He took a tuk tuk from the Oriental Pier to Sukhumvit, not even haggling with the surprised driver when he asked for the outrageous price of four hundred baht. It took an hour in the thick, impossible traffic. At the major intersections the policemen stood on boxes, wearing white gloves and gas masks, twin metaphors for the modern Thais. The Thais were a beautiful and gentle people who loved fine things; hence the cops in clean white gloves. And the gas masks were a sign that their leap into prosperity had rewarded them, Pandora-like, with a set of imported ills that they in their innocence had not been able to anticipate. Intransigent traffic. Air that choked the lungs. And the persistent, unending whirlwind of AIDS.

Simolzak had lived on a quiet, tree-lined soy in Sukhumvit for more than twenty years. Condley stopped the tuk tuk a block from the house, not wanting the lawn-mowerlike engine to signal his arrival. The yard in front of the narrow, two-story house held its very own jungle of overgrown tropical plants. Simolzak let the yard grow wild on purpose, to mask the teak-filled splendor of the home itself.

The BMW was parked in the narrow driveway that ran along the side of the house. Condley waved casually to Simolzak’s driver, who sat dozing in the car. The driver, who also functioned as Simolzak’s bodyguard, recognized him immediately and waved back absently. As he passed the driver, both men raised their hands prayerlike underneath their chins in the Buddhist greeting of peace.

He knew the front door would be locked, and he knew that the back door would not be. That was just Simolzak’s way. Deliveries were often made to the back door, where Simolzak also kept a smaller office in case clients needed to meet him at his home on short notice.

He walked around to the rear of the home and silently tested the doorknob, then pushed the door open without a sound. Simolzak’s back porch was cluttered with floor-to-ceiling shelves that held stacks of files from cases he had pursued over the years. A bundle of new mail was on the floor. The door that led into the main part of his house was wide open, and Condley moved through it with the quiet grace of a panther on the prowl.

He could hear them upstairs. Simolzak was talking throatily to her, hoarse whispers and urgent little laughs. She was screaming high in her throat, not words, just screams, in persistent, uncontrollable pants that came again and again and again.

They did not see him standing in the doorway as she romped on top of Simolzak’s huge frame, straddling him with her hands on his chest, her back arched and her breasts flailing wildly in the air. Her back was to him and her long hair swung from side to side as if accentuating the abandonment of her screams. And then finally Simolzak noticed him.