But she turned her face away. She dared not; her humiliation was complete. She would have let Ishy kill her without complaint, but the thought of spending the rest of her life in a Thai jail was more than she could face. (She was a whore and Ishy’s former lover, of course the cops would charge her too.)

With an expression of contempt, Ishy turned the American over and began expertly to remove his tattoo using the knife. Next to her on the bed, Mitch gave his last groans: she watched the light fade from his eyes, which fixed on her in eternal sadness.

Ishy’s face was a hideous caricature, like something from Japanese demonology, as he carefully rolled up the tattoo with both hands and placed it in a plastic bag that he dumped on the table. He picked up the knife again, held up her left breast for inspection, and traced the outline of the dolphin with the tip of the blade-then abruptly chucked the knife on the bed and left.

Shock set in, spasms invaded her body. She forced herself from the bed, staggered around the room like a drunk until she found Mitch’s pipe and smoked some of the opium before she could control herself sufficiently to leave. Tripping a little on the drug (entering the smoker’s world of symbols), she picked up the rose she had discarded on entering the room, put it in a plastic beaker that she filled with water from the bathroom, and placed the beaker at the opposite end of the bedside table to that where the penis lay. Somehow these two icons now balanced each other.

She had nowhere to go but our bar. On her way out, she caught sight of the key to the hotel safe box, where she expected Mitch had stashed more of the opium. She did not consider the IBM ThinkPad until she saw it there in the box the next day. She bribed the hotel receptionist to keep his mouth shut.

When the opium dream began to melt, a great black cloud of guilt gathered in its place; the terror of the kind of karma that her involvement in this hideous crime might involve (there was no doubt, surely, that this murder sprang directly from her lust for Ishy?) produced in her soul a colossal struggle that seemed to take place in the region of her guts. Little by little she began to resume sovereignty of her mind.

She adopted a mask of nonchalance, but her inner life was quite otherwise: faced with hell, she found the strength for one desperate attempt to make amends and was prepared to risk anything. She revived her plan and went to Vikorn with it. The intensity of her advocacy, together with the political benefits from Vikorn’s point of view-and the chance finally to get one over on Zinna-for once overcame the old man’s greed. Yes, he would forgo all profits if she would use the CIA’s laptop in the way she suggested. He would personally arrange the hijack, once the coordinates of General Zinna’s next shipment were known. His only stipulation: that he would retain naming rights to her grand project.

The thing turned out to be quite amazingly simple. She studied the e-mail chatter on the CIA encrypted line until Zinna’s name came up, together with information about the size, direction, and likely destination of this new shipment. She called Vikorn, told him where the drug haul was presently located according to CIA information, and monitored the e-mail while Vikorn made his move. With a troop of plainclothes cops under Vikorn’s personal direction, the sting went off like clockwork. As luck would have it, the haul consisted of a massive amount of newly processed heroin from finest-quality Burmese opium refined to professional-level purity in labs up in the Northwest in the no-man’s-land where the Karen tribe have been warring with the Burmese for more than fifty years. (According to the beat on the street, Zinna no longer touched morphine.) Using his own network, Vikorn was able to sell the haul wholesale within days and use the dough for Chanya’s project, which Vikorn now took over with enthusiasm. Naturally, there was no obvious scream of outrage from Zinna, and for the time being he could only remain in a state of muted eruption. Of course, once Chanya’s plan was fully realized, there would be no doubt about who stole the dope or what he did with it. That suited Vikorn, who was in the mood for some in-your-face revenge.

“Look,” Chanya says, pointing to the stream of instant messaging passing over the screen:

“The latest we have about that Zinna shipment is that it was hijacked by the cops.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, the rumor is pointing at his archenemy, Colonel Vikorn.”

“You’re kidding me?”

“Nope, there’s quite a lot of anecdotal evidence.”

“Like what?”

“Like they are breaking ground on a big site just outside Surin, for a massive general hospital.”

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s gonna be called the Colonel Vikorn Memorial Hospital.”

“Right. Now I get it.”

I stare at Chanya. “A hospital?”

She takes out a large calculator and shows me how quickly her negative karma will be eclipsed by the number of lifesaving operations the hospital will perform. In less than a month after the hospital is fully operational, she’ll be free of all defilements.

My jaw has dropped. “You were the one with Plan C, not Manny?”

“Who?”

“Lieutenant Manhatsirikit?” She looks at me blankly. “Did Vikorn give you the hundred-thousand-dollars’ reward that he was promising to anyone who successfully needled Zinna?” This is not a disinterested question; for more than a week now we have not used contraception.

“I gave it away to a charity that helps rehabilitate prostitutes. I want clean karma. I don’t want any dirty money.”

So she’s even a better Buddhist than me? Well, at least I can see the funny side.

“What are you laughing at?” She hits me, a good strong punch in the arm. “You think I’m just some dumb half-literate superstitious whore, don’t you?”

I’m laughing too hard to reply.

We’re packing the eggs and other offerings into the back of the taxi, Chanya and I. While flattered that I considered her worth five hogs’ heads (that was my final bid), she didn’t appreciate the cooking, which, what with one thing and another, took us all night. (Ever tackled the logistics of boiling a thousand eggs over two gas rings? You’re lucky if your saucepan holds more than a couple dozen-think about it.)

Sharing the backseat with the fifth head, which would not fit into the trunk, we tell the driver to take us to Wat Sathon. It’s a power wat about forty miles outside Bangkok frequented only by Thais (a no-frills magic factory renowned for its capacity to fructify the barren, resurrect the impotent, heal the broken, and provide winning lottery numbers to true believers-not to mention the excellence of the cooked food stalls that surround it). The driver plays some upbeat Thai country pop on his music system.

When we arrive, we haul the eggs and heads, marigolds, lotus garlands, fruit, and vegetables into the temple, which is crowded with satisfied customers like us anxious to pay their dues. (I would guess at roughly a hundred and fifty hogs’ heads all told, and the boiled eggs numbered in the tens of thousands.) We lay them out to be scrutinized by the Standing, Walking, and Sitting Buddhas who populate the raised platform. Chanya and I light incense, hold the bunches to our foreheads in deep wais, and give thanks to be still alive and in love (you must value every minute), then break open the packs of gold leaf. You need to be nimble. Lesser practitioners end up with the frail leaf disintegrating all over fingers and faces, but Chanya and I manage to stick it on target every time. She favors the great fat Laughing Buddha, while I myself have a weakness for the Walking Buddha With Left Hand Raised (meaning: Don’t be afraid). Little by little, though, we work our way through all of them, plastering their heads and limbs with the gold as we go, making sure no one is left out. We return to the floor to kneel, wai, and pray. (I think she prays for a daughter; I pray she won’t leave me-how pathetic!) Now it’s time for the cooked food stalls and fried mussels in chiles (they really make the best here), miang kham on a lettuce leaf with coconut shreds, laap pet (spicy duck salad), and a few beers.