Singapore Noir

by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

  The risks were worth it. This was his one true chance at love, and for once he did not care about work, or being sensible, or what the world might think. Evelyn was the love of his life. Mostly it was light and luminosity, but at times the hunger for her burned so strongly that he could think of nothing else.

  He became determined to possess her completely, for them to become one.

  Her WhatsApp today had not been her usual Monday-morning chirp. It had been different, and simple. Pregnant. Really sorry. Don’t know what to do. Had to tell hubby. Mad as hell but wants to see you. Will you meet him?

  The first word thrilled him. He had indeed possessed her. They had indeed become one. But why was she sorry? Did she doubt him? Doubt his strength or resolve?

  It was excitement that gripped him. Not fear or anxiety. Elation even. Bernard was never afraid of a confrontation, or a fight, with another man. He would talk to the husband. Explain that he had not meant to act dishonorably. But now that he and Evelyn were so very much in love, it was too late for niceties of honor. The husband must give way. Bernard would take responsibility for Evelyn and their baby. It was a sign that his life must change. He would resign, get a job in the private sector. Perhaps they could even move elsewhere—Hong Kong? Shanghai?

  Yes, he WhatsApped back without hesitation, I love you. Then a moment later, Don’t worry. And then finally, I’ll take care of it. After another minute he called, to tell her he loved her and they would find their way. He wanted to meet immediately. He was surprised when she asked him to meet her husband first, but decided she must have a reason. He must do as she asked.

  Mark was the husband’s name. He suggested the visitor’s center at the dairy farm entrance to the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. We can walk together, he said. Green is very soothing, and I think we both need to keep calm.

  Bernard had seen pictures of him, but Mark was still surprisingly big. They shook hands and then started to walk. Mark turned off the open path, up the slope toward Bukit Timah Hill, and soon they were alone together, Bernard following Mark. It was cool beneath the forest canopy. Even the light had turned green, filtered as it was by the dense leafy layers. Mark was right, it was peaceful, calming. Then Mark stopped, turned, and looked down at Bernard. The disparity in their height suddenly felt menacing. Bernard glanced around, wondering if he had made a mistake to venture up this trail.

  As if reading his mind, Mark smiled and said, “Don’t worry, Bernard, I’m not going to hit you. Not that I don’t feel like doing so. There’s nothing I’d like better than to bruise your pretty face. What would your constituents say to that, eh?”

  Bernard looked off to the side. Let the man rant for a while. He was obviously hurt. But he couldn’t possibly think that Bernard had been the first, could he? Evelyn had told him there was another before him, though she had not loved that man in the way she loved him. And certainly she did not love Mark, whom she had married too young, when she wanted above all else to leave home, to escape her father, a domineering man who had bullied her mother and alternately spoiled and disparaged young Evelyn, until she lost confidence in herself, only regaining it when she finished university, started working at a private bank, met Mark, and left home.

  After a while, Bernard spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I had not realized . . . I thought you were more . . .” he searched for the right word, “. . . relaxed. I would not have, you know, pressed my suit, but now, now that we are where we are, well, you must understand, we love each other, I mean, she loves me, not you . . .”

  To his surprise, Mark was laughing. “Oh, you are a funny fellow. She loves you, not me. Oh yes. Poor me, lucky you.” Mark grabbed his shoulders. He brought his face close to Bernard’s. “Look, man, love isn’t real. All that’s real is power and money. Don’t you of all people know that?”

  Bernard could see the sweat on Mark’s stubbled chin. But his eyes were not so much angry as cold, as if this was a situation he was familiar with, and this a routine he had practiced before. For once Bernard was unsure, and it made him uneasy. He had expected anger, hurt, shame, the stock reactions of the cuckold. But this was something else.

  Mark released him and turned away. On the uneven ground, Bernard almost stumbled, but then recovered. With his back to Bernard, Mark was talking quietly. “I do have photos. Much better than those of Anwar. Really quite professional, I’d say. But it won’t come to that, will it, Bernard? You like your life, how everyone has to speak politely to you, pretend they agree with you. Big-shot MP, yes? You don’t want to risk any of that, do you?”

  Bernard could not bring himself to speak. He had to pacify the man, promise whatever he asked, and then find Evelyn. Evelyn could get divorced, he could get divorced too, they’d find happiness together, a new life with the new life growing within her. He would resign. His office meant nothing to him, not compared to love and happiness.

  “How much are you worth, Bernard? Not much of a salary these days, I suppose, but how many sweet deals have you been cut into as an MP? Let’s see—ten million, give or take? And I’ll just take one million. Ten percent. Not a lot, I suppose, considering how expensive it is to raise a kid these days. You’ll still have plenty. And then normal life can resume for you.”

  “How do I know you won’t just come back for more?”

  “You don’t.”

  “Can I think about it?”

  “I understand, you want time to talk to Evelyn. She’s in love with you, she’ll save you. But here, take this.”

  Bernard took the piece of paper. Details for an account at a bank in the Cayman Islands.

  “You can talk to anyone you want, just make sure that one million dollars goes to this account by Friday. Otherwise, you’ll see yourself online by Saturday.” Mark pushed past him and headed down the slope. “I hope we don’t have to meet again, so have a good life, Bernard. Have a wonderful life.”

