Aunty Lee's Deadly Specials (15 page)

Instead he said, “It hasn’t been so long, you know.”

“Almost two months now.”

Timothy shook his head. “Don’t worry, that’s not long at all. People go away, they
forget to tell their friends—it’s no big deal.”

Patrick sat silently, obviously unconvinced.

“Anyway, it’s up to his family to file a missing-persons report if they are worried.
Your friend might just have gone on a holiday or something.”

“His family is all in Malaysia. I got in touch with them, they haven’t heard from
him. I don’t think they know he’s missing yet. He didn’t really stay in touch with
them so . . .”

If Patrick disappeared how long would it be before his brother and parents noticed?
Timothy wondered. He eyed the hot and cold desserts stall, debating whether a
chendol
or
tau suan
would be most worth the calories. His pork noodles had been satisfying but this difficult
conversation needed a sweet touch.

“Wait till the family gets worried. For all you know, your buddy met someone special
and isn’t ready to tell the rest of you yet. You want
chendol
?”

“No. If Ben met someone else he would have told me. He was very excited about this
big job he was doing at the Sungs’ place. He said soon he would have enough money
to buy us a place together. He didn’t tell me much but I know he was designing some
end-of-life home-care system. He was doing a special power supply and life-support
monitors and everything and he said he was going to get paid a lot. The last time
I saw him he was going to do a final system test and collect his check. He told me
he would buy champagne on the way back. I bought steaks to grill when he got back.
But he never came. And the ceremony was supposed to be last Saturday—”

Staff Sergeant Timothy Pang looked at his brother. Patrick met his gaze, saying nothing
till his younger brother asked.

“Ceremony?”

“We were going to exchange vows, have a commitment ceremony. I know it won’t be legal
here but we wanted to.”

There was a long silence. Patrick did not know why he had said so much. Timothy Pang
was a police officer, even if he was Patrick’s brother.

“How long have you two been together?”

“Five years now.”

Was Timothy going to play the police-officer role and cross-examine instead of help
him? It was too much, on top of all the friends who he knew assumed Ben had got cold
feet and run off. Patrick struggled to his feet, unbalancing his plastic stool so
that it tumbled over.

“Wait.” Timothy reached across the table and took his brother’s wrist in a firm grasp.
“
Kor,
I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Sorry about what? What are you going to do?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know. I’m sorry you never told me you found somebody special.”

Patrick stared uncertainly, all his panicked bravado melting. He remembered his quiet
younger brother again. A year younger, Timothy had somehow managed to be outside Patrick’s
classroom at recess time every day for two months after class bullies gave him a black
eye. They had sensed he was different even then. He didn’t know what Timothy had sensed.
Timothy had already been a school hero, a Schools Nationals judo champion and captain
of the mixed-martial-arts team. Somehow the features that looked so effeminate on
Patrick had made Timothy the most handsome boy in school. And every day he had been
there on the flimsiest pretexts. “
Kor,
can you explain this maths problem to me?” “
Kor,
I forgot my money, can you lend me fifty cents?” Timothy’s presence had been enough
to ensure Patrick was never picked on again.

Suddenly Patrick was close to tears. He could not remember why he had so dreaded telling
his brother.

“I thought you would be angry.” It was easier to say “angry” than “ashamed” or “disgusted.”

“Of course I’m angry with you. I’m furious. You plan to have a commitment ceremony
and never tell your only brother. Who wouldn’t be furious?

Patrick could not speak.

“Look,” Staff Sergeant Timothy Pang said. “We’ll find him somehow. But if I find out
this guy walked out on you without a word, I’m going to disappear him myself!”

Patrick Pang’s Flat

“You sure it’s okay for them to come here to talk to you?” Timothy looked around the
small front room. There was an anniversary photograph of their parents on a side table,
next to one of himself receiving a framed commendation. The latter looked as though
it had been cut out of the newspaper and slipped into an IKEA frame. Timothy felt
moved. He had always assumed Pat thought himself too good for his family and wanted
nothing to do with them.

Though there was no good reason, the thought of Aunty Lee and Inspector Salim coming
to visit and possibly investigating his brother was making SS Timothy Pang uncomfortable.

