For The Death Of Me (15 page)

When we disembarked, the interior lived up to the promise of the rest. I've been in more than a few international airports in my time, but I have never arrived in more pleasant surroundings than Singapore. The whole atmosphere was welcoming, from the helpful guys who directed us to the carousel, and through to the immigration process, where we were greeted with a smile and a welcome, in complete contrast to the grim-faced people who guard the gates of the USA and appraise you on the basis that you, and everyone else on the flight you've just come off, are a terrorist until they say that you're not.

I've often wondered why Americans are surprised that they're unpopular abroad when their immigration officials show such open hostility towards every other nationality on the surface of the planet . . . and sometimes their own, if they happen to be black or Hispanic. I thought this aspect was exaggerated until Roscoe Brown explained to me what ‘DWB' means. It stands for Driving While Black, and it's a common reason to be pulled over in the US, if your face fits, so to speak.

There's none of that in Singapore.

We stepped out into the airport concourse and straight into a big mistake. A limo driver stood there, in lightweight grey suit and peaked cap, holding up a sign that read ‘Mr Os Blackstone'. It hadn't occurred to me until that minute, but I'm a pretty big name internationally these days (misspelled or not) and the last thing I needed at that time was to advertise my presence in Singapore, or to have someone else do it in a public place.

I stepped up to the guy, said, ‘That's me,' and quietly but firmly took the card from him. He smiled nonetheless, bowed and took charge of our baggage trolley. We followed him outside, into an afternoon temperature that wasn't much different from what we'd left in Monaco. I looked around as the driver opened the door of the limo, and loaded our cases: the place was much greener than I'd expected and more breezy. I got the sense that without the wind we'd be experiencing the humidity as Susie had described it.

I asked the driver to show us something of the island before taking us to the hotel. A licence posted on the glass divider told me that his name was Mr Goh. ‘My pleasure, sir,' he said, with a trace of American in his accent. ‘That's part of our service.'

He took us along a broad highway, heading west, I judged, which he told us was the Pan Island Expressway. He talked us through the trip as we passed through the northern suburbs, skirted the nature reserve, then swung round past something he called Mount Faber, although I confess I saw only a hill, with a cable car leading up to the summit. As we passed the port, I realised we were heading into the heart of the city, and that it boasted some pretty impressive buildings. Finally he swung off the main highway, and drove towards Raffles Hotel, then past it and swung round until he stopped in front of the big impressive foyer of the Swissôtel Stamford.

Dylan stared up as we stepped out; our hotel looked as if it was the tallest building in Singapore. We soon found out how tall: when we checked in we were allocated adjoining suites on the sixty-fourth floor, with killer views across the city. Dylan suggested a trip to the complimentary cocktail bar, but I put that on hold and headed instead for the eighth-floor gym to work off some of the after-effects of the flight. As I ran on one of half a dozen treadmills, I had my choice of eight different television channels including BBC World, CNN and CNBC. I saw our Prime Minister on all three at different times; there really is no escape, you know.

The melatonin was working. I'd insisted that Mike take some, and he seemed to be okay too, so much so that after we'd eaten enough of the complimentary nosh in the executive club, we decided to head out for a beer, rather than drink in one of the umpteen restaurants in the hotel, or in our rooms, for all the view to end all views. We asked the concierge to mark our card: he did more than that. He pulled over a taxi and instructed him to take us to Clarke Quay, and then gave us detailed instructions on how to find a place called the Crazy Elephant.

It wasn't difficult: even if he hadn't mentioned the tethered bungee ride machine next door, or the cage in which some poor idiot volunteer was dropped into the Singapore river, we'd have found it by the noise. Wherever you go, Saturday night is the same. (Okay, maybe Vatican City doesn't quite rock like the Kasbah, but you know what I mean.)

The Elephant turned out to be the best blues bar in Singapore, with live music on stage and beer on draught. My Scots instincts will live as long as I do: I'd been in Sing for about five hours and already I'd spotted a fundamental truth about the place. Wherever you go, the booze is always more expensive than the food. That doesn't mean they don't drink there, though.

