by Ming Cher
“Must come back with Big Mole for second round,” Sachee said. “I never eat anything so good before.”
“Where we go from here?” Quiet One looked at Hong.
“Have a coffee at Big Mole’s shop first lah,” the General replied. “Want to check the granddaddy’s briefcase inside my khaki bag. Work out what we can do for our next meeting tomorrow. How about that?”
“Why not, is still early,” said Quiet One.
•
“Where is it?!” the General screamed, throwing gunny sacks every which way. Sachee, Quiet One and Loose Cannon looked like they might throw up their very expensive dinners. Nothing inside the shop had been broken or lost, and the portable radio was still playing Mandarin pop songs loudly on the long scaffolding table. The General’s 50cc was also still parked inside the shop, and the broken back door looked the same. The chess set and empty coffee cups were even in the same positions as when they had left earlier. There was no trace of any intrusion.
The General raged. Nobody wanted to point fingers at any of the other backdoor rats in a witch hunt, but the General came to the conclusion himself. He sat heavily on the bench at the long table, and growled, “Inside job lah, inside job…”
Finally, Sachee said, “Want me to get Big Mole? She can help us to think!”
“No lah. This my problem, not hers, okay?”
“This top secret Koon Thong business, Sachee,” Loose Cannon added. “Big Mole is a woman, not a man. We don’t want her to get scared!”
“I go and make sure she is okay, that’s all,” Sachee told them. “I know how to keep quiet with her.”
After Sachee left, the General decided to have a private talk with Quiet One. He switched off the portable radio and asked Loose Cannon, “You want to wait for Sachee?”
“No.” He shook his head.
The General handled him gently. “Okay lah, you go home, see you tomorrow.”
As soon as Loose Cannon stepped out the front door of the shop, the General lit a small kerosene lamp, put it on the long scaffolding table, and asked Quiet One, “What you have to say about my shoulder bag?”
“Cannot just be lost just like that,” Quiet One said, handing the General a cigarette. “Some ghost has our bag. If we can’t catch the ghost, the ghost will catch us.”
“That’s why I am talking to you.” The General lit his cigarette with the flame from the lamp. “The question is how to catch the ghost. We can’t let it slip away. The ghost could be any one of us. Come, we make a list.”
“But who in Koon Thong will want to do that?” Quiet One said. “Does not make sense. Are you sure there is no outsider behind this?”
“Who else knows what we have done? Ask your own self,” the General replied. “Only those who shared the same cake this morning knew what was in our bag. You know them better than me. Money not the main problem; we still have enough in our pockets to do business with the harbour rats. Trouble is, we can’t sleep with the ghost out there.”
“What you going to say at the meeting tomorrow?”
“Tell the truth lah.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, honesty is our policy. Lay cards on the table to find the ghost.”
“How?”
“Use our sixth sense to pick up the vibes. Then you and me talk privately afterward.”
“Your suspicion could backfire,” the older Quiet One warned the General. “Could cause bad blood in the same wok. No matter what, we have to prepare an escape route just in case. Everybody wants an answer, and their eyes will be looking at you. What will your answer be? Do you have a solution? You are the wizard, the director, the driver, the General, the everything. What will you say tomorrow?”
The General was quite pleased with the acknowledged warning despite everything that had happened. “You are right,” he said. “Everybody wants an answer when there is problem. You are a good observer. I am glad I am talking to you. We don’t have to mention anything about the bag or the warehouse at the meeting tomorrow.”
“So, what are you going to say tomorrow?”
“Tell everybody to keep their ears open quietly. Wait for the wind to settle. Do up the shop, fix the broken back door, make it business as usual. That will give us more time to figure out who the ghost is.”
Quiet One finished his own cigarette and said, “I go home to think more about that. Let’s leave it as it is. You going to stay here or what?”
“No, I am going back to Big Mole’s house. Make sure Sachee don’t say the wrong thing to her.”
