Tay rode the escalator up to ground level and emerged under a long, rectangular green glass roof supported by bright green tiled columns. He supposed somebody had chosen the color in the hope it would make the station look more natural and friendly, but it looked about as natural and friendly as the grass in Raffles Place, which was to say not natural and friendly at all. What it looked was really green.
Regardless, Tay wasn’t at the Novena station to admire its color. He was there because it was just off Irrawaddy Road. And about a quarter of a mile to the north was a large compound of office buildings that were collectively identified with the address 28 Irrawaddy Road. Taken together, those buildings added up to a collection of glass and marble so humorless and overblown it would have embarrassed Albert Speer. Those buildings were where the Ministry of Home Affairs did whatever it did. It was where the Internal Security Department’s offices were, and where Tay could find Philip Goh.
Tay figured this was as good a time as any to pay a friendly call on Mr. Goh. After all, where were his watchers less likely to look for him than in their boss’s office?
He knew he was going to have a real heart-to-heart with his new friend Phil eventually. And sometimes, for the kind of heart-to-heart Tay really wanted to have, making a surprise out of it was the best thing to do.
THIRTY-SEVEN
TAY’S WARRANT CARD passed him smoothly through the security post and into the Ministry of Home Affairs compound. He had no idea where Goh’s office was, and ISD’s cultivated air of mystery meant Goh wasn’t going to be listed on a convenient posted directory somewhere. Tay’s best idea was to head to the conference room on the fourth floor of Block C where Goh had hauled him to make his announcement that the Woodlands case was being closed as a suicide. Surely Goh would have used a conference room that was reasonably close to his office.
If Tay hadn’t already used up his modest daily allotment of good fortune ditching his watchers, maybe he would just run into Goh in a hallway somewhere. Or perhaps he would stumble over somebody he could bully with his warrant card into telling him where Goh’s office was. He had been winging it up to now and things had worked out okay. Why not push his luck a little further?
When Tay got to the fourth floor of Block C, he found the conference room easily enough since it was right next to the elevators. The door was standing open, and it was empty. There was no sign on the wall giving him directions to Goh’s office. Rats.
He went back into the hallway and looked in both directions. He had no idea what to do next. The hallway told him nothing. It was long and unremarkable. An institutional linoleum floor of no discernible color, ceiling-mounted fluorescent light fixtures every ten feet, and mahogany veneer doors lining both sides, each sporting a black plastic rectangle about a foot long with a single four-digit number on it. The hallway was completely empty. There was no one in sight in either direction. Tay’s plan simply to ask someone where Philip Goh’s office was didn’t seem particularly sound anymore.
The only door that had anything on it other than a number was one that said MEN, which seemed obvious enough even here in the heartland of ISD, so Tay went in to buy some time to think about his problem. He was just stepping up to the wash basins when his gaze fell on a framed poster about three feet square hanging at eye level between the two the sinks. The poster set out in detail nine steps necessary to wash your hands correctly. Each step was helpfully illustrated with a picture of a pair of disembodied hands following the poster’s instructions to the letter.
Tay didn’t think there was anything about Singapore that could stupefy him anymore, but this came close. Instructions for washing your hands? Nine separate steps? Each of them illustrated in detail just in case the instructions might be too complex for some people to follow?
Sometimes, Tay thought, when you lived in Singapore, all you could do was shake your head and hope for the best.
***
Tay stepped back into the hallway. He still didn’t have the first idea how to find Philip Goh, but at least now he had a near perfect understanding of how to wash his hands.
A low ding announced the arrival of an elevator and when the doors opened three women stepped out. They were all on the young side and each clutched a wallet in one hand as if they had all gone to lunch together and didn’t want to carry their purses. Two of the women turned to the left, but the other turned right and walked directly toward Tay. He was pleased to note she was easily the youngest, most attractive, and best dressed of the three.
Tay stepped to one side of the hallway and waited for her to pass. As she did, she turned her head, looked directly at Tay, and tossed out a dazzling smile. Tay returned it as well as he could, but he had never been all that good with smiles, dazzling or otherwise.
He knew this was probably the best shot he was going to get, so he fished out his warrant card and held it up.
“Excuse me, miss?”
She turned immediately and took half a step toward him, almost as if she had been waiting for him to speak. When her eyes fell on Tay’s warrant card, her smile disappeared.
“I’m Inspector Tay from CID. I have an appointment with Philip Goh, but I’ve forgotten his office number. Could you direct me?”
Tay watched the woman’s eyes run through the calculation women generally made when a strange man spoke to them.
Was this man really asking for directions, or was he just hitting on her and using his question as an excuse to start a conversation? So how should she respond? Should she ignore him altogether? Should she give him the directions he was asking for and leave it at that? Or should she take his question as an invitation to a conversation and do her best to help one develop?
Tay saw her eyes register the name and rank on his warrant card. Then he saw in them the look of a decision being made.
