by Jake Needham
Tay had only been in Goh’s office for thirty seconds and he was already tired of the bullshit.
“If you don’t tell me right now what this is all about,” he said, “I’m gone.”
Tay saw the scar on Goh’s face turn red. Watching that scar was like watching an oven thermometer. He wondered what would happen if it went completely off the scale.
“Just calm the fuck down, Tay.”
“Is this about your goons grilling Sergeant Kang and trying to make something out of the discrepancies you imagine you found in our statements?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know ISD took another statement from Kang, and I know you probably have my house under surveillance.”
All of a sudden Tay remembered he wasn’t supposed to know that ISD had interviewed Kang. Now he would have to claim that someone other than Kang had told him, but he doubted Goh would believe that. This was all getting worse and worse, wasn’t it?
Tay saw the color of Goh’s scar start to fade. The oven temperature was falling, but Tay didn’t understand why.
“I got no idea what you’re on about, Tay.”
Goh laced his fingers behind his head and swung his feet up on his desk.
“But it doesn’t matter since it’s got nothing to do with why I asked you to come in for a little chat. Now do you want to hear why you’re here, or not?”
Okay, so it looked like he hadn’t dropped Robbie in the soup after all. If this wasn’t about Robbie’s statement, however, what in the world was it about?
Tay plastered a look of utter disinterest on his face, spread his hands in a gesture that could have meant almost anything, and waited to see what was coming next.
When he found out, he couldn’t believe it.
“This morning you went to see Zachery Goodnight-Jones. You claimed to be a researcher for the Wall Street Journal.”
Tay tried to keep his face empty, but he was far too surprised to make a decent job of it.
“And before you ask,” Goh continued, clearly relishing the look on Tay’s face, “I’ll tell you how I know. Goodnight-Jones called me the minute you left his office.”
“You know Goodnight-Jones?”
“I know a lot of people.”
“Good for you. But why would one of them call you about me?”
“Because he didn’t like the questions you were asking.”
“I didn’t ask him any questions. I never said a word.”
Goh shrugged. “How’d you hook up with that woman anyway?”
“That woman? You sound like Bill Clinton.”
“What?” Goh wrinkled his brow. He looked genuinely confused.
“Never mind.”
“Let’s talk about Emma Lazar,” Goh said, shaking his head. “Why are you involved with her?”
“I don’t really think that’s any of your business.”
Goh folded his hands in front of him on the desk. The gesture struck Tay as strangely prim.
“Do you know what I’m thinking, Tay?”
“Only if you tell me.”
“That you’re doing it for love.”
Tay said nothing.
Goh leaned back in his chair and gave Tay an unpleasant grin. He lifted his left hand and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. Then he lifted his right hand and pumped his forefinger in and out of the circle a few times.
“Have I got that right, Tay?”
“You know, Goh, you really are an asshole.”
“So you’re telling me you’re not —”
“Look, you arrogant prick, who the hell do you think you are to haul me in here and ask me something like—”
Goh started making little patting gestures in the air.
“Jesus, Tay, I was just needling you, man. For God’s sake, lighten up.”
“I’ve got a perfectly good sense of humor when I hear something funny. That wasn’t.”
Goh started to say something else, but then he appeared to think better of it. Instead, he just knitted his fingers together behind his neck, tilted back in his chair again, and began studying the ceiling.
“Why am I here, Goh?”
“I’m trying to do you a favor.”
Goh abruptly shifted forward in his chair and leaned against the desk on his forearms. He fixed Tay with what he probably thought of as his steely stare.
“You’re sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong, Tay. Stay away from Zachery Goodnight-Jones. Stay away from his company. You’ll have problems if you don’t.”
“I love being threatened by you, Goh. It’s always the highlight of my day. Really, it is.”
“I’m not threatening you, I’m only—”
“That’s the first thing people who threaten you always say.”
Goh flung up his arms in exasperation. “For God’s sake, Tay, do you ever just listen to anybody? Or are you so overwhelmed by your compulsion to be a smartass that you just talk all the time without hearing what anybody else is saying?”
“I heard you perfectly well. Your threat came through loud and clear.”
“This wasn’t a threat, Tay. I’m just trying to help you.”
“And that’s the second thing that people who threaten you always say.”
Goh shook his head slowly and sighed.
“We’re getting off on the wrong foot here, Tay.”
“Doesn’t matter. We don’t need any feet. You and I aren’t going anywhere.”
“Do yourself a big favor, big man. Listen to me. Zachery Goodnight-Jones is well connected. He’s very important around here. Do not fuck with him.”
“Even on the highest throne in the world, you’re still sitting on your ass.”
Goh grinned. “Hey, that’s pretty good. You just make that up?”
“It’s something Michel de Montaigne said in the sixteenth century.”
“I should have known.”
“Known it was a quotation from de Montaigne?”
