Breathing Water Read Online Free PDF

Balzac?”
    “A French writer who died a long time ago.”
    Rafferty’s second facedown card lands.
    “And what did he say?”
    “Something to the effect that behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
    Pan’s second card lands eighteen inches from his first.

6
Mound of Venus
    T he owner has taken advantage of the cool air towed in by a late-night drizzle to kill the expensive air-con and prop open the door to the street. It’s one of Arthit’s regular haunts; he had stopped at the bar to grab a full bottle of Johnnie Walker Black before heading for a corner booth. Rafferty followed along.
    The place is funereally quiet, the drinkers solitary islands of silence, except for Arthit and Rafferty, who whisper, heads together, in the corner. Now and then the gloom lifts as a car passes in the soi , the small street outside, with a sizzle of tires on wet pavement, its headlights throwing the drinkers near the door into sharp silhouette.
    “Call him in the morning,” Arthit says, putting down the bottle for the fourth time. He’s knocked back about a third of the contents, and the ice over which he poured the first few drinks is now a memory. “Tell him you’ve changed your mind.” He hoists his glass.
    “He gets his way too often,” Rafferty says. “He needs his goddamn face slapped.”
    Arthit takes two long swallows, the way Rafferty drinks water. “Far be it from me,” he says over the rim of the glass, “to remind you of one of the foremost precepts of your adopted culture: Keep a cool heart.”
    “Like you did,” Rafferty says, and immediately regrets it.
    Arthit lifts his drink and sights the bar through it, turning his head slowly with the glass in front of one eye. He doesn’t speak.
    Rafferty says, “Sorry.”
    “You’re right,” Arthit says. He takes yet another numbingly large slug of Black. “I behaved like a child. And Pan should never have been in that game. I put Vinai in charge of choosing our pigeons, and I am-most—” He shakes his head. “ Almost called the whole thing off when he brought Pan in. But Vinai said Pan would enjoy it, said he’d think it was a terrific joke.”
    “He might have, if he hadn’t been so drunk.”
    “Well,” Arthit says, and drinks, a sip this time. “He was.” He looks idly around the bar, just a cop survey, obviously not expecting anything interesting. “You don’t want to write the book.” His eyes wander to the glass in his hand, and he sets it on the table again and picks up the bottle.
    Rafferty has seen his friend knock it back before, but never quite like this. “What’s that thing with his lips?”
    “He got burned, don’t know how. You saw his hands. The file on him said the lip balm is psylochogical—psychological. He thinks they’re hot, his lips, so he cools them down with menthol.”
    “If I’m going to quit, tell me what I’m missing. What’s the story I’m not going to write?”
    Arthit closes his eyes, and for a moment Rafferty thinks he might be going to slump sideways, but then he opens them again, looking at a spot in the center of the table with an intensity that suggests that he’s trying to get the room to hold still. “Father was a farmer. Had some land, Isaan dirt, all rocks and scrub. Every year they’d work themselves to death, and every year they’d borrow money. They were going to lose everything. So Pan came to Bangkok.” He sits there, regarding the invisible spot on the table.
    “And?” Rafferty prompts.
    Arthit tilts his head back as though it is too heavy for his shoulders. “And he’s a tough boy. You can see that when you look at him, even now.”
    “He’s gotten soft,” Rafferty says.
    “He’s hard underneath it.” Arthit’s eyes go to the wall, and he squints slightly. “He came to Bangkok, I said that, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Okay. Good to know I didn’t imagine it. So .” He blinks heavily. “He chose three blocks in Pratunam, not far from where Rose and Peachy have