Finally Calvino saw her. Mya Kyaw Thein, the Black Cat, sat alone at a small table, like the last man in an overrun platoon waiting for reinforcements to arrive. She’d worn vastly different outfits at the bar and the courthouse, so Calvino wasn’t surprised to find her dressed in Chinese polished red silk with a fire-breathing green dragon stitched over her heart. She was the kind of woman who had a costume for every stage. Seeing Calvino, she stood up and waved.
“I thought you’d never come,” she said.
“We got lost,” he said.
“A private investigator who tracks down missing people getting lost in Chinatown? That’s almost too funny,” she said.
She smiled as if genuinely amused.
“Being lost and going missing are two different problems,” Calvino said.
“Unless you’re like Rob and you are both,” she said.
Mya Kyaw Thein spotted Colonel Pratt and Kati as they emerged from inside the restaurant. They had gone inside Cherry Mann for an inspection. Kati said she never ate at a restaurant without first checking out the state of the kitchen. Kati in her high heels and short skirt had Chinese heads snapping hard enough to sever them at the spine. A waiter tripped and spilled a mutton curry down the back of an old man, who yelped as if someone had shot him.
“Who is that with Pratt?”
“Kati. She’s a big fan of his.”
“Are you crazy? What is she doing here? I told you to come alone.”
“I told you that Pratt was coming.”
Colonel Pratt made a point of hanging back. They stayed near the entrance of the restaurant, talking and gesturing at the glazed ducks in the window. The Colonel watched the area around the Black Cat’s table, waiting for a signal from Calvino.
“How many more people did you bring?”
Her good-natured humor about his getting lost had vanished. She became a different person. Tugging at her Chinese collar, she became all business, her nerves on edge.
“What kind of trouble’s Rob in? You just said he was lost and missing. What’s that supposed to mean?”
He’d asked this question before and never got a straight answer from her, no matter what costume she’d been wearing. Maybe there wasn’t one. Or maybe there was, but she thought—out of loyalty, perhaps?—that it was better to let Rob do the explaining.
“She has everyone on the street staring,” she complained. “A couple of the old men look like they’ve stopped breathing.”
Red-eyed drunks drooled in their soup as she passed, clinking glasses or bottles, belching and swearing to each other that Kati was an omen for an auspicious New Year.
“She’s here. Deal with it,” said Calvino.
He glanced at Colonel Pratt and nodded.
The Black Cat’s eyes danced around the tables of Chinese men who followed Kati with their greedy eyes.
“This isn’t gonna work. No way Rob is going to risk coming with an audience watching our table.”
“Cool down. Have some food. Let it play out. So tell me, how’s your brother doing now he’s out of prison?”
Wai Wan minus his leg irons was resting at home. But she’d got his point; they’d made a bargain, and he’d come to collect what was owed and due. She sat back in her chair quietly, arms folded, the wheels turning inside her head.
She was about to say something, one of those things people regret saying, when she sucked in her breath and said instead, “Could you ask your friend to not sit at the table?”
“It’s too late for that,” said Calvino. “He’s with me. Dealing with trouble is something Pratt does well. And you said Rob had trouble. Pratt’s my backup. As a singer, you should appreciate the need for a good backup. Or else you die.”
She bit the corner of her lip.
“Okay, I’ll deal with it.”
It was too late for her to say anything else. Colonel Pratt and Kati had arrived and hovered beside the table as a waiter looked for two stools. The Black Cat welcomed them by taking a sip of water. Her eyes had already followed her thoughts beyond the crowd and into the street. She looked up at Kati, who smiled as she sat on one of the stools.
“I recognize you. You’re the singer from 50th Street last night. I’m so honored to meet you,” said Kati. “The audience at the club loved you. I loved you. I’m so glad to tell you in person how great you are. I feel that I know you. It sounds stupid, but it’s true.”
Perched on the plastic stool with her short skirt hiked to her upper thigh, she squeezed in close to the Black Cat.
