A little background:  Krung Thep is the Thai word for Bangkok, the setting of this wonderful story.  The vivid imagery and compelling storyline in this first chapter of Scott Robinson's upcoming novella will sweep you away to another time and place.  We can't wait to read the rest...

Krung Thep

Scott Robinson

Prelude

Now this mutual show of goodwill afforded us humans a great freedom of movement, which has over time become our most closely guarded liberty. In that wonderful golden age, mankind's foot hesitated for no paddy, however thick with the grassy crop…it circumvented no jungle, howsoever dark with the dank night. The human race spread, built temples beyond the Mekong 's far shore, and grew ever and ever bolder.

The serpent, well she—she who shall be referred to as Naga—well, Naga by her very nature knew this cohabitated realm the more familiarly of us two. Indeed Naga was intimate with that eternal secret treasure hiding in the farthest depths of the planet. But she found no use for such mundane trappings. How could some old bright hard cold pebble possibly fill the void in her bottomless stomach? What did it matter if that ever so glorious gem was worth a thousand kings' ransoms?

But let it stand on record that, like man, Naga too had her own peculiar desires. And due in large part to these very desires, one day Naga addressed man:

Dear Sir, excuse me if I ask…Neither of us wishes less than the other's best, yes? Thus I propose this small exchange: Confess! You desire riches! All the riches vast enough to birth history's greatest empires!…Let me unearth you emeralds, jades, rubies and sapphires, each strung upon an endless silvery coil! ‘And what's your recompense,' you ask? Oh, nothing so significant. Quid pro quo. Still…nothing so in -significant either. This! This is what I request!——Celestial form! You! Weave and sew! Fashion me a long silk dress! Upon which these your dazzling jewels may be sufficiently displayed! Then and only then shall we both immortals be!

And yet however compelling, reasonable and ingenuous the proposition, after long pause, man finally refused Naga. More through pride than in wisdom.

Or did he ultimately cheat the snake? Or perhaps it was in truth only a misunderstanding. The story is unclear towards its end. The one certain outcome is that Naga transformed herself into the dragon and buried herself deep in the heart of the earth. And man and snake have remade no peace since. And man still blames the serpent for his paradise lost.

I

He removed the key from the lock and opened the door. All the lights were on. He crossed the threshold into the room's entranceway where his bag, having already been brought up from the hotel lobby, slouched against the corner of the wall. Josef Jakobson pulled out his pocket watch and advanced it three hours.

On a low glass table in front of the sofa there sat a plate of fruit: a banana, some rambutans. Adjacent, an ashtray containing a white matchbox with the hotel's emblematic ‘ S ' boldly gilt upon it. There was a white foot towel on the floor next to the head of the bed. The sheets were folded back at that same corner. Every element of the room so carefully arranged, quietly awaiting his arrival.

Josef folded his coat in half and draped it along the edge of the bed.

He sat on the couch and surveyed the room's layout. He studied the array of control panel buttons over the nightstand and pushed one, dimming the room's lights as low as they would go before turning off completely. He pushed another button and the balcony curtains drew back. The windowpane was opaque with the night. He reached for the ashtray and got up for the balcony door.

The sputtering pet-pet of a motorbike was the first noise to intrude from outside…that unruly melody heard throughout Bangkok . Far down beneath him sparse traffic crossed the Chao Phraya either direction, into and out of view beneath the bridge lights. He lit his cigarette.

A thin greenish gauze of clouds crossed in front of the moon above. The moon was nearly full. Its scantly veiled reflection danced on the dark river below, just this side of the bridge. Josef thought of how he would paint it if he were a painter…in the manner of a Sesshu perhaps. City lights extended in every visible direction.

After some several minutes indulging this soothing outpour of night's images and sounds, Josef noticed a near inaudible murmur slowly surface from underneath the traffic's intermittent buzz—as if from beneath his own subconscious…a long soft rhythm, nearly drowned out by his own tired thoughts…coming from the south, from the distant waters, the deep dull sound of a motor, churning up behind it its invisible wake. A huge black shape emerged from inside the bridge's shadow, slowly but relentlessly elongating.

The silhouette of a barge.

Its path upriver unmistakably resolute. The stark mass struck and shattered the fragilely reflected moon.

II

Josef felt cool beneath the sheets (he couldn't fathom sleeping without the air conditioner turned on). As he finally drifted off into dreamland, he revisited in his mind's eye the recent experience of the flight attendant waking him and telling him they would be landing soon and asking if he would be needing a declaration form….

* * *

Soon it would be midnight. It was getting near past rainy season. For Thais it was the year two-thousand-five-hundred-and-forty-four. Soon the pleasant months would come. Then would be new year.

III

Mr Jakobson had come to Bangkok on behalf of a transnational, LA-based society of moderately successful customs attorneys. Josef had come on subcontract. He was to hand-deliver a secret communication to Thailand 's interior minister.

Something in this corner of the world had gotten The Thirteen—and yes, as unoriginal the fact may seem, this was indeed the epithet by which this cabal of lawyers was known—something had gotten The Thirteen quite nervous. Something troublesome, perhaps even catastrophic, had spilled over the fuzzy border of Myanmar , that shadowy state with its shadowy rogue of a government. Some sinister affair had wormed its way out of the Shan jungles of the Golden Triangle, along a maze of roadways threading their circuitous route down into Bangkok, out the back of some dust-covered truck, straight onto a nondescript ship headed downriver, out into the Ao Thai , onto the open lawless seas, then plumb into an unnamed major US port. No telling how The Thirteen had learned of it. But they were doubtless inclined to inform the proper person of authority, if not for reasons of decency, at least out of some basest form of discretion. The only problem being how exactly to pass along this little tidbit of information….

The small envelope their case-officer slipped Jakobson at the brush-pass bore nothing more than the target's name: Khun Chanchai.

Now this minister of the interior Mr Chanchai had been for quite some time as elusive as a rabbit in the wind. Not one single agent in The Thirteen's labyrinthine network had ever successfully pinned down this utter recluse of a man. Their sole bona fide trace on him was from a brief allusion from some sixty-odd years prior. From an extinct foreign press…well, from a crossword puzzle…in the Bukovinian Post: The Newspaper You Can Trust.

No matter. This was Josef's specialty: finding people. Finding people in Bangkok to be precise. But did Josef understand in the slightest the nature of The Thirteen's unfortunate predicament? He was, after all, only the messenger. Did he understand the purpose of the communication? Well, this self-employed specialist just wasn't quite unethical enough to stoop to rolling-out the letter with a pair of knitting needles, photographing it, then cunningly re-rolling it back into the envelope. Besides, The Thirteen had probably foreseen such a possibility and had probably already embedded the proper countermeasure.

