“I’d heard that Yadanar Khin had good connections. His family made money from all kinds of deals. When he found out I was a singer, he said he’d see what he could do. A Burmese band had just signed with an American label. He wanted that for himself. He thought I was his ticket. I said his family owed my family. He said, ‘Bullshit. What’s that got to do with me?’ I told him I had a boyfriend and was already in a band in Bangkok. He said there might be another way to do business, seeing that I lived in Bangkok and had a relationship.”
“Is this why Rob had two Thais trying to kill him?” asked Calvino.
Rob lifted his head from her lap.
“She told me not to get involved.”
Calvino watched him sit on the bed next to her.
“But you insisted,” Calvino said.
“It wasn’t a big thing. I was supposed to pick up a suitcase and deliver it in Bangkok.”
“What was inside?”
“Cold pills. Over-the-counter medicine for hay fever or a cold.”
“Pills that drug dealers buy to make yaba out of,” said Calvino, referring the crazy-making local variety of methamphetamine. “You know that, don’t you?”
It wasn’t that he wanted to know whether Rob had bought into Yadanar’s story that he was taking cold pills into Bangkok for people with a runny nose and fever. He wanted to know whether he would lie about it.
“I guess so,” he said. “But that’s got nothing to do with me. The stuff I brought in was for a clinic in Korat. I wasn’t giving anything to a drug dealer. I delivered to a doctor. Jesus, what’s wrong with that?”
“You didn’t think, why does a doctor in a clinic need me to bring a suitcase of cold pills when he can order them in Thailand?”
“It’s a quota or something. I don’t know. All I know is what was written on the packets. ‘Cold pills.’ Nothing dangerous.”
“After what happened tonight, do you still believe that?”
Rob exhaled a long breath.
“I know, man. I know.”
“Those two guys weren’t sent around to pop you over a suitcase of cold pills. There’s got to be something else you need to tell me.”
Mya squeezed Rob’s hand. He raised his head from her shoulder and took another drink of the
whiskey.
“Yeah, there was a small thing that happened the last time I picked up a case of pills.”
“The last time? Meaning you made a number of trips for Yadanar Khin and his boys?”
“Only three. Not so many. I told them after number three that was my last time taking the shit into Bangkok. I made that clear. Ask Mya. Three times was our deal. After that, they were supposed to pay the money for Wai Wan to get out of Insein.”
As with most stories, this one had holes and parts that didn’t fit in, like clouds and tree branches that had been crammed into a jigsaw puzzle to complete a skyline that now looked upside down.
“You were running pills before your old man turned you down for the loan?”
“One run before. Two runs after. Yadanar Khin’s old man had the power to lift the phone and get Wai Wan out with one call.”
The beef with his old man hadn’t been the only reason Rob had run away from Bangkok. The old man had no idea. The young man that his father thought of as a street entertainer had been walking the shadow line, looking for the fast, easy money.
Rob had hit the usual dead end. He wanted out in a line of work where “no way out” was the rule.
“But a problem came up when they wanted you to make one more run.”
“It was more than that. I saw someone I shouldn’t have seen.”
“Who was that?”
Rob took another drink and stretched his arms, folding one around the Black Cat’s shoulder.
“Yeah, I ran into a guy named Narit, who used to hang out at the Black Cat Bar in Bangkok. I met him there once. His old man had an import/export company in Bangkok. Something to do with electronics for car transmissions assembled at some industrial estate on the Eastern Seaboard, in Chonburi Province. He also had an uncle who was on the board of a hospital and just bought an S-Class Benz. The night I met him, his uncle had let him borrow the car and we walked out front, where he’d parked it, and he took me for a ride on Sukhumvit Road. After that, Narit had a few drinks and bragged about the important people he was connected to, and told me that if I ever had a problem, I should let him know.