We found space at a high table on the quayside by the river. As Dylan ordered two pints of Tiger from a Filipina waitress, I glanced into the bar and did a double-take when a guy who looked very like Eric Burdon jumped up on to the stage at the back. There was nothing for it, we left the table and drifted to another indoors, braving the heat to get closer to the action.

And then it bloody happened, didn't it? I got clocked again.

I hate to say it, but it's sadly true. Wherever you go in this world there's always some drunk Jock who thinks that because you were born north of Hadrian's Wall, like him, you and he have a special relationship . . . unless you're wearing a blue replica shirt, that is, and his has green and white hoops, or vice versa. (No, come to think of it, especially vice versa.) I suppose in those circumstances the relationship can still be special, but in a different way altogether.

Happily I wasn't wearing my East Fife replica shirt that night, but I might as well have been. The stare usually registers first: it draws me to it, like a fucking magnet. I turn my head and it locks on to me. Then the eyes widen. Then the jaw drops slightly and the grin widens. Then comes the ‘Hey!' And finally, ‘Hey! It's the boy himself, it's the boy Oz Blackstone, is it no'? What brings you tae a place like this Oz, big star like you?'

That's how it all came off. By that time the whole fucking place was looking at me, Eric Burdon, or his double, was seriously pissed off because it was meant to be looking at him, and I was trying to work out what lunacy had brought me there. I had it in mind also to have a serious word with the concierge when we got back to the hotel for sending us to a zoo like this one. (I know, he was only doing his job as best he could. My mum raised me better than that, so I didn't actually say anything to him, other than ‘Thanks for the advice,' but, still, it was what went through my mind at the time.)

The geezer left the bar and lurched towards me, clutching a pint bottle of Heineken; he was in his late twenties, I'd have said. He wore a black silk shirt covered with dragon images, light tan slacks, and his fair hair was mussed up. I know from experience that all you can do at such times is let it happen for a while, but somewhere deep inside Dylan, his copper reflexes kicked in. He stood, and I knew that he was going to have the guy's arm up his back and huckle him outside, maybe accidentally drop him in the river. That I needed even less than the unwelcome local publicity, for it might have attracted the attention of the real police, so I reached out, caught his belt and jerked him back down on to his seat. ‘No,' I said quietly, as the triumphant Glaswegian reached us. Had I forgotten to mention the unmistakable accent? Sorry.

‘Hey, therr!' he breathed in my ear, as his arm went around my shoulders. I flexed them very slightly, but very quickly, letting him feel the sudden bunching of the muscles under my shirt: it's my patented invisible warning signal and it always works. The arm was withdrawn, and the guy straightened up. ‘It is you, isn't it?' he asked, a little more circumspectly.

‘Yes, it's me,' I confessed. ‘Now, do me a favour and shut the fuck up. I don't like being embarrassed in public.' I nodded at the stone-faced Dylan. ‘My pal here likes it even less.'

The man noticed my companion for the first time. ‘Is this your minder, like?'

‘No. Like I say, he's my pal. Mostly, I do my own minding.' I shouldn't have answered him; when I did it was like an invitation to take a seat, which he did. I glanced around: a few people were still staring at me, but mostly they had gone back to looking at the stage. ‘Eric' caught my eye: he'd recognised me too. I gave him a nod and mouthed a quick ‘Sorry', half-way through the chorus of ‘We got to get out of this place'. That didn't seem to be a bad idea, but I reckoned we were stuck with our new pal for a while wherever we went.

‘So, what's your name?' I asked him. ‘You know me,' I nodded to Dylan, ‘and this is Benny.'

‘Sammy,' he announced. ‘Sammy Grant, frae Maryhill . . . or East Bearsden, as my maw prefers tae call it.' He frowned suddenly, and I saw that he was looking at my left ear, where it's a bit chewed up. ‘What happened tae that?' he asked, pointing indelicately, as if I was a zoo monkey with the power of speech.

‘I took a gun off a guy last year in San Francisco . . . not quite quickly enough.'

The Weegie laughed. ‘Aye, sure. You're takin' the pish, right?'

‘No, it's true. He was a bag-snatcher, I chased him and when I caught him he pulled a gun on me.'

