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“Pornography and sex toys?” asked Calvino.
An astrologer turned private eye who could go to the lengths of planting pornography, as it seemed Naing Aung was prepared to do, suggested he was thorough in his planning.
Naing Aung was no longer listening to Calvino. He clutched hands with Daw Aye Htay, her eyes closed, and they murmured a Pali chant. When they finished, Daw Aye Htay stood up from her chair, rotating the worry beads between her thick fingers as she swept out of the office. He heard her heavy descent on the creaky staircase and the rattling of her bangles.
“Do most of your clients come to you to talk about their dreams?”
“Yes. That’s my business. My first question for you is, what is your dream?”
“To find a local private investigator who can handle a surveillance job.”
“I am your man,” said Naing Aung.
Calvino saw a number of problems with no solutions. Someone who read dreams and competed with monks over the number of goats to set free was bound to have unusual ideas about how to gather evidence or run a stakeout. He couldn’t decide who was the crazy one—Daw Aye Htay, Naing Aung or himself for not calling off the interview and following the Indian woman down the stairs.
Calvino hadn’t introduced himself.
“You probably wonder how I knew that your name is Vincent Calvino.”
“It came to you in a dream?” said Calvino.
Calvino thought Naing Aung raised an eyebrow, but he wasn’t certain. The astrologer’s eyebrows had been shaved off and painted in heavy black eyeliner in a high black arch, and when he raised one or both of them, the movement registered only in a tiny upward tic that could easily be missed.
“It came from Jack Saxon.”
“Other than Jack and the woman with her driver in jail, how many private investigation clients have you had?”
“My client list is expanding daily. I can show you my appointment book and you can see for yourself.”
He dug through the pile of papers on his desk. Producing a black-covered book, he opened it.
“Business is booming,” he said with a sigh. “So many foreigners are coming to my country and wanting investigators. There are none. I am the first one. The tide has turned, the good days are coming…”
He paused, grinning with the threat of continuing his string of clichés.
“Jack, for instance. He gave you a case.”
Calvino wanted to test him.
The astrologer’s right hand touched his artful eyebrow, like someone who couldn’t resist touching fresh paint.
“Jack assigned me the task of following Mr. Vincent Calvino and his friend Pratt to Cherry Mann restaurant and reporting back with my findings.”
“But you screwed that up.”
Both eyebrows raised in unison.
“I did not.”
It was clear why he’d touched his eyebrow. It seemed that when he lied or evaded a question, he had a slight nervous tic that even a painted eyebrow couldn’t fully disguise.
“You lost me at Cherry Mann.”
Naing Aung lowered his head, eyebrow ticking as he stared at the incense burning in the bronze urn.
“Mr. Saxon gave me thirty dollars to follow you to Cherry Mann, plus taxi fare. I saw that you got lost. I told Jack you couldn’t find the restaurant. I put that in the report. He gave me a ten-dollar bonus for that information. Jack said nothing about what to do if one of you left Cherry Mann. Mr. Pratt did leave. I followed him and the woman he escorted. That cost Mr. Saxon another fifteen dollars, plus expenses.”
“Other than following me and planting some porno-graphy in a monk’s sister’s house, have you had any other experience in surveillance work?”