And what about our protagonist's spiritual mettle? Or his vocational talents? Despite Josef's usual indifference to the job on whole, he did at least do the professional thing and arrange the standard prerequisite to such a mission—getting the communication sewn into the breast-lining of his long black raincoat. Josef had emailed his usual tailor—the only tailor he could trust—a few days prior to departing the States. Josef would drop by for business the day following his arrival…For now though we'll let our Josef enjoy his deep, albeit jetlagged, sleep.

IV

The sun rose early that next morning, and strong over the citywide chofa . People began to appear in numbers along the quickly warming streets.

Down in the crowd, steam from the many sidewalk food stalls billowed and swelled their many parasols with invisible aromatic clouds…the air already pungent with the smell of fish sauce. Children lingered around vendors, wiping their fingers on school clothes, buying more wrapped sweet rice cakes, or rifling tables-full of comic books for the ones they had not yet saved enough to buy. Young stray dogs emerged out from the packs of kids to greet passersby with a sniff and to possibly devour any forsaken crumb. Old strays had by now claimed their usual niche under which to shield against the coming noonday rays.

The grownups were heading to work. Most still shaking off sleep. Others had come wearily from graveyard shift. A handful of folks had already awoken, kissed their extensive family goodbye, left home, eaten breakfast on the streets, and found a vacant spot further along in which to lie down and conveniently go right back to sleep.

Here and there buzzing motorbikes turned down alleys off Silom Road .

Not far down one of these blind alleys there was the back entrance to a small shop. Inside was the proprietor, alone, counting money. Everyone always called him Lucky. And Lucky, being a master of proverb, always said, “Money loves to be counted.”

Now it was generally conceded by his immediate circle of peers that those slender counting hands of Lucky's were those of an unquestionable master. Truly Lucky knew the greatest secrets of his trade. For you see, his craft was not one of perfection. Quite the contrary. Only once one attained a more profound understanding of its deepest inner-workings, only then did one realize that his sacred art was purely about im -perfection, about compensating for the inherent flaws of the subject at hand: his subject being, of course, the human body. So few of today's upstart tailors really understood this incontrovertible truth.

A few minutes ago Lucky had not been alone. A couple of minutes ago his most highly prized customer had just left out the back door. The two standard and inviolable terms of business in effect:

•  utter anonymity . No one was to know a thing about their dealings : Though a renowned raconteur, Lucky prided himself on being able to keep a good secret. Besides: You ought not break your own rice pot, especially when you've hardly got one to piss in ; and

•  payments half up front, half when the job was complete : “A shit in the hand beats two farts in the bush,”

Lucky muttered to himself, recounting the money. Yep, all there.

There was, however, no need to have been so condescending. Having repeated instructions three times like that, as if he, Lucky, of all people, would fuck things up. You almost couldn't pay our Lucky enough to endure such abuse. Yet Lucky was resigned to the sharp realities of his financial circumstances: When all the tea in China comes knocking at the door, you set out your nicest cups and saucers.

Oh so many things to do before opening. No time to philosophize. Besides, Lucky's wife would be arriving soon with congee!

Lucky unrolled a newspaper onto his desktop and set the nine paper stacks of money on it. Behold . There. Across the full-color front-page of the October 29 th Bangkok Beacon , the following headline:

Regal Procession for Ally Baron

A parade? This time of year? And the Queen? Would she be expected to attend in this unbearable heat?!

Lucky strode to the storefront and peeked out between the couple bolts of saffron cloth propped against the window. But out beyond the security gate, far over the tall buildings…instead of noticing there wasn't a single shade-lending cloud in the sky, Lucky got distracted by a pair of cranes flying very high up.

V

While he no longer found it as easy to recuperate from the long flight as he once had, Josef awoke fairly early that next morning. He even found the luxury of time to spend a few hours out on the balcony drinking numerous cups of instant coffee, reading the daily post and smoking prodigiously.

How different the river and its surroundings appeared in the full of daylight. The monumental concrete slabs of buildings weightier, more substantial than the will-o-wisp cityscape of the night before. The streams of people filling the streets, the water-traffic moving up and down the river, the river itself…everything intent with all the purpose and spirit that a vivid new day required. You couldn't watch the whole cumulative momentum unfold without feeling drawn down into it. Josef's indolence slowly transformed into a vague yet pervasive restlessness.

But he knew he could not possibly arrive at his tailor's before or even at the scheduled hour: it would not be polite Thai behavior. The short walk there was not going to provide him the half-hour-late his tailor would be expecting. Josef wasn't about to be caught dead idling about the hotel restaurant, with all its smiling fawning staff, and all its hypocritical smile-returning farang . Worse yet would be browsing the street stalls, where all variety of smile flourished. No, there was no way around it—he would simply have to arrive on time. By noon sharp, he had washed up, run a wet comb through his hair, rubbed cream into his face, dressed, stashed his passport and a portion of cash in the room safe and could be seen leaving his room, walking down the hallway, his black coat draped over his left arm, checking his watch as he waited for the elevator, putting his cigarette out in an ashtray, then entering.

At a certain point along its ride, the elevator's gentle descent jolted stop. This startled Josef. Being the sole rider when he entered, he had for some reason unthinkingly presumed he would continue to be so all the way down. It was not to be.

A small tremor issued from behind the reflective black-and-gold doors as they slid open with a mechanical grace. In the passageway outside stood a slender solitary woman, motionless. A large white-paper bag hung from her hands in front of her. She was tall, dressed rather sharply in an all-black business skirt and jacket. A long ivory scarf finished the ensemble, encircling her slender neck and head. The woman's face bent constantly downwards. She wore sunglasses behind the scarf. Had she been shopping? Was it a funeral?

When she at last stepped into the elevator, her glance rose but slightly, no higher than Josef's midsection. She turned her back to him, oblivious, making no motion to push a floor button. The doors shut of their own accord. Josef guessed it was that modesty typical of Asian women that caused her to act so coldly. The elevator resumed its descent anew.

The interior was confined and they were forced to stand rather close. Josef studied her from behind. He studied her waist's arousing upward curve. He noticed how, throughout her scarf's intricate stitching, miniature embroidered songbirds flitted about, peeking out here and there from between the chiffon folds, casting subtle patterned shadows over the silky black plane extended across her back. He saw through the thin material where her bare neck arose from the collar. Her skin was dark. There, just beneath a long black tuck of hair, behind her tiny ear, the contour of her left mastoid disappearing into the soft line of her neck. Josef caught the faint scent of rosewater. Over her shoulder, he saw her veiled face reflected ghostlike in the golden door. Behind those sunglasses of hers, projected upon that same surface in which he himself was being reflected…was she looking at him too?

