Singapore Sling Shot

by Andrew Grant

  It always had.

  As a former sandbagger for Betty Windsor’s mob, I always made it a point of doing the business at the first opportunity, no shagging about. To delay could, as it had done in this instant, backfire big time.

  “Everything okay?” Simone was asking. I shook my head, then I remembered that she wasn’t in the loop—she had no idea Thomas Lu had been held prisoner.

  “Thomas Lu has apparently vanished,” I replied.

  “Oh!” was all she said as she reached for me. Hong Kong could wait a day at least.

  Thomas Lu was indeed in KL. The damage to his shoulder was severe. The surgeon needed to first treat him for infection and then do major reconstruction work. He told his patient that once the stitches were removed there would be the need for extensive physiotherapy. Lu was prepared for that. He was also prepared to wait in KL as long as it took for Carlos Mendez to depart for South America. Once Mendez was gone, Lu would then plan his return to Singapore and his revenge on Sami Somsak. In the meantime, wallowing in his post-operative drug high, he wanted company. He wanted his beautiful boy to come and sit by his bedside and comfort him. Thomas Lu made the call.

  “He is in a private hospital in KL,” Sami said. It was morning. Simone and I were breakfasting in bed. My omelette was getting cold because Sami had my full attention.

  “How the hell did you find that out so fast?”

  “My insider,” Sami replied. I could feel the smile in his voice. “Several months ago I paid a young gay man, a male escort, a fortune to get close to Lu. He has done so. He is Lu’s lover.”

  “Holy shit!” I muttered. My devious friend had done it again.

  Sami laughed. “You know how I work, Daniel. Virtually every member of the Intella Island consortium has a mistress, or a male lover, or a confidant who is on my payroll. I’ve been planning Intella Island for more than three years and I selected my partners, even though they think otherwise. Lu is the only one I hadn’t invited to join. Unfortunately, the others did invite him. However, fortunately for us his sexual predilection, not to mention his excessive appetite, has made him the easiest to get someone close to.”

  “Fortunately,” I replied dryly. I didn’t mention that lover boy hadn’t picked up a hint on what was about to happen to Stanley and his family.

  “Daniel, it’s insurance. I want to know what those I deal with are thinking and I want to have a little something over them if I need to exert any additional influence.”

  I didn’t reply. There was nothing more to say. I wondered idly what Sami had on me. Then I dismissed the thought. He had everything and nothing on me. That was the way it had always been between us. Total trust. I’ve spoken of it before, but that is what we have. One word from me and his billion-dollar drug-processing barge out in the Gulf of Thailand would be gone. That sort of information you don’t pass on to people who wouldn’t die for you. Would I die for Sami Somsak? I probably would. I would rather die for him than die a meaningless death. I have a real fear that one day I’ll be taken out in a car accident by some idiot driver. What a stupid way to die.

  “I am going to watch him, and when he returns, I’ll arrange to have him taken care of,” Sami was saying, snapping me back to the moment.

  “Why not just set Carlos onto him?” I suggested. “Have it happen up there, not here.”

  “South American drug thugs running rampant in KL has a certain ring to it, I agree. But no, I’ll keep that information to myself for the moment.” Sami paused. “We’ve been lucky so far, Daniel, and that luck can’t continue indefinitely. Singapore has too many eyes and we can’t stay invisible forever. You go home and I’ll call if I need you.”

  “Okay,” I replied. “This time it is ciao.”

  “And thanks, old friend.”

  So, there it was. I was going home. Now I just had to figure out how I was going to break the news to Simone. I didn’t really have to. She knew and she was reluctantly okay with it. We would spend some time apart. She to regain her equilibrium and give “us”—or the potential of us—some serious thought. As for me, I was going to get back to Hong Kong, sign up to a gym, take up karate and get working on this body of mine. This little excursion had shown me just how totally out of shape I really was. I didn’t finish my omelette. Simone and I said a long goodbye.

