“Sure, Rad. I guess. I’m your fan.”

“Well, I take care of my fans.” She nodded to the second coffee.

He eyed it apprehensively, at the same time realizing he was parched.

“Take it,” she pressed. “I got it for you.”

“What the hell,” he said, and took the coffee.

Chapter 8

MARTY

They landed thirty minutes later at Koggala Airport, an Air Force base that served both military and domestic flights. The runway was a thin strip of tarmac in a large field. They followed a path to a World War II-era terminal, where Rad and Jacky popped into the restroom and Marty purchased a bottle of water from a vending machine. When they regrouped in front of the building, they hailed a small yellow taxi, Marty getting in the front with the driver, the girls in the back. Thankfully the car was air-conditioned, and the planned roughly thirty-minute drive to Mirissa Beach was pleasant—until the driver was forced to pull over due to a flat tire. He didn’t have a spare and walked with them along the oceanside, two-lane highway for nearly a kilometer until they reached a strip of residences and stores with cracked and crumbling walls and corrugated iron roofs (or in some cases, no roofs at all). A few people were sitting in front of their shops doing not much of anything, while wild fowl scratched around in the dirt and stray dogs stretched lazily on their sides in the shade. The only available transportation for hire, it turned out, was a red auto rickshaw that incongruously flew an American flag. Like all the trishaws (as they were colloquially referred to), it featured three wheels and three seats, one in the front and two in the back. Jacky and Rad climbed into the passenger cabin. Marty insisted he could fit on the bench seat with them, but they said he was too sweaty from the long walk.

Which left him no other choice than to stand on the trishaw’s back bumper and hold onto the metal luggage bars that spanned the canvas roof.

The driver pushed the two-stroke engine up to sixty kilometers an hour on the two-lane road. The wind blasted Marty’s ears and tore at his clothes as he hung on for his life, alternating between curses and prayers. When they came upon a herd of cattle blocking the road, the driver slowed to navigate through the oblivious beasts.

Marty leapt off the sheet-metal contraption, grateful to have his feet on solid ground once again.

The trishaw continued onward without him.

“You bloody idiot!” he shouted. “Stop!”

It pulled over on the dirt shoulder. Jacky and Rad tugged back the curtains and stuck their heads out the windows.

“What are you doing, Marty?” Rad called.

“Did you fall off?” asked Jacky.

He was too angry to reply and trudged silently to the vehicle. When he reached it, he said, “Move over, Rad.”

“No way, Marty. You’re even sweatier than before!”

“Maybe that’s because for the last ten minutes I’ve been trying not to die.”