Umbrella Man (9786167611204) (16 page)

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.

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.

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?