Free The Queen of Patpong by Timothy Hallinan Page B

throat.
    “Look,” she says.
    He follows her eyes and sees a long blue bus lumbering past on the other side of the street and then, as it passes, the only man on the busy sidewalk who is standing still, the man who is looking at them.
    Horner’s friend, John.
    Rafferty throws forty baht at the driver, says, “Go away.” He steps into traffic with his arm upraised and his palm down. A motorcycle taxi swerves sharply, barely missing him. Before the bike is fully stopped, Rafferty passes the driver a hundred baht, picks Miaow up—not even feeling her weight—and plops her onto the backseat, facing back. He takes her hands and puts them behind her on the grab bar between her and the driver’s seat, and says, “Face this way. If you see anything you shouldn’t see, any car or bike that’s back there too long, have him take you to Arthit at the Lumphini police station. Got it?”
    Miaow nods, her eyes on the opposite sidewalk. Rafferty slaps the driver’s helmet and says, “Take her to Soi Pipat, unless she tells you to go to Lumphini. As fast as you can.” The teenager on the bike looks down at the bill, shoves it into his shirt pocket, and jams the throttle. The bike does a little wheelie and lurches into traffic.
    Rafferty dives into traffic himself, pushing his way across the street, trying to get there before John disappears.

Chapter 6
Beer Garden
    H e jumps when it becomes inescapably clear that he can’t possibly run fast enough, and that the truck driver has no intention of slowing. His leap carries him to the center island, the truck’s wind on the back of his neck and traffic screaming by in front of him and behind him, and he stutter-steps to keep from pitching face-first onto the pavement. When he’s got his forward momentum under control, he stands there gasping carbon monoxide and heat from the pavement, and he checks the far sidewalk. Fifteen yards to the right, an old man is down on his knees and elbows on the sidewalk, crumpled like a swatted spider above a spill of groceries. A knot of Samaritans is beginning to form around him, and one man is shouting up the street, hurling curses after John.
    Who has to be running. Rafferty lets his eyes roam right, and there he is, about two-thirds of the way down the boulevard to Soi 10: John, hauling ass at a good clip, running effortlessly, as though it were something he could do all day. Rafferty checks the traffic and plunges into the stream of vehicles, zigzagging through the moving maze to the curb and then loping along in the street, right at the edge, jumping up onto the sidewalk whenever a car comes too close. He’s gaining on John, who looks to be in much better shape but is forcing his way through the inevitable Sukhumvit pedestrian throng.
    On the other side of the boulevard, the side Rafferty just left, the vendors have already built their brightly lighted obstacle course, selling flick knives, pornography, Buddha images, and brass knuckles, the everyday Bangkok mix of veneration and violence. John obviously chose this side of the road, which is relatively vendor-free, in case he had to run, since it’s impossible to maintain even a brisk walk on the other side. So he’d thought he might have to run. Or maybe he’d set it up so he would have to run and so Rafferty would chase along after him, a good little lemming, into whatever snare Horner has prepared.
    But what’s the alternative? Rafferty picks up his pace.
    Ahead of him, John bulls his way to the curb and steps into the street, looking left—an American’s most dangerous Bangkok mistake—and just barely misses getting run down by a motorcycle, which swerves around him with only inches to spare. John does a little “can’t stop” dance, windmilling his arms and turning his head the other way to see what’s going to kill him, but he catches sight of Rafferty before his head has whipped all the way around, and the sight makes him pause just long enough for another bike to tear by,