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The Thin Man in Singapore Part II: The Ask

Well apart from the things that I touched/ nothing got broke all that much/ and apart from the things that I took/ nothing got stolen babe, and look.

Matthew Houck

Dateline Singapore: October 30th, 8:02

The thin man woke at the 1887 happy to be alive and went on down to breakfast as instructed. He picked out his guy immediately. The broker was perfectly of his type, his suit barely disguising, indeed almost accentuating, the hustler inside. The thin man ordered orange juice and eggs, the broker drank coffee. He had probably already eaten.

The broker, like all of his kind, couldn’t give a shit who he was pimping as long as he got his 10% commission. He took the thin man’s data points and promised to turn them into a resume that would emphasize the high stakes, low reference point nature of his previous work. “I’ll get something going,” said the broker.

Dateline Singapore: November 1st, 11:43

The thin man stayed on at the 1887, hoping that the bill was paid for a few days at least. On Wednesday the phone rang, and the man on the other end introduced himself as Alejandro from Company X. The broker knew his lane, apparently.

“I have work for you,” Alejandro said.

“What sort of work?” asked the thin man.

“The best kind, the kind where you get in and out.” The thin man could hear Alejandro’s razor thin smile through the phone.

“I deal cards,” replied the thin man, “I’m not a safecracker.

“Of course not. We are a respectable company with a 400 year history. This work is simple. The company is in negotiations around a merger with Green Group Ltd. They are playing hardball and we need to know their real intentions.”

“Basically you want to know if they are bluffing?”

“Precisely. And who better than an operator such as yourself to find this out?”

“And what do I have to go on?”

“The Green Group will be having a party at the Swissotel downtown tomorrow night. There will be about 200 guests. You will infiltrate the party and get the lowdown. That is what you British say yes, “the lowdown.”

The thin man was not British but it didn’t matter. “Yes, that’s right. OK, book me a room on the club floor starting today. I’ll need a new suit, a haircut, and a cell phone. How’s $500 a day for expenses and $20,000 for the job?”

“What about the broker?”

“That’s your end,” said the thin man. My end is $20,000.”

“Deal. Don’t fuck up.”

“I don’t intend to.” And with that the conversation was over. The thin man had acquitted himself well, but only by the grace of god. Several things were running through his mind;

i) was $20,000 a lot or a little for a one-night stint of corporate espionage? Alejandro had bit right away so perhaps he was underselling his services. Or, Company X was desperate;

ii) 200 people at the party and the thin man knows not a one of them. He’ll have to research, chose a few likely targets, although after five weeks of carousing there wasn’t a lot of research energy left. He’ll need to make minimal and efficient moves;

iii) he has no bank account. His severance was paid in cash and he does not intend to stay in Singapore forever, however appealing the locale. He’ll need to get legal sooner rather than later.

Dateline Singapore: Around 17:07

The thin man is up for the job, however like we said he could use a little up-front information. So he checks out of the 1887, which is all paid up, and grabs a taxi to the Swissotel where he checks in, showers, and scopes out the premises. The Alligator Pear is the poolside bar at the Swissotel, fancy, and the thin man figures tomorrow’s party will be at held around the pool. Thus, this visit is classifiable as reconnaissance–this visit is billable, baby. A single couple lingers over a menu across the way.

“What’ll it be?” asks the bartender?

“Do you have any eggnog” asks the thin man, more out of habit than preference. The bartender gives him a sideways look, as if he is not sure who the joke is on.

“No sir, I am afraid we only serve eggnog during the Christmas week. How about one of our signature Manhattans?”

Manhattans, they taste like mouthwash.

“Sure a double Manhattan. And pop an egg in it would you?” This time the bartender doesn’t even blink.

“Of course, sir. One Manhattan with a raw egg.”

The drink is served and the thin man knocks it back straight. It is as disgusting as an adult beverage can be. “Perfection,” says the thin man. I’ll take a double martini with a sprig of Rosemary please.” As the barkeep makes his second drink the thin man turns to survey the space. Despite knowing no one and nothing about tomorrow evening’s party, he has a few advantages. First, event spaces are inherently permeable. More on this later. Second, he has nothing to lose. Nothing whatsoever. The $20,000 is what you call a titular payment. Hypothetical. His sainted mother has long passed; his widowed sister could be anywhere. The Costa Rican chick who claimed he’d knocked her up in ’04 was probably still out there, but he had no confidence in her presentation of events. He was only on shore for 48 hours and months on the water tends to take a few miles off a guy’s fastball. She was sweet, but it was probably a hustle. So like I say, nothing to lose, and therefore easy to underestimate. That’s what the thin man is counting on.

