I wai wai dutifully to the stocky man with shaved head in police colonel uniform while Colonel Vikorn, not entirely surprised, gives him a nod. Colonel Suvit's presence here is deeply shocking to me, not least because it amounts to an insolent confirmation of my worst fears: I will never be permitted to progress beyond this moment, professionally, even personally. I will be the bird flying against the window until I fall from exhaustion and join all the other bird corpses lying on the floor. I feel more than a little dizzy. dutifully to the stocky man with shaved head in police colonel uniform while Colonel Vikorn, not entirely surprised, gives him a nod. Colonel Suvit's presence here is deeply shocking to me, not least because it amounts to an insolent confirmation of my worst fears: I will never be permitted to progress beyond this moment, professionally, even personally. I will be the bird flying against the window until I fall from exhaustion and join all the other bird corpses lying on the floor. I feel more than a little dizzy.

"I asked Colonel Suvit to come because I understand his beat covers the spot where the late William Bradley was found. The Colonel and I have known each other many years so it's also an opportunity to enjoy his company." The sentence is a little flowery because he has spoken in Thai and we're like that. At the same time I know that Warren has taken me in, absorbed the entirety of what I am, and relaxed. As he expected, I'm no threat at all. Now he looks me in the eye. "Unfortunately, my time here on this trip is very limited." He pauses and seems genuinely to hesitate between a number of options. His eyes flicker across to Colonel Suvit, who remains inscrutable. I have no intuitive grasp of this American at all, even his vibrations are carefully, masterfully controlled, like those of one who lives behind a protective shield. "I wonder therefore if it would be in everyone's interests if I spoke, and then if I've left anything out, Detective Jitpleecheep can ask anything he likes?"

"I'm sure you won't leave anything out, Khun Warren, and the detective won't want to ask a single thing." Colonel Suvit does not trouble to look at me. He raises half an eyebrow at Vikorn instead, who leans his head to one side, dubiously. The hostility between these two men is my only source of comfort in this palace of privilege.

"First, I must apologize to you, Detective, I really should have contacted you directly instead of putting you to the trouble of seeking me out."

The biggest surprise here, after the apology, is that Warren has switched to English, neatly cutting out the two colonels, who are reduced to dumb observers. His accent is soft and almost British. While I'm trying to think of an elegant reply to his elegant opening, he carries elegantly on. "I heard about Bradley's death probably not long after you found him. Let me be frank and admit I have many friends in your country, many of them in high positions, and, being Thai, they look after me. They knew that Bradley and I were friends of a kind, brought together by our quite irrational pa.s.sion for jade." He pauses to search my face before continuing. "As Hemingway said about big-game hunting, either you understand it or you don't. To those who don't, the jade craze must seem ridiculous in this modern world where silicon rules. To those who do, a friendship between a marine sergeant and a jeweler is not unthinkable; on the contrary. Hobbies bring people of different walks of life together-wine, horses, pigeons, falcons-gems. When people find a common pa.s.sion they overlook social barriers. Not that a jeweler is necessarily an exalted personage. My trade obliges me to cultivate the truly exalted. Who will buy gems if not the rich? My friends and clients are the movers and shakers of this world, I myself am no more than a humble merchant."

This last sentence, delivered without a trace of humility, but without irony either, marks the end of the beginning. He takes a cigarette holder out of a pocket of his smoking jacket and walks to one of the coffee tables where a packet of cigarettes awaits. Ignoring the colonels, he offers me one. I refuse, speechless. I think I am receiving the kind of special treatment a condemned man receives the night before his execution. He resumes whilst fitting the cigarette, waving it to make his points. The cigarette holder is jade.

