“Black sorcery?” I ask.

She shrugs. “It’s not good to think about what they did in that family. It will bring bad luck.”

“Did they use their own children?”

“Yes.”

“What about her brother?”

For the first time a moment of concern appears in her face, then is quickly erased. “She loved him. She’s the only reason he survived. A very weak spirit. Perhaps he cannot survive on his own without her.” Casting me a glance: “Do you know how her father died?”

“How her father died? Why don’t you tell me?”

“Very unlucky to talk about a violent death like that.” She lays a hand on my forearm. “I’m a non-Returner.”

It’s odd to hear a Buddhist technical expression used by someone who is obviously the product of some shamanistic cult, but when the Indians brought Buddhism to Thailand, much of it was absorbed into local animism. Nowadays it is quite common to hear people like the dwarf talk about “non-Returners.” Buddhist monks who believe they have achieved this level are careful not to commit a blunder that will land them in the flesh yet again. Even talking in an inappropriate way can ruin your disembodiment plans.

There are few proprieties to observe in the country. When I’ve finished eating, I get up to go, casting the dwarf one last glance. Without looking at me, she says, “They made the children watch, you know. Both of them, so they wouldn’t turn out like their father. The girl was just about old enough to take it-like I say, she was very strong. But the boy…”

“They watched their father die?”

She raises a finger to her lips. As I leave, the hostess calls to me in an urgent voice, as if there is something vital she forgot to tell me. “They’re Khmer, you know, not Thai people at all.”

At the main road I manage to wave down a pickup truck that will take me to the nearest bus station for a hundred baht. My driver is the best kind of country man: silent, devout, honest. In the delicious emptiness that surrounds him, my mind will not cease its endless narrative:

A Third-World Pilgrim’s Progress

1. Born into karma too daunting to contemplate, you decide to go to sleep for life.

2. Mother does not permit option I: you do run under the elephant, whether you like it or not.

3. Ruthlessness and rage at least produce reactions from society, unlike good behavior, which leads to slavery and starvation. Only sex and drugs pay a living wage. You have seen the light.

4. At the top of your game and winning, you regret aborting love. Too late, you have reached thirty and demons are massing on the horizon. Only death can save you now. One question remains: who will you take with you?

Welcome to the new millennium.

28

“Where is he, Lek?”

It pains me to use this tone, to reduce my protege to a sulky child, but I’m at the end of my rope. I’ve been back two days and seen no sign of Phra Titanaka.

“I don’t know,” Lek says camply, pouts, and looks at the floor. We are at the station in one of the small interrogation rooms, which hardly helps Lek’s mood.

“I’m sure you got close to him while I was away. I think you’re lying. I know he’s got you involved somehow. I saw you talking to him at the wat.”

He jumps up, his face exploding with hurt. “I’ve never lied to you in my life, I couldn’t lie to you -I have gatdanyu with you. You protect me every minute of the day. If you stamp all over my heart, I’ll kill myself.”

I pass a hand over my face. “I’m sorry, Lek. There’s no way I can pretend to you that I’m strong enough for this case. You’ll have to bear with me. I think you must have seen him while I was away. You were getting on so well.”

Now his mood has changed. He comes over to comfort me. Master, I’m so sorry for you. I would do anything to help.“

“When did you last see him?”

“He came to say goodbye when you were in Cambodia.”

“That’s all?”

“He asked me for your cell phone number. I gave it to him.”

I nod. Somehow it is inevitable that I must turn in the wind, awaiting a young monk’s pleasure. There’s karma here: I’m paying one hell of a price for those ten days of ecstatic misery I spent with Damrong.

Apart from the sudden spat with Lek, I’ve been listless all day. Just to get out of the station, I tell Lek I’m going for a massage, but I don’t really intend to have one. Outside, though, passing the Internet cafe- which has entirely lost its magic now that Damrong’s brother no longer uses it-I decide I may as well have the massage anyway. A wicked impulse of pure self-destruction suggests I should go to the third floor and have the works; that maybe two hours of luscious, aromatic, oily, slippery, seminal, orgasmic self-indulgence might be exactly what I need. I know it won’t help my self-esteem in the longer term, however, and I think of Chanya, even though I know she wouldn’t mind, would even encourage me if it would improve my mood. So I go for my usual two hours on the second floor.

All through the first hour my mind is hopping like a louse on a marble floor, and I hardly notice the massage. I calm down eventually, and I’m able to retrieve just an echo of the peace that once was mine by right. Then the cell phone rings. I left it in the pocket of my pants, which are hanging on a hook above the mattress. Even while the masseuse is pressing her knee into my lower spine, I grab my pants and feverishly fish out the phone.

“I need to talk,” Phra Titanaka says.

The cop in me recognizes a weakness finally, perhaps even an admission. “Talk.”

I beckon to the masseuse to go to something less strenuous- maybe tie my feet in a knot-while I’m talking. In reality it doesn’t matter what she does; my mind is focused on the monk’s slow, deliberate, cool tone.

“They sold her when she was fourteen,” the disembodied voice says into my ear. “It was a family decision. I wasn’t included in the discussion, but Damrong was. She agreed to work in a brothel in Malaysia as indentured labor on condition they look after me properly.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Your sorrow is a teaspoon of sugar in an ocean of bitterness.”

“I’m sorry for that too,” I say.

“It was one of those sixteen-hour-a-day jobs. She had to service twenty customers every twenty-four hours, minimum. The first night, though, they auctioned her virginity to the highest bidder. He was by no means gentle.”

“Oh, Buddha, I’m-”

“Cut it out, or you’ll miss the point. The contract was for twelve months. When she came home, she wasn’t the same at all. Not at all. But she checked on how well they had treated me. She asked me and everyone in the village, and she checked my body, my weight, everything. No one had ever seen her like that before. Totally efficient, totally cold.” A pause. “Of course, they hadn’t treated me very well at all. They’d spent her money on moonshine and yaa baa.” A long pause. “So she made them pay. Can you guess?”

No, I tell him, I cannot possibly guess how a helpless, impoverished, used and abused, uneducated fifteen-year-old girl could punish two hardened criminals.

“She snitched on our father to the cops. She arranged for him to be caught red-handed during one of his burglaries.” I know from his tone that he heard my intake of breath. “It worked better than she could have imagined. The cops were sick of him for his endless crimes. They killed him with the elephant game.” Another pause. “She was ecstatic. I remember the shine in her eyes. Next time she took on a contract of prostitution, in Singapore this time, my mother treated me very well for the whole six months. When she was sober.”

He has closed the phone.

When he next calls, the massage is over and I am in the process of paying the masseuse.

“I forgot to tell you, Detective. There was a written contract- Damrong insisted on it.”