Umbrella Man (9786167611204) (26 page)

“It can’t just be a coincidence, sir.”

Coincidence? Tay couldn’t see what Kang
meant.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“The umbrella. Didn’t you say the deposit box
where you found the ledgers with your father’s initials belonged to
some company called Paraguas Ltd?”

“Yes.”

“Well…
Paraguas
is the Spanish word for
umbrella.”

Tay’s mouth slowly opened. He didn’t know
whether he was more dumbfounded at what Kang was telling him or
that Kang apparently spoke Spanish.

“How did you know—”

“My wife and I went to Spain on holiday two
years ago, sir. I don’t really speak the language, but I remember a
few words.”

Tay closed his mouth and tried to get his
mind around what he had just heard.

The name of the company that owned the safety
deposit box meant umbrella in Spanish. He had a photograph of three
men taken thirty-five years ago in which one of the men was holding
up an umbrella on a sunny day and making the other two laugh.
Another of the men in the picture had the key to that box and in it
Tay had found ledgers with the third man’s initials on them.

What did all that mean?

Tay had no idea at all. But Kang had to be
right. It wasn’t a coincidence.

It meant
something
.

***

“My father was an accountant,” Tay said.
“But…well, things keep coming up that suggest he was involved in a
lot more than accounting.”

Kang said nothing.

“I know now my father was somehow connected
with Johnny the Mover. Not only because he was photographed with
him at least this once, but because ledgers with his initials on
them were in a safety deposit box that Johnny had access to.”

“But those ledgers would have to be at least
thirty-five years old. What could they have to do with why this man
was killed now?”

“I don’t know,” Tay admitted. “I really
don’t, but there’s something else, too.”

Tay told Kang the story of Laura Anne
Zimmerman and her memory of her father having told her once her
mother was a spy.

“And she worked for my father, so—”

“What are you saying, sir? That your father
was also a spy thirty-five years ago? And this Johnny the Mover was
a spy back then, too? Even if you’re right, how does knowing all
these people were spies get us any closer to finding out who killed
this guy last week?”

It was a good question, of course, and Tay
had no answer for it.

But he did have an idea where to start
looking for one.

“When I found that photo, Robbie, I also
found a lot of other old ledgers in the same trunk and some of them
also had my father’s initials on them. You understand accounting a
lot better than I do. I want you to have a look at them and see if
anything jumps out at you. If we can figure out what my father was
actually doing, maybe we’ll see what the connection with Johnny
was.”

“I still don’t see how that helps us find his
killer, sir.”

“Maybe it doesn’t,” Tay conceded. “But I’d
like to see where it takes us anyway.”

“Fine with me, sir,” Kang shrugged. “When are
you going to bring the ledgers in?”

Tay hadn’t planned that far ahead. He stopped
and thought a moment.

“What are you doing today?”

“Well…nothing that can’t wait.”

“Okay, let’s go to my house and I’ll get the
ledgers out for you. You can look them over right there.”

“Fine, sir. Just let me return one call. Five
minutes?”

***

Kang was almost out the door when he
stopped.

“I almost forgot, sir. One other thing. You
remember the FMB report said they had found traces of flour on the
dead man’s shoes?”

Tay honestly didn’t. So many things had
happened since Kang had brought him the FMB report he didn’t even
remember it saying the dead man was wearing shoes. But he didn’t
want to admit that so he nodded.

“Well, they took another look at what they
found. It was flour, all right, but not
just
flour. They
were traces of HMX mixed in with it. HMX is a military grade
explosive that’s used as a nuclear detonator and—”

“I know what HMX is, Sergeant, but what was
it—”

Abruptly Tay leaned back and slapped his
forehead with his open palm.

“For Christ’s sake, I’m an
idiot
! Why
didn’t I think of that before?”

“Think of what, sir?”

“Aunt Jemima!”

“Who’s Aunt Jemima, sir?”

“Not who, Sergeant, what. Aunt Jemima was a
brand of pancake mix that used to be sold in America.”