Josef looked away. He felt awkward and uncomfortable. A brief hot flash and he began to sweat in his socks. Despite the absurdity of it, he felt guilty for intruding on this woman's privacy, as if she had been the original and somehow privileged occupant. The silence was suffocating. As much as he desired to gaze on her longer, all Josef could do was to look up at the light panel indicating which floor was being passed. Three, two. What floor had she entered from?

She stepped out with surprising alacrity, slicing through a clump of tourists dawdling outside the elevator in the bustling hotel lobby. The pack of would-be passengers stared at Josef perplexedly when he himself did not exit, thought ‘Fine!' and finally set to boarding the elevator clumsily, uncertain of Josef's intentions. Paying no heed, Josef stood rooted, watching the woman as she reached the end of the queue at the lobby counter. The elevator doors jerked as if to shut and Josef jutted out his arm and bowled his way through, hastily but discreetly maneuvering to secure an observation point several customers behind.

The queue was hardly budging. Meanwhile, the lobby grew louder and louder with increasing foot traffic. Several meters to Josef's left were the main doors. Along the lane outside, tour buses were dumping back off the guests smart enough to tour parts of the city in the morning. Each time the doormen opened the huge glass doors for someone to enter or exit the hotel, despite all the five-star air conditioning in the world, the sweltering outdoor heat was creeping ever further inside. Our good man was sweating horribly by now. When was this line going to move? Josef felt uncharacteristically self-conscious whenever some passing stranger caught his eye. Could people tell he was following her? Aha! advancing again!

When the woman finally reached the front desk, the clerk must have just recognized her, for he suddenly looked extremely apologetic. The woman set her bag onto the countertop swiftly and removed something dark and bulky from within…some sort of tall black-lacquered box. Its pigment was unnaturally dark: light seemed to just plunge into its ominous hue. The craftsmanship was primitive, primeval almost. And yet despite the artifact's brutal density, nothing more than two thin silver hinges and a miniature silver lock sealed the whole contraption shut.

Take a moment and look closer. Look closely at the lid. Look and see how the lid is perhaps the box's most marvelous element. That magical bit of artistry was almost entirely encrusted with some species of tiny red gem, rubies perhaps, countless brilliant number of them. A flash of light danced across and Josef noticed a bare section floating in the middle where the sparkling stones were arranged as if to outline the silhouette of a hand raised against the fiery tableau of a star-filled night. What do you think could possibly be encased inside that box?

And this whole series of events unfolded before Josef's eyes like some sort of pantomime. If the woman uttered a single word, Josef heard it not. The clerk, for his part, knew exactly what to do. He was, though, taken aback when attempting to lift the mysterious box. The old man had to enlist a junior staff-member's aid in order to lug this dark object, and whatever dark secret it contained, away from the counter, off through the door behind.

The woman snapped around and came directly at Josef. Josef had not realized until this moment that she had removed her sunglasses. Her features showed clearly. Her face was narrow, her chin long. Thai or Burmese maybe. And she was unmistakably beautiful. And she approached at an unbelievable rate, furious, biting her lower lip tightly. Her eyes darted side to side, leveling anyone unfortunate enough to cross her glare. Her long fingers in clenched fists. Was she utterly blind to Josef's presence in her path? In an unstoppable instant she hit him hard with her shoulder and froze inches before his face, staring level into his eyes—venomously! What was she going to accuse him of?

But then, contrary to all expectation, this enigmatic woman's piercing gaze softened and disarmed. Her eyes' smolder sank, extinguished beneath the tears welling along the edges of her trembling lids. Against the foil of her dark visage, the swirling luminescence in her eyes appeared infinitely brilliant. Her meek expression beckoned Josef imploringly. Our poor confronted culprit could peer no longer into the very depths of those pupils. He looked down at the ground.

A tear trickled down her cheek, unto the back of his hand.

Well, this was too much. Josef was stunned lethally by the combination of heat and excitement. The tear felt like it was burning into his flesh, and he dropped his coat and clutched what he thought was a wounded hand, frantically searching for a sign of blood but seeing nothing. Cold shivers poured from his head, over his shoulders, into the pit of his stomach. An inexplicable sickening salty taste dried his mouth. From the corner of his eye, Josef saw the dark woman smiling down over him.

For this middle-aged stalking tomcat of ours had just become Curiosity's next unsuspecting prey. Yes, our hero was old enough to have known better. Just like in Titian's depiction of that mythic huntsman—who, having stumbled upon the cruel bathing goddess, sprouted stag's horns and was hunted down by his own hounds…the Avenging Huntress's ‘ Now let's see whom you will live to tell what you have seen! ' the last words to bubble down the ancient Boeotian's throbbing blood-filled ears—just like that unfortunate Actaeon of old, Josef too now laid writhing on the ground, his eyeballs struggling to follow as she slipped away. Had he been poisoned? Inky spots pooled the periphery of his vision. The last recognizable shapes—two distant fuzzy grey doormen,

each bowing a low and deferent wai to the black shadow that was the woman.

* * *

The next thing Josef remembers was a fiery pain resonating through his knees and palms from having struck the hard and unforgiving earth. He raised his pulsing head up slightly and saw a bellboy bent over him asking him something or another….At least he was still alive and breathing. Josef let his head roll back onto its side, the marble floor pleasantly cool against his searing temple.

VI

By now Josef had gathered sufficient wits to clamber to his feet, pick his coat up off the floor and beat a gauche retreat from this embarrassing scene in which he had played the starring comic part. By the time he'd nervously smiled his way out the front doors, refused his way past the taxi drivers offering a ride, weaved through the crowd from Skytrain, passed the Chinese temple, negotiated a couple jagged soi , then north half a block or so up New Road…by then it was too late. She was undeniably lost. The streets were too crowded. He stopped, dazed. Had it been amateurish to chase after her instead of tracing the box? And then he remembered. “God, the time!” he muttered to himself as he fumbled for his pocket watch. Indeed the time. He sprung into a brisk clip, cutting through the myriad of shoppers pouring out the department stores, up New Road , up Silom. A couple more blocks and he reached the shop. The front door slammed and, with the sharp clang of its bell, closed off all the cacophony of the streets behind.