‘What happened to him?'

I smiled cheerfully at the memory. ‘After he'd recovered from a bad case of concussion, he did a plea bargain that got him off with only ten to fifteen years.'

Sammy was impressed. ‘Ooyah!' He whistled. ‘Ma man Oz.'

So was Dylan: he glanced at me as if to make quite certain I wasn't kidding. I gave him a quick nod.

‘What's it like, getting shot?' our gallus friend asked.

‘It's not something you want to try,' Mike murmured.

Sammy looked at him, at the supporting cast. ‘Are you tellin' me you've been shot an all, Benny? That'll be right.'

‘I'm telling you it's much better to be the one doing the shooting.'

‘What, are you a hitman, like? Aye, you really are kidding me now, eh?'

‘He's a writer,' I said, to steer him away from the topic. ‘He's always doing research into stuff like that. That's what we're doing here, planning a new movie. Isn't that right, Benny?'

Dylan nodded dutifully.

‘Hey, that's great,' said Sammy.

‘So, what's your story?' I asked him. ‘What brings you here? Holiday? A stag trip with your mates?' I nodded towards the guys he seemed to have been with, who had decided to ignore him, and us.

He shook his tousled head. ‘No, I work here,' he said, ‘for the DRZ Bank, over in Change Alley. I'm a dealer; I specialise in Japanese stocks.' All of a sudden he looked a lot more sober, and a little embarrassed. It occurred to me that the spectre of Nick Leeson might be taking some time to blow away.

‘I've got some of them,' I said, to put him at his ease. ‘My wife and I have an offshore investment portfolio; it's spread around the world, but quite a chunk's in Far East markets. We're thinking about backing off a bit, though: it's just a wee bit unstable politically for our liking.'

‘That might not be a daft move,' Sammy suggested. I made a mental note to talk it through with Susie and our broker when I got back.

‘So what's to do in Singapore?' I asked. ‘We've only just got here.'

‘Ah could tell by the eyes. Guys that have just got here all look a wee bit like it's still yesterday. First time here?' We both nodded. ‘Well, you're pretty much doin' what there is tae do in Sing, partyin'. No' that this bar here is the end-all. It depends what you're lookin' for. If it's women, no problem here: there's a hell of a lot of them pass through this place.'

‘That's not on my agenda, thanks. How big is the city in population terms?'

‘Four million plus, they reckon, and growin'. The island's probably smaller than Glasgow, but it'll soon have more people than Scotland. That doesnae count the tourists either. Ah reckon there's more of them, especially Aussies, since the Bali bomb and the tsunami. If the casino happens, Christ knows how many there'll be.'

‘Casino?'

‘Aye, the Yanks want to build one, if they can persuade the government to let them.'

‘And will they?'

‘Hard to say. There's resistance, but they're talking about three billion US. It's hard to turn that doon, even here, in the richest place in South East Asia.'

‘What's the cultural side like? I'm an actor, remember, so how's the theatre side of things?'

‘Loads of it. There's big visitin' shows, like The Sound of Music, and there's local outfits that are producing here all the time, mostly in English but sometimes in Chinese. This place is Chinese, Ah mean the whole culture is Chinese, don't make any mistake about it; that's why it's no' in Malaysia.'

Sammy seemed to be an interesting guy, now that we'd got over the initial nonsense, and not nearly as pissed as I'd thought at first. I've observed that sometimes the Jock abroad feels he has to act out the stereotype.

‘Ever heard of an outfit called the Heritage Theatre Company?' I asked him.

‘Heritage? Heritage? Heritage?' He scratched his head hard, as if he was shaking up its contents. ‘The name's familiar. I've seen it on posters advertising things on the Esplanade, I'm sure.'

‘The Esplanade?'

‘Big new complex down on Marina Bay, across frae where Ah work. They have all sorts of venues there.'

‘Mmm, I must check it out.' I waved at a waitress. ‘Eric' (or maybe it really was him: the voice said it might be) was taking a break and glasses were being refilled all over the place. ‘Two more pints of Tiger, please. Sammy, want another Heineken?'