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Burmese names, Calvino understood, are chosen according to the day of the week a person is born on.
“New York was confusing. The names never corresponded with anything important like the day of the week,” said Khin Myat. “But after a few years I said, hey, why should a name go with the day of the week? It got me questioning myself.”
“About the meaning of dreams?” said Calvino.
“Man, how did you know that?”
“So now you sell lottery tickets,” said Calvino.
It was the kind of disparaging remark that Khin Myat remembered Sarah, his wife, saying.
“I’m helping out my uncle.”
He gestured to a lottery ticket shop across the street.
“You know the street?” Calvino asked.
“Better than you know New York.”
“I haven’t lived in New York for a long time. I couldn’t say I know it. You’ve been away a long time. Things change. People come and go.”
“Not in Burma. Nothing changes that fast. Same people, same faces, mostly the same family businesses.”
Calvino thought he had a point. Rangoon had an air not so much of timelessness as of an old streetcar crawling slowly up a hill, one that you could get off for a while and catch up with a bit later, without missing a beat.
“I need a second pair of eyes for a few days.”
“Doing what?”
“Watching the covered market.”
“I can’t do it myself,” said Naing Aung.
Khin Myat fingered his book of lottery tickets, sucking his teeth.
“Are you some kind of cop?”
“I’m a private investigator,” said Calvino. “I find missing persons.”
“Like on TV.”
“Nothing as romantic as TV. Watching is boring, and people lose interest.”
“I could watch security tapes for hours and never take a break.”
“I mentioned to Mr. Calvino that you are observant,” said Naing Aung. “Sherlock had Watson—a point made by Mr. Calvino. I can’t deny that Watson was essential to his success.”
Khin Myat had two natural, non-twitching eyebrows, and that was a good start, thought Calvino.
“Man, Sherlock Holmes lived a hundred years ago. If you watched CSI, The Wire, The Sopranos, you’d know no one solves cases like that anymore. You need technology to rock ’n’ roll. Isn’t that right, Mr. Calvino?”
Khin Myat swirled the dregs of his tea in the small cup, tipped the cup over on the table and fingered the leaves.
“You can read tea leaves, or you look at the e
vidence of who put the poison in the cup. It’s not the same thing.”
Calvino wanted to give him a bear hug.
