The Fourth Watcher: A Bangkok Thriller by Timothy Hallinan

Author:Timothy Hallinan [Hallinan, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Thrillers, Suspense fiction, Espionage, Crime, Jewelry Theft, Bangkok (Thailand), Travel Writers, Rubies
ISBN: 0061257265
Google: z2RaNR3aIvkC
Amazon: B0064XNO5U
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-06-23T05:00:00+00:00

the other man, “put the gun away. It’s rude.”

Chu watched the gun being holstered and then sank

cross-legged to a sitting position. “Get those

clothes on, whore, and make us some tea. And,

Frank,” he said, “sit.” The smile returned, and for

an instant he looked like someone’s happy,

benevolent grandfather. “We have so much to talk

about. You’ve only just come back to us. I’m not

sure you know how much the world has changed.”

!26

The Secret Map

ou became their white man,” Rafferty says. It

has dimmed outside, and Leung has gone out twice

to make the circuit and come back in, wet enough

to tell Rafferty it is raining

again. The room is uncomfortably hot. Ming Li is

stretched out on the opposite bed, an arm over her

eyes, either asleep or pretending to be. Leung drips

silently in the corner.

“Chu was right,” Frank says. “The world had

changed. Assholes were still on top. But now they

were Chinese assholes, vindicated after all those

years, finally fulfilling their destiny as the only true

humans in a world of apes. They had power at last.

The problem was that white people still had most

of the money.

“China was Opening Up,” he says, framing the last

two words with his hands, as though they were on

a marquee. “I always loved that phrase. It sounded

like part of some master agenda, another damn

five-year plan, when what really happened was

one day they woke up and looked around and

realized they’d built a new Great Wall, and all the

money was on the other side. The government

woke up, I mean. Colonel Chu and all the other

Colonel Chus had always known where the money

was, and they’d erected some amazing financial

structures, cash siphons of staggering complexity,

mostly through Hong Kong and a few million

overseas Chinese who had thoughtlessly left their

loved ones behind as collateral. Every time your

mother bought dim sum at Choy’s Café in

Lancaster, Colonel Chu, or someone like Colonel

Chu, pocketed a dime.”

“Was that why you never ate there?”

“You know,” Frank says wearily, “one of the three

or four million things I regret is that I never got all

dressed up and took your mother there. Not that it

was the kind of place you dressed up for, but . . .”

His voice trails off, his gaze on Poke.

“I know what you mean,” Rafferty says.

Frank lets his eyes roam the room. “I didn’t

understand anything then, not how anything

worked, or . . . I just knew that it hurt to eat

Chinese food. It might as well have been glass.

Even the smell of it made me hate myself. I read

the papers every day. I knew what was happening

there. You have to understand, Poke, that none of it

made me love your mother any less. I loved her

every day I was with her. I still love her.”

After a moment Poke says, “Fine.”

Frank lowers his head, looking down at his lap.

“Thanks,” he says.

“China was opening up,” Poke prompts, more at

ease with the past.

“They needed me. Well, they needed somebody,

and I was there, and they knew I’d do anything to

protect Wang. They could have told me to walk on

coals, and I would have asked which shoe to take

off first. But they didn’t want me to walk on coals.

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