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Pratt nodded. “Vincent is one of my biggest fans. Wherever I play, he comes along.”
“Like a manager?”
“I screen his groupies,” said Calvino.
The Burmese bandleader no longer focused on Calvino. He’d already been assigned to the role of Pratt’s flunky. Pratt was the performer, the star, and for the two visitors from Bangkok that was the best result possible.
“We have a lot of musical talent in Rangoon. A couple of months ago, a five-girl band that used to
play here got a deal in Los Angeles. We’ve had talent scouts coming in ever since. Everyone is betting who’ll be next to get the big label deal.”
Through his family connections in government and business, Yadanar’s family owned the day, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy him; like the children of oligarchs everywhere his ambition was to possess the night. His tone of voice and gestures toward Pratt were his way of acknowledging that he was in the presence of someone who owned a significant piece of the night. Rangoon was not that different from anywhere else. If you had the power to set business hours your goal was to acquire the rest of the clock. It was old-fashioned greed—predictable, brutal, funny and sad, especially in a world in which most people were lucky if they could rent a moment to call their own at dawn or sunset, feel alive as the world separated day from night, before the Yadanars of the world put their hand out for the rent.
“We’re about to start our second set,” Yadanar said to Colonel Pratt. “Join us.”
The Colonel took out his saxophone and put the strap around his neck. His lips touched the mouthpiece. He worked the buttons. He looked up and smiled. Calvino pursed his lips and glanced at Saxon, who was laughing.
“I left my banjo out in my Lamborghini,” said Saxon.
“Go out and get it,” said Yadanar.
“Only if Vinny will be my manager.”
Calvino grinned.
“Stick to pool, Jack.”
Yadanar laughed.
“Hey, Jack, this guy knows a thing or two.”
The other members of the band had drifted back to their instruments on stage and waited for Yadanar to take his place at the keyboard.
“Anything special you’d like to play?” Yadanar asked the Colonel, as he rose from the table.
“Pat Metheny’s ‘Bright Size Life’ is as good as any to start.”
“You got it,” said Yadanar.
They joined the other members of the band on the stage. Calvino sat at the table with Jack Saxon, a few feet away.
The guy is motivated, thought Calvino. He wants to be next to get the ticket to Los Angeles. Being big in the little leagues isn’t his dream. Calvino reckoned this might be one of those rare occasions when what a man wants and what he says he wants are the same. He was telling the truth.
Selling cold pills, Yadanar had a lucrative, if shady, business operation that he controlled, and it wasn’t enough. He had something in common with the Black Cat, who had her band in Bangkok and her boyfriend—the good life—but that wasn’t enough either.
There’s never enough for the dreamers, Calvino thought. He had avoided dreams himself, for the same reason he avoided drugs; they jammed the mind with images and thoughts made from the stuff of clouds. He had no reason to connect the two dreamers, except that they were both Burmese and in the music business. Mya Kyaw Thein played in a Bangkok dive for an audience who couldn’t spell “Lamborghini.” Yadanar hired people to spell it for him, while he waited for a recording agent to turn him into a star.
“Did you ask him about Mya Kyaw Thein, the Black Cat?”
“They run in different circles,” Saxon said.
“Circles connect. Sometimes. It was worth a shot. After this set is finished, I’ll ask him myself.”
Saxon shook his head.
“Be careful, Vinny. This guy has a boldfaced name, and in Rangoon, you need to add italics as well. Don’t screw with him.”
“All I’m saying is Yadanar keeps score,” Calvino replied. “He knows who’s working in the music scene. They say the Black Cat has talent. If she’s working anywhere in the city, he’d know. If she’s in the city and not working, he’d know that too. He can bullshit all he wants. But you know and I know he can call up any woman he likes and invite her over. And what’s she’s gonna say? No?”
