"And a translator. We do both here."

"Never mind about translating. I'm a busy man." He peered around the office as though expecting Doi or me to contradict him. When neither of us did, he added, "I need someone who can find things out. What do you think? Are you that kind of person?"

"Sure. That's what we're here for."

"Good. Because I don't waste time." He took out his wallet and extracted a business card. "Noppaporn Wirarut," he said as he handed it over. "But you can call me Nop. Freight Forwarding," he added, pointing to the card. I looked and sure enough, it said "Freight Forwarding" under his name. "You don't waste time in freight forwarding. Time is money."

"Quite," I said.

"So look. I'm going to come to the point. Business is not good. And that's the point. I want you to investigate my business."

"And do you have any suspicions why it's not good?"

"Yes!" It was a loud snort of a reply. "Should I tell you or should I let you investigate? I don't want to prejudice your results."

"Nop, you should definitely tell us."

"Right. I hired a new sales manager, interviewed him myself. Seemed good. But since he came we've been losing money. I want to know what he gets up to."

"But aren't you in the office with him? I mean, don't you know what he gets up to?"

Nop shook his head. "He's out a lot looking for sales. And I'm a busy man, I have a lot of . . . business interests."

"Okay, well, if you give me his name we can see what he's doing. The charge is two thousand baht a day plus minor expenses and petrol money. We usually ask for the first two days up front—"

"Ha!" said Nop and gave me the twin karate chops again. "I thought you were going to say that. You see, at the moment I have a problem with cash flow. Liquidity."

"We can compromise on the advance. I'd like to get something, but—"

"It's okay, it's okay. I came prepared. I'm a businessman, I know what it's like. Business is all about trust. I want you to trust me." And with that he turned, relowered his head and charged out of the office. Doi and I looked at each other. She opened her mouth to speak and before the words could come out, Nop had charged back in again. He was carrying a hemispherical bamboo cage in one hand and some newspapers in the other. He spread the newspapers on the floor and dropped the cage on top of them. It came to just below his waist. I began to get a bad feeling. "Okay," said Nop and went back out. He returned carrying a startled fighting cock that he popped under the bamboo. The bird ruffled its feathers and glared at him. "Here's your guarantee," he said. "This is Daeng. He's a ten thousand baht-bird. What I mean about trust. I can't give you the money yet, but until you've finished investigating I'm going to let you keep Daeng."

"You know, that's probably not necessary, I—"

"What? You don't think he's a ten thousand baht-bird? Listen, you take him up to Ad Carabao's farm in Chachengsao and I guarantee Ad Carabao's going to tell you that's a ten thousand-baht bird. He'll probably want to buy him." Nop karate chopped. "But you can't sell Daeng, of course. It's all about trust." With that he went out again, and then came puffing in with a large sack of raw unhusked rice. "You'll have to feed him three times a day. He needs to keep his weight up. And put some water in a bowl. You see? I trust you to feed Daeng and you trust me for the money."

I couldn't argue with the logic, and so I settled for getting details of Nop's sales manager. The man's name was Sawang Tientong and according to his C.V., recited from memory by Nop, he was thirty-seven years old. Also according to the C.V., he'd had five years experience as a sales assistant in the Heng & Co. freight forwarding company. The general manager there had given him a glowing reference and explained to Nop, over the phone, that while he was perfectly happy with Sawang's output, he couldn't yet promote him—his current manager was perfectly capable. So Sawang had gone off to get his promotion elsewhere.

"Right, I have to be back at the office," said Nop. He checked his watch. "I'm late already. You need something, you call."

Daeng craned his neck to watch Nop leave. Despite being a ten thousand baht-bird, you could see he'd been in the wars. There was pink angry flesh visible on his chest and on the hinge of both wings. His remaining feathers were mostly black, other than the dark red splash at the tail that had obviously given him his name.

After the door closed, I said to Doi, "Well, this is different." Hearing me speak, Daeng swiveled his head and stared.

As usual, I borrowed Doi's husband's car, a twelve-year-old Peugeot 205; and as usual, Tor handed the keys over without complaint. Which made me feel guiltier than if he'd just moaned about it.

Nop's office was in a four story building on Charoen Nakorn Road, in between a furniture shop—wardrobes and bookshelves out on the pavement—and the wonderfully named "Angel Reinsurance Broker Co. Ltd." A small soi curled behind these buildings. Following it round, I passed the staff-only car park for Nop's place. A bit further on I turned the car around and waited with the radio down low. Sawang's C.V. was on the seat next to me. Nop had returned to drop it off and feed Daeng a brownish red paste that he squeezed into pellets with his fist. ("We don't want parasites, Vijay.")

The soi was more of an alley than a lane, and there was little to see except high walls and loading bays, and at one point on a wall written in chalk in Thai "If you want amphetamines wait here at eleven p.m."

After an hour a guard opened the wooden gate of the car park to let out a Nissan Teana. It had the license number Nop had written on the C.V. I let Sawang turn left at the end of the soi, and then as soon as he was out of sight, I gunned the Peugeot. I followed him for about thirty minutes, into the bumper-to-bumper traffic of Silom Road. He got halfway down and then stopped outside a handicraft shop called the Tien Chan Gallery. I pulled up a few doors behind, left the engine running, and zoomed my digital compact into the shop's plate-glass window. The LCD screen showed Sawang talking with his hands, smiling and being disarming, and one arm and half a leg of the woman he was talking to. The rest of her was obscured by a large wooden dragon. Eventually he handed over a business card and came back out. Edging the Peugeot back into the traffic, I reflected that at least he was trying.

And he continued to try, stopping at a second handicraft shop (Lai Mai Antiques) on Silom to leave another business card, then heading out in the direction of the port, where he inquired at a furniture warehouse (Siam by Design). Even if his sales patter was lacking, at least he wasn't doing anything dishonest.

As I was thinking this, he took the Teana out onto the expressway in the direction of Dao Khanong. I paid the toll and went after him, knowing I was going to have trouble. Sure enough, he eased into the fast lane and accelerated away. Tor's Peugeot couldn't live with that 2.3 liter engine. Behind me a BMW came up and flashed its lights. I pulled back into the middle lane and chugged along, wondering what to do next. It occurred to me that, according to his C.V., Sawang was heading in the direction of his home. I couldn't think why he'd be going there at two p.m., but I didn't have any other leads, and Nop was paying for the petrol, so what the hell. I came off the expressway, onto the Rama II Road, bumped along past a construction site and then turned into Sawang's moo bann.

This was a grid of sois, entered through a security gate where I had to hand over my ID card. On the other side of the gate were broad tree-shaded pavements and plenty of speed bumps. The houses were all detached and of a comfortable size. You knew that come evening there'd be Toyota Fortuners and Izuzu MU-7s parked in driveways.

I found Sawang's place eventually, and there was the Teana sitting outside. It was still only two thirty p.m., so I parked in the shade of a peepul tree and waited for him to head back out. At around five, schoolchildren began trickling back home in their white-shirted uniforms. By seven the streetlights had come on and it was obvious Sawang wasn't going anywhere. Did he really think these were acceptable hours? How could he when he'd already worked in freight forwarding?