“I don’t understand what this has to do—”

“During World War Two, HMX was mixed with
flour and smuggled into China to use in guerrilla operation behind
the Japanese lines. The mixture looked and tasted just like
ordinary flour so it was easy to get it past checkpoints and
inspections. You could even cook the stuff into pancakes without it
exploding and eat them without poisoning anyone. So they started
calling it Aunt Jemima.”

Tay slapped the desk with one hand.

“Get on to one of your friends who’s involved
in the bombing investigation, Sergeant! I’ll bet you a year’s
salary the explosive the bombers used was HMX!”

“I already know it was, sir.”

That stopped Tay.

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, sir, there’s always a lot of gossip
around here and I hear most of it. That’s what they’re saying. That
the explosive was HMX.”

Tay slapped his desk again. “So there you go.
There’s our connection. Johnny delivered the HMX mixed with flour
and it passed right through customs without making a ripple. A
package must have broken wherever they had it stored. That would
explain the traces on his shoes.

“Do you want me to—”

“I sure as hell do. See what you can find out
from customs about large shipments of flour into Singapore over the
last couple of months. I need to know where they came from and who
they went to.”

“They’re going to want to know why I’m
asking, sir.”

“I already told you. Use the Mayling Aw
case.”

Kang looked puzzled at that, and Tay didn’t
really blame him.

“Look, Robbie, just make something up. Be
creative. Say…maybe traces of flour were found in her apartment and
the lab tests showed them to be contaminated…with rat droppings.
Since neither she nor her sister ever worked in a bakery that we
know of, it’s a loose end we’re trying to tie up.”

“Rat droppings, sir?”

“You can say it was moose shit for all I
care, Sergeant. Make up anything you like. Just tie whatever it is
to the Mayling Aw case.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And don’t be long about it. I want you at my
house by three to start going through those ledgers.”

Kang rolled his eyes, but he didn’t say
anything. He just nodded and went to work.

“YOU’RE LATE,” TAY said when he opened the
door for Kang that afternoon.

“Sorry, sir. I’m trying to get something from
customs on the flour shipments, but it’s going slowly. They’re not
really being very helpful. Maybe we’re just not a very high
priority, considering everything that’s going on.”

Tay often wondered if policemen in other
countries had as much difficulty getting help from other government
agencies as they did in Singapore. Somehow it hardly seemed
possible.

“Leave it for now, Sergeant. If they haven’t
come back to you with anything by tomorrow, I’ll go after them
myself. This afternoon I want you to concentrate on these
ledgers.”

Tay led the way into his kitchen where he had
stacked the ledgers from the trunk. There were six piles, each
about a foot high and containing about a dozen books.

“Good Lord, sir, I thought you meant there
were two or three books. This could take me all night.”

“Then, if I were you, Sergeant, I wouldn’t
waste a minute.”

Kang sighed and pulled out a chair.

“I’ll need a pad and a pen, sir.” He shot a
baleful glance at the six piles of ledgers. “Maybe a whole box of
pens by the look of it.”

***

Two hours later, Tay was smoking in the
garden when Kang came outside carrying one of the ledgers.

“Done already?” Tay asked him.

“Hardly, sir. My eyes are starting to cross.
I just needed a break.”

Tay nodded toward the book Kang was carrying.
“Something in that one?”

“Not really, sir. I just wanted to double
check that these were your father’s initials. They look different
to me from the others somehow, like maybe somebody else wrote them.
Don’t you think?”

Kang opened the ledger to the place he had
marked with his finger and put it on the table in front of Tay.
Then he pointed to some writing about halfway down the page.

The writing was too small for Tay to make
out.

“You can
read
that?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. Can’t you?”

Tay couldn’t, not really, but he wasn’t going
to admit that to Kang if he could avoid it.

