“-is Ton,” Arthit interrupts. “How do you know this is the guy?”

“He’s got teeth like he ate a grenade. They go all over the place. And it makes sense, because Ton wouldn’t talk to me last night.”

Arthit takes the paper and refolds it carefully, as though the task were important, as though it were the national flag. He avoids Rafferty’s eyes. “That’s your evidence? Ton wouldn’t talk to you? He’d refuse to talk to the prime minister if he felt like it. And get away with it.”

“He didn’t talk to me because he knew I’d recognize his voice. He’s the guy who ordered me to write the book.”

Arthit is still looking at the newspaper. “And you can prove that, of course.”

“Check his office. He’s on the thirty-sixth floor of whatever building it is. I’ll bet you anything you want.”

“There’s nothing I want,” Arthit says. “Which is a good thing, because I’m not making that inquiry.”

“Here’s what happened: Weecherat files her story. It goes into a computer. The computer has been programmed to flag anything with Pan’s name in it. The flag kicks the story to someone at the paper, who calls someone higher up at the paper, who calls Ton. Ton sticks his little warning in my kitchen cabinet, and then he thinks it would be tidier if Elora wasn’t floating around with the number of the floor he’s on. So he sends Captain Teeth to take care of her.”

“Ton is untouchable,” Arthit says.

“Oh, fuck that.”

“Listen to me, Poke.” Arthit has crumpled the paper in his fist without even knowing it. “Ton could run over an entire nursery school, on purpose, right in front of me, and back up to get the ones he missed the first time, and I’d probably offer to pay for his car wash. I’m telling you, these people are not accountable. Remember that miserable kid of General Aparit’s? Shot two cops and killed one of them in a drug bust at a rave club? He’s assistant to a cabinet secretary now. Aparit is a panhandler compared to Ton. It would be worth my job to look cross-eyed at him. And right now, with Noi the way she is, I can’t even entertain the fantasy.”

Rafferty turns away and looks through the open door of the unoccupied apartment. He hears himself say, “Right.” He bends down and picks up the roll of paper towels and pitches it underhand at the floor. The towels unroll clear across the empty room, making the only clean path on the floor. “Here’s something else you won’t want to do anything about. Weecherat had a tape recorder. My interview was on it. What do you want to bet it’s missing?” He hears the elevator doors open and glances over his shoulder, expecting to see Mrs. Song struggling mournfully with an armful of cleaning stuff. Instead it’s Lieutenant Kosit, whom he hasn’t seen since he dealt the card game that got Rafferty into this mess.

“Pretty impressive stuff,” Kosit says, “and expensive, too. Cost maybe eight hundred, nine hundred U.S. apiece. Three of them.” He’s wearing olive drab shorts and a camouflage T-shirt in green and brown.

“Where?” Rafferty says.

“Center of the ceiling. They bored a little hole for each microphone. Theory is that nobody ever looks up. The holes are only about half an inch in diameter, and just to make sure they wouldn’t catch your eye, they glued some kind of white cloth over the openings. The mikes are omnidirectional, sensitive across three hundred sixty degrees.”

“Which rooms?”

“Living room, kitchen, bedroom. Nothing in the bathroom or Miaow’s room. They feed to a transmitter inside your couch. They unstitched the liner on the bottom, put the thing inside, and tacked the cloth back.”

“What’s the range?” This is Arthit, and it’s purely an instinctive reaction. The moment the question is out, he squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head.

Kosit throws Arthit an inquisitive glance and then squints down the hallway for the answer. He has a seamed, leathery smoker’s face, and the squint creates a fan of deep creases radiating out from the corner of each eye. “Mile? Maybe a little more. So forget finding the listening post. It’s somewhere in a two-mile circle of Bangkok. And even if the sun shone straight down through the clouds to show you exactly where it was, you’d probably just find another transmitter to boost the signal and pass it along.”

Rafferty has no intention of looking for it. “Nothing in the hallway outside?”

Kosit shakes his head. “No.”

“Cameras?”

“No, and it’s a good thing. I was quiet, but not invisible.” Kosit grins. “You should have heard your wife and daughter, arguing about school and her hair color as though there was nobody else in the place.”

Rafferty says, “Her hair color?”

“Poke,” Arthit says. “What are you going to do about this?”

Rafferty turns back to the filthy, empty apartment. “What do you think I’m going to do? I’m going to take advantage of it.”

WHEN DA AND Peep are pushed into the van that morning, there is only one other woman inside. She balances a very dark-skinned, black-eyed child, perhaps two years old, in her lap. The woman with the skeletal child is not there. Da assumes they will wait for her, but the man in the awful blue shirt-what was his name? Kep?-slides the door closed behind her with a bang. It is too angry a sound for so early in the morning.

“Where are they?” Da asks quickly, before Kep can get around the van and climb behind the wheel.

“Who knows? One of the tough men from the business came and got them very early.” The child in the other woman’s lap tilts its head to one side and trains its enormous eyes on Peep. Peep has been whimpering, fretful at being jostled as he and Da were hurried downstairs, but when he feels the other child’s gaze, he goes quiet, and the two of them regard each other like members of some rare species unexpectedly come face-to-face.

“Will she be all right?” Da asks, but before the other woman can answer, Kep pops open the driver’s door and slides his bulk onto the seat. An unlit cigarette hangs from his lips. Before he starts the car, he twists back to speak to Da, although he doesn’t bother to turn his head far enough to meet her eyes.

“No giving money back today, got it?”

He seems to expect a reply. “I heard you the first time.”

“And get off your ass. Don’t just sit there.”

Anger flares in the center of Da’s chest. “I made money yesterday.”

Kep throws an arm back and swipes halfheartedly at her, but she easily ducks out of reach. “Listen to me, you snotty little bitch. You make as much as I tell people you make. If you don’t want to wind up in some dirt-road whorehouse, you’ll be nice to me.”

“I’ll never work in a whorehouse.”

“You remember that when I bring a bunch of my friends by to break you in.”

“You have friends?”

The other woman puts a cautioning hand on Da’s arm. This time Kep turns all the way around to glare at her. He closes his fist and slowly brings it up into the center of her field of vision. “Women with bruises on their face make money,” he says. “If you don’t shut your mouth, you’ll find out.” For a moment Da is too furious to care whether he hits her or not, but the woman squeezes her arm, and Peep chooses that instant to begin to cry. Da lowers her gaze, and after a brief eternity, stretched out by Peep’s squalling, Kep turns away and starts the van.

He guns the engine, throwing the two women back against the seats, and then the van hits a pothole. Kep lets go of the wheel with one hand long enough to light his cigarette and say, “There must be a better way to earn a living.”

A CARPET TO muffle the echoes, maybe tack a blanket to a wall, hang something over the windows to cover them when the lights are on at night. Some soft, absorbent surfaces. The place sounds like an empty swimming pool, and that won’t do. Grab a few chairs, a table. Something to sit on, and around, while they do what they have to do.