And Brother It's Starting to Rain Read online

  SAMUEL TAY HAS RETIRED from Singapore CID. It wasn’t entirely his idea, but that’s another story. John August is a guy who has saved Tay’s butt more than once over the years. He’s an American who may or may not do something for the CIA.

  Now August wants to collect on all those favors Tay owes him. He needs Tay’s help to investigate a homicide.

  ‘Whose homicide?’ Tay asks.

  ‘Mine,’ August replies.

  Tay’s little inner voice is shouting at him not to get involved. He’s a cop, he keeps telling himself, not a spy — well, at least he used to be a cop — but he’s bored and curious so how can he resist? Apparently, there’s a woman who knows who tried to kill August, and that’s a good place to start if only Tay can figure out who she actually is.

  When Tay picks up the woman’s trail, he follows her first to a beach resort on the coast of Thailand that is surely one of the most notorious towns on earth, and then on to Washington DC, another town that is equally notorious, although perhaps for slightly different reasons.

  Tay doesn’t want to go to Washington since he doesn’t like Americans very much, but he’s onto a murder plot that lies right at the heart of the American intelligence establishment, and Washington is where all the answers are.

  Washington doesn’t frighten Samuel Tay. He’s the kind of man who lives to blow away the smoke and break the mirrors. This time, however, Tay is going up against people who may be too powerful to be exposed, people who know exactly how to protect themselves.

  They’ll simply kill Sam Tay if he gets too close to the truth.

  About Jake Needham

  “If there is a living writer who work makes me think of the great Raymond Chandler, it’s Jake Needham. He’s a prose master in the same vein as Chandler with his poetically beautiful description of the tawdry and run down cities of Asia.” – James David Audlin, author of THE TRAIN

  “Jake Needham is that rare author we should all treasure. He brings a great eye to modern Asian settings plus he’s a classic master of crime, intrigue, and the kind of edgy thrillers that make readers hunger for more.” – James Grady, author of SIX DAYS OF THE CONDOR

  “I’m a big fan of Jake Needham.” – Stephen Leather, author of THE FOREIGNER

  “Needham deftly morphs 1930s American Sam Spade into Samuel Tay, a world-weary 21st century Singaporean homicide detective. He writes so that you can smell the spicy street food mingling with the traffic jams, the sweat, and the garbage.” – Libris Reviews

  “Jake Needham is Asia’s most stylish and atmospheric writer of crime fiction.” – The Singapore Straits Times

  “Mr. Needham seems to know rather more than one ought about these things.” – The Wall Street Journal

  “Jake Needham is a man who knows Asia like the back of his hand.” – The Malaysia Star

  “Needham certainly knows where a few bodies are buried.” – Asia Inc.

  “In his power to bring the street-level flavor of contemporary Asian cities to life, Jake Needham is Michael Connelly with steamed rice.” – The Bangkok Post

  “Jake Needham has a knack for bringing intricate plots to life. His stories blur the line between fact and fiction and have a ‘ripped from the headlines’ feel. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.” – CNNgo

  “What you will not get is pseudo-intellectual new-wave Asian literature, sappy relationship writing, or Bangkok bargirl sensationalism. This is top class fiction that happens to be set in an Asian context.” – Singapore Airlines SilverKris Magazine

  Also by Jake Needham

  THE AMBASSADOR’S WIFE - Samuel Tay #1

  THE UMBRELLA MAN - Samuel Tay #2

  THE DEAD AMERICAN - Samuel Tay #3

  THE GIRL IN THE WINDOW - Samuel Tay #4

  AND BROTHER IT’S STARTING TO RAIN - Samuel Tay #5

  LAUNDRY MAN - Jack Shepherd #1

  KILLING PLATO - Jack Shepherd #2

  A WORLD OF TROUBLE - Jack Shepherd #3

  THE KING OF MACAU - Jack Shepherd #4

  DON’T GET CAUGHT - Jack Shepherd #5

  THE BIG MANGO

  ASIA NOIR: A boxed set of three Asian crime novels

  And Brother It's Starting To Rain

  Samuel Tay #5

  Jake Needham

  Contents

  I. Arpeggio

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  II. Exposito

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  III. Progressio

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  IV. Conclusione

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  V. Toccata

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Acknowledgments

  A Personal Request

  A PREVIEW

  The Jake Needham Library

  Meet Jake Needham

  Always,

  for Aey

  And Brother It's Starting To Rain

  The White House maintains that the right to self-defense, as laid out in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and the Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force, passed September 14, 2001, may include the targeted killing of persons who are threats to the security of the United States, both in and out of declared theaters of war. The administration’s posture includes the prerogative to unilaterally pursue targets in states without prior consent if that country is unwilling or unable to deal effectively with the threat.