“Kati hasn’t eaten dinner,” said Colonel Pratt.
“I’m not really that hungry,” said Kati.
At a table in the next row, a Chinese businessman sent a waiter their way with a bottle of whiskey. He put it in front of Kati. The waiter pointed at the patron with a gold tooth sticking out of a smile that threatened to rip the man’s face in two.
The Black Cat opened her handbag, removed her cell phone, turned around on her stool and faced the road as she dialed. There was a long pause before she turned to face Calvino. Then she slowly shook her head.
“He says he won’t come unless it’s just you. He’s scared.”
“Why is he scared?” asked Calvino.
“He has issues.”
“Why? His old man?”
“It’s beyond that.”
That ended any hope of the night ending in a straightforward way. Calvino’s hunch that Rob wasn’t a missing person but a man in hiding had been confirmed.
“Beyond what?” he asked.
“He has a problem?” said Colonel Pratt.
The upper end of things signified by that simple word encompassed the full range of hurt and grief.
“Big time,” she said, locking eyes with Calvino.
Calvino saw the same intense emotion he’d witnessed in the courtyard earlier that day and on stage the previous night.
“Why don’t you tell us why Rob’s afraid?” asked Calvino.
“It would be better if he told you.”
“Ask him to join us. Tell him we’re here to help him. He’ll be okay.”
The Black Cat clutched her cell phone like it was a small bird fallen from a nest. Gently, lovingly, she gestured with it, as if the piece of shiny black plastic had a long story to tell, if only you could dial the bureau of truth. But that line was always busy.
She spoke in a whispered voice over the phone.
“He wants to meet only you,” she finally said to Calvino.
She locked eyes with Colonel Pratt.
“Nothing personal, Pratt. I liked how you played last night. The thing is, none of this has anything to do with you. My boyfriend knows you’re a cop. He says he can’t handle talking to a cop. Not now anyway.”
The small talk had ended. Colonel Pratt understood that there was a problem and he wasn’t part of the solution. There were far too many eyeballs feasting on Kati and watching their table. The men ate rice and mutton with their hands, sticky, wet fingers jabbing at the air.
“We’ll be on our way,” said the Colonel. “I hope you come back to the bar tonight to sing. I’d like to hear you again.”
“That’d be great,” she said with audible relief.
Calvino smiled. Colonel Pratt had handled the moment with perfect pitch.
“My name is Kati. I love your voice,” said his companion, bridging her hands together to form an elegant wai.
“Glad we met, and maybe I’ll see you later,” said the Black Cat as she auto-dialed Rob’s cell phone number.
“See you later,” said Calvino.
Colonel Pratt smiled as he rose from the table.
“Happy New Year!”
“Year of the dragon,” said Calvino. “Isn’t that a lucky year?”
“They’re all lucky if you get through them,” said Colonel Pratt.
Kati pulled at her skirt as she rose from the stool, and it seemed for an instant that half of Chinatown failed to exhale. She put her arm through Colonel Pratt’s, and they
walked away. The Colonel had accumulated a big enough face from the sea of Chinese diners that his head could have been a float in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He led Kati through the narrow gap between the tables, and soon they disappeared into the crowd.
There goes my backup, thought Calvino. He’d ordered the mutton and some vegetable dishes. The bowls on the other tables showed grease floating like oil slicks over the food.
Lowering her cell phone, the Black Cat said, “Rob’s on his way.”
That last call to Rob confirmed what Calvino suspected—that he was nearby, watching. What demon had lodged in Rob’s mind? Calvino casually thought that, whatever it was, he wasn’t in the business of taming demons. Wai Wan had passed freely through eight toll-gates, but it was at the ninth one where the motorcycle cop had followed him and changed his life. Whether a man had ever really cleared the ninth toll-gate was never an easy question.
The dragon dancers came out of the darkness. First came the sound of their drums, accompanied by cymbals and gongs. Calvino had a closer look at the Black Cat’s costume; it was the same design as those of the dancers. She’d dressed so she could melt into the dragon dance.
