“When’s the last time you slept?” Calvino asked.
The kid was already half-asleep. Bathed, fed and tucked in, he clung to the soft bed like a drowning man who’d been pulled into a lifeboat. He hadn’t even had time to put the earphones back on.
It was past midnight as Calvino climbed out of the taxi at the 50th Street Bar. Even from the street he could recognize one of Colonel Pratt’s sax riffs. The piano and guitars played in the background, giving the Colonel space to do his thing. The same flashy cars were parked in the same places. It was like returning to a high-end showroom.
Colonel Pratt had finished his solo as Calvino entered the bar and was taking a bow in front of a table where Kati stood and applauded. She might have been the Colonel’s biggest fan, but he also had the rest of the house shouting for an encore. He spotted Calvino as the American crossed the floor toward the stage.
Calvino leaned down to Kati to say, “Have you seen Mya?”
Kati shot him a look that he read as an unmistakable “No, I haven’t seen the bitch.” The question was asking one cat to account for another prowling the same neighborhood. Maybe she did go to her mother’s house, Calvino thought.
Colonel Pratt came up for air after another two-minute solo to the sound of more applause. He lowered his saxophone and smiled at the crowd. No cop had ever heard that amount of applause in a lifetime of work.
Yadanar Khin looked up from the piano keyboard and announced a twenty-minute break. Unstrapping his saxophone, Colonel Pratt stepped down from the stage and walked over to the table where Kati sat, beaming like a lighthouse. Calvino joined them, sitting across from the Colonel. Yadanar Khin was on his way to join them as well when a customer pulled his elbow and sat him down at another table. Two other band members followed the piano player. That left Calvino with Colonel Pratt and Kati and three empty chairs.
“Did the kid show up?” asked the Colonel.
“He’s no longer missing.”
The Colonel broken into a smile as Kati put a hand over his in one of those preemptive “he’s mine” gestures.
“Good,” said the Colonel.
Kati sat like the holographic angel on a Christmas tree—beautiful, glowing, impressive and totally still. Not a word came out of her mouth.
“I phoned his father in Bangkok, and they talked.”
“That must have been a touching moment.”
“The kid refuses to go back to Bangkok.”
“He’s going through some difficult identity changes.”
Calvino thought that those words described Colonel Pratt more than the kid.
“He’s staying with me at the guesthouse until I can figure out what do to with him,” said Calvino.
He wasn’t comfortable with Kati listening in on their private conversation, but Colonel Pratt hadn’t given him much choice. Not at Cherry Mann, not at the 50th Street Bar. The way she was shadowing the Colonel made Calvino wonder if he should leave the two of them alone. He saw no point in going into details with a stranger at the table.
Calvino figured Colonel Pratt must have sensed he was only sharing a minimum of information. Why would an experienced cop like the Colonel sit back while Kati moved in so close? A broad like her throwing herself at a middle-aged cop who played the saxophone might happen in the movies, but what had happened in Chinatown had been real. The point was, his friend hadn’t been there to back him up, and Calvino felt the sting of disappointment. The Colonel had never let him down before.
“How’d he end up in your room?”
“Let’s say, we bonded like blood brothers.”
“He could use an older brother. Someone to give him advice.”
“We could all use some advice.”
It was an opening to talk about Kati, but it wasn’t the place or time. She was hanging on to him like a vine twisted around a bamboo.
“I’ve got a lead on a couple of things…”
Calvino stopped himself, rose from the table and motioned for Colonel Pratt to follow him outside.
They stood in front of the luxury cars. The valets recognized them, turned away and went on with their business. Neither Calvino nor the Colonel fell into the category of luxury car types; they’d arrived in beat-up old taxis. Parking valets, Calvino thought, always get instant updates on the pecking order.
“Pratt, I want to help you,” he said. “I don’t know who this Kati is. What she is to you, or you to her. Whoever she is, I’m not comfortable talking about business around her.”
