Authors: Charles Benoit
Relative Danger (22 page)
On the subway, which was colder than the air-conditioned museum, Doug unraveled the twine, slipping his left hand in the glove and fishing out the ball with his thumb and first two fingers of his right hand. The glove felt awkward, bent out of shape by years of misalignment, and it was stiff and difficult to close. He pounded his fist into the pocket of the glove, trying to work out the leather cavity created by the ball. The ball itself was more gray than white and slightly misshapen, like it had been smacked out of the park a few too many times. The red stitching was loose and uneven but looked no different from the old American League balls on the wall at a Friday’s. As the subway raced along the dark tunnels, Doug sat tossing the ball into the glove. He waited for some cosmic connection, some spiritual link to his long dead family member, but nothing came, just a sense that he was no closer to the solution than he was when he first looked in that cardboard box at Edna’s, a million years ago.
Two pink While You Were Out notes were taped to his hotel room door. ZRZ Publishing employees enjoyed both casual dress Fridays and a three p.m. start to the weekend, but someone had made sure his messages were delivered. The first let Doug know that Edna had called at eleven thirty a.m. Two checked boxes clarified that she was returning his call and that she wanted him to call back at his earliest convenience. In the space below was Edna’s phone number, just in case he had forgotten, and an extra note stating that there was a twelve-hour time difference between Singapore and Toronto. Doug wondered if that gentle reminder was from the hotel staff or from Edna.
The second note was from Aisha. The first checked box noted that she had called, the second that she wanted to see him. The note said that she called at one p.m. and that she was staying in Room 120 at Raffles. There was nothing about death threats or stealthy assassins.
Doug lay on the bed, thinking about the two women in his life. He owed Edna more than an explanation of how he was spending her money. And he still had nothing to show for it. Yeah, it was her money and she could spend it any way she wanted, including sending an unemployed bottle filler on an old-fashioned snark hunt, but that part of him that was raised to work hard and do his best made him wish he’d have something important to say. Doug decided to wait to call her back until after he got the police report, just in case, by some act of God, something would jump out at him.
He had known since Morocco that he didn’t really care about his uncle’s murder; the guy was a thief, a killer, and who knows what else, and he ran with a rough crowd. Every job has its hazards. And he also knew he’d never find the diamond. Things like that don’t just turn up. But he also knew he wanted to solve the mystery, not for Edna and certainly not for Uncle Russ. He wanted to solve it for himself. Before this summer he’d done nothing, seen nothing, accomplished nothing that a thousand other guys from Pottsville hadn’t already done. After Singapore he’d go home, apologize to Edna, and within a month be back in the rut he climbed out of when he climbed aboard that first flight out of central Pennsylvania. This was it, and he knew it. Lose now—and that seemed all but guaranteed—it would set the pace for the rest of his life.
But there was always Aisha.
He reread the note and tried to read between lines that weren’t even there. She must have gotten the message he was finally able to leave with the front desk, but she sure took her time calling back. What was it about her? She was self-absorbed, superficial, conceited, and condescending and she knew just what to say to make a guy feel like a complete idiot. What did he see in her, anyway?
That’s a stupid question, he thought. He knew exactly what he saw in her.
The question was, what did she see in him?
Doug put the baseball glove on and tossed the ball up towards the blades of the ceiling fan. As always, he found his mind drifting off and within five minutes he was making the game-winning catch in game seven of the World Series, flat on his back in Three Rivers Stadium.
***
Doug decided it was time to go when the Raffles staff started to ignore him.
At first they had jumped every time he approached the front desk, waiting for him to ask to use the house phone before nodding at the phones at the end of the counter. After the first half hour they merely smiled and after that, they did their best not to notice his pacing.
The note said she wanted to see him and gave a room number, and Doug assumed she’d be waiting for his call. He went from being anxious, to worried, to bored, to frustrated, to mad, to indifferent. He dialed 7-120 one last time, listened for the six rings and the click signifying the call was being transferred to the hotel’s operator, before heading out of the hotel. The staff behind the desk watched him leave without raising their heads from their paperwork.
