Timothy Hallinan - The Queen of Patpong

Miaow's eyebrows go up in surprise. "Two. It starts in sixth period."

"One-thirty," Arthit says into the phone. "See you then." He disconnects and says, "Come with me, Rose."

Rafferty says to his receding back, "What do you mean, I won't check it out? Who will?"

Rose gets up and follows Arthit into the dining room with Rafferty trailing along behind, his question unanswered. Arthit lifts the lid on a laptop that's sitting on the dining-room table and brings up Gmail. At the top of the messages in his in-box is one with the subject heading HORNER. Arthit opens it and clicks on the first attachment.

A fuzzy, low-res black-and-white picture of Howard Horner fills the screen. He's got glasses on, and he's puffed out his cheeks with just enough air to change the shape of his face. He's also tilted his head back so the glasses are bouncing light into the camera lens, making his eyes invisible.

"That's not him. Is it?" Miaow asks from behind them.

"Exactly," Arthit says. He flicks through the other attachments. There are six of them in all, generic pictures of a white male in his early thirties. Beards and mustaches come and go, as do a couple of wigs and several pairs of glasses. "He's good at this."

"No one will recognize him from these," Rose says, and then she straightens and says, "Oh."

Rafferty says, "Oh?"

"We need to go back in the other room and sit down."

Arthit says, "If you say so," and he gets up, and they all follow Rose.

"Give me a second," she says, sitting back down on the couch. She picks up her glass of iced coffee and drains it, then closes her eyes for a second, and then she says, "He's got another one."

"Another girl," Rafferty says.

"Sure. That's why he was in Patpong the night we saw him in the restaurant. That's why he's leaving me alone right now. He does one thing at a time. He gives it-he gave me-all his attention. He's working on some girl right now. When he's finished with her, or when there's a natural break in the, the courtship, he'll get around to me."

"A girl in Patpong," Arthit says. "How many years has it been?'

Rose slides her fingertips around through the coating on the inside of her empty glass and then licks them. "He took me in 1998, 1999. He spent months with me, off and on, until he took me to Phuket. So eleven years, twelve years."

"Probably feels safe to him again by now," Rafferty says. "People have forgotten him. Lots of girls have quit, new girls everywhere."

"He likes newer girls," Rose says, with an involuntary glance at Pim. "They're dumber."

"This turns things around," Rafferty says.

Arthit says, "Not with what we just got."

Rose says, "What turns what around? And what did we just get? I hate it when you two do that."

"He doesn't know where you are, right now," Rafferty says, "but we know where he is, or at least where he's going to be. In Patpong, working on some girl. But we don't have a good-"

"Thirty bars," Arthit interrupts. "Five thousand farang men on any given night. We need a much better picture."

Rose says, "That's the other part of 'Oh.' I think I've got one."

"You kept his picture?" Miaow says in disbelief.

"I forgot," Rose says. "In the suitcase I took on the boat, I had a little camera, one of the old ones you use once and then throw away. I bought it for the trip and never touched it again. If the film is still any good, there are ten or fifteen pictures of Howard in it."

"Where?" Rafferty asks.

"In a cardboard box with a lot of things I never use, on the top shelf of the closet." She closes her eyes and says, "On the right. Behind the iron and that machine you bought to write down all the things you said into the tape recorder you were going to use for your writing."

"The transcription machine." Another burst of enthusiasm gathering dust.

"That. Behind that."

"One of those little cardboard cameras? Yellow or something?"

"Yes."

"I'll have it developed," Arthit says. "When Poke comes back from Miaow's rehearsal, he can stop at the apartment and get it, and give it to Kosit."

Rafferty says, "Kosit?"

"You remember Kosit. Older cop, leathery face, got-"

"I remember Kosit. Why will Kosit be at my-"

Arthit waves him off. "Because he's going with you. Also, a kid named Anand. Patrolman on his way up, if I have anything to say about it. He's the one-I think I told you about this-who gave me the money when all the other cops were looking for me. He found me trapped at the top of a flight of stairs in an apartment building, threw me all the money he had, and went down to tell his sergeant that nobody was up there." He swallows, cups his hands, and rubs his face with them. "That was the night Noi died."

Rafferty lets a few seconds creep by and says, "Arthit. You can't just assign cops to us like we're visiting Saudis."

"They're on special assignment," Arthit says. "To the national hero."

"Boy, are you squeezing that."

"Why not? It's not going to last forever. As soon as Thanom can stuff me into a box and nail the lid shut, he will. He hates that I get all the attention, even if he does jam himself into every picture." Thanom, Arthit's boss, is a guaranteed first-ballot occupant of the Police Corruption Hall of Fame, and Arthit has been a stone in his shoe for years. "Kosit and Anand will check the Royal Orchid," Arthit continues. "And they'll be wherever Miaow is. When you're with her, they'll stay out of sight on the assumption they'll be able to spot the watchers and get in the middle if anything happens. When you're not with her, they'll be visible, so nothing does happen."

"What about Rose?" Rafferty asks.

Arthit says, "Rose isn't going anywhere."

Rose says, "Excuse me?"

"Good," Rafferty says to Arthit. "You keep her in line. And call me once in a while to let me know how you're doing." He checks his watch and stands up. "If he's really found a new one, and if we can get a good picture, we might be able to turn this whole thing around."

Arthit says, "Maybe."

"Before he finishes with the girl," Rose says.

Prospero's island, or at least the part of it that's visible to the audience, is a rugged, steep-sided rock that juts up almost vertically on the left and then crinkles its way down on the right, ending offstage. It lifts its craggy silhouette against the unbroken gray of a cyclorama, one long piece of seamless fabric that curves all the way around the back of the stage, from the floor to the top of the audience's sight line, and which is lighted the color of gunmetal for these act 1 moments following Prospero's magical storm. Later in the production, as the day wears on, different lighting will turn it turquoise, but for now the gray is fine, easy on Rafferty's tired eyes.

The vertical edge of the rock begins its thrust about four feet from the curtains on the left edge of the stage, leaving room for actors to come and go. That's Rafferty's left, as he faces the stage, but for the actors, who are facing out, it's stage right. Mrs. Shin, in giving direction, always means stage right and stage left, even when she says only, "Cross right" or "A few steps left." So: stage right; stage left; upstage, or away from the audience; and downstage, or toward it-the points of the theatrical compass.

Everyone in the room except Rafferty, and probably Kosit and Anand, understands it instinctively.

A big, irregular, dark-looking cave, Prospero's hangout, punctuates the rock face at about center stage, and a huge clutter of driftwood has been stacked just to one side. The pile of driftwood is on a hinge, and on the back of it-the side that's invisible to the audience at the moment-is a bunch of heavy canvas framed and painted to look like rocks. The unit will be swung around to provide scenery for the clown scenes-what Rafferty, who shortened them for weeks, thinks of as the endless clown scenes-and also to mask part of the cave.