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official offer , but it sure sounded like he was dancing around the subject.”
    I growled. “See, this is the reason why it would be worth you having some kind of recording device on your person at all times. So you can stop people from sneaky underhanded moves and force them to pull blatant underhanded moves.”
    Marolo shrugged. “I did tell him thanks but no thanks.”
    “Doesn’t matter,” I said, looking around the distillery. “He smells blood in the water, and he’s not going to stop until the Co-Op gobbles this place up.”
    “But they can’t do that, right? Not yet?”
    “We are fine , finance-wise. I can show you the numbers.”
    He held up his hands. “I know them. You sing them to me every payday.”
    “Then I’ll have to sing louder, because you’re the only one who’s heard.” I opened my arms wide and did a slow circle. “What do you see?”
    Marolo beetled his brows. “An empty distillery?”
    “And why is it empty?”
    He scrunched his forehead a bit, then opened his eyes wide. “Oh, Lord. Everyone has panicked, and that will mean nothing gets done, so of course the place will go under.” He looked at the toolbox. “Now I want to hit him. What should I use?”
    “You leave that up to me.”
    “Not on your life.” He picked up a torque wrench. “He wants to come in here and screw up the best job I’ve ever had? Not without a fight.”
    “Which, like I said, you will leave up to me .” I held out my hand. After hesitating a moment, he gave me the wrench. “I’m the owner. I’m in the Co-Op. They want to try and screw us with rules and procedure? We’ll use ’em right back.”
    “You got a lawyer?”
    For a brief moment, I thought about Banks and wondered where his skinny ass had gone to. By now, the ship he’d boarded would be near the Red Line, ready to jump off into the Great Beyond. I didn’t expect to hear from him ever again, but, right now, it would have been nice to ping him a message and bully him into helping me.
    “I used to,” I said. “But I think I can handle it.” I patted the torque wrench. “Especially if I’ve got this .”

THREE
    After telling Sirikit to drive much, much slower, we eased to a stop in front of the head office of the Santee Anchorage Rum Producers’ Co-Operative, way the hell northwest in Xochimilco Grove. This was where the sidewalk ended and the kampong began. The Co-Op office, an architectural student’s fever dream of warped glass, reclaimed hull plates, and ironpalm deckwork, huddled at the end of Chung Kuong Street. Behind it spread the kampong, the great fields of sugarcane that rolled beyond the western horizon. The only thing I could hear (after Sirikit killed the stereo) was the rustle of millions of hectares of cane, their leaves shaking in the evening breeze.
    Sirikit sniffed. “I thought it would smell more like rum.”
    “Not here,” I said, hopping out of the tuk-tuk. “This place is nothing but business.” I pointed at the buildings that lined the street. “Everything here used to support the distilleries, back when there were only a few of them. Sand would get hauled up to that plant” – I nodded at one squat square coated with soot – “and melted into glass for the bottling plant there ” – I turned to a triangular building made entirely of blue-green glass – “before getting labelled there .” Now I looked right at the site of the Co-Op.
    “Not anymore?”
    “Too many distilleries now,” I said. “Not enough room. Also, some members like to control every aspect of their operation, but they stick with the Co-Op.”
    “Why?”
    I shook my head. “Damned if I know. You need anything?”
    Sirikit scratched her neck. “I’d kill for some omusubi right now.”
    I handed her a hundred yuan note. “Two streets south, three streets west. Find the place with the blue maneki-neko on the door. Ask for Ian or Keiko, and they’ll hook you up.”
    She grinned. “You expect me to spend this whole blue