“I’ll have the first dance with Poppy,” said Hannah as she took her seat before Arthur could pull a chair for her.
“What about me?” said Arthur.
“You can get a taxi-girl at a dollar for three dances.”
“You’ll get jealous.”
“No, I won’t,” said Hannah sweetly. “We haven’t taken anything that far.”
“No, we haven’t.”
Just then Poppy gave a raspy wail and grabbed at his crotch, indicating an urge to urinate. He took the boy’s hand. “I’m taking him to the shrubs.” Just as well; the silence after their conversation had grown discomfiting. He thought Hannah appeared a little regretful over her remarks, at least.
After Arthur left with Poppy, Hannah ordered a drink from a liveried, lanky waiter. When it came the air turned heavy with a dreadfully familiar presence. She looked up and met Khun’s gloating eyes.
“This island’s too small for the both of us,” he said, lowering himself into Arthur’s seat.
Hannah looked away. “What are you doing here?”
“The usual.” Khun popped a cigarette between his lips. “Minding my own business and deciding who gets nicked and who doesn’t.” He struck a match.
On the dance floor patrons were twisting to a number by Chubby Checker. Khun puffed a cloud of smoke into the space above him. “So what brought you here?”
“Why ask the obvious?”
“It isn’t obvious, that’s why I asked.” Khun leaned closer. “You’re either on a case or you aren’t.”
“I’m here for leisure.”
Khun guffawed, the sleeves of his shirt taut over his muscled arms. He stuck his nose scarcely an inch from her ear and whispered, “I think I know what you’re up to, dolly. Maybe you could give me some leisure of yours to shut me up.”
“Go to hell.”
Khun inhaled the scent of her perfume. “It’s something I can never get enough of, like money. Something I once had and lost.”
Hannah bolted from her seat and stormed out of the airconditioned hall and the humid night air struck her like a steam bath. Khun sauntered up after her and began roving about like a shark; the end of his cigarette glowed fiercely in the gloom.
“Keep to your end of the agreement, Khun,” Hannah said, stubbornly refusing to look at him.
He placed his hand on the small of her back in the pretence of amity. “I know you deserve better,” he wheedled in a tender voice. “We’ve been good together, haven’t we? We could still be.”
“Leave us alone.”
“Now you have a reason to stay alive.” Khun wrapped his beefy arms around her slender waist. “I don’t blame you; I know how lonely it gets. But careful, my dolly, now you have something to lose.”
The leverage Khun possessed was evident. Hannah knew she had been careless. She briefly considered blowing herself up there and then, taking him along.
But in the midst of their conversation they had failed to notice Poppy’s arrival. He was standing beside them with a stick of kacang putih in his hand. He was doggedly chewing away, masticating the sugared peanuts between his rear molars and shifting his gaze from one grown-up to another.
Arthur came up from behind him and wedged himself between Hannah and Khun with deliberate recklessness, putting a friendly arm on Khun’s shoulder.
Khun, being the larger man, regarded his aggressor with a downward gaze and showed his teeth in a forced grin, his fists poised to deliver a knock-out blow.
“A hundred a week,” Arthur blurted. “That’s more than twice of what I’ve paid you for the documents.”
Behind furrowed brows Khun sneered at his unexpected offer. “If it’s about her, you’ve got it wrong, my friend.”
“I’m paying for her services,” said Arthur. “Eight weeks.”
“What makes you think she’s up on the market?”
“Do me a favour, Khun,” Arthur grovelled. “Everyone says you are a reasonable man.”
Khun shook his head, as if admiring Arthur’s gumption. “She’s going to cost you.”
“Whatever that’s in my means to pay.”
“One thousand six. Eight weeks.”
“One thousand four.” Arthur counter-offered. “That’s all I can afford.”
Khun grinned at Hannah and stuck a fresh cigarette between his lips. “He just saved your ass for the next eight weeks.” He lit the cigarette with a match, took a long draw and popped a smoke ring into Arthur’s face. “A hundred seventy-five a week, every Thursday, number forty-three, Orh Kio Tau. Look for Kiong, he’ll work out the interest.”
Khun swaggered away. Hannah was lost in a flood of memories that reminded her of a vulnerability she had never confessed to. Killing Khun was never an easy option. There would be consequences, and CODEX had punitive measures that made death desirable, a luxury even. Once, she had sought to leave the service and had paid dearly for it.
Poppy was crouching by her feet, wearied by the prolonged standing. She looked at him and suddenly felt drawn to him. Amid her turbulent existence he was a fading glimmer of innocence. She found his presence calming. It put her in a trance, somewhere far away, living out the emotions she thought she had kept buried.
“I’m paying for peace,” Arthur told her. “And it’s worth every cent.”
Hannah’s lips quivered, teetering on the verge of speech. But she held back because she was suddenly filled with distaste for the way Arthur had bailed her out of the situation. She had never needed help, certainly not from him. Her heart swelled with pleasure whenever she recalled the day they met, yet there were times like this she wished they hadn’t. Life would’ve been easier. She would’ve remained impervious to whatever came her way.
Yet when he took her hands into his she did not resist. She didn’t know why, and it set in her an inexplicable self-loathing.
His face began moving towards her and she stiffened. It was the best she could do.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked.
“Not on the lips.”
She closed her eyes. A pleasant sense of mystery accompanied Arthur’s request. The anticipation offered unexpected warmth, like the caress of a bed beneath a wearied body.
Arthur kissed her between her eyes and she broke into tears. The tenderness of it carried a terrible sorrow. Her breath slipped, her shoulders convulsed. And Arthur held her.
It was something she ought to have forgotten.
23
RETRIEVAL
MARCO PERCHES A palm-sized display over the steering wheel. It shows the driveway, the garden, and Cheok sweeping away where the trimmed branches have fallen. Nothing peculiar, nothing happening. The door opens and a colleague sinks into the seat beside him with takeaway coffee in condensed milk tins. Marco takes his share, holding it carefully by a string tied to the top of the tin.
“Status went up a notch after the fire,” says the colleague.
Marco drinks and grimaces when the liquid scalds him. “Ghosts found something?”
“Got some intel from our Tracker too.”
“What’s our Chronie hiding?”
The colleague shrugs and blows at his coffee. “Eyes only to the Seers. They’re the brains, we’re the brawn.”
“Being out in the field has its benefits, Fabian.” Marco bites into his toast. “How long until Internment?”
“Retrieval estimates three days, stretched. They might do it in two.”
Fabian hands Marco a brown paper folder. It opens to a personnel profile that bears a coloured mugshot of Cheok in relative youth. “Nothing new,” says he, easing out his toast from its paper bag. “The usual two-to-one config.”
Marco tosses the folder over the dashboard. He ponders, and the colleague chews his toast in dreadful anticipation of what is coming.