He’d better; the bastard’s precious little else.

The martini is served and the thin man takes a deep drink. Three men approach the bar, lanyards around their neck, ties beginning to come undone, voices high. The Green Group, thinks the thin man, excellent. He takes a deep breath and turns his head slightly to the right, cementing his presence in their field of vision without being in any way threatening or intrusive. “Can you fuckin’ believe Bill?” asks one of the men. Pulling up sick on a day like this, the company going to shit?” “I think he’s faking,” says the second man, a lifer in his early 50s. “He’s always been weak like that. Looking to cover his ass.” “Fucking wanker, if you ask me,” replies the first man. “Pussy.”

The thin man looks up at the men and smiles. He sympathises. He will be their good friend tonight. Corporate espionage, he decides, is like everything else. It’s just a matter of intention.

to be continued…

Dedication: For salarymen everywhere. I sympathise.

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The Thin Man 0: The Man Under the Bridge

Everything’s thin. The Wire

Setting:

We open onto a large office in what looks to be Moscow.  It could be anywhere in the East however, anywhere from Petersburg to Potsdam.  The office appears busy; clerks filing, apprentices bustling, managers shouting instructions and reprimands that go generally unheard, not out of rebellion, nor compromised auditory canals, but rather because the generalized cacophony of the office space is such that the collective action set cannot but unfold without coordination or direction.

The office is draughty and usually cold, although an occasional over-active heat pipe burbles out a bit of local warmth for certain fortunate corners.  The walls are covered from floor to ceiling with filing cabinets; the major task of the office is simply to inspect, stamp, classify, and file an endless stream of nominally related documents.  It is mid-fall, nearly harvest season.  Summer’s bounty this year has been acceptable, and the local populace will have food for the holidays.  Inside, however, the mood is one of permanent resignation to circumstance.

Scene One: Morning

You found me on the other side of a loser’s winning streak/ where my thoughts all wander further than they should

Dawes

The office’s hierarchy is complex, following rules of its own.  Those at the bottom of the ladder are blissfully unseen and operate without oversight or sanction unless transgressing in a manner so egregious that the neighbours become involved.  Those in the middle-lower classes are a little more visible; their seating, for instance, is of great importance.  Members of this class are ever being told that their stool has been moved to another section of the office.  Reason is neither given nor sought.  Transience is the way of the world, and is widely accepted.

The scene opens in the morning, just after the workers arrive.  At a large oak table, two members of this class sit, within mere inches of one another.  One of these is a thin man–the other, a Teutonic Knight.  Both have piles of papers left over from the day before in their work spaces, spaces delineated by a crack in the oak.  One of the papers from the thin man’s zone has shifted by a fraction of an inch overnight, whether on account of the draft or the vagaries of the cleaning staff is unknown.

The Teutonic Knight turns to face the thin man.

“I think you forgot something in my space,” he says.

“I didn’t forget anything in your space,” replies the thin man, “if you are referring to this piece of paper, it has shifted marginally and is abutting the crack which separates my zone from yours.”

“You have forgotten something,” insists the Knight.  “Take it away.”

The thin man sighs and removes the paper.  Good money after bad, he thinks to himself, applying a concept from the card tables, tables which he has, perhaps, been frequenting a little more often than he might want to admit.  The Knight knows nothing of the gambler’s demi-monde, spending his evenings as he does in endless rows over minor matters with one of the succession of women he sees.  And the thin man, well he has at least managed to stay out of the clutches of the worst money-lenders and knee-cappers in the city thus far.  His taste, in the last analysis, may run more to the risque than to risk per se.  In any case, the skirmish over, the knight withdraws from the field of battle, content in his triumph.  The thin man looks at the clock.  These days, everything seems to take all morning.

