Bangkok Haunts

more penises penetrating an equal number of mouths or vaginas, which means that the average American vicariously participated in no less than five orgies in 2000, the year the article was published. Word is the number has more than doubled since then. I don’t have the figures for homosexual porn.) In other words, as an investment, porn became irresistible to certain grandmother corporations. Like Internet gambling, porn largely survived the dot-com bubble, thus proving itself, along with eating, sleeping, dressing, and dying, as one of those industries in which a young person starting out in life cannot go wrong.
    By the time I’ve finished my translation, Vikorn, a normally laidback sixty-year-old exuding cynicism, is sitting bolt upright like a man who has been injected in the left ventricle with adrenaline. The innocence of fresh revelation has smoothed his brow. He looks ten years younger.
    “Read those numbers again,” he says; then, with a gasp of admiration, “Amazing.
Farang
are even more two-faced than the Royal Thai Police. You mean those mealymouthed little Western TV journalists, who get their knickers in a twist about our brothels, spend most of their lives in five-star hotel rooms paying to watch people fuck for money?”
    “It’s a culture of hypocrisy,” I offer, sounding rather more judgmental than I intend.
    But gangsters of Vikorn’s stature are masters at seeing opportunity where mere mortals see only darkness. He shakes his head as if I were a poor, challenged intellect incapable of picking up a half-billion dollars lying on the floor at my feet.
    “It’s a culture of masturbation,” he corrects, rubbing his hands together and assuming the posture of a country schoolmaster. “So, what are you waiting for? Let’s make a movie.”
    I shake my head wisely. “No way. You don’t understand. American porn may be full of silicone tits and lipstick on pricks, the acting may be even worse than ours, and most of the women may have pimples on their bums”—Yes, I have added ten dollars to my hotel bills from time to time—just like you, hey,
farang
?—“but the camerawork is first class. The guys behind the viewers once believed they were going to make art-house movies for posterity. They do angles, pauses, use more than one camera, long shots, pans, slow-mo, graphic inserts, unexpected close-ups of bits of your body you’ve never seen yourself. They’re top-notch pros,” I explain with satisfaction. “Mr. and Mrs. Jerkov of Utah aren’t going to buy stuff shot in a back room on Soi Twenty-six with a single Handycam. They’re used to quality.”
    A pause while my master rubs his jaw and stares at me with those frank, unblinking eyes. “What’s an art-house movie?”
    I scratch my head. “I’m not sure, it’s a phrase they use in the industry. Something that hopes to sell itself by pretending not to be commercial, I guess.”
    “Where have I heard the phrase before?”
    I am about to answer that question, for I know exactly where we both first heard it. Then I realize how far ahead of me the Colonel already is. We exchange glances.
    “Yammy,” I say. “But he’s in jail awaiting trial, at which you’ve made sure he’ll be sentenced to death.”
    Vikorn raises his hands and lifts his shoulders. “The best moment to pitch him a deal, don’t you think?”
    With resignation I realize I’ve blown any possibility of carrying the Damrong case further today. Sorry,
farang,
I feel a digression coming on.

5
    As the detective responsible for prosecuting him, I carry the whole of the Yammy file in my head as I sit in a cab on the way to Lard Yao.
    He was born into a lower-middle-class family in Sendai; his father was a salaryman for Sony and his mother a traditional Japanese housewife who cooked whale and seaweed like a demon. Decisive in Yammy’s early years was his father’s access to Sony prototypes, especially cameras. Our hero learned to point and click soon after learning to walk and as a consequence never fully mastered verbal communication. In an introverted culture, that didn’t matter much, but his written Japanese was also poor. Never mind: his father, all too aware of the depressing consequences of a life spent toeing the line, saw genius in his son’s defects. Sacrificing much, the family moved to Los Angeles, where Yammy’s educational flaws went unnoticed. As soon as possible his father sent him to film school. All was going well until the family took a