“I don’t want a chip in any game. Big or small.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I just told you. I want to close this murder case. I want to do my job.”
“And that’s it?”
“Well…” Tay made a show of thinking about it. “Maybe world peace and a date with Angelina Jolie, too. But right now I’ll probably settle just for finding the guy who killed Johnny the Mover.”
***
“You want some more coffee?” Goh asked.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Suit yourself,” he said. “I’m getting some.”
“And then what?”
“And then we’ll have a conversation.”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
“Well, Tay, the way I see it, on the one hand, there’s talking. And that’s what we’ve been doing. Then, on the other hand, there’s having a conversation. I may regret it later, but I think we ought to try that, too.”
“In that case, you better bring me some more coffee. I’m probably going to need it.”
“There you go. You’re learning, man.”
***
Goh returned and placed a fresh cup of coffee on the table in front of Tay. He dumped three packets of sugar into it, stirred quickly, and sipped cautiously. It tasted exactly the way it had before. This stuff was a black hole of skunkiness. Three packets of sugar in it and they were just gone. The coffee tasted as sour as it had without any sugar in it at all.
“So let me make sure I understand this,” Goh said. “You’re telling me your dead guy was connected to American intelligence.”
“No, I’m telling you I understand he worked for American intelligence once, but that may have been some years back.”
“He worked as a transporter.”
“Yes.”
“But your source told you he’d retired.”
“Yes.”
Goh smiled slightly. “And you believed him.”
Tay said nothing. It had never occurred to him not to believe John August, but suddenly he felt like an idiot. What else was August going to tell him? He certainly wasn’t going to finger Johnny as an intelligence asset now, was he? Certainly not after Johnny had been killed in Singapore on the day the city was blown up. That could have led to some embarrassing questions, like…
What was an American intelligence asset doing dead in Singapore immediately after the bombings? Did him being dead have any connection to the bombings? And, if it did…well, Tay didn’t want to think about where that might lead.
Those were all questions Tay should have asked August, of course. But he had taken August’s information at face value and he hadn’t asked any of them.
Goh must have seen the embarrassment in Tay’s eyes.
“Don’t worry about it. You trust your source. I know how that works. Maybe he was telling you the truth. Why don’t you go back and push him a little?”
“I can’t find him.”
Tay could see Goh didn’t like the sound of that, so he changed the subject as quickly as he could.
“You know where to find your spook pal Ferrero,” Tay pointed out. “Why don’t you ask him if Johnny was still connected when he was killed?”
Goh shook his head. “Vince isn’t CIA.”
“But you said—”
“I told you Vince was with the American embassy. And I could see your lip curl when I said it.”
“Because that’s a common expression for—”
“Yeah, it’s a common expression for the local Agency guys. That’s why I used it.”
“You thought it would impress me.”
“I thought it would shut you up. Little did I know.”
“So who is Ferrero, really?”
“Vince is a contractor. He’s strictly private enterprise.”
“But he was CIA once?”
“I’ve always assumed he was, but I don’t know that for a fact. He’s been private as long as I’ve known him. Probably a lot longer.”
“What does he do?”
“Support and logistics stuff. Nothing very sexy really.”
“Who does he work for?”
Goh hesitated. “I can’t tell you that, Tay.”
“Why not?”
“Well…I’m not absolutely sure, to be honest, but it’s restricted information.”
“You and I are on the same side.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re still just—”
Goh suddenly realized what he was about to say and abruptly stopped talking.
“Just a policeman? Is that what you were going to say, Goh? That I’m just a cop?”
Goh looked for a moment like he was about to claim he wasn’t going to say anything of the sort, but then he shrugged.
“I didn’t mean anything by it, Tay. I meant you’re not ISD and the details of the people we work with are internally restricted. I don’t make the rules.”
“But you break them when you feel like it.”
Goh shrugged again, but he didn’t say anything else.
THIRTY-NINE
THE IDEA CAME to Tay while he slept just like most of his best ideas did. He wasn’t sure how that actually worked, but it worked for him all the time so he wasn’t questioning it.
It went like this. He got into bed at night not knowing something, and then when he got up the next morning he did know it. Tay didn’t want to think too much about why it happened. He figured it wasn’t a good idea. If he asked too many questions about it, maybe it would stop happening. And then where would he be?
Tay poured himself another coffee and took it out to the garden where he sat down and lit a cigarette. He held his idea up like a shiny bauble he had just discovered on the discount table somewhere. He turned it this way and that, examining it from every angle for the flaws he assumed it must have. But he found none. His idea appeared as sound as it had when he had first waked that morning and found it waiting patiently for him in a corner of his consciousness.
So he finished his cigarette, drank the rest of his coffee, and went upstairs to shower and dress. Then he took a taxi to HSBC.
***
Fortunately, banks in Singapore opened earlier than Sam Tay usually got up. Actually, almost everything in Singapore opened earlier than Sam Tay usually got up.
The receptionist apparently recognized him because she rose to her feet and smiled even before he got near enough to her desk to say anything.