What transpired within was not in the least bit pretty. It almost defies narration. For you see, the sole employee present was the young apprentice, who knew absolutely nothing about Josef's appointment. Lucky was out…something about his wife in a tantrum, dragging him off. Truly Josef could not follow this kid's explanation very well, and for no lacking knowledge of Thai on Josef's behalf either. It was just that the lad was so distracted and off-topic, few Thais really could keep pace with his endless digressions. And after Josef had pulled out his watch to peek at the time, all that the stubborn young understudy could focus on was offering to allow our tongue-tied Josef to split the taxi fare with his uncle to Khao San, where Josef then might get a replacement watch at bargain rates from his brother-in-law, who owns not one, but two jeweler's shops in that district. And the bewildering snow job came on ever so thickly that, finally, in order to put an end to the absurd negotiations underway, through sheer desperation really, Josef relinquished his coat into the clutches of this annoying adolescent—his black raincoat with its precious envelope in its left pocket, where Lucky always expected it—and he stomped out, emotionally and literally empty-handed. The bell over the door ringing angrily behind.

During the agonizing length of time it took to play out the above interlude, the weather outside had taken a surprising turn for the worse. Clouds were beginning to pile up, high over the tall buildings. The air was eerily still. Nevertheless, it didn't quite look like rain. Josef well knew he was running late for his next appointment, which just so coincidentally happened to be in the vicinity of Khao San. But sharing a taxi there with uncle was not an option. It would not be a good appointment to be late to.

Within a matter of moments Josef was seen boarding the next river-taxi upstream. The engine gurgled furiously as they cut through the river's cool but putrid breeze. Josef looked over his shoulder to see if the boatman was watching. “How could I have lost her? Damn this waste of time!” he kept repeating under his breath like a mantra the whole watery journey up.

VII

Ecoutez! écoutez, à l'horizon immense;
Ce bruit qui parfois tombe et soudain recommence,
Ce murmure confus, ce sourd frémissement
Qui roule, et qui s'accroît de moment en moment.
C'est le people qui vient, c'est la haute marée
Qui monte incessamment, par son astre attirée.
– victor hugo

The great length of Rajdamnoen Road convulsed from end to end with all conceivable manner of traffic known to man. If you had been the mighty Ramasura soaring high over the northwest corner of the city, in eternal pursuit, let's say, of the lovely Mekla, once your vision had recovered from that maddening maiden's ever-foiling flashing magic jewel, you would have then witnessed something like the biblical behemoth of old writhing far down below your winged feet, as far as the eye could see, the epic monster's infinite scales illumined in every minute motion rippling throughout that unfathomable mob…you would have seen a vast throng of human beings whirling and colliding up and down the expansive web of streets, far off as tiny soi crossing the tail end of Khlong Mahanak. The sidewalks were frozen with pedestrians, plunged into near paralysis by an incomprehensible maze of roadblocks haphazardly erected by this or that police squad. Oh! but how futile the good law-keepers' efforts! That carnal tide's spilling over everywhere onto the streets! In some of the most desperate areas, a solid undulation of flesh flowed through every last physical space vacant of either storefront, street stall, hoo-kwang or tamarind tree, spirit-house, traffic sign, taxi, scooter, tuk-tuk, handcart, dog or elephant. Yes, elephants! And quite a lot! (And some few white ones at that!) Of course there was also that usual fleet of taxis, constantly attempting to manipulate some small advance up the eternal traffic jam by steering into a hopeless onslaught of motorbikes. And whenever the two encountered—the clever taximan and the noble elephant that is—one's eardrums got irreparably blasted: the first honking at the other, the other honking back! Eventually some motorcycle cop would happen onto the scene and settle the matter here and now by accepting the properly sized bribe ‘for the tea fund.' The law favored the elephants today. It ought to have—they were running late for performance. Did I mention the tuk-tuks?

Well, if the god-fearing reader has had the courage to follow me this far, I will now describe that which is even more marvelous than all those spectacles already described. Truly it was that rarest of joys. That is, it was that rare and irresistible, that inspirational and most awesome thump and stomp and pomp of a full-scale military parade! Each time the hapless civilian entered an intersection, the monstrous echo of drums and trumpets pulsed overhead like an explosion of sound rushing down the steel and cement gorges of streets. The terrible crack of a thousand marching boots crashed in unison against the pavement, causing the skyscrapers' giant glass facades to reverberate in echoing measured beats. Here and there a patch of white gold-spiked Adrian helmets and steel bayonets would violently surface amid the crowd, then gently re-submerge beneath the endless waves of people.

Indeed if there is any lasting need to verify the historic momentousness of this whole event: it is commonly known that the city's entire legion of civil servants had been handed just 30 minutes before a memo inexplicably dismissing every last one of them from work for the remainder of the day. Word about the mysterious memo quickly spread, as fast as word does in Bangkok , and within the hour most every upright citizen in his or her sound mind had duly followed suit and closed up shop, to come and see what all the fuss was about and, if rumor was true, maybe even see the King or Queen. Yes, whatever the root cause of this gargantuan mess, it must have been something truly important indeed. Yes oh yes! Or should we say it must have been due to some- one truly important? For this whole colossal pandemonium was, ultimately speaking, attributable to just one man alone—that one man being the preeminent Baron Zoltán Sárkány.

The title, however, was nothing more than just that. The vestige of a bygone era and an abandoned motherland. These days Zoltán was, by definition, a technocrat. He was presently fulfilling the duties of his recently appointed post of deputy trade secretary, under the current right-of-center executive cabinet of the proud nation of Uzbekistan , where Zoltán, when not abroad on business, now called home. Zoltán was in Bangkok on business.

Now Thailand 's prime minister, being who he was, naturally decided to extend Bangkok 's widest of welcomes to this distinguished and exotic guest. But really what was most unprecedented about this entire affair was that Thailand's Divine King himself had somehow been convinced to grant the prime minister permission to publicly parade Zoltán before the main gate of the Great and Royal Grand Palace (albeit our Gracious King would not himself be attending).

It is difficult to gauge how much all this characteristic Thai hospitality meant to Zoltán. It was easy to mistake him for a boorish ingrate. The plain fact was that something about his native accent and brutish mannerisms simply unsettled your average sensitive Thai.

Two sides of the same coin as far as the baron himself was concerned. This wasn't turning out to be the most successful of diplomatic visits. It all started his first night here, while enjoying some pleasant dinner conversation with the education minister's wife. It was just after dessert, while everyone was enjoying an espresso, when the attending chef had the gall to interrupt and ask Zoltán what his favorite Thai dish was. The entire roomful of attendees turned their heads in hushed anticipation of the visitor's crucial response. At first Zoltán simply smiled in awkward acknowledgement of being addressed, but not at all realizing he had just been asked a question. Finally the enduring silence made it bluntly obvious everyone was awaiting a reply. After twice asking the chef to repeat his question, our poor baron stammered for some acceptable answer, any answer, but was unable to muster anything more than a blank open-mouthed stare. And only after all the surrounding news cameras had flashed and captured this lovely expression, only then was Zoltán—already so self-conscious of his painstakingly thick accent—only then was he finally capable of blurting out something to the effect of “Zzzzzú-sheee?” diffidently…like he was answering the question with a question. The hovering reporters smiled their inscrutable Thai smiles, bent over their tiny black notebooks jotting down the baron's every word. What? Had he said something wrong?

