Singapore Wink (25 page)

We carried on a vague kind of conversation made up of half-phrases, grunts, long silences, and old jokes; the kind of verbal shorthand that is used by two persons who know each other well or have been married for a long time. The hamburger king had called again and was shipping his Stutz DV-32 Bearcat down from San Francisco next week or the week after. The plumber had brought his wife in to look at the Cadillac; the wife had been unimpressed. Two young ladies had phoned for me; one gave her name as Judy and the other had refused to leave either her name or number and I spent a few moments trying unsuccessfully to think who it might have been. I knew who Judy was.

The phone finally rang at a quarter to five. It had been a long afternoon and the sound was welcome so I let it ring three times. “Damned if I'm going to seem anxious,” I said and picked it up on the fourth ring.

“A man will come to your hotel at seven this evening, Mr. Cauthorne.” Once again Angelo Sacchetti's wife didn't think it was necessary to identify herself so I said: “Who's this?”

“Make sure you're not followed,” she said.

“Who's the man?”

“You'll recognize him,” she said and hung up.

I replaced the phone and went back to the divan where I'd been doing my waiting with my head propped up on two pillows from the bed. “The Dragon Lady,” I said. “A man's going to pick us up at seven o'clock here.”

“Us?”

“Don't you want to sit in? We just play for matches.”

“I mean, did she say ‘us' or ‘you'?”

“She said ‘you' but I interpreted it as ‘us' which reminds me; I'd better call Dangerfield.”

I crossed the room again, looked up the number of the Strand Hotel, and asked its operator for Dangerfield's room. She rang the room for at least two minutes and then said she was sorry, but Mr. Dangerfield did not seem to be in and would I like to leave a message. I told her to tell him to call Cauthorne.

“Not there?” Trippet said.

“No.”

“What do you think of his numbers racket headquarters theory?”

“Not much.”

“Neither do I, but it's probably better than sitting around some hotel room.”

“What isn't?”

Trippet went back to his own room to write a letter to his wife and to call Lim Pang Sam, he said. I continued to lie on the couch and count the cracks in the ceiling. I could have spent the time more profitably by reading a newspaper or studying Chinese or working on my bird calls, but I didn't. I just lay there and stared at the ceiling and counted fifteen major cracks and six probables which actually were hairlines. I was waiting, I told myself, for the man who was going to take me to Angelo Sacchetti. But that wasn't true. What I really waited for was Sacchetti to fall off the Chinese junk for the last time. I was waiting for that final grotesque, obscene wink and it arrived at a quarter past six along with the usual measure of shakes and shivers and a river of cold sweat. When it was over I headed for the bathroom and my third shower for the day. I dressed slowly, killing more time. I wore a white Egyptian cotton shirt with a button-down collar, a striped tie from some long-disbanded regiment, a dark blue poplin suit, black socks and loafers and a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson Chief's Special which I stuck in the left-hand waistband of my trousers so that it could remind me of how much my stomach hurt. By fifteen to seven I was sitting on the edge of a chair, neat if not natty, waiting for someone to guide me to the man who the Singapore police thought would do for the prime suspect in the Carla Lozupone murder case until a better one came along.

Trippet knocked on my door at ten till seven and joined me in a final gin and tonic. “Did you talk to Lim?” I said.

“For a few minutes.”

“Did you tell him about tonight?”

“I mentioned it.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing,” Trippet said. “Nothing at all.”

The knock on the door came promptly at seven and I didn't jump as much as I thought I would. I put my drink down, crossed the room, and opened the door. Mrs. Angelo Sacchetti had been right when she had said that I would know him. I did. It was Captain Jack Nash.

“I don't have any choice in this thing, Cauthorne,” he said as he moved quickly into the room, flicking a brief glance at Trippet.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Just what I said.”

“How much did she offer, since you and Angelo are both Americans and all?”

“Who's he?” Nash said, jerking his chin at Trippet.

“I haven't changed that much, have I, Jack?” Trippet said.

