"Here's what you came for, Xiang," he said, sliding a brown manilla envelope to the big, long-haired man seated opposite him. "Odd how so much effort goes into providing such a slim package. But it's just that way when you're trading in information. It weighs nothing and everything at the same time, lah"
Xiang just looked at him, then silently reached out for the envelope and lifted it off the table. Fat B tried not to show that he'd noticed the kris tattoo on the back of his hand, thinking his interest wouldn't be at all appreciated… not by this retrograde brute. Still, he continued to regard him with hooded fascination. In the old days, his people had run around the Malaysian jungles stark naked — or just about — their skin covered with dragons, scorpions, and the like, flaunting those tattoos as symbols of courage and manhood.
His eyelids half lowered, Fat B wondered if the muscular Iban's entire body was adorned with such markings, and considered what an impressive sight that would be. Impressive and, no doubt, very painfully achieved.
Seemingly oblivious to the barkeeper's scrutiny, Xiang unclasped the envelope, folded back its flap, and looked inside.
Fat B watched and waited. Pop music squalled from stereo speakers at the four corners of the room, Eastern lutes, harps, and cymbals looping discordantly over Western-style synthesizers and electric guitars. Strobes splashed the foil-draped walls with violet light. Bar girls in short skirts and tight, swoop-necked blouses, and with too much makeup on their faces, laughed showily with the men who were paying for their drinks. Most of the women carried small purses that opened only after they led their companions into the staircase behind the barroom, or up to the small, private rooms on the building's second floor. Then they would make their illicit transactions, willing flesh for cold cash, fifty percent of which went into Fat B's pocket.
For no particular reason, Fat B thought suddenly of an ancient Chinese expression: Everything can be eaten.
His lips puckered thoughtfully, he stared across the room at the pair of men who had arrived with Xiang. They hovered near the entrance in their shabby clothes, one dragging on a cigarette and looking directly back at him, the other gazing upward at the wall, apparently studying the painted folk masks. Both also would have the dagger tattoo on their hands, of course.
Glancing cautiously over each shoulder to make sure he wasn't being watched, Xiang undipped the envelope and looked inside. It contained a stack of nine or ten photographs. Reaching in with one hand, he pulled them out just far enough to expose their upper borders, and then gave them a quick scan, riffling their edges with his thumb, ignoring the sheet of paper clipped to the last snapshot. Then he returned them to the envelope, closed the flap, and looked back up at Fat B.
"Who's the girl?" he said in English.
"It's all in the little fact sheet I enclosed. Her name is Kirsten Chu and she is employed by a company called Monolith Technologies. Very attractive, don't you think?" Fat B offered the pirate a relaxed smile. "It's unfortunate her parents stuck her with a Western name, but I believe she was born and educated in Britain. So it goes."
Xiang stared at him, his eyes flat. "You know what I mean. I didn't expect there to be two of them."
Fat B tried to look as if there was nothing about the envelope's contents that should have required explanation.
"Listen," he said. "She's just a beautiful lure dangling at the end of a very short line, you understand? Her movements are easy to track. Stay on her and she'll lead you to the American."
"What's their connection?"
"I don't ask, our employers don't tell."
"She a national?"
Fat B waited a moment before he replied, listening to shrieky Chinese vocals pierce a loud disco rhythm thudding from the sound system. Ordinarily he enjoyed the ratcheted-up volume and uneasy merging of musical traditions, but now it was all starting to grate on him, the sweeps of electronic sound jangling his nerves, the female rap singer's falsetto highs tearing into his eardrums like steel spikes.
He'd been optimistic things would go more smoothly.
He took a deep breath, exhaled, then finally nodded, his smile tightening at the corners.
"Don't make more out of this than there is," he said. "It isn't that big a deal."
"Bullshit. You think I'm stupid? An American with no business being in this country disappears, it's one thing to clean it up afterward. But a citizen? A woman! You've got to be joking. Something goes wrong and we're caught, I can look forward to a lot worse than six strokes of the rotan"
Fab B chuckled. "In Singapore, a fellow with my habits and appetites is liable to receive that sort of punishment just for getting out of bed in the morning. It might be said that our system of justice stems directly from Christian notions of original sin."
Xiang looked at him with his dark, empty eyes but said nothing.
Apparently, Fat B thought, his little stab at humor had gone over the ah beng's head. In fact, he himself was no longer smiling, his mood having taken a sharp and rather abrupt downturn in the past few seconds. It wasn't as if the money was coming out of his own pocket, but he didn't like being interposed between this thug and their mutual employers. Negotiation wasn't his favorite activity, and he'd hoped — perhaps foolishly — that the pirate would simply take the envelope and leave.
"Really, what's the problem?" he said. "If you can grab both of them alive, fine. But it's this Blackburn who's truly valuable to our employers. Your main concern with the woman should be making certain she isn't left behind as a witness."
"If this is so easy, why couldn't your people take care of it? They followed her. They took the pictures. They could have gone ahead with the next step."
"We each have different ways of making ourselves useful. This country is where I live, you understand? I'm here for the long term. You're in and out, lah" Fat B shrugged again. "Let's not waste any more breath discussing it. We're both already committed, after all."
Xiang was silent. Fat B stared past him at the door, waiting for him to make up his mind, anxious for their transaction to be concluded. How had he wound up haggling with the brutish creature? The whole distasteful episode had given him a headache.
He waited some more, watching a couple of grimy men step in from the alley and then head over to the bar.
"All right," the pirate said at last. "But I better get the rest of my money soon as it's done. You better make sure of it."
Fat B looked at him with quiet malice.
"Of course," he said, nodding. "It will be my pleasure."
The two men regarded each other a moment without exchanging another word. Then Xiang stuffed the envelope containing the photos under his denim jacket, pushed his chair back from the table with his feet, got up, strode to the entrance, and departed, his two companions falling in at his rear.
A small hiss slipping through his front teeth, Fat B sat very still and watched the door swing shut behind them.
Blackburn had picked up the puppet at an open-air bazaar — this was a while back, during Dipvali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. Needing a break from his responsibilities at the ground station, he had taken a few days off and gone to the coast to enjoy the frenetic celebration, taking in the sidewalk dancers, musicians, and magicians, sampling the delicious curries and satays, browsing the crafts stalls, and just strolling at his leisure amid the exuberant banners, floral decorations, sprays of colored rice, and endless strings of candles, lamps, and lightbulbs brightening every door and window.