“Good morning, Inspector.”
“Good morning,” Tay responded, but then it occurred to him he had no idea what the woman’s name was and he finished with a quick nod. He hoped he didn’t sound like a man who had forgotten a woman’s name, but of course he knew that was exactly what he sounded like.
“Mr. Lee is in a meeting outside the bank, I’m afraid,” the woman said before he could fumble around any more than he already had.
“I’m here to see Mei Lin anyway. Is she in?”
Tay wondered if it was just his imagination or had the receptionist — whatever her name was — smiled slightly at that? Did she think Tay had come back just to flirt with Mei Lin? He wondered fleetingly if he ought to tell the receptionist why he wanted to see Mei Lin.
“Oh, Inspector, you should have called first. She’s home sick today.”
“Then I need for you to give me her home address and telephone number.”
A shadow crossed the receptionist’s face. Her eyes slipped away from Tay’s and she consulted the top of her desk. Apparently finding no instructions written there, she said nothing.
“Look, I understand giving out the home address of an employee is probably against the rules,” Tay said, trying to put an agreeable note into his voice, “but you already know from Mr. Lee that this is a national security investigation. It is urgent that I speak to Mei Lin immediately.”
The receptionist fidgeted without looking up at him. Tay could see how uncomfortable she was. He was sure he could wheedle the information out of he
r eventually if he just kept up a line of friendly patter, but he was sick of wheedling. And then, too, he’d had only one cup of coffee this morning which didn’t do much for his disposition.
“Look, miss,” he snapped, “this is a matter of national security. I want that address right now or I’ll have you in an interrogation room at ISD in half an hour and you won’t come out for a lot longer than that.”
The woman’s head snapped up.
“You’re with ISD? I thought you were—”
“You thought I was what? Just a policeman?”
The woman said nothing else, but she quickly swiveled her chair around to her keyboard and began to tap at it.
Tay had to work to suppress a smile. He had never thought of trying that before. On the whole, being a policeman was usually enough to command obedience in Singapore. But when you needed a nuke, apparently claiming affiliation with ISD was the way to go.
There was a whirring sound and the woman bent down and pulled a sheet of paper from a small printer beneath her desk. She handed it to Tay without a word.
“Thank you,” he smiled. “We’ll remember your cooperation.”
As Tay turned and left the bank, he wondered if perhaps that last part wasn’t a bit much, but he had heard a line like that in a movie once and had always wanted a chance to use it. He supposed this was it.
***
Tay found a cab easily enough and gave the driver the address the receptionist at the bank had printed out for him. When the cab got there, he pulled the paper out and checked to make sure the driver had the right place. He did.
Tay hadn’t recognized the street address, but now that he was there he certainly recognized the building. Gallop Green was a group of glittering white, three- and four-story townhouses wrapped in sheets of blue-green glass and clustered around an immense swimming pool. If there was a more prestigious — or expensive — place in Singapore to live, Tay didn’t know what it was.
He got out of the taxi and stood for a moment trying to decide what to make of this. There was no way Mei Lin could live in a place like this on a bank clerk’s salary so how…
Well, of course, he thought. She’s married.
Tay was a little annoyed with himself that the possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind up until now. Generally men just couldn’t help themselves when they met stunningly attractive women like Mei Lin. They always saw such women as beautiful flowers ripe for picking. That these women might already have lives that included husbands, even children, seldom if ever occurred to most men. Tay was certainly no exception to the rule.
By now the uniformed guards at the gate to Gallop Green were eyeing Tay suspiciously. He didn’t blame them. He was starting to eye himself suspiciously as well.
Tay strode up to the guards, held out his police warrant card, and told them why he was there. He asked them not to tell Mei Lin he was on his way to her unit, but he had little doubt the moment he was out of sight they would do so anyway. You didn’t keep a job at a place like this by doing anything other than treating the residents as if no one else mattered.
***
“Well, Inspector, this is a surprise!”
When Mei Lin answered the door of unit D12, she was barefooted and wearing white shorts with what looked like a man’s blue-striped dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the tails hanging out.
Her husband’s shirt, Tay had no doubt. Of course.
“The guards didn’t call up to tell you I was here?”
Mei Lin hesitated, which answered Tay’s question. But what she actually said when she finally responded still came as a surprise.
“Yes, they did call.” She laughed and her laugh made Tay think of wind chimes. “But they said you told them not to.”
Most people would have instinctively lied. Mei Lin hadn’t. Tay wondered if that meant anything. He had no idea.
“I’m sorry to bother you at home,” Tay said. “I went to the bank, but they said you were ill.”
“And you came to check out my story?” she laughed again. “Oh, how exciting! The police have caught me in a lie. Are you taking me in?”
Tay cleared his throat and looked away. He doubted Mei Lin was flirting with him — no, of course she wasn’t — but even the possibility of it made him uncomfortable. Maybe that explained why he was still single.
“I’d like you to look at another picture and see if you recognize the man in it.”