“Yes, it’s okay. I want to talk to anybody who might help.”

“You want to come back for dinner tonight? Ma and Pa would be happy to see you.”

No they wouldn’t, Patrick thought.

“Not tonight,” he said. “Thanks.”

Patrick Pang and Benjamin Ng rented a flat on the top floor of one of the older Housing
Development Board projects. The weather- and water-stained common space beneath the
block and wheezing lift showed their age, but the grime-stained walls concealed higher
ceilings and larger rooms than would be found in newer housing projects.

As the lift made its way up slowly, Aunty Lee thought how unfortunate it was that
public housing was shrinking as the population grew in size and number. In contrast
to the faded gray walls on the ground floor, on the nineteenth floor the wall of the
open corridor leading to Patrick and Benjamin’s apartment was painted pale peach.
As Aunty Lee walked with Inspector Salim toward the unit at the farthest end of the
corridor, painted birds and butterflies appeared on the wall, then twining tendrils
and leaves and trees leading to an arrangement of potted dwarf palms, bougainvillea,
and flowering sweet peas that flanked the dark wooden doorway. There was a pleasant
warm breeze carrying a hint of sea salt from the shining waters far away and far below
that could just be glimpsed in between the other buildings around them.

Aunty Lee was intrigued. Something about these plants and painted walls signaled an
important connection but she could not pin it down yet. One drawback of growing older
was how many more memories there were to sift through before you found what you wanted.
Aunty Lee had never liked the idea of living on anything higher than the third floor
(what if the lifts broke down?) but at the moment, to her surprise, she found it very
pleasant being elevated high above the noise and business of city life.

“I’m sure this is illegal,” Inspector Salim murmured. “Graffiti is not allowed on
public walls without permission. And fire regulations state that common corridors
should be left clear.”

“But it looks nice,” Aunty Lee said.

Salim pressed the doorbell (the belly button of a miniature laughing Buddha statue)
and was rewarded by a cacophony of birdsong. He winced. Aunty Lee was delighted.

“Yes! You are the one! I saw you at the Sungs’ house trying to get in the gate that
day when the people died!”

Patrick had stood up as his brother let the old lady and police inspector in.

“Yes, it was me. But I didn’t get in, I didn’t see anything. Timothy said you wanted
to talk to me about Benjamin?”

“Yes, but I want to talk to you about a lot of other things as well. Can we come in?”

“Yes. Of course. I’m sorry. Please don’t take off your shoes,” Patrick said with automatic
politeness. The young man was genuinely distressed, Aunty Lee thought. The dark circles
under his eyes and the weary tension in his shoulders showed he had been under stress
for some time. And under stress he was polite.

“Have you found a body? Do you need a sample of his DNA? Benjamin’s dead, isn’t he?
I knew it!”

“We haven’t found anyone. This is not an official visit,” Salim said calmly. “We just
need to ask you a few questions—unofficially.”

He bent to unlace his shoes before slowly slipping them off. Aunty Lee, who had slipped
off her pink-and-white sneakers in a flash, watched Patrick use the time to take a
deep breath.

“If you haven’t found him then he’s probably still alive, right?”

“We just want to ask you a few questions,” Salim repeated. “We should make sure he’s
really missing and not just gone off on holiday or something without telling you.
If he just took off and forgot to let you know, he wouldn’t thank you for making a
police report.”

“He wouldn’t do that. But I know what you mean. I did try to make an official police
report but I couldn’t because I’m not a family member. That was even before I called
Timothy. By the time I went to the Sungs’ house, I was desperate.”

His voice shook slightly. Aunty Lee felt sorry for him.

“This is a very nice apartment. But isn’t it hot staying on the top floor?” Aunty
Lee asked with genuine interest.

“Ben likes it because there are no ugly pipes in the toilets and kitchen. I’m sorry,
please come and sit down. I like it because there are no neighbors above us to stamp
on the ceiling or drag things around and no laundry and rubbish dropping into our
drying area.”

“And in older flats like this, people are less likely to complain about you painting
on the wall,” Aunty Lee said.

