Free The Headmaster's Wager by Vincent Lam Page A

concerned.” He brandished the paper under Percival’s nose.
    â€œA stupid gesture,” said Percival, “an immature demonstration.”
    â€œIndeed.”
    Mrs. Ling’s Malay girl had a spicy fragrance that Percival had lingered to enjoy a second time. The first time he had been too quick, only satisfying his body, not his agitation. She had climaxed, then dozed a little before the second slow, carnal pleasure in which they had both cried out. What if he had come home after the first time, slipped out while she napped, leaving some money on the bed? He might have got home in time.
    On the street in front of Chen Hap Sing, Percival’s agony was being monitored by the curious eyes of the shoe-shiner, the woman with the basket of bananas, and the two haircutters who squatted nearby. He wanted to yell at them to go away. A steady stream of the unconcerned—servants pulling on the hands of young children collected from school, the darting flashes of Vespa riders, a cyclo man with a passenger—continued to flow past. The one-eyed monk stood at a little distance, observing placidly. He might be praying, Percival hoped.
    â€œLet’s go,” the older officer said. He tossed the lotus leaf to the ground. The younger man shoved Dai Jai into the car and closed the door. Once inside the vehicle, he looked wildly about and pressed his hands against the glass. “
Baba
, help!”
Baba
, the word a small boy used. Dai Jai grappled with the door handle, but the door was locked.
    â€œPlease!” yelled Percival. “Don’t take him!” He lunged for the door, but was casually knocked down by the older man and tumbled into the mud of the spilled larvae. The two men got in the car. The engine coughed to life, and the taillights glowed like hot coals. Percival picked himself up from the ground and saw his son’s panicked eyes behind the glass as the boy began to cry. Percival ran alongside the car, pleading. The Ford’s big engine revved and the car pulled away, scattering vendors and snack-sellers, who fluttered to each side like birds. Percival trailed after the car, shouting, until it disappeared out of sight.
    Percival went in the house, closed the door and stared at it. It took a while for him to gather himself, to put one thought in front of another. It was almost dark by the time Percival telephoned Cecilia and told her what had happened. Did she know anyone in the Political Security Section? When he asked, she became uncharacteristically quiet. Then she cursed, and asked why had he not been able to do the most simple thing—to hide Dai Jai. She yelled at him through sobs. He lied about how it had happened. He said that the police had insisted on searching Chen Hap Sing, as if he had been standing guard there all day since their morning meeting, rather than bedding a prostitute for most of the afternoon.
    â€œWhat should we do?” Percival said.
    â€œWe must both put our connections to work,” she said. “There may not be much time.” He wished he could contradict her, disagree, which was the norm between them, but he had the same fear.
    After speaking with Cecilia, Percival found himself wandering outside. Walking past the spot where Dai Jai had been arrested, he saw his son’s face dissolving into tears in the back of the car, thought of the lump of gold tied as always around his neck. Yes, that was something. Percival walked briskly past, into the welcoming darkness. Instead of going to gamble or to find a woman, he went out to buy a new lotus-leaf cone of mosquito larvae to feed his son’s fish.

CHAPTER 5
    FROM BEFORE SCHOOL STARTED UNTIL AFTER the last students were gone, Percival sat in his office with the door shut and lights off, sweltering by the telephone. Each time it rang, he seized the phone with fear and hope. But it was never Dai Jai. Nor was it the morgue.
    It took a few days for Mak to arrange a lunch with Cholon District