Some of the dresses are revealing. The mannequin breasts stand straight out and hold up some of the dresses. One dress, hung with purple feathers, is cut from clavicle to crotch, and Mike gently pulls the fabric back into place, to cover an erect nipple.

All the mannequins face in the same direction and Mike thinks of a discovery somewhere in Africa that his father once told him about. An archaeologist had found eight huge cat heads arranged in burial, all pointing the same way, which was evidence, he said, of early religion. Pagan rites of the Upper Neolithic, when there was more than one breed of man. Jane had told him that arranging the cat heads must have been a moment of great transformation, like the first painting on a cave wall, the beginning of sedentary life. The breakthrough. Not the same thing with the mannequins, but air-conditioned, at least.

The silence is broken by giggles, and into the room slouches a wide bellied young man with wild copper hair and his arm around a pierced, pale girl in dark lipstick and a leather skirt. They are laughing about something and seem high. Seeing Mike they quiet and the young man stifles another laugh. His shirt has a skull with a snake wrapping through the eye sockets printed on it and is faded and sweat-stained.

Mike decides to engage them.

“Strange, huh?” Mike waves at the plastic fashion formation.

The skull boy just stares at him.

“Strange, these I mean,” Mike repeats and this time Skull Boy pulls on Pierced Girl and points to Mike, saying something to her quickly in a romance language that Mike can’t quite place.

“Oh yes, very strange,” says Pierced Girl. “I am sorry my friend does not speak English.” Pierced Girl’s voice is a slow and breathy soprano and accented. French, maybe.

“Did you come for the exhibit?” Mike asks, though he sees they have only stumbled in like himself.

“Oh no, we only were hot and could not cross the highway.” She says highway as if it were two words and a question.

“But I think they are wonderful,” she says and starts moving from dress to dress, feeling the fabric of each between her thumb and forefinger.

“What brings you to Bangkok?” asks Mike.

“We are only tourists,” smiles the girl. “We have been to the clubs and things.”

These kids will be easy, Mike thinks.

“I’ve been meaning to get to the clubs too,” he says. “You know any good ones?”

“Oh yes,” she says. “We go every night. He loves the clubs, but I have to make him come to places in the day.” She pauses to speak to Skull Boy in their language and he raises his eyebrows and Mike thinks he catches the word droges.

“Have you seen drugs in the clubs?”

Pierced Girl laughs and immediately relates the question to Skull Boy, who laughs harder.