Scene Two: A Few Days Later

Well I was drinkin’ last night with a biker/ and I showed him a picture of you/ I said “Pal get to know her, you’ll like her”/ seemed like the least I could do

The Dead

The office has a kind of canteen, an open space where weak tea and the occasional edible biscuit have been reported. Here lives another man, a man from the south. His status with the company is ambiguous–a matter of no little gossip. Tales are told of whirlwind romances, payments under the table, mutually compromising material. No one really knows. This southerner spends his days reading and drinking tea in a most relaxed fashion. Good work if you can get it, muses the thin man. The thin man and the southerner are allies of the kind that sometimes arise during wartime conditions. The details of his ally’s dalliances and contractual complexities are only of a general interest to the thin man, who is however curious what value the southerner is seen to be providing to the company. Literacy is good and all, but the filing by god, the filing waits for no man.

Sometime that fall, the southerner pulls the thin man aside, for a talk. His manner is furtive, his words oblique. The thin man’s time with the company is limited, he whispers. His number is up. Time to hit the bricks, pal.

The thin man takes this news in stride. The tables beckon and he’s met a woman, a lady of the evening, perhaps, yet classy–demure, yet perfectly capable of looking after her own interests. He has only seen her a few times, true, yet there are possibilities. Of course being sans salary is not likely to widen that particular possibility set. So when the southerner leans in and whispers low, the thin man listens close.

“There is a man, a man you may meet,” says the southerner. “You must not ever tell anyone I told you this. The man will be under a bridge on a high holiday. There will be revelry. He may make you an offer.”

Gambling man he may be, but the thin man is confused.

“What should I do?”

“Stay alert. Pay attention. I can say no more.”

Easy to say, harder to execute, thinks the thin man. Alert for what? A man under a bridge is easy enough to spot, however the southerner seemed to be referring to another matter, an occasion where attention would be needed to carry the day. The thin man files the conversation away, and resolves to stay open to a situation that appears to have elements of fluidity.  It seems like the least he can do.

Scene Three: A Few Weeks Later

In bar light/ she looked alright/ in day light/ she looked desperate

Hold Steady

The thin man waited out the fall, his gambling limited to the occasional dice game at the Metropole. The southerner’s sage advice, if not quite forgotten, had faded into the general background of the holiday season. The city filled with lights and good cheer, and the denizens of the office slipped into a gentle numbness even more pronounced than usual. The demure lass was deft enough to dangle enough hints and intimations to keep the thin man hooked. You get what you get, he mused, when were it ever otherwise?  A couple of hot streaks at the tables allowed him to further postpone thoughts of the future. He would buy a round or two for a barfly girl he knew–at least she was around. Eggnog, that was her tipple.

One day a upper-middle manager summoned the thin man into a meeting. Called him by name no less. The meeting started crisply.

“Thin man, as you know you number is up here at the company.”

Hit the bricks, pal.

“As a result, we won’t be renewing your employment next year.”

Uh huh…ok, eggnog time then.

“I want you to understand that you won’t be employed by the company next year.”

What was that? “Stay alert,” so said the southerner.

“You won’t be offered a contract with the company. Do you understand?”

Unnecessarily repetitive. Information is being underlined. Pay attention.

“I understand perfectly,” said the thin man. And he thought that he did.

Scene IV: The Next Day

It was in Pittsburgh, late one night/ lost my hat, got into a fight/ I rolled and I tumbled, ’til I saw the light/ went to the Big Apple, took a bite

Dylan

After receiving the news of his impending termination, the thin man felt he had relatively little to lose.  He spent the next day in the canteen talking with the southerner.  The Tutonic Knight still reigned supreme over the crack in the oak; there was no there there in any case.  The southerner read philosophy, remained on the payroll.

“I’m attending a holiday party,” said the southerner.  “It will be this Saturday.  Under a bridge in the dead center of town.”

Indeed.

“There will be a man there.  If you decide to come to the party, meet me on the street just above the bridge.  I will act as if our meeting was coincidence.  Then, I will take you to the man under the bridge.  He is waiting to meet you.”

The thin man had but one true weakness, a byproduct, perhaps, of over-indulgence in games of chance.  His weakness, he knew, was for the unexpected.  For the unplanned. For, essentially, the random.

“Sure.  What time Saturday.”

“18:30”

Military time.

“OK.  I will present myself on the street as instructed,” said the thin man.