  — Jonathan Masters - writing in Foreign Affairs

  If you’re going to fight,

  fight like you’re the third monkey

  on the ramp to Noah’s Ark.

  And brother, it’s starting to rain.

  — on a t-shirt being sold by a Bangkok street vendor

  I

  Arpeggio

  Chapter One

  Samuel Tay stood in his small garden and frowned at the sky. It was the color of periwinkle blossoms, and a few random puffs of cloud made him think of the last kernels of popcorn rolling around in the bottom of a blue lacquer bowl. The afternoon was tranquil, pleasant, and agreeable. Tay, however, was not about to be bamboozled quite that easily.

  It had been raining steadily in Singapore for nearly a week, and when it rained in Singapore it was like God was draining His swimming pool. Tay was certain this unexpected exhibition of blue sky was nothing more than an ambush. God was going to have a little chuckle at Singapore’s expense by luring the credulous and the trusting out of their houses and into the streets while He was preparing yet another deluge to pound them all into soggy submission. Tay was neither credulous nor trusting. He wasn’t buying it. This time he had God’s number.

  Tay went back inside and settled himself in the wingback chair where he read in the afternoons. It felt strange to be home every day
now, separated from the life he had always lived, no longer the person he had always been. Not so long ago, there had been places he needed to be, people he needed to talk to, even on the weekends, but that was all done now. For just a moment, he found himself wondering what was to become of him now, but he pushed the thought away as quickly as it surfaced. It was not a subject he particularly cared to ponder since it generally came accompanied by a feeling of mortality as cold and damp as a grave.

  He had spent so many years reading in that chair that his forearms had rubbed the dark green leather of the armrests to the texture of fine silk and his weight on the seat cushion had shaped it into a precise mold of his ass. It felt as familiar against his body as a faithful, enduring lover. Or as familiar as he imagined a faithful, enduring lover would have felt if he had ever had one, which he hadn’t.

  He tugged the floor lamp a little closer to his chair and opened the Winston Churchill biography he had been reading, but he was disappointed to see that the extra light didn’t do him much good. The book’s print was still less distinct than he knew it should be. Was it even less distinct than it had been when he started reading the book last week? Surely not. That wasn’t possible, was it?

  Tay knew eventually he was going to have to face the fact that he needed glasses, but he was putting that day off for as long as he could. His body was in open rebellion already. His knees ached, he had developed tinnitus in both ears, and his bowels sometimes refused to function at all. Occasionally, God help him, he even had a strong sensation his teeth were itching, although he didn’t see how that could possibly be true. He simply couldn’t face the humiliation right now that his eyes were giving up the ghost, too.

  Sometimes he wondered if this was all happening because of his retirement. He was no longer working, so perhaps his body had decided it no longer had to work either.

  The bell at his front gate sounded and Tay looked up from his book. It was Sunday afternoon and nobody ever came to see him on Sunday afternoon. Actually, no one came to see him much of any other time either he had to admit if he were being entirely honest about it. The bell ringer was most likely some aspiring juvenile delinquent who thought it was funny to ring the gate bells of houses occupied by perfect strangers and then run away.

  Tay lived on Emerald Hill Road in a quiet neighborhood of dignified row houses, many of which dated back to Singapore’s colonial days. Less than a hundred yards to the south, however, all that quiet and dignity was swallowed up by busy Orchard Road, Singapore’s internationally famous shopping street and quite possibly the only thing about Singapore that most visitors had ever heard of. Orchard Road was lined by dozens of massive shopping malls and an equal number of soaring hotel towers. Worse, at least from Tay’s point of view, there was a clump of open-air bars and restaurants exactly where the serenity of Emerald Hill Road ended and the twenty-four-hour madness of Orchard Road took over, and they were among the city’s most popular places for the young and the fatuous to hang out.

  Motor vehicles were banned from the bottom of Emerald Hill Road where Tay lived and the street in front of his house was generally used only by pedestrians and a few bicyclists. During the week, it was mostly empty and peaceful, but on weekends all that changed.