"I'll cut to the chase. The best nephrite and jadeite in the world come from an area in the Kachin Mountains in Burma and have for thousands of years. During every one of those thousands of years, the political situation in Burma has been volatile, the human cost of mining the jade appalling, the greed of the Chinese middlemen-they have always been Chinese-outrageous. This is no less the case today than it was in the warring states period. At the present time a corrupt and probably insane military junta, desperate for hard currency, sells the jade in parallel with opium and methedrine. The miners are encouraged to shoot up on heroin to help them endure the disgusting conditions, and there is a high incidence of HIV, often developing into full-blown AIDS. The mortality rate amongst the miners is extremely high, which suits the junta, who don't want the miners returning to Rangoon to gossip. Word has got out, however, and a few Western journalists have published accounts of the situation, along with the usual sort of photographs showing dest.i.tute Third World people dying in conditions of extreme squalor. Everyone has their own views about political correctness. Is it a sign of a new high-mindedness in humanity, or has it produced a society of blamers, second-guessers and tiny-minded, self-righteous bigots? You can guess where my own answer lies. In any event, as a merchant whose customers need to be seen to adhere to the highest public morality, I have to be careful. I cannot afford for it to be obvious where my jade is coming from. In a nutsh.e.l.l, I have not been able to visit Rangoon for nearly a decade." He shrugs. "If I cannot be seen to sell new jade, I must sell old jade. Fortunately, there is some around. Not all the stone plundered from the Forbidden City was of the highest workmanship. One can take a piece and improve it, according to demand. One can also disguise the new jade by making it look like something that has been around a long time. By imitating a piece from the imperial collection, for example. There is no fraud involved. The customer knows very well what she is buying and is delighted to be able to dodge the pseudomorality of these strange times. If she doesn't really like the design of the piece, she can always ask me to have it reworked by my craftsmen. We're not talking about whales or baby seals, after all, jade is not about to become extinct. Nor is the Burmese government about to stop selling it, so if I don't buy it while the price is really quite reasonable, my Chinese compet.i.tors certainly will. As I say, there has never been a time when a person of delicate conscience could purchase jade from Burma. I can't afford to have a delicate conscience. I made a decision early in my career that I wasn't going to try to compete with people like De Beers, Boucheron, the whole Vendome clique. My bag was going to be East Asia and I have spent a lot of my time and money protecting my territory. The media might pretend to follow the rules of heaven, down on the ground nothing has changed since the turf wars between Neanderthals and Sapiens. The Sapiens won because we know how to fight dirty."

He lights the cigarette and there is just the slightest shaking in his hand as he does so, a flaw probably imperceptible to a mind not sharpened by meditation and paranoia.

"A jeweler is a salesman, and all good salesmen are opportunists. When I came across Bradley's web page, I saw an opportunity. When I looked him up over here, I saw that I had not been mistaken. The symbiosis was impressive. He had already made a trip to Laos, and up into the jungle near the Burmese border, where he had purchased some lumps of jadeite for experimental purposes. His experiment was a failure. It is simply not possible to become a buyer of jadeite overnight. It is the apprenticeship of a lifetime. On the other hand, he was in desperate straits financially. His somewhat luxurious lifestyle had left him in debt. I think I do not need to explain what that word can mean in this country. The Chiu Chow loan sharks to whom he owed hardly more than a pittance were getting restless. Naturally, I paid off his loan and undertook to pay the expenses for his web page. You could say I saved his life. Later on I personally loaned him enough to buy the teak house he was renting, at a very reasonable rate of interest. I also helped him furnish it with bits and pieces from my collection. I taught him a great deal about the jade trade and introduced him to close a.s.sociates of mine, all of them Chinese, who have been doing business with me for three generations. They are on the ground in Burma, Laos and Cambodia and I never make a move without seeking their advice. Part of that advice includes the best way to anonymously bring the stone into Thailand. With the border problems between Thailand and Burma the advice has sometimes been to move the stone through Laos and Cambodia and into Thailand from the east. Through Khmer country. At other times we bring it in from the northwest, through Karen country." A pause to inhale. "Bradley became my agent here, a secret agent if you like, who arranged for the stone to be deposited in one of my warehouses. He also arranged for some of the pieces from my own collection to be copied by local craftsmen. I then arranged for the finished articles to be offered to the more discerning and discreet of my customers. A good detective like you would have had no trouble tracing the lineage of the pieces, but I was confident it would have been beyond the resources of the average muckraking journalist." A shrug. "Was I Bradley's financial salvation? Not entirely or permanently. I got him out of a nasty hole and through me he supplemented his income while he was still a marine, but his services could never have earned him the kind of money he needed after retirement. Did I realize that the contacts I was providing him with could also be used for whatever illicit trade he might choose to invest in? I would have been a fool not to see that from the start. My only stipulation was that my stone should never travel in the same shipment as his own imports. A stipulation which, I fear, was not always honored." A smile. "Not that such a minor betrayal of trust would have induced me to have him killed."

I have listened enthralled while he has destroyed my case piece by piece. It has been a brilliant speech, full of cryptic references to an unspoken indictment, like that of a lawyer who confesses to a traffic violation by way of blocking a murder charge. I understand now that it was Warren who insisted on seeing me against the advice of both colonels, who have remained silent and silently offended throughout the oration. With such a thorough explanation of his conduct, I have lost the moral as well as the legal right to pursue any line of inquiry involving him; a far more effective way of neutralizing me than to have me silenced by force of authority. I have never before had the honor of meeting such an accomplished gangster who makes even my Colonel Vikorn look like an amateur. I switch to Thai to thank him for his time and beg him to forgive me if I have caused him any anxiety, which was unintended and I hope forgiven.

