“How much?” Floyd Preece is a freelance journalist hanging on in Bangkok by his badly chewed fingernails. He’s a first-class investigative reporter, but his talent is significantly outweighed by an avid enthusiasm for controlled substances and a total lack of interpersonal skills. Preece has never crossed a bridge he didn’t burn behind him, and he’s now living in a thin-towel, short-time hotel and maybe six months away from having to teach English, which is the wrong end of the rainbow altogether. Nobody in Bangkok will work with him, but he’s got the gifts Rafferty needs right now.

“If you get me what I want, five hundred U.S. If you don’t, two-fifty for trying.”

“Sounds low.”

“You don’t even know what it is yet.”

“Still sounds low.” There is a pause and the scraping of one of the wooden matches Preece favors, and Rafferty listens to the man suck a cigar into life. “You landed the whale, didn’t you? Mr. Pick His Nose in Public himself. Got to be a big fat advance there. How much did you get?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t checked. Okay, a thousand if you get it, five hundred if you don’t, and if that’s not enough, I’ve got other numbers in my speed dial.”

“I’ll need the five up front.” Another big, wet inhale, followed by a muted cough.

“You’ll get half of it, later tonight or tomorrow morning. I’ll call and tell you where we can meet. Have you got a pencil?”

“Sure. But I need-”

“I don’t care what you need, what you’re getting is two-fifty up front. Now, take this down and get it right, okay? I haven’t got time to repeat it.” Up the street, maybe two-thirds of a block away, he catches a glimpse of the yellow shirt. He backs farther into the doorway and gives Preece the dates and details of the fires. “I’m most interested in the slum fire where there were fatalities and in the factory.”

“This for the book?”

“That doesn’t concern you-”

“-’cause if it is, you’re really pitching me low.”

“Yes or no, Floyd? Before I count to three. One…two…”

“Okay, okay. Jeez. I thought we were friends.”

Rafferty says, “You did? Well, good, then this will clarify things. What I want is everything you can get, but especially this: Who built the new buildings on the sites of the slums that burned, and who owned the factory? Both before and after the fire, if there was enough of it left to sell.” The yellow shirt is gone again.

“I remember it,” Preece said. “Went out there, tried to get some pix to sell. Brought along a stuffed bunny, put it on the dirt in the foreground, and shot past it. Used a wide-angle for depth of field. Like irony, you know? Building was solid concrete. Not much damage, except to the stuff inside. And the people, of course.”

“Right, the people.”

“If it turns out the fire has anything to do with your guy, you should look at these pix. I’d let you have a couple for the right price. Great story angle, you know? Up from the flames and all that.”

“Listen, I also want to know if anyone died in either of those fires who shouldn’t have been there. Somebody with some rank, somebody who didn’t belong.”

“Got it.”

“Tell you what,” Rafferty says, feeling a prickle of guilt. Preece is almost at the stage where he’ll have to start reusing toothpicks. “We’ll make this a sliding scale. I’ll pay you the thousand if you get me the basics. Anything past that, I’ll pay you more, up to a total of twenty-five hundred.”

“Why?” Preece’s voice is sharpened by suspicion.

“Because we’re friends. And because I’m in a hurry. I need this like day after tomorrow at the latest, but call me anytime you get anything good. And, Floyd. Be a little careful, okay?”

“Oh, come on.” Another draw on the cigar. “Bangkok is my beat.”

“Fine. But keep your eyes open.” Rafferty disconnects.

At the edge of the doorway, he looks back up the street. No followers he can identify. He turns to continue in the direction he’d been going in, and there’s Mr. Yellow, flanked by two others. Both of the others are wearing suit jackets, and their hands are thrust into their jacket pockets.

“You haven’t been good,” says the man in yellow.

“Do we know each other?” Rafferty asks.

“Good question,” the man in yellow says. “You know how a scientist looks at a bug? He gets to know the bug pretty well, but does the bug know him?”

“Shoot me,” Rafferty says, “but spare me the metaphors.”

“Come on. We’ve got to talk. You walk next to me, okay? And Mr. Left and Mr. Right will follow us so they can shoot you and disappear quickly if they have to.” He puts a hand on Rafferty’s arm, which Rafferty shrugs off, but to no effect-the man grabs him again.

Rafferty says, “I am so fucking sick of this.”

“You’ve been making me look bad,” the man says. He’s average height for a Thai, maybe five foot nine, a little meaty, with a receding hairline that gives him a thinker’s forehead. A pair of round, black, resolutely opaque sunglasses straddles a shapeless, fleshy nose. A few hairs straggle despairingly across his upper lip as though they’ve slowed to wait for the others to catch up.

“Hard to believe anyone could make you look bad,” Rafferty says. “Where are we going?”

“Right here.” The man opens the door to a large black SUV that Rafferty recognizes, his stomach clenching like a fist, as the one that had been idling in front of Pan’s Mesopotamian wall. “Get in,” Yellow Shirt says, holding wide the rear door.

“I’d rather not.”

“Okay, then, we’ll kill you.”

“And if I get in?”

The man in the yellow shirt smiles. “Wait and see.”

Rafferty climbs up onto the step that will take him into the SUV’s backseat, and his cell phone vibrates in his pocket. “Hold it,” he says, pulling it out.

The man’s hand is immediately on Rafferty’s wrist. “Put that back. Now.”

The readout says ARTHIT.

“Whoever it is,” the man in the yellow shirt says, “you can talk to him later.” And he plucks the phone out of Rafferty’s hand. It’s a very fast, very precise move.

Rafferty says, “Hey,” but someone pushes him hard, between the shoulder blades, and he lurches face-first through the door, cracking his shins on the second step. He lands on the leather backseat and is pushing himself up when the man in the yellow shirt, who is now in the front seat, points a small silvery automatic at him over the seat back.

“Just sit up,” he says. Rafferty sees his own face reflected in the dark glasses. He looks frightened. “In the middle. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Rafferty does as he’s told, and seconds later Mr. Left and Mr. Right climb into the car on either side of him. For a moment they sit there in silence, and Rafferty listens to the engine ticking as it cools. The tinted windows make them invisible from the sidewalk, but he doesn’t think they’d have shut down the engine if the plan called for them to shove a dead man out of the car and peel off into traffic.

“You’re not taking us seriously,” says Yellow Shirt. He looks at the phone. “Who’s Arthit?”

“A friend.”

“If he’s a friend, he’ll wait. I’m running out of patience with you. We called to tell you not to write the book. We did that little show outside Pan’s place. But here you are, running around and talking to people. As I said, it makes me look bad. So here we are again.” He waits.

Rafferty feels like the slowest person in the car. It hadn’t occurred to him that he was dealing with the other side. He’d half figured that the ones who warned him away from the book had been Pan’s guys, despite Pan’s denial, and that they’d be put on hold after he and Pan had their little talk. “What do you want me to say?” he asks.

“Nothing. And I want you to do nothing, and I mean nothing. No more meetings, no more conversations, no more research. This is the third time we’ve had to interact. The fourth time you’ll die. Understand?”

“Yes.”