Chapter 439

"Where did you go?" his meimei asked, the moment Arthur returned. This time, bearing a bunch of food, not just the claypot rice but also some Hokkien mee and other goodies. What's the point of having a private car if you didn't use it - and the loaned bodyguard - to help you run some errands. 

"Food!" Arthur lifted the snacks. 

"Is that goreng pisang?" Eyes wide, Zoey took the plastic bag from Arthur, fishing inside to grasp hold of the deep fried, dough-covered banana and biting into it with relish. She let out a low, indecorous moan as she chewed and swallowed, finishing the entire banana in three mouthfuls.

"Zoey!" His mother cried out, scandalized. "You'll spoil your dinner. Stop it! I taught you better." Then, her ire turned on Arthur. "And you, spending so much money. I already cooked, ah!"

"Leftovers, later then.” Arthur wandered over to the dining table, putting the bags of takeout on it. “And I told you both, there’s money.” He reached into his pocket, fished out the money and stripped all but a couple of bills to hand over to his mother. Of course she tried to refuse it, but a little struggle later and the reminder of the loan still owed to the Mamak Gang, she had taken the money.

“So that was where you were?”

“Exactly,” Arthur said. “Getting some cores swapped, buying food. Talking to a friend.”

“Friend? Like Sis Chin.”

“More like Bro Rick.” He returned the look his mom was giving him, one filled with concern and he squeezed her hand, noting how dry it had grown. “You should quit your jobs. We won’t need them anymore.”

“Are you going to work with the government?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then, no.”

“Ma!” Arthur said.

"Too dangerous," she replied, firmly. "If I quit, then I might never get the job back. Anyway, I'd miss my friends."

"Mah...." he whined, though mostly half-heartedly. She ignored him as she began unpacking the takeout, looking over her shoulder as he stood there, unmoving. 

"Get the plates and chopsticks. Or how we eat?"

He sighed, knowing that he had lost this fight. It would be a while before he could win it. In any case, he had other battles he would need to conduct.

"What do you think of moving?" he said, after they were half-done with their meal. She, not surprisingly, shook her head. “This place, it’s a bit small for all three of us.”

“Scared to bring your girlfriend back, ah?” his meimei teased. As he glowered at her, she grinned cheekily. “Oh, wait. I forgot. My tai kor has no girlfriend.”

“Brat!”

Zoey stuck her tongue out as he chuckled, looking around the house. Two bedrooms were a lot, in some ways – more than many had. But with three adults, and him sleeping on the couch and all his gear crammed into the living room, it really was crowded. There was no real space left for, well, anything; especially with the kitchen set to the side and tiny.

“You are right,” his mother said, drawing Arthur’s attention back.

“What?”

“You’re right. This place is too small.” She tapped her finger on the table. “For you. You should move out.”

“I…”

“You can’t bring your business friends over. That girl – Casey. I bet her place is as big as this entire building!”

“Not that much…” Seeing the look Zoey was giving him, he sighed. “Don’t get any ideas. You need to graduate first.”

“I know lah!”

Happy with the teasing, he turned his attention to his mother. “I don’t want to leave you all alone.”

“This is my home, silly boy.” She waved a hand all around, taking in the surroundings. “I don’t want to leave. Even if we got a larger place, it’d just be more things to clean.”

“But…”

“No. You should leave. And your sister, when she graduates and gets a job.” A slight hint of a smile. “And savings. Maybe after she gets married.”

“Ma! So sexist.”

The mother just nodded agreeably, as she continued to speak to Arthur. “But you need to go.”

When she said it like that, with that look in his eyes, Arthur found he could not argue. Not with her. There was, after all, still a little boy inside of him that did not want to disappoint his mother, who cherished her opinion.

Most of all, when he figured she was right.

Though that did leave him with one thing to handle, if nothing else.

 

***

 

“Arthur!” The voice that greeted him was happy and smiling, the speaker inviting him in. They caught up fast, even as Vivek’s parents kept out of the way as the pair chatted on the inside of their ground floor apartment, the curtains drawn so that Vivek could see outside.

After a suitable amount of time had passed, Arthur shifted in his seat, getting ready to ask the questions e had come down for. Reading his mood with the ease of long time companionship, Vivek leaned forward.

“So you want to know about the Mamak gang?” Vivek said.

“That obvious?”

“Well, few people visit unless they want to ask, you know…” Vivek gestured downwards, at the wheelchair he was in. A bad fall when he was younger had meant that Vivek had been paralyzed from the waist down, forcing him to stay with his parents. Most days, he hung around either in the house, looking outside or just outside on a table with his solder, running an impromptu repair café and fixing up broken electronics others brought to him.

It also made him the foremost set of eyes in the apartment.

“You know there was a Mamak Gang before? They just stole name?”

“No, I didn’t. No relations?”

“Nah. The old gang were all killed,” Vivek said. “They started coming around, months ago. Just loitered you know.”

“No one did anything?”

“Ah Soon,” at Arthur’s blank look, Vivek clarified, “512. He tried. Got beaten pretty badly late at night, the next day as he was coming home, walking back from the LRT. Said he couldn’t see who did it.”

“But the message got sent anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“Then…?”

“They hung around. Listened to people. Talked. When it was just talk, no one was willing to do anything.”

“Didn’t stay that way, though.”

“It was small loans, right, boss? At first.” Vivek sighed. “No one had problems paying it back. Or if they did, the Gang didn’t complain. Took people out, had drinks. Made like they were friends.”

Arthur could see the shape of it now, how they came in. Understood even what was coming. The gang did not disappoint.

“Then it became bigger. And bigger. They got Pak Abrahim. Then, Cik Joyah. Then the Pradeep’s in 707.” Vivek sighed. “We got them away from the Singh’s before they took the loan in 101; but then they started getting more ruthless. Telling people no one else could take loans from others. That we had to come to them.”

“Protection money?”

“Not yet. Soon lah.” Arthur noted how Vivek’s hands were shaking a little as he continued. “They came by two days ago, talked about my gear.”

“Shit.”

“You’re a big time Climber now, right?” A little hope in his voice, more in his eyes as he stared at Arthur. He recalled how he’d see the boy – now man – seated by his apartment at all hours of the day. Working hard, learning electronics, learning how to fix things; just like he had himself pushed to learn martial arts. Doing the best he could with the hand dealt to him.

“Yeah, I am. I’ll figure something out.” Grimly, he nodded. “One way or the other.”

“Terima Kasih, Arthur.”

“Mmm sai.” Arthur waved goodbye as he stood up.

Now he knew. The only question now was what he was going to do about it.