it, Rafferty has never met anyone whose character was as deeply fractured as Claus Ulrich’s.

Had he taken care of Clarissa as penance? Was it his way of proving to himself that he was still human? Was Clarissa the one thing that allowed him to sleep at night, the thing that prevented him from putting the gun into his mouth? Or did he not even connect the two? Was his spirit so completely sundered that he felt nothing but sexual excitement when he was brutalizing those children, nothing but greed when he was selling the pictures, nothing but love when he was with Clarissa?

The reason for the multiple entry stamps for Cambodia and Laos in Uncle Claus’s passport is now clear: He was hunting children.

And the way the apartment is furnished suddenly makes sense: all that ornate clutter, all that distraction, all those
things
competing for attention. No clear vistas. Put Claus Ulrich in a bare Japanese room and he would probably have cut his stomach open.

Judging from the occasional date stamps, the missing disks, 500–599, 700–799, and 800–899, contained pictures that were taken eighteen to twenty years ago, during a two-and-a-half-year period when Uncle Claus had been especially active. The most recent photo in the 500 series had been dated 1986, and the earliest dated shots in the 800 series had been taken in January of 1989. The 900 series ended in April of that year.

Rafferty is certain he knows why those three disks were not in the apartment.

It gives him no pleasure to have solved the puzzle. He feels as if he weighs five thousand pounds. He knows that the hours he spent in front of that screen have changed him for the worse, and he hates
Claus Ulrich for it as much as he has ever hated anybody in his life.

Empty, bleak, overdressed, and exhausted, he slumps onto the couch to wait for Miaow. The gun feels cold near his heart. For the first time in years, he wishes he knew how to pray.

HANK MORRISON’S REFUGE
for Bangkok’s discarded children occupies a half block of baking pavement surrounded by dirty chain-link. In the center of the pavement, two knots of kids collide noisily in the shade of a squat concrete building that has been painted a squint-inducing shade of buttercup yellow. Oversize Disney characters decorate the walls. As he half drags a reluctant Miaow across the asphalt, Rafferty notes that there are three pictures of Goofy.

Morrison is a tall, slender man with theatrically steel gray hair and sky blue eyes, surrounded by the kind of creases that always identify actors as pilots in the movies. He has a rigid military bearing that may be due to a bad back; he bends stiffly to extend his hand to Miaow.

“And this is Miaow,” he says. To his credit, he doesn’t slow down and overact the words, as many adults do when they first address a child. If he is surprised at the glare he gets in return, he doesn’t show it.

“Why don’t you guys sit down?” Morrison goes behind a beat-up desk and hauls out his chair to make things a little less intimidating. Miaow and Rafferty claim territory on a narrow orange couch made of vinyl. Miaow sits rigidly, her spine at a perfect ninety degrees, but Rafferty leans back to demonstrate how relaxed he is and feels his sweat-soaked sport coat squish beneath his weight.

“This isn’t going to take long,” Morrison says. He is speaking Thai for Miaow’s benefit. He smiles at her again. “And it isn’t going to hurt a bit.”

Miaow gives a short sniff.

Morrison bends forward. “Are you unhappy to be here, Miaow?” His Thai is accented but serviceable, much better than Rafferty’s.

“Not talk,” Miaow says in English. Her words land on the floor between them like stones.

“We’re going to have to talk a little,” Morrison says, still speaking Thai. “That’s what we’re here for.”

“Talk no good,” Miaow says, sticking to English. Rafferty looks at her, puzzled. It is the kind of pidgin she spoke eight months ago. She’s moved far beyond it now.

“You don’t have anything to be afraid of,” Morrison says. “All we want to do is fix things so you can stay with Poke until you grow up. You want that, don’t you?”

Miaow doesn’t speak. Rafferty is looking at her, but he can feel Morrison’s eyes dart to him. He returns the man’s gaze and gives a tiny shrug.

“The two of you
have
discussed this, haven’t you?” Morrison asks.

“Sure. She’s just nervous about what you’re going to ask her.”

“Is that it, Miaow? Are you worried about what I’m going to ask you?”

“Talk about Poke okay,” Miaow says in the same stubborn pidgin. “Talk before Poke no good.”

“Her English—” Rafferty begins, but Morrison warns him off with a look.

“That’s fine, then. Let’s talk about Poke. Do you like living with Poke, Miaow?”

She chews her lower lip, folds and unfolds her hands, and squirms on the hard couch. After what seems like an eternity, she nods.

“And, Poke, do you like having Miaow live with you?”

“I love Miaow,” Rafferty says.

“Do you think Miaow loves you?”

“I hope so. But she’d have to tell you that.”

Morrison looks at Miaow expectantly. Miaow opens her mouth and closes it again. Then, moving stiffly, she reaches over and puts her hand in Rafferty’s. She turns her head and regards him soberly. Something inside Rafferty shivers and then dissolves.

Morrison sits back in his chair with a suppressed sigh. He crosses his legs and relaxes. “Tell me about Poke’s apartment, Miaow.”

Miaow looks surprised at the question. She closes her eyes for a moment as though she is searching it for a trap. “High,” she says at last.

“Really.” Morrison sounds impressed. “How high?”

“Eight floors.” She raises her right hand as high as it will go and keeps it there. “Eight floors above the street. No dirt.”

“Well, well. How many rooms?”

Miaow’s eyes go to the wall as she visualizes it. “Four.”

“Let me guess,” Morrison says, beginning to count on his fingers. “You have a living room, and a kitchen, and Poke’s bedroom, and—and—”

“My bedroom,” Miaow says. “I have one room for me.”

“You’re a lucky girl. Lots of kids don’t have their own room.”