The Colonel walked down the street to where the light faded to darkness. Calvino followed.
“You think that I’m stupid?”
“I never said that.”
“But you thought it.”
“Every man around is tripping over his dick to get next to her,” Calvino said. “I’m not saying I don’t understand the attraction. I do. But you can’t work a case with a woman who draws more attention than a suicide bomber in a swimsuit and an explosive vest.”
“It’s a honey trap, Vincent. I saw it coming. I have to play it the way I see it. I need to know who’s running her and what they’re after. If I throw her out, they’ll do something else. It’s better to keep your enemies close so you can watch what they’re doing.”
Calvino stepped forward and hugged him.
“Great. Honey. They set the trap, but you saw it coming. For a while... You know, for a minute or so, I thought…”
“Forget it. What have you got?”
“A couple of Thais in a Lexus grabbed the kid. I shot them. They gave me no choice. They drew down on me. As I said at the table, the kid’s at my room. Also, I talked with Jack, and he’s found a local private investigator who can do the work you’ve got in mind.”
“How does Jack know what I have in mind?”
“He doesn’t. It’s a figure of speech. He knows you need someone for surveillance. I thought I’d go and check him out.”
Colonel Pratt turned, looked at his watch and glanced at the entrance to the bar.
“I’ve got to get back. Let’s meet the private investigator tomorrow morning.”
“Not a good idea, Pratt. A farang and a Thai show up asking him if he’s up to running a surveillance detail on some important people. Rangoon’s a small, tight place. People talk.”
“Okay, set it up, and I’ll take it from there.”
The small changes had been adding up in Colonel Pratt’s life, only Calvino hadn’t wanted to see them. Working in a corruption-ridden department had never been much fun for an honest cop like the Colonel. The saxophone had been a hobby for years. Sometimes a hobby takes on a life of its own and becomes, not a pastime or a temporary escape, but a new path. After he’d won an award at the Java Jazz Festival, some doors had opened for Pratt. He’d been invited to play in Singapore, Hong Kong and Brunei. His assignment to the job in Rangoon had also resulted from his music career. To those around him, he seemed too good on the saxophone for it to be a cover. After one set, members of the bands he sat in with forgot he was a cop. That was the idea.
“The kid gave me some information about some cold pill smuggling operation he got involved in. That’s why he nearly got himself killed earlier tonight.”
That caught the Colonel’s attention, and he stopped.
“Did he give you any names?”
“A guy named Narit that he’d met before in Bangkok. He ran into him here by accident during a pickup of pills he was taking to Thailand. It happened in a covered market.”
“He gave you the location of the market?”
“Twenty-Seventh Street, the same street as Jack’s private investigator.”
A taxi pulled up. Four young foreigners got out and walked toward them. One of the men stopped in front of Calvino.
“Are you working the door?”
Calvino smiled. “Ten dollars each.”
The foreigner reached for his wallet.
“Put away your money. Go on in. Enjoy yourself.”
The party of
four walked into the bar.
“That wasn’t necessary,” said Colonel Pratt.
“I wanted him to remember me. In case I need him later inside.”
“Back to Rob Osborne and the cold pills.”
“I like the idea of the private investigator being on the same street as the market where Rob went for his drug pickups. That should make his commute for the surveillance a stroll in the park,” said Calvino as another taxi passed on the street, only to be swallowed up in the darkness a moment later.
“I might not need him. I can go to the market myself.”
“DIY surveillance work in a foreign land is an old blues song about a man who comes to a tragic end. I’m surprised you don’t know it.”
“After what happened to you in Chinatown, it’s a good idea if you don’t show your face where these people do their business.”
Calvino had knocked out the driver before he’d had a good look at his face.
“The ones who could ID me are dead. There’s no risk.”
They could hear that band had started up inside the bar. Colonel Pratt looked at Calvino for a long moment.
“Thanks, Vincent. I’d better get back inside.”
“One more thing, Pratt. You left the restaurant when we were in Chinatown. It’s been eating me.”
