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bottle but a shared belief that running once a week would forestall old age. Giving themselves rude schoolboy names, they weren’t running to stay fit; they were running against time itself, in a run no one ever won.
Sometimes on a warm, sunny morning like this, a man in such a running group would just keep on running, never looking behind him, and sail toward the horizon, not really knowing why but knowing he wasn’t ever going back. Calvino had found one or two missing persons who fit that profile.
He looked at the sky and the bamboo along the road. Birds were singing in the trees, fish swimming in the ponds. The shadow of the thick bamboo sheltered them with a half coin’s worth of intoxicatingly fresh air. A couple of the runners stretched their legs. Several young women—schoolteachers, NGOs and an embassy official—wore fresh-pressed shorts and tops and new running shoes. They huddled beside a Land Rover, arms crossed, and talked among themselves.
“Perfect weather,” said Saxon.
“I was thinking the same thing,” said Calvino.
“You need a name. It’s a tradition.”
Saxon eyed him for a moment.
“‘Kiss My Trash’ comes to mind.”
Colonel Pratt laughed as Calvino flinched.
“Do I have a choice?”
Saxon shook his head. “‘Crack Shot’ for your colonel.”
“Why does Pratt get a normal-sounding name?”
“You get the running name God intended for you. I am his agent, just passing along your karma. That’s why.”
With Calvino and Colonel Pratt initiated into the club, Saxon had burnished his reputation as a man who delivered unexpected visitors. Ohn Myint, as the unofficial head of the club, accepted them as an offering to her authority. Calvino guessed the two went some time back. They had the comfort level, the easy banter and the intimacy even around others that made it likely they got more out of the club than running. Saxon was on the receiving end of Ohn Myint’s gossip feed, which monitored who was in and who was out in Burmese society, whose wife had been seen with another general’s wife, who had a new deal and where money had gone missing—eddies and flows in the never-ending stream of power.
Saxon, for his part, had a knack for cultivating contacts, and these sources with their inside information were what made him an extraordinary journalist. Together, the two more than doubled the value of their own information. It was a good investment. Sometimes in a hostile environment nothing is more valuable than a solid working connection between a local and foreigner.
Ohn Myint introduced Calvino and Colonel Pratt to the others by their new running club handles. All of them smiled and nodded. If Saxon could vouch for these two outsiders, that was good enough for everybody. Colonel Pratt and Calvino found themselves welcomed into the group.
“Anyone Jack drags in and drops at Swamp Bitch’s feet is usually pretty dubious,” teased one member of the group. “The last person you brought got lost. We spent hours trying to find him.”
“Never did,” said another runner.
“They won’t get lost,” said Saxon.
“Don’t worry,” said Calvino. “If that happens, we’ll buy the beer.”
That brought a show of knowing smiles that folded into half sneer. The mood then shifted as Calvino and Pratt were again ignored.
The regulars returned to a conversation they’d been having a few minutes earlier, one of those jags of fear and loathing among expats that are incited by an act of violence against a member in good standing of their community, in this case a Scotsman who was a running club member.
“Derek was attacked inside his house,” said one of the runners.
All the emphasis was on the word “inside,” as if the violence had been worse for him there than it would have been on the street.
“Surprised him, I heard,” said another runner.
Ohn Myint had heard from her sources—and the men were all ears—that the assailant had crept up with a ceremonial Japanese sword behind Derek as he sat working at his desk. The sword had been rusted and dull, but sharp enough to inflict five wounds to Derek’s head.
“He was working,” said the runner who had placed a boldfaced emphasis on “inside,” pronouncing the word in a shrill, angry tone.
Nothing worse than to be assaulted when working inside, where you also slept, ate, entertained friends, screwed and bathed. The most private of places.
“It could have happened to any of us,” said one the men.
He spoke for the group. In their minds it wasn’t just Derek who was a victim of violence because it could just as well have been one of them. They couldn’t help but think that attack was a message that they could be next.