It was a hot and humid night and Doug felt beads of sweat rolling down his back as he walked towards the quay. Fifty years ago it was a nasty warren of warehouses, brothels, and opium dens where ships from around the world bellied up to its docks. Savvy entrepreneurs snapped up the real estate while it was still reasonable and converted it into a charming warren of theme bars, souvenir shops, and seafood restaurants. The crowds were larger now and less dangerous and businesses in the area made more money, but no one seemed to be having as much fun.
Doug grabbed a #54 from a mom and pop restaurant located near an arching footbridge, and flipped the pages of a
Singapore At Night!
magazine he found on the subway. He rested the frosted mug of his Singha beer against his forehead. The heat didn’t seem to be bothering anyone else, he noticed, as they strolled through the crowds, snapping family photos and chewing on sno-cones. Some older men dabbed the back of their necks with handkerchiefs, and one younger guy a few tables over looked ready to keel over, but the average person seemed unfazed by the weather.
The guidebook had said that Singapore was a mix of several ethnic groups and that, from time to time, tensions ran high between the Chinese and Malay people of the island. He was smart enough not to admit it, but to Doug everybody looked alike. He was sure it was the same for them—seen one white guy, you’ve seen them all—but mandatory sensitivity training at the brewery had taught him that admitting this was a proven way to get yourself fired. He took a long pull on his beer and wondered if he had a counterpart at the Singha plant, an average Joe—or Chang—who plodded along, day after day, only to get fired for no known reason. Hopefully Chang had an Edna to bail him out.
Doug flipped through the magazine. It was a Friday night, he was a young single guy in a foreign country, he had a hundred U.S. worth of pink Singapore dollars in his wallet and the magazine showcased places to spend it. So what if he got stood up, it had happened before. A full-page ad for The Big Red Door promised an all-night party with drink specials. He was going out.
The phone picked up on the second ring. “He’s going into a nightclub. Alone.” He wiped a wet bandana across his forehead, pushing the sweat back into his hair. The voice at the other end said fine, but added, “stay with him” before hanging up.
Oh great, he thought, The Big Red Door at eleven-thirty on a Friday night. There was the main entrance, the big, red door of the name, but there were three other doors as well. If the American had gone to The Lair or 2Loud, just down the street, he could have stayed outside and waited for the guy to come back out. And there was a nice breeze just picking up, too.
He let the American get inside before he crossed the street. He didn’t worry about being spotted since he figured that, to the American, all Asian people looked alike. Hell, all white people looked alike to him, why wouldn’t it be the same for that guy? It was hot inside, naturally, hotter and more humid than it was out front. The American had already worked his way to one of the bars.
He hated places like this. No dart board, no video games, a tiny pool table on a cramped loft where no-talent punks played eight ball and drunk chicks danced on the bar. It was smoky and they played a mix of European techno and Hong Kong pop, all at the same glass-rattling levels. The girls were underage, sarong party girls, breaking curfew, or office workers shouting TGIF. The guys were beefed-up wannabes, drooling over the sarong girls, or office geeks, still in their white shirts and solid color ties. And it was hot. It was already crowded and it would get more crowded and that meant it would get even hotter. He tried to find an open spot under an AC vent while keeping an eye on the American, the tallest, whitest guy in the place.
The American made his way up to the loft where he quickly won five games in a row. Even from this far away, he could tell that the American was an average player at best, but compared to the competition, he looked impressive. The American seemed to make friends easily, chatting with the guys in white shirts and the office girls like he’d known them for years. He was always amazed that someone could walk up and start talking with a total stranger. He couldn’t do that. He knew the person would probably start asking all sorts of questions, like what do you do and where do you live and why are you sweating so much, and he just couldn’t be bothered. The American ordered a couple of pitchers of Singha and teamed up with one of the office girls to play a game of doubles against more office geeks. The bouncers at the door kept letting more and more people in and the air conditioner, if it was ever on in the first place, wasn’t even noticeable anymore.
