Page 27 of Assassin Anonymous

Singapore used to be like Thailand—street food anywhere it could fit. In order to make conditions more sanitary and the streets safer for traffic, vendors were moved into food halls like this. Each stall serves only a handful of dishes. Each one has a specialty, whether by dish or region. A plate of something delicious costs a couple of sing, which translates to only a few bucks American. I remember the chicken rice at Tian Tian being pretty transcendent. My rule in these places is to find the longest line and get on the end, then just order whatever dish most people are walking away with. Hasn’t done me wrong yet.

But I’m not here to eat.

I weave around tables with orange and green plastic tops, each one surrounded by six low-slung yellow stools bolted into the ground. Some of the stools have packages of tissues on them, the local sign of “I’m waiting on a line; this seat is taken.” Some people leave behind purses or phones. Another testament to the country’s low level of crime.

Ravi is sitting toward the back of the center where it’s a little more quiet, a table to himself. White polo, shorts, sandals. I walk past a stall that has its cutlery laid out in the front and manage to swipe a fork and a knife without anyone noticing. Then I stand across from him until he notices me.

Before him is a geometric assortment of plastic cafeteria trays—red and orange and green, all laid out at precise right angles, the gaps between them uniform. Each tray has a different plate on it. I recognize the char kway teow, a stir-fried dish of wide rice noodles and Chinese sausage and prawns and blood cockles. Then there’s the chicken rice from Tian Tian—a plate of boiled chicken covered in a brown sauce, next to another plate with a dome of rice, along with three dipping sauces. Then a whole bunch of other stuff I can’t identify.

Ravi looks older, almost fully gray now. I can’t decide if I want to hug him or punch him. I don’t know which would hurt more.

Finally he looks up at me, his face twisting from surprise to fear to equanimity.

I sit on the stool across from him and stab my fork into a piece of chicken and pop it in my mouth. It’s room temperature, but soft and tender and juicy. How in the world they make lukewarm boiled chicken taste this good is beyond me.

“You’re alive,” he says.

“Déjà vu.”

I take a forkful of rice. He stabs his fork into a stir-fry I don’t know the name for and puts it in his mouth. The two of us chew as we watch each other, slowly, like there might be sharp things hidden in the food.

“If you’re waiting for your bodyguards, they’re both indisposed,” I tell him.

“Are they alive?” he asks.

“One is in a stall in the bathroom on the south wall. The other is in a storage closet on the east wall. I’m not here to burn bridges.”

He nods. “We weren’t supposed to meet until tonight.”

“And give you a chance to prepare?”

He smiles. The two of us falling into old patterns. Me trying to impress him, him being impressed but trying to hide it. He doesn’t ask how I found him. He doesn’t want to insult me like that. The truth is, I know he likes to eat and I know this food hall is his favorite. It was a sensible but lucky guess.

Still, just being here, sharing space with him, the psychic static of what we used to do together brings back the old programming. The food trays, his water glass, they’re all plastic. But the cutlery is metal. Not strong metal, but sturdy enough to pierce an eye or ram through a neck. There are thirty-seven people within a fifty-foot radius of me. Twenty men and seventeen women. Exits in every direction, but I’d choose the left, because the crowd is thickest and there’s a massive metal contraption along the path, laden with finished trays of food that could be tipped over to block the way behind me. Plus a mop in a bucket against the wall, which could be snapped off into a makeshift weapon.

Electricity crackles in my fingertips. For the first time in a long time, I feel like me. The me who dealt in life and death like they were playing cards. I take a bite of char kway teow and a sausage explodes in my mouth.

He puts down his fork and folds his hands in front of him. “We assumed you were dead. That’s how these stories end. Most assets either get killed or they run. I didn’t peg you as a runner.”

“I need a favor,” I tell him.

He smiles at this, his eyes going wide.

The audacity of this ask.

“We did have something planned for you at the meeting later,” he says.

“Was it cupcakes? Please say it was cupcakes.”

“It was not.”

“Too bad. So listen, I was attacked by a Russian. Tall, Mohawk.” I hold up my forearm. “Five dots, like a die.”

Ravi opens his mouth like he wants to say something, then stops and resets. “There’s always a Russian, isn’t there?”

“Do you know him?”

“That’s not much to go on. The tattoo is popular among Russian criminals. It’s supposed to mean they’ve spent time inside. The dot in the middle is him and the four dots surrounding it are guard towers.” He pauses, his eyes drifting around the crowd. Whether he’s looking for a person or the right words, I don’t know. Then he says: “Frankly, I’m surprised whatever went down between you two ended with him still on this side of the dirt.”

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