Cale boarded a Biman Airline plane headed for Rangoon. He sat with his knees and feet against the carpet-lined divider between first class and coach, noting that some unfortunate nonsmoker must have sat across the aisle from him in a recent epic adventure on the aircraft, due to the angle of a vomit projection crusting on the blue divider curtain. The plane crossed over a Malaysian mountain range with a few air pocket pressure drops and rolling jabs. Cale pulled up in his seat and looked over his shoulder to scan the rest of the people on the plane. It was oddly quiet. Cale saw a young white woman with light brown dreadlocks sitting alone staring out the window of the plane. She was half curled up, holding her knees, wearing a tattered pair of military issue pants and a soiled yellow linen shirt with a colorfully knit vest. She seemed supported by the curved wall of the plane. Cale thought about her, trying to picture her present state of being. He decided that she had come down from the mountains north of Chaing Mai to find the pulse of the opium poppy. A Dutchman and a Frenchman were smoking cigarettes at the back of the plane. The only person interrupting the layer of smoke was the seldom-seen stewardess. She wore a blue traditional Indian costume covering up everything but her hands and part of her face above her nose. It didn’t seem compatible with accidents or emergencies. A red dot rode her brow. Cale turned forward and closed his eyes, drifting into memories of past trips to Burma and the military boys: “Welcome to Myanmar because we need your money.”
He remembered not to be in hurry getting off the plane because the first few have to get cash at the airport bank where the exchange rate was blatant robbery. If he could just carry on and get out of the airport, he could get to the black market exchange, which was considerably better for travelers. The black market segued his thoughts to the government registration of everything that makes money, including drugs, slavery, smuggling, and money itself. Burma had always been a crossroads for traders of every race that passed through its borders.
The sky was dark by the time the plane landed in Rangoon. Cale walked right past the gun-toting guards and out of the building, with his eyes focused on a minivan taxi queue. He didn’t want his money to go straight into the pockets of the military, but rather into the fabric of the people that lived under the military thumb. After haggling with the driver for a minute, they were off for the black market money exchange and a hotel Cale knew of near the center of town and the Shwe Pagoda.
Cale dropped his bag off at his room and went upstairs to the restaurant with a light manila case folder of photocopies and a few duplicate pictures of the murder case. There wasn’t anybody in the restaurant, so he picked a table and put his folder on it and sat in a wicker chair, taking a deep breath. A dark-faced Burmese man wearing a white button-down shirt and black slacks came out of the kitchen entryway and walked towards Cale.
“Hello,” greeted the waiter. He handed Cale a menu and stood motionless, pen poised on a tablet, ready to take Cale’s order.
“Can I have some curried chicken, a side of rice, two bottles of water, and a Mandalay beer, big, please?” Cale handed the menu back, and the waiter moved off, slaloming through the tables towards the kitchen.
A woman walked into the restaurant and caught the waiter before he disappeared into the kitchen, “Excuse me, can I get a Mandalay, big, please?” She wore a black, long-sleeve blouse of rough silk, linen pants dyed olive green, and well-worn simple leather sandals. A silver anklet jingled and flashed as she moved.
Cale noticed how completely tan she appeared. A boar tusk bracelet draped loosely around her wrist.
The waiter responded to her request, “Yes, please sit.”
She turned, veered to a table near Cale, and glanced at him as she came closer.
Cale looked at her tanned face, hazel eyes, and short, sun-bleached, brown hair.
She sat down with a journal, and drew a pen out of the spiral binding.
The waiter returned with two waters and two beers. He placed a beer and a glass on the lady’s table and walked over to Cale. The waiter didn’t make a sound and walked away.
The woman poured her beer into her glass, studied Cale’s western clothing, and asked confidently, “Did you just get in?”
Cale turned his head towards her, “Yeah, just an hour ago.”
“Are you meeting up with a tour group or traveling on your own?”
“I seem to get more out of traveling on my own, you know, backpack style.”
“Oh, I agree,” she said. “You don’t get herded around, and you get to solve your own problems as you go. Have you been here before?”
“Yeah, I flew into Rangoon in 1996 and walked in over the Thai border a couple of times since then,” Cale replied.
Impressed she exclaimed, “That’s more than most people. You must have come through some of the mine fields when you came over the border?”
Cale nodded, “I had a good guide.”
“Where are you headed this time?”
“Probably bus to Mandalay, stop in and see a friend, then train out of there towards Lashio, hopefully with a couple stops along the way.”
“Wow! You’re heading right into the dragon’s lair.”
“Mostly Chinese, aren’t they, in Lashio?” asked Cale.
“Well, the people are sixty percent ethnic and forty percent Chinese, but the influence is disproportionately Chinese. Major smuggling outpost: U.S.-boycotted goods coming into Burma, and opium, children, women, precious stones, rare animals, rare animal parts, illegal goods going out, among other things, of course.” She started to nod and said thoughtfully, “It’s a real fascinating cultural and moral crossroads.”
Cale was caught by her perfume and shyly looked down at the file before him. He opened the folder full of copied photos, evidence lists, sub-lists, hypothetical event chronologies, the victim’s post-mortem photos, and a few evidence analysis reports. The case folder appeared moot; it was impossible to concentrate. And still Cale tried to dig in, eventually blocking himself off from the rest of the room with both elbows firmly planted on the table, using his forearms as shields and his hands like blinders bracing his head. In reality, everything Cale looked over in the folder had this woman’s eyes in the background.
Both Cale and the woman pretended to be buried in their perspective projects when a loud conversation broke out in the kitchen.
The woman hadn’t written a word in her journal when she looked up to see the waiter coming out of the kitchen and heading right for her. “Could I order food and take it to my room?”
The waiter stood nervously between the woman and Cale and apologized, “I’m sorry to inform you, but the kitchen is closed, and the dining room is going to close early this night.”
Cale popped his head up, “What about my order?”
“Yes, sir, I will bring it to you, and you can take it to your room.” The waiter then turned for the kitchen.
“That’s disappointing,” the woman grumbled.
Cale admired her accepting way and offered, “Would you like to share mine?”
Her eyes passed a sparkling flirt as she said with hesitation, “Ah, yeah, if you think there’ll be enough. Thank you.”
Cale turned and caught the waiter before he disappeared, “Excuse me, waiter.”
The waiter turned around at the entrance, “Yes?”
“Is it possible to order one more plate of plain rice and two more Mandalay, big?”
The waiter nodded and said, “Rice, we have. Beer, we have. Yes.”
The woman thanked the waiter, “Chee jew tim ba day.”
Cale and the woman finished their beers and began gathering their things when she suggested, “You might want to bring your glass. There aren’t any in the rooms.”
“That’s good to know.” He waited for her to begin walking towards the kitchen before introducing himself, “My name is Cale Dixon.” He extended his hand.
She smiled and reached out, “Paula Henderson.”
The waiter came out with two beers in a plastic bag and the food in another bag of stacked Styrofoam boxes and gave them both to Cale. Both Cale and Paula independently put money on the table and walked out of the restaurant side by side.
“Do you feel like exploring the roof? There’s a good view, and it should be cooler with the night breeze coming,” invited Paula.
“That sounds grand.”