“Throw them in the river,” he says.

Rose nods, but for the moment she puts them on the dirt floor.

“Are we clear on all this?” Rafferty asks Boo.

Boo puts down the photos and picks up one of the phones. “Starting when?”

“Right now. I’ll give everybody money for moto-taxis. Just wave the bills at them. And listen, if anybody gets something out of the ordinary-for example, if any of these people meet each other-I want a phone call the moment you’ve got your video and you’re out of sight.” He gets up, dusting his jeans, and Arthit and Kosit follow suit. “I’m going to say it again, and I’m talking to every single one of you. If you’re in any kind of danger, forget the video. Just run.”

“We already know about running,” says the girl with the exploding hair.

“Good,” Rafferty says. “Let’s get started.”

“SHE NEEDS TO work it out for herself,” Rose says.

“She and Arthit,” Rafferty says. “Nobody needs my help.” They have their arms comfortably dangling from each other’s waists, and they stand only a few feet from the edge of the water, now just a black, flat, featureless plain with an upside-down city glittering near the opposite shore.

“Don’t be silly,” Rose says. She turns and lightly kisses the side of his neck. “You help just by being there.”

He leans toward her, forcing her to prolong the kiss. “That’s not enough.”

“She can’t confide in you,” Rose says. “She doesn’t know what’s wrong. All she knows is that she doesn’t fit anywhere. Not at school, not with the kind of kids who used to be her friends. She’s somewhere between here and there, and no one in either place really accepts her.”

“We accept her.”

“Come on. We’re wallpaper. In a kid’s life, the only people who really exist are other kids. Parents are like large, troublesome stuffed animals.”

“So what you’re telling me, in your tactful Thai way,” Rafferty says, turning to face her and cupping her chin in one hand, “is that I should keep my mouth shut.”

“Until she asks you,” Rose says. “Which she probably won’t.” She looks up at him for a moment, and then she says, “I never tell you how handsome you are.”

“And I know why.”

“Don’t even try that,” she says. “You know perfectly well how women look at you.”

“They sense solidity,” Rafferty says. “They know I’ll keep a fire burning in the mouth of the cave and that there will always be a haunch to gnaw on. Even if I put them in danger all the time. Rose, I’m so sorry about-”

“What they know,” Rose interrupts, “is that you’d give them a great time if you decided to pile on.”

Rafferty says, “Pile on?”

Rose leans forward and brushes his lips with hers. “Go away,” she says. “Do what you and Arthit have to do. Be careful. Watch out for Arthit. I don’t know how much he wants to stay alive. And don’t worry about Miaow. She’s tougher than you are.”

Rafferty says, “Pretty much everyone is.” He starts to climb up the bank but turns back and says, “Get rid of those phones.”

They don’t know where he is,” Captain Teeth says, putting down the phone and following Ton with his eyes. “He’s out with the wife somewhere.”

Ton is agitated in a way that unnerves Ren. The man paces the room, running his fingertips over the surfaces of the furniture as though expecting dust. He straightens everything he touches: photos, pens, ashtrays, knickknacks, but he never looks down at the result. He continually tugs at the sleeves of his jacket, as though they’re riding up on him. He buttons and unbuttons his sport coat. He hasn’t sat down in the twenty minutes since he burst into the room, swearing about Pan.

“Call back whoever you talked to,” Ton says. “Tell him if he can’t find his boss and put me in touch with him in half an hour, it’ll be years before he gets another job. I need the woman’s phone located, and that man’s boss is the only one who can authorize it.”

“Fine,” Captain Teeth says, dialing. He turns his back to Ton and, looking at Ren, rolls his eyes.

“Pan’s going to make an announcement,” Ton says. “He’s going…to make…an announcement. After everything we’ve learned from this…this fishing expedition with Rafferty, he’s going to make an announcement? You,” he says to Ren, “get on the phone and-” He is still for the first time since he came through the door. “No,” he says. “Forget it. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Ton goes through the door and into a long, dim hallway, paneled in reflective mahogany. The only lights gleam above paintings: a darkly polished Vuillard, two gauzy Renoirs, a pallid, drooping Madonna by the Dutch Vermeer forger of the 1930s, Han van Meegeren. Three doors down, he pushes his way into a room that’s empty except for some bare bookshelves, a grand piano, and a cello, leaning carelessly against a chair. On one of the bookshelves near the door is a telephone.

Ton picks it up, dials a number from memory, and says, “General? I’m sorry to bother you, but I think we should talk.” He listens for a second. “No, sir, I don’t think it’s anything fatal. But if you could give me a few minutes-Fine. I’ll wait for your call.” He hangs up and blots the bead of perspiration that’s gliding down toward his jawline.

THE NURSE’S CREPE-SOLED shoes squeak on the linoleum as she hurries after them. “Please, please,” she says. It’s an urgent whisper. “You can’t go in there. He’s not allowed to have visitors right now.”

Kosit speaks in his normal tone of voice, without looking back. “Did you see my uniform when we passed you?”

“Of course,” she hisses. “But still, the doctor says-”

“Tell the doctor to say it to me,” Kosit says. He pushes open the door to the patient’s room. “Now go away. We’re not going to interfere with your curing him.”

The nurse says, “There’s no curing him.”

“Then what are you worried about?” Kosit stands aside and lets Rafferty and Arthit precede him. Then he follows and closes the door in the nurse’s face. He turns his back to it and leans against it, his arms crossed.

The room is as dim and airless as a sealed cave. The flame on a candle, Rafferty thinks, would burn straight up, without a flicker. Porthip has been assigned to a high floor, with a view of Bangkok in all its sloppy, energetic life, a decision that seems to Rafferty to be tactless. Through the gauze-curtained window, arteries of light mark the progress of traffic down Sukhumvit, and neon smears the darkness with the vibrant colors of the city’s nightlife. By contrast, the single light hanging above the bed is a chalky bluish white, turning the face above the tugged-up covers into a pallid waxwork.

Porthip is flat on his back. His eyes are closed. The fat around his eyes has been burned away, and the eyeballs beneath the lids seem unusually large, as spherical as marbles. Suspended halfway down the intravenous drip that snakes under the covers to attach to the man’s wrist is a morphine-delivery unit with a plunger the patient can use when the pain is too much to bear. Beside the bed, green screens monitor the struggles of the heart that gave out yesterday, abandoning the depleted body to the cancer that is devouring it. As he approaches the bed, Rafferty studies the face. Stripped of the energy that had animated it, it seems a frail mask, bones hollowed out to create a thin shell over emptiness. Rafferty feels a cold prickling between his shoulder blades, seeing his own face in forty or fifty years.

Porthip’s eyelids flicker.

Rafferty says, “You’re awake.”

The eyes open, focused somewhere beyond Rafferty. With evident effort, Porthip brings them to Rafferty’s face. His forehead creases for a second and then clears. “You,” he says. “I wondered.”