Pan’s silhouette looms in the doorway, throwing a shadow twenty feet long. He holds the gun in both hands, barrel up, a stance that looks professional. Boo pulls himself farther into the weeds, and the dog trots happily along behind him. Bringing the gun down in front of him, Pan starts in the dog’s direction.
“Khun Pan,” Dr. Ravi calls as headlights sweep across the sagging gate. “Somebody’s coming.”
In the yellow cones of light, Rafferty sees kids scattering into the dark. “Well,” he says to Arthit, “at least they’re doing what they’re supposed to do.”
Arthit says, “Pull past the gate, maybe ten, fifteen meters. Stop in the middle of the road. I don’t want to climb out into all that fucking plant life.”
“The big man’s afraid of bugs,” the driver says, but he does as he’s told. “Here?”
“Fine.” Rafferty opens his door. “That’s thirty-three hundred on the meter, plus another five thousand for speed. What the hell, call it ten thousand.” He drops the money over the back of the seat.
The driver grabs the bills as though he’s afraid Rafferty will regain his sanity. “Want me to wait?”
“No. Just go.” To Kosit, Rafferty says, “Close the door softly. There’s one chance in a thousand they didn’t see or hear us.”
“Amateur night,” Arthit grumps, climbing out. He eases his door closed and taps the window, signaling the driver to go, but Rafferty pulls his door open again.
“Listen,” he says to the driver. “Pull a little farther past and then turn around and drive out, slowly, like you’re looking for something. Got it?”
“For ten thousand? I’ll drive out sideways.”
“Just do it like I said. Like you made a wrong turn and you’re heading out again.”
“Fine.”
Rafferty closes the door again, and the three of them watch the driver make a three-point turn and creep back the way he came. They stand silently for a long moment, and finally Kosit says, “Think that’ll fool anybody?”
“Oh, who knows? Better than nothing.”
“Hurry,” Arthit whispers, grabbing Rafferty’s arm. He pulls them into the hedge that lines the factory wall. A moment later they see Pan come through the gate. He’s carrying a gun.
All three of them hold their breath.
Pan comes into the middle of the road, looking up and down, and turns to follow the taxi’s taillights as it makes the left at the end of the block. Then, gun still extended, he goes back through the gate.
“Remember,” Rafferty whispers. “He’s not just a fat rich guy with a gun. He did a lot of enforcement work.”
“In the file that got vaporized,” Arthit says, “he was figured for three killings.”
The dog has given up on Boo and returned to the driveway, which is still warm from the sun. It sits down as though it owns the place and watches Pan approach.
Halfway to the dog, Pan stops as suddenly as though he’s been frozen in place. He remains there, motionless, while Boo, watching, counts silently past fifty. Pan is waiting to hear something, waiting for someone to shift or fidget, waiting for anything that seems wrong. Without moving anything but his head, he slowly surveys the front of the factory and then, very deliberately, turns in a complete circle. Then he waits again, holding the gun two-handed, pointing at the sky.
Dr. Ravi appears in the door of the factory, and Boo sees Pan’s shoulders relax, and the man starts to walk toward the door. He makes a detour to scratch the dog’s head and ears, and when he’s done, the dog stands and follows him into the factory.
“Let’s get this finished,” Pan says.
Boo rises, taking advantage of the fact that they both have their backs turned. He works his way farther left, his eyes fixed on the barred window. Five or six weedy meters from it, he lines up a clear view and settles in to watch.
Inside, bright light sweeps blackened walls. Dr. Ravi carries one of the tripod assemblies to the far wall and points it at the end of the room to the left, which is out of Boo’s line of sight. Shortly afterward Pan shuffles past again, pushing another black object, sagging and half melted. Boo can almost identify the shape it used to have, but not quite. Still, he knows that he recognizes it.
“Give me a hand with these,” Pan says, and Dr. Ravi moves across the window, heading right. With no one at either window or the door, Boo stoops, brings up a handful of dirt, and rubs it over his face and arms. Then, putting his feet down very slowly, he moves a couple of meters closer and a little to his right. If Pan and Ravi look straight out at him, they’ll see him, but they’d have to be looking for him.
He hopes.
A scraping sound that sets his teeth on edge precedes the sight of both Pan and Dr. Ravi, each shoving another blackened object across the floor, the dog following happily along. This time Boo sees the things for what they are.
They’re sewing machines.
For a frozen, gelid moment that puckers his flesh, Boo can almost see the women who sat at them, and he smells again, overpoweringly this time, the stench of burned hair. Suddenly Boo agrees with Da. This is no place for the living.
For another fifteen or twenty minutes, the two men inside work, pushing the machines across the floor and collecting more of the smaller, blackened things. Everything is taken left, to the area of the room they are…what? Decorating? Arranging? Boo can’t figure it out, even when they talk to each other.
“To the right,” Pan says. “Five or six on each side.”
“We could get this done a lot faster with some help.”
“I’m the only one who knows what it should look like. Who knows what it did look like.”
Dr. Ravi says, “It’s just theater. Just a press conference.”
“It’s everything,” Pan says.
Boo has been so glued to the window that he’s caught completely by surprise by the shape at the door, the man who is suddenly standing just outside it, and it takes him a moment to recognize the voice that says, “No. It’s not quite everything.”
Pan turns, and his hand goes to his belt, but Rafferty says, “Don’t.” He’s got a gun in his hand, the gun Boo gave back to him, pointed at Pan’s substantial gut, and he pushes through the door, and the two cops follow him into the room, both holding guns in a way that looks loose and expert.
Boo moves right, signaling to Tee. When the boy stands up, Boo holds an imaginary camera to his eye and points Tee to the window he’s been watching through. Tee nods and wades through the weeds, and the last man to go through the door, the cop in uniform, glances back at the sound, registers the boy, and then turns around to face the room again.
“What’s this about?” Pan demands.
“Oh,” Rafferty says, “it’s a long list. Let’s start with you pulling the gun from under your shirt with two fingers and holding it out. Thumb and little finger, on the handle only. Barrel down.”
Pan says, “There’s no need for this,” but he does as he’s told, and Arthit comes forward and takes the gun. He puts it beneath his own shirt and then backs away again, his gun still aimed at Pan.
“So that’s one thing,” Rafferty says. “And then there’s this.” He turns to the window and waves Boo in.
Pan waits as calmly as though he’s just enduring a pause in the conversation. He pays no attention to the guns that are trained on him. But when Boo comes through the door, he takes a sudden breath, and then his eyes close briefly. When they open, they are fixed on the floor.
Rafferty says, “Surprised to see him?”
“I’m surprised to see any of you,” Pan says, but his voice is mostly air, and he still has not looked up. Color is climbing his face.
“You sold him,” Rafferty says. He is speaking Thai. “You. The hope of the poor and downtrodden. You sold him and a little girl who doesn’t have anything in the world except a baby that isn’t even hers. You sold them to a gangster who was going to kill all of them, except the baby. All he’d do to the baby is sell it.”
Pan keeps his eyes on the floor, but Dr. Ravi is staring at Rafferty as though he’s suddenly begun speaking in tongues.