“You didn’t know?” asked the Colonel.
“Know what?”
“We had a tail.”
Calvino looked at his hands, then at the ground.
“I didn’t pick him up.”
“I thought you knew. That you made up the story about getting lost for Kati’s benefit.”
Calvino shook his head.
“No, I was lost, Pratt. I didn’t pick up the tail.”
“He was a little Burmese guy with a strange haircut. Thirty, thirty-five years old, wearing a cheap polo shirt with an alligator logo and a checkered green and yellow longyi. From the way he moved, he either wanted us to know we were being followed or he was stupid.”
“Or he was new to the business. Shit, how I did I manage not to spot him?”
The jazz piano drifted into the night. The band had started the set without their saxophone player. It didn’t worry the Colonel. He kept cool as he glanced at the door.
“Kati’s difficult to ignore. The guy tailing us spent a lot of time looking her up and down. I figured if we left you, he’d follow me. And he did. Or I should say he followed Kati. Don’t forget that Mya was clear that her boyfriend wouldn’t show up if we stayed.”
“You did the right thing, Pratt. I handled it.”
“I’m sure you did,” he said.
“The Walther did the job.”
“If you don’t mind, I won’t pass along your thanks to my friend at the embassy.”
Calvino put an arm around Colonel Pratt’s shoulder.
“You really had me thinking…”
“You thought I was head over heels for Kati.”
“Kati. I hate that nickname. Ninety percent of the time, with a woman named Kati, what you see isn’t what you get. You never see it coming. And, yeah, I did think that. But I also missed the tail in Chinatown. You ought to think of telling me to go back to Bangkok.”
Pratt hugged him.
“Stick around. Things are starting to get interesting.”
For the first time since Kati showed up out of the blue, Calvino was confident that the Colonel was firmly anchored in reality. Some people had underestimated the Colonel in the past, and Calvino now had to admit he’d been one of them.
“See you around,” Calvino said.
Calvino watched the Colonel walk back into the bar. He hailed a taxi headed his way. It stopped, and Mya opened the back door and got out.
“How about I buy you a drink, and you tell me how you got Rob into the cold pill business?”
“Some other time,” she said.
They stood in the street staring at each other.
“You’ve had a long day. Your brother in leg irons. Your boyfriend nearly killed by thugs. As a friend of mine said, things are starting to get interesting. So what’s next, Mya? Back in Bangkok at Le Chat Noir, your boss told me you’d adopted Henry Miller as your patron saint. He said Miller’s philosophy of fuck everything appealed to you. As a freethinker, a political activist and a blogger. But it turns out you’re going for the brass ring. Not fuck the system, but how do I get inside it? And who do I take with me, and who do I leave behind?”
“I’ll make it right for Rob,” she said. “I owe him that much.”
“You owe him, you owe me, and your brother owes you. It must get confusing. You ever sit down and write down all the debts and credits?”
“I can finish up on my own,” she said in what sounded like a sincere voice. “What you did tonight isn’t something I’ll forget.”
He thought about it. How everyone had this sudden need to be square. Jack Saxon wanted to know if he was square for his brother’s rescue. Rob wanted to square with him after what happened in the Lexus. Even Pratt talked about squaring things. The problem was Rangoon. It was a place where the toll-gates had just opened, the gatekeepers were missing or on the take, and everyone who passed through found themselves inside a world where the squares, circles and straight lines operated according to different principles of social and political geometry. No one was square, but everyone was trying to square the circle and thinking they’d succeed.
Looking at the Black Cat’s face, backlit from the bar, it was hard to read her emotions. Her tone hinted that she measured things, men, performers and opportunities with the same ruler she’d been trying to break and throw away. But she’d run into a hard lesson of adult life: some rulers were harder to break than others—and the money ruler was the last one anyone broke. They kept that one safe. It was instinct, automatic behavior, hardwired from birth. And that was the ruler that made most men easy marks, and most women slaves. She’d wanted to walk away from it as Henry Miller had done. Times had changed. Even Henry Miller had a price, and in Rangoon, whatever that price was, someone would have found it.
