by Tham Cheng-E
“When?”
“I’ve sent in our coordinates. They’ll have an Agent contact us soon.”
Landon puts his tea on the nightstand. “I’m hungry.”
The remark amuses Hannah and makes her feel motherly all of a sudden. “There’s a supermarket across the street. We might even finish the dinner we never had.”
Landon pulls a vacuous expression.
“You don’t remember it?”
“No,” says he. “Was it bad?”
“Didn’t you write it down somewhere?”
He shakes his head.
“Then it probably was.”
/ / /
The supermarket is a tranquil haven at midnight, its half-depleted shelves and empty aisles accented with the ambience of a dystopian film. Light piano music haunts the forlorn spaces. Here and there gaunt, shadowy figures flit about with packs of beer and nuts. One of them picks out a bottle of cheap Chinese liquor. An employee stoops at a corner and stocks a shelf. A lone cashier sits at an open till and entertains herself on her mobile. Landon and Hannah saunter down an aisle, swinging their shopping baskets. Time slows to a crawl.
“Where were you all these years?” Landon asks.
Hannah flips a pack of crisps over and looks at it. “Everywhere, doing what I do best.”
“Killing?”
“Cleansing.” She replaces the pack and moves on. “There’re many rogues out there.”
“Like me?”
“Worse.”
For a while they strolled in silence, then Landon succumbs to a compulsion to warm the chill between them. “I’ve got an idea if they decide to kill me in the end.”
“What’s that?”
“We could kill ourselves.”
“Done that a dozen times over.” She reaches for another packet. “There is a fail-safe for Trackers like us. A part of the Serum can be programmed to respond to neuro-stimulus arising from suicidal tendencies, like serotonin levels, and prevent an act of suicide.”
“How?”
“It stalls your brain.” She taps her temple. “Induces a seizure.”
“Maybe I could do you first then myself.”
“Word of advice.” Hannah stops and turns around to look at him. “Never fraternise with your executioner.”
Her response blanches him to a chalky pallor that drives her into fits of lavish, velvet laughter. “You’re a darling, you know that?” she says, still tittering. “A century-old darling.”
The remark leaves Landon dry and cold.
Her laughter recedes into giggles. “I’ll go get some bread. You hit the warmers.”
A feeling of insecurity gnaws. “Perhaps we should go together.”
“Afraid I might disappear?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that a good thing, considering what I’m supposed to do to you?”
Again Landon finds himself in a fix, unable to retort, and once more his wretched disposition tickles Hannah to laughter. “Don’t worry, Arthur.” She runs her fingers through her hair. “Now it is I who won’t let you go.”
A familiar pang of loneliness descends when he sees her disappear around an aisle. He shrugs it off and considers picking up some canned ham and sausages. At the same time Hannah makes her selection and drops a country loaf into her shopping basket along with a slab of butter. The entire operation has taken her three minutes or less.
And at the end of it she finds Landon missing.
34
DECEMBER 1923
THE RICKSHAW PULLER dropped Anton off at a three-storey tenement along Guthrie Lane, just a block west of Meyer Chambers at Raffles Place. He ascended a teak staircase that led to a corridor smelling of stale sweat and disinfectants. The psychiatric clinic was on the left, where the doctor’s name, speciality and credentials were engraved on a bronze plaque beside the door. Anton jimmied the brass doorknob and found it locked.
“I’m afraid he’s passed on,” said a burly brunette who had been stamping up the stairs after him. Her hair stuck out from the sides of her sun-hat in tiny red curls.
Anton gasped. “He did? How?”
“His heart,” she said. “So I heard from the constables. Pity, he was such a gentleman.”
After she lumbered up the next flight and out of sight Anton pried a misshapen journal from his rear pocket and consulted an entry written a week ago:
Got another dose of barbiturate this morning. The good doctor thinks sleep therapy might help if I should have any schizophrenic undertones associated with my memory loss. Otherwise it would have to be a case of syphilis that might still be incubating. He called it general paresis, and insisted that I be completely honest with him concerning any visits to brothels despite countless attempts on my part to convince him otherwise. After waking from the barbiturate he didn’t tell me much, though he said something about my blood being very peculiar and that he’ll need time for a more accurate diagnosis.
It would’ve done Anton some good knowing what exactly was wrong with his blood. The doctor had charged him nothing for the treatments because he regarded Anton to be some sort of a lab rat, and it was for the better since Anton had scarcely been able to make ends meet from peddling cigarettes.
Not that it mattered now because the doctor was dead.
/ / /
It so happened that at noon Anton was waiting in line by the jinriksha station at Maxwell Road when a Kling approached him. He had been considering the benefits of pulling the night shift as he stood sandwiched between two sweaty, steaming coolies.
Like him they were seeking to bolster their income by pulling rickshaws on days when quayside jobs were few. Even as the laden bumboats docked there’d be a long line of coolies waiting for their turn to unload the cargo. If you were far behind in the line, you missed the work and you didn’t get paid. Rickshaws, on the other hand, were a more reliable source of income. The jinriksha station rented out rickshaws at a good rate of 11 cents a day, and the waiting coolies packed themselves tightly for fear of queue jumping, which almost always degenerated into brawls.
