Missing In Rangoon

“Why don’t I talk to Mya?”

He turned in his chair.

“That’d be good. Talk to Mya.”

He ducked down and then dropped to the floor, his hands over his head as if under attack. Calvino lifted him back into the chair. Rob flinched as he glanced at the wall again, recoiling as if he struck by a round. He clenched his teeth, raising his fist toward the wall.

“Fuck you! I’m not afraid.”

“I don’t see anyone,” said Calvino.

“But he’ll be back.”

The dogs of fear pulled on the muscles of Rob’s face like a dogsled, twisting it.

“You still have your gun?” Rob asked.

Calvino nodded.

“Do you still have yours?”

Rob held up his hand in the shape of a gun, slowly raising it until his forefinger pointed at his temple. He dropped his thumb like the gun’s hammer.

“Bang!” said Rob.

“Reload and keep cool. I’ll be back.”

“That’s what everyone always says.”

Calvino opened the door.

“I’m going to Mya’s bookstore. Want anything to read?”

“A book about dreams. The one Mya said she was going to write.”

The Irrawaddy Bookstore had been doing business on 42nd Street between Maha Bandoola Road and Merchant, around the corner from the Strand Hotel, for as long as anyone could remember. It was an institution. And like all institu-tions it had a history of grand heights and abysmal lows.

Calvino found the shop nestled like a chipped antique cup in the palm of a withered hand. The old colonial-style building, with shops on the ground floor and living quarters above, had decayed into squalor. The neighborhood survived on life support, living off memories of a glorious past. Looking at the street, Calvino could foresee that foreigner developers would soon stand on the pavement, figuring a way to buy up the buildings for renovation and resale, or better yet, to tear them down and put up chrome and glass high-rises with names like Imperial Suites and Empire Tower.

In one corner of the bookshop’s front window, a small hand-printed sign was taped to the glass with the message “Irrawaddy Bookstore. Est. 1934.” He looked up at the balcony and pulled on a thin rope that hung down to the top of the door. Improvised doorbells with pulley ropes hung from the balconies of most buildings in the neighborhood.

“We’re closed,” a voice shouted down a moment later.

Calvino backed away from the building and looked up in the dark. A light came on in an upper window. It was followed by a second light. He saw people sitting on their balconies in the next building. In fact, most of the balconies had people sitting on chairs, talking and watching the street. The hot evening had driven them outside.

Calvino cupped his hands and shouted, “Mya, it’s Vincent. Can we talk for a few minutes?”

The Black Cat leaned over the railing, making out Calvino’s form among the shadows.

“How did you find me?” She laughed at her own question. “But that’s what you do. Find people who are missing. I’ll come down.”

A couple of minutes later the Black Cat stood framed in the door, braless in a white spaghetti-strap top over tight jeans, faded at the knees, and knee-length black leather boots. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She looked younger without the makeup and eye shadow.

“I guess you want to come inside,” she said.

“I won’t take much of your time.”

She gestured for him to enter the ground floor, where the bookstore operated. She walked to the wall and flipped on the lights, which flickered before settling into a dim yellow glow that showered the bookcases along the walls. The curtains in the front window had been left pulled back. Outside, Calvino saw an old woman looking at books displayed in the window. She smiled and nodded at him and walked on. Others came and stared. None of them smiled or stopped for long to look at the books. They were more interested that the bookstore had lights on at this time of night.