No matter. He was not here to woo the local press. The baron was here explicitly to attend and address the third annual economic summit of the Pacific Asian Commerce Community with Transoxania. He had come to address, in particular, Thai mercantilists. For you see, what had been happening was that a disappointing majority of Thai exporters were habitually failing to include the proper pacct ‘form W' with their invoices when exporting to Uzbekistan . And the culprits were, due to this one minor oversight, undermining multiple treaties' worth of concessionary trade tariffs. (Thai mercantilists would retort in their defense that this oh-so-necessary form was in oh-so-notoriously short supply.) And, though often fleetingly joked, there is some degree of truth in what they say about importing from Thailand being Uzbekistan 's chief industry. And so in an effort to correct this their two countries' faltering agreement, Zoltán had lately been burning much midnight oil, investigating and calculating, weighing over in his mind like some dark alchemist would, how best to eradicate this one minor infraction which, be it ever so small, was to Zoltán's mind this paradisiacal Southeast Asian nation's one unforgivable sin. Zoltán Sárkány was on the warpath. His summit speech had been scheduled for the early afternoon of the third day after his arrival. Which brings us to the unbelievable present.

Look! Look for yourself! Look how by this scheduled day's late afternoon the aforementioned hysteria was now reaching an unmistakable turn for the worse! Those same foreboding clouds that Josef first saw several hours prior had now billowed into a massive curtain drawn across the immense horizon. The monolithic cloudbank consumed all light of sun. Palpable shadows oozed into the infinite crevices of the vast scenery, giving the city a suffocating and cavernous feel. The crowd sank into ever further riot.

And look, there, somewhere deep in the epicenter of this uncanny chaos—Josef! How would he ever make his appointment now? Every route was completely blocked off. Josef plodded on into the tumult, not at all noticing a mysterious hand that dropped a wreath of marigolds around his neck. News cameras flash and blind his every step of the way….

Suddenly the cumulative wall of noise was pierced by the deafening peel of a solitary horn. Its anguished shriek echoed for miles, terrifying the great mob into a pregnant silence. The shrill pitch soared into the sky's apex and then, quick as it came, vanished into nothingness. A brief eerie pause. Then…from the distance…an awful encroaching tremor that exploded into a horrific roar! A huge blood-curdling screech ripped round the corner! The crowd screamed and parted before a sudden avalanche of machinery—a wave of tank treads rolling on—chewing and spitting up asphalt like shark's teeth would!

It was the infamous Task Force Twenty, Uzbekistan 's crack armored battalion—on special loan to the baron during the extent of his travels. Crowds leapt aside as these swaggering juggernauts tore their slow but implacable way onward. Gunners poked their heads out from these steely instruments-of-destruction and snarled down machinegun barrels at the onlookers who had timidly harbored along the sidewalks. All the while, one could hear beneath the terrible din of squealing machinery a tape-recorded band blasting from loudspeakers on the turrets. No non-Uzbek present could possibly have known it was in fact Uzbekistan 's national anthem. Alas, so tortured was the pentatonic key this demonic march was composed in! ( ¯ Be kind to your web-footed friend ¯ somehow came to Josef's mind.) And there, perched on the vanguard: the distant tiny black speck which was Zoltán. Patiently biding his time, anxiously awaiting his impending moment of truth.

As the lead tank drew near, one saw that the baron was outfitted in full military fatigues, including those funny little goggles Uzbek generals make their soldiers wear. Propped behind him was some sort of tremendous chart. But one could never really get close enough to fully perceive the message it was trying to convey. All that was distinguishable against its white background was, from left to right: 1) a crooked blue line plummeting sharply; and 2) a series of bright red bars ascending stepwise at a bold and steadfast angle.

When the armored vehicles had at last turned that final corner onto Na Phra Lan—their menacing cannons in direct line with Viseschaisri Gate—that grim apocalyptic cavalry ground to a sudden halt. Zoltán lifted an enormous bullhorn he had been holding at his side. In the other hand he held a long wooden pointer which he tilted back towards the magnificent chart. The streets hushed in universal anticipation. Then, in his deep and tremulous voice:

Peeepul of Thailünde, I haf für you but von und only von vort….

But the people of Thailand would never hear that one ‘and only one' fateful word. For at that very moment each and every face in that great city (including the Emerald Buddha's) was instantly bathed in a sharp and blinding flash of lightening imploding with a cataclysmic BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! It shook the very earth's foundation and rippled to the four corners of the world! The high heavens rent asunder, and an immediate torrent of water came crushing down onto the masses!

VIII

Tap! tap! tap! tap!

Just when Josef was about to remove the fragrant garland from around his neck, there was this muffled wrap on the driver's steamy windowpane. The driver obligingly rolled down his window and unhesitatingly accepted three folded twenty-baht notes from the anonymous stubby hand that reached in to offer it. Whoever was outside must've whispered something to the driver under the roar of the rain. The driver gave a single nod of affirmation.

The fact that the driver had proven all too willing to succumb to whatsoever passing temptation thoroughly vexed Josef. Really, what else could possibly go wrong today? He didn't have time for this. At this rate, he was just going to have to suffer the consequences of missing his appointment and get back to Lucky's as fast as possible. Maybe this traffic jam would start clearing soon. “At least we have gotten past that embarrassing scene of petty corruption and its predictable outcome,” Josef thought to himself. “Does the sanctity of my privacy really fetch so little of a price?”

Suddenly Josef's door flung open before him! A spray of rain stung his startled face, which was then subsequently jabbed hard in the nose by the tip of a kid-sized candy-red umbrella. Josef flinched back, sharp tears forming in his eyes, clutching his nose in pain. Josef's cowering made just enough room for the intruder to heft his body inside. And to add further injury to this reckless entrance, the oaf planted his heal smack onto Josef's left big toe while wedging his way in tighter. It felt like a cow had just driven down its massive hoof. Josef's teeth gnashed in shock.

