Singapore Noir

He thought of Ah Huat, who did not mind showing off a little, to those in the know. Ah Huat had a tiny wooden coffin in his cab. About four inches long, carved in a Chinese style, with the graceful sweeps and arcs that differentiated it from modern Western caskets. He had it in the glove compartment most of the time. But at night it rode on the dashboard, his silent passenger, the thing that watched his back because so much can go wrong at night. The thing that watched his back, and any passenger who understood would be fairly warned.

Those who understood would know that in that little scaled-down coffin was the bone of a dead child — somewhat difficult to come by now because of cremation, but more common in the days of burials and when child mortality was still high. That bone, in its coffin, kept the child’s spirit with the owner. Both were bound to each other. Both were master and servant. Ah Huat had inherited that coffin from his father, and so now the child spirit that once followed his father, followed him to do his bidding — on the condition that Ah Huat took care of it. Ah Huat sometimes made a show of it, in the way that Christians sometimes liked to say grace loudly in public.

When he ate, he would order two meals. Or two cups of coffee. He would pay for both, but consume only one. Those who did not understand would simply think he had been stood up, probably by an inconsiderate child or an unfaithful mainland Chinese girlfriend only interested in him as a meal ticket or for his Central Provident Fund savings. Those who understood knew he was feeding his child spirit — and the waiters who knew would keep their distance from the apparently uneaten meal, to clear it later when it was safe.

And that was why Ah Huat never let a fare sit in the front passenger seat: it was already occupied.

The old man thought about his gun in the pouch, tucked in the side pocket of his door, the zipper facing up, ready to be opened quickly. Always there for him. He reckoned it gave him the same kind of comfort the child spirit gave Ah Huat. Both were dangerous, but Ah Huat and he were steady men, not prone to violence, not reckless, with no vices. When they met for the occasional meal, all three of them, Ah Huat sometimes talked about his child, about how it sometimes helped pick winning numbers or helped him get back at someone for some injustice. Better than any of his living kids, he said. The old man had heard these stories often enough and did not need to compare notes. He had his gun, and it made him feel safe. Security was good to have in old age. It was like a life insurance policy, though, a one-time-use thing. He would have to die on the road. He could not afford to survive a serious accident. While Ah Huat could call on his child spirit repeatedly, the old man knew his gun had only four shots, and if he ever had to use it, it would be all or nothing.

He knew the time had come when he got home late, after driving all day, to find the front door splashed with paint and the pale, bled-out face of a recently slaughtered pig hanging from the flimsy metal gate. His landlady had finally hit rock bottom. She had borrowed money from loan sharks — and defaulted on the payment. It was something she had said she would never do. There were enough neighbors with experience to serve as fair warning.

“I paid,” she had insisted when he went in to find her and the two boys cowering in a corner of their room. She and the younger boy were crying and the older one was trying his best to comfort them. “I paid, I paid. They gave me a loan I did not ask for,” she said.

He had eyed her dubiously. “Didn’t ask for?”

“No, they just put it in the bank. I didn’t even know.”

This was new to him. An unasked-for loan, in the form of a bank deposit, followed by a demand for repayment — and interest, of course. “Didn’t you even think about why you had so much money?” He found it hard to believe that, hard up as they were, she would not have noticed the extra cash.

“I thought you put it in,” she had said. “I thought you put it in for the boys. I never used it.”

“Then you can give it back. You give it back tomorrow.” He had looked at the boys and nodded to them. “I will take care of you, don’t worry.” The older boy nodded back but the younger one was still terrified. He reached out to pat his head. “Uncle will protect you.”

They came the following night.

They had announced their arrival with yelling and hammering at the door. He opened up to speak to them and pay them, and to his horror found that they had lifted the flimsy old gate from its hinges and now stood facing him with no barrier between them. It had been a simple matter of removing a few retaining pins — an old trick that contractors used when they wanted to convince people to “upgrade” their gates.