Beck and Call by Eric Alagan

Author:Eric Alagan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789814358774
Publisher: Monsoon Books Pte. Ltd.

Chapter 36

Early Tuesday morning, twenty days before Edwin had to cough up the twenty five million dollars.

Edwin caught up with his friend, Gerard, in a small coffee shop along River Valley Road. Apparently, they served the best chap chai (a mixed vegetable dish) in Singapore. His friend spoke between mouthfuls. Edwin assured his friend that once there was time he would spend a full month on a food expedition in the back lanes of lesser-travelled Singapore.

“Meanwhile, what have you got for me?”

With a sigh, Gerard changed the subject. “One of my PIs, a full-time taxi driver, part-time sleuth – I’ve several such part-timers in various trades – had tailed Albert Teo, actual name Henry Lam, not that the name is of any particular consequence.”

“Let’s stick with Albert Teo as it’s less confusing.”

“Yup, let’s do that,” agreed Gerard, “In any event why let on that we have blown his cover.”

“Well, we know his name, what do you mean blow his cover?”

Gerard smiled and handed a large brown envelope that contained several snapshots of Albert Teo: one getting into his car, another looking out his penthouse balcony, several more in various places and times. There was also a brief on dates, addresses and his daily routines.

“He’s self-employed, a consultant of sorts, I’m working on fleshing out his bio. We’d parked a ‘radio van’ outside Teo’s condo and intercepted his cell phone conversations. This guy could be aware of such tapping and is careful with what he says over the air. He uses more than one cell phone.”

Gerard played several recordings. The first voice spoke in a mixture of Mandarin and English, was high-pitched and quick to anger. The conversations would start placid, escalate quickly to shouting and every exchange ended with the line cut off abruptly. They did not mention anything definitive in their short conversations. It was in some sort of a code.

Edwin shook his head. “Can’t place the voice.”

“Okay, let’s call him The Scream for now.” Gerard clicked the buttons. “Now, for the second called party.”

The voice was pleasant, spoke in English but also in code. It sounded tired and sighed often.

“Sounds familiar?” Gerard studied his friend’s face.

“Very familiar…but,” replied Edwin. “It must be your age Gerard that has caught up with me.”

“I’ll get you for that, now hear this.” Gerard hit a fast forward button.

Edwin’s eyes widened, he looked up at Gerard.

The man in the recording had prefaced one of his sentences with a whachumacallit.

“Tay Kok Heng!”

That evening Shaun and Lucy listened intently, adding comments as Edwin spoke.

“MGI is trying to defraud us, Dad.”

“Yes, but there must be a hidden entity behind them both, The Scream and a supermarket hurting from B&C encroachments.”

“You mentioned Teo let slip about his clients regaining market share. Who do you reckon Dad?”

“There’s GLC Supermarts, part of the Tengli Group. They’re government owned, market leader with thirty-five per cent of the market. Next, Dairy Products, target – middle, higher end market with about twenty per cent. Then there was Lucky Phoenix, a price leader with ten per cent.

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