The Water Rat of Wanchai by Ian Hamilton

sometimes she would even take a taxi there and back. Lumpini it would be.
    At six thirty the sun was visible but not yet oppressive. The streets were already lined with traffic but the smog hadn’t had time to build to its midday thickness. She turned left from the hotel and headed to the park, dodging dogs and sidewalk cracks and rises.
    In a city with virtually no greenery and few public recreational facilities, the park was a magnet for all kinds of athletes. Thousands of people were there, nearly all of them Thais. She joined the throng circling the park on a three-kilometre track, which was thoughtfully marked every two hundred metres in white paint. It was a catholic group, with no apparently dominant gender or age. The only people who stood out in the running group were the businessmen, who held their shirts and jackets in their hands so as not to get them sweaty.
    The track was on the outer perimeter of the park. In the interior it was just as busy, with pockets of activities that made the place so interesting to her. There were tai chi practitioners, several groups of them, silently performing their rituals. Old men and women waving swords and fans in precise slow-motion patterns. Bird-lovers with their cages. People playing badminton, tennis, and a Thai form of lawn bowling or bocce. All this took her mind off the running. In the gym she was usually good for five kilometres; at Lumpini she did three full laps before heading back to the hotel.
    She showered, dressed in her business suit, put her slacks and shirts in a laundry bag and requested same-day service, and then went down to the lobby with the Antonelli file and her notebook. She reread the file as she sipped some ice water. How to approach him? How to get him to open the door to Seto? She had Antonelli’s cellphone number. If Arthon could patch into his phone and trace calls to and from it, that could save her some time. She called Arthon and told him what she wanted.
    “It won’t be easy,” he said. She could hear street noises in the background. “You can buy a SIM card anywhere here, and there are tons of pay-as-you-go phone-card companies. It isn’t like the U.K. or North America, where you have only a handful of carriers. It could take me a while to find his carrier, and then I have to see if we’ve penetrated them already.”
    “Please try,” she said.
    “What are your plans for today?” he asked.
    “I’m heading over to the Water Hotel in a few minutes. I’ll see if I can engage Antonelli in conversation.”
    “Using what pretext?”
    “Feminine charm,” she said.
    He didn’t respond, and for a moment she thought he was mocking her. Then he said slowly, “When you read the data on Antonelli, did you take note of the section that mentioned what he likes to do now on weekends?”
    “I don’t remember it particularly, but I assume he hits the bars.”
    “More precisely, he goes to Nana Plaza.”
    “And how is that different from Soi Cowboy or Patpong?”
    “On the first two floors it’s the same old bar-girl shit, but when you get to the third floor — that’s another thing altogether. When we were in the car, I didn’t get a chance to finish my story about him. Antonelli has graduated from women and boys and gotten into katoeys — ladyboys. The third floor at Nana Plaza is all katoey. The violence seems to have toned down since he switched. Maybe he’s found what he was looking for.”
    “Oh.”
    “Like I said, he’s a pig.”
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    It took longer than she had planned to walk to the hotel. Ava had to cross a couple of intersections, and the traffic lights were programmed to change about every five minutes. So you waited; if you tried to jaywalk you would meet inevitable death, because Bangkok traffic stopped for no one.
    It was just after eight when she finally walked into the Water Hotel. It was supposed to be a five-star establishment, but she could tell from the lobby that it fell short. The furniture looked worn, and