"Leon," Rafferty says. On the very long list of people he would rather not see right now, Leon Hofstedler occupies the top position. "Is the bar on fire? Are they renovating your stool?"
"American humor is the envy of the world," Hofstedler says solemnly.
Hofstedler imagines himself as the heart of a small group of permanent sex tourists-Rafferty thinks of them as "sexpatriots"-who spend most of their waking hours in the eternal twilight of the Expat Bar on Patpong 1, solemnly swapping lies and denying that they buy Viagra in bulk. The bar is probably the only place in Thailand where the television has been unplugged to avoid the endless repetition of the huge waves sweeping away so much of the south. Mass death dampens the patrons' libidos.
"That's six or seven words already, Leon." Rafferty resists the urge to shift from foot to foot. "I'm kind of on an errand here."
"Ze beautiful Rose." Hofstedler puckers his lips for a whistle and then, wisely, thinks better of it. "I would be busy, too, if I were so lucky as you. But zis-this-is about someone substantially less alluring."
"Everyone's less alluring, Leon. But who specifically?"
"You are being sought." Hofstedler's voice drops an impossible octave. He occasionally claims to have spent his youth carrying a spear in some of the world's longest and murkiest operas, and he retains an impressive bass range and a Wagnerian sense of drama. "Sought," he repeats, "by a woman of mystery."
"Okay," Rafferty says.
If Hofstedler is disappointed that Poke fails to clutch his chest and stagger backward, he doesn't show it. "She does not wish you to know you are being sought."
"Well, closing right in," Rafferty says, glancing at his watch. "Thai? Farang? Japanese? Eurotrash?"
"Australian," Hofstedler says, sounding dissatisfied with Rafferty's reaction for the first time.
"I don't know any Strines," Rafferty says. "I mean, not of the fair sex, so to speak. Just out of curiosity, how fair?"
"Not so very," Hofstedler says with a connoisseur's confidence. "In her thirties, I would say, the most tragic period in a woman's life…"
"I know, Leon. The decade of decline, and all that." Like most of his circle, Hoftstedler expends his enthusiasm exclusively on bar girls in their late teens and very early twenties. "So, anything that might help me identify her other than the ravages of time? You know-hair, height, weight?"
Hofstedler's mouth contracts around something sour. "Plump, blondish, frizzy all over. Not happy. She smelled of angst."
"I've got all the angst I need at the moment. And I really have to get moving."
"She comes in the bar several times," Hofstedler plows on. "And always she sits beside me and drinks many glasses of tomato juice." He shudders as though the drink had contained eye of newt.
"Leon," Rafferty says, "life is short."
Hofstedler waves it off. "So we talked. She wants to know how long I am here, who my friends are. And always she keeps coming to you, Poke. 'Do you have any artist friends?' she asks. 'What about writers?' she says. 'Do you know any writers?' So naturally I tell her about you, and she says she knows your name, that she has read all your books."
"A woman of taste and discretion," Rafferty says.
"But as interesting as you are, Poke, you are not enough to keep a conversation alive." Hofstedler nods energetically, agreeing with himself. "So I attempt to move on, but always she comes back to you. Where does he live, Poke Rafferty? Is it true that he sometimes helps people find other people?"
Rafferty resists an impulse to spit on the sidewalk. "And I hope you said it wasn't."
"Naturally, I reminded her that you were only a writer. But it seems she read the little thing you wrote for that throwaway."
"'Going Native,'" Rafferty says between his teeth. "I never would have written the goddamn thing if I'd known anyone would read it."
"And, of course, one presumes you were paid something."
"One may presume what one likes."
"Still," Hofstedler says grudgingly, "I have to admit, it was tidy, the way you found those men."
"Leon. A thousand guys a year go missing in Thailand because they want to. A Cub Scout could find them. There's probably even someone who wonders where you are."
"She certainly does," Hofstedler says.
"So anyway, this woman in the bar is taking time out from the decade of tragic decline to ask about me."
"Yes, this is the refrain: When do you come into the bar? She asks several times, when do you come into the bar? I say I have no idea, but I will be happy to tell you she is seeking you." Hofstedler simulates a smile to demonstrate how happy he would have been. "And she says, 'Oh, no, no. I'm not looking for him. I was just curious, that's all.'"
"Golly," Rafferty says, "maybe that was all."
"No," Hofstedler says. "She was lying." His eyelids drop to an eloquent half-mast that owes much to the early Lauren Bacall. "Regard this." He slips fat fingers into the pocket of his shirt. "She smoked, did I say that? And when she went to the bathroom, I discovered I also wanted a cigarette, so I borrowed one of hers and used these."
Rafferty would not be surprised if Hoftstedler's hand came out of the pocket holding a half-eaten pork chop, but instead it is a book of matches. He gives it a little magician's flourish and then hands it to Poke. On the outside it says CHAMPION SNOOKER, with an address in Sydney. Rafferty opens it and finds himself looking at a very neat, formally uniform handwriting that says "Expat Bar, Patpong," and, below that, "Poke Rafferty."
For a moment Rafferty thinks he recognizes the handwriting, but then it eludes him and it looks like it could belong to anyone.
In the gathering dusk, the early shoppers flock to the stalls of the street vendors, adding the vigorous push and pull of capitalism to the similar but more primitive dynamics of sex.
"Sweatpants and shirt," Rafferty says in Thai. "Blue, child's size ten. And a couple of pairs of underpants."
"For you, special price," the woman says automatically. Then her eyes reach Rafferty's face, and she reaches out and slaps his forearm, quite hard. "Khun Poke," she says, smiling broadly. "I give you number one deal." Tik is speaking Thaiglish, the official language of Patpong. "How's the baby? She's size ten already? Big, na?"
"They're not for her, Tik," Rafferty says. "They're for a friend of hers. Another street kid."
Tik gives him a knowing nod. "Be careful with your heart. They look different when they're clean." Her eyes drop to the clothes in front of her, and for a moment her mouth goes slack and she stands perfectly still, as though she has forgotten he is there.
"Tik?" Her gaze comes up and skids past him, avoiding the contact. "Are you okay, Tik?" He asks the inevitable question: "Did you have family or friends down there?" "Down there" means only one thing in Thailand now.
"Sister's son," she says, finally meeting his eyes. Rafferty registers the smudged-ash rings beneath her eyes and the lines around her mouth. "Him, him…" She squints toward the term. "Him beach boy. Bring chair for farang, sell cola, sell cigarette." She blinks several times and looks down again, then busies herself straightening a plumb-straight stack of T-shirts.
"How old?"
"Seventeen. Good boy. Go school. Sometimes." She is curling her fingers into a tight fist, crumpling the T-shirt on top of the stack.
Rafferty touches the back of her hand, and the muscles in her arm jump, but she relaxes her hand. "I'm so sorry."
"Not only me," she says. "Everybody. All same-same. Have brother, sister, mama, papa. Everybody."
Rose had a friend working the bars on Patong Beach in Phuket, swept away now with dozens of other night flowers, leaving impoverished families grieving on the thin-dirt farms of the northeast. "How's your sister doing?"