  The lure of free street parking led people headed to the Orchard Road shopping palaces to cruise the area to the north until they found a way to avoid the extortionate prices charged by the city’s commercial garages. After they parked their cars, most of those people seemed to end up walking straight down Emerald Hill Road right past Tay’s house. The trickle of pedestrians during the week swelled to a river on weekends.

  And then there were the tourists. The weekends brought them out in droves, too. A lot of Singapore guidebooks described the houses along Emerald Hill Road as fine examples of early colonial architecture, and Tay supposed that was true enough. Still, finding groups of tourists taking photographs outside his front gate disquieted him. Once he had come home carrying his Saturday morning shopping and discovered a whole wedding party wearing long dresses and tuxedos gathered in front of his house posing for pictures.

  Tay hated the weekends. The weekends made Tay feel like he was living in fucking Disneyland.

  He ignored the bell and returned to his book.

  When the gate bell rang a second time, Tay was forced to reconsider his theory that some young thug was responsible. Could he really have an unexpected visitor?

  Tay’s house faced onto a small garden surrounded by a high, whitewashed brick wall. A tall, black iron gate opened to a walkway paved in red brick that led to his front door. Since he had no way of knowing who was at the gate without opening his door, Tay had thought about installing a camera so he could see who was there whenever the bell rang. Once he opened the door to find out who it was, he was more or less screwed if it turned out to be someone he would rather avoid. There he was standing fifteen feet away from whoever it was and they were looking straight at him through the gate. After that, he could hardly slam his front door again and walk away no matter how devoutly he might wish to do so.

  You’ve got to get that camera installed, Tay reminded himself. You really have to.

  Of course, he had been reminding himself of that for several years now and he still hadn’t gotten around to doing it. In his heart, he knew this new reminder would be forgotten as quickly as all the others he had given himself.

  The bell rang a third time.

  Tay sighed, abandoned his increasingly unmoored musings, and opened his front door to see who was there.

  “Unlock this damned gate, Tay. If I stand out here any longer, Singapore’s going to make me a citizen and I sure as fuck don’t want that.”

  “John? What in the world are you doing here?”

  John August just looked at Tay and pointed silently to the handle of the gate.

  Tay noted with some satisfaction that August was apparently as skeptical as he was that the rain was really over because he was belted securely into a double-breasted khaki trench coat. Tay chuckled. August looked like an extra in a spy movie.

  “You’re a walking cliché, John.”

  “It’s just a raincoat.”

  “No, it isn’t. Given your associations, it’s a cliché.”

  “You’re probably right,” August shrugged. “I just hate thinking about it that way.”

  Tay had known August for a long time, but the truth was he really knew next to nothing about him. It was obvious that he was somehow connected to American intelligence, and he had admitted as much on several occasions, but Tay had no real idea what that connection actually was.

  The natural thing to do would have been to mark August down as CIA, but that had never felt entirely right to Tay. He was pretty sure August wasn’t CIA. He thought it more likely August was something worse than CIA.

  “What are you doing here, John? I didn’t even know you were in Singapore.”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “Well, it’s just quite a surprise to find you standing at my gate.”

  August pointed to the gate’s lock again.

  “Stop babbling and open the fucking gate, Tay.”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry.”

  Tay trotted quickly down the walk and flipped open the locking bar underneath the handle.

  “Inside,” August muttered as he pushed past Tay and disappeared into the house.

  In some people, Tay might have found that to be peculiar behavior. In John August, it seemed perfectly normal.

  When Tay followed August inside, he discovered to his dismay that August had taken up residence in the wingback chair where he always sat. Tay took the wingback opposite August instead, but he wasn’t at all happy about it. It was a chair he didn’t like since its leather upholstery wasn’t nearly as soft as that of his chair and the cushion felt unfamiliar against his rear end.

  But what could he do? He could hardly demand that August trade chairs with him, could he? He wanted his chair back, he really did, but asking fo
r it would make him look like a putz. Sometimes, he supposed, life just screwed with you and there was fuck all you could do about it.

  Tay made himself as comfortable as he could under the circumstances and waited for John August to tell him what he was doing there. August hadn’t dropped around to inquire into the state of Tay’s health. He didn’t do social calls. Something was up. Until August materialized at his front gate, it been a sleepy and untroubled Sunday afternoon in Singapore. Tay was fairly certain that was about to change.

  “Why are you here, John? Or don’t I want to know?”

  “Oh, I think you want to know.”

  Tay said nothing. He just waited.