“Yes?”

“Oh, yes. But let’s not get carried away.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

Here Sukum drops his tone almost to a whisper. “Let me be frank: the unwritten rule that you get farang murders only applies when the murderer is also farang. It doesn’t apply when a Thai whore snuffs a farang.”

I insert the pinkie of my left hand into my left ear, which is still itching from the motorbike ride, and work the wax around a bit. “Really? Forgive me, Khun Sukum, but is there not a failure of logic in what you have just said? How would one know until the end of the case if the perp were Thai or farang?”

“I knew you were going to say that,” he snaps. “Look, this is obviously a Thai hit.” I ostentatiously move my eyes up and down the gash from the victim’s solar plexus almost to the pubic area; the corpse is so massive it is hard to imagine a little Thai girl standing on tippy-toe so she can get a good angle with the boning knife. I allow Sukum a skeptical stare. “Okay, it’s a bit ambitious for a girl, but you know how they go when they get angry. Maybe he insisted on buggering her and she got mad-our girls can be picky these days.”

“But didn’t I hear someone say that he’s famous?”

“You mean it’s a paid hit? Maybe, but if it’s a hit, it’s bound to be by a Thai. In Thailand ninety-nine point nine percent of professional hits are by Thais,” he says patriotically.

“Is that an official statistic? Perhaps you are right, Khun Sukum. Mind if I look around?”

Mostly I’m staring at the dead American. His hair is long and gray and swept back in a ponytail; a gray beard expands an already gigantic face. His mouth is half open, and a little blood is trickling from one corner. When I shift my glance to the rest of the apartment, I immediately become mesmerized by the books. It occurs to me that Sukum has no English.

I take a couple of surreptitious steps in the direction of the bookshelves, which are thinly populated with a set of novels and screenplays.