Bee Leng laughed. “Please. You’d run away screaming.”

And so would anyone else.

The car wasn’t outside when she left the lodging house. She waited near the front, feeling like she’d missed the punchline to a particularly unfunny joke. Her new colleague—Gean Choo hadn’t even asked her name over the telephone yesterday—didn’t seem the sort to consort with ghosts.

A steady stream of traffic flowed, kicking up clouds of dust. Most of the rickshaws had their hoods down against the heat of the sun, their curved carapaces like the shells of some unusual insects. Some of the rickshaw coolies ran bare-chested, ribs visible against their skin, straw hats pulled low over their faces.

Her palm itched.

An oxen cart rumbled past, wheels crunching over the dirt, and then a sleek black sedan pulled up by the wayside. The driver leaned across the console towards her. “Teo Gean Choo?” He was a wiry Chinese man of some indeterminate age between forty and sixty, his skin tanned brown from the sun. He was dressed in a navy jacket, its colour even and new.

“Yes,” she said, standing in a hurry.

The man got out of the car. Limping on his left leg, he came around and took hold of her bag, stowing it in the footwell of the back seat. He wore no shoes, his feet as calloused and tough as any of the coolies.

The car’s cream leather seat sighed when Gean Choo slid onto it, with an exhalation of polish and something else, like the whiff of dollar bills. The driver got back into his side. Gean Choo hadn’t quite shut her door when he pulled away into traffic.

“I’m Ang Teck Beng,” he said.

She closed the door. “Thank you for getting me, Uncle.”

As he drove, she heard an unusual noise, a roar like hundreds of voices raised, though she couldn’t quite make out the words. Above that came the beat of drums. They’d only passed two blocks when they hit a wall of traffic, vehicles crammed throughout the street. Rickshaws, motorcycles and pedestrians broke away from the jam and circled back the other way.

She leaned forward, unable to make much sense of all the chaos. Drivers yelled and honked their horns. Teck Beng slapped the steering wheel in frustration, muttering a curse under his breath. Seeing an opening, he began to turn, but then came a series of loud pops, like firecrackers setting off at New Year’s. The sound of yelling pierced the general hubbub as people ran and pedestrians crammed together in the crowded streets. A man slammed against the side of the car, making her jump. Blood oozed from a cut on his forehead. He slapped a crimson palm against her door, leaning heavily against the car for a moment before the crowd pushed him on, and he vanished into the thick of them.

“Close the window,” Teck Beng snapped.