Umbrella Man (9786167611204)

by Needham, Jake

  After a while, Kang cleared his throat.

  “I admit you’re the best we’ve got, sir. The very best. But you’re not all we’ve got.”

  Tay said nothing.

  “You’re not in this by yourself, sir. Some of us stuck out our necks for you before and we’d do it again. I told you back then you’ve got a lot of friends here, but you didn’t seem to hear me. Or maybe you just didn’t want to hear me. Maybe you want to see yourself as being in this by yourself and I’m just spoiling it by telling you you’re not.”

  “Look, Robbie, I appreciate what you did then, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “I trust you, sir. Because I know you’ll do the right thing. But I’m entitled to something in return. I’m entitled to your trust. And I’m entitled to your respect. I’ve earned it.”

  Kang was right. And Tay knew it.

  So why had he withheld so many things from him about this investigation?

  He knew the answer to that perfectly well, too, of course. He had started withholding things from Kang after they found the dead man at the Woodlands because the things he was withholding felt somehow personal to him, even if he still couldn’t figure out exactly how they could be.

  He was withholding things because he didn’t want Kang to know too much about him. He didn’t want anybody to know too much about him. He didn’t share personal things, not with anyone. Perhaps he should, but he didn’t.

  He was convinced there was a connection between the dead man and the bombings. He couldn’t explain the feeling to anyone, he couldn’t even explain it to himself, but he was as sure of that being true as he had ever been of anything.

  If he was right, if there was a connection between the dead man and the bombings and the dead man was also somehow connected to his father, then there was a line of some sort that ran from his father’s grave to the rubble of the Hyatt and the Hilton and the Marriott.

  How much time did he really have to put all this together before something else happened that might be even worse than what had already happened?

  Tay was afraid the answer to that question was simple enough.

  Probably not much time at all.

  So he took a deep breath and unhooked his hands from behind his head.

  “You’re right, Robbie. I’m sorry.”

  Then Tay told Sergeant Kang about the safety box key. He told him about Paraguas Ltd. He told him about the ledgers with his father’s initials on them. And he told him about the photographs the ledgers had eventually led him to.

  He told Sergeant Kang everything.

  Well, almost everything.

  ***

  When Tay finished, Kang just looked at him for a minute.

  Then he said, “Do you have the list of names with you, sir? The ones on the back of the photographs?”

  Tay took the list from his shirt pocket, unfolded it, and pushed it across the desk to Kang.

  Kang picked it up without reading it.

  “Sixteen names, you said, sir?”

  Tay nodded.

  “I’ll get right on it. If any of them are still alive and here in Singapore, we’ll know where they are by the end of the day.”

  Tay noted Kang had used the pronoun we, but Tay didn’t see any reason to acknowledge it. So he just nodded again and went back to rearranging the stacks of paper on his desk.

  TWENTY-ONE

  IT WAS BECAUSE Tay had been thinking about what Kang had said that the idea came to him. While it was true that Kang and his friends had performed a crucial role in solving the case of the America woman found at the Marriott, there was someone else who had performed an even more crucial role. Someone Kang didn’t know existed.

  John August was…well, the truth was Tay didn’t know for sure who John August was. He had some pretty good ideas, at least he thought he did, but he didn’t really know for sure.

  A woman who worked for the US State Department had introduced Tay to August when Tay had gone to Thailand chasing leads about the murder of the woman at the Singapore Marriott. August claimed then to be retired from the State Department and nothing more now than the owner of a go-go bar called Baby Dolls located in a Thai seaside resort notorious for what was euphemistically called its nightlife. But Tay didn’t really think August was retired at all, and certainly not from the State Department.

  Naturally, Tay had initially jumped to the conclusion that August was CIA, but he wasn’t so sure of that anymore. August was tied into the American security establishment somehow, he had no doubt of that, but whatever his title and whomever he worked for, August was clearly a troubleshooter and problem solver who worked without a lot of supervision.

  The simple fact was August solved problems the old fashioned way. He killed them.

  That was why Tay thought it unlikely August was just another freebooting contract intelligence operative bouncing around Asia on his own. It seemed more probable he was something genuinely scary, and Tay wasn’t sure he even wanted to know what that was.

  Regardless of who he really was, Tay had to admit he genuinely liked August. They didn’t have much of a relationship — they certainly weren’t pals and that was just fine with Tay — but August didn’t seem to mind Tay asking a favor every now and then. Going that route might not have been Tay’s first choice, but it beat the hell out of doing nothing at all and watching the bad guys laugh at you as they walked away. Justice might be blind, but it didn’t have to be stupid.

  August had never asked Tay for any favors in return, at least not yet. Tay figured if his bill ever came due, the payment was likely to be a doozy.

  Contacting August wasn’t easy. Tay had a telephone number for him, one with a Los Angeles area code oddly enough, but neither August nor anyone else answered it. Tay just called the number and hung up. Then a few minutes or an hour or a day or two later August either called back, or he didn’t. Tay assumed the number functioned on some kind of caller ID system that couldn’t be blocked, but that was just a guess on his part. He had thought a couple of times about borrowing someone else’s cell phone and calling the number to see what would happen, but he quickly abandoned the idea. John August wasn’t the kind of guy you played games with.