He had wondered for the last year or so if he
needed glasses. He had even gone into a shop once and tried on a
few pair of frames, but he thought he looked ridiculous and left as
soon as one of the sales girls started paying attention to him. The
problem wasn’t just how he looked in glasses, Tay knew, it was that
wearing glasses seemed to him to be inextricably bound up with
growing old. And having to squint a little every now and then was a
small price to pay for holding out just as long as possible.

“The writing is very small,” Tay mumbled.

“All accountants seem to write very small.
It’s like they’re afraid of using any more ink than they absolutely
have to.”

Tay stared hard at the spot where Kang was
pointing and willed the writing he saw there to come into focus. It
didn’t respond to his demands.

“It’s too small for me to see it clearly,” he
finally admitted. “I just can’t tell.”

“They’re your father’s initials, all right.
DST. No doubt about that. There’s just something about the way
they’re written here. Like maybe they were written by somebody
else.”

“I can’t tell,” Tay said, and changed the
subject as quickly as he could. “What do you think so far? What are
these ledgers all about?”

“Well…” Kang hesitated, and something about
the way he did it made Tay immediately wary.

“What?”

“I’d rather not say right now, sir. It’s just
a vague thought. Let me keep at it for a while. I haven’t gotten
through even half of the books yet.”

Kang cleared his throat unnecessarily and
quickly changed the subject.

“Any chance of a cup of tea, sir?”

“How about a Marlboro instead, Sergeant?” Tay
held out the open pack. “It’s less trouble for me.”

“No thanks, sir. A cup of tea will do me just
fine. I’m sure you can manage.”

***

Tay made tea for both of them and then took
his mug and a new pack of cigarettes out to the garden. When the
buzzer at his front gate rang, his tea was long finished and he was
working on a fresh cigarette.

Tay glanced at his watch. Just after six. He
didn’t have many callers, and the few people he knew who were
likely to come to his house wouldn’t have thought of doing so
without being invited. He couldn’t imagine who it could possibly
be. Stubbing his cigarette into a big glass ashtray that needed
emptying, he walked to his front door to find out.

When he opened the door and looked out to the
street through the black ironwork gate across the garden, Tay was
surprised to see Vincent Ferrero standing there. Actually, to be
completely truthful, Tay could only see
part
of Vincent
Ferrero standing there. Ferrero was so big he filled the gate and
spilled over its edges like a badly framed photograph.

“What are you doing here?” Tay called
out.

“Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

“No. But I’d still like to know what you’re
doing here.”

Tay stepped onto his small front porch
leaving the front door standing open behind him.

“And how do you know where I live?”

Ferrero snorted. “Come on, Tay. You’re not
that naive, are you?”

“I thought you said you were just some guy
with the American embassy, but somehow you know where I live?”

“It was Goh who said I was with the American
embassy.”

“Are you?”

“Well…more or less.”

“Which means, of course, you’re CIA.”

Ferrero shrugged. “Think whatever you like,
Tay. Doesn’t matter to me.”

Tay took four paces down the short walkway
and stopped behind his gate.

“I’ll ask you again,” Tay said. “What are you
doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“Can I come in?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t much like the idea
of having CIA men in my house.”

“Are you afraid of me, Tay? Or are you just
an all-around asshole?”

That made Tay so angry he stepped forward and
jerked the gate open without stopping to think what he was
doing.

“
Afraid
of you? Get the hell out of
here.”

“Whoa.” Ferrero raised both hands, palms out.
“I think we got off on the wrong foot here, Tay.”

“We don’t need any feet. We’re not going
anywhere.”

Ferrero took half a step forward and Tay put
a hand in his chest. Actually, Ferrero was so big Tay’s hand hit
closer to his belly button than his chest. “I told you to get the
hell out of here,” Tay snapped.

“Look, you little shit…” Ferrero swept his
left arm up and brushed Tay’s hand away. “You’re your hand off of
me.”

There was a moment of stillness as the two
men stood and glared at each other.

“We told you the Woodlands case is closed,”
Ferrero snarled. “And now you’ve got people poking around with both
Immigration and Customs asking a lot of questions.”