THE DEAD AMERICAN (The Inspector Samuel Tay Novels Book 3) by Jake Needham

the bridge, took a final drag on his cigarette, and flipped the butt into the bay.
    “You’re scaring me, Emma.”
    “You asked me to speculate, so I speculated. But I can’t write anything until it’s more than speculation. Since you’ve read the police report about Tyler’s death, you know as well as I do that something is very wrong here. I need your help to find out what it is, and who’s behind it. Then I can write my story.”
    “It could be nothing, Emma. Just lazy police work.”
    “It isn’t.”
    “I’m not as sure of that as you are.”
    “Yes, you are. I can see it in your eyes.”
    Tay turned around, leaned back against the railing, and folded his arms.
    “I’m not a professional do-gooder, Emma. I’m not even an amateur do-gooder. I’m just a cop on leave because of a misunderstanding.”
    “That’s not the way I see it, Sam. I think you’re a cop they’re trying to get rid of because you don’t like the way things work in Singapore. You can’t stand the hypocrisy or the rest of the crap that goes on here, and they know it. What’s more, you have your own money and you don’t need the job. That makes you dangerous to them.”
    “I’ll be a lot more dangerous to them if I start poking my nose into a case that has nothing to do with me.”
    “Yes, you will,” she nodded. “But you’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you?”
    Tay didn’t know what to say to that. He wanted to light another Marlboro instead of saying anything at all, but he knew that would make him look weak so he didn’t. Instead he just turned his head and studied the floodlit façade of the Fullerton Hotel on the other side of the bay.
    Why was he even considering getting involved in all this?
    Maybe it had something to do with his age. He had expected for everything to begin to crumble in his fifties. His hair, his knees, his waistline, his vision. Maybe even his judgment and his optimism. Well… not his optimism. Tay never had enough of that to crumble.
    There were all sorts of things in his life he regretted, things he would do differently if he could do them again. He could do nothing now about any of those things. All he could do was to make this his fiftieth birthday resolution: there would be no further additions to his list of regrets.
     
    “Do you know anybody at The Future, Emma?”
    “No, not really.”
    “So how would we go about finding out more about it?”
    “We could start by asking somebody what the hell they really do there.”
    “Yeah, but who?”
    “I’m thinking we should go right to the top. To the chairman. Ask him.”
    “We’d never get in to see him.”
    “Sure we will.”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “Because I have an appointment tomorrow at eleven o’clock to interview Zachery Goodnight-Jones, the chairman of The Future. Want tocome?”
    Tay smiled, but he didn’t say anything.
    Emma winked. “Not bad for a girl, huh?”
    “Why do I have the feeling you’re one step ahead of me?”
    “I’m not really. I’m just trying to make it seem that way.”
    Emma slipped her arm through Tay’s.
    “Why don’t we go back to the lounge? I could use another drink and you probably could, too. You wouldn’t happen to have another cigarette, would you, Sam?”
    Tay took out his pack of Marlboros and gave her a cigarette. Then he took one for himself and lit them both. It no longer felt like a gesture of weakness. It was only a cigarette.
    They left the bridge and strolled slowly back to the Ritz-Carlton together, saying little, just savoring their cigarettes. The humid, smoky air made Tay feel like he was walking into a spy movie.
    And maybe he was.

CHAPTER TWELVE
    THE FUTURE WAS located in a building at the cheaper end of Robinson Road, down where the banking towers thinned out.Tay had arranged to meet Emma a couple of blocks north at the Lau Pa Sat market where generation after generation of Singaporeans had eaten street food. The place was almost a national