  Tay placed the call to Los Angeles. Then he leaned back and put his feet on the desk and wondered when August would call him back. If August called him back at all.

  ***

  It was less than twenty minutes before Tay’s cell phone rang. The screen said UNKNOWN CALLER. Tay thought that described August pretty well.

  “I’ve been wondering when I was going to hear from you, Sam. You guys got anything on your bombers yet?”

  “I’m not on that.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’ve been assigned to other cases. They don’t want me on the bombings.”

  There was a pause while August mulled that over. Tay made a bet with himself August wouldn’t ask why. He didn’t.

  “So what’s on your mind, Sam?”

  “I need for you to look at some pictures.”

  “Pictures?”

  “We found a man with his neck broken. The circumstances are…well, I’ve got some pictures that may help me to identify him and I think you can help me understand what they mean.”

  “The dead man had pictures on him?”

  “Not exactly. It’s—”

  “Yeah, I can guess. It’s a long story.”

  “Longer than you can imagine.”

  There was a pause. Tay knew what was coming next.

  “I heard you’ve got at least five hundred dead from the bombings,” August said, right on cue.

  “Something like that.”

  “And you’re working a case about one guy who got his neck broken?”

  “I need for you to look at these pictures,” Tay repeated. “Where are you?”

  “Not far.”

  Tay waited him out.

  “Look, Sam, I’d like to help you, but I’m sure you can understand I’m pretty busy
right now.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine. The go-go bar business must be booming.”

  August laughed, but he didn’t say anything else.

  “There’s a connection, August.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Between my dead guy and the bombings. There’s a connection.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I need for you to look at these pictures. Without getting an ID on this guy, I’m never going to find out.”

  “Are you blowing smoke up my ass here, Sam?”

  Tay loved the richness of American idioms, but this one caused an image to flash into his mind that he could have lived a long time without.

  “Where are you?” Tay repeated. “I’ll come to you.”

  August didn’t say anything and Tay waited. He had made his pitch. August would either bite or he wouldn’t.

  He bit.

  “Meet me in JB. Say…five o’clock today?”

  JB was what everyone in Singapore called Jahor Bahru, the second largest city in Malaysia. It was just across the Straits of Jahor, but it was a world away from Singapore. Tay sometimes thought of the causeway over the straits that connected Singapore and JB as a sort of worm hole between the first world and the third.

  “Where?” Tay asked.

  “You know the Polo place?”

  For a moment Tay wasn’t sure he had understood August correctly.

  “Polo? You play polo?”

  “Don’t be dense, Sam. I meant the Polo shop.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The clothing store. Out in in the Premium Outlet Center.”

  “You want me to meet you in a Ralph Lauren store?”

  “Sure, why not? You can’t miss it. It’s just past the Armani Outlet, on the opposite end of the center from Starbucks. Besides, maybe you’ll buy some socks or something from us while you’re there. We need the business.”

  “You own the Polo Shop in JB?”

  “Not me,” August said, but that was all he said.

  “Okay, five o’clock,” Tay said when the silence had stretched on for a while. “I’m sure I can find it.”

  “Of course you can. You’re a trained detective.”

  And with that, August hung up.

  TWENTY-TWO

  TAY HAD BEEN up half the night going through the photographs and he was getting a little sleepy. He briefly considered going home and taking a nap, but the idea of napping in the middle of everything that was going on struck him as unseemly. He decided instead to take an early lunch, then ended up spending most of it browsing in the massive Kinokuniya Book Store in Ngee Ann City rather than eating.

  When he realized it was almost two o’clock, he bought a chicken sandwich and a latte from the Coffee Club inside Kino, had them packed to take away, and then ate in the cab on the way back to the Cantonment complex. The driver was an elderly Chinese man who complained bitterly the entire way that it was against the law for Tay to eat and drink in a taxi. Tay finally showed the old man his warrant card, informed him that he was the law, and told him to shut the hell up.

  Tay had to admit that sometimes it felt good to throw his weight around, even if it was only at an elderly man and all he accomplished by it was to consume a sandwich.

  ***

  Tay hadn’t been back in his office for much more than fifteen minutes when Sergeant Kang came in and settled wearily into one of the straight chairs in front of Tay’s desk. He looked vaguely defeated.

  “Do you have any idea how many Tan’s there are in Singapore, sir?”

  Tay didn’t, but he imagined it was a whole lot.

  “The names you gave me are mostly common Chinese names, sir. We need some way to narrow down the possibilities.”

  “Start with their age. The photos were all probably taken in the 1970’s. Anyone in them would have to be…” Tay paused to do the math. “At least 65 now. Maybe older.”

  “Even then, sir, it could take days just to make up a list of possibilities. Then we’ll have to interview everyone on the list until we locate the people you’re looking for. How are we going to manage that without anyone finding out what we’re doing?”

  “Are there any names that aren’t common?”

  Kang rubbed at his cheek absentmindedly and looked at the list again.

