“When we got to the front door, some soldiers were coming out carrying a body that was covered by a bloody sheet. I thought it was all over for me then, that I was about to be raped or shot, or maybe both. My heart was racing a mile a minute. They dragged me into this sitting room, where I came upon the most unexpected sight. The colonel was this tall, elegant man sitting at the grand piano playing Beethoven. I stood there just watching him perform the entire piece, and when he had finished, for some reason I decided to speak first, something you were never supposed to do. I said to him, ‘The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major is one of my favorites.’
“The colonel turned and gave me this piercing stare and said in perfect English, ‘You’re familiar with this piece? You know the piano? Play something for me.’
“He got up from the stool, and I sat down at the piano absolutely petrified, knowing what I chose to play could mean the difference between life and death. So I took a deep breath and thought, if I’m about to die, this is what I want to play. Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune.’
“I played my heart out, and when I finished, I looked up from the piano and saw that there were tears in his eyes. It turns out that before the war, he had been in the diplomatic corps in Paris. Debussy was his favorite. He let me go, and twice a week for the next year, he made me come over to his house and play the piano for him.”
Ah Ling shook her head incredulously at the story. “You were very lucky to get away like that. How did you and your friends get in to the Botanic Gardens in the first place?”
Su Yi gave her a sphinxlike smile, as if she was trying to decide whether or not to let her in on something. And then she shared her secret.
—
Emerging from the memory of Su Yi’s story, an idea began to form in Ah Ling’s mind. She looked up at Vikram and said, “There is a secret about this house that even you don’t know. Something from the war times.”
Vikram looked at her in surprise.
Ah Ling continued, “Now, don’t you have connections in the Khoo household?”
“Sure, I know their head of security very well.”
“This is what I need you to do…”
···
Nick and Colin were spending the afternoon hanging out at Red Point Record Warehouse on Playfair Road, where they had spent countless hours listening to obscure records back when they were teenagers. As Nick flipped through the meticulously organized bins, he called out to Colin, “Did you know that the Cocteau Twins collaborated with Faye Wong?”
“No way!”
“Take a look at this,” Nick said, handing him a record. While Colin read the liner notes to a rare EP recorded by the Hong Kong diva titled The Amusement Park, his phone buzzed with a text message. He glanced at the screen and read a message from Aloysius Pang—the head of his family’s security team—summoning him to his father’s house to pick up a package ASAP. Colin wondered what this was all about, as it was highly uncharacteristic of Aloysius to summon him like this.
“Hey Nick, I need to run over to my dad’s place to pick up something that’s apparently quite urgent. Do you want to stay here or come with?”
“I’ll come along. If I stay any longer I’ll just end up buying the whole store,” Nick replied.
The two of them sped over to Colin’s father’s house on Leedon Road, a stately Georgian mansion that looked like it had been transported straight out of Bel Air, California.
“Jeez, it’s been years since I’ve been here,” Nick remarked as they entered the house through the front door. A grandfather clock ticked loudly in the circular foyer, and all the curtains in the formal living room had been closed to block out the afternoon sun. “Is anyone home?”
“My dad and stepmom are on a safari in Kenya at the moment,” Colin answered, as a Filipino maid appeared from the corridor.
“Is Aloysius here?”
“No, but there’s a package for you, Sir Colin,” the woman replied. She went into the kitchen and returned moments later with a large padded envelope that didn’t bear the markings of any courier service.
“Who dropped this off?” Colin asked.
“Sir, Mr. Pang, sir.”
He ripped open the envelope, and inside was a smaller manila envelope that was stamped PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL. There was a Post-it affixed to the front of it. Colin looked up at Nick in surprise. “This package isn’t for me—it’s for you!”
“Really?” Taking the package, Nick saw that the Post-it note read:
Please give this letter by hand to your friend Nicholas Young.
It is imperative that he receives it by tonight.
“Well this is convenient! I guess whoever sent this knows I’m crashing at your place,” Nick said as he began tearing into the sealed envelope.
“Wait! Wait! Are you sure you want to do that?” Colin said.
“Why not?”
Colin glanced suspiciously at the package. “I dunno…what if there’s anthrax or something in there?”
“I don’t think my life is as exciting as that. But here, why don’t you open it?”
“Fuck no.”
Nick laughed as he continued to open the envelope. “Has anyone told you that you have an overactive imagination?”
“Dude, I’m not the one getting mysterious packages delivered to my best friend’s house!” Colin said, taking a few steps back.
* * *
* Cantonese for “shit-eating bastard.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
28 CLUNY PARK ROAD, SINGAPORE
Nigel Barker had photographed some of the most famous and beautiful women in the world, from Iman to Taylor Swift. But he’d never had a subject fly him halfway around the world in their personal Boeing 747-81 VIP before, and he had never gotten a lymphatic drainage massage and a seaweed exfoliating body wrap in a private spa on a private jet. Naturally, when he arrived at Kitty Bing’s gracious heritage bungalow on 28 Cluny Park Road with his team of four photo assistants, there was yet another never-before-witnessed drama unfolding.
A Chinese man wearing a deconstructed black Moroccan djellaba was standing on the front driveway, screaming, “CHUAAAAA-AAAAA-N! Where the fuck did you put the Oscar de la Renta? If you didn’t pack it, I’m going to fucking skin you alive! CHUAAAAAAAAAN!” As he yelled, he bounced several inches off the ground, looking like a deranged Jedi.
Twenty feet from the main house, a huge tent had been set up, and Nigel could see dozens of fashion assistants in white lab coats rushing from the house to the tent with various bits of clothing, while another set of assistants within the tent were going through the rolling racks filled with hundreds of ball gowns straight from the Paris catwalks. A guy in a white denim zip-up jumpsuit came running out of the tent. “We’re still steaming it! It just arrived from New York thirty minutes ago!”
“Ka ni nah! I need the dress now, you good-for-nothing goondu!”*
Nigel approached the ranting Jedi warily. “I’m assuming this is the location for the Tattle photo shoot?”
“Wah laooooo!” The man gasped, putting his hands to his mouth. He suddenly stood ramrod straight, his face went from manic to Zen in a nanosecond, and his speech took on a pseudo-English-meets-Eurotrash accent. “Nigel Barker, it’s really you! Merde! You are even more dashing in person! How is that possible? I’m Patric, the couture consultant. I’m styling the shoot today.”