Relief from the two colonels when they hear this. A smile from Warren, who is nevertheless studying me for signs of insincerity. As the four of us make for the door, I see that he is not entirely convinced that I am entirely convinced. A pause while he seems to search for a way to dot the last i, then a shrug as we say goodbye.

Silence in the lift on the way down. Eventually, Vikorn says: "What did he say?" A question which turns Colonel Suvit's eyes to rivets. I tell them. "So you're satisfied? No more written requests to meet friends of our movers and shakers?"

"Satisfied," I say. I do not have the heart to mention Fatima, or that her presence in Warren's shop seems to make a mockery of everything Warren has said this morning, although I could not begin to explain why that should be so.

In the lobby I sense a reluctance on the part of the two colonels to let me go, an impression fortified by Vikorn's two minders, who stroll over to join us and block me front and back.

"Let's sit down." Vikorn gestures to four large pink sofas set around a coffee table a little smaller than the surface area of my hovel. He places his hand on my shoulder and presses me down to the sofa. I find I am sitting between two men who do not choose to take full advantage of the s.p.a.ces offered by the sofa. Colonel Suvit's left arm and shoulder are pressed hard against my right side while Vikorn is squeezing from the left. I have never felt so wanted. Suvit is about fifty, ten years younger than Vikorn and a dangerous age for a Thai cop. Somehow he has not managed to make as much money as my Colonel, though not for want of trying. His is a jealous, ferocious spirit who can never understand that a good gangster spends money to make money. He squeezes too hard (that is the rumor, statistically supported by the high rate of beatings and deaths amongst his tribunes). Where Vikorn will ostentatiously contribute to poor relief as a way of ensuring local support, Suvit kills people who get in the way, a method which many consider to be bad form. Vikorn's minders sit on the sofa opposite and stare at me.

"Tell me about yourself," Suvit says. "I mean, how did a wet little creep like you ever become a cop in the first place?"

"He was an accomplice to murder."

"Not a bad start," Suvit concedes.

"His mother's father was a close follower of my brother. He and his fellow felon spent a year at my brother's monastery, after which even the Royal Thai Police Force was a relief." Vikorn sighs and takes out a slim tin of cheroots, which he does not offer to Suvit or me. He lights one and exhales with a frown. "You don't know my brother. He can dismantle your mind and rebuild it the way some people take clocks apart and put them together again. Afterwards nothing works properly, but the thing still manages to tick. That's what he did with these two."

"But you admire your brother," I say reproachfully.

Vikorn takes another toke of his cheroot and ignores me. "Then he sent them to me. It was just the same when we were kids, every time he broke something I had to fix it."

"He's fifteen years older than you," I point out.

"Exactly. You can see how unfair he was, expecting me to clean up after him. I've done what I can, but there are screws my brother loosened which I've never been able to reach. Would you believe that Sonchai here has never been with a wh.o.r.e?"

"He's queer?"

"Worse. He's an arhat arhat. He won't take money."

"That is is worse. I'm glad he's not on my team. There's nothing you can do?" worse. I'm glad he's not on my team. There's nothing you can do?"

"You can take a horse to water . . ."

As if on a signal, the two colonels hold my two arms and raise me to my feet. It would be preferable, in a way, if they were acting in accordance with a plan, but this is unlikely. They are Thai cops after all, and I feel I am in the grip of ingrained professional reflexes as they escort me out of the hotel with the two minders following.

"Let's take a walk," Vikorn says. "It's such a nice day."

Another of his lies. It is muggy, the sun is invisible behind the pollution, and the crowds droop as they make their way along the strip, dodging from one air-conditioned refuge to another. After a couple hundred yards we reach the Consulate of the Republic of Ukraine, which gives all three of us pause for thought. What middle-ranking functionary, violently liberated from the straitjacket of socialism and brownnosing for promotion, chose this site in the center of the world's most extensive brothel area? A hundred yards more and Vikorn jerks his chin at a neon sign the size of a truck which is attached to a building which bears some resemblance to a colonial mansion, but not much, it being five stories high on a site the size of a football pitch. The sign says JADE PALACE JADE PALACE in English, Thai, j.a.panese, Mandarin and Russian. The same five languages convey that a ma.s.sage service is available. I start to struggle, but Suvit and Vikorn have me in an iron grip and the two minders are close enough behind to trade viruses. "Jade Palace, I like it," Vikorn says as I am marched up the steps, where the uniformed lackeys in English, Thai, j.a.panese, Mandarin and Russian. The same five languages convey that a ma.s.sage service is available. I start to struggle, but Suvit and Vikorn have me in an iron grip and the two minders are close enough behind to trade viruses. "Jade Palace, I like it," Vikorn says as I am marched up the steps, where the uniformed lackeys wai wai to us and open the big gla.s.s doors. to us and open the big gla.s.s doors.

