Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [10]
“Sami, what did he hide?”
I was too slow. Sami had broken the connection and was gone. I snorted. That was his way. I hadn’t coined the name The Onion Man for him for nothing. No matter what, he had given me enough information to begin my game. The rest would follow when he was ready.
I put the cell back into my jacket, lit a Marlboro and pondered those last words and Sami’s momentary slip-up over the camera. It wasn’t like him to doubt I’d do exactly as he asked. He knew me better than that. However, obviously there was a lot going on and he was running to keep up. No doubt the “family business” he would have to tend to on landing would include arrangements for the funeral for his brother’s family and the others. That was enough to rattle anyone’s cage.
Sami Somsak is one of the strongest people I know mentally, and the most enigmatic. I gave him the nickname The Onion Man many years ago. Basically, it was one way for me to acknowledge and explain the incredible complexity and multi-layered personality of my friend. To say Sami was deep was like saying that molten lava was warm. I finished my cigarette and my musing, had another swallow of beer and decided to check out the camera, just as Sami had suggested.
I fished the package containing the Sony out from amongst my shopping and spent the remainder of my pint and another figuring out how to work it. It was really dead easy. The camera was compact, but it had a 5X lens. I’d bought a one-gigabyte card. According to the brochure, I could shoot several thousand shots set on low to medium resolution with it. I set the dial up for five megapixels. That gave me several hundred images that could be pumped up large enough to see relatively fine detail as required.
Sami hadn’t told me specifically what to photograph beyond the alarm system and general background. That being the case, I would simply concentrate on whatever was in the room in question, taking in any obvious security features and anything else I could identify. Outside I’d just do tourist stuff. I’d pose with my beautiful ersatz wife all over the place and photograph her with lots of background.
How did I know that Simone, my wife to be, would be beautiful? Well, Sami does beautiful with his women and I guess the same gene would have been at work in his half-brother. I sure hoped so.
The pub was filling up as I left. It would have been pleasant to have stayed and met up with a few of the locals, but I was on a mission and a hangover tomorrow was not factored into my plans. I found a cab a few metres down the street and headed back to the Carlton. Okay, it isn’t far to walk, but I was loaded like a pack mule.
5
Simone DeLue was beautiful, just as I had anticipated and hoped she would be. Stanley and Sami definitely shared that same chromosome relating to good-looking women. Or at least they had done so. That’s the thing about death. It takes a while for the brain to get to grips with the tenses.
When I came down from my room, she was waiting in the lounge off the main reception area. Like me, she was wearing long shorts. Hers did not look at all stupid on her. I wasn’t sure if my shorts looked as stupid as I felt they did. I was, however, thankful that my months of indolence back in Hong Kong had included sitting or lying, albeit generally in a semi-comatose state, on my terrace or by the condo’s pool. Therefore I had managed to maintain a decent tan that at least made my damn shorts bearable. There is nothing worse in my book than seeing lily-white, hairy sticks of spaghetti poking out of a pair of voluminous shorts. It’s especially pathetic when the hairy spaghetti sticks end in what appear to be enormous oversized sneakers or boots. All an illusion, of course, because of the spaghetti legs combined with normal-sized feet. That always reminds me of Minnie Mouse