The stranger, oblivious to Josef's pain, wriggled and squealed in the seat. He twirled his umbrella about wildly in some futile effort to dry it. The poor tattered object was utterly torn and useless, obvious victim of the gale outside. Still the man then compacted it with all the care one would've having just bought it. Then hunching forward, he wrung onto the floor between his legs a sopping brown corduroy fedora that had been dangling from the breast pocket of his matching sopping jacket. And throughout the several minutes it took this fool to tuck away the umbrella, to shape and fold and stuff his hat back into his coat pocket, Josef was choking a little on some spittle that had gone down the wrong pipe. Snippets of Thai squawked over the CB-radio: “ …k'óp…k'óp .” Finally the offending foot lifted off. Josef immediately seized the chance to recoil further away. Ugh, the man reeked of sour sweat.

This stranger was quite short and had a lumpy body. His head and chest were large and out of proportion with the rest. In profile the guy looked like a pumpkin propped upon a sagging corduroy sack of grain. He looked Arab. His skin was a pasty brown. His eyes were disturbingly bug-like; his nose and jowls were puffed and pocked. Flung forward over the bald dome predominating his forehead, a black wiry squiggle of hair draped over his brow…yet another victim of the gale. His lips, ruddy and pudgy, stretched in a full and idiotic grin. The foreigner's heavy-lidded eyes rolled in Josef's direction, and Josef was sure that, by smiling a slight and nervous smile in return, he had made the mistake of inviting this misfit's direct attention. But the freak just rolled his bulging, blinking eyes back out the opposite window. Silent…that insufferable grimace frozen across his face. “What a ghastly sense for wardrobe,” Josef thought to himself. “Where did my cigarettes get off to now…?”

“Ha! ha! ha!” the man suddenly burst out! Josef was stunned by the vehemence! “Ha! ha! ha!… After me, the deluge! ” he continued in a high-pitched squeak. The outrageous squiggle of hair shook violently. You couldn't see the man's eyeballs anymore, so committed to this frightening convulsion was his every feature.

“Yes, those were his very words! Ha! ha!…On the eve of that his infernal march into Ashgabat, that was that bloodthirsty devil's solemn promise to the good King Ashurbanipal—God rest the doomed king's soul!”

Josef was speechless. It wasn't as if this guy was directing his bizarre ejaculation at Josef per se. This little history lesson seemed aimed elsewhere, far off and upwards, as if in address to some heavenly tribunal overhead….And indeed the foreigner's English diction was really quite excellent, one could say elevated even, if it wasn't also for an unnerving nasal lisp which necessitated one's utmost concentration to fully penetrate into what that mousey voice was trying to get at. That and the spittle spraying off his lips during moments of greatest exuberance were both really quite distracting.

All of which quickly explains why Josef was so totally unprepared to contribute to this encounter becoming a full-fledged conversation. What could he possibly have offered in return? Nope, no matter Josef's total lack of input, it wasn't going to make an ounce of difference. The madcap monologue was going to persist.

“Here we are just two-and-twenty days beyond the fifty-third anniversary of that awful, awful hour. But alas, that is all in the past. Bygones be bygones. What's over is forgiven and forgotten. Ha! ha! ha! O Sárkány!—your City-on-the-Hill—it lies forever eastward… Lux ex oriente …or so it is writ….”

The man finally relaxed the theatrics a bit here and his unsettling regard fell upon Josef once again, his speech now at least a little calmer and more comprehensible, despite the enduring lisp.

“Dear sir, allow me, if you will, to illustrate.” And here the foreigner conjured up a short pencil with a tiny notebook as if from thin air, both items miraculously dry no less. He opened the tiny black book at random, tilting its tiny blank page towards Josef so he too could plainly see what was about to be drawn.

“The dark art of symbology teaches us that there can be but the one, and only one, original root to this whole damned mess. As in the beginning, it will forever be. Now I am not discussing a mere collective belief here. No sir, this is beyond statistical probability. Even that heathen doctrine of modern neuroeconomics has reluctantly admitted it so. For you see, this line here…” And here the strange man drew a painstakingly straight line from the very bottom of the page to the very top of the page. “This here represents the one true Tree of Knowledge…our touchstone. And this line? This! This tauntingly winding coil that tenderly entwines it?!” And with an excited swipe of the pencil, here is what the strange man had then described:

$

“She is the Viper! That fiend who feeds upon our very lifeblood!”

Well, here was living proof that there were at least a few remaining dark pockets in the developing world still plagued by that most endangered of arch-villains: the anti-capitalist! Josef had heard and seen enough. And it was precisely at this same moment when, finally shouting, “ Jòt tee née dt'ong! ” at the driver in desperation, that Josef had also unwittingly entrusted the car door with too much of his weight. The door flung open behind him! Josef tumbled backwards, head-over-heels into the middle of the flooded street, into a stream of motorbikes splashing by on either side. He scrambled to his feet and ran. He didn't even bother to pay for the ride. Still, there was no crime being committed here seeing how, through the whole miserable course of this unfortunate encounter, the taxi hadn't advanced in the least….

“Minister!” Josef heard the nefarious idiot yelling behind him from the cab. “It is later than you think!” Josef ran as fast as he could, getting sliced by the rain. Again, fading in the distance behind, “It is later than you think, Minister!”

Josef ripped the flowers from his neck and tossed them into a small canal he crossed. The separating marigolds bobbled on the rain-chopped waves that darkened in the twilight.

IX

It ought to be noted that when Josef had some several hours later reached the end of his arduous trek back to his tailor's, it was too late—Lucky had closed. I will, however, leave it to the reader's imagination as to just what horrible shape Josef must have been in by the time he finally arrived back at the hotel. I should though add that somewhere along the way, Josef had also managed to lose his room key. The front desk clerk was not at all phased by Josef's haggard appearance. With this weather, it was hardly the first sob-story of its kind.

Once Josef had made it back to his room, it took him a minute to notice that someone had eaten the banana and rambutans and left nothing but a dirty knife laid across a plate of peels. Josef was about to presume it was an impertinent maid until he saw a folded note card adjacent, standing in an inverted ‘V ' . Like a place card, it had something written on the outside. Josef picked it up and it read:

C 0 – C 0 = [-1,1]

The text was meaningless to Josef. If it was code, it was not one he was capable of deciphering. A drop from his hair, still wet from the rain, plopped onto the message and the letters bled from the paper almost instantly, staining his hand with a few spots of ink.

Josef decided to change into something dry. But first he latched his room door for good measure.

Once he had put on a clean t-shirt and trunks, Josef collapsed face down onto his bed, utterly destitute. He had in essence been running in one big circle all day, to no end whatsoever. Hardly one step closer to his ultimate goal. And he was going to pay dearly for missing his second appointment. It all started with that woman. The more and more with each passing hour, whatever wild thoughts had sparked in Josef's brain throughout the day, they always gravitated back upon this woman. He couldn't explain it. It wasn't simply that his mission might have been somehow compromised by their encounter that troubled Josef so. Rather, he now felt like some dark craving was somehow being denied him. This was a fatal track for his thoughts to keep pursuing, and he knew it. He twinged with anxiety. Powerful unmet desires swept over Josef in increasingly exhausting waves. He could no longer resist the overwhelming compulsion to sink into a deep, deep, deep nap.

X

He dreamt of his father…of whom he had very little memory. Josef dreamt of seeing his father ascend the last rungs of a very tall ladder…his heels disappearing through an attic door far above Josef's infant head. It is not possible to say whether this dream was rooted in memory. It simply is not possible….

He then dreamt of awaking in a strange bed, naked, next to a naked woman. There she lay, asleep, bathed in an ethereal morning light—it was the woman. And when Josef ran his fingertips lightly across her nipple, it hardened and a drop of milk trickled out.

Josef jolted up in a sweat. What had broken his sleep? He tried to quell the pounding of his heart. “The door latch!”

Josef sprang to his feet. But when he reached the front door, his suspicion was defied. The door was still latched from inside. But there, peeking out from the shadows of the half-open closet, hung there nice and neat—it was his black raincoat. A note was pinned to its breast pocket. In a childish script:

Club 33. Midnite. Tonite.

Josef unpinned the paper and raised it to his face and sniffed. Rosewater.

Club 33. Midnight. Tonight.

Josef chose to wear his raincoat to the club that night. And he did so regardless of the fact that Lucky had, for some unknown reason, taken it upon himself to alter its overall size and length. Our hero looked ridiculous in this newly tailored getup: the sleeves pinched at mid-forearm, the belt extra long and drooping just beneath the armpits now. Our lovesick suitor was, however, willing to overcome his embarrassment—there must have been some reason why this hypnotic woman had affixed the note specifically to the coat. Whatever the connection, Josef was going to uphold his half of the bargain and was going to sustain the inscrutable link already established between the article of clothing she was so noble as to return and the climactic tryst she was so bold as to put in motion.

Josef squirmed inside his coat in hopes of improving the fit. There in the pocket were the cigarettes he had been looking for all afternoon. And yes, it felt like Lucky had gone ahead and stitched the secret missive safe into the breast-lining. Somehow it seemed like two birds with one stone. But, as he was leaving the hotel, Josef's mind was too focused on the coming reunion to question how strange it was that everything was suddenly going really very well.

Josef walked on a ways because he wanted to grab a cab away from the hotel. Outside the clouds had passed. The air was cool and the sweet scent that follows a rain was almost intoxicating. The alleys hissed softly from still dripping. Every now and then the muffled echo of a damp automobile tire or footstep floated through the humid air, giving the city an overall hollow feel. Under the bright moonlight everything glistened with a silvery phosphorescent sheen.

The streets were dead this Monday night. Josef had no trouble finding a taxi . And yes, the driver knew the destination well. And he nodded and smiled at Josef as if in unspoken understanding of Josef's intent. The driver then friendlily requested forty baht in advance. “For toll,” he said (rolling his L 's thickly).

Which was ironic since they never once got onto the freeway. Josef did not at all recognize the driver's labyrinthine route, which wound through none but the tightest and most twisted alleyways. But Josef did know the utter lack of traffic hardly warranted all these backstreet shortcuts. So questionable was the navigation, Josef began to suspect he was getting hoodwinked. But before he could pull out his watch to see how late all this nonsense was making him, the cab braked to a halt.

There they were, at the unmistakable outskirts of that most ill-reputed of city districts—Pat Pong. Josef paid the fare and stepped out into the chill. The taxi sped away before Josef even had the chance to shut the door behind.

Our hero paused for a moment at the edge of this notorious boulevard and watched the various sordid crowds that swirled along its boundaries. Simply put, Pat Pong is one of those parts of the city whose every filthy entrance Bangkok 's city planners should boldly mark with a bright red sign that reads:

…s o dire are Pat Pong's prospects for your average Thai citizen. And although the rest of the law-abiding city is asleep in bed at this ungodly hour as it ought to be, Pat Pong remains the eternal haunt for every somnambular species of trash and vermin…a whole commotion of fiends trying to sell you this, that or the other illicit thing. Josef waded through the throngs of vagabonds, derelicts, perverts, addicts, sugar-daddies, and desperados; charlatans, cutthroats, depressives, gamblers, misogynists, and loan sharks; pimps, hookers, gold-diggers, fortunetellers, pickpockets, cons, provocateurs, transvestites, forgers, and liars; and every variety of backstabber known to man. Yep, it takes all types in Pat Pong. Josef's inherent curiosity led him to peer deeply into many a passing stranger's face. Each, though, confronted with a practiced stoicism.

Josef quickly found among the endless placards flashing photos of dancing naked women the one that read ‘ Club 33 .' He approached and nodded at a small boy waving him on, and the boy grabbed him by the hand and dragged him to a narrow stairwell. The further on that they descended, the more the nightclub's throb of sound eclipsed the noise behind up on the streets. Josef could at last see the entranceway demarcated by distant bursts of light flashing sharply at the bottom of the sinking stairs. The boy let go his hand once they reached the nightclub's threshold.

Josef entered a wall of sound. In the short gaps between deafening electronic beats, you could hear the shrill buzz of caterwauls. A handful of rowdy drunks was scattered among the shadows of the grimy barroom. On the near side, a group of American sailors was acting exceptionally unruly. Josef found a table at the opposite end. In the remotest, smokiest corner. He was the only one here alone. He lit a cigarette. A sour stench filled the air.

And, you may ask, just what exactly were these sailors getting so riled about? Well, let me tell you. Above the bar, on a raised stage pulsing with colored lights, there were a dozen or so young, pretty, fun-loving and exceptionally naughty girls, all of them jiggling around a ring of dance-poles in nothing more than thin white bikini bottoms, white cowboy boots and see-thru jackets with UV fringe about the arms and waist. These little sumptuous morsels gyrated to the groove in continuous, exaggeratively suggestive motion. Around each delectable narrow waist hung a holster from which the girls drew toy pistols and waved them into the audience, pretending to take shots or sometimes shoving them down into their bikinis. Frequently one would saunter down from stage to sit on some potential customer's lap. “Hieee!…What you name?” And all of this always with a lot of smiling, in addition to whatever else. Meanwhile the rugged house mama-san kept business running smoothly from behind the bar, expertly pouring shot glass after shot glass, grabbing wads of cash from girls returning back up stage after their tour around the clientele below.

