The Fourth Watcher by Timothy Hallinan Page A

out there, and the air-conditioning on his wet clothing has given him a chill.
    A waitress mops the table, but Rafferty, eager to write, sits before she tends to his chair, which has half an inch of water gathered in the low point of the seat. He barely notices, seeing in his mind’s eye the loose, confident way Prettyman moved in the bar, as though he were outdoors and in familiar terrain. Until then Prettyman had always struck Rafferty as someone who navigated the world too carefully, the kind of person who checks frequently to make sure the top is screwed tightly on the salt shaker.
    Arnold had been in his element in the bar. As Rafferty was when he was writing the kind of material he enjoyed writing.
    â€œStop that,” he says out loud. He starts to write again, thinking he might have to reevaluate Arnold. The man in the spies’ bar was more formidable than the vaguely comic ex-spook he thought he knew. Suddenly he realizes he’s been patronizing Arnold.
    He stops writing, the point of his pen still touching the page.
    â€œDoing a Raymond Chandler?” someone asks, and Rafferty looks up to see Arthit peering down at the notebook.
    â€œWhat’s that mean?”
    â€œChandler wrote on little pieces of paper,” Arthit says, pulling out a chair. “About the size of a paperback book. The trick, he said, was to get a tiny bit of magic on every one of those little pages.”
    â€œIs that so?” Rafferty watches Arthit’s expression as his bottom hitsthe miniature pond on the seat. After his friend’s eyes have widened rewardingly, Rafferty says, “The seat’s wet.”
    â€œI know,” Arthit says through his teeth. “It’s very cooling.”
    â€œAnd how does that piece of information about Raymond Chandler come to be in the possession of a Bangkok policeman?”
    â€œChandler went to Dulwich, my school in England,” Arthit says. “He was the only famous graduate who interested me, so I read about him. He drank too much. Why do writers drink too much?”
    â€œThey’re alone too much.”
    â€œWhy don’t you drink too much?”
    â€œI more or less live in a permanent crowd. How’s Noi?”
    â€œShe hurts,” Arthit says. “It comes and goes. Lately it mostly comes.” Arthit’s wife, Noi, whom he loves without reservation, is taking a defiant stand against multiple sclerosis. She’s two years into the battle now, and despite all the medicine, herbal remedies, prayer, and love, she’s losing. Arthit slides back and forth on the seat and then lifts himself a couple of inches and glares down at the wet chair. “She’d love to see you and Rose.”
    â€œIs tomorrow night okay?”
    â€œThat’s what I like about Americans,” Arthit says in his best British-inflected English. “They take small talk literally.” He resigns himself to being wet and settles in. He’s wearing his uniform, natty brown police duds stretched tight over broad shoulders and a hard little bowling ball of a belly. Arthit gives the cop’s eye to the other people in the outdoor café, and they either look away or return it with wary curiosity. Bangkok cops have worked hard to earn their reputation for unpredictability.
    â€œSo here’s the bad news,” Arthit continues as a waitress materializes to hover politely above them. Arthit waves her off. “If this Elson is who he says he is, you’re not going to get much help from my shop. Counterfeiting is a problem we actually share. The Secret Service gets carte blanche.”
    â€œWow,” Rafferty says. “Bilingual.”
    â€œI don’t want to leave you out of the conversation,” Arthit says, “so let me put it another way. As far as my bosses are concerned, these guys shit silver.”
    â€œA minute ago, when you were still speaking English, you saidthat was the bad news. That usually implies that