Missing In Rangoon

“I didn’t know,” the Colonel said.

A moment passed.

“How did you know what I was going to ask you?”

“Because it’s what I’d have asked you if I were looking for someone and she showed up to sing in a band you were playing with. But I was as surprised as you.”

“You think she’s involved in the cold pill business?”

Pratt shrugged.

“I don’t know. It’s possible of course, but unlikely. What does she bring to the party? She’s a singer, and a talented one. She’s political too. That type is too idealistic for this kind of criminal activity.”

The dozen or so tables on the terrace were clustered just far enough apart for private conversation. Around the two visitors from Thailand, middle-aged presidents and vice presidents handed each other their business cards, drank their coffee and checked their email. They Skyped a boss at company headquarters sitting in a time zone where it was night, and somewhere nearby jazz bands played and bartenders poured drinks as couples shifted around the dance floor or slipped away to a hotel room to strip off their clothes. But the company never slept, never had sex, never got tired. It was never satisfied.

“Did you find out anything interesting from Yadanar?” Calvino asked.

“About the girl?”

Calvino’s head bobbed like a boxer.

“The girl, your cold pill case…”

“I didn’t want to push him. A saxophone player asks one kind of question, and a cop asks another. He’s the kind of keyboard player who’d notice the difference.”

The world’s companies had sent their men to Burma. They sat on the terrace all around Calvino and Pratt, reporting their impressions, loading and dumping data.

“How did you leave it with him?”

“I’m invited back. This time I get my solo.”

Company men were awake in the Myanmar Time Zone, and all of them knew their place in the network, linked, talking, filtering information about deals, money and competitors. Businessmen drank their coffee and eyed spreadsheets, financial statements and contracts while fueling up with hotel buffet food. Only the tourists at one table ate the Asian-style breakfast—rice soup with bits of pork and vegetables—slurping it audibly. But they were Chinese and that was to be expected.

“Meaning he doesn’t expect the Black Cat to return?”

“You could read it that way. Or he might not know.”

Calvino’s cell phone rang. He removed it from his jacket pocket and answered the call from a time zone half an hour away. Thailand.

Ratana’s voice came through from Bangkok as a uniformed waiter offered more coffee. Colonel Pratt was slicing watermelon with a knife and fork while, out of the corner of his eye, watching some crows near the now-deserted swimming pool. The Korean couple and their kid had gone. That left the birds to hop forward, inching their way to an abandoned table littered with buns from the buffet. Someone had left them in tattered shreds, as if they’d been using them as worry beads.

“You’re at the office early,” Calvino said. Catching Pratt’s eye, he said, “It’s Ratana.”

“I’m at home. I’ve been online checking Facebook and Twitter.”

Calvino took a bit of cold toast.

“You’d fit right in here,” he said.

“Before you say that, you should listen.”

“I’m listening.”

He chewed on the toast.

“I read a personal message on Facebook from a friend. It was disturbing.”

Calvino sighed, took a drink of coffee, noticing that Colonel Pratt was displaying one of his knowing smiles. One of the crows had snatched a piece of bun and flown up to a huge tree ten meters away in the hotel garden.