  Hong Kong, one month later

  I have spent the past month working out like a fanatic. I have once again become a non-smoker. Perhaps I should say I am a smoker who hasn’t touched a cigarette for twenty-nine days and counting. I limit myself to two beers a day and one JD in the evening. Fish, lean steak and salads are on the menu. I joined an Aberdeen karate club, taking up the beginner’s white belt for the first week while I learned their protocol. They then jumped me a whole bunch of belts up to brown, explaining that they’ll grade me to black in their next grading ceremony. In contact sparring, I have to hold myself back. It’s difficult to play-fight when you are trained to kill and maim. Self-control, I guess. When I’m not doing karate, I’m at the gym, the pool, or pounding the pavement.

  The only days I didn’t train were those that made up the three-day weekend Simone spent with me. And no, there hasn’t been another woman in my bed since Simone and I got things together. That’s some sort of record for me. When she heard I was back, Mai Ling phoned. I lied to her and told her I was engaged. She wished me luck and genuinely sounded as if she meant it. There had been a wistful quality to her voice. Perhaps she was wishing she were engaged. Not necessarily to me, just engaged.

  Was I engaged? It felt like it, I guess. I’ve never been engaged. My former wife, the stunningly beautiful Doctor Sylvia Dixon, and I had gone from meet, to bed, to marriage in record time. Big mistake! If we’d not tied the knot, we’d possibly still be sharing a bed, occasionally at least.

  For the moment though, I am a one-woman guy.

  It was Saturday morning. I’d been for a ten-kilometre jog and was cooling down on my patio. I was planning on spending the afternoon in the gym. The phone went. It was Sami, checking in as he did every other day.

  “Lu is still in KL. Apparently he has been in constant touch with his people back here, but he’s been very careful to ensure Michael doesn’t get to overhear his telephone conversations. Michael thinks he’s about to make a move of some sort.”

  “What about Mendez?”

  “He’s happy with his Chinese investments and left for Colombia yesterday.”

  “And not one drop of blood was shed.”

  “Cynicism suits you admirably, Daniel,” Sami replied smoothly with a hint of a chuckle in his voice. “You will find your bank account has received a substantial injection of cash. I suggest you look for an investment or two and then come and work with me—just as soon as I take care of Lu, that is.”

  With that, the phone went dead. I left the patio and went inside. The laptop was more or less a permanent fixture on the bar in the lounge. I fired it up and logged into my Cayman Islands bank account. How Sami had tracked that down, I have no idea, but track it down he had. When I checked the figures, I almost fell through the floor. As it was, I sank onto one of the barstools and tried to focus on the numbers on the computer screen.

  There was now US$50 million in my account. That was over and above the two and a bit that had been loitering there, left over from Bernard’s loot following my apartment purchase.

  “Oh boy!” I muttered. Did the money make any great difference? I really have no idea. The two million and change that had been there would have kept me in luxury until my dotage. Now having a real fortune to play with, what the hell did I want to do with it? Sami was right, of course: invest it. As to going to work for him? Well, I bore easily, and when I’m bored, trouble sort of finds me. Life around Sami Somsak is never boring. Maybe I’ll say yes to him.

  Half an hour after my conversation with Sami, I was in the apartment complex’s pool doing some serious laps. My good intentions were cut short when Nim, the pool girl, appeared holding a towel
and a walky phone. I dried a hand and an ear and took the handset. It was Sami, again. There was no preamble.

  “Tuk Tuk is dead! I’m on my way to the airport. I’m going home for the funeral.”

  “Should I come?” Tuk Tuk Song, Sami’s uncle, had been both a friend and an enemy to me. I had saved his life and earned his gratitude and friendship. That had survived until I killed his son, Arune. The moment I did that, all bets were off and I was enemy number one.

  “I think not, Daniel. You will see Sakura in good time. She has to grieve or be seen to grieve first.”

  “How did you know about Sakura and me?” I asked, completely dumbstruck. Our final conversation, the one in which she had invited me to come to her on Tuk Tuk’s death, had been a whispered one between her and me in the Jeep I’d commandeered from the newly dead Choy Lee.

  “Tuk Tuk told me,” Sami replied simply. “She told him!”