“Well then, Inspector, by all means come it. Your visit is easily the highlight of my day.”
FORTY
THE APARTMENT WAS expensively decorated perfection. It looked like a suite in an extortionately priced European hotel. Well, Tay had never actually been in a suite in an extortionately priced European hotel but, if he had, he was certain it would look exactly like this apartment.
Oriental rugs laid over dark-stained wood floors, furniture color-coordinated with the drapes, and massive bouquets of fresh flowers in giant white vases. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the relentless Singapore sun glinted so brightly on the shimmering, blue-green surface of a huge swimming pool that it made Tay’s eyes water. There wasn’t a discarded newspaper, a half-empty cup, or an abandoned pair of shoes in sight.
“May I offer you something, Inspector? Coffee? Tea, perhaps?”
Tay couldn’t bear to clutter up the living room.
“No,” he said. “Thank you.”
They sat opposite each other on two matching love seats upholstered in yellow silk and Mei Lin smiled expectantly.
“Is this another photograph of Mr. Hysmith with your father, Inspector?”
Tay ignored the question and continued as if she had never asked it.
“Please try to picture in your mind this Mr. Hysmith who has been coming into the bank.”
“Yes?”
“Tell me exactly what he looks like.”
“Well…” Mei Lin leaned back and crossed her legs. She folded one arm into her lap and stretched the other across the back of the love seat. Her shorts were very short and her legs were very attractive. Tay strained to stay focused on her face against the near gravitational force that was pulling his eyes downward.
“Mr. Hysmith is big, rugged looking. Well over six feet tall and heavy, but not fat. Muscular. A powerful man.”
Tay felt another frisson of jealously as he listened to Mei Lin describe the man who had been coming to HSBC to access the safety deposit box. No woman would ever describe Tay the way Mei Lin had described Joseph Hysmith and the recognition of that scratched at him somehow.
“Mr. Hysmith has very deep brown eyes,” she continued, “and light-colored hair, and he wears his hair cut very short, military-style, close to his head. His hands are huge. They look like the hands of a man who has done physical work for most of his life.”
“How do you know he was the man you picked out from that photograph I showed you at the bank? That photo was taken nearly forty years ago. How can you be certain it’s the same man?”
“His eyes.”
“His eyes?”
Mei Lin laughed again and the sound of it tickled Tay’s heart.
“You’re just a man, Inspector. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“Well…” Mei Lin tilted her head to one side and smiled. “A woman can see a man’s eyes in a way another man never can. She sees things in them that you can’t. The man in this picture and Joseph Hysmith have the same eyes. That’s all there is to it.”
“That seems to me a pretty weak—”
“Haven’t you ever heard it said that the eyes are the windows to the soul, Inspector? A woman can look straight into those windows. And no matter how much a man ages, his soul never changes.”
Tay wasn’t sure what to say to that. In fact, it sounded very much like the beginnings of a conversation that threatened to address certain considerations with respect to his own soul, and he wanted absolutely nothing to do with that.
Tay leaned forward and took hi
s phone out of his pocket. He fiddled with the buttons until he found the picture of Vincent Ferrero he had taken in front of his house the morning Ferrero had shown up and tried and scare him away from the Woodlands case. He hadn’t seen any resemblance between Ferrero and the umbrella man before, and he wasn’t sure he did now, but some combination of synapses had snapped shut as he slept and he had found a message waiting from him when he woke up.
Ask Mei Lin if Vincent Ferrero is the umbrella man.
It seemed inconceivable. But if Ferrero was the umbrella man, then…
Tay stopped dwelling on his skepticism.
“I want you to look at this picture and tell me if you recognize the man.”
Mei Lin nodded and he handed his telephone to her.
She took it and he watched her eyes go to the photograph of Vincent Ferrero that he had taken.
“Yes, of course,” she said almost immediately. “That’s Mr. Hysmith.”
“This is the man who has been coming into the bank and accessing a safety deposit box under the name Joseph Hysmith. You’re certain?”
“Yes. Absolutely certain.”
“And this is the same man who was in the picture with my father?”
“Yes. He’s bigger now. Not just tall like he was in that photo, but…well, much more filled out. More muscular. Still, it’s him. I’m certain of it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“His eyes, Inspector. His eyes.”
That sounded like nothing but romantic crap to Tay, but what did he really know about what women saw in men and what it was they remembered about them? The shortest book in the world would have the title, What Samuel Tay Knows About Women.
Still, he had no real doubt that Mei Lin was right. She thought Vincent Ferrero was Mr. Hysmith and that Mr. Hysmith was the umbrella man. Tay’s subconscious also thought Vincent Ferrero was Mr. Hysmith and that Mr. Hysmith was the umbrella man. Although he could never explain it to anyone, Tay believed in the leaps his subconscious made while he slept. They were always right on the nose, even if he didn’t understand how they could be. So he trusted them.
When you came right down to it, he supposed, that was romantic crap as well.
Umbrella Man (9786167611204) Page 23