Two hours later the American and the office girl were still dancing, but how anybody could dance in this fucking heat, he didn’t know. And then the deejay puts on some song that
everybody
seemed to love and the next thing the whole place is bouncing up and down, trampling whatever cool air there was left in the building, and his beer was getting warm and
that
was a mistake since he knew better than to drink beer when it’s this fucking hot, and, Jesus, he felt weak all of a sudden and why is that chick looking at him that way, yes, I know I’m sweaty, he wanted to yell but didn’t and maybe the AC finally came on because he felt a cold chill race across his back and he looked up for the vent and saw the ceiling and then saw the wall, then saw that chick step away from him, holding her drink tight against her chest, then he saw the floor come towards him, and it was cooler there, just like he thought it would be. Between all the legs of the bouncing dancers, he watched as the American headed towards the exit, his arm around the short-haired office girl. Lucky bastard, he thought, as he closed his eyes.
The first SMRT train from Queenstown didn’t pull out until five forty-five a.m., so Doug had enough time to grab a cup of coffee and a doughnut from a twenty-four hour 7-Eleven. By all rights, he should have been exhausted, but the two-hour nap seemed to be enough. He didn’t want to rush out, that was Jang’s idea—“Trying to explain you to my roommate…” she said as she shook her head was all she offered as an explanation. It was a good line and Doug had used it before himself, but he would have preferred staying a bit longer.
“This is going to sound like bullshit, but I don’t usually do things like this,” she said when she invited him in for a drink.
“I mean it,” she continued when Doug said nothing, “you’re the first guy I’ve brought here since I moved in six months ago. Okay, second, but he doesn’t count because…well…he just doesn’t.”
Doug complimented her on her decorating—1960s retro— her music selection—the Stones—and the wine—pink. He had already complimented her on her outfit—LBD—her haircut—short and spiky—and her perfume—“Christmas gift from Mom.” She said thanks in all the right places as she lit an end table-full of candles. They talked about Singapore, travel, friends, and jobs.
“I never met anyone so interesting,” she said. “Honest. Why are you laughing? That’s why I wanted you to come up for a drink, you’re different from the guys I know.”
“You must know some real losers.”
“Not really. They’re all pretty successful, some even have their own homes, and in Singapore, that’s saying a lot, but they’re so, so…” she looked around the room for the word, finding it in among the candles, “
predictable
. They will live and die at the same jobs they got right out of university. Same handful of clubs, same drinks, same vacations, same everything. I dated a few of them and
believe
me
they are
all
the same. Here you are, taking a summer off, traveling around the world. That’s amazing.” She grabbed the wine bottle on her way past the kitchen and plopped down on the couch, her legs across Doug’s lap. “Now, tell me more about Egypt.”
Doug hadn’t said anything about being a detective on a case and knew if he added it in now she wouldn’t believe him. He said that a friend of the family had wanted him to look up some old acquaintances here and there and that he had grown bored of the brewery anyway. It wasn’t far from the truth, in fact it probably was the truth. In any case, Jang found him interesting just the way he was. And as he rode the first train towards the Geylang district, hiding his open cup of coffee under his shirt to avoid a five-hundred-dollar fine, he thought a lot about that.
***
Chong Kim Siap was waiting at the door of ZRZ Publishers and Tourist Hotel, Ltd. when Doug walked up the street. He spotted Doug and half-jogged down the block to meet him. “That’s a strange hotel you picked, but you guys probably like those out-of-the-way places.”
“Out of the way? Isn’t this the heart of town? How you doing, Kim?” he said as he shook the young man’s hand.
“Late night on the case?” he said, pumping away on Doug’s arm.
“In a way. I was out at The Big Red Door and I met this girl….”
“Say no more, say no more,” he said, then added, “You guys. Geeze.”
“You’re here early. You find something important?”
“You tell me,” he said, handing Doug a thin white envelope. Inside was a photocopy of a mimeographed form, the blanks completed in a slanting cursive.
“This is it?” Doug said, holding up the paper.
“That’s it. They weren’t as obsessed with paperwork back then.”
Doug sighed and put the paper back into the envelope. “Thanks, Kim.” He knew the kid wanted to watch him mine clues from the report but he didn’t feel like play acting this early in the morning. “What do I owe ya?”
“Professional courtesy. Just do me a favor,” he said, handing Doug a card. “If you get any breaks in the case, give me a call.”
Chong Kim Siap
was neatly hand printed on the Singapore Police Department card, the whiteout barely visible under his name.