In the lobby the eye is inevitably, if not subtly, drawn to a window about a hundred feet long behind which are arranged perhaps three hundred plastic seats. It is daytime so most of the seats are empty; there are no more than about thirty beautiful young women sitting in their finery, all carefully selected for their porcelain skin, perfect bosoms and beguiling smiles. Vikorn twists my head to make sure I'm looking at them. "Aren't they fantastic? And you know what, because of the prices they charge and the tips they get, they want you as much as you want them. Which one will you have?"

I give him a wild look and shake my head. Suvit has increased his grip on my arm, while Vikorn loosens his and walks over to the reception area to say a few words to one of the men in dinner jackets. The minders close in behind me. I see Vikorn take out a credit card.

Now Vikorn has returned and we are making for the lifts. At the fifth floor a sign warns that we are entering the VIP Club, which is reserved for members only. Three young women, who have benefited from the improved diet which was available to their generation and are about my height and sure contenders for Miss Thailand, are waiting in elaborate silk bathrobes. The fourth woman is about forty, shorter, well turned out in an evening gown.

"This is Nit-nit, Noi and Nat," she explains with a deep wai wai to Vikorn and Suvit. The minders are guarding the lift. to Vikorn and Suvit. The minders are guarding the lift.

"Where's the room?" Vikorn asks. The mamasan gestures to a padded green leather door off the reception area. He turns to me. "Your choice. Do you want the girls to strip you or shall we do it for them?" Not bothering to wait for an answer, he says to the mamasan: "Lock the door on him. Don't let him out until his time's up. How much did I pay for downstairs?"

"Three hours," she says with a curtsy and a wai wai.

The girls giggle behind me while I am taken and thrust into a gigantic bathroom, with Jacuzzi as central feature, a Sony flat plasma TV about a yard long and two feet tall, high up on a bracket, a double king-size bed with rubberized sheet, and a dazzling array of aromatic oils in bottles standing around the Jacuzzi. The door shuts, then opens again and Nit-nit, Noi and Nat stride in, grinning. The door shuts with a click. Nit-nit turns on the water in the Jacuzzi while Noi and Nat skillfully undo my shirt and pants, pull off my shoes and socks, underwear, lay me on the bed. It does not help my self-respect that my resistance is worn down by liberal application of an American product. Johnson's baby oil is a girl's best friend in these parts. I am not resisting as fiercely as I might. I am not resisting at all. In a last-ditch stand I chant softly to myself in Pali from such scriptures as I remember; unfortunately, I remember what every young monk recalls: Monks, I owned three palaces, one for the summer, one for the winter, and one for the rainy season. During all four months of the rains, I remained inside the monsoon palace, never pa.s.sing its doors; everywhere I was accompanied by courtesans who danced and played music, sang and looked to my pleasure without cease Monks, I owned three palaces, one for the summer, one for the winter, and one for the rainy season. During all four months of the rains, I remained inside the monsoon palace, never pa.s.sing its doors; everywhere I was accompanied by courtesans who danced and played music, sang and looked to my pleasure without cease. A seductive precedent from the Golden One in whose footsteps I endeavor to follow.

Nit-nit returns from the Jacuzzi, undresses completely and runs her finger gently along the ladder of my st.i.tches, moaning sympathetically. It's enough to make me burst into tears.

"D'you want the TV on or off?" Nat asks sweetly while she undresses.

"I don't care. Whatever."

"You don't mind if we put the football on?"

"Is it Man U?"

"Playing Bayern Munich." b.r.e.a.s.t.s dangling, she reaches for the remote.

39.

The Colonel, a cybervirgin if ever there was one (mouse? double click? keystroke?), has surprised and impressed my mother by purchasing for a hefty fee from a gangster in Atlanta a specialist e-mailing list (updated every thirty minutes) which is automatically transmitted to a gangster in Phnom Penh (try nailing anyone for anything in Phnom Penh) who, for really not much money at all, will zing advertis.e.m.e.nts for the Old Man's Club at any surfer who has been so uncirc.u.mspect as to alight for a nanosecond on a web page bearing such keywords as v.i.a.g.r.a; s.e.x; Bangkok; go (go); p.o.r.n; impotence; and prostate. There really cannot be very many s.e.xually active men over the age of fifty using the Net who have not received my mother's cyberequivalent of h.e.l.lo sailor! h.e.l.lo sailor!

