“Give me a drink.”
Calvino poured whiskey in a glass, got up from the bed and put the glass into both of Rob’s hands. He drank like a thirsty child.
“You were running pills for Somchai.”
“Half of the men in Thailand are called Somchai. I know half a dozen Somchais, so what?”
“We can narrow it down to one man, the one you’ve done mule work for out of Rangoon.”
Rob searched for Calvino’s eyes.
“He sent those men to kill me?”
“You know the answer, Rob.”
“It’s not over, is it?”
A new tidal wave of fear washed over his face. This time it wasn’t paranoia but a genuine understanding of his situation.
“What kind of shit did you take?”
“Acid.”
“How did you get acid?” asked Calvino.
It might have been from the old lady at reception, dealing on the side, but much likelier it was from Mya. Calvino figured the old lady who lived in the world of regency romances would have thought of acid as something thrown to disfigure a face.
“I borrowed two tabs from a sea lion in the smuggling game.”
“Does the sea lion have a name? Play a musical instrument? Speak Thai? Give me a hint, Rob. I like games as well as the next guy, but I don’t have a lot of time to play right now.”
Calvino waited for a response that made more sense. He wasn’t certain if Rob had the capacity to respond. He drank his whiskey, thinking he might be in for a long night.
“Mya’s dumping me.”
“She told you that?”
Rob slowly turned away from the window.
“She got the family bookstore back, the one on 42nd Street.”
“Yeah?”
She couldn’t scrape up the money to spring her brother from prison, but she’d found the resources to acquire a building in the heart of Rangoon? Calvino knelt down beside Rob and touched the rim of Rob’s glass to his own.
“Here’s to books and black cats.”
“It happened a few days ago. I found out today.”
He paused, lost in his thoughts.
“Her mother and brother have moved in upstairs.”
“How she’d manage that?”
Rob’s mouth felt dry. He licked his lips, swallowed hard.
“Yadanar fixed it.”