“Oh yes. Ben painted those. He had some exhibitions in galleries and they liked his
stuff. Some Italian magazine even came to take photos of the paintings in the corridor.
Of course they couldn’t say where it was because it’s illegal.”

Neither of the police officers appeared to hear this. Aunty Lee carried on.

“He is an artist? Wah! But your friend Benjamin is also an architect and an engineer,
right? So multitalented. He used to design buildings and he worked on a project for
Mabel Sung?”

“Yes he is.” Patrick assumed Aunty Lee was a friend of the Sungs. “Ben still did some
architectural design on the side. He was really good at it but he didn’t want to work
for any of the big companies and he didn’t like running a business himself, so he
ended up taking on freelance work.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?
Kor,
your friend disappeared after working on a project for two people who end up dead
and you don’t even mention the fact?”

“He disappeared last month—almost two months ago. Long before anybody ended up dead.”

And those people had died right after Patrick tried to force his way into their house.
Not good, Salim thought.

“What exactly was the purpose of the building your friend constructed for the Sungs?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t know, he was just following their specifications. He thought
it was some kind of geriatric home-care system. For end-of-life home care.”

“They paid him in advance?” Aunty Lee asked. “I hope he got a deposit at least.”

“No, he didn’t!” Patrick burst out. “And it’s not as though they can’t afford it.
I saw the size of their property. You could build a condo in there. Two condos. With
a gym and pool. But they didn’t give him an advance, they even didn’t pay him for
all the planning proposals he drew up for them. They said that since he was overseeing
the construction and setup, they would pay him everything in one lump sum at the end.
Maybe they never meant to pay him. Maybe they just locked him up somewhere on the
grounds—”

Or in the pool house, Aunty Lee thought.

“Maybe we should get you a lawyer,” Timothy Pang interrupted, the brother in him overpowering
the policeman. “Maybe you shouldn’t say too much right now.”

But Patrick had a question for Aunty Lee: “Did they tell you Ben designed their building?
They were so hypersecretive he had to sign a confidentiality contract even. And that
goondu
went and signed it without getting a written contract. So he didn’t have any proof
he had done the work, but if he complained about not getting paid they could sue him.
Crazy, right?”

Goondu
indeed, Aunty Lee thought. But often the innocent and trusting were seen as silly
and foolish by the rest of the world. And too often they suffered for it.

Timothy’s phone buzzed and he moved away to mutter into it. It sounded to Aunty Lee
as though he was trying to get someone to meet him and his brother, but partway through
the conversation, another call must have cut in because he switched into an explanation
of how stopping to fix a tire on the expressway for an old man had led to a migraine
and a messed-up uniform and if there was nothing urgent at the station he was going
to head straight home . . .

“Did the Sungs tell you Ben built the home ICU for them?” Patrick said to Aunty Lee,
too softly to catch Timothy’s attention.

“No.”

“Then how did you know?”

“I guessed. The paintings on the walls here and outside,” Aunty Lee said. “Your friend
painted them, right? I saw the painting on the side of the building at the Sungs’
place, by the pool. The creeper with leaves that looked like it was climbing up the
wall.”

“Oh, that. Yes. Ben showed me photos. His artist side keeps coming up. I’ve still
got them somewhere. He was very proud of how he got the green of the leaves to exactly
match the green of the pool.”

“The pool wasn’t green.” Aunty Lee remembered the brilliant blue tiles at the bottom
of the swimming pool.

“Yes it was. You can see it in the photos. I’ll show you—”

The pool water in the photographs was indeed arrestingly green. Aunty Lee could see
why it had caught the artist’s eye.

“He’s a very striking artist. And trained as an architect?” Aunty Lee said. “Very
interesting. I would like to see some more of his work.”

“Actually I’m not sure it’s very suitable.”

“Good. Suitable art is just propaganda. Can you boil some water? I brought some of
my homemade chrysanthemum and wolfberry tea sachets. Very good for calming down the
system and giving you energy at the same time. Those cups will be fine. I’ll just
give them a quick rinse . . . while the water is boiling you go and bring me your
friend’s ‘unsuitable’ work. And if you can find it, I want the address of the shop
where you got the singing-birds doorbell from.”