“Lots of kids don’t have a
house,
” Miaow says severely. Rafferty begins to relax. “We have a bathroom, too. Our own bathroom. It has hot water. We can use it and Rose can use it, but nobody else gets to use it, no matter how bad they have to go, unless we say they can.”

“Would you let me use it?” Morrison asks.

“If you said please.” She adjusts herself on the couch. “Then, maybe.”

“Who is Rose?”

For a moment Miaow looks confused, as though it is impossible that there should be someone who doesn’t know Rose. Then she says, “Poke’s girlfriend.” She looks up at Poke and says, “Same-same mama for me.” Rafferty involuntarily says, “Ohh,” and wishes Rose had heard her.

Morrison pulls his chair a few inches closer. “Tell me one thing you like about Poke.”

Miaow looks up at Rafferty again and then down at the center of his chest. “He never yells at me. Not even once.”

“Tell me one thing you don’t like about Poke.”

She gives it a moment’s thought. “His clothes. He doesn’t have any pretty clothes.”

“I do too,” Rafferty says immediately.

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

Morrison’s eyes go back and forth between them.

Miaow grabs a handful of Rafferty’s sport coat and gives it a tug
hard enough to pop a button. “You don’t have
any
pink shirts except the one I bought you.”

“You bought Poke a shirt, Miaow?”

A decisive nod. “All of his are ugly.”

“I’ve noticed,” Morrison says.

“Two against one,” Rafferty says bitterly.

Miaow barks a laugh and elbows him, surprisingly hard, in the ribs. “Same as Rose and me.”

“Tell me about your room, Miaow.”

“It’s pink,” Miaow says. “Poke bought me a pink rug, too. And I have two beds, on top of each other, like a building—”

“Bunk beds?” Morrison asks.

“And I can hang pictures anywhere I want, and there’s a really little room that’s just for my clothes. A room just for
clothes.
And I have almost enough clothes to fill it, and they’re new clothes, too. They smell good. And if I don’t want anybody to come in my room, I can close the door.”

“Do you lock it?”

“No. I use the frowny face when I don’t want anybody to come in. When it’s okay for people to come in, I use the smiley face. I made them,” she adds, in case Morrison is confused. “They’re really cardboard, but I drew faces on them.”

“And you sleep there all alone.”

“Except for Superman,” Miaow says, and Morrison’s eyebrows leap half an inch.

“It’s temporary,” Rafferty says, but Miaow is already talking.

“He used to sleep on the couch, but now Poke sleeps there. With a gun. To protect us.”

“Really,” Morrison says icily, and Rafferty’s cell phone rings.

“Ummm,” Rafferty says, and answers the phone.

“People keep beating him up,” Miaow says happily.

“Arthit?” Rafferty is aware of Morrison’s very level blue eyes on him.

“We’ve got her,” Arthit says. “We’ve got an address, I mean.”

“Is anybody home?”

“How would I know? We found a neighbor lady who knows where the sister moved. They might still be together.”

“Is your man still on the scene?”

“Sure. He just called.”

“Have him watch the door. He shouldn’t talk to her, unless she tries to leave. He can’t let her leave.”

“Poke,” Morrison says, flagging for attention.

“Where is it?” Rafferty asks, pulling out his notebook.

Arthit gives him an address.

“I’ll get there as fast as I can.” He hangs up and finds Morrison regarding him questioningly.

“I have a problem,” Rafferty says. “Start with Miaow, okay, Hank? I’ll be back by the time you’re finished.”

“This is an important meeting,” Morrison says. “It’s not something we can start and stop again. You should have cleared the afternoon, Poke.”

“I did, Hank. This is something I can’t help. It’s an emergency.”

“Emergencies. Sleeping in the living room with a gun. This is not what I wanted to hear today.”

“Miaow will explain it. Is that okay with you, Miaow?”

Miaow looks from him to Morrison. “I guess.”

“Hank, it won’t happen again. All this stuff is temporary. I’m trying to help somebody, and it just—”

“I’ll let Miaow tell me about it.” Morrison is obviously disconcerted. “But if you’re not back here in ninety minutes, Poke, we’re going to have a problem.”

Rafferty rises, adjusting his jacket to keep Morrison from seeing the gun. “I’ll be back. This is an emergency. Only this time, Hank. Seriously. Once in a lifetime.”

As he leaves the room, he hears Miaow say, “He’s always like that.”

“I DON’T KNOW
where she is.”

Doughnut’s sister walks with a limp so severe it almost looks like a parody, dragging a flopping foot behind her like a stone. She grips the
furniture as she goes, looking for balance. The living room is arranged so there is something solid for her to hold on to every three or four feet. She wears a loose, shapeless black dress, ankle length, and a wide black plastic bracelet on her left wrist. Her face puts her somewhere in her thirties, but they have obviously been hard years. Strands of gray are already woven through her hair.

Rafferty is standing in the doorway, since she did not invite him in. “But you can get a message to her.”

She makes an equivocal gesture with her right hand:
Maybe, maybe not.
Her left hand is holding on to the back of a chair.

“This is important,” Rafferty says. “To your sister and to you, too.”

A dubious shake of the head. “So what is it?”

“I want you to tell her this: I understand why she kept the three disks from Claus Ulrich’s apartment. Tell her I know what happened to Claus and why, but no one else does. There are no police involved. If she talks to me, I’ll try to make sure that no police
become
involved.”

Her eyes had widened fractionally at Ulrich’s name, but now the impassive face is back in place. “And if she doesn’t?”

“Then there may be cops.
I
figured out what happened. How long do you think it would take them?”

She brings her left hand up to clear an errant wisp of hair from her eyes, and the wide bracelet slides up her arm. Rafferty sees the deep white scars crisscrossing the inside of her wrist. There are at least a dozen of them: She had hacked at herself frantically. She realizes what he is looking at and lets her arm drop. The bracelet slips back into place, masking the scars.