Bangkok Haunts

spectacles, sits at a table in navy surplus shorts and flip-flops, no shirt. The brown bird he is holding firmly in his left hand looks somewhat like a macaw but owns streaming central tail feathers that make it ideal for this kind of exercise. I don’t know its name in English, but it’s very common, particularly in Isaan, where it is considered a pest. Actually the feathers are delicate shades consisting mostly of dark chocolate on café au lait; their somewhat monochrome beauty has no appeal to the vulgar, though, and like the Acropolis in its day, it needs plenty of help from paint to appeal to popular taste.
    The doorman is clearly an expert. He uses a tiny artist’s brush and works from some authoritative tome with full-color plates. “It’s going to be a red-tailed tropic bird,” he says, looking down and reading.
“‘Phaethon rubricauda.’”
He casts me a glance before continuing with the pink, orange, and black markings he is laying across the eyes and wings. Little by little he adds value with the concentration of a Picasso. “This is what I used to do before I went to work for him.” He gives me a quick, shattered look. “Before I lost my innocence, you might say. I do it for free now, just to keep my hand in. This stall belongs to my sister. Those girls out front are her daughters.” He manages an ironic smile. “You could call it a family business handed down from one generation to the next. Frankly, it has always been the boys who make the best painters, with a couple of exceptions. My father was brilliant—he could turn a blackbird into a flamingo if he wanted to. I don’t even come close.” Neither I nor the bird is convinced by his modesty. His masterful makeover has improved the creature’s self-esteem immeasurably. When he places it back in its cage, it prances and preens and cannot wait to impress the opposite sex with its irresistible new wardrobe. I say, “What about the orchids?”
    “Oh, that’s women’s business. Boys never have the patience. They’re amazing.” I check out the dozens of varieties of exotic flowers, heavy-headed and liable to break their stems if not cunningly supported by concealed wiring. “Actually, there’s no real deception involved.”
    “Only the implication that they’re going to survive the next few days.”
    He smiles thinly. “They are the products of intense cultivation—a lot of work. They’re grown from hybrids, and it’s true, only an expert can produce those kinds of blooms, and then usually only once in the plant’s life.” He points at a collection of books on a shelf. “The girls have to study the names in English—we get a lot of amateur orchid growers coming to ask complicated questions. It’s a headache because their English isn’t so good, and there aren’t any Thai translations.” He takes another brown bird out of a cage, fondles and strokes it, examines it as a portrait painter might examine a subject, and says, “Excuse me. It’s so much easier for me to talk to you while I’m concentrating on this. Painting takes me into a better world. What exactly do you want to know?”
    “Everything you can tell me.”
    “About the death of your girlfriend Nok? Not much. I didn’t do it. I was put in charge of the clean-up. He uses professionals for his wet work. I’m just a doorman.”
    “But she got the key from you. You snitched on her.”
    It is not guilt so much as a profound sadness that turns his flesh gray. “What could I do? I told her to be discreet. I warned her that if she were spotted anywhere near his room, I would have no choice but to tell the boss. And what do you two do? You walk past those girls in the swimming pool like you were returning to a hotel room. I had no choice.”
    “That’s all you have to say? A young woman is snuffed out because of you, and you just shrug?”
    He pauses, stares at me, and puts the brush down. He will not release me from his stare.
    I say, “Okay, I’m sorry.”
    “Because of me she died? Or because of your obsession with that witch Damrong? Know what the boss told me? He said no cop in the whole of Krung Thep has any interest in that snuff movie except you. You could stop the investigation tomorrow, and Vikorn would breathe a sigh of relief. So tell me, did she die because of me or you?”
    I cough, look at the floor, turn my gaze to the birds and the orchids, try to lose myself in the voluptuousness of color, only to find a monochrome dust has settled on