Missing In Rangoon

Su Su changed the baby’s diaper before laying her down on a small cot.

“Don’t say that, Khin Myat. Thiri Pyan Chi is the owner, and he’s very lucky. He took over from his father, who died three years ago. He has very good customers in Korea, Singapo

re and Thailand. People say he’s rich. He drives a Lexus. His son drives a Camry, and his wife is friendly with the wives of important people. Looking at his stall, you can’t see the money. But it flies like a bird into his pockets.”

“He does business with the Thais?”

“I know a worker whose name I won’t mention, but he brags that their best customer is a Thai.”

“Wheelchairs and canes?”

She laughed. “Medicine for some of the big hospitals. He has a large supply contract. It’s a secret. My friend told me that the boss told him not to discuss the business with anyone. But I told him that I wasn’t just anyone. I was Su Su.”

“Medicine for polio, high blood pressure and the flu?” said Khin Myat.

“Mostly cold medicine. It’s from a company called Coldco. Thiri Pyan Chi imports it from China.”

“The Chinese medicine arrives every day?”

He acted confused.

Touching his shoulder, she said, “No, silly. On Wednesday afternoons a shipment arrives. Khin Myat, why all of these questions? Don’t you have to sell the rest of those tickets or your uncle will take a cane to you?”

“I am no longer a boy, Su Su. My uncle would never dream of caning me. Not today or any day. I felt a cold coming on and thought it might be good to have some cold pills. Besides, I thought selling a few tickets in the market would be a good business plan.”

“You don’t need to buy cold pills from Thiri Pyan Chi. I will give you Actifed. How many do you want?”

“One package is enough.”

She stretched behind her to pull down a box, reached inside and, pulling out a packet, gave it to him.

“You said Wednesday afternoons. Is that late afternoon?”

“Around closing time. Just after the train comes. “

“Are these big shipments of pills or just a few boxes?”

She shrugged, checking on her baby in a cot.

“Do you think I have time to count Thiri Pyan Chi’s inventory? I don’t work for him.”

“At school, you noticed everything. I guess you changed.”

Across her face came the look of someone searching for a way out of a dead end she’d found herself in.

“A couple hundred thousand pills.”

“Every week?”

“Yes.”

“By train every week? On Wednesday?”

“You know the train station behind the market? The shipments come through the station. It’s only three hundred meters away.”

He was forever being given these familiar details as if he were an outsider. Returnees were thought to have forgotten their knowledge of the country, and Khin Myat struggled not to lose his temper. He swallowed hard.

“Isn’t that a lot of cold pills?”