enough to give Kirby all the confirmation he needed that Gordian was thinking the exact same thing he was.
It was, he guessed, time they aired what was on their minds.
'Gord, do you believe this takeover bid was orchestrated?' he asked, the words leaping out of his mouth before caution could prevail. 'That Armitage has been going at you with the intention of destroying shareholder confidence and—'
'And provoking a sell-off,' Gordian said, nodding. ' This whole thing reeks of behind-the-scenes manipulation.'
Kirby inhaled, exhaled. He could feel the silence of the room pressing down on him with a weight that was almost tangible.
'If that's true,' he said, 'it would at least suggest that Armitage is in somebody's pocket.'
'Yes.' Gordian's tone was flat. 'It would.'
The two men faced each other soberly, their eyes holding.
'You have any idea who that somebody might be?' Kirby asked.
Gordian sat there quietly while the antique clock across the room ticked off a full minute.
'No,' he replied at last, hoping his sincerity would be accepted without challenge.
He was, after all, lying through his teeth.
Chapter Three
'Take my word for it, this here country would be the perfect retirement spot for Barney the Dinosaur,' an American expatriate in Singapore once told a visitor from New York City. Or so he was quoted in the press, at any rate.
The comment — which was made in response to an inquiry about where some risque entertainment might be found, and would later become famous throughout the island — was overheard by a magazine writer amid the cacophonous chirping, tweeting, and trilling of innumerable performing birds. It was a Sunday morning, and Singaporean bird fanciers, mostly ethnic Chinese, had brought their thrushes, mata putehs, and sharmas out for the weekly avian singing competition at the intersection of Tiong Bahru and Seng Poh Roads, hanging their bamboo cages from specially built trellises above the public benches and outdoor cafe tables lining the street.
'You want cheap thrills, you got literally two options: dream X-rated tonight, or head on over to Fat B's, at the east end,' the expat had continued to the utter mystification of his visiting friend… and the gleeful amusement of the eavesdropping writer, who, realizing she'd stumbled upon a perfect opener for her regular Lifestyles column, listened carefully while the birds peeped and cheeped their bright, vacant melodies into the sunshiny air.
Indeed, Fat B's, a decadent hole-in-the-wall tucked away behind a rotted shop-house facade in a narrow Geylang District larong, was unquestionably the seediest bar on the island republic. It was also a very busy place, drawing patrons night after night despite the stringent national morals laws, clinging to its grubby existence like some resistant bacilli on an otherwise scrubbed and sanitized operating room surface. Exactly why authorities tolerated it was anyone's guess, although there were rumors of ongoing bribes to police officials, and compromising photographs that had been waved over the head of a high-placed government minister as insurance against a shutdown.
With its crumbling walls and ceiling covered with purple foil, bathed in black light, and decorated with giant crepe-paper rafflesias, painted wooden folk masks, blowpipes, bead strings, dragon banners, and century-old human skulls that had once hung in the longhouses of Borneo headhunters, the interior of the bar was outdone in crassness only by its owner, Fat B… who, contrary to what his name suggested, was not fat at all, but physically slight, and had gained a reputation for being a bold exclamation point of a man through a mixture of conspicuously non- Singaporean aggressiveness and flamboyance, characteristics he was supposed to have inherited from his wealthy Straits Chinese ancestors. Those who had business dealings with him also knew of a certain hard, forbidding look that became evident in his eyes when his anger or suspicion was aroused, giving him, at such times, the appearance of a wary crocodile.
Tonight Fat B was wearing a collarless yellow silk shirt printed with colorful explosions of peonies, black sharkskin slacks, a diamond stud in his right earlobe, and jade-encrusted rings on eight of his fingers. His jet-black hair was slicked straight back over his head and had an almost buffed appearance. He sat at his usual table in the rear of the bar, his back to the wall, keeping a watchful eye on every coming and going at the door.
'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