  Bernard had not known what to do until that moment. And perhaps he still did not know the right thing to do. But he was a chilli padi by nature, and Mark’s words were fighting words. One thing about the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is that there is plenty of loose granite lying around, it having been a site for multiple quarries, now disused. Another thing is that in the midafternoon on a weekday it is deathly quiet. And the quarries are deep and filled with water. There’d be at least a week before the body was found, and in the meantime, Bernard would have liquidated what he could and he and Evelyn would be thousands of miles away. How happy she would be to get free from that monster! And he too would be happy—it was escape for both of them. Fulfillment too.

  * * *

  He met her that evening at his apartment in River Valley. They held each other for a long while and then pulled apart. She looked uncertainly at him.

  “I’m so sorry, Bernard. How did your meeting with Mark go?”

  “Don’t be sorry, dearest. We’ll find our way.”

  “Of course, darling. But how did it go?”

  “It was unexpected, I have to say.”

  “What do you mean? Is the amount too much?”

  “No, it’s not that . . .” His voice trailed off. She had known he was going to ask for money. “He told you?”

  “I was surprised too. What are you going to do?”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “What choice do we have? Perhaps if we pay him off, he’ll leave us alone. Oh, Bernard, we could be so happy together. I know it’s terrible but will you pay him for me, for our life together?”

  “Do I need to pay him? We’ll bring up our child together. I don’t care if he goes to the press.”

  Evelyn looked alarmed. “Bernard, my love, pay him. Pay him quickly. It’s the only way we can be together.”

  Happiness, Bernard thought, is about the little things—being with the person you love and who loves you, wherever in the world you might be. Waking up to her in the morning, or watching her sleep at night. Walking hand-in-hand along the beach. Shopping together. Sharing a h
ot chocolate. A million little things. But love is about the big things—moments of choice, moments of sacrifice. And he had done what he had done for love, for Evelyn, to protect their life together.

  He loved her. And she had played him. He would have faced anything with her by his side. But that was not how it was going to be, he understood this now. For a moment, hopelessness gripped him. What was the point of a life without Evelyn? Then from the darkness it was as if his mother were speaking to him, telling him not to waste time, and warning him of the long-haired woman in the shadows. He knew then that he would not succumb, would not die in Evelyn’s embrace, would not watch her grow strong as his life ebbed from him. She’d had the whole damn forest to choose from and she’d picked the wrong tree.

  “Yes,” he said, “I’ll pay him. I told you not to worry, I told you I’d take care of it.”

  “Oh, Bernard, I feel so safe and secure when I’m with you, when I hold you.”

  He cupped her head in his arms and lifted her face so he could kiss her. His thumbs were at her windpipe, and he kissed her half a dozen, no, a dozen times. To his surprise, it was no harder with a woman. Or perhaps, he thought as her eyes closed, it’s true what they say—the second time is always easier.

  SMILE, SINGAPORE

  BY COLIN CHEONG

  Ang Mo Kio

  He had never been in an interrogation room. Where was the two-way mirror? The TV shows had those, but it was absent here. Where were the air conditioners? He had heard so much about those. Six, they said, at full blast, and they would wet you first. There was only one humming here. Perhaps the rooms with the many air conditioners were reserved for political prisoners. There were no cameras either. Wouldn’t it be better to have those? To record everything a suspect said? And then he smiled. They could say whatever they wanted. A video camera couldn’t lie.

  He looked down at his hands. They had not handcuffed him and had let him rest them on the cold edge of the table. Perhaps they felt sorry for him. He was an old man, after all. The faceless officers who found him had been young, a sergeant and a corporal, barely adult. He had done everything they asked, resisted them in nothing. He had held his hands out to be cuffed—not meekly, but as a man who knew he had broken the law, though did not believe he had done wrong.

  That was an hour ago. Perhaps more. He did not know. They had taken his wallet, his belt, his phone, his door keys, the keys to his cab. He let his eyelids droop—not closing them completely, but enough to shut out the fluorescent light and leave a slit for him to see the dull gray of the tabletop before him and his own elbows, jutting thinly beyond the fraying short sleeves of his shirt. He was not cold, he was not hungry, he did not need to piss. There was nothing to distract him. He put his hands together, left fingers over right, the tips of his thumbs touching, hands forming a circle, as he had been taught at the meditation center. He could meditate.

  The door swung open. The old man looked up. There was a guy in the standard civil service attire—white long-sleeved shirt, sleeves rolled up, dark pressed trousers, formal shoes that made no noise when he entered the room. He had a clipboard. Another man dressed just like him followed, and a uniformed officer closed the door behind them.

  “Mr. Tan,” he heard the first man saying as he sat down. He nodded. He looked at the clipboard. There was some kind of form on it and they had already filled in his particulars, recorded probably soon after his arrest. They went through the items and he nodded or murmured yes to all their questions.