Nash turned for another look. A long one. “Hey, I know you.”

“You should.”

“Sure, I know you,” Nash said, more slowly this time. “It was a long time ago up in North Borneo. Jesselton. You're—let me think a moment—you're Trippet, that's it. Major Trippet.” He turned to me again. “How come you brought in British Intelligence, Cauthorne?”

“He didn't,” Trippet said.

“I think it's nice that you two know each other,” I said.

“Your friend, Captain Nash, was Colonel Nash when I knew him,” Trippet said. “Actually lieutenant-colonel in the Philippine Guerrilla Army until he was court-martialed.”

“They wiped that out, friend,” Nash said.

“He was using his good office to run guns to North Borneo when I knew him,” Trippet said.

“You never proved it.”

“He was buying them on the black market in the Philippines, or so he said. Actually, we had quite a bit of evidence that he stole them from various American Army installations. It was just after the war, in 1946.”

“Ancient history,” Nash said.

“During the war,” Trippet went on, “Nash captured a Japanese vice-admiral and then set him free. That was on Cebu, wasn't it, Jack?”

“You know why I turned him loose.”

“For one hundred thousand dollars, according to my information.”

“Bullshit,” Nash said. “I turned him loose because the Japs were going to wipe out every Filipino on the entire island.”

“It was an excellent story; even most of the Filipinos believed it,” Trippet said. “Jack was quite the hero. It seems that the admiral's seaplane was forced down by engine trouble and he and nine top-ranking staff officers walked right into Jack's arms carrying with them, curiously enough, a complete set of plans for the defense of the islands. So Jack made a deal with the admiral. In exchange for the defense plans and one hundred thousand dollars, the admiral could go free providing he arranged for the phony massacre threat.”

“It wasn't phony and there wasn't any hundred grand,” Nash said. He produced his tin box and began to roll a cigarette. “What the hell,” he said after he got his cigarette lit, “it all happened more than twenty-five years ago anyway.”

“Go on,” I said to Trippet.

“All right. It seems that when the American command in Australia learned that Jack was planning to release the admiral, they ordered him to ignore the alleged Japanese threat. But Jack disobeyed orders, managed to get the defense plans to Australia, somehow collected the hundred thousand, released the admiral, and got a citation from the Philippine government for gallantry, and a court-martial from the Americans.”

“You want a drink?” I said to Nash.

“Sure,” he said.

“Gin all right?”

“On the rocks.”

I poured the drink and handed it to him. “That's a phony story,” he said. “The Flip government gave me a medal, not any citation.”

“Why tell it now?” I asked Trippet.

“Because I don't trust the good ex-colonel,” Trippet said.

“They gave me my rank back,” Nash said. “They only busted me to major anyhow.”

“Back up to my first question, Nash,” I said. “How much is she paying you?”

He looked into his drink as if the amount were written on one of the ice cubes. “Five thousand bucks. American.”

“For what?”

“For letting Sacchetti cool off.”

“Where?”

“On my
kumpit.
That's where I'm going to take you.”

“And Sacchetti's there?” I said.

“He was an hour ago.”

“Where's your
kumpit?
”

“Across the island south of the naval base just off Seletar in the Johore Strait.”

“Why there?” Trippet asked.

“Look, this limey isn't coming along, is he?” Nash said.

“He's an American and all now,” I said. “He's coming along.”

“Sammy was right,” Trippet said. “A hand does need to be lent.”

“What kind of crack is that?” Nash said.

I told him it was a private joke and he said that his
kumpit,
the
Wilfreda Maria,
was anchored in the strait because it had been “moving around.”

“Where'd she find you?” I said.

“Sacchetti's wife?”

“Yes.”

“At Fat Annie's.”

“When?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“And they're paying you five thousand just to give him bed and board for a few days?”

Nash ground his cigarette out in an ashtray and then glanced at his watch. “Them? Not hardly. As soon as he's through with you I've got to rendezvous with his yacht.”

“Where?” I said.

“They're paying me five thousand to do it. It'll cost you five thousand to find out where.”