When the Kling came over many greasy, sun-scorched faces turned to him all at once. Anton too looked in their direction, catching waft after waft of their stale, hot breaths. He stared at the Kling and pointed to his chest. Me?
The Kling grinned, revealing a flawless set of white teeth. “Come.”
“I’ve been queuing for an hour,” said Anton. “Not about to give it up.”
“I got something better. A job offer,” said the Kling.
“What job?”
The Kling surveyed the line. “Too many eyes lah. You want to know, you come.”
Anton closed his eyes and made the leap. As soon as he left the queue the coolie behind him stepped forward and pressed in chesttoback against the man in front. The lines advanced a foot, and the waiting continued under the blinding noonday sun.
“Why did you pick me?” Anton asked.
“Because you look too weak to pull rickshaw lah.” The Kling draped an arm over Anton’s shoulders and offered a hand. “My name is Amal.”
“Anton.”
Amal took him a hundred yards down Maxwell Road into an alley where roaches roamed the sewerage-crusted drains, even in the day. There he opened a wicker basket he had been carrying and furtively fished out a bottle of brandy.
“We can sell this.”
“They’re expensive,” said Anton. “I don’t have any money for them.”
“They’re fake one.” Amal wiggled his head at the confession. “Very cheap, so don’t worry about money. I only need you to help carry and move them. And you know,” he said, scratching a cheek, “be lookout lah.”
“Isn’t it illegal?”
“No—” The word came out as a drawling growl, as if Anton had uttered the most ridiculous thing in the world. “If people like the liquor, we re-brand into our own brand lah.”
Anton picked at the back of his ear. “Well, I’m not sure if…”
“If you
so scared I also got other business.” Amal took out a warmer flask and poured out, in its cap, a brew that exuded a delicious scent. Anton sipped it cautiously.
“It’s very good coffee,” he said, returning the cap.
“I can teach you how to make them, for free.” Amal grinned. “Tea also, especially tea; they all in my blood lah. I from Ceylon. You know Ceylon?”
“Heard of it.”
“So how?” Amal’s head waggled slightly. “Join me lah, we make money together.”
When Anton nodded he almost gagged from a slap to his back. A delighted Amal then snatched up his finger and pricked it with an object that glinted in the sunlight. It vanished as quickly as it appeared. Before he could even flinch Amal was already clutching his hand in a fist and hefting it up to their noses in a display of unity.
“Now we business blood-brothers,” said he, flashing his brilliant white teeth.
Anton pulled out his hand and examined his finger. The bleeding had stopped, leaving only a tiny red dot on the punctured skin. “What did you cut me with?”
“Pocketknife lah,” said Amal. “Clean lah, don’t worry. This is custom, bring luck!”
/ / /
At lunch Amal brought Anton to a stall along Tras Street where he was fed roast chicken with rice cooked in its drippings. The meal came with a side serving of cucumbers spiced and pickled in vinegar. They lunched around a crate placed on the tarmac, and sat on stools no higher than a shoebox.
“How do you keep your teeth so white?” said Anton.
Amal showed him a small round tin containing a certain brand of tooth powder. “I also sell this at Change Alley.” He marketed it with another of his trademark grins. “You want can sell it together lah. These days we must sell everything to make money.”
“I’d prefer this. It’s more legal.”
Amal snivelled. “Very little money lah, all these kuching kurak things. Sell until die only earn peanuts. But if you got time you follow me, I show you better business.”
After lunch they went to South Bridge Road where a tall Sikh directed traffic with a pair of wicker wings strapped to his back. At the service store of a petrol station, before a tight-faced woman standing behind a glass and wood counter, Amal announced his arrival with a pompous display of opened arms. She reciprocated Amal’s gregariousness with an uneasy smile and went to the back to fetch someone.
Anton examined cans of lubricants, motor oil and cigarettes stacked inside glass cases. The air was sweltering despite an electric fan chugging away laboriously on a table.
“I supply motor oil and lubricants to our dear colonial masters.” Amal whispered to Anton over another head-waggle. “Business better during the Great War lah. I can take bigger cut. Now only small commission.”
Anton nodded in comprehension.
“You got memory problems?” Amal tapped his own oiled hair.
Anton’s eyes grew wide. “How’d you know?”
“I know many things,” Amal went to a dusty rack and picked out a bottle of clear red fluid and pushed it to him. “Take this, three times a day. I sell it, so I know it’s very good.”
“Wait…” Anton didn’t know what to do with the bottle. “It’s impossible that you—”
Before he could finish the woman returned with a tall man and once more Amal threw out his arms in greeting. The man, initially stern-faced like the woman, became affable as soon as he saw Amal and greeted him with similar zest.
“Koon!” Amal hauled Anton over by his arm. “I got new partner. Meet Anton.”
Anton shook hands cordially with the stranger named Koon, whom he found had piercingly large eyes. After the formalities Amal and Koon began conferring in low tones over something about renting trucks and getting something across the new causeway. Then Amal signed some chits and pushed himself away from the counter, sighing, and seeming very satisfied over a deal made.