  His name, Tan Seng Hock, his national registration identity card number, the particulars of his taxi driver’s license. His address at Block 533, Avenue 5 in Ang Mo Kio. Not his home, just a room he rented. His landlady was probably in another room just like this one with another pair of officers. He hoped she was all right. She was probably not taking this well at all. She had teenagers, two boys, one thirteen, the other fifteen. Still too young to be left on their own without a mother—or a father. He had tried, in a way, to be a good role model for them, to take them out like a father or uncle would have, helping them with their math homework. He had slept with their mother, but only once. She had asked him for money after that. Not money for sex, she was quick to add. But pocket money. The kind due to a girlfriend, a woman you fucked, over and above the rent. He said he could not afford a relationship like that. He knew where the money went. There was a Singapore Turf Club betting shop not far from their block, across the MRT train tracks, close to the Courts furniture place. She had left it at that and never brought it up again. Or mentioned sex again. He did not think so well of himself to ask. Besides, the rental was cheap and there were the boys to think about. He did not need a quarrel. Peace, that was all he asked for.

  “Mr. Tan,” the first officer began again. The old man looked up. He already knew what the question would be. “Where did you get the gun?”

  “It was in my taxi. I was cleaning the taxi. My last passenger vomited in the back.”

  “Can you remember when?”

  He nodded. How could he ever forget the night he found his gun? Half a year ago, on Christmas Eve. He had been driving at night, something he did not like doing, but he knew it would be busy. Besides, the boys didn’t want to do any more math homework. His last passenger was a white man he picked up at Clarke Quay; he had driven him to the man’s condominium on the East Coast, the Bayshore.

  “Can you describe him?”

  The old man shook his head. The passenger was tall, had brown hair in a short, stylish cut, and was dressed in a tight shirt and jeans. But he could not put a face to that memory. All white men looked the same to him. They only varied in height and body fat—and how much hair they still had left. He looked like any drunk white man, although he seemed quite steady when he got into the taxi. And it was six months ago. All he remembered was the man telling him he needed to puke, but there was no place to stop on the expressway and he had vomited shortly before the turnoff to his condo. The passenger had been apologetic and had given him a fifty-dollar bill and told him to keep the change to get the cab cleaned. The old man could still remember driving all the way home to Ang Mo Kio after that, his windows down, the sour stink of the puke still fresh in his mind. Tequila probably. He had found parts of a worm when he took out the mats. And the gun under the front passenger seat. The old man had dropped the revolver and it made a loud thud on the floor of the cab. He did not remember how long he spent just staring at it, listening to the wind rustling like spirits through the leaves above him. With the puke on it, it looked like a stillborn child and he did not dare to touch it at first. Then, without thinking, he dropped a wet cloth on it and picked it up. He realized his mistake as he wiped the muck off it. Any prints would have been wiped off too. And sitting there in his hand, with his prints, the gun had made itself his.

  “I wrapped the gun in the wet cloth,” he told the officers. “I put it on the front seat and I cleaned the cab.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police immediately?”

  Why didn’t he? After the initial shock, the initial fear, he continued furiously cleaning the cab, trying to get the damned stink out and knowing it would be days before the smell completely left. But he was also suddenly alert, completely aware of the thing that now sat in the passenger seat. And the longer he waited, the less willing he became to make that 999 call, even though he knew it was the only sane thing to do. What if its owner came looking for it? Would they kill him for it? But how would they find him? Every fare had been a roadside pickup. There had been so many—and many had been short trips. Anyone could have left it in any cab. And he realized after a while that he was looking for a reason not to call the police.

  After cleaning the cab, he had sat down in the driver’s seat and cleaned the gun very, very gently, wiped off all the puke, then carefully felt around it until something gave a little, then unlatched the cylinder and let it fall open. He still had not put his finger on the trigger or his hand around the grip. There were five chambers and four were fi
lled. He tilted the gun slowly and the bullets slid out, clicking against each other as they dropped into his open palm. Four of them. He lay them on the passenger seat and continued cleaning the revolver.

  With the bullets out, he felt safer with his gun. He spun the cylinder then snapped his wrist sideways to close it—just as he remembered from the movies. He put his hand around the grip, touching lightly on the trigger, pointing it at the floor, and a little red spot of light appeared between his feet, between the accelerator and the brake. He jumped—then realized it was just a laser spot, just like the laser pointers he had once used at training sessions when he still had his old job as maintenance supervisor. Before he had been replaced by a foreign talent from China willing to do the same job for less money.

  “Did you know it was a police gun?”

  No, he had not thought about it. His gun was all black and he vaguely remembered police guns having some sort of wood grip. His had black rubber. He shook his head. He had not even known that police guns had laser sights. All he had been thinking about was how he was going to keep it concealed at home and when he was out. There was nothing in his room that could be locked—not the drawers, not the cupboard. Until that moment, he’d had nothing worth securing. He dropped his takings into a cash deposit machine every morning before he began to pick up fares. He did not even own a watch. There was a clock on the dashboard. He had a cheap Nokia phone, the kind sold at petrol stations, and an M1 plan that cost just ten dollars without caller ID. He had three shirts, two pairs of trousers, four pairs of boxers, three pairs of socks, his money pouch, and a flight bag from a long time ago, when he and his former wife had gone on a Chan Brothers tour to Malaysia.