A couple of dozen dragon dancers wound through the street on the right. They came down Maha Bandoola Road, making the rounds from shop to shop, banging drums and gongs until the owner made a donation. Someone tossed firecrackers behind the dancers. Calvino saw the flash from a hundred tiny explosions in the road. The diners at the tables laughed, showing their teeth. The Chinese savored the sound of exploding firecrackers and the smell of gunpowder. The banging of gongs and drums grew louder as the young men and women covered in dragon costumes moved in closer, darting in and out of the road. The large red dragon mask with huge eyes and gaping mouth reared up and down near Calvino’s table. One of the men in sneakers and white shirt shoved a donation box in front of him. As Calvino dropped in a five-dollar bill, he saw a foreigner move behind the dancers, stop for a moment and then walk over and sit at the table.
As the dragon dancers continued down the street, Rob watched, biting his lower lip. He’d dressed in white silk like the other dancers. His head was covered with a smaller version of a dragonhead mask. Slowly he peeled off the mask to reveal a luk-kreung—or half-breed, as his father called him—looking as if he’d seen a ghost. In the dim light, Rob easily passed as a Chinese dragon dancer. Only he was taller and had broader shoulders than most of the Burmese or Chinese.
Rob drew in a long breath as sweat streaked his face and dripped down his neck, glistening hot even in the dim light. His hair, long and braided in strips, hung around his head like a curtain on a Somali warlord, and he had a full black beard. He had the kind of presence that indicated an ongoing relationship with trouble. Calvino had thought that trouble’s name was Mya. But a man could never be certain whether trouble had an extended family. There was an echo of his father’s face, mainly in the eyes and the way his mouth clenched like an angry fist looking for a soft gut to land in.
“I can’t stay long.”
“You want something to eat?”
Rob waved off the offer. He sat down at the table. The Black Cat reached out and brushed his face with the back of her hand. She’d been eating mutton curry and rice with her forefinger and thumb, the traditional Burmese style. He grabbed her hand and licked her fingers. She looked suddenly sad and distant. It was the same look Calvino had seen when the Black Cat had stood in the courtroom doorway watching her brother testify.
“You want something to drink? A beer? Whiskey?”
“I told you, man. I can’t stay here.”
“Your dad’s worried about you.”
“I’m overwhelmed by his paternal instinct.”
“He’d like you to go back to Bangkok.”
“He can go fuck himself.”
“Your father’s not well.”
“He’s dying. Don’t you think I know that? So fucking what? Everyone dies. He’s taking his sweet time at it. You can tell him that.”
An old Thai expression came into Calvino’s mind as he studied the contempt on Rob’s young face—thom namlai rot fah, “spit at the sky”—a hard-hitting phrase that described a certain way of showing disapproval. It fit Rob, as it fit a slave sending a message to his master. The man under the thumb of another spit in the sky because in his universe that was where the master lived.
“Why so bitter? Did he beat you as a kid?”
“I wish he’d given me that much attention. Why did he send you?”
“Maybe he wants to say sorry for that. Fathers can’t help making mistakes that mess up their son’s lives. Why should you be any different?”
“It’s too late.” He squeezed his girlfriend’s hand. “You can tell him that.”
“What kind of trouble are you in?”
Calvino hadn’t wanted to ask the question because once he had information about a man’s demons, his approach to the ninth toll-gate, that information pulled him inside the circle where the demons lived and did their business. And no one who’d taken a moment to think about it voluntarily entered another’s ring of fire unless he was a friend.
“The kind that never lets go.”
A black Lexus had double-parked next to a Range Rover and a Toyota SUV, and two men in street clothes got out and walked between the cars, straight to the table. One grabbed Rob by the back of his shirt and pulled him up from the stool. His partner held a handgun. In the dim light Calvino saw the gun come out in a flash.
“You make a big problem,” said the Burmese in English. “Now you come with us.”