On my way to work on the back of the motorbike this morning, listening to Pisit's phone-in: Thai Rath Thai Rath reports that car thieves have hit on a new wheeze: rent a car, drive it over the border to lawless Cambodia, sell it to a Khmer thug, report it missing to the Cambodian cops, let the hire companies claim the insurance. According to reports that car thieves have hit on a new wheeze: rent a car, drive it over the border to lawless Cambodia, sell it to a Khmer thug, report it missing to the Cambodian cops, let the hire companies claim the insurance. According to Thai Rath, Thai Rath, the culprits are all Thai cops. There is the usual flood of callers complaining about police corruption before Pisit introduces his guest, an insurance expert. the culprits are all Thai cops. There is the usual flood of callers complaining about police corruption before Pisit introduces his guest, an insurance expert.

Pisit, laughing: "You have to hand it to the cops, they do seem to have found a crime without a victim. I mean, who loses here?"

"Everyone, because of the rise in insurance premiums."

"Does the average Thai driver pay insurance?"

Insurance expert, laughing: "No, if he gets into an accident he bribes a cop."

Caller: "Does this mean that money which would otherwise go to insurance companies goes to the police?"

Pisit, laughing: "Looks that way, doesn't it?"

Caller: "Is this right or wrong? I mean, if the cops didn't get the money, their salaries would have to be increased, which would mean an increase in tax, wouldn't it?"

Pisit, admiringly: "That's a very Thai question."

When I arrive at the police station Jones is already there, in our workroom. I decide to begin on a dynamic note which to my fancy has a measure of American aggression about it, which I think she'll appreciate.

"Kimberley, there must be something else Warren did. Why are you holding out on me?"

I take my place beside her at a crude wooden table on trestles. We are carrying on from the day before yesterday and there's a stack of ca.s.settes in a wooden box between us. Jones figured we would not have the facilities to play the large-spool tapes they use at Quantico, so she had them copy Elijah's telephone conversations onto the ca.s.settes. She also figured, with equal clairvoyance, that we probably wouldn't have the facilities to play the ca.s.settes either, so she bought a couple of cheap Walkmans on her way here, and now she's taking a break with the headphones hanging around her neck. There's nothing on the bare boards of the tabletop apart from the Walkmans and our elbows. No pens, no paper, no computers, no files, but there is a stack of old file covers that someone has dumped in a corner of the room and one empty chair in another corner.

"What makes you so sure he did something apart from art fraud?" She does not look at me as she speaks.

"Mostly because I don't think he does art fraud. I think you want to think that because you've got it in for him. So I ask myself why you would have it in for him, and the answer I come up with is s.e.x. You don't resent men for being rich and powerful and owning more of the world's a.s.sets than women, you resent us for having c.o.c.ks."

Wearily: "Sonchai, the myth of p.e.n.i.s envy was put to rest in my country sometime before I was born and I'm not in the mood to relive those prehistoric battles. I made the mistake of having some Thai beer last night which has given me a splitting headache, and listening to these two drawl in deep Harlem dialect isn't helping. That's not a racist comment by the way, just a sociological observation. And on top of that, that, coming here I twisted my ankle on a manhole cover for the third time in as many days. Tell me, wise one, why do the manhole covers in your city have to be three-quarters of an inch above the pavement? I know this is a chauvinistic observation to make, but in my country we have this eccentric habit of making them coming here I twisted my ankle on a manhole cover for the third time in as many days. Tell me, wise one, why do the manhole covers in your city have to be three-quarters of an inch above the pavement? I know this is a chauvinistic observation to make, but in my country we have this eccentric habit of making them flush flush with the sidewalk. If we didn't the city of New York would go bankrupt with negligence claims. I know there's got to be a reason. It's karma, right? Every Thai citizen spent a previous lifetime tripping people up, so now they have to get tripped up?" with the sidewalk. If we didn't the city of New York would go bankrupt with negligence claims. I know there's got to be a reason. It's karma, right? Every Thai citizen spent a previous lifetime tripping people up, so now they have to get tripped up?"

I make a sweet smile. "We don't trip. Only farangs farangs do that. It must have been you who tripped up other people in a previous lifetime." do that. It must have been you who tripped up other people in a previous lifetime."

A shake of the head. "Okay, let's drop it. Anyway, what's got you so frisky this morning?"

This is a good question. It took me five showers to get the Johnson's out of my hair and skin, but it's going to take a few more days to wear away that special glow, that phallic pride which no good meditator permits to defile his mind. I never thought I would have been able to cope with such a challenge, but I seem to have managed despite lapses of concentration on the part of the Three N's whenever Beckham scored. Such feats were never part of my egotism. I decide to talk about the case.