“Known you’d start spouting horseshit from the sixteenth century when you ought to be listening to me.”
Tay shook his head and looked away.
“Look, I really am trying to do you a favor here, Tay. I’m a working stiff just like you are. You and I don’t really matter. We carry other people’s water. And if we spill it, they’ll crush us like bugs.”
“Whose water are you carrying now?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“A little of both, I guess, if I’m going to be truthful.”
“I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
“Now who’s being an asshole, Tay?”
Tay stood up.
“You never gave me a straight answer, Goh. Does ISD have me under surveillance, or not?”
Goh started to say something, but he just ended up shaking his head slowly from side to side.
“I want to hear you say it,” Tay said. “Yes? Or no?”
“As far as I know, ISD doesn’t have the slightest interest in you. As far as I know, we do not have you under surveillance. Satisfied now?”
“Then why were two of your goons grilling my sergeant about the incident that got me suspended?”
“I have no idea. This may come as a surprise to you, Tay, but I don’t know everything that goes on around here.”
Goh opened a desk drawer and took out a plain white card. He wrote something on it and held it out to Tay.
Tay took it. There was nothing on the card but a telephone number.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“It’s my cell number. Maybe you’ll want to call me about something one of these days.”
“I doubt it.”
“Well then, fuck you, Tay.”
“Yeah, fuck me.”
Tay shoved the card in his pocket, turned around, and started for the door.
“I’m trying to help you here,” Goh said. “Be careful. Be very goddamned careful.”
Tay didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look back. He just walked out the door and closed it behind him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NUMBER 5 EMERALD Hill Road is a yellow, two-story shophouse with white shutters, a green tile roof, and a row of red Chinese lanterns hanging underneath the narrow extension from the second floor that shelters the entryway. It is a stylish bar that for years has attracted a crowd of chic and snazzy young Singaporeans, and that was precisely the reason Sam Tay had never been inside Number 5 in spite of it being on the same street and only about a dozen doors away from where he lived.
Tay had easily found a taxi just outside of New Phoenix Park and told it to drop him on Orchard Road in front of Peranakan Place. Trying to guide a taxi into Emerald Hill Road through the tangle of one-way streets that mostly went the wrong way usually led to an argument with the driver, and Tay really didn’t need that. Given the mood he was in after his run in with Goh, an argument with a taxi driver could easily become a homicidal event.
Threading his way through the late-afternoon drinkers in the Alley Bar, Tay emerged at the end of Emerald Hill Road. The short walk from there to his house passed in front of Number 5 and his eyes drifted over the half-dozen shiny aluminum tables out front, all but one of which were filled with groups of tired-looking young professionals slumped against the tables, talking quietly, and drinking beer from bottles. The remaining table was occupied by a woman sitting alone. A very attractive woman, Tay couldn’t help but notice, one who almost looked like…
It was Emma Lazar.
Tay walked over, pulled out the uncomfortable-looking chair across from Emma, and sat down. The chair was every bit as uncomfortable as it looked.
“Cigarette?” Emma asked, not appearing the least surprised to see him.
She pushed a pack of Marlboro Reds and a box of matches across the table.
“The air is better today,” she said, “so I’m doing my best to screw it up again.”
Tay chuckled. He wasn’t normally the chuckling kind, but all men behave strangely in the presence of a beautiful woman so that’s what he did. He chuckled. Then he shook out a cigarette and lit it.
“What in the world are you doing here?” he asked after he dumped the match in the big metal ashtray in the middle of the table.
“Waiting for you.”
“But what made you think you’d find me here?”
“I was supposed to meet you at your house, remember?” Emma waved one hand in the general direction of where Tay lived. “You weren’t home, so I came in here. It looks like a nice place. Is it?”
“Is it what?”
“A nice place.”
“I have no idea. I’ve never been here before in my entire life.”
“Seriously?”
Tay nodded.
“But you don’t live any more than a hundred feet away.”
Tay nodded again.
Emma laughed, and Tay hesitated a beat.
“Something came up,” he said. “I had to go out. I thought I would be back sooner than this.”
Why didn’t he just tell Emma that he had been hauled out to ISD by Philip Goh and warned to keep away from Zachery Goodnight-Jones? He probably could have even turned his confrontation with Goh into a witty story and raise a smile from her, but telling no one where he had been or what he had done was a reflex for him. Telling no one anything was what he always did.
A waiter appeared and hovered silently. Tay lifted his eyebrows at Emma, and she tapped her nearly empty glass and nodded.
“Two Tigers,” he told the waiter, who scurried away without a word.
“How did you know I was drinking Tiger?”
“I figured you for a person who always orders the local beer.”
“I hate being transparent.”
