A very drunk Japanese man bumps Arthit from behind and backs away, bowing, until he bumps into someone else.
'There's someone who'll be lucky to have a wallet tomorrow,' Arthit says. He starts walking again. 'Don't worry about it. Your idea was solid. We found the bar. We've got the girl. Everybody in Patpong is looking for him. He'll show, and we'll have him.'
'It doesn't work,' Rafferty says. 'He sees us in the restaurant, paints the door to scare us, and then disappears. Rose guesses he's got a girl and he's busy with her, and that's apparently true. But suddenly he's back, kicking in the door to kill us, trying to kidnap Miaow. I understand why he wants us dead. Rose is probably the only person who can tie him to the killings. What I don't understand is why he's suddenly got time to pay attention to us. I don't understand why that girl is in the club tonight.' He pauses. 'Maybe it has something to do with John?'
'How would he even know about John?' Arthit asks. You and Kosit said he was around the corner and in that cab, going in the other direction, by the time John got hit.'
'I don't know,' Rafferty says again. 'But there's something I don't understand, because she shouldn't have been in that bar.'
'So,' Arthit says, 'let's go see her.'
They cross to the far curb on Patpong 2 and head left, past a decent French restaurant, a little hostess bar, a blow-job dump, and a pharmacy. On their left are a couple of open-air bars that do most of their business in the afternoon, before the go-go clubs open. The men occupying the stools constitute a representative assortment of Caucasianus patpongus, mostly in their forties and fifties, mostly overweight, mostly drunk. Someone who looks like Horner, Rafferty thinks, would have cut through the competition like a bright new scalpel. Even before he met Rose, Rafferty knew that some of the Patpong girls were as susceptible to a romantic fantasy as any starstruck teenager. For every ten who saw the customers as ambulatory ATMs, there was always one-usually a new one-who still had her illusions.
The Thai Room is cold enough to hang meat in. Five of the women from Rose's agency, plus Kosit, are huddled together for warmth at a long banquette. Trapped dead center in the row between the table and the wall is a girl of nineteen or so with the kind of whole-new-race beauty the Thai genetic stew sometimes produces. She has skin the color of maple syrup, luminous eyes that seem to have been imported directly from India, a tiny and perfect nose, and an impossibly long neck that looks like it was made to be hung heavily with gold.
'Warm it up in here,' Arthit snaps at the waitress who greets them, holding menus of phone-book thickness. The Thai Room will take a slap at approximating any kind of cooking in the world, but their approach to the Thai food they cook for Thai patrons is more painstaking. 'And bring me whatever you're cooking for them.'
'They ordered a lot.'
'Pick the two items you'd feel most comfortable serving to a high-ranking policeman who's in a bad mood.'
The waitress blanches and retreats toward the kitchen, with a detour at the thermostat.
Rafferty grabs a chair from another table, and two of the women shift their own chairs so he can sit opposite the girl from the Office. She looks everywhere but at him.
He says, 'What's your name?'
The girl doesn't answer.
'Her name is Wan,' Fon says. 'She's not happy to be here.'
'You should be,' Rafferty says to her. Wan is busy moving her utensils around, trying to improve on the arrangement, her mouth a stubborn line. The plate in front of her is empty. He turns to Nit. 'How'd you get her here?'
Nit says, 'I bought her out.' Two of the women laugh.
'Where's Horner?' Rafferty asks.
Wan shakes her head.
'This man,' Rafferty says, holding up the picture.
'I don't know him,' Wan says in Thai.
Nit takes the utensils out of the girl's hand. 'Everybody in the bar identified him.'
'I don't know him,' Wan says again. She tries to push her chair back, but it bumps the wall. 'I go now.'
From behind Rafferty, Arthit says, 'Tell you what. You talk to us or I'll take you to the monkey house.'
Wan says, 'So?' But her eyes have widened at the words.
'Where's his hotel?' Rafferty asks.
She offers a shrug so packed with resentment that it reminds him of Miaow. 'How would I know?'
'Why aren't you with him? Why are you working tonight?'
'It's my job,' she says defiantly. 'I work at the Office Bar.'
'Wan,' Rafferty says in Thai, 'Howard is a killer.'
'Don't know Howard,' she says in English. 'I go.'
'My wife used to work in a bar. He tried to kill her.'
She's shaking her head. 'Don't know-'
'He killed a friend of hers. He killed at least five-'
'Why you no listen? Don't know Howard.'
'His wife,' Nit says, leaning in, 'is one of my best friends. She's helped every girl at this table. Howard took her out into the Andaman-'
Nit breaks off because Wan has whipped her head around to face her at the word 'Andaman.'
Rafferty jumps on her. 'Phuket. He was going to take you to Phuket. Wasn't he?'
The girl is shaking her head again, but the certainty in her face is softening.
'He took her-my wife, I mean-to the Andaman,' Rafferty says mercilessly, 'to Phuket. He told her he was going to marry her.'
Wan says, 'No,' but the word has little behind it except breath.
'Phuket was the first stop,' Rafferty says. 'After that he promised her they were going to her village so he could meet her parents and he could-'
She says, 'No, no, no.'
'— so he could pay the dowry. But instead he took her out in a boat and tried to kill her with a knife.'
Wan says, 'Not Howard. Not Howard.'
'Where is he?'
Her lower lip is moving as though she's going to say something, but she shakes her head and sits back. 'Don't know.'
'Where is he staying?'
She shakes her head again, and it's clear to Rafferty that she won't tell him.
'Is he coming to the Office later?'
A pause, then, 'No.'
'Why not?' No answer, and Rafferty stands, leaning on his knuckles on the tabletop. 'Why aren't you with him? Why are you working tonight?'
'He… he doesn't want me.'
'Why not?' He leans toward her. 'Why not?'
Everyone in the restaurant is staring at them.
Nit says, 'Poke.' She puts a reassuring hand on the girl's shoulder. 'Come on, little sister. It's not going to hurt anyone if you just tell us why he's not with you. Why he won't come to the bar tonight. And you know what? If we're wrong about him, you might help us get things right.'
With no transition Wan bursts into tears, not genteel sobbing but big, openmouthed, gulping howls. She cups her face in her hands and then pulls them away and slams her forehead against the table, so hard that all the silverware jumps. She lifts her head to do it again, but Rafferty slips his hand in, palm up, in the spot her forehead hit. She stares down at his hand, and the sobs deepen. She says to Nit, although Rafferty can barely understand the words, 'I have my period. He doesn't like it when-'
The restaurant door opens with a bang. Anand looks in, finds them, and says, 'Something's happening. Patpong 1. Everybody's running.'
Less than a minute later, having bulled his way through a dense crowd on the stub road with Arthit a step behind him, Rafferty enters the throng on Patpong 1 and sees hundreds of heads, all craning to see something to
