Tay wasn’t so sure. He was just beginning to wonder how big this reservation actually was, and he was even less sure exactly what might be on or off it. Regardless, he decided not to argue the point, at least not right then.
“If that’s all the questions you have for me,” the ambassador stood up without waiting for Tay to say whether it was or was not, “I’m going to turn you back over to Ms. Parks now.”
When the ambassador offered his hand, Tay stood and took it, although he had a fleeting desire to refuse.
“If Tony needs you, he’ll be in touch,” the ambassador said as they shook hands. “Meanwhile, Cally will be your contact at the embassy. Call her if you come up with anything we ought to know.”
Tay was being dismissed like a schoolboy and it made him even angrier than he already was, but he held his tongue and mumbled something innocuous. When Cally stood up and opened the door for him, he left the ambassador’s office without another word.
Outside in the hallway Tay bit back his fury over the way the ambassador had patted him on the head and tossed him out.
Suddenly a line from an old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie popped unbidden into his head. First the marine behind the glass in the embassy lobby had made Tay think of a Clint Eastwood movie and now here he was thinking of a Schwarzenegger flick. What was it about being in the American embassy that caused Tay to keep thinking about American movies? Perhaps it was only natural, the inevitable result of the flood tide of Hollywood compost celebrating the immoderation and excesses of the American self-image in which the world was awash. Perhaps that was how the whole world saw Americans now, as if they were nothing more than characters in one of their own movies.
Tay couldn’t call to mind the name of the Schwarzenegger movie he was thinking of, but he had no trouble at all summoning up the line from it that expressed exactly how he felt now.
Yes, indeed, Tay thought. I goddamned well
NINETEEN
When the door closed behind Tay there was a silence in the ambassador’s office. Tony DeSouza, who had hardly spoken the whole time Tay had been there, was the first to break it.
“I don’t think we’re going to have a problem,” he said.
The ambassador twisted his head around and gave DeSouza a look.
“He seems tame enough,” Dewey Garland agreed. “He certainly wasn’t asking any tough questions today and I didn’t see anything that suggests to me he ever will.”
Marc Reagan wasn’t so sure, but Dewey and Tony were the professionals when it came to that sort of thing so he didn’t think it was his place to contradict them.
The ambassador said nothing either. He scratched the back of his neck. He moved some files from one side of his desk to the other. But he said nothing.
The silence grew heavy. Marc fidgeted on the couch. He felt like he was the only man in the room who didn’t have a clue what the punch line to this whole story really was. He was just a staff assistant after all. Nobody told him a damn thing. Finally, when he couldn’t stand it a minute longer, Marc pushed himself to his feet.
“Will there be anything else, sir?”
The ambassador looked momentarily startled at the sound of Marc’s voice, as if he had forgotten other people were there in the room with him, but he recovered quickly.
“No, Marc. Thanks.” The ambassador came to his feet in the customary gesture of bringing a meeting to a close. “That’s it, fellows.” The other men rose as well and made their way to the door with the usual pleasantries.
“Stay for a minute, Tony,” the ambassador said. DeSouza stopped, shutting the door after the others had left.
The ambassador walked to the windows and stood with his hands clasped behind him looking out at something. DeSouza walked over and stood next to him. They inspected the trees together in complete silence for a while.
“How do you feel?” DeSouza eventually asked.
“How do I feel?” the ambassador snorted. “How the fuck do you think I feel? I feel like I’ve been gut shot.”
DeSouza nodded. There wasn’t really anything he could say to that.
“What did you really think?” the ambassador asked. “About this guy.”
“You mean the Singapore cop? Tay?”
“Yeah. Him.”
“He won’t be any problem.”
The ambassador grunted again and slipped back into silence.
“Do you have anybody yet?” the ambassador asked after a while. “Somebody you can put this on, I mean.”
Desouza said nothing.
“Just staging an investigation isn’t going to cut it, you know, Tony. We need to ID somebody and bury him. And we need to do it quickly before this gets out of hand.”
“It’s taken care of.”
The ambassador shot DeSouza a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you really want to know the details?”
“No, I just want to know what you’re…” The ambassador hesitated. “I guess not. No details, no.”
“Just take my word for it then. The matter is taken care of.”
“Goddamn it to hell, Tony, I don’t want Tay sticking his nose somewhere it doesn’t belong.”
“I’ve already told you,” DeSouza said, drawing his voice out in an exaggerated show of patience. “Tay isn’t going to be a problem. He’s a typical Singaporean. These people are scared of authority. They’re taught from the day they’re born to go along and get along. Tay will keep his nose clean at all costs. He’s not going to make waves.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Fuckin’ A, I’m sure of that.”
DeSouza glanced at the ambassador’s face and was surprised to see there the beginnings of something that looked almost like a smile.
“What?” DeSouza asked.
“I’m not so sure.”
“You’re not?”
“No,” the ambassador said as he went back to examining the trees outside his office window. “I’m not so sure of that at all.”
TWENTY
“You want to take the elevator?” Cally asked Tay when they were outside the ambassador’s office. “Or the stairs.”
He looked at Cally and said nothing. Fishing through his pockets, he pulled out a box of Marlboros.
“I’m sorry, Inspector, but smoking isn’t allowed in the embassy.”
Tay tapped a cigarette out of the box anyway, briefly rotated it between his fingers, and then stuck it into his mouth without lighting it.
“How about sucking?” he asked. “Is sucking allowed?”