The waiter returned so quickly with the two bottles of Tiger that Tay wondered if they had been sitting open on the bar just waiting for somebody to collect them. Emma poured hers into the glass she already had, but the waiter hadn’t bothered to bring Tay a glass so he picked up his bottle and clinked the long neck against Emma’s glass as she held it toward him. The beer was ice cold and tasted good. Between the nicotine rush from the Marlboro and the hit from the beer, Tay was even beginning to get over his annoyance with Goh. Having a beautiful woman sitting on the other side of the table probably helped with that, too.
“What did you think of Mr. Goodnight-Jones?” Emma asked.
“I think you should be careful of him.”
“Why would you say that?”
“There’s something…”
Tay hesitated. He wasn’t sure exactly what to tell Emma, and the last thing he wanted to do was start a rambling conversation about whether he saw evil when it wasn’t there because he was so accustomed to seeing evil nearly everywhere.
“There’s just something about him,” Tay finished. “You should be very careful.”
Emma put down her glass and shook a Marlboro out of the pack on the table. She didn’t light it, but just rolled it back and forth between her fingers.
“How come he knew who you were, Sam?”
“No idea.”
Tay knew this wasn’t exactly true, but it was close enough. He simply didn’t want to go into the whole story about the shooting and its coverage in the local papers. Tay didn’t like being in the newspapers. Talking about it afterwards just made it worse.
“I think he’s hiding something, Sam.”
“Everybody’s hiding something.”
“He knew we weren’t interested in driverless cars. He figured out right away we were really looking into Tyler Bartlett’s death.”
“Just because he didn’t want to talk about the suicide of an employee doesn’t mean that he’s hiding something. He was probably annoyed to learn he wasn’t going to get all that publicity he’d been thinking about ever since a Wall Street Journal reporter called. Then he finds out you’re really sniffing around about this kid who killed himself—”
“Who was found dead,” Emma corrected, and Tay nodded.
“Yes, you’re really sniffing around about this kid who was found dead. He thought he was going to get publicity for his company, and what you wanted to do was talk about a dead employee. I’d be pissed off, too.”
“Especially if the company had something to do with Tyler’s death.”
“I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself, Emma.”
“Maybe, but the bastard is hiding something. I can smell it.”
“Do you really believe he had something to do with Tyler’s death?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But I do know there’s something he’s not telling us.”
“Such as what?”
“I don’t know.”
Emma took out a match and lit the cigarette she had been playing with. She took a long pull and exhaled slowly and deliberately.
“Look, Sam, what if that company is really doing something else?”
“You don’t think they’re really working on driverless cars?”
“Probably, but what if they’re doing something else, too?”
“Like what?”
“Maybe something that uses similar technology.”
“You think maybe they’re working on a self-flying airplane?”
Emma just looked at Tay.
“Sorry,” he mumbled quickly.
“I know it sounds a little crazy, but think about it. Tyler tells his parents he’s discovered something that frightens him, and a couple of days later he’s dead. Maybe he discovered The Future was doing something other than working on driverless cars, and that was what frightened him.”
“I guess that’s possible, but—”
“I bet you it was something military. Or at least a technology that could be used by the military. What else could it be?”
“That’s a pretty big leap.”
“You remember how reluctant Goodnight-Jones was to talk about the ownership of The Future?”
“There could
be a lot of reasons for that. Sometimes people just don’t want you to know too much about them.”
“You mean like when I told you I went to your house and you weren’t there, and then you told me something had come up, but you didn’t want to mention what it was?”
Tay briefly considered protesting, but since she pretty much had him he figured he would just end up looking silly.
“Yeah,” he said. “Exactly like that.”
“I got the feeling that he has specific shareholders he doesn’t want us to know about. Which would make sense if they’re doing military research and some of those shareholders have connections to countries that most people think of as unfriendly.”
“What possible military application could driverless car technology have? I just don’t see it.”
“You’re not helping me here, Sam.”
“Sure I am. You just don’t like what I’m saying.”
They sat quietly for a while after that without talking. Tay sipped at his beer, and Emma finished her cigarette.
“What’s your next move?” Tay asked.
“I want to talk to Tyler’s girlfriend. He had to have confided in somebody here. Either it was her, or she will know who it was.”
“Do you know how to find her?”
“I have an address.”
Emma fumbled in her purse until she found her notebook, the same one she had been pretending to write in when they met Goodnight-Jones. She flipped a few pages, stopped, and then flipped a few more. She turned the notebook around and pushed it across the table toward Tay.
“Does that mean anything to you, Sam?”
Tay picked up the notebook and looked at the address written at the bottom of page.
1 Beach Road.
“Sure,” he said, “I know that address. But I don’t think you’re going to find her there.”
“Why not? That’s the address I got from Tyler’s parents.”
“It’s Raffles.”
“You mean… the hotel?”
“Yeah, the Raffles Hotel. I don’t think Tyler’s girlfriend lives at Raffles.”
Emma thought about that for a moment.
“Maybe she works there. Do you have any way of finding out?”
“I know a guy in their security office,” Tay said. “I could make a call.”