“Beginning today. You’ll be paid a substantial advance, which will be transferred into your account at Thai Fisherman’s Bank, the Silom branch, in ninety minutes. It’s account 044-35-11966, is it not?”

“I’ll take your word.”

“Look under the legal pad.”

Rafferty says, “No.”

A pause, just long enough for Rafferty to swallow.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not going to write the book.”

“You’re mistaken. You’re not only going to write it, you’re going to file regular reports on your progress. You’re going to share the chapters with us as you finish them. We’ll have suggestions. You will accept them.”

“It’s not going to get that far. I’m not going to write it. So, with that out of the way, you can go back to standing behind the screen and working the levers or whatever it is you do with your time.” He starts to get up.

“If you go through that door before I excuse you, you’ll have a very brief time to regret it.”

Rafferty analyzes the sentence for a moment and lowers himself back into the chair.

“Mr. Rafferty. Has someone told you not to write this book?”

“No. Actually, I’ve decided to write a children’s book. Mr. Bunny’s Bow Tie. It’s about a little rabbit who’s frustrated because her husband wants to wear bow ties and she can’t tie bows. You see, her paws-”

“And were there threats involved?”

“The problem is that rabbits don’t have fingers-”

“Against your wife and daughter, perhaps?”

Rafferty says nothing.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Two things you need to know. First, we can protect you and your family better than anyone else in Bangkok. Second, whatever you may have been threatened with, I promise you that it would be a feather bed compared to what we will do if you don’t cooperate with us.”

Rafferty realizes that he has crumpled the top sheet on the yellow pad.

“So let’s not waste time. Lift the legal tablet. Look beneath it.”

He does as he’s told, forcing his hands to be steady. He finds two sheets of paper, stapled together.

“Those are names,” the man says. “Most of those people will talk to you willingly. The book will also require some investigative work, nothing you can’t handle, judging from what you’ve already written. The last number, at the bottom of the second page, is the one you call to communicate with me. Is all that clear?”

What’s clear to Rafferty is that he needs to get out of the room. He can’t do anything until he’s out of the room. “What else?”

“Now and then we’ll have people watching you, just to make sure you’re giving us the time and energy we expect. Occasionally an addition to that list will probably occur to us, and we might call to tell you about it. Your cell phone number is 012-610-2230, isn’t it?”

Cell phones aren’t listed. Rafferty says, “Don’t showboat.”

“This is Wednesday. You’ll get the advance in your account today. You’ll leave most of that in the bank. We’ll know how much you withdraw, down to the last baht. We don’t want you running around with so much cash it gives you stupid ideas. I’ll expect the initial report on Monday, and it will be substantial if you don’t want things to get uncomfortable. Your family will be under continuous surveillance, which you should find reassuring.”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, you’re right. It’s a two-edged sword. But as long as you’re doing what you should, they’ll be better protected than the prime minister.”

“And when this is over,” Rafferty says, “how do I find you?”

“You won’t have to worry about that. If you’re foolish enough to try, we’ll find you.”

Rafferty says, “I’ll look forward to it.”

“Don’t waste energy being angry. You have work to do.”

“So,” Rafferty says, holding up the two pages, “I take these with me?”

“Of course not,” the man says. “You copy the information onto the legal pad and take it away in your own handwriting. And you leave the pen on the table.”

“I like the pen.”

“Fine. One of my men will buy a box of them and then, when no one is in your apartment, he’ll pick your locks and put them on your daughter’s pillow. That’s the bedroom to the left of the front door, I believe. Before you get to the bathroom.”

Rafferty sits for a long moment, feeling the blood pound in his ears. Then he picks up the pen and begins to write.

13

Standing on the sidewalk, counting to fifteen as he’s been told to do before removing the hood, Rafferty smells something tantalizingly familiar. He hears the surge of the car’s engine. At the count of twelve, he pulls off the hood and finds himself in a small soi. At the end, a black Lincoln Town Car makes a left onto a broad and busy boulevard. Mud has been smeared over the license plate.

Two passing women look at him, standing there, dangling a brown pillowcase from one hand. One of them says something, and they giggle. They step into the street to avoid him.

He needs to know where he is, but before that he needs to know he still has a family. He yanks his cell phone from his pocket with so much force that he pulls the pocket inside out. Baht notes flutter to the pavement. He leaves them there, just putting a foot on one, as he dials.

Rose answers on the second ring.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“I’m making noodles. Does that sound okay?”

“Sounds like heaven.” He stoops to pick up the money.

“I’m such a housewife,” Rose says. “If anyone had told me three years ago I’d be awake at this hour, making noodles with an apron on, I’d have laughed at them.”

“I knew it, though,” Rafferty says. “I knew the first moment I saw you, up on that stage wearing ten sequins and that crooked tinfoil halo, that there was a vacuum cleaner in your future.”

“Good thing you didn’t say it. I’d have had them throw you out of the bar.”

“Listen,” he says. “Be careful today. Don’t open the door to anyone you don’t know. And I think one of us ought to go get Miaow when school’s out.”

Rose sighs and says, “Why does life with you have to be so interesting?”

He says good-bye and works his inverted pocket back inside his pants, then takes a survey. Down at the end of the soi, several stands cluster, nothing more than dusty awnings tacked to the backs of buildings and propped up in front with wooden doweling. As he moves toward them, he sees that they’re selling luggage, mostly knockoffs of Tumi and Louis Vuitton. And then the fragrance in the air resolves itself into curry and basmati rice, and he knows where he is: He’s in the Indian district.

And the ass end of Bangkok, as far as Rafferty is concerned. He knows that it can be difficult to get either a taxi or a tuk-tuk here. He’s sworn off motorcycle taxis since he went down on one a couple of months back. He has forbidden Miaow to ride them, too, giving her extra money every school day for taxis.

Six dollars a day, he thinks, trudging toward the boulevard. Twenty-four, twenty-five every week. When he first came to Bangkok, those taxis would have cost a buck, a buck twenty-five. In a week that would have been-

He stops, halted by the realization that he’s taking refuge in details. The part of his mind that earns its keep by imposing order on the world is offering up bright little beads of factual material for him to string into a reality that doesn’t include anything that’s happened since he sat down at the card game last night: Pan’s drunkenness, the threats, his abduction.

Noi’s pills. The sound of Arthit’s voice when he told Rafferty about them. Noi’s pain.

And today’s displays of naked power.

The floor plan to his apartment. His bank-account and cell-phone numbers. The kind of power most farang never experience.

Rafferty knows Thailand well enough to be aware that people above a certain social and political level are virtually unaccountable, shielded from the consequences of their actions by layers of subordinates and networks of reciprocal favors and graft that corrupt both the police and the courts. These are the people, the “big people,” whom Rose despises, the people who attend dress balls with blood on their hands. There are not many of them, relatively speaking, but they have immense mass and they exert a kind of gravity that bends tens of thousands of lives into the orbit of their will.