  “That’s crazy,” I replied. “You don’t tell your dying husband that once he has popped his clogs, you’ll be seeing the man who was his sworn enemy.” Even as I said that, I knew that perhaps it did happen that way. The relationship between the beautiful Sakura and Tuk Tuk was, to say the least, unusual, just as the relationship between Tuk Tuk and me had been. Then, of course, there was the female factor. I have to admit that when it comes to understanding women, I am a complete, abysmal failure.

  “Uncle still regarded you as his friend, Daniel. The fact that he was honour-bound to kill you because you killed Arune was something that saddened him greatly. Perhaps he thought that when he was gone and you and Sakura came together, the balance would be restored. He loved her and he greatly respected you. He told me not long ago that he wished you had been his son rather than the idiot he’d bred.”

  I grunted. My mind was racing, trying to sort out the implications of what the hell Sami was telling me. If I went to Sakura, was I fulfilling Tuk Tuk’s dying wish? In reality, would I ever know if it had really been her wish that I go to her, or had it been Tuk Tuk’s idea all along? Where the hell was my free will in this whole bloody mess? And what about Simone?

  “Are you still there, Daniel?”

  “Yeah. I’m just trying to figure out who the fuck is manipulating who here.”

  Sami laughed. “The workings of the world, Daniel. Just relax and roll with the tide. When the time is right, go to Sakura. If things work out, you can take over some of Tuk Tuk’s business interests and we can work as one. If you and Sakura do not work out, Anita is still waiting for you to call.”

  Anita Somsak, Sami’s sister, was a beautiful, intelligent woman and she had made it clear the last time we’d met that she would like it if she and I were to share more than her brother. Why the hell did life have to be so fucking complicated?

  “Goodbye, old friend. I’ll tell Sakura you’ll call on her when Tuk Tuk has been laid to rest for a decent amount of time.” Sami was gone again and I hadn’t even thanked him for the money. I debated calling him back, but in the end I just started back for the other end of the pool.

  33

  Thomas Lu was smiling again, despite the continual ache from his injured shoulder. Everything was finally falling into place. He was ready for his return to Singapore. While in exile, he had been busy, very busy. His business interests in Singapore and abroad had been taken care of by trusted lieutenants while he’d been out of the country.

  Apart from the fallout of the Intella debacle, where he was definitely persona non grata as far as the other members of the syndicate were concerned, he had survived and his other businesses, both legal and illegal, were flourishing. Lu had no criminal charges against him. Officially, no one had pointed a finger at him for the slaughter of Stanley Loh and the others.

  While the Intella Island syndicate members well knew Lu had been behind Stanley’s killing, they weren’t telling the authorities anything. So that particular case, the mysteries surrounding the battles on Sentosa, and the various building and warehouse fires were still unsolved. Chinese mainland gangs and drug wars were still the official explanations. However, for the past month, there had been no more gangland deaths or fires, and Singapore, it appeared, had returned to normal.

  In preparation for his return and in order to defend himself against Sami Somsak, Thomas Lu had augmented his seriously depleted force of strong-arm men by calling on reinforcements from the Fang Triad. He had a plan for Somsak, one that would get the Thai drug lord out of his hair once and for all. That plan was already being put into action. He, Thomas Lu, would not even be in Singapore when stage one of it was executed, and no one would be able to connect him to it or anything else. At its conclusion, Sami Somsak and his entourage would be no more.

  As for the Colombian threat, here Lu was less sure of himself. Those monitoring the movements of Carlos Mendez and his compatriots had reported that Mendez had left for home. Would he return to Singapore to exact revenge for his brother’s death once he knew Lu was back in residence? Or had Mendez entrusted his death to the Thai gang boss? If so, when Somsak was finally dead, would family honour force Mendez to return?

  “Michael?” Lu called. He didn’t have the answer to these questions. His head was throbbing. He would have his beautiful lover massage his temples for him. They would go to bed together, and in the morning he would awaken to find that stage one of his revenge had been accomplished.

  Early morning telephone calls are something that I have never, ever gotten used to. Something I guess most of us dread. When the phone wrenched me from my deep, bone-weary sleep at 04:30 on Sunday morning, I knew in my gut that this was going to be bad. It was Sami.