Scene V: Saturday

I said hey Senorita that’s astute/ why don’t we get together and call ourselves an institute

Paul Simon

On Saturday, the thin man arrived on time as promised.  The southerner materialized on the street just then.

“Ah, thin man, what an amazing coincidence.  I was just heading down under this here bridge to see a man about a mule.  Perhaps you would like to join me.  He may have an extra one for sale.”

“A mule might help me get out of town in a hurry,” said the thin man.  “Let’s see what’s happening.”

Under an inky moon the two men descended, passing through waves of people, men and women, reveling in the moonlight and watching the circus.  It was cake they ate, cake it was.  The density of erotic micro-transactions formed an exact square to the paucity of actual action.  Such was the slightly unkind thought that ran through the head of the thin man as he navigated the pretty party people.  In any case, the locus of action was ever in motion.

They pushed on, through the crowd, and reached the lowest point of the city.  Here, a man with a coat of many colors stood, in pointed shoes and a tricorne.  The host with the most, he held court to a motley crew of the pockmarked and the lame–the beautiful people of our fair city.

“This is a thin man,” said the southerner to the tricorne.

The man with the tricorne folded the thin man into a close embrace.  “You will be my new best friend,” said he.

“Naturally,” said the thin man.  “I think we will be very good friends indeed.”

“Now,” said the tricorne, “I have a little talent business, providing the right kind of people to the company.  You are my new best friend.  I will provide you to the company.  As talent.  That I found.”

“Of course you will,” said the thin man.  “Wither the eggnog, si vous plais?”

Dedication: For the southern man. Thanks for putting up with my nonsense over all these years.

Posted on by Matt Thomas

The Thin Man Walks in Singapore, Part I: The Thin Man Walks Into a Bar

Here comes a regular

It’s predicted to rain on landing/ I predict we’ll have a drink

Paul Westerberg

Once upon a time in the lost city of Atlantis, a thin man rolled up looking a little the worse for wear. This was probably only to be expected; after all he had been sequestered on a submarine for a period of 22 years, or was it 27. After that long at sea, who can really tell?

It was approaching Halloween, and the proverbial Spooky Lady’s Sideshow was in full effect. The barmaids were called Eyes and Baby, their real names we presume. Or was she Baby Blue? In any case, the thin man and Eyes made eyes, in an innocent way, at least so the story is told.

Groggy as the thin man was, he had had a specialized role down then on the sub. You see, he was a bit of a mechanic, a card shark. Now, a card shark can work clean as well, and the thin man worked clean down there on the ocean floor. He saved his best moves for away games, just like Mike McD in that film Rounders. That’s an oldie but a goodie!

In one corner of the bar stood a pool table, where, of course, the nine ball is always on. The thin man could play a bit, although Eyes sized him up quick. A game was proposed, a game for two players.

But of course no game is really ever between two players alone. Baby Blue was watching—a bit tough to tell her rooting interest. And the bar as a whole, the field so to speak, was tuning in to the frequencies of the game as the regulars made small talk and the travelers weak-tea passes at the local girls. Local girls are no push-over; sometimes folks get the wrong idea on that end. Certainly Eyes and Baby Blue could take care of themselves.

The game began; the thin man potted a few easy balls. Eyes surged back, she’d been around more than she looked. She was an expert at drinking what the punter was drinking. That’s a key part of the art of the barmaid, an underrated profession at the best of times.

The game was nine ball, what else? Eight ball is for rookies, a southerners game. The thin man hailed from the north and he knew a thing or two about sequencing. It goes with the territory of an undersea mechanic, after all.

The thin man was beginning to feel a bit ill–the combination of sea legs, Eyes’ Eyes, a cheeky Cognac or two, and the unfortunate wafts of burning tires from the docks (it all goes down on the docks, as is told), He carries on nonetheless, and takes a two ball lead when Eyes surges back, tying it up with only the 9 ball to go. It’s a touch and go situation. The skeletons muse over the action with as much interest as they can muster from beyond the great blue veil. The couple on the rail stops sniffing whatever they are sniffing, and ask the thin man to join them for a round. No time for that nonsense. Sea legs and beady cat eyes aside, the game is the game.

A couple of desultory shots bounce about as the players size each other up. Baby blue leans in; the skeletons whisper sweet somethings, even the bartender sneaks a peek. Everyone is getting paid, except the thin man. He is just there for the action.

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