Singapore Yellow by William L. Gibson

Author:William L. Gibson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789814423663
Publisher: Monsoon Books Pte. Ltd.

8// The Golden Chersonese Club

At the end of the day, word came to Hawksworth by the usual channel – a nondescript Chinese boy in pigtails and a worn blue cotton changshan waiting for him just beyond the front gates of the Central Police Station – that Tan Yong Seng wanted to meet him. He was to go at sunset to a tea stall near a wharf on Boat Quay.

When he stepped out from the station the sky was coloured lavender, shot through with streaks of gold from low clouds blocking the direct rays of the sun. The effect was stunning, and even the usually bustling quayside warehouses seemed calmed by the soft apparition above them. It was the idealised sky painted on the walls behind the idols in Taoist temples: the sky of heaven.

The choice of location was no accident. When the Mother-Flowers were first coming into their own among the criminal underworld, Yong Seng had been forced to meet with Hawksworth clandestinely. This was not just to keep his access to a detective secret from the other kongsi, but also to keep his friendship with a white man hidden from the Chinese community at large. If it had become known, he could have been considered a conspirator or a traitor – or worse. But now that the Mother-Flowers were the most powerful Hokkien gang in Singapore, with numerous smaller gangs under their umbrella – and now that Hawksworth was the Chief Detective Inspector – Yong Seng liked to meet Hawksworth as openly and as obviously as he liked. The tea stall was visible to all the coolies and towkays, the bosses, on the quay, and it was firmly in Mother-Flower territory. Nonetheless, they still met in the murky light of early evening, partly because Yong Seng rose very late in the day and partly because their relationship was to remain both seen and unseen, hovering as it were between reality and rumour.

By the time the Chief Detective Inspector had made his way to the riverside, the sun was fully beneath the horizon and the streaks of holy gold had vanished. Lavender had darkened to plum, casting an eerie green light, making it seem as if the town were at the bottom of the sea.

He spotted Yong Seng standing by the tea stall – little more than a bamboo lean-to beside the front entrance of a go-down where river bumboats could tie up and have their cargo quickly unloaded. An old shirtless man was serving tea to the coolies, his kit a simple tripod brazier with boiling water and a stack of rough ceramic cups. Despite the dirt and squalor of the working wharf, Yong Seng was expensively attired. A black silk vest brocaded with the motif of two crossed cranes was tightly crossed over his thick chest, above the draping material of a flowing violet changshan; on his head was a straw boater hat with a black silk band, his queue twisted around his neck. It was high fashion for Chinese gangsters from Hong Kong to Shanghai to Malaya.

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