The Black Cat turned into Mya Kyaw Thein and spoke to the men in Burmese. It sounded like a plea, the tone of a beggar requesting mercy. But the submissive tone of voice never works with gunmen, Calvino thought, whether they’re in Rangoon, Bangkok, Phnom Penh or Saigon. Calvino didn’t know any place in the region where such a pitiful tone would deliver any response other than a leering smile. She’d have had a better chance if Mya Kyaw Thein had switched back to the Black Cat and belted out “Cry Me a River.”
“It’s okay, Mya. Don’t get involved.” Rob looked at Calvino. “Tell my father you saw me.”
More firecrackers exploded a couple of feet away as the two men frog-marched Rob, shoving him through a gap in the tables. An elbow brushed a glass and it dropped on the pavement, shattering into pieces. The kidnappers kept their man moving. One of the Burmese thugs, dressed in a black T-shirt and cargo pants, held a handgun waist-high, out of sight. Calvino saw the barrel of a black 9mm touch the small of Rob’s back. His companion had an arm around Rob’s arm, pulling him along. A knocked-over dish hit the pavement. Like the glass, the broken plate drew no notice amid the blaring music, blurry voices with smudges of laughter and a background of traffic noise, gongs, drums and firecrackers. The two gunmen walked unhurriedly—the hallmark of professionals—glancing back now and then, and except for the tables they’d bumped into, no one noticed what was going on.
“Rob…” Mya said and then broke off her thought, switching into Burmese to shout at the two men who’d moved away from the table.
Neither of the men replied. Calvino grabbed her wrist as she got up.
“Wait here,” he said. “Let me handle it.”
Calvino waited until the two men and Rob had disappeared behind the Range Rover. The rear of the Range Rover obscured their line of sight back to the table. Calvino waited until they couldn’t see him before rolling off the stool and dropping to the pavement. He crawled forward three feet through the cigarette butts, chicken bones and spilled curry before rising to his feet and, hunched over, running to take cover in the front of the Range Rover.
Rob stood in front of the Lexus, where he switched into fight mode. He took a swing at one of the men and tried to make a break into the road. The two muscled goons, who had relaxed half a notch, thinking they had him under control, were caught off guard. They caught up with him a few meters away and wrestled him to the ground, punching him in the kidney
s with a couple of well-positioned body jabs that would sap the fight out of any man.
With the Lexus engine running, lights switched off, the driver sat alone behind the steering wheel, watching the struggle. Calvino pulled his Walther out of the holster and slipped in alongside the Lexus. He tapped on the window. The window slowly lowered. Reaching in to grab the driver, Calvino hit him hard on the head with the butt of the Walther and then opened the door from the inside. The driver tumbled out onto the street with a thump. Calvino dragged him free of the door and climbed in front.
Now the two goons had dragged Rob back to the Lexus, and he was making it hard work to shove him in the back seat. They’d had enough. Both men turned on Rob with their fists, beating the shit out of him. One of the blows hit Rob hard in that sweet spot on the bridge of the nose. He doubled over as a mess of blood and snot fell into his hands along with a muffled scream. Working Rob over served its purpose; his disorientation made it easy to bundle him into the back of the car.
Inside the Lexus Rob kicked at them with his legs, but his power was spent, and his will drained. One of the men held him in a hammerlock as his buddy worked his fists on Rob’s midsection. By the time they’d finished with Rob, he slumped forward. The men taunted him in Thai.
One of them tapped Calvino on the shoulder and said in Thai, “Pai rew-rew”—Go fast. Clearly the goons weren’t Burmese. Like a twitch on a poker player’s face, a man’s “tell” always gave him away if others at the table could read it.
“Pai nai?” asked Calvino in his most guttural Issan accent.
The two men froze, exchanging puzzled looks, as if the other one might have a clue what was happening in the front seat. A new player sat at the wheel, and he spoke Thai with a farang accent. In the heartbeat of a rabbit chased by a fox, Rob and Calvino made a play. The only one they had.
Missing In Rangoon Page 17