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She was right. He was always on the job. Even in bed, the sex had only temporarily substituted itself for the case. He was always working on a case. It was what made him a good PI. It was how he found people who’d gone missing. But it also made him a lousy human being. Most of the time he avoided facing the brutal reality of his nature. Bianca, with the sunburned cross on her throat, had nailed him on the first day they’d gone to bed.
“People have feelings,” she said to break the silence.
“It was a crazy idea. I shouldn’t have asked you. I forget the Italian word for asshole.”
“Testa di cazzo!”
“That means dickhead. I remember that from my grandfather.”
She laughed.
“He called you that?”
“No. Maybe once or twice. Mostly he used it to describe a neighbor in Florence. Like that guy who was looking for someone to be his partner in the P-40 scam. My grandfather would have called that asshole testa di cazzo.”
She kissed his chest.
“I’ll look for the mother tomorrow,” she said. “Now tell me about Thailand. About your life.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Do you have a wife?”
Calvino grinned, stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. It was such a European question. Not “Are you married?” but “Do you have a wife?”
“That’s one missing person I’ve never been able to find.”
“Have you been looking in the wrong places?”
“I live in a wrong place for a wife.”
“Bangkok,” she whispered, as if that explained everything.
In a way it did.
He liked her. She was quick and bright, and had soft skin, tender lips and flashing dark eyes that locked like a predator watching its prey. He liked the missing cross on the throat of a sinner. They’d made love listening to jazz on her iPad. One of those twenty-four hour all-jazz stations.
“You’re thinking about your case again,” she said, watching his eyes.
“I’m thinking about what happened in the bar last night. The guys in the band, and how Mya Kyaw Thein appeared out of nowhere and made the whole place stop talking for twenty minutes. About how a few people have vast wealth and can do whatever they want.”
He was also thinking about something he didn’t want to talk about—had Yadanar Khin, son of a Burmese general and government minister, a keyboard player looking for his shot at the musical big time, told Colonel Pratt that the Black Cat would appear? If Yadanar had been surprised by her sudden appearance on stage, he hadn’t looked it. Why was that? After the show, the Colonel had stayed on to talk to Yadanar. Calvino had gone back to the hotel with Bianca and Anne. Anne had gone to her room, and Bianca had gone to his.
She brushed her hand across his face. “You are the quiet one. Missing Bangkok?”
“I always miss Bangkok,” he said.
“I’m sorry that I couldn’t make you forget for one night.”
He reached over for the bottle of wine in an ice bucket, found his glass and filled it.
“Take a drink of this. It’s my prescription for forgetting.”
She sipped from his glass.
“Take a big drink,” he said.
“Are you trying to get me drunk?”
