phone and smiles.) Linda: Okay, I guess Thailand is about to be a center for organ trafficking. Jack: I didn’t quite catch what he said. Ben: Me either. Linda: I didn’t get all of it word for word, but the guy he spoke to runs the corrections services’ pre-sales unit. Ben: Pre-sales? Linda: Yeah, pre-sales of organs of prisoners on death row. Everybody wants fresh. I guess a few bodies with the organs ripped out and delivered to a Thai location would be no problem for him at all. Jack (shaking his head): The magic of guanxi. Ben: Right. Linda (to Notto): You sure they won’t be identified as executed Chinese felons? Notto: Yes.
Now I’m back in the hovel dressing and combing my hair, which the victory dance disheveled somewhat, at the same time as I’m putting a few finishing touches to what, if I may say so, is an impeccable piece of detection, when my attention is suddenly diverted against my will. It’s called possessiveness. I can’t help it-with conjugal alienation, I’ve become sensitive to little things, such as the fact that her telephone just rang and she turned away from the door and began speaking too softly for me to hear.
“Who was that, darling?” I say, putting on my Zegna jacket and trying to look as if I’m just making conversation.
“Ah, that was Colonel Vikorn, darling.”
I turn, aghast and confused. Why didn’t he talk to me? Controlling myself: “Really, what did he want?”
“He wanted to know what you were wearing, so I told him.”
“He wanted to know-”
My phone rings. It’s Vikorn. “Why are you wearing that getup?”
“To go to the bank.”
A pause. “Don’t go to the bank. Isn’t there a General Zinna line for you to follow up?”
“Yes, but-”
“Good. Go see Zinna. And change out of that crap. He’ll think you’ve turned gay and try to screw you.” He closes the phone.
Now I’m sitting bewildered on a chair. Chanya stands behind me and strokes my hair, then starts to massage my head.
“You were spying on me,” I say.
She giggles. “Honey, if you’ve worked out what I think you’ve worked out, then d’you think Vikorn and the Americans would want you making contact with the person I think you are trying to make contact with?”
“I’m a murder squad detective,” I say. “I got carried away. For a moment I was a real cop.”
“I understand that,” Chanya says, still massaging. “But-and do correct me if I’m wrong-isn’t there a genuine Zinna line? I mean, how is it that he has so many connections in Phuket? Isn’t that worth following up?”
I hear myself saying, “Yes. I guess I’ll have to make another trip down there.”
She freezes for a moment, then transforms. At lightning speed she has processed the thought that I might cheat on her in Phuket, closed all emotional hatches, and refocused with 200 percent attention on her ambition. “Of course you will,” she says, staring at the street. The massage is over.
Now my phone rings again. It’s Vikorn. “Have you been to the morgue yet?”
“Of course I went to the morgue.”
“I mean after the first time? Dr. Supatra called yesterday, I forgot to tell you. She says she has made progress with identification of the three victims.”
22
In Dr. Supatra’s underground lair, death imbues everyday tools with an outlandish dignity: giant pruning shears; those big handsaws normally used for cutting up logs; and rotary electric saws of various sizes. The one that gives me the creeps more than any other is the longhandled wire cutter, the kind you see in war movies when the sappers crawl on their bellies to cut through barbed wire: Supatra uses it to bust her way through rib cages. In the case of the three anonymous ones, though, there wasn’t a lot left to investigate.
The doctor is in her office next to the autopsy room. She smiles when she sees me through the glass wall and stands to come to the door to greet me. “Detective, that software I told you about finally arrived. I’m halfway through. It’s quite exciting.”
She leads me to her desk and gestures for me to pull up a chair. She is finding it difficult to suppress a girlish glee in her new toy. When she jogs her mouse, a human head appears on her monitor in stark ghost white against a green background: eyeless, faceless, thin neck.
“It’s the second girl, the thin one.”
“I thought you said it was two men and a woman?”
Dr. Supatra shifts her gaze to something on the wall. “We all make mistakes. We thought she was a young male who had been castrated. It turns out she had very poorly developed genitals-not uncommon.” She glances at my face, then turns back to the computer. “Sometimes even the Olympic organizers can’t tell a man from a woman. It’s not always totally clear. She had no breast development at all.” She pauses to look at me. “Of course, in reality sexual identity is merely another illusion we seize on in our pathetic need to be someone. You know that.”
She clicks on the mouse, and a second portrait appears. “You see, the computer takes a three-D photograph of the skull, or rather a whole series of photographs turning three-hundred-sixty degrees, then puts together a three-D image. That’s the easy part. Then we have to input other details, such as approximate age, genetic origins, et cetera. I wasn’t sure so I simply clicked on ‘Southeast Asian.’ ”
Now we are looking at a generic bald Southeast Asian with somewhat slit eyes, flat nose, and high cheekbones. It’s a boyish face with no distinguishing features.
“That’s as far as we’ve gone with that one. There’s still a lot of data to input.” She clicks on a side panel a few times, then types something on her keyboard. “I’ve reached about the same point with the other woman. But the man is nearly finished. Now, here is the untouched three-hundred-sixty-degree image of the male.”
The screen is filled with another eyeless, faceless skull, somewhat fuller and stronger-looking than the other. At the next click we are staring at the skull-plus-eyes-and-skin phase. Once again the eyes are slightly mongoloid in the Thai style and the nose small and flared. I nod.
“Now, here he is after I’ve put in all the data.”
The next window produces an individuated male face with black hair, oval eyes with black pupils, and a well-modeled nose, still small but slightly aquiline. My jaw is hanging open.
“What’s the matter? D’you recognize him?”
“Can you squash the eyes a bit more, make them more Mongoloid-I mean Chinese, not Thai?” A few clicks, and the eyes stretch. “A moustache, tightly clipped, very thin, jet black, for the whole length of the upper lip.” More clicks. “Make the hair a bit longer at the front with a cowlick that crosses his forehead from left to right, and a beauty spot just under his left eye.” More clicks. I’m riveted by the screen. “Can you make him smile? The teeth are perfect, slightly large for the mouth, and brilliant white. Good, now darken his skin just a little, not Thai brown, but not Chinese porcelain either-between the two.” I’m squashing my own face between my palms.
“Do you know his name?”
“Not To.”
“Not To? You mean Notto, or his name is not To?”
“Yes. Can we work on the other two together?”
It takes about an hour, with Supatra constantly cross-referring to her base data to make sure I’m not straying from what is scientifically justified. Now we have Notto and his two female assistants, one hardly distinguishable from a boy, the other full-bodied and voluptuous with black-rimmed spectacles. I stand up and pace the room, throwing wild glances at the monitor, as Supatra clicks, and To with his two assistants appear one by one in a revolving show.
There goes my beautiful theory; I make a note of the life lesson: that’s what you get from premature victory dances. “Can you do a group portrait with the man in the middle, the young woman on his right, the older woman on his left? Perfect.” I am transfixed. As I pass and repass the screen, Notto’s eyes follow me. I can almost hear him speak: Oh no, you do not go anywhere. You stay here in Bangkok. “Please print everything. I need copies of each plus copies of the three together.”
“So, do you have a lead now?” Supatra says as I prepare to leave with the printouts.