“On my last run, it’d been arranged for me to pick up the suitcase at the usual place here in Rangoon. I go there and I run into Narit. He’s not happy to see me. In fact, he’s pissed off, asking what the hell am I doing there? Was I following him? Looking to make trouble?
“And I said, ‘Man, I’m just picking up a case and taking it to Bangkok. What are you doing here?’
“And Narit says, ‘I think someone told you I’d be here, and you’re playing me for a fool. You think I’m stupid?’
“It got heavy. Narit pushed me hard, almost knocked me down. I recovered and pushed him back. He bounced off a shelf of pills, knocking off a dozen boxes. It made him lose face.
“He pulled out a knife, and I said, ‘Hey, man, what are you going to do with that?’ And he said, ‘Tell me why you’re setting me up.’ And I said, ‘You’re prasat daek. Shit crazy. I had no idea you’d be in Rangoon. How would I know that, man?’
“And he said, ‘Exactly how did you know that?’
“Finally I turned and walked away. He said, ‘Hey, I thought you came for something?’
“And I said, ‘I changed my mind. I got the wrong address. See you around.’”
“What was the address?”
“I heard you on the phone tell my father that my case was closed. So why do you want to know about this, man?”
Calvino looked hard into his eyes.
“I’m square with your father. But you’re not square with me. Last time I remember, you were in the back of a Lexus with a couple of heavies who looked like they had some serious plans to cause you a universe of pain before they finished you off. And it ain’t over. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life in this room eating what someone slides under the door, you need to keep me on your side.
“You want to go back. But right now you can’t. Narit’s told you that if he finds you back in Thailand you’re a dead man. If I’m wrong about that, you don’t have to give me the address.”
“The covered market at 27th Street. Stall number A782. That makes us square,” said Rob.
Calvino leaned forward from the edge of the twin bed, his face a foot away from Rob’s, and said as his cell phone rang, “I’ll get back to you on that.”
It was Jack Saxon on the line, though he didn’t give his name.
“Richard Smith, you should come over and let me buy you a drink. Sulking alone in your room is no way to spend time in Rangoon.”
Saxon had started the conversion without any introduction, jumping in midstream and expecting Calvino to follow.
“I’m a little busy, Jack.”
“Did you make it to Cherry Mann?”
“Yeah, Pratt and I found it.”
“You sat down at a table with that sexy little singer you’ve been dreaming about, at twenty-one hundred hours?”
“About then.”
“Not long afterwards two Thais were shot dead. Funny coincidence.”
Calvino paused, waited. Saxon had gone quiet.
“What do the police say?” Calvino said, breaking the silence. “Could have been a botched robbery. New Year’s, a lot of gold and money changing hands.”
“That’s what the police told my man. I’m curious to know if you heard the shots.”
“With firecrackers going off and drums and gongs, I couldn’t hear anything but people hacking and spitting chicken bones.”
“You’ve been around. You know the difference between the sound of a gunshot and a firecracker.”
“Jack, there was a lot going on.”
“Did you find the missing
kid?”
“I found him.”
Calvino shot Rob a look. But it was Mya who found Calvino eyes. He locked eyes with her for a moment too long before breaking off.
“So you had a happy ending.”
That was an old-hand expression for finishing with a bargirl.
“‘Happy’ isn’t the word I’d use.”
“That’s disappointing. I’m at the bar in the Savoy. Come over and let me buy you a drink, and you can tell me why you think those two dead Thais were involved in a Chinatown heist.”
“I was only guessing the motive,” said Calvino.
“Just like the police. But my man said it looked like a professional hit. Both were shot at close range. One in the head, the other in the chest. The driver knocked out beside the car.”
“You’re writing a story, right? Add this to it. You open up the country, and the next thing you know, the bad blood pours in and someone gets killed in the line of duty.”
“What duty would that be?”
“The faithful working to keep the margins of profit moving up. Before the thaw men like this could kill each other, and no one on the outside knew. Now the whole world is looking down the streets, asking questions. Be careful, Jack. No place opens that fast.”