"I think Warren hurt a woman, probably a prost.i.tute. And I think he covered up so well there's not a chance anyone in the whole of Quantico will ever get the evidence to bring an indictment."

"If that's the case, it would be indiscreet for me to talk about it to you, wouldn't it? Listen to this, I think this might be what you're looking for, not that I exactly follow your occult reasoning."

She hands me her Walkman and headphones.

Listen, bro', something I never mentioned so far. I borrowed money. I guess you don't know what that means out here. You borrow money, you pay back, you don't let it ride. I'm talking sharks, bro', sharks like don't exist Stateside. These cats, I mean, they don't have to threaten.Yeah, I did kinda figure that, Billy. It did cross my mind. How much?[Inaudible reply]That's one f.u.c.k of a lot, kid. I don't got so much right now, and if I did I would probably have to use it for forward investment. I do business these days, I got to make my money work for me.I ain't askin' for money exactly. I'm askin' for a way out, Eli. I got to get out of this once and for all. Just tell me what to do, like in the old days. [William is speaking in a throaty whisper, the whisper of a man collapsing inside.] [William is speaking in a throaty whisper, the whisper of a man collapsing inside.] You know me and eve'y thing you ever said about me was true. I'm a second-stringer born, I'm the original second child syndrome. An' on top a that I just spent thirty years following orders. I'm d.a.m.n good at doing as I'm told, Eli, you know I am. I can perfect any order you give me, down to the last detail. That's what I know. f.u.c.ked if I kin think up one original thang, tho'. Not a G.o.dd.a.m.n one. You know me and eve'y thing you ever said about me was true. I'm a second-stringer born, I'm the original second child syndrome. An' on top a that I just spent thirty years following orders. I'm d.a.m.n good at doing as I'm told, Eli, you know I am. I can perfect any order you give me, down to the last detail. That's what I know. f.u.c.ked if I kin think up one original thang, tho'. Not a G.o.dd.a.m.n one.Billy, d'you think it's a wise thing or a foolish thing to start this kinda talk over the telephone line of a convicted felon?Okay, okay, we'll do it the other way. I'm sorry, Eli, sorry to make you have to say that. I was wrong . . . [A very long pause, perhaps as long as five minutes, when I a.s.sume the conversation is ended and am waiting for the next one, then a wail of spiritual agony such as I've never heard from a grown man before. It lasts for more than thirty seconds.] [A very long pause, perhaps as long as five minutes, when I a.s.sume the conversation is ended and am waiting for the next one, then a wail of spiritual agony such as I've never heard from a grown man before. It lasts for more than thirty seconds.]Hang in there, Billy. [A sigh] [A sigh] I'll see what I can do. I'll see what I can do.It's bad, bro, it's bad. I'm scared as s.h.i.t.[Tenderly] I can tell, kid, I can tell. I can tell, kid, I can tell.

I stop the Walkman and pull off the headphones. I allow Jones a nod of appreciation. She takes back the Walkman and sets it on the table. "Okay, we'll do a deal. You tell me why you're so sure I'm so sure Warren hurt a woman and I'll tell you if he did or not."

"There was some scandal here which is making everyone nervous. It looks like half the senior cops in Bangkok were involved in covering it up. I don't know what it was, but the Colonel more or less admitted it involved a woman. I figured if he did something like that here, he might have done it in your country too."

Jones is unable to hear any reference to my Colonel without making her jaw muscles work overtime. She seems to be choosing her words carefully. "A twenty-nine-year-old prost.i.tute who specialized in submissive s.e.x. She would charge very large amounts of money in return for being tied up and abused by wealthy men and pretending to enjoy it. She was tough and smart and could fake o.r.g.a.s.m the way-well, the way any woman can. She chose only those men who had too much to lose by going too far. She knew how to choose, too. She thought she could read men, at least that kind of man, and she never accepted a job without scoping the guy out. I guess she figured Sylvester Warren was about as safe a bet as she could make. I think it was the only time she misread a man."

"He hurt her?"

"The human body cannot survive with less than sixty percent skin. The problem is more water than blood. You lose moisture faster than you can replace it, even a.s.suming you're not tied up and unable to get yourself a drink."

"She died?"

"Gladys Pierson died on February 15, 1996. She was still tied up." Jones puts her headset back on, then takes it off again. "Everyone who worked on the case knows that Warren did it, but there's no evidence, no hair and fiber, no sperm, no DNA. We think he paid a team to clean up after him, specialists who normally work for the mob."

"He used a knife?"

"A bullwhip. It's called being flayed alive." She switches the Walkman on and off, on and off. "From my profiling course I would say that the two sides of Sylvester Warren came together at that moment. I think he'd used a lot of women with that specialization before, but something about this one drove him over the edge. I think it was the most ecstatic moment of his life, something he'd subconsciously been building up to since adolescence, but was too smart, too controlled, too strong to give into until then. But it was something that sooner or later he was going to have to repeat. Usually the psychosis which has its origins in adolescence is given full expression between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five. We're talking men, white men. But Warren is a very disciplined man, the wall between the conscious ego and the seething fantasies would have been much thicker in his case. I think he came to this kind of stuff relatively late in life. Maybe he used drugs as well, but somehow I doubt it. I think he's a genuine psycho without the need for chemical a.s.sistance." A long pause; Jones is clearly moved. "You're right, when we realized we weren't going to get the evidence we needed, the others in the team gave up, but I decided he was into art fraud. It was an excuse to keep on investigating him-and to learn about Oriental art. What the h.e.l.l? I was p.i.s.sed, and I don't think all his transactions are legit. Art is so much more complex than murder, it's hard for anyone in the Bureau to argue with me when I say there's evidence of fraud-how would they know without reading an encyclopedia on Southeast Asian antiques? I'm gonna get him sooner or later. They got Al Capone on tax evasion for G.o.d's sake. D'you have any idea what happened over here?"

"No, except that I think it was a Russian prost.i.tute. Do you have a photograph of your victim?"

"I can get one. I can give you a description right now. A stunning light-skinned African American, beautiful long legs, full firm bust, great face, hair dyed all the colors of the rainbow, a discreet little piercing in her navel for a jade ball set in a gold stick. She was tall, too, just under six feet. We're pretty certain she got the gold stick from Warren. Preliminary interviews are not uncommon with this kind of prost.i.tution-after all, a lot of money changes hands. Usually the woman will ask what kind of clothes, what kind of underwear, what erotic props or fantasies the john wants. We think Warren wanted to customize her body with his gold stick and she agreed."

We stop talking as soon as the door opens. It is the Monitor.

Jones gave him this name. His real name is Detective Constable a.n.u.sorn Mutra-it and he appeared yesterday, on permanent secondment from District 15, compliments of Colonel Suvit. He sits cross-legged in chairs in corners of rooms, and except for visits to the bathroom is tied to me on an invisible leash. He owns the short brow, saggy cheeks and melancholy mouth of an idiot, but he has been expertly programmed to guide me away from any line of inquiry that might lead to Warren. The smartest thing about him is a new Nokia which he keeps in the left breast pocket of his shirt and which requires only one keystroke to join him to his master in District 15. We do not use the name "Warren" in front of him, even though he speaks no English. I have already complained to the Colonel, using arguments that do not normally fail: How could a self-respecting tribal chieftain tolerate a spy from a compet.i.tor right in the center of his camp? Vikorn replied mysteriously that if I took care of the Monitor he might yet save my life. Jones and I watch the Monitor cross the room and seat himself in his usual corner.

"Should we buy him a bowl and wicker basket?" Jones asks.

I ignore the crack because I've seen a possible fruitful line of inquiry. "Would it be easier for you or me, Kimberley"-I'm using American Polite here, even doing the smile-"to get hold of the jeweler's schedule over the past years, I mean to find out exactly what periods he spent in Bangkok?"

"Let's put it this way. If I do it and the wrong person finds out, I get rea.s.signed to Records. If you do it, the wrong person will definitely find out and you get rea.s.signed to your next life. I'll see what I can do. You see if you can find out how many Russian prost.i.tutes suffered untimely deaths in Bangkok over, say, the past five years. If checking your records is indiscreet, you can always use the newspapers. You know, hardly a day pa.s.ses without some police scandal of one kind or another. Must be all those profit centers working overtime."

I ignore the dig because I want to get on with the job. In particular I want to take a second look at the e-mails between Warren and William Bradley, which means hunting down Bradley's computer, which is stored in a place we call "the evidence room." I tell the Monitor to go get the key, then immediately regret this order because of the likely time lag. We watch him shuffle across the floor. The FBI puts her hand on my thigh, then immediately takes it off again. "Sorry. The fact is this town liberates all s.e.x drives, not only white male ones. I went to that place you keep talking about, Nana? I was expecting to feel totally disgusted, but I saw your point. Those girls are born huntresses. I wouldn't say they were happy in their work, but they're not exactly suffering either. I didn't see a single one who didn't have a cell phone clipped to her belt. A lot of them, you can see it in their eyes, that combination of money and s.e.x and the thrill of the hunt, it's addictive. I could relate, as most women could. And it's hard to witness so much unrestrained promiscuity without feeling the itch yourself. Some of the men were d.a.m.ned good-looking, too. They weren't all middle-aged farts like you implied. You also happen to be d.a.m.ned good-looking yourself, if you don't mind my saying so." She looks away when she says this, so I cannot tell if she is smirking, blushing or biting her lip in the anguish of unrequited l.u.s.t.

