He flags down a rickshaw man, not bothering to bargain as he and Carlyle climb aboard.

Away from the white shirts, Anderson can feel himself relaxing. Almost feels foolish for his earlier fear. For all he knows, they could have just walked down the street and never been bothered. No need to go running across rooftops at all. Perhaps… He shakes his head, frustrated. There's too little information.

Hock Seng didn't wait. Just gathered up the money and ran. Anderson thinks back on the carefully planned escape route again. The jump… He can't help laughing.

"What's so funny?"

"Just Hock Seng. He had it all worked out. Everything set. As soon as there was trouble-Shooo! Out the window he goes."

Carlyle grins. "I never knew you were keeping a geriatric ninja."

"I thought-" Anderson breaks off. The traffic is slowing. Up ahead, he catches a glimpse of white and stands for a better view. "Hell." The starched whites of the Environment Ministry are in the road, blocking traffic.

Carlyle pops up beside him. "Checkpoint?"

"Looks like this isn't just the factories." Anderson glances behind, hunting for a way out, but more people and cyclists are piling up, jamming the way.

"Should we make a run for it?" Carlyle asks.

Anderson scans the crowd. Beside him, another rickshaw driver stands on his pedals, studying the scene, then settles back on his seat and jangles his passing bell irritably. Their own rickshaw man joins the bell ringing.

"No one seems worried."

Along the road, Thais barter over piled reeking durian, baskets of lemon grass and bubbling buckets of fish. They, too, seem unconcerned.

"You just want to bluff through?" Carlyle asks.

"Hell if I know. Is this some kind of power play of Pracha's?"

"I keep telling you, Pracha's had his teeth pulled."

"Doesn't look like it."

Anderson cranes his neck, trying to glimpse what's happening at the road block. From what he can make out, someone is arguing with the white shirts, gesturing as he speaks. A Thai man, deep mahogany skin and a flash of gold thumb rings on his hands. Anderson strains to hear, but the words are drowned out as more cyclists pile into the jam and join in the impatient ringing of their bells.

The Thais seem to believe this is nothing but an irritating traffic jam. No one is frightened, just impatient. More bicycle bells tinkle and chime, surrounding him in music.

"Oh… Shit," Carlyle murmurs.

The white shirts yank the arguing man off his bicycle. His arms flail as he goes over. His thumb rings flash in the sunlight and then he disappears under a knot of white uniforms. Ebony clubs rise and fall. Blood whips from the clubs, glistening.

A doglike yelping fills the street.

The cyclists all stop ringing their bells. The street noise fades as everyone turns and cranes their necks to see. In the silence, the man's ragged pleading carries easily. Around them, hundreds of bodies shift and breathe. People glance left and right, suddenly nervous, like an ungulate herd that has suddenly found a predator in its midst.

The dull slap of the clubs continues.

Finally, the man's sobbing breaks off. The white shirts straighten. One of them turns and motions traffic forward. It is an impatient gesture, businesslike, as though the people have stopped to gawk at flowers or a carnival. Hesitantly, cyclists push forward. Traffic begins to roll. Anderson sits down in his seat. "Christ."

Their rickshaw man stands on his own pedals and they start forward. Carlyle's expression has gone tight with anxiety. His eyes flick from left to right. "Last chance to run for it."

Anderson can't take his gaze from the approaching white shirts. "We'll be obvious if we bolt."

"We're fucking farang. We're already obvious."

Pedestrians and cyclists inch forward, merging through the chokepoint, shuffling past the carnage.

A half-dozen white shirts stand around the body. Blood pools from the man's head. Flies already buzz in the red rivulets, sticky winged, drowning in the surfeit of calories. A cheshire shadow crouches eagerly at the periphery, blocked from the congealing pool by a white picket barrier of uniformed trouser legs. All the officers' cuffs are spattered red, dew kisses of kinetic energy absorbed.

Anderson stares at the carnage. Carlyle clears his throat nervously.

A white shirt glances up at the noise and their eyes lock. Anderson isn't sure how long they stare at one another, but the hate in the officer's eyes is unmistakable. The white shirt raises an eyebrow, challenging. He slaps his club against his leg, leaving a bloody smear.

Another slap of the club and the officer jerks his head sideways, indicating that Anderson should look away.

20

Death is a stage. A transience. A passage to a later life. If Kanya meditates on this idea long enough, she imagines that she will be able to assimilate it, but the truth is that Jaidee is dead and they will never meet again and whatever Jaidee earned for his next life, whatever incense and prayers Kanya offers, Jaidee will never be Jaidee, his wife will never be returned, and his two fighting sons can only see that loss and suffering are everywhere.

Suffering. Pain is the only truth. But it is better for young ones to laugh a while and feel the softness, and if this desire to coddle a child ties a parent to the wheel of existence so be it. A child should be indulged. This is what Kanya thinks as she rides her bicycle across the city toward the Ministry and the housing that Jaidee's descendants have been placed in: a child should be indulged.

The streets are patrolled by white shirts. Thousands of her colleagues out on the street, locking down Trade's crown jewels, barely controlling the rage that all in the Ministry feel.

The fall of the Tiger. The slaughter of their father. The living saint, fallen.

It's as painful as if they had lost Seub Nakhasathien again. The Environment Ministry mourns and the city will mourn with them. And if all proceeds according to General Pracha's plan, Trade and Akkarat will mourn as well. Trade has finally overstepped itself. Even Bhirombhakdi says that someone must pay for the insult.

At the Ministry gates, she shows her passes and makes her way into the compound. She cycles down bricked paths between teak and banana trees to the housing quarters. Jaidee's family always kept a modest house. Modest, as Jaidee was modest. But now the last whittlings of his family live in something infinitely smaller. A bitter end for a great man. He deserved better than these mildewed concrete barracks.

Kanya's own home is much larger than Jaidee's ever was, and she lives alone. Kanya leans her bicycle against a wall and stares up at the barracks. It is one of several the Ministry has abandoned. In front of the place, there is a patch of weeds and a broken swing. Not far away is a weedy takraw court for the use of Ministry men. At this time of day, no one is playing, and the net hangs limp in the heat.

Kanya stands outside the dilapidated building, watching children play. None of them are Jaidee's. Surat and Niwat are apparently within. Probably already preparing for his funeral urn, calling the monks to chant and help ensure his successful trip into his next incarnation. She takes a breath. An unpleasant task, truly.

Why me? she wonders. Why me? Why was I forced to work for a bodhisattva? Why was I the one?

She always suspected that Jaidee knew of the extra take she got for herself and the men. But there was always Jaidee: pure Jaidee, clear Jaidee. Jaidee did the work because he believed. Not like Kanya. Cynical Kanya. Angry Kanya. Not like the others who did the job because it had the potential to pay well and a pretty girl might pay attention to a man in dress whites, a man who also had the authority to shut down her pad thai cart.