He staggers downstairs and finds Cheok sprawling on the couch, asleep despite the frantic rattling of the front gate, the grunts and snorts of his slumber rising in waves. The coffee table holds empty beer cans and heaps of peanut husks.
The rattling grows into an impatient rapping. Landon opens the front door and the rapping stopsit.
It’s the dark-haired Tin-Tin.
This is it, you stupid schmuck. Today you’re going to jail.
Landon crosses the driveway hoping he’ll be let off with a fine. It’s another blistering morning and everything looks white in the sunlight. He lifts his hand in greeting and tries to smile. Julian reciprocates with no more than a twitch of his eyebrow and presses a rumpled piece of paper to the gate, then takes it away before Landon can look at it.
“Sorry, you mind putting that up again?” says Landon.
“Search warrant,” Julian tells him, shoving it back into his pocket before Landon can get a good look at it. What Landon doesn’t know is that the warrant is for a different address, with a month-old date. Just two hours earlier Julian’s request for one was denied, even though he had backed it up with very decent paperwork.
“Well, what you are searching for?”
“Things that appear out of place.”
Landon unlatches the gate. “Please.”
A car horn blares in short bursts. A Nissan GTR coupe pulls up rumbling, its paintwork a splendid liquid blue gloss. A sizeable man emerges, tucks his shades over his bald, meaty head and struts unhurriedly towards them, flashing his pass at Landon. “Marco, Police Intelligence. Pardon my colleague.” And before Landon can respond, Marco drapes a large, burly arm over Julian’s thin shoulders and ushers the other man to one side.
In the privacy afforded by the GTR’s engine-growl, Marco catches Julian’s neck in the crook of his arm and squeezes it hard. The pain shocks Julian and locks up his jaw. “I thought we had an agreement?” he says with a slight tilt of head; his good eye sweeping across Julian’s face.
Julian keeps up an audacious stare. “I never agreed to anything.”
“Take the advice, friend.” Marco taps him on a cheek with a thick, coarse finger. “When a superior gives you an assignment, accept it compliantly.”
“I believe I have the liberty to question.”
“And you already have the answer.” Marco leans in close enough to exhale smoke-tinged breath into Julian’s face. “You want to ask more questions, you move up the ranks. But right now you obey orders.”
“I know the rules, Marco,” Julian says. “Until you have an official designation transfer from the top, this case is mine.”
The rookie’s fortitude impresses him. In an explosion of brute force he tightens his arm around Julian’s throat and almost squeezes his eyes from their sockets. Julian’s breath thins to a wheeze. Then he curls his wrist dexterously around Julian’s neck and snares the throat in a powerful pincer-grip. The larynx shifts and threatens to dislodge. Julian gives a croak of alarm.
Marco laughs and jerks Julian about, as if engaging in friendly play. “Know where you stand, my forensic friend,” he hisses, grinning. “There’s plenty you don’t know about this administration and its instruments. On top of that, there’s a whole lot more you don’t know about me.”
Julian, his face red as a baboon’s bum, blinks out a couple of tears.
“There are many techniques to a covert kill.” Marco digs his knuckles into Julian’s scalp. “If you want, I could to show you how far this could go. No traces, no blood, no forensics. Just a bad day to catch crooks without your seatbelt on. I could write a novel of a report on this. I’d even arrange your funeral and weep with your grieving folks. So don’t try getting all tough with me, comprende?”
Julian’s lips turn purple. He struggles to nod and a string of snot drops from his nose.
Marco lets him go, sending him away with two friendly slaps on the back. “Talk to chief for me.” He raises his voice and makes sure Landon hears it.
Landon watches Julian stagger towards his car and drive away. The new arrival, Marco, lights a cigarette and saunters back over. He pops a smoke ring and grins, revealing his parted incisors. “I like to take things a little lighter. Works better with the rookies.”
Landon gives a perfunctory smile and finds himself staring at Marco’s glass eye.
“Bad accident, rammed into the steering and crushed half my face.” Marco exhales and squints at him through the smoke. “Happened in “85, they weren’t good at reconstruction surgery then.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“Don’t be.” Marcos draws again. “You got into an accident yourself?” He gestures at the scars on Landon’s forearm with the cigarette.
“Must’ve been so traumatic that I can’t remember.”
Marco checks a slip of paper he retrieves from his pocket. “It says here you’re Chinese.”
“I’ve been led to believe I’m mainly Chinese and Malay.”
“Forget about the search warrant.” He takes another draw of his cigarette and waves the glowing stub between his fingers. “My guy’s just toying with you, wanted a fast break. We haven’t got enough evidence to link you with the fraud, except the implication of your ID. I figured no one would be that stupid to use one’s own ID in a forgery.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Marco barks out a laugh, drops the stub and stamps on it. “In any case, may I request a little tour of your house? Nothing more than a formality, you know, just to make sure everything’s sitting well.”
Landon holds the gate open. “After you.”
“Thank you.” Marco’s good eye disappears in a large, gracious smile as he steps past Landon and onto the driveway.
They enter the house to find the couch empty; one of its armrests bears the depression made by a human head. Marco points his chin at the mess on the coffee table. “Had company?”
“Had a friend over for the match last night.”
“Ah!” Marco reels in surprise. “How’d it go?”
“Five-three to Portugal.”
“Who would’ve thought!” Marco roars with laughter. “The odds flipped. Those poor bookies.”
From the back of the house they hear the sounds of flushing, and the toilet door open and striking a wall. Cheok emerges from the kitchen, the hair at the back of his head flattened like wheat stalks in a crop circle. He staggers past Marco without paying any attention to him, apparently reeling from the hangover. He goes to the yard and out of sight. Then they hear the rattling of plastic buckets and the brush of a besom.
“He’s Cheok,” says Landon. “He tends to my garden now and then.”
Marco regards him with little interest. “Heard you got medical issues?”
“I have amnesia.” Landon produces a pack of capsules. “Thiamin supplements and Midazolam. I’m at risk of seizures because of it, and I forget recent things, even my stolen IC.”
“Awful.” Marco makes a face. “Must’ve been such trauma that gave you this and the scars. How on earth do you remember anything? Tattoo them on your chest?”
Landon chuckles at Marco’s allusion to an old film. He waves his phone. “I make little notes here and there.”
“Don’t we all?” Marco grins. “But first you got to remind yourself to put in that reminder.”
“I haven’t lost that much brain function yet.”
Marco laughs, then switches topics. “You’ve always lived alone?”
“Since my mother died.”
Marco walks over to the curving staircase. “May I?”
“Please.”
He takes the handrail and starts climbing. “This your family home?”