Forever and a Death

by Donald E. Westlake

  “As a matter of fact,” Kim said, “there were.”

  They all looked at her in surprise. Sounding not completely pleased, Wai Fung said, “And who was that?”

  “When I looked out the window,” she said, “while he was running down the fire escape, there were two painters out there, painting the fire escape.”

  Wai Fung said, “And what did they see, exactly?”

  “They saw the man roll out of my room, kick George in the face, and run down the fire escape.”

  Now Wai Fung made a note, then peeled off the top sheet of his pad and gave it to one of his assistants, with quickly murmured instructions. Then Wai Fung turned back to the others. “Whatever may have happened in Ms. Baldur’s room this morning —and we will investigate, I assure you—the connection between this incident and Richard Curtis remains, at least to my eyes, invisible.”

  Rickendorf said, “Inspector, my friend Jerry has a friend working for Curtis. That friend told us last Wednesday that he had seen a man in Richard Curtis’s office who fit the description of the man who attacked Kim. He said he himself had carried an envelope containing five thousand dollars to Curtis, and that he’d seen Curtis give the envelope to this man.”

  Wai Fung said, “And this friend’s name?”

  Fairchild watched waves of indecision cross Rickendorf’s face, like speeded-up cloud systems on a TV weather broadcast.

  “Mr. Rickendorf,” Wai Fung said, “without this person’s statement, what do I have? Mere assertions. Your assertions.”

  Rickendorf said, “Would it be all right if I telephoned him?”

  “Certainly,” Wai Fung said.

  20

  Though Wok Wok was just off a main passenger corridor at Changi Airport, a broad main pedestrian thoroughfare full of foot traffic and some wheeled traffic as well, the food stall also had a section at the rear, behind the kitchen module, that was quiet and unobtrusive. Here is where Curtis placed himself, at one that afternoon, and here is where Bennett eventually found him, coming around the corner of the kitchen, lugging one huge battered suitcase, “A perfect place, sir,” he said, by way of greeting, “A perfect place.”

  Curtis didn’t know why Bennett looked so disheveled. There were stains on his shirt, his hair was spiky, and he had the general look of someone who’s been trying to run through brambles. As the man sat down, across the table, Curtis said, “What’s happened to you?”

  “That girl,” he said, and sounded bitter.

  “Girl? Kim Baldur, you mean?”

  “Yes, sir.” Bennett slowly shook his head, seemed to think about what he wanted to say, and began, “Mr. Curtis, some things went like they should, and some didn’t.”

  “Well, tell me about them.”

  “I could see they were onto me,” Bennett said. “Not me, I don’t think they spotted me in particular, but they knew they were being watched. It had to be. At first they were all in a hurry, making phone calls, setting up meetings, and then all of a sudden they’re not, they just wander around the city, they don’t make any more phone calls, they don’t even call between their rooms anymore. So they’re waiting me out, I could tell.”

  “Hennessy must have told them somebody was on their tail.”

  “There’s a chap I’d like to meet,” Bennett said.

  “Oh, you will,” Curtis told him, and smiled at the thought. “But go on. They were stalling.”

  “And I couldn’t, because of you going to go away. So I snatched Diedrich and took him home—”

  “Home!”

  “That’s the only place I had, Mr. Curtis. I set it up so he wouldn’t know where he was, and I asked him the questions, and he told me about Hennessy, but then, I misjudged or whatever, and he was done for. It was an accident, but there it is.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Colin,” Curtis told him. “I know it was an accident, and I for one will not miss him.”

  “No, sir. Nor I.”

  The waitress, a tiny ancient woman barely taller than the table, now brought their meals, and they had to remain silent while she distributed the dishes. Curtis took the opportunity to study Bennett, this shambling messy creature across from him, and consider what he had done and what he seemed willing to do. He hadn’t realized how much of a brute Bennett was, and the knowledge was both pleasing and alarming. The man could be even more useful than Curtis had thought, but he would also be more dangerous, because he clearly wasn’t very smart. To take Diedrich home!

  The waitress left, and Curtis said, “Where is he now? I mean, the… Not at home anymore?”

  “In the Straits of Jurong.”

  “No bullets in him? Knife wounds?”

  “No, sir. A broken nose, as might be.”

  “All right. But how did the girl get into this?”

  “It seemed to me, sir,” Bennett said, “you wanted her out of the way.”

  “I never said such a thing, Colin.”

  “No, sir, you didn’t. But I read between the lines, like. And I went after her. And some boyo I never saw in my life come along and queered the pitch, and I had to scarper.”

  “A passerby?”

  “No, he knew her, he kept calling her name, when he was trying to get into the room.”

  Curtis wasn’t sure he wanted to know this entire story, but he couldn’t help himself. “What room?”

  “Her room, in the hotel,” Bennett said. “I got in and it would’ve been all right, but this fellow come along and she managed to let him in, and that was it.”

  “Colin,” Curtis said, and smiled thinly again, “are you ready to travel?”

  “Yes, sir, I am,” Bennett said.

  Curtis put down his chopsticks long enough to take the envelope from the attaché case on the floor beside his chair. “This is your ticket,” he said. “You’re flying to Taipei at three o’clock.”

  “Taipei,” Bennett said, sounding surprised, but he asked no questions.

  “When you get there,” Curtis told him, “you don’t go through Customs. Can you carry that bag aboard?”

  “It’s a bit big, but I’ve done it in the past.”

  “Good. At the airport in Taipei, go to the transit passengers area, there’ll be someone there to meet you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He’ll take you to a small charter plane that’s got a flight plan to Okinawa, but you aren’t going to Okinawa, you’re going to Kaohsiung, at the southern end of the island.”

  “Sir, if I may,” Bennett said, “why are we saying I’m going to Okinawa?”

  “Because that’s international, and you will never have actually entered Taiwan. You’re a transit passenger, no checked luggage, there’ll be no record of your having been in Taiwan at all.”

  “Okay, fine,” