THE HOUSE OF ROOSTER HAPPINESS

Despite the fact that she was certain what she needed to do, and despite the incontrovertible fact that she enjoyed the support of Professor Dalrymple herself, Ladarat was uneasy as she left the hospital. So uneasy, in fact, that she made her escape via the loading dock, where the Director of Excellence was unlikely to have spies.

Ladarat felt like a young girl sneaking out of her father’s Ban Huai Duea School in the middle of the day. Winding her way through the garden that led to the cricket field in back, then taking a left turn before she got there, disappearing behind the high wooden fence. She hadn’t done that often, and it had never been her idea. It was true, Siriwan had been a bad influence.

Now here she was, without her cousin to blame. Just her. It was just past three o’clock, and she was sneaking out of the hospital. And with a Royal Inspection on Monday.

But this was an errand Ladarat didn’t want to run at night. She suspected that this place of business wasn’t somewhere she wanted to be after dark. So it was worth risking the censure of Khun Tippawan. She would do what she needed to do, then go home.

Home… already Ladarat was thinking about dinner. Perhaps she would get something light. Nam tok moo, maybe. Grilled pork and lemon juice and toasted rice. Simple but hearty. And maybe Duanphen’s kanom maprao—coconut cake—for dessert as a special treat if this errand was as productive as she hoped it might be.

She was still thinking about kanom maprao, or maybe glooai tawt, weighing their relative merits, as she nosed the Beetle through the seedy back streets of Chiang Mai’s river neighborhood. She’d never been to this part of Chiang Mai before. As far removed as it could be from the touristy spots, or the university that she knew so well, it was just up against the river, near enough to the night market to walk to. Yet this was new territory.

She parked in front of a dusty antiques store that looked as though it hadn’t seen a customer since Rama VII was king, back in the 1920s. The fact that she’d never been here before didn’t bother her, nor did the neighborhood’s reputation. The fact that she had no trouble finding a parking spot, though… well, that was a little worrisome.

There were few people on the sidewalks, which was also a little worrisome. And those pedestrians she saw were almost all men. Americans and Europeans, of course. One rowdy group of young men with tight shorts that showed off muscular thighs. Australians.

And Chinese. Lots of Chinese. They made up perhaps half of the people she saw on her side of the street. They were dressed as businessmen mostly. Middle-aged, with a bit of a paunch. And she passed more than a few heavy gold watches on beefy wrists. She hoped they weren’t real, because in this neighborhood, you shouldn’t flaunt anything that you expected to still be wearing the next morning.

She’d heard the stories of these places. She’d heard about the videos of clients that were sold online, of course. And those who were blackmailed, and robbed, or worse.

All these men around here would risk that—and worse—just for… what exactly? She couldn’t understand it. What was the attraction?

These Chinese men in particular were probably all smart, successful businessmen. No doubt they had large brains. Yet tonight, at least, they were not using those large brains to think. Instead, they seemed to have delegated their thinking to another part of their anatomy.

Ladarat finally found a parking space that was perhaps half a dozen blocks from where she was going. She locked the Beetle—a precaution that she didn’t remember ever taking. It wasn’t until she started walking that she remembered the Beetle had two doors.

Was the passenger door locked? She honestly couldn’t remember. When had she ever used the passenger door? That question brought her to an uneasy halt and the men on the sidewalk flowed around her.

She really had been living a solitary existence, hadn’t she? I mean, really. Not knowing when you’d last had a passenger in your car? That was truly the classic symptom of a sad, solitary life.

Thoughtfully, she began to walk again, but with more purpose. She would need to work on that, wouldn’t she? It just wouldn’t do to keep on like this. Somboon had died twelve years ago. And didn’t Thais reckon life in twelve-year increments? Perhaps that meant something.

But she would ponder that later. Now, she had to search for a murderer.

Ladarat walked on down the block as the buildings around her became smaller and darker. Back where she’d left the Beetle, at least there had been storefronts, a few of which were still open, with lights on inside. Now, though, only a hundred meters away, the narrow street was lined only with blank brick walls and tough-looking steel doors. There were names and signs above most of those doors, but at least half were in Chinese. The few that also offered English translations followed a predictable theme. “Pleasure Garden” and “Happy Palace” and the inscrutable “Lucky Go-Go,” whatever that meant. But she could imagine.

As she hesitated in front of one door, it swung open and caught the back of her right shoulder and spun her around. She turned, annoyed, to see a group of five or six Chinese men emerge. They flowed out through the door and meandered in a drunken serpentine back the way she’d come. Apparently they were cruising from bar to bar. The mamasan—an older woman with her hair pulled back severely in a bun—stood in the doorway watching them go. She was also Chinese, and looked at Ladarat appraisingly. Then she shook her head sadly and disappeared, closing the door firmly behind her.

Rubbing her sore shoulder thoughtfully, Ladarat looked up.

“Fun Time.” Its faded neon sign blinked in a regular, slow rhythm as if someone were trying to communicate with a particularly dim-witted tourist.

She kept walking and had almost reached the end of the block when she saw what she was looking for. It was an unassuming building that was in poor shape, even for this block. It had litter on the sidewalk in front of it, and the pavement looked as though it hadn’t been hosed down in weeks. There were no windows at all, but it looked as though there might have been once, but they’d been bricked up.

There was a diminutive sign over the door: “The House of Rooster Happiness.” The red letters were so smudged and dirty, she wouldn’t have noticed the name if she hadn’t been searching for the number she’d been given. There it was—just to the right of the door: 9283. This was it.