They walked together into the shop and to the front door while the General held the small kerosene lamp in the dark. “What are you going to tell Big Mole?” Quiet One asked.
“Depends on what she has to say. Most probably I work out a plan to run the shop for her, just to stop her nagging.” The General blew out the flame in the lamp and left it on the shop counter. He put a hand on the sliding front door to open it, but then they saw Fearless Sachee running across the road toward them, shouting something and waving his arms wildly.
“Looks like he see a ghost of his own,” Quiet One said.
The General opened the sliding door and Sachee barely stopped himself from crashing into it. “Big Mole is not at home!” he said, trying to regain his breath. “Something must have happen to her!”
“The ghost could have got her,” Quiet One guessed.
“What? What ghost?” Sachee said.
“Nothing lah, never mind,” the General said. “Just somebody we don’t know got our bag. Maybe Kwang know where she is. He was still at her house on Saturday when you and me left, right, Sachee?”
“You think she is still with Kwang?” Sachee asked.
The General dared not give voice to the jealous suspicions that suddenly filled him. “He might be going to Koon’s wake in Pasir Panjang, probably knows about it too. Maybe they went together.”
Quiet One kept his thoughts to himself, but was also beginning to think there was something funny going on between Kwang and Big Mole.
“Let’s go, now!” said Sachee urgently.
•
It was nearly 9pm when their taxi stopped at the main road outside the Chinese kampong in Pasir Panjang where Koon had lived with his mother. The wake had been organised by friends and neighbours of Koon’s mother, and was being held where getai shows were staged during the Hungry Ghost Month. Koon’s coffin was placed at the back of the makeshift stage under a long canvas roof that was lit by over a dozen phosphorus lamps. Under the tent were chairs and tables for people who had come to pay their respects, laden with plates of black melon seeds for snacking.
“There she is!” Sachee said, pointing at one of the tables. Big Mole was sitting together with some residents of the kampong, who were mutual friends of her and the General. “She is okay!”
“I wonder where is Kwang?” The General glanced around; people were playing sisek cards and mahjong that had been supplied by the funeral director. Kwang was nowhere to be seen.
“Find that out from Big Mole later,” Quiet One advised. “Let’s follow the rules—give our donations and burn incense before Koon first.”
“How much you think we should give?” Sachee asked. “I am giving a hundred. You think that’s enough?”
“No lah, that’s too much, Sachee,” the General whispered. “That will raise alarm. We must not let anybody know we are loaded; bad enough we come in these fancy new clothes. We give twenty each. More than enough—five bucks is average.”
Big Mole saw the General, Sachee and the older backdoor rat called Quiet One approach the donation table, where two caretakers would record their condolence money and give them incense to burn before Koon’s coffin. After she had sunk the khaki bag in the Kallang River, she felt an urgent need to see Kwang again, and remembered that he’d be going to Koon’s wake after work. But when she arrived, he had already left. She decided to stay because she thought the General might come to pay his respects, and she wanted to see w
here she stood with him.
The woman sitting next to Big Mole, a known gossip, leaned in and said, “I heard Hong pull a stunt with his old motorbike against the leader of the 24 gang in Temple Street.”
“Is it? You have to ask him that,” Big Mole said, wanting to deflect the subject. “How is Koon’s mother today?”
“Her friends say she in bad shape, still in shock. Grieving hard.”
“That will take time,” another woman at the table said, then waved to the three men, who had burnt their funeral incense and were now walking in Big Mole’s direction. She cracked another melon seed with her fingernails.
“Where is Kwang? Did he come?” the General said.
No pleasantries, no asking after her welfare, just right to the point. She could sense his irritation and possible jealousy, and laughed inside as she thought about his khaki bag at the bottom of the river. “Don’t know lah. I was going to ask you.” She shucked the outer shell of the seed and nibbled at the interior as nonchalantly as she could.
