“Exactly how well did you know Mitch Turner?”

Mustafa turns to his father. This is a question they anticipated. “We asked him to leave, once,” the old man says with a sigh. “Unfortunately, our visit to his apartment had the opposite effect. The Western mind is wild and unpredictable, devoid of center. He came to see me several times after that, and I offered what solace I could to an infidel. You Buddhists have your nirvana, we have Allah, even true Christians have a path of sorts, beset though it is by childish miracles. But what of these products of capitalism like Mr. Turner? Human souls locked out from God forever. One hears their screams of anguish even while they drop their bombs, these young people who have no idea who they are. They think they are killing others. They are killing themselves. I warned him of his death wish, but a good part of his identity had already been annihilated. He was a collection of cover stories.”

A long pause. “Now I understand better,” I say. “In any investigation it will be discovered that you knew him, that he came to see you, that you were able to eavesdrop on him. You’re right, it won’t look good.”

“Come,” Mustafa says in a voice of such urgency I think for a moment he intends to take me out of the room. “Come to Songai Kolok. We know about you. You are a complex man, but truthful. You take your Buddhism seriously. If you make your report early, exonerating us, it will be difficult for anyone to contradict later.”

“But how can I justify a report when the case is closed?”

Impatiently: “Your Colonel will not fool the CIA. We don’t know the details of the cover-up, exactly, but it will certainly be a pack of lies. The Americans will be sending agents very soon, and everyone knows how dishonest they are. Would people who invade sovereign countries on false pretenses stop at anything? There are many interests in the West who benefit from wars with Islam.”

I shake my head, glance from one to the other. “So now you’ve made it my problem?”

I may be mistaken, but I do believe I glimpsed a smile pass over the old man’s lips.

11

I’m wearing my earphones, listening to Rod Tit FM at the same time as wondering what to do about the noble imam and his son. I’m of a mind to call Vikorn, who has flown up to his mansion in Chiang Mai for a few days. Subtext: to be with his fourth mia noi, or minor wife, a spirited young woman who doesn’t take any nonsense from the gangster-and won’t have his kids either, a revolutionary form of mutiny that Vikorn has never had to deal with before. My mind flits to Pisit, who is nattering in my ear about how superstitious we Thais still are. He is taking his rage out on a moordu, a professional seer and astrologer whom Pisit clearly despises.

Pisit: Take the current trend to buy lottery predictions.

Seer: Yes?

Pisit: I mean, how pathetic. Thais are spending more on these little pamphlets that you see all over the newsstands than we spend on pornography.

Seer: Is it your point that pornography would be a superior superstition?

Pisit: My point is that pornography is not a superstition at all. In other countries newsstands make money from honest lust, not medieval mumbo jumbo. Do you have any input into these predictions?

Seer: No, I’m not qualified.

Pisit: Oh, so there’s a branch of your profession with special qualifications to predict next week’s winning lottery numbers?

Seer: You could say that.

Pisit: And could you tell us what is the success rate?

Seer: It depends. Some have a high degree of accuracy-they can improve one’s luck by as much as fifty percent.

Pisit: Just by someone like you staring into a crystal ball?

Seer: Not exactly. You see, someone pays a bribe to the lottery operator, then they make a profit by selling the information to the pamphleteers. They have to pretend it’s mumbo-jumbo, as you put it, and dilute the success rate, or someone will get suspicious. It’s not as risky as bribing an operator, then winning the lottery outright. People get caught that way.

I finally summon the courage to call Vikorn, who hates to have to deal with business when he’s at his retreat in Chiang Mai. He listens, though, and I note a catch in his voice when he says: “Nusee Jaema is involved? You’re sure?”

“Yes. You know him?”

“Of course. He’s the main moderate influence down there. He set up a network, which his son runs. He’s walking a tightrope. If he cooperates with us, his people might see him as a traitor. If he doesn’t, he might be seen as a militant.”

“What kind of network?”

“Information. You better go down there, see what you can find out.”

There’s nothing for it, it seems, but a trip to the benighted South. But back at the bar next morning I am distracted, not for the first time, by an e-mail message on a computer monitor:

Michael James Smith, born in Queens, City of New York, Social Security Number: 873 97 4506, profession: attorney; marital status: divorced (five times); children: three; financial position: wealthy; criminal record: none, successfully avoided conviction for substance abuse a number of times, by hiring an expensive lawyer. Military service: enlisted for Indochina War, 1969-70, rank of major; served with honor (Bronze Star and Purple Heart); believed to have attended detox program for alcoholism during March/April 1988; active member of Veterans Against the War.

The e-mail comes from one Kimberley Jones, an FBI special agent who worked with me on the cobra case. The karmic reward I continue to enjoy from refusing to sleep with her, despite a campaign of threats, bribes, cajoling, and tantrums on her part, is that she has become a friend for life. (The karmic price is that she still won’t give up-this particular message is unique in that it is entirely free of sexual innuendo, declarations of undying lust, or the legendary fury of a woman scorned.) I am now inestimably in her debt, for she has adopted Thai ways to the extent of putting personal feelings before abstract duty and used the FBI database to illegally obtain these precious details of Michael James Smith, attorney, Vietnam war veteran, former user of Thai prostitutes (at least one, once), and father of at least four children, not three. My cell phone rings even while I’m staring at the screen.

“You got it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re reading it right now, aren’t you?”

“Yes. How did you know that?”

“Love intuition. How do you feel?”

“Terrified.”

“Going to get in touch with him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Going to tell your mom?”

“I don’t know.”

“You mean I went to all this trouble and risked my career just so you can do your Thai thing and think about it for the next three lifetimes?”

“I want to thank you. You’ve done something no one else could have.”

“Thank me with your body next time I’m over there.”

“Okay.”

Silence. “Was that a yes?”

“Yes. How could I refuse?”

“But you don’t really want to?”

“Don’t be such a farang. I owe you, I’ll pay, you’ll enjoy.”

Whispered: “Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Have you any idea how horny this is making me? How am I going to get back to sleep now?”

“Thanks.”

“I’m going to hang up, Sonchai. This is doing something to my head, I don’t know what.”

“You can say heart if you like.”

“Yes. Right. Heart. I said it. Bye.”

She hangs up. Now I’m alone again with Michael James Smith, the Superman who came in from the war one fine night to find his destiny waiting behind a bar in Pat Pong. The man I mythologized long before I knew his name. The bastard whose bastard I am.

I’m shocked that his name is really Mike Smith. I extracted it from my mother after three decades of cajoling and begging, but I was convinced she was lying. The name and the Vietnam record and the approximate age were all Kimberley Jones had to go on, plus the likelihood that he had become a lawyer and was born in Queens. I never asked her to do it. She must have thought about it for months before compromising herself. I guess that means a lot in farang-land, no?