As they stood talking, Calvino had a vision of the old woman behind the reception desk at the guesthouse, who apparently had made some wrong plays along the way. In the street was a young woman who had reached a toll-gate, and if she looked behind, she would find that she had someone tailing her.
When that happened, which way was she going to turn? And who was she going to turn to?
“See you,” she said, and walked into the bar.
Believing in the power of the wrong kind of man was a fast start down the road that led to an unmarked dead end. No amount of backing up would allow such a woman to return to the main road.
“Good luck, Mya!” he called after her.
She stopped, turned around.
“Don’t get too close to these people. You have no idea what they can do.”
SIXTEEN
The Urgent Astrologer and Private Investigator
A MIDDLE-AGED MONK, his polished globe of a head reflecting the sun, sat on a wooden stool and watched a street tailor at work behind a sewing machine, repairing the monk’s bag. The bag had a Buddha image stitched on the front. A young boy and his father also looked on as the tailor operated the machine’s pedals, the blue veins of his gnarled bare feet pumping up and down as if he were on a treadmill. Sewing and making merit for the next life looked a lot like running in place. The boy, nine or ten years old and dressed in bright green trousers, ran over to buy a sweet from a Muslim vendor and then returned to his father’s side.
Calvino had walked the length of 27th Street, checking out access points and getting a sense of the character of the neighborhood and the kind of people who worked and lived there. He’d already passed Naing Aung’s office, next to the Urgent Photo Studio, and continued walking until he’d reached the main road. He’d arrived there in time to watch a mass of people shove and push to get off a bus as others sought to squeeze through the same entrance to get inside.
The
tailor was finishing his work on the monk’s bag as Calvino retraced his footsteps along the crowded street to the Scott’s Market end of 27th Street. Most of Naing Aung’s neighbors ran luggage, bag and lottery shops with small offices wedged in between on the ground floor. He passed a couple of the grizzled owners, chewing betel nut and spitting as they shuffled in front of their shops in sandals and longyis, looking up and down the street for a customer.
A vendor selling roller luggage and shoulder bags in large stacks gestured to Calvino in vain to enter his shop. Calvino walked past a carpet shop plunked in the middle of the bag stores that displayed red and blue rugs hung from the ceiling like prototypes of Third World flags. He stopped to look at welcome mats draped over a table at the front. A young woman yawned as she passed the shop, asking him for money; she carried a bundled-up infant. Calvino gave her a couple of hundred-kyat notes. Next door to the carpet shop was a small office, where several young women huddled over a hand calculator and worked on open ledger books laid out on an old wooden desk. One of the men used a screwdriver as three or four office girls watched him repair an old rotary phone.
Down the road was a Hindu temple that Jack Saxon had mentioned as a landmark not to pass, or Calvino would have gone too far. A simpleton lounged in the doorway staring at the sky. He begged for small change before an Indian chased him away.
Calvino wasn’t lost. He cased Naing Aung’s neighborhood on the old theory that birds of a feather nest closely together.
Having gained a sense of the area around Naing Aung’s office and the covered market, he found himself in front of the old wooden staircase leading from the street to the third floor office. A painted sign in italics read:
The Urgent Astrologer and Private Eye Office of Naing Aung.
The “Private Eye” part had been added to the existing sign recently. Bits of corrugated metal with the name of his fortune-telling business had fresh red paint that made the letters jump out like the cover of Mao’s little handbook. Calvino looked down to the foot of the staircase, where half-dead fish listlessly swam in a pot of water. The building was in a row of houses and shops. Next door, an old woman worked the foot pedals of an old sewing machine. The sewing machine and its operator both looked as if they were from another time. He wondered if she and the barefoot tailor at the opposite end of the street had long ago made a deal to divide up the neighborhood and keep out any competition.
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