We got out of the cab, crossed the street, and went inside. A sign by the door said the band playing was called Anodard. Anodard turned out to be two guitars, sax, keyboards, drums, and a pretty female vocalist. They were doing a nice cover of Brenda Russell’s “Baby Eyes,” and the main room, a cramped, low-ceilinged space that could hold probably thirty people on a good night, was about three-quarters full. The décor was exactly as it should be: dim lighting, a bare ceiling, worn tables and floor, fading jazz memorabilia on the walls. I hoped no one would ever think to give the place a face-lift. We took a table on the right side of the bar, with a view of the band. Brown Sugar’s only real failing is its unimaginative selection of single malts, but I made do with a Glenlivet eighteen-year-old. Dox ordered a Stoli rocks. We settled back, sipped our drinks, and listened to the music. It turned out to be more pop than jazz, but Anodard was good and that was the main thing.

It was a little odd to take in live music with a companion. Usually I go to a club alone, coming and going quietly and unobtrusively and without having to worry about whether anyone was enjoying the experience as much as I. About a half hour in, when the band took a break, I said to Dox, “Well? What do you think?”

He frowned as though in concentration. “Well, it’s taking me a little getting used to. Most of the Bangkok establishments with which I’m acquainted have girls dancing on tabletops and wearing numbers on their bikini bottoms. But I can see the appeal.”

I nodded. “All right, there’s hope for you.”

“And that singer is sexy, too.”

“Faint hope.”

He laughed. “You know, partner, that Delilah’s a classy lady. I don’t know what she’s doing with a reprobate like you.”

“I don’t know, either.”

He gave me a smile that was half leer. “Looks like she smacked you up pretty good there. Didn’t know you liked that kind of thing.”

I glanced around for the waitress.

“I like it when a lady isn’t afraid to get passionate,” he went on in a thoughtful tone, apparently unperturbed by my lack of response. “Damn, just thinking about it is turning me on.”

“Feel free not to share,” I said.

“Oh come on, we’re partners and friends and we’re here in the great state of Bangkok, land of smiles! We can let our hair down a little.”

“Dox, your hair’s never been up.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Anyway, I think your lady is going to help us. I’ve got a good feeling about her.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You can’t always go on a feeling.”

“Well, partner, lacking your well-developed sense of universal paranoia, I’m often left with nothing more than my gut to fall back on. And it’s served me well so far, seeing as I’m even here to talk about it.”

I was surprised to find that his words stung a little. Ever since we’d left Phuket, I’d been half-consciously playing scenarios through my head, testing my hope that Delilah was being straight with us. I thought she was. I just wished I could have Dox’s simple confidence.

“We’ll see,” was all I said.

The waitress came by, and we ordered another round. Periodically a new couple or group would drift in from outside. I was pleased to see Dox checking the door each time this happened. In professionals this should be a quick, unobtrusive reflex, performed as unconsciously as breathing. You always want to know who’s joining you, to maintain your sense of the crowd.

At one point, I looked up to see a striking Thai girl enter the club. She was wearing a pewter silk jacquard blouse, sleeveless and with a mandarin collar, a clingy black silk skirt, cut just above the knee, and strappy, open-toe stilettos. Her makeup was perfect, and her hair was done in a neat chignon that accentuated her perfect posture and confident gait. Drop earrings that looked like jade gleamed under each ear.

She sat down at the bar like royalty on a throne and looked around the club. Dox nudged me and said, “You see that girl who just came in?”

I nodded, wondering whether I’d been giving Dox too much credit for what I thought were perimeter checks. It looked like the more likely explanation might be excessive horniness.

The woman saw Dox and smiled. He smiled back.

Great, I thought. Here we go.

“You see that, man?” he asked. “She smiled at me.”

I looked back at him. “She’s probably a prostitute, Dox. She smiles at everyone. Especially Westerners who she assumes have money to buy her jade earrings.”

“Partner, I don’t care how she makes her living. She might freelance a little, who could blame her? That ain’t the point. The point is, she likes me. I can tell.”

“She likes your money.”

“She might like that, too, and I might even tip her, as a show of my appreciation and just to help her out generally. But I wouldn’t be attracted to her if she didn’t want me for me. Watch, you’ll see.”

He looked over again and gave her a long smile. She smiled back, then said something to the bartender and got up. She started heading in our direction.

Dox looked at me. “What did I tell you?”

The confidence she displayed in brazenly approaching Dox told me I’d been right in suspecting she was a prostitute. But it occurred to me that her presence here was a little odd. The high-end hookers tended to troll dance clubs and bars like Spasso at the Grand Hyatt, not authentic, out-of-the-way dives like Brown Sugar. Well, she might not have been having any luck in one of the places next door, and might have drifted in here for the music, or for the hell of it. Still, as it always does in response to something out of place, my alertness bumped up a notch. Although I had already been keeping a routine, low-level awareness of what was going on in the room, I glanced around just to confirm that nothing else was wrong. Everything seemed okay.

The girl came over to our table. I checked her hands. Right hand empty, left holding a tiny black evening bag, probably weighed down by no more than a cell phone, lipstick, and a mirror. I didn’t pick up any danger signals. But my sense that something was out of place wasn’t entirely placated, and I remained watchful.

She glanced at me, then at Dox. “Hi,” she said, in a voice that was both sweet and slightly husky. “My name is Tiara.” She had a heavy Thai accent.

“Well, hello, Tiara,” Dox said, offering her an enormous grin. “I’m Bob, and this here is Richard. But most people call him Dick.” He glanced at me and his grin broadened.

The girl held out her hand to Dox, who shook it. She offered it to me. I caught her fingers and gave them a gentle squeeze. Her fingertips were smooth, with no calluses. As she withdrew from my grasp I glanced at her hand. Her fingers were long and perfectly manicured, and the light caught her polished nails as though they were little jewels.

“Would you like to join Dick and me for a drink?” Dox asked.

The girl offered a radiant smile and made some microscopic adjustment to her hair. “Yes, very much,” she said. I expected this kind of conversation would be all that was comfortable for her in English. This, and maybe, “Oh, you so big dick! Oh, you make me come so much!” and the other such Shakespearean phrases of the trade.

I got up and offered her my chair, adjacent to Dox’s, facing the bandstand. “Here,” I said. “I just need to use the men’s room. You and Bob get acquainted and I’ll be right back.”

The girl nodded and took my seat. Dox grinned and said, “Well, thank you, Dick.”

In fact, I wasn’t particularly in need of the restroom. I just wanted a chance to scan the room from other vantage points. To observe our table the way someone else might be observing it. It would make me feel better.

Brown Sugar has two back rooms, and I checked each of these. Both were occupied by groups of middle-aged Thais talking, eating, and laughing lustily. The other tables were filled by unremarkable twenty- and thirty-somethings, foreign and Thai. No one set off my radar. But something was still bothering me. Not a lot, but it was there.