“Seeing as how we're both Americans and all,” I said.

“Yeah,” Nash said. “There's that, too.”

CHAPTER XXIII

A small herd of middle-aged sweaty-looking American tourists, necks festooned with cameras, were being channeled towards the registration- desk in the lobby by their leader, a fussy man in an electric blue shirt, who stamped his foot when one of his charges wanted to know why they weren't staying at the Singapura like her sister, Wanda, did last year.

Trippet and I followed Nash through the crowd and out the door where he turned towards the trishaw stand. “I thought we were going to the other side of the Island,” I said.

“Just do it my way,” Nash said. “You take the second trishaw in line and tell him to follow mine.”

“To where?” I said.

“To Fat Annie's.”

I said “Fat Annie's” to our Chinese pumper and he grinned wickedly.

“Why didn't you say ‘follow that trishaw?'” Trippet said, as we climbed in. “Would have lent some atmosphere, don't you think?”

“I thought it was your line.”

We had traveled about a hundred yards when I poked my head around the canvas top of the trishaw and looked back. There was another trishaw about fifty feet behind us, but I couldn't make out either of its occupants.

“I think we're being followed,” I said. “Which is a pretty fair line itself.”

“Who?”

“Can't tell.”

“Difficult to request more speed.”

“We might as well enjoy the ride.”

Fat Annie's still didn't look like much and Trippet said so when we arrived right behind Nash's trishaw. “It's got a nice parlor,” I said, and paid off our driver.

Nash was waiting at the door. “Let's go,” he said.

The old woman with the long-stemmed pipe was still sitting on the low bench in the cubicle of an entrance. She ignored us as we went into the room with the rattan bar which held the new National cash register and the abacus. Fat Annie sat on her stool, three hundred pounds of joy, and called, “Hello, Snooky,” at Nash.

“He ready?” Nash said.

“He's waiting,” she said and looked at me. “You were here the other night. Got time for a quickie?”

“Not tonight,” I said.

“How about your goodlooking friend?”

“Thank you, no,” Trippet said and smiled politely.

Nash was moving towards a door that led to the rear and we followed. “You boys come back,” Fat Annie called.

The door led to a dingy hall. We went down that and through another door and found ourselves in a narrow cul-de-sac that was just wide enough for the waiting trishaw whose thin-faced driver was perched on the bicycle seat smoking a cigarette.

“Somebody's going to have to sit on somebody's lap,” Nash said. “I didn't know there was going to be three of us.”

“I'll sit on yours,” Trippet said to me.

“Who's following us, Nash?” I said.

“Cops, I guess.”

“Think this will fool them?”

“Annie will stall,” he said and climbed into the trishaw and said something to the driver in Chinese. I got in next to Nash and Trippet gingerly crawled onto my lap and his rear pushed the Smith & Wesson against my taped stomach and I bit my lip so that I wouldn't yell. The driver said something to Nash who barked back in Chinese and we were off, the driver's thin leg muscles bunching into hard knots as he pushed at the bicycle pedals.

He turned left at the entrance to the cul-de-sac and wound his way through packed streets. A few people tittered at the sight of three in a trishaw and Nash muttered something about how goddamned ridiculous it was for Trippet to be along anyhow. Some ten minutes later the trishaw turned down a street that I remembered led to the Singapore River. At the quay the driver stopped and Nash jumped out.

“Any time,” I said to Trippet.

“Sorry,” he said as he eased himself off my knees.

After a few moments of debate Nash paid off the trishaw driver and walked down the steps of the quay and kicked the sleeping Indian with the yellow teeth. He woke up smiling and began to untie the line that ran from his big toe to the runabout.

“Get in,” Nash said.

We got in, the Indian, too, and Nash started the motor and backed out into the river. He turned the boat upriver this time and wove in and out of the anchored
tonkangs.
We were well over fifty yards upriver when I looked back at the quay. Two men stood on its bottom step and they seemed to be staring at us, but I couldn't tell who they were in the dusk.