The Windup Girl(101)

"Don't bother. The Somdet Chaopraya gave his guards instructions. If we have second thoughts now…" He jerks his head back toward the men riding in the rickshaw behind. "They'll kill you as soon as you try to run."

A few minutes later, familiar towers rise into view.

"Ploenchit?" Carlyle asks. "Jesus and Noah, you're seriously taking the Somdet Chaopraya here?"

"Calm down. You're the one who gave me the idea."

Anderson gets down from his rickshaw. The Somdet Chaopraya and his retinue all mill before the entrance. The Somdet Chaopraya gives him a pitying look. "This is the best you can do? Girls? Sex?" He shakes his head.

"Don't be too quick to judge." Anderson indicates that they should come inside. "Please. I'm sorry that we'll have to climb the stairs. The accommodations do not befit your rank, but I assure you that the experience is worth it."

The Somdet Chaopraya shrugs and lets Anderson lead. His guards crowd close, nervous in the dark confines. The junkies and whores in the stairwells all catch sight of the Somdet Chaopraya and collapse into panicked khrabs. Word of their arrival rushes up the stairwells. The Chaopraya's guards run ahead, searching the darkness.

The doors of Soil open. Girls drop to their knees. The Somdet Chaopraya looks around himself with distaste. "This is a place you farang frequent?"

"As I said, not the finest. I am very sorry for that." Anderson beckons him. "It's this way." He strides across the room and pulls aside the curtain, revealing the inner theater.

Emiko lies on stage with Kannika kneeling over her. Men crowd around as Kannika draws out the telltale movements of the windup girl's design. Her body twitches and jerks in the light of glow worms. The Somdet Chaopraya stops short and stares.

"I thought only the Japanese had them," he murmurs.

28

"We found another."

Kanya starts. It's Pai, standing at her doorway. Kanya rubs her face. She was sitting at her desk, trying to write another report, waiting for word from Ratana. And now drool soaks the back of her hand and her pen leaks everywhere. Asleep. And dreaming of Jaidee who simply sits and pokes fun at all her justifications.

"Were you sleeping?" Pai asks.

Kanya rubs her face. "What time is it?"

"Second hour in the morning. The sun's been up for a while." Pai waits patiently for her to gather her wits, a pockmarked man who should be her senior, but who Kanya has overtaken. He is of the old guard. One who worshipped Jaidee and his ways, and whom remembers the Environment Ministry when it was not ridiculed, but feted. A good man. A man whose bribes are all known to Kanya. Pai may be corrupt, but she knows who owns which parts, and so she trusts him.

"We found another," he repeats.

Kanya straightens. "Who else knows?"

Pai shakes his head.

"You took it to Ratana?"

He nods. "It wasn't tagged as a suspicious death. It took some effort to find. This is like looking for a silver minnow in the rice paddies."

"Not even tagged?" Kanya sucks in her breath, lets it out in an irritated hiss. "They're all incompetent. No one remembers how it always comes. They forget so quickly."

Pai nods easily, listening to his mistress rant. The pits and holes of his face stare back at her. Another worming disease. Kanya can't remember if it was a genehack weevil that did it, or a variation on phii bacteria. All Pai says is, "This makes two, then?"

"Three." Kanya pauses. "A name? Did the man have a name?"

Pai shakes his head. "They were careful."

Kanya nods sourly. "I want you to go around to the districts and see if anyone has reported any missing relatives. Three people missing. Get photos taken."

Pai shrugs.

"You have a better idea?"

"Perhaps forensics will find something to link them," he suggests.

"Yes, fine. Do that as well. Where is Ratana?"

"She has sent the body to the pits. She asks for you to meet her."

Kanya grimaces. "Of course." She tidies her papers and leaves Pai to his futile searches.

As she leaves the administrative building, she wonders what Jaidee would do in this situation. For him, inspiration came easily. Jaidee would stop in the middle of the road, struck suddenly by enlightenment, and then they would be off, running through the city, hunting for the source of contamination, and invariably, the man would be right. It sickens Kanya to think that the Kingdom must rely on her instead.

I am bought, she thinks. I am paid for. I am bought.

When she first arrived at the Environment Ministry as Akkarat's mole, it was a surprise to discover that the little privileges of the Environment Ministry were always enough. The weekly take from street stalls to burn something other than expensive approved-source methane. The pleasure of a night patrol spent sleeping well. It was an easy existence. Even under Jaidee, it was easy. And now by ill-luck she must work, and the work is important, and she has had two masters for so long that she cannot remember which one should be ascendant.

Someone else should have replaced you, Jaidee. Someone worthy. The Kingdom falls because we are not strong. We are not virtuous, we do not follow the eightfold path and now the sicknesses come again.

And she is the one who must stand against them, like Phra Seub-but without the strength or moral compass.