  “Well,” he said, “I thought maybe one of the Indian or Indonesian names might be a better shot for us, but they’re not. Did you know Suparman is one of the most common names in Indonesia?”

  Tay hadn’t and, now that he did, he was certain he would promptly forget it.

  “There’s one western name on here,” Kang continued. “Ethel Zimmerman.”

  “Can you trace her?”

  “I already have, but it’s not going to help. There was an Ethel Zimmerman who was a PR from 1972 to 1976.”

  “That must be her. If she became a permanent resident in 1972, then that’s probably when my father hired her. Did she leave Singapore in 1976?”

  “She left everywhere in 1976. She died.”

  “Died? She must have been pretty young. What did she die of?”

  “She was in an automobile accident.”

  “Do you have the details of the accident?”

  “Details? No, sir, but what does that have to do with anything?”

  “And what about her family?”

  “Sir?”

  “Her family, Sergeant. Is her family still in Singapore? Husband? Children?”

  “I don’t know, sir. But even if they were, what would they know that might help you?”

  “I won’t know until I ask them, will I? Find out all you can about her family and get the details on the accident that killed her while you’re at it.”

  Kang made some kind of a noise in the back of his throat. Tay wasn’t sure exactly what it was supposed to mean, but he certainly wasn’t going to ask.

  ***

  Tay looked at his watch and saw it was almost three. If the border crossing into Malaysia was busy, he’d just make his five o’clock meeting with August.

  “I’ve got to go,” he told Kang.

  “You want me to come with you, sir?”

  “No, it’s…ah, personal. You remember Lucinda Lim, don’t you?”

  Tay and Lucinda Lim had been going out on and off for years. She was beautiful, wealthy, and much in demand. Tay was…well, a policeman. And that pretty much told the story of their relationship.

  Kang smiled. “Good for you, sir.”

  He made it sound like he was cheering Tay on at a football match.

  Tay looked at his watch again as pointedly as he could. “Well…”

  “Oh right, sir,” Kang said jumping out of his chair. “Then I’ll just get on with it. You’ll be coming in late tomorrow then, I expect?”

  Kang was grinning like an idiot by now and Tay didn’t bother to answer him. He just pointed to the door, and Kang left, still grinning, closing it behind him.

  Tay hated lying to Kang, especially after the conversation they had that morning, but he had no intention of telling him about John August. He had no intention of telling anybody about John August.

  Of course, he hadn’t exactly lied, had he? Wasn’t it Henry Kissinger who first said he was simply being economical with the truth?

  Tay said he had a meeting, which he did. And then he asked Kang if he remembered Lucinda Lim, which of course he would. Tay hadn’t actually made any explicit connection between the two, had he? He certainly hadn’t said he was meeting Lucinda. If Kang had come to that conclusion…well, that was all just in his own mind, wasn’t it?

  Tay reflected for a moment on his extraordinary facility for self-justification and realized he was looking at it with an odd mix of embarrassment and pride. Tay wondered briefly if he shouldn’t consider becoming a lawyer after he retired from the police force.

  ***

  Tay went downstairs and checked out a car from the pool. It was a Volvo V70 that wasn
’t too badly beaten up and didn’t smell too overwhelming of dried chilies and nasi goreng. He drove first to Emerald Hill to pick up the two photo albums. Then, in a little less than a half hour, he was headed north on the CTE.

  The six-lane concrete ribbon called the CTE would take him to another six-lane concrete ribbon called the SLE. Singaporeans loved acronyms. Sometimes Tay thought if his fellow countrymen were required to speak using complete words instead of initials they would be struck entirely dumb. And that was not, in his view, an entirely unappealing prospect to contemplate.

  JB was more or less directly across the Jahor Strait from the Woodlands and it wouldn’t take someone more than twenty minutes to get from one to the other unless border traffic was backed up. Did that mean anything? Probably not, Tay decided after thinking about it for a few more minutes, but he made a mental note anyway to have Kang get a list of foreigners who had entered Singapore over the causeway in the twenty-four hours before their corpse with the broken neck was found. It would probably be a waste of time, but then maybe it wouldn’t. Perhaps the name that went with his corpse would be on that list. It was just possible, he thought, to hope for such things.

  ***

  The further north Tay drove, the gloomier the day became. Over Singapore the sky was a pastel blue, so bright with sun that all the color had very nearly been washed out of it. But to the north, dark clouds marbled the sky and the light turned gray. The Jahor Strait was wrinkled with wind and Tay could smell the brawny odor of a storm somewhere to the west. JB lay ahead of him at the end of the causeway. It looked cheerless and morose, badly disappointed that it wasn’t Singapore.

  It took Tay another hour to get to the Premium Outlet Center which was off the Kuala Lumpur highway to the north. When he saw the big green overhead sign, he exited the expressway and found himself in a spacious parking lot with ample spaces for hundreds of cars neatly laid out among islands of landscaped palm trees so perfect they looked as if they were made of plastic. Tay had never been to Southern California but, if he had, he was nearly certain it would look exactly like the Premium Outlet Center in Jahor Bahru.