“Why here of all places?” Josef wondered, his eyes roving the dismal scene.

And it was then when he noticed. He wasn't late after all. She had been here all along. Up on stage. In quite a different attire this time round.

There she was…wrapping her thin bare thighs around a dance-pole, her black knee-high boots lifting and dropping her in slow rhythm. Her one hand stroked up and down the pole with the music. The other pressed the toy gun upon her naked stomach, just above the crotch. She was quite muscular. Her abdomen especially amazing—smooth yet tense—its poised powerful core somehow reminding Josef of a Dvaravati style sculpture of Buddha he had once sat in front of marveling over….her hair and lips were all now colored the same shade of electric-pink, her brilliant hair now cut short in back and angling down around her chin. Her visage was complacent. Her glance scanned the audience indifferently, back and forth, never once settling on Josef. Just beneath the cut of her black alligator-skin vest, the sharp silhouettes of her nipples peeked out. She licked her tongue across her upper lip.

Josef was transfixed. There was not a drop of blood in his body that did not tremble. He could not for the life of him remove his gaze from this infinitely mesmerizing vision of his beloved. He hadn't the slightest idea what to do….

“Ah! ah! Good Sir Philosopher! What are you doing in this den of good-for-nothings?” was suddenly blurted from behind Josef. That lisp…it was unmistakable. Josef twisted around and there he was—the foreigner. Sitting just inches behind his left shoulder, that annoying grin stretched across his face. Josef's cigarette burned down to his fingers and he dropped it in a pained spasm.

“Heavens, get over it!” The foreigner laughed into Josef's face. “There is no reason to be so ashamed. I've met your type before,” he shouted. “Temperance? Wisdom?” he continued. “Are they really for everyone? Imagine a universe of nothing but know-it-alls and prudes. How deathly boring would that be? What would your darling lovebird up there think of such a sterile world?” the stranger mocked, motioning towards the stage. How in the hell did this fuck know about the woman? How much did he know?

“A simple fact of life,” he went on, never once losing that eternal idiotic grin. “The older this world grows, the greater the number of professions…your beloved's, though, being one of the oldest. And each comes with its own code of conduct, its own ethics, its own idiom if you will. There are so many worlds you have left to explore, dear sir!….”

Josef was halfway tempted to get up and find another table when something uncanny happened. When the strange man next spoke, the club's entire din went suddenly mute. It was as if an enormous magical glass jar had been placed around Josef and his nemesis. The man's next words rang in an ominous silence.

“Mr Chanchai, it is later than you think.”

What had happened to the nightclub's pounding blare? There was no rational explanation. Josef's ears must have been playing tricks on him. And that was when Josef noticed the foreigner was wearing the exact same style coat that he himself was wearing. Only contrary to Josef's predicament, the man's coat was too long and way too tight in the waist.

“What's wrong with you?” the man picked up again after a dramatic pause. “Didn't you get my message? I was trying to warn you.”

Of course. The encryption was from this pest. He must be another agent. Really, one has to be so careful—they're everywhere. As a rule of thumb, it takes a spook to know how to handle a spook. And although Josef was now well beyond taking anything this man said seriously, and while he saw no point in humoring this eccentric further, Josef decided that, no matter how totally weird and unbelievable the situation was becoming, he had to flat out speak up. There was one option only: Josef had to get rid of this obnoxious nuisance somehow, and quickly.

“No. I'm okay. No cause for worry,” Josef uttered, surprised by the frailty of his response in that mystical silence. Where was he trying to go with this?

“You don't understand!” the man persisted. “You who sit before me, your days are numbered! Just as the count of every hair on your head is known, so too has the hour of your final moment already been predestined from the very beginning. Can't you see? There is no time to waste! Fate is now! You are only ever in the present! When will you comprehend? That you, and you alone, are that eternal clock whose center is everywhere and whose hands are nowhere! Tota simul !”

“Wait,” Josef interrupted, trying to make his voice sound more commanding. “Don't blow my cover. I've been following her for weeks now,” he falsely ventured. “Now please just get up and walk away without creating a scene!”

“Men like you are a bit pathetic, no? You never go beyond making your own thoughts your whores. Alas, Chanchai. All your sailing the seven seas…what good has it done you? Your origins are dead. The future is your sworn enemy. I tried to save you. The Thirteen hired me to protect you. Damn it! She's saturated your coat in nitrophenyl pentadien and luminol! You are the one being followed, my friend! Chanchai, she's after you! She's working for The Hand! Trust me, you do not fully understand! There is a great and secret war underway! We must switch coats immediately!”

Here the foreigner leapt from his seat and lunged at Josef as if to yank off his coat.

“Stop!” Josef protested, knocking him back with a few slaps. Josef felt like he had to at last expose this impostor for who he was. “Liar! Tell me! Tell me now! If I am Chanchai…then who are you?' Josef demanded, sternly, arrogant in that he thought he knew what the answer was going to be.

“Me? Who am I?——I am the Covering Cherub.” The man then pointed over Josef's shoulder. “If you doubt me, look for yourself. Look at your precious little object of desire. See how she now fully embodies what minutest remnant of your life you still possess.”

Josef turned and saw the fearsome woman descending from stage down into the shadows—her pistol in both hands, her eyes fixing Josef's head above its sight. Dance lights swirled across her face. With each slow and deliberate step, the black handgun grew ever more real. It grew massive and impacting on Josef's psyche, like a monumental stone, like a planet plummeting onto his head…until the very instant when our poor hero was looking into the revolver's gaping .45 caliber barrel—pointblank. The woman stared him down coldly and pulled back the hammer. Click …The quickening crescendo of his heart beating in his ears was all that Josef could now hear….

Suddenly all the club lights burst on and the crowd saw what was happening. And for some strange reason, throughout this painstaking pause, all Josef could think was, “So, what's in my breast-lining? Is it a letter meant for me then?”

——But really, what does this all matter now? What can it possibly matter? Our poor Josef is about to know absolute silence. He is about to partake in that silence more pure and tranquil than all other silences.——

Gasps and shrieks began seeping into and finally broke the silent hex encircling the three. The woman swung the revolver hard from Josef's face, down into the stranger's chest. She fired and the man grunted and dropped with a thud in a heap against the wall. The room erupted in panic. There was the scent of gunpowder and the overpowering metallic smell of blood. The woman looked quietly into Josef's eyes. She put her index finger to her lips and smiled…then beckoned him forward with that same long slender finger. Josef silently obeyed and followed her up the backdoor stairs. The last sound heard…her Shogun motorcycle's ignited 1100cc engine screaming off into the moonlit night.