  “Daniel, Simone is dead!”

  “What?”

  “Simone is dead,” Sami repeated, his voice little more than a whisper.

  “How?” My head was spinning. If I hadn’t been lying down I would have fallen. Total shock hit me like a meteorite.

  “She apparently slipped, fell over the railing and down the void space in her apartment building late yesterday afternoon. She was dead when she was found. I found out when I landed.”

  “Oh!” I whispered. Being killed in a car crash I had always thought was a stupid way to die. This was almost as bad. But the end result was that beautiful, bountiful Simone was dead, stupid accident or not!

  “Tuk Tuk’s funeral is tomorrow morning. I’ll fly back in the afternoon. Simone didn’t have any family other than a sister in Cape Town. I’m having my people take care of things. Her sister will be on a flight about now. You coming back?”

  “Yes! Of course I’m coming back!”

  “I’m sorry, Daniel. I know you two were close.”

  “Yes we were,” I replied, almost absently. I was still trying to fully absorb the fact that Simone was gone from my life. In a flash I was suddenly alone again. Emotionally, I think what had been happening between us was a catharsis for my jaded emotions. I had been changing, no doubt about that. Now she was gone.

  I felt a surge of something approaching anger, irrational anger, and it was anger at Simone for leaving my life. Of course it was childish. Of course it was unfair. Of course I was being selfish. From now on, I wasn’t going to get close to anyone, I silently promised myself.

  I sat there, phone in hand, emotions out of control. Part of me knew I had reverted to being the lost, scared kid. The other part of me simply didn’t care that I was, internally at least, acting like a spiteful, snotty-nosed little toe rag.

  Whenever I got close, people got hurt. People died. For a moment Simone’s face was gone from behind my eyes and in her place was the face of Babs, the beautiful redhead from another time and another place. She and I had gotten close and she’d ended up with her head propped up on my coffee table while her body lay metres away in a pool of blood.

  “Sorry, Daniel. I have to go.” Sami was dragging me back to the present.

  “I’ll fly back in the morning.”

  “I’ll see you then. Take care, my friend.”

  “You too.” I hung
up and lay there in the dark, staring at the invisible ceiling, wondering how a stupid fucking accident had changed everything. I still don’t know if Simone and I would have got together as a normal couple, but things had been heading in that direction. I hadn’t strayed once since meeting her, and that was some sort of record. Now it didn’t matter. None of it mattered anymore.

  “Ain’t nuthin’!” I snarled. “Ain’t nuthin’ at all!” That damn catch phrase from an old war said it all.

  I closed my eyes but she was there, and so were Babs and Geezer and a whole bunch of others. People who had been in my life but were there no more, except in my mind. I got up and left the bedroom, flicking on lights as I went. I didn’t want the darkness anymore.

  There was an almost untouched bottle of Jack Daniels on the shelf behind the bar. I sat on a stool and looked across at the bottle for a long time before I stood and retraced my steps. That was too easy! I pulled on a tracksuit and runners and went out into the night to punish my demons.

  Michael Sun, Thomas Lu’s lover, retrieved his cellphone from the pocket of a jacket he had hanging in his closet. This phone wasn’t his usual one. This was one supplied by Sami Somsak. Sun had overheard Lu using his own phone. They were about to return to Singapore, quietly. Lu’s driver was coming to collect them. Instead of the distinctive Bentley, he would be driving a relatively inconspicuous Volvo.

  Sami’s phone was switched off, so the young man decided to leave a message. It was often this way. He called Sami when he had news. Sami never called him.

  “Mr Somsak, it’s Michael. We are returning to Singapore in the morning in another car. He is very pleased with himself, but I have no idea why. He’s planning something. When I find out, I will call again.”

  Michael flipped the phone shut and slipped it back into its hiding place. He didn’t notice the figure on the patio outside of his room. Lu was standing beside the open sliding door. He had been about to enter the room. He had an expensive gift for Michael and had been wanting to surprise him. Now the realisation that he had been betrayed seared its way into his brain. Lu’s breath hissed between his clenched teeth as the red mist of his rage swirled around him.