Ishy paused to swallow more sake and spared a moment to stare curiously at one of the serving girls who had brought a friend from the kitchen and, crouching in front of him, was stimulating his member once again.

“It was as though I was remembering a previous lifetime. I directly experienced the excitement of the first woodblocks: to be able to make unlimited prints: what a breakthrough! And Moronobu’s genius in seeing that ukiyo-e was the perfect subject! I followed ukiyo-e from these beginnings, through Masanobu, Harunobu, Utamaro, Hiroshige, and ultimately the incomparable Hokusai. But like any good apprentice, I perceived my master’s weakness. No, that’s too strong a word-let us say every generation must reinterpret reality in a form most suitable for them. This is the age of immediacy, is it not? How many kids have the attention span to even visit a museum or an art gallery, much less meditate on the wonders therein? But a Hokusai indelibly etched into the fabric of your own skin, now that speaks to the twenty-first century, that-I knew-even the dullest Japanese, even a mobster, would be able to appreciate. As soon as I could, I moved into a microscopic apartment in Shinbashi, the old red-light district of Tokyo. It was exactly like coming home.” To the serving girl: “You only have to make it hard, darling, you don’t have to make me come.”

“It’s amazing.”

“Thank you. Another bottle, please.”

I confess I could not resist watching while, suddenly bereft of care and attention, the great battleships sank into flaccidity. But it was four-fifteen in the morning-the Japanese manager of the bar, apparently in awe of Ishy and his tattoos, had allowed us to stay long after he locked the front door-but now the serving girls were in jeans and T-shirts. Having exhausted the power and wonder of Ishy’s donburi, they were ready to go home to bed. I myself could not think straight, otherwise I would never have made the blunder that still haunts me as I write.

“Mitch Turner,” I mumbled, hardly able to remain on my stool. The name slowly penetrated Ishy’s drunken skull, light dawned, and he stared at me in horror, then slid off his stool onto the floor. I wanted to assist but fell down myself. The manager helped me into a taxi. I gave orders that Ishy was to be taken care of, his address obtained if necessary by going through his pockets. It had taken a week of hard footwork to find him-I didn’t want to lose him. But I fear my instructions lost much of their original clarity to the alcohol that twisted my tongue. It had been an extraordinary night. I needed to pass out.

At about ten in the morning I woke up in a panic from an alcoholic coma. In my dream Pichai had come to me again: Why didn’t you arrest the donburi?

Staring wide-eyed into cosmic darkness: He got me drunk. I think it was the tattoos. Who in hell is he?

Pichai’s voice cracked up as with a defective satellite connection: Renegade… naga in human form… Nalanda… way back… tattoos… powerful magic… try decoy-stakeout…

From my bed, head splitting with the worst hangover I can remember, I called the Japanese restaurant. Only the cleaning staff were on duty. Using Intimidating Voice, I persuaded the woman who answered the phone to get me the boss’s home number. When I rang him, he denied knowing anyone called Ishy. No, he had never met a Japanese of that bizarre description-was I sure I had the right restaurant?

36

Now you find me in familiar mode, farang, sitting in front of a computer monitor in my favorite Internet café, scrolling through various entries in the online version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. You need not feel inferior, I don’t know what the hell ukiyo-e is either. Here we are: These depicted aspects of the entertainment quarters (euphemistically called the “floating world”) of Edo (modern Tokyo) and other urban centers. Common subjects included famous courtesans and prostitutes, kabuki actors and well-known scenes from kabuki plays, and erotica. Ukiyo-e artists were the first to exploit the medium of woodblocks.

The coincidence strikes me as almost grotesquely literary. Now Vikorn calls me on my mobile. I am summoned to the police station, where I am ushered into Vikorn’s office. Hudson is there, somewhat wild-eyed, pacing up and down. The impression of a mind unraveling is quite strong. Or to be more accurate, the Alien Within is clearly taking over. I suspect an Andromedan, although I’m not an expert.

“Progress?” Hudson asks.

I tell a tall tale of tattoos and whores, a drunken night with Hokusai’s posthumous apprentice, the effect that the two words Mitch Turner seemed to have, although in the circumstances it was hard to be sure.

“I need the Islamic connection,” Hudson barks, staring at Vikorn. “That bitch is gonna have all our balls if she finds out about that little trip of yours to Indonesia.” Swallowing: “I also want that fucking laptop.”

Vikorn is hard to read at this moment. Is he actually intimidated by Hudson, or is he merely being obliging? My intuition discards both possibilities. Something is going on here, some drama long suppressed reaching back to before I was born. Vietnam/Laos: what is my karma here? My father? It is disturbingly easy to see Hudson as the source of the seed that became me, even though he is not Mike Smith. As Hudson turns his gaze to me, Vikorn stares at Hudson in a way I’ve never seen before.

“Forget the fucking tattoos,” Hudson is saying. “Forget the whole Japanese connection. It’s a red herring. Follow the Islamic trail. No Victory but Allah’s.” He hesitates for a moment, then recites what I take to be the original words from the Koran in Arabic. To me his accent sounds impeccable; there is relish in the guttural tones. Defensively (catching the look on my face): “I’m a good American, I’m entitled to my schizophrenia.”

He paces, goes to the window again, stares out, then begins to speak in that narrative voice that might belong to a different man, or at least an earlier version of this one. There is heavy metal in the midtones.

“Most people don’t stay in the Agency very long. It’s like any other job in the States-Americans get restless, bored, enraged that their talents are not properly appreciated. We move on. We move on-change the view every ten minutes, and you can convince yourself for a while that you’ve escaped the treadmill. But not forever. After a certain specific moment in life, you start to look back. You discern a pattern. Something ugly, manic, cramped, tortured, and repetitive. That pattern is what you are, what your culture has made of you. But that’s not a reason for giving up. It’s not a reason for becoming a Mitch Turner. It’s not a reason for changing sides. You got to soldier on, right or wrong. How you ever gonna know how wrong you are, how you ever gonna learn your life’s lesson, if you’re just a feather in the wind? You gotta suck it all up-there’s no other way.”

He resumes his seat as if nothing unusual has happened. “I want you to go back down south. Stop frigging around with mad Japs and crazy Bangkok whores. Stay there for a month, a year if you have to.” He passes a hand over his spiky short hair as if to enforce patience. “And I want that fucking laptop.” Another pause, then: “Before she gets it.”

I raise my eyes to Vikorn, who nods.

But I really don’t want to go back down south on a wild-goose chase. A brief prayer to the Buddha does the trick. I have no sooner stuck the incense in the sandbox than my mobile starts twanging.