“I know you, don’t I?” she asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Your name sounds familiar. Do you work out of Phoenix Park or the Cantonment Complex?”
“I’m at the Cantonment Complex.”
“I used to work over there. Are you sure we haven’t met?”
Normally Tay wouldn’t have been adverse to a little harmless flirtation. He wasn’t very good at flirtation, harmless or otherwise, but he was usually willing to give it a shot. Still, this was hardly the best possible time, and who knew who this woman really was or who she worked for? For all Tay knew she might be one of the ISD personnel who had been keeping him under surveillance. The timing and circumstances were just too lousy to take a chance.
“I’m sure we haven’t, miss. Do you know where Philip Goh’s office is?”
Tay could see a flicker of hurt in the woman’s eyes at his rebuff. They were very nice eyes indeed, and he felt a little ashamed of himself.
“Room 4316,” she said pointing over his shoulder. “About halfway down the hall on the right.”
Then without another word she pivoted and walked away. Tay couldn’t help but notice she didn’t look back.
***
Room 4316 was about thirty feet past the conference room where Tay had met Goh the last time he was here. It was a door that looked exactly like all the other doors on the hall. Did that mean Goh was discreet? Or did it just mean he was insignificant.
Tay opened the door and walked in without knocking.
The office was much larger than Tay had expected and looked at a glance to be expensively and carefully furnished. Insignificance probably wasn’t the right explanation for the nondescript door after all.
Goh was sitting at a large desk on the left with his feet up on it, legs crossed at the ankles. He was reading something clipped into a thick file open on his lap.
“Surprise,” Tay said as he made himself comfortable in one of the two chairs in front of Goh’s desk.
He noticed Goh’s scar looked redder and more prominent than it had the last time he had seen him. Maybe Goh’s scar would even turn out to be like an indicator light on an oven by which he could
read the temperature inside without getting his hand burned. Wouldn’t that be handy?
“How the fuck did you get in here?”
“Through the gate, up the elevator, down the hall. The usual way.”
“Does anybody actually find your wiseass shit amusing, Tay?”
“I never asked. You think I ought to?”
Goh closed the file he was reading and swung his feet to the floor.
“Mine?” Tay asked, pointing at the thick file.
“You’re not nearly this important. You file’s only got about six pieces of paper in it. And there’s a picture of Mickey Mouse on the cover.”
Goh opened a drawer, put the file inside, then closed it. Tay was disappointed. He had assumed Goh would just drop the file on top of his desk and he wanted a glimpse of the name on the tab. He was still halfway convinced it would turn out to be his.
“What do you want, Tay?”
“I’m here to tell you I’m giving you a one-time pass. Just this once, we’ll forget this happened. But fuck with me again, and I’m coming down on you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I saw your people, Goh. Don’t bother lying about it. The only thing I don’t understand is why you have me under surveillance. Can you explain it to me? Maybe we can work something out that will save us both a lot of trouble.”
Goh just shook his head and said nothing.
“Your goons were working so hard following me all over town that I thought I’d make their lives easier and go somewhere they wouldn’t have any trouble locating me. If a middle-aged policeman can shake ISD’s finest…well, I think you need to reconsider your training program, don’t you?”
“You’re delusional, Tay. Why would ISD waste manpower following you?”
That was exactly the question Tay had been asking himself, of course, and he still didn’t have any answer to it.
“Look, Goh. I’m under surveillance by a team of professionals. Well…semi-professionals, at least. In Singapore, that means ISD.”
“You’re wrong. We don’t give a shit about you. We certainly don’t have you under surveillance.”
“Then who is it?”
“I’ve got no fucking idea. But if I were you, I’d start trying to figure out who I’d pissed off recently.”
Tay studied Goh’s face. Tay had always prided himself on having a nearly infallible sense of when people were lying to him and when they weren’t, and his shit detector wasn’t making a sound.
Tay began to wonder if he could have this wrong.
If he did, that introduced an entirely new and genuinely unpleasant element into his calculations. Who had the capability of mounting a complex surveillance operation in Singapore other than ISD? And, whoever it was, why would they be running it on Tay? How could there be anybody out there who cared that much about where Tay was going and what he was doing? Most of the time, Tay didn’t even care.
Tay changed tacks with Goh just to see where it took him.
“Why did your people push their way into my house and take those ledger sheets? If you’d asked nicely, I would have given you copies.”
Goh laughed right out loud, and he didn’t strike Tay as a guy who did that very often.
“Whatever you’re drinking, Tay, I think you’d better stop. I’ve still got no fucking clue what you’re talking about.”
“ISD jumped me at my own front door and grabbed the ledger sheets I took out of the safety deposit box.”
“What ledger sheets? What safety deposit box? Have you completely lost your mind, Tay? What in the everlasting fuck are you talking about?”
Still not even the tiniest blip out of Tay’s shit detector. Could Goh really be telling the truth? And if he was, what the hell did that mean?
