Crossings no more appealing a year plus later. (Well, the special kids waiting were still a mark above some other places, there was certainly that.) Thankfully the pee-dribble R&B turned down, not to the point of unintelligible, but still. Before a young, junior grade schoolgirl entered it had been only the single occupant with the four staff on hand for his every whim. As in her classroom, the sweet raised her hand in order to draw attention from one of the waiters lounging behind the counter. Lads on their screens unresponsive, the well-brought-up lass waiting patiently. Unexpectedly, leaving the adult in the room quite discombobulated, a neatly presented front-of-house type lady (as presently she proved), coming from out behind and passing along the passage, craned her head back to deliver a big, wide, Austin Texas matron kinda smile!!... Lookin at you Bud, there was no one else. Bigger than Texan & the sun both. Gollie! Gee! Really brightening the dial... Met with blankness and hesitation in taking the proffered hand when she came over, the mask suddenly slipped, to be replaced by the visage of Senior Mistress at the young schoolgirls’ institution of learning. None too happy about the behaviour. Josephine…Geylang Serai… Miffed; seriously & cruelly. The first helped not at all. Catlady Jo was the only woman with that tag on the home turf; there was no other. Josephine?… From which pile of rock had this pretender popped?... Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Hang on a sec. Whoa. Gotcha now. Took a while, granted. Ya, it was the Mick coming back with Raj from J. C. Complex that day after vespers whatnot at the church on Tanjong Katong Road. (Holy Family?) Almost unrecognisable with the loose hair and swinging gait on that occasion. The lady’s teh tab had in fact been picked up that afternoon. What you doing here?... Ah. Just wah it looked like, lady needed to be informed. Briefly the Senior Mistress had overpowered. She worked at the hotel behind, on the other street. You knew it. They had commissioned the graffiti on the wall along the cobblestoned lane in order to screen the blind side of the adjacent tower. Was there a passage connecting the two, the hotel and Crossings here, the café? (Like the Vatican had serving the post-WWII old Nazis who were ferreted out to Latin America. Easy access secret & secluded. No two-hourly rooms in that case to be sure. A natural Mick link, incorporating the entire block….) No, no, no. Nothing to do with, that was joining widely distant dots. The hotel was owned by the Koh Bros, the construction tzars whose names were up on all the cranes across the island. Something here set off a bulb; illumined. Something suggested knowing to the lady, Empress Josephine. The look in response signing an acquaintance perchance. With the family of renown. The big side of town... Well, what to do? No harm hinting at an association with squillionaires every once in a while, the opportunity did not arrive every day of the week. Take your chances when they came. Ah. (Pause.) Someone connected with… Let the lady think the g-daughter was being knocked willy-nilly any time of the clock; cocaine, cocktails, canapés. Why not? For all she knew… Mathew 15:32 on the wall, with a blurred repro of either what the disciple might have looked like, or else the master maybe who went down for the brief count. Warm water after the café was a good idea (certainly not iced). The virus spread more easily in dry mouths and nostrils; keeping lubricated was better protection than face masks and hand washing. Jo of the felines from Block 4, after eventually finding the misplaced Whatsapp No, had been sending the latest hints and news items the last five minutes again, immediately before her namesake showed. A specialist at a US research lab had warned that elevators were one of the most dangerous sites, both because of the close confinement and also the danger lurking on the buttons that everyone fingered. Best to deploy a pen perhaps, especially one with a removable cap that could seal nasties afterward, prof advised. (They had established the germ lived a half hour on some particular type of surface, another of Jo’s missives had informed a day/two before.) In the video that accompanied the last, a little mounted pin cushion holding numerous toothpicks had been installed in a handsome wood-panelled elevator. In HK & Shanghai they might have been de rigueur now.
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