“Heard your wife give birth already yah?” He tilted his chin towards the back of the store, where the woman had gone.
Koon’s handsome smile wrinkled the corners of his eyes. He called over his shoulder in a Mandarin dialect Anton didn’t know, and in time the woman emerged bearing a bundle in her arms. Anton wasn’t inclined to look because he didn’t know the family. But Amal went right for it. He parted the swaddle and started cooing expertly at the infant.
“Born September,” said Koon, impressed and amused by Amal’s repertoire of baby language. “Almost two months old now.”
“What’s his name?”
“Kuan Yew,” said Koon.
Amal flashed an exaggerated look of disgust. “Hard to call lah—” said he, prolonging the last syllable into that growling drawl of his.
But Koon, evidently familiar with Amal’s droll candour, merely chuckled. “His grandfather wanted to name him Harry.”
Amal’s grimace passed into a grin. “I like Harry better.” He then turned to Anton who was silently observing them from behind. “What you think? The Kuan-yin or Harry?”
This put Anton in a spot. Amal perceived his discomfort and immediately threw an arm over his shoulder, chortling boisterously and showing off his blood-red tongue against his pearly white teeth. “We going to be great business partners, eh?”
“Yes, Amal,” said Anton undecidedly. “I suppose we are.”
35
THE EXECUTIONERS HUNT
HIS ARMS ARE wrenched behind his back in a way that if he stops walking they will hurt even more. A large hand clasps over his mouth and foils his attempt to holler. Whoever is holding him feels like a giant. In no time Landon is shoved into yet another car. He is kicking, thrashing. The jab of a fist across his left cheek almost knocks him cold.
Landon clutches his swelling jaw and glares wide-eyed at his assailant.
“Sorry.” John steps on the accelerator. “It was the only way to get you in.”
Screeching, the car reverses across the driveway. It catapults over a speed hump and sends sparks flying. To the crank of gears the car bolts forth with an impatient groan and purrs down a larger road. Landon lunges for the door handle and John yanks him back.
“Dr E.W. Peck is dead.”
Friday. Landon shudders at the news. Guilt lances deep into his heart.
“I warned you about not getting too close,” John adds.
“Where the hell were you?”
“At your house, when she took you.” John squints through the windshield, slabs of lamplight passing across his face. “I tried to get you out.”
“And failed.”
There is resentment in the sidelong glance John throws at him. “If you understand her abilities I hope you’d think better of me. She fought like a ghost,” he confesses. “I had to let her kill me before I could get to you.”
“How?”
“Worked out a struggle; switched her weapon for one bugged with a Neut—what we call a neuro-transmitter.” He swerves and the car skids a little. “An obsolete tool that tricked her brain into thinking she had blown my head open. Afforded me a break but it didn’t turn out the way I wanted.”
“And Cheok?”
John’s gaze freezes through the windshield. “She slit his throat.”
It almost sends Landon into a seizure. He watches one passing streetlight after another and tries to remember Cheok but sees only parts of him: that thick, sweating chest, the stumpy arms, the pink cellophane bags with food, the way he placed his beer can on his belly…
“The Tracker was sent for him because the order for you just came in.” John tosses him something black and intensely familiar.
His journal.
Landon yields to a surge of anger. “Didn’t figure you for a thief.”
John shrugs off the accusation. “CODEX knows you’re the real deal. It turns out you’re hiding something they want and your Tracker left me a message that led to the journal, though I can’t imagine why she’d do that.” He nods at the book. “First entry, 1859.”
Landon flips to it and sees the na
me Harriet circled in pencil. “Who was she?”
“Not a who, but a where.” John swerves again to overtake a car. “It refers to Mount Harriet—the old name of Dempsey Hill. The plantations there were your sustenance; they kept your family alive in the early days.” He enters the highway and accelerates. “Your current home in Clacton is not your family plot, but one that was transferred to you under the protection of another faction.
“In other words,” John turns briefly to him, “your real family plot has been in Dempsey Hill all along.”
Landon’s expression sours at the revelation. “FourBees…”
John retrieves a folder from the dashboard and hands it to him. “Inside you’ll find an old record of a Seer who transferred the Clacton property to you. He had acquired the final site in Mount Harriet through Hoo Ah Kay, who had earlier won it from a “certain destitute young man who chalked up a prodigious amount of debt”. We matched them against the clues from your diaries and found out it was you. A clever move to safeguard the property. Do you remember the name Origen?”
Landon looks despondently out of the window and shakes his head.
“Your time is up, Landon.”
“I know.”
“And you’re getting all chummed up with her?”
“She said she’ll work something out!”
Unbelievable. John looks away and snorts the ingenuous remark.
“Don’t get all self-righteous on me, John.” Landon drives a finger in his direction. “She told me all about Internment and that you’re as much a killer as she is.”
John alternates between braking and accelerating as he weaves through the traffic and overtakes one vehicle after another.
“You’re all the same, aren’t you?” says Landon. “And that you’re going to take me to a safe place to milk me dry and then murder me?”
John says nothing.
“Where’re you taking me?”
“Away from her.”