“Kwang was here earlier,” said the gossip. “He left around six, had to go back to his workplace in Woodlands.”
Sachee sat down next to Big Mole and said, “I was looking for you before. When did you get here?”
“Must be two hours ago, right?” she asked the gossip, noting the suspicious eyes of the General and Quiet One.
“Correct, must be about then,” the gossip said. “Hey, how’s business at your pet fish shop?”
“You ask Hong about that,” she said. “He in charge of it right now.”
The gossip turned her attention to the General. “Oi Hong, I heard you jump your bike at the top dog in Temple Street—really ah?”
“No point talking about that,” the General replied. “Let’s play a game of mahjong, ah?”
“There are enough of us for a game,” Quiet One said to the gossip. “We need a mahjong set from the caretakers. Can you give face and ask them for us?” The way the question was phrased made it hard for the gossip to refuse, and halted the conversation before it could escalate further.
However, while they were playing mahjong, the gossip said, “Hey, any of you hear on the radio about the mass murder case on Spottiswoode Park Road?”
Big Mole said, “What’s the big deal about that? There are lots of killings and murders everywhere, all the time.” She looked at the General for his reaction, but he had his eyes on his tiles.
“Police are offering a $5,000 reward for information,” the gossip said. “Full details should be in the newspapers tomorrow.”
“I can’t read,” Big Mole said. “Hong reads the newspaper every day. Tell me when you know more about that tomorrow, okay, Hong?”
“Sure lah.” The General nodded, his eyes still fixed down at the mahjong game in order to hide his shock over the reward, thinking about the ghost and the missing bag. Quiet One took a deep breath and sat up straighter in his chair. Big Mole could see the fear in both of them.
However, Fearless Sachee seemed concerned only for Big Mole’s safety. They had grown up together, a commitment with no conditions—no sex, no money, no promises, no nothing—just a dear friendship that started when they banded together after seeing each other begging for food during wartime. She felt safe with Sachee around and decided to handle the General her own way.
After the gossip had won the mahjong game, the General said that he was ready to leave, and Sachee and Quiet One agreed. Big Mole got up to join them. As they were walking out of the kampong, she decided to reverse any suspicion that he might have about her secret affair with Kwang, and let her anger come to the surface. “Hey, where you been all night, with your new clothes and shoes? Going out with bar girls or what?”
“I can explain later,” the General said timidly, embarrassed for not having trusted her, and trying to think of a good excuse to get out of the tricky situation.
Quite One lied for him: “We won some money at the racecourse. That’s why we bought new things to wear and treated ourselves at a classy restaurant.”
“Can take you there tomorrow, if you like,” the General added. “Don’t even have to bet, can just see the horses. When you want to go?”
She smirked at their lies. “Talk about my shop first,” she said. “Have you actually done anything about the back door yet? I am depending on you, you know.”
“Give me a day or two to work that out properly,” the General said. “I discuss it with you after that. I have not forgotten what I promise. Once the back door fixed, I will make sure the shop is safe for you.”
“What for? I thought you are going to run the shop now, so that I can work from home. That’s what you said in front of Kwang and Sachee. You forget all about that?”
“No lah, I haven’t. I promise I am working on it.”
•
At home that night, Big Mole still fumed, and decided to torment the General in their bed. He kissed her all over, but when he was about to enter her, she pushed him away, and winced. “Yuck, you smell! Why don’t you go and have a bath first?”
“For fuck’s sake,” he mumbled, reluctantly getting out of bed and going out to the well.
When he returned, she frowned. “Are you smoking again?”
“Yes, had a few cigarettes today,” he admitted.
“Go and brush your teeth! Do you need to be told to do that?” Deviously faulting him over small sensitive things was as effective as water torture.
