Suddenly the hunter is hunted. I wait like a scared rabbit while he unhurriedly walks down the soi until he has found me. I know that the distortion in the right pocket of his shorts is caused by the cell phone; a gun would be bigger. Nor does he look especially lethal in his physique: a couple of inches shorter than me, about forty-five with a potbelly.

Now he is peering curiously at me. “Are you going to assassinate me tonight?” he asks. He reaches out with both hands to pull me by the lapels of my jacket. It’s not an aggressive move, and I wonder what he has in mind until I realize he is dragging me toward a streetlamp. He positions us so that I can get a good look at his face. It is twisted in spiritual agony. He prods at the gun in my pocket.

“Why don’t you kill me? I would consider it a favor.” I stare into his anguish. He swallows hard. “My wife and daughter are both servants in his mansion. He treats them well. They’re not beautiful, so he never lays a hand on them. But I’m his slave. I hope you understand.”

20

“A body fitting the description you gave last night arrived at the morgue at six this morning,” Dr. Supatra says. She has called while I’m getting dressed. Chanya is at the wat begging the Buddha to overlook her former profession and provide a healthy, happy, and above all lucky baby.

“Who brought it?”

“Detective Inspector Kurakit.”

“Where did he say the body was found?”

“At an apartment rented by the deceased.”

“You were not invited to investigate the scene?”

“No.”

“Thanks,” I say, and close the phone.

I call Manny, Vikorn’s secretary, to ask her to put me through to the boss. I can tell by her tone that she’s been primed already. “He’s out at a meeting.”

“No, he’s not.”

“He’s very busy, Detective. I’m not sure he’s got time for you today.”

“I want to know why I’m not on the new murder case that came in this morning.”

“Do you want me to ask him for you?”

“No. He’ll say it’s because I have my hands full already. I want to speak to him.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

No call comes, of course. Our protocol is of such rigidity that he might as well have taken a trip to the moon-there is no way of getting to him if he doesn’t want to see me. I guess I’ll have to try to deal with Kurakit. It would have to be him, of course.

We don’t hate each other, for the simple reason that to hate another person you have to understand them on some level. Kurakit is as baffled by me as I am by him. From his point of view, I’m an idiot who should never have been recruited in the first place. A devout Buddhist and a former soldier, to Kurakit and millions like him, life is very simple: find a billet, identify the boss, do whatever he tells you to do, and accept the promotions that follow. To him, my complicated psychology is a sure sign of insanity. He has, of course, been warned that I might call.

“How are you?” I ask with as much bonhomie as I can muster.

Suspiciously: “Okay.”

“I hear a new case came in early this morning.”

“Who told you?”

“Is it a secret?”

“It’s my case. Colonel Vikorn called me at home at four o’clock this morning. You’re too busy to deal with it.”

“I’m not trying to steal it from you. It might be connected to something I’m working on -maybe we should brainstorm together.”

“Brain what? What are you talking about? It’s not connected to anything you’re working on.”

“How do you know?”

“Vikorn said so. He said if you called, I was to tell you it’s not connected.”

“Did he tell you who did it?”

“No.”

“But he told you who didn’t do it?”

“Maybe.”

“Did he tell you a certain senior banker named Tanakan had nothing to do with it?”

“Yes. No. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

He hangs up. I call again. “At least let me have the address where the body was found.”

“No. I’m not allowed to.”

This time I hang up. I call Dr. Supatra instead to ask her for the address on the admission form that Kurakit must have completed. She’s too busy to deal with it right now but promises to fax the form to me, which includes Nok’s ID number and her original address in her home village. While I’m waiting for the fax, the FBI calls.

“Sonchai, d’you know I think what you’re doing is evil? I’ve thought about it-there’s no other word. It’s so medieval, like castrating choirboys or something. He’s only doing it to sell his body, isn’t he?”

“I told you why he’s doing it.”

“I don’t buy it. It’s an Oriental cover-up. You people, I’m starting to get the picture here, you still play this game of making ugly things look pretty so you can sell them.”

“Advertising is a Western invention. Ever watch a cigarette advertisement? They used to feature pure mountain streams, so they could sell poison that gave people lung cancer. I was bombarded with them throughout my youth. So were you, probably. You’ve just got a dose of culture shock, that’s all.”

“It’s so grotesque. Cutting everything off like that, then giving him a phony vagina. Ugh!”

“Do you feel the same way about breast implants? If you do, you could start a nice new pressure group in your own country, keep yourself occupied for decades.”

She fumes over the telephone. “You think I’m just another lost farang woman looking for a soapbox to bitch on, don’t you?”

“I think you’re in love with Lek,” I say.

Two beats pass. Cautiously: “Is he gay?”

“For Buddha’s sake, no. He’s never had sex in his life and likely never will. With his kind of katoey, the lust is all in the conversation. They can be quite prudish when it comes to the crunch. I told you, he’s a female spirit in a man’s body. All he wants to do is express his inner truth. Sorry if it’s difficult.” Exasperated, I hang up.

She calls again in the time it takes to press an autodial button. “Did you say express his inner truth? Well, that’s what I want to do too. That’s why I’m here. You wanted to know, that’s why. I never thought of it like that till you used that phrase.”

“If it involves seducing him, you’d better not use precision bombing-it tends to antagonize. Try a little sympathy. Try taking him seriously. He’s the one with the guts to have the surgery-give him a little credit.”

A pause. “Has he really never had sex? How old is he?”

“Twenty-two, and I’m busy.” I hang up, then turn off the phone and go to lunch.

When I check with the telephone company, I am given the number of Nok’s family home. Now I hesitate. After all, she died because of me – how easy will it be to face her people? I decide to check the apartment first.

The address is way out of town, quite near the new airport, which is not yet open. When I arrive in a cab, after more than an hour stuck in traffic on Sukhumvit 101,I realize that she lived in a standard one-room accommodation in a project intended as a dormitory for airport drudges. The apartment building is designed much like a prison, with ten-by-fourteen-foot cells giving onto an internal corridor. She lived on the fifth floor, which is the top, and there is no lift. The doors of the cells are secured by means of crude padlocks, but when I arrive at Nok’s, I see that her door is open. I knock anyway and enter. Five people are in the room, including a couple in their midfifties who must be her parents, a young man in his early twenties, a young woman who may be still in her teens, and a boy about seven years old. There is nothing else in the tiny room apart from a futon and some women’s clothes on hangers that are hooked over a length of molding. My eyes fixate on the boy for a moment; I hope he is not Nok’s son. In her conversations she never mentioned she had a child. “I am Detective Jitpleecheep,” I say.

There is no hope at all in the five sets of eyes that stare at me. As a rule, cops don’t offer it. There is fear in the mother’s and daughter’s expressions, anger in that of the son. Neither the father nor the grandson seems to understand what is going on. I say, “May I ask why you’re here?”