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Sure, that made sense If they wanted to intimidate me, why send a boy and a bird to do a erous-lookingood for , not a threat Unless, of course, the Burentle threats, with no loss of face on either side…

It was hard to say for sure, hard to tell a threat froure out what to do next

For starters, I kept

I walked a lot, for the exercise and to walk off the beer, and to transforuidebooks into a real feel for the city I didn’t want to stray too far frooon, but I could stay within the immediate area and still wear out a lot of shoe leather

And I paused from time to time – to buy a few kyats’ worth of taetable rolls at a hole-in-the-wall around the corner from the National Museum, to duck into a teahouse and sip a pot of tea while two men at the next table puffed on cheroots and played a passionate gaeance

In the swank bar of the Traders Hotel I had a whisky and soda and spoke French with a wine salesman from Nice He had been all over Southeast Asia and disliked it all, but he especially disliked Bur," he said, "and believe me, I do – well, Mandalay is far worse The sanitation is primitive, the cuisine is lamentable, and the women are neither skilled nor attractive Have you noticed the pale circles on their cheeks? They paint them on to make themselves beautiful They look like clowns in the circus"

He was glad of my company because I spoke French, and he was starved for conversation in his own language He got plenty of it in Laos and Vietnakok and Jakarta, where he’d had to speak English "Everywhere English," he lae spoken throughout the world, certainly it ought to be French"

"The language of Voltaire," I said "Of Racine, of Corneille, of Molière The tongue of Victor Hugo, of De Maupassant, of Proust and Sartre and Camus"

"Ah, my friend," he said "You are an American And yet you understand"

"Mais certaineot disoriented for a moment (Or disasiaed, I suppose, to be politically correct) I turned left when I ht, and walked half a block before I realized it Whereupon I turned around and headed back where I’d co followed

I don’t knohy it took reat deal of experience at following or being followed, and it’s not so I have on my mind much But I should have this ti, whichever it was, that I’d received that afternoon at Shwe Dagon There were people who kneas in Rangoon, and soood tirow eyes in the back of my head

The only eyes I had faced forward, and I hadn’t done a great job of using them I’d probably been followed all day, and the first intioda Road and, half a block away, soround, the Chief had said, and it seeht off Even if I wouldn’t be sleeping in it, I needed a place to hole up, a rooaroo and kick off my shoes and relax But first I had to iving the slip to the ht along

It would be easier, I thought, to dispose of a tail in a city I knew It’s a cinch in New York, with so s with multiple exits And there’s the subway – you can hop on and off, and if you tiht your shadow has to ride forlornly on to the next stop Ditch him on the train at Coluets to 125th Street, just over three miles away

In the present instance, however, I didn’t know the city at all, and the man or men on my tail presumably did So I would have to be clever, and for starters I couldn’t letpursued I had to lose hi on at a leisurely pace and not looking back to catch a quick glih, especially when you don’t knoho the bastard is or what he’s got inrelentlessly after you, content to keep his distance It’s so for the opportune moment to close the distance between you and slip a knife between your ribs

And the latter was a real prospect, if not an appealing one I had been threatened or warned that I would be killed if I didn’t leave Bur down a darkened street in an unfa in my wake

I pressed on for a block or two, turned left, walked another block, turned right I was on afor fares I hailed one, jumped into the front seat beside the driver, who looked quite startled

"Take me somewhere east of Suez," I said, "where the best is like the worst"