“Just answer one question for me, Goh.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
Goh stared at Tay for a moment as if he wasn’t quite sure what that meant. Then he made a rolling gesture with one hand, leaned back, and clasped his hands together behind his head.
“Did you know Vincent Ferrero came to see me?” Tay asked.
“No. What for?”
“He threatened to kick the shit out of me if I didn’t stop investigating the Woodlands case.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Tay said nothing and Goh gave him a long look.
“You’re serious?”
Tay nodded.
“Vince threatened you? Physically? You must have misunderstood him, Tay.”
“You think? A guy who’s the size of a bus puts a hand in my chest and tells me he’s going to teach me a lesson if I don’t let the Woodlands case go? Yeah, I can see how that could just be a misunderstanding.”
Goh sat for a long while eyeing Tay in complete silence.
Tay said nothing. He would have liked to say something, but he didn’t have a clue what it might be. He’d dumped all the crap he had right in the middle of Goh’s desk, and Goh’s reaction hadn’t been at all what he had prepared himself for. So where did he go from here?
Abruptly Goh leaned forward and rested his forearms on his desk.
“You like coffee, Tay?”
“Yeah, I like coffee.”
“Then let’s go downstairs and have some,” Goh said, standing up. “Maybe we can help each other after all.”
When Tay decided to barge in on Goh, it occurred to him his impulsiveness might lead to a lot of things, although a cup of coffee certainly hadn’t been on his list.
Regardless, right now coffee sounded pretty good to him. He wasn’t going to solve his case without some help from people who knew things he didn’t, and John August had apparently done a runner on him. He had no doubt Phillip Goh knew a lot of things he didn’t. What would it hurt to listen to whatever he had to say?
“Is the coffee here any good?” Tay asked as he stood up, too.
Goh didn’t answer, which struck Tay as a really bad sign.
He followed Goh out the door and they walked down the hallway to the elevator. Then they stood there waiting for it without speaking.
THIRTY-EIGHT
THE COFFEE WAS awful. Worse than awful really, if that was possible. It tasted sour, burned and vinegary.
“How can you drink this stuff?” Tay asked.
“I don’t. I just give it to policemen I’m trying to poison.”
Tay mimed a laugh and glanced around. He and Goh had taken seats at a table far enough away from the few other people in the cafeteria not to be overheard. It looked like that’s what everyone else had done, too. Tay knew he could never even imagine the things that had doubtless been whispered about in this room. And he didn’t even want to try.
Goh tore the end off a packet of sugar and dumped it into his coffee. Tay didn’t think it would help very much, and he watched as Goh gave the cup a quick stir with a plastic spoon, then picked it up and took a hit. To Tay’s surprise, Goh not only swallowed it, he smacked his lips and then drank some more.
Tay didn’t know how Goh could get the stuff down. Maybe working for the Internal Security Department required a stronger stomach than being a policeman. Yes, now that he thought about it, he could see how that well might be.
“So what do you have to tell me?” Tay asked.
“Nope. You first. I bought the coffee.”
“You show me yours and I’ll show you mine?” Tay asked
“But no hands below the waist.”
***
Tay sketched out the basics. He told Goh about the key to the safety deposit box, he told him about the ledger sheets in the box with his father’s initials, and he told him about the picture tying his father to the dead man. He even told Goh who Johnny the Mover was and about his connection to American intelligence a few decades back. But he didn’t tell Goh how he knew that, and he certainly didn’t mention John August. He didn’t tell him about Kang’s conclusion that his father had been a money launderer ei
ther. Candor has it limits.
“You have a source in the CIA,” Goh said as soon as Tay finished his story.
Tay shrugged.
“I’m not going to ask you who it is. I know you wouldn’t tell me and I don’t blame you. But if you have a source in the CIA, then I’m guessing you probably also know…”
Goh stopped talking and just looked at Tay.
“That blaming JI for the bombings is complete bullshit and you really think it was an act of domestic terrorism?” Tay asked. “Yeah, I heard that somewhere.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“My guess is it’s exactly that simple.”
Goh pursed his lips and thought for a moment.
“And you’ve told this to other people at CID?” he asked when he was apparently done thinking. “Your boss? Your sergeant, maybe?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“To tell you the truth, I’m not entirely sure.”
“Look, Tay, you got to understand that the security of the country may—”
“Spare me, Goh. I’m not trying to save the country. I’m not even sure I care about saving the country. I’m just trying to do my job here and solve a murder case.”
Tay noticed Goh’s scar was less red now than it had been when he had first burst into his office. Maybe that was a good sign. On the other hand, maybe Goh’s body was just too busy fighting off the coffee to deal with anything else.
Goh shifted his weight in the chair. A moment passed, then he folded his arms and leaned forward.
“Congratulations, Tay.”
“For what?”
“It looks to me like you’ve won. You’ve got yourself a chip in the big game now.”
Umbrella Man (9786167611204) Page 22
