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“Sorry, I’m late. Jack phoned me,” he said, ordering a beer. “I went around to have a talk with him.”
“Jack’s been a busy boy. He got me a room.”
“How is it?”
“It’s a different view from the balcony,” said Calvino.
“Everything go okay today? At Jack’s office and at the trial?”
Calvino nodded, lit a cigarette and ordered a third round, telling himself that he had to slow down. He snuffed out the cigarette. It promised to be a long night, and he’d be going to neighborhoods he didn’t know, surrounded by people he didn’t want to know.
“What’d Jack want?” asked Calvino.
“He had some advice.”
“He’s a journalist, not a doctor or a lawyer.”
Colonel Pratt raised his glass of Tiger beer, and Calvino touched the rim of his whiskey glass.
“He said it would be a good idea if I hired a local to do surveillance work.”
“Good idea. Put a tail on Yadanar.”
“Only there’s a little problem,” said Colonel Pratt.
Calvino didn’t say anything. What was there to say? Being alive and on assignment in Rangoon was a guarantee of problems, and like the swallows from the Shwedagon they came in swarms. The Colonel saw Calvino wasn’t going to ask him what he meant.
“You want to know the problem?”
“I’m waiting to hear.”
“Rangoon doesn’t have private investigators.”
It was like going into McDonald’s and being told they didn’t sell French fries.
“And you thought I might be able to find one for you?”
Colonel Pratt drank from his glass.
“You are good at finding missing persons. There has to be one private eye in Rangoon. Think of him as missing. Find him. It’s a simple surveillance job. I need a local who knows the city. You don’t. I don’t. And there isn’t anyone else.”
He was right; they needed local resources. It was the difference between success and failure.
“I’ll find someone.”
Just as Calvino was on the cusp of solving one missing person case, the Colonel handed him another one. The hard-to-find were popping up like mushrooms at dawn hiding in a fine mist.
“You’re still busy with the Osborne case.”
Calvino smiled. “Looks like I’m finished with it tonight. I’ve booked his flight to Bangkok. I have the ticket. What I don’t have is him.”
“Is that a detail or a problem?”
“I’ll let you know. It looks straightforward. But the kid has been hiding out in Rangoon for a reason. Why would he do that? Because he’s worried that I’m looking for him? I don’t think so.”
“It’s not over,” said Colonel Pratt.
“Not until he’s on the plane to Bangkok.”
