Timothy Hallinan - The Queen of Patpong

"I guess that means you're all right." He scrapes up the rest of the chicken, which has turned out to be lobster. "You were great today," he says.

"When?"

"On the stage. As Ariel."

The hand in which Miaow held the food container is still extended, but she's forgotten it. She says, "Really?"

"Really. You're the best thing in the play, and Mrs. Shin knows it."

"Siri's good," Miaow says with a sideways glance at him.

"Miaow. She's awful. She's pretty, but she thinks she's in a silent movie."

"Are you really acting in a play?" Pim asks.

"Sort of." Miaow is suddenly very busy wiping her hands on her jeans.

"I always wanted to be a movie star," Pim says. She blushes a deep red.

"It's only a school play," Miaow says. She is talking directly to the tabletop. "Just kids."

Pim says, "Still."

"She's terrific," Rafferty says. "You can come with us when we go to see it."

Miaow straightens slightly, but then she gives Pim a quick look, sees just a normal, everyday, plump teenager in a T-shirt, and her shoulders relax.

"Can I really?" Pim asks. She directs the question to Miaow, not Rafferty.

Miaow says, "It'll be boring."

"Oh, no. I've never seen a play."

Rafferty says to Miaow, "And you know when else you were terrific today?"

Miaow almost smiles. "Yes."

"When you grabbed that guy's balls."

Pim drops a fork on the floor and stoops to pick it up.

"Street trick," Miaow says. "Boo taught me." Boo is the street kid who took care of Miaow when she was first abandoned on the Bangkok sidewalks.

"He'd have been proud of you."

"Oh, no," she says. "He'd have been a critic. He'd have told me I did it all wrong. He'd have given me lessons." She takes the empty container out of Rafferty's hand and reaches for the fork. Looking at the fork, she says, "The man got killed, didn't he?"

"Yes."

She drops the fork into the container and drops the container into the trash. "Good."

"And you know that Mrs. Pongsiri is going to be okay."

Miaow nods. "Yes."

"And you're sure your head doesn't hurt."

She finally smiles at him. "Leave me alone."

"I'm not supposed to. It's my job."

Pim says, "What is?"

"Being her dad. Not that she makes it easy."

Pim says, "I've noticed."

Back in the living room, Rose says, "Volcano Bar," and two hands go up. She writes the women's names and says, "Bangkok Strip." One hand. Rose says, "Gosh, Nit, you really got around," and the other women laugh.

Nit, who has chiseled, highly defined hill-tribe features and pale skin that betray her Chinese blood, says, "If I had a thousand baht for every bar I danced in, I wouldn't be mopping floors."

"Well, we'd miss you." Rose looks down at the page. "So there are only six bars none of us ever worked in."

"That's kind of sad," Fon says, and the women laugh again.

Peachy, who's been sitting on the sidelines, says, "Were some bars better than others?" She's the only woman in the room who's never worked in the sex industry.

"Yes and no," Nit says. "They were like the houses we clean, but smokier. Some people are good to work for and some aren't. You know, some of them cheat you-"

"All the bars cheat you," another woman says.

"But some are worse than others. Some of them steal your drink commissions or say you missed days when you actually showed up, so they can fine you. Some of them want you to go with every man who asks you. They fine you if they think you said no too often."

Peachy says, "Oh, my." She clasps her hands in her lap, a gesture that always makes Rose think Peachy would be happier wearing white lace gloves. "What about the men?"

"They're the same in every bar," Fon says. "They're the same everywhere in the world."

"Not here," Rafferty says. "Arthit and I are princes."

There's a knock at the door. Arthit gets up, saying to Rafferty, "Sit. One gun is enough."

"A gun?" Nit asks.

"Joking," Arthit says, picking his way between the women. There's another, louder knock. "Cop," he announces. "Only cops are that rude." He disappears around the corner of the hallway, and they hear the door open. Arthit comes back in with Kosit in tow. Kosit is holding a large manila envelope.

Rose says, "Let me see them."

"Wait," Kosit says. He opens the flap on the envelope and sorts through the pictures with a fingernail, without removing them. Then he pulls one out and holds it to his belly so only the back shows, and he hands the envelope to Rose.

She lifts her chin in the direction of the one he's hiding. "What's that one?"

"Not Horner," Kosit says.

"Then who? I took the pictures, and I think they're all of-"

"You didn't take this one."

"Okay," Rose says, sliding the pictures out of the envelope. "Be mysterious." She flips through them, her face rigid with distaste. "These are better," she says. "This is the best." She holds up a color photo of Horner, a medium shot that shows him sitting at a table in what appears to be an open-air restaurant. He's wearing a T-shirt and leaning back in his chair, supremely confident. He'd been eating when Rose pushed the shutter, and he has a knife in his hand, point upward.

"Oh," Nit says, looking startled. "I remember him."

Arthit says, "Did he take someone from your bar?"

"A few girls, I think. I went with him once or twice."

Peachy fans herself.

"You're sure it's the same man?" Arthit asks. "After all this time?"

"He's handsome," Nit says, as though that explains it. "I went with him."

"Which bar?"

"Not in Patpong. Over on Soi Cowboy. The Play Room. It's closed now."

"Did all the girls come back? I mean, after they went away with him, did any of them disappear?"

"Maybe." Nit looks over at Rose and then back at Arthit. "Why are we talking about him?"

Arthit says, "Before you go any further with this, Poke, I want to cover two things. First, I want to make sure that everyone here knows that this man has killed at least five bar girls."

Peachy gasps theatrically, but the other women just look at one another. Nit, eyes narrowed, says, "Five's a lot."

"There are probably more," Arthit says.

"Her name was Ploy," Nit says. She shifts as though the floor has become uncomfortable. "He took her for a few weeks at a time for almost a year, and then he bought her out for a month and she didn't come back."

"Nobody worried about her?" Arthit says.

"She told us she thought they might get married and she wouldn't be working anymore."

Rose says, "Fon. Remember when we talked about me marrying him?"

"Yes. It was pouring. The rain ruined my hair."

"That was his idea. He said it would be good for me to talk it over with someone."

"So you tell Fon and Fon tells everybody in the bar," Rafferty says. "And when the girl doesn't come back, nobody pays attention."

Arthit says to Nit, "When did he take Ploy?" He's pulled a pad from his trouser pocket and is looking for a pen. Rose extends hers, and he takes it.

"Mmmmm, hard to say. Four years ago? Five? Maybe 2005."

"Do we have one in 2005?" Rafferty asks.

"In the first bunch he found," Arthit says. To the women he says, "We have a cop looking through unsolved cases to find women this man might have killed. What month did he take Ploy?"

Nit says, "I don't know. Summer, I think."

"She washed up in August," Arthit says. He puts his left hand on top of his right shoulder and rubs, hard. "Goddamn him."

Nit says, in a tiny voice, "Ploy was a nice girl."

"Here's the second thing," Arthit says. "I want Poke to tell all of you-and me, while he's at it-exactly what he's got in mind for you. What he wants you to do, and why, and how he's going to guarantee your safety."

"Fine." Rafferty sits. "We're going to create a storm, and we're going to wait for him to come to us."