When he returned from cleaning his teeth, she had wrapped herself up to signal that her sexy desires had worn off, and that he was to blame. He sighed and then turned over, soon snoring and mumbling, “Ghost got my bag, catch the ghost, kill the ghost…” which made her both angry and afraid. Since he and the other Koon Thong members were all still alive, Big Mole now knew that the dead bodies discovered at Spottiswoode Park Road had to belong to members of the 24 gang; Hong had turned into a cold-blooded murderer and would not hesitate to kill her if he discovered that she was the ghost he was looking for. She slipped away from their bed to sleep on the rattan couch in the lounge.
5
The Cold Sword
The next morning, Tuesday, Big Mole deliberately woke up later than Sachee and the General so that she could eavesdrop on what they would say while they were clattering about in the kitchen.
“What’s wrong with Big Mole?” Sachee said in hushed tones.
“Don’t know,” the General replied. “We didn’t quarrel last night.”
“What time do you want to go to the shop?”
“No hurry. We can go around half past ten.”
“You want to use the bathroom first?”
“I don’t need it this morning, took a bath last night. You go ahead,” the General said.
When Sachee came back in from his bath, Big Mole sat up on the couch and said, “Can you get me a bottle of headache pills from the medicine shop? Hong was sleep-talking the whole night, I couldn’t sleep!”
“Talking about what?” the General said as he stepped into the lounge.
“Don’t know,” she said. “You keep mumbling something about a ghost, something about a bag. All very mix up. What’s bothering you?”
“No idea,” the General said, his eyes downcast.
“I can’t stand you mumbling all night. You do that again, you going to sleep on the couch, not me!”
Sachee shifted his feet uneasily, not wanting to take sides. “How many bottles of headache pills do you want?” he asked. “I go and get them for you now.”
“Just one bottle,” she said. “Take two dollars from the kitchen drawer. And hey, buy a newspaper for Hong too, so he can read me the news about the mass murder we heard about at Koon’s wake.”
“Don’t worry about the newspaper, Sachee,” the General said. “We go out together. I give you a lift on my 50cc at the shop for the headache pills. That’s quicker.”
Big Mole knew he was just making another excuse to keep her in the dark. She took a deep breath to control her anger as s
he watched them finish their coffee and then leave her house.
•
The first thing the General did was to buy a newspaper from the roadside stall outside the Chinese medicine shop. On the front page was a picture of the redbrick house emblazoned with the headline, “Mass Murder Mystery: $5000 Reward”.
“What does it say?” Sachee asked as they stepped into the pet fish shop.
“I will look at the details later,” the General said as they got onto his motorbike. “Don’t mention anything about the newspaper to Big Mole when you go back with the headache pills. We don’t want her headache to get worse.”
“Don’t worry, I am not that stupid,” Sachee said from the back seat. “I will just give her the headache pills and come back here straight away. But please, Hong, you need to stop talking in your sleep about the ghost and bag. If not, Big Mole can’t sleep.”
“Let’s not talk about that now.” The General kickstarted his 50cc. “I will read the newspaper here. Let you know all about that later.”
Sachee was not worried by the news. In fact, he was proud; they had made the front page! He was looking forward to sharing the news at the 11am meeting with the rest of Koon Thong.
After dropping Sachee off outside the Malay kampong, the General went back to Big Mole’s shop. Quiet One was already reading the newspaper at the long table in the backyard. “Hey, you are earlier than me. How come?”
“I thought I better come early for a private talk,” Quiet One said, putting down the newspaper and handing the General a menthol cigarette.
“That’s what I need,” the General said, lit the cigarette, and took a long drag. “I am glad you are here. Let’s think together. What the newspaper say?”
“Have to read it yourself,” Quiet One said. “A lot of our supposed brothers will open their mouths for a $5,000 reward, especially the ghost.”
After reading the full news report, the General analysed the situation. “A lot of guesswork here lah. Nobody can prove who did all this. We did not leave any fingerprints behind, and no one see us there. Even the ghost can’t point a finger at us for the reward. We take action by non-action, like what we said last night, in order to find the ghost. Keep on our course.”