But for now they were headed only to the third floor, where the Needle Anggor Neo had set up shop in this populous district of Eu Tong Sen Street. The mall was busy right from the doors: its atrium was filled with an exhibition ofGO METRIC! slogans, orange-shirted Metrication Board ambassadors with conversion charts, and people stepping onto scales. Tian was perplexed and amused, even when Adeline tried to explain what her mathematics teacher had forced them last year to learn: Singapore was changing its measurements system to keep up with its trading partners. This was how a city of future commerce began—with weighing scales in shopping centers.
Shopping centers still fascinated Adeline, how their wares were gathered and ordered like a honeycomb, with places to eat and walk and meet all in the building, streets folded into a steady form. There were more being built all over town. Tian was quiet, though, and had her hands in her pockets, which meant she was uncomfortable. Adeline let her walk quickly. Tian had covered up again before coming, or someone might have called security; nonetheless, people looked at her as they passed, which meant they were looking at Adeline in turn, in a way that made her feel violent.
Anggor Neo operated out of a semi-legitimate medicinal shop. The girls walked through genuine racks of dried cordyceps and antelope horn, bags of gossamer swallow nest, various tonics of ginger and things, all to approach the older man at the counter filling cloth pouches with powder. Adeline could have mistaken him for a regular cashier if not for the lines tattooed down his fingers.
“We don’t sell tiger bone anymore,” he said. “Come back next week for antelope horn.”
Tian leaned in and lit the tiniest flame. The edge of his spectacles glinted as he looked up at them, properly.
“In the back,” Anggor Neo said.
Adeline was surprised to find a room of glass bookshelves, papered diagrams of the body and its meridians. Aside from Pek Mun, who would occasionally be seen with a storybook or the newspapers, reading was a scarce pastime with the Butterflies. More than a few, like Tian, had dropped out of school early and could barely read anyhow. But she was reminded now that not all the kongsi were made of the same kinds of members. These were proper doctor’s books, medical texts about anatomy and acupuncture, herbs and natural properties, words Adeline didn’t even recognize. Anggor Neo was a man of science. A dedicated one, too, if the pages of handwritten notes that he now promptly shuffled off the desk were any indication. No wonder Three Steel had hired him for their strange new work, which they were somehow dedicated to carrying out even amidst all the fighting.
Papers put aside, Anggor Neo shut the door. “Red Butterfly. Don’t you work with Lang?”
“Our health is fine,” Tian said. “We want to ask you about the Desker Road girls.”
The Needle paused. “What are you talking about?” he said casually, lowering himself into the desk chair.
“Three Steel hires you to go into the brothels on Desker Road, to treat girls nobody else but customers see. Beautiful girls that die more than they should, and are carried out at night. Girls who attack Butterflies.” Tian dropped both hands on the desk. “Sound familiar?”
Anggor Neo sniffed. Adeline was reminded that for all his appearances as a genial medical man, they were here because he was more than willing to do the dirty work. “I don’t disclose my work.” But Tian was making him nervous. His eyes flickered to the side of his desk.
“You don’t do it for free,” Tian corrected. She withdrew the folded photograph from her pocket and slid it face down over the table.
When Anggor Neo flipped it over, his face blotched. “What is this?”
With the Buaya’s camera, they had taken a photograph of Mui Hwa looking straight down the lens. The girl had never had her picture taken before and found it great fun; Tian had charmed her so much it had been more of a trouble to ask her to stop smiling. “Sweet girl. What was her mother’s name again?” Adeline asked. “Rose?”
Tian clicked her tongue. “Such a tragic death.”
“You threaten children now?” Anggor Neo exclaimed.
“You charge women extortionate amounts for treatments because you know they can’t go anywhere else. Don’t act noble.” Tian leaned forward. “I grew up around women who relied on men like you. I know you take other forms of payment, when they don’t have the cash. You must have had to get rid of your own spawn before. What makes Mui so special?”
The Needle breathed heavily, fist curling over the picture. Again, his eyes flickered left, at his drawer.
When he sprang, Tian lunged over the table and wrenched him away at the elbow. As he gasped, Adeline checked the drawer instead, found a revolver that she drew out with quiet amazement. It felt cinematic. It had more heft than a knife, sat slimly over her curled fingers with a warmth she might have imagined.
“You actually do love your daughter,” Tian observed, still pressing her weight on him. “So this doesn’t have to end badly for any of us. Tell us what you know.”
Adeline felt like she was in a Bond film as she cocked the gun. “Or else,” she said cheerfully.
He stared down the barrel. “Three Steel will kill me if they find out,” he rasped.
His choice hung ponderously. He only needed a little push over the edge—Tian knew what she had to say, the bluff they had to call, but she seemed suddenly seized with reluctance. Perhaps she’d seentoo much of herself in Mui. She couldn’t threaten his daughter, not even in pretense.
Before Anggor Neo could realize Tian was hesitating, Adeline swung the revolver downward and pulled the trigger.
The Needle yelped as splinters burst before him, throwing up his hands, but Adeline hadn’t been aiming for him. Instead, there was now a hole right through Mui’s picture.
He stared. Tian stared, first at Mui then at Adeline, realizing she’d saved her. “Tell us what you know,” Tian demanded.
Now he spoke quickly. “Some of them are fine. Unbelievably beautiful, the kind men would kill for. But others have sicknesses I can’t name. Skin deformities, bone deformities, growths in the eyes. Symptoms that aren’t from any disease I recognize. Three Steel won’t tell me their history, so I can hardly help—but I tried what I know and couldn’t cure them. I expect some died, because they aren’t there anymore when I go back. They’re all foreign girls, though, and there’s so much disturbance across the seas now… War produces sickness. It’s not a surprise.”
Tian seemed to have realized she’d looked weak, and seemed determined to make it up. “So they arrive sick?” she said, harsher than necessary.
“They don’t tell me when they arrived. I couldn’t say.”