"You have to remember where they're coming from," I say, to avoid the main issue. "Anything is better than a country brothel. Anything. Farangs Farangs give them a five-star experience in comparison." give them a five-star experience in comparison."

She turns back to look at me. "It's true, most of the girls come from the country, don't they?"

For a moment I think about taking the FBI to a bed somewhere, but immediately I realize this is a consequence of the defilement from yesterday. This is exactly how karma is generated, through craving arising from craving arising from craving. Just because I successfully negotiated the charms of three beautiful women, with the help of JBO and an astronomical investment by my Colonel, I now feel I can f.u.c.k the FBI with impunity. But the Lord Buddha taught two thousand five hundred years ago that there is no impunity. In more elegant language than I can muster he warned that you always pay for p.u.s.s.y, one way or another. For example, if we go back to Jones' room at the Hilton, one of two things could happen. She could enjoy it more than I or I could enjoy it more than she. The keener one immediately becomes the slave of the other, with disastrous consequences for both. I think it likely that I would initially fall under her spell, which gets more powerful every day. Having trapped me, she would use her abrasive genius to nibble away at everything about me which is alien to her: my belief in rebirth, my spiritual dimension, my meditation, my Buddhism, my preference for huge doses of chili in everything I eat. She would not realize that she would be turning me into an American, but by the time I'm living with her in some luxurious but soulless suburb in one of those cities in America which look like all the others, conscientiously working at the sort of work immigrants work at, speaking with an American accent now and forced to go underground with my chili habit, she will have started to hate me because I will have become a millstone round her neck and the l.u.s.t will have run out a long time ago. There might even be a child, which of course will make things a whole lot worse, because our mutual karma will include this third person. After death, no matter how hard we try, we will be reborn in circ.u.mstances where we will be forced to continue where we left off. We will be sworn enemies by this time, and I will probably be the dominant one now, due to the way things have to balance out in the universe. No, I am not going to f.u.c.k her today.

"Sonchai, what are you doing?"

"I am meditating."

"D'you have to do that now, in the middle of a conversation? We're supposed to be working."

See what I mean?

There is no point waiting for the Monitor, who has probably got himself lost, so I leave Jones to the ca.s.settes and go search for the key myself.

I find that I have underestimated the Monitor, who found the key all right. It was already in the door because three young constables are in the evidence room playing some kind of s.p.a.ce Invader game on Bradley's computer. The polythene we used to carefully protect the evidence is on the floor and the three boys-they're between eighteen and nineteen years old-have brought in stools, and some food in Styrofoam boxes, some cans of 7UP. It looks as though they have installed themselves here for quite some time. The Monitor is standing silently behind them watching the black steelclad invaders get knocked off by the lithe white defenders, with something that approximates to excitement.

This situation, like everything in life, is a useful conundrum to a practicing Buddhist. To scream and yell will generate more negative karma than has already been generated by the boys. On the other hand, too soft an approach on my part will lead them to continue on their downward path. What would my master the abbot do in such circ.u.mstances?

I find that I don't really give a s.h.i.t, so I slam the door as hard as possible behind me. This has the effect of a scramble. Three rapid wai wais, the computer is turned off in double-quick time, the food gathered, the Styrofoam boxes closed, the polythene replaced, the 7UP drunk in a minimum of gulps, the room emptied except for me and the Monitor. My precipitate action has had the negative effect of obliging me to unwrap the computer again and turn it on, so it was not an entirely skillful strategy. I have plenty of defilements left to work on, even if I don't go to bed with the FBI.

I tell the Monitor to bring Jones, while I locate Bradley's e-mail file. Jones enters while I am reading. I find it convenient to divide the e-mails into phases.

Phase 1 [JulySeptember 1996]: Bill, your piece arrived yesterday FedEx. The boys are getting the point, I agree, but there's still a long way to go.Bill, look, this is good work which I can sell anywhere, but it's not what we discussed. I'm arriving on a Thai Airways flight next Tues. We'll talk.Bill, I have to tell you I was very impressed with the latest piece. It's not quite there, but it's d.a.m.n close. I'm going to release the second tranche today. Keep it up.