“You sound like someone from the government.”
“As I said, I’m busy. We can talk tomorrow.”
“One more thing, Vinny. I found a private detective. He just opened shop. If you want details, I’ll be at the bar.”
Saxon ended the call smiling, helping himself to a bowl of potato chips on the bar.
Calvino rose up from the bed, slipped on his jacket and took a step over to Rob to check his nose and face.
“You’ll be okay. Listen, I’ve got to go out for an hour. I’ll be back. If there were a mini-bar, I’d say help yourself. But there ain’t one. Help yourself to the whiskey. I’ll bring back some food. By the time I return, I’ll have figured out what to do next.”
Ten minutes later Calvino slid onto the stool beside Jack Saxon at the bar. Saxon turned and looked over his glasses at Calvino the way a teacher looks at a student who has tried to sneak into class twenty minutes late.
“Whiskey,” said Calvino. “A double Black Label.”
“What happened to your suit?”
Saxon reached over to run his finger over Calvino’s right sleeve and then put it in his mouth.
“Mutton curry. You must have been eating with your fingers. You got enough on you. It looks like the cook exploded an old bull ram at your table. But I digress. You left your room to keep me company or at least long enough to ask me for the details on the Burmese gumshoe.”
“No one has called a private investigator a gumshoe for fifty years or more.”
“We were behind the times in my part of Ontario.”
“And now that you mention it, what’s the name of this gumshoe, and where can I find the little hole-in-the-wall office, his fedora sweat-stained, hanging on an umbrella rack?”
“His name is Naing Aung. You’ll find him in a walkup on 27th Street. His shop is the fourth door on the left, as you walk in from the Scott’s Market end. If you pass a Hindu temple on your right, turn around and go back. You’ve walked too far.”
A smirk streaked Saxon’s face, and he shook his head.
“He’s new to the business. But I think he’ll be okay. I verified him myself, Vinny.”
“What do you mean, verified?”
“I asked him to follow you. He tracked you and Pratt and some beautiful Thai woman to Cherry Mann. I had to know if he was any good and what kind of moves Pratt and you might throw at him. I told him that guys like you and the Colonel never go anywhere in a straight line just in case you’re tailed. But you didn’t lose Naing Aung. I thought that was a good recommendation.”
“What else was in his report?” asked Calvino, sipping his whiskey.
“He said you got lost.”
“I was avoiding a tail.”
Saxon pursed his lips, frowned, before breaking into a big smile.
“Naing Aung didn’t see it that way. But it doesn’t matter. You’ve got your private eye. I’d say we’re square.”
Saxon raised his glass and waited for Calvino to raise his.
“Square and an IOU if you need something in Bangkok.”
“If I ever have someone who goes missing there, I’ll give you a bell.”
FIFTEEN
The Chinese New Year Tail Job
CALVINO CARRIED TWO plastic shopping bags out of the Savoy Hotel bar. One bag was heavy; inside were two one-liter plastic bottles of Coke. In the second bag were twin orders of pasta with pesto and two orders of rocket salad with sliced tomatoes. The smell of pasta filled the air, and for a moment he was back in Little Italy on the outskirts of New York’s Chinatown, near where downtown bankers and lawyers sat in their Manhattan offices figuring out how to invest in Burma.
He walked back to the guesthouse carrying the bags. The old woman behind the reception desk glanced at him as he turned to walk up the steps. She lowered her glasses.
“Mr. Smith buys his dinner at the Savoy Hotel,” she said.
It was unusual behavior for one of her guests, for whom the pleasures of the Savoy were normally far out of reach. She gripped another Georgette Heyer novel. He caught the title—The Toll-Gate.
“How’s the book?”
“Stolen gold, highwaymen, mysterious strangers,” she said.
“Makes you feel right at home,” he said.
“Mysterious strangers and a missing toll-gate keeper,” she said.
“I’m familiar with the plot,” said Calvino.
“I thought you might be,” she said. “Even though you don’t look like a reader.”
“I’ve been reading Orwell.”
“That man had no romance in his books.”
Calvino thought about it; she was right. Orwell was a lot of things, but a writer of romance novels wasn’t one of them.
“But he had a lot to say about the toll-gate keepers.”
Her tired, old eyes wrinkled as she smiled.
“Rangoon is packed with crooks,” she said. “What you have in those bags smells good.”
Calvino wasn’t certain what she was hinting at—a free meal or hot money, or if she was just bored, having read the newspaper three times, and was hungry for conversation.
“Anyone come around asking for me?”
“Are you expecting more guests in your room? We have a house rule about guests bringing in other guests. I’ll have to charge you.”
“If anyone comes around asking for me, tell ’em I checked out. ”
He winked at her.
“Like the missing toll-gate keeper,” she said. “What would you like me to tell these Bow Street Runners who are after you?”
“Tell them I was headed to the airport.”
“Are you?”
“I’m going upstairs to eat.”
“And then you’re going to check out?”
Calvino set the bags down and took out his wallet.
“Let me start over.”
“No need. I understand,” she said, as Calvino slipped her a twenty-dollar note.
The receptionist had a sly moxie that complemented her silver hair and satin-slippered shuffle. She sat behind her desk clutching the novel with gnarled hands that were speckled with liver spots the size of dimes and nickels. She put The Toll-Gate down, slipped her reading glasses back on, and examined the twenty. She turned it over, put it to her nose and smelled it. The old lady could have passed as one of the blue-haired ladies who played the slots at Atlantic City and who constantly craned their necks, keeping a cocked eye on those around her. Who was winning, who was losing was all the information she was interested in. She hadn’t quite made her mind up about Calvino.
Calvino switched on the light as he entered the room and closed the door. Rob was stretched out on one of the twin beds with one arm folded behind his head, smoking a joint, wearin
g a set of earphones, his head moving to the beat of the music. He wore an old, thin bath towel. Bloodied jeans and shirts were heaped in a pile beside the bed. Women’s underpants and a bra lay in the mix of clothes. And the second bath towel was draped over a chair. Either Rob was a secret cross-dresser, or he’d recovered enough strength to ride the Black Cat. Rob looked up from the bed as Calvino set the plastic bags on a table. The bathroom door was closed. Light seeped from under the door.
“Is Mya in the bathroom?”
With the earphones on, Rob heard only music. Calvino opened the bathroom door, had a look around and switched off the light. Empty. He closed the door. It was easier than removing the earphones and repeating the question.
He opened the plastic bag and took out the packaged pasta and salad. The smell from the hot pasta drifted and caught Rob’s attention. He removed his earphones, swung his legs over the side of the bed and padded across to the table to look at the food.
“Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“When’s the last time you ate?”
The kid unwrapped the plastic knife and fork from the package.
“Couple of days ago.”
“Where’s Mya?”
He shrugged, shoveling the pasta into his mouth and drinking from the large plastic bottle of Coke.
“She went out.”
“That’s obvious. Where’d she go?”
“I can’t remember. Her mother’s house, or maybe to 50th Street.”
“Is she coming back?”
“I dunno. She was pretty upset about what happened tonight.”
Rob eyed the second container of pasta.
“You gonna eat that?”
Calvino shook his head. “It’s yours.”
“Thanks,” said Rob, popping the lid on the Styrofoam container. He took another large swig from the Coke bottle, belched and spooned in a large mouthful of pasta. He watched as Calvino crossed the small room to the closet, where he pulled out a clean shirt and trousers before disappearing into the bathroom. After a shower, Calvino came out dripping wet, trying to decide which of the two used bathroom towels to use to dry off. He chose Mya’s towel from the chair, tossing it back over the chair when he’d finished. It still had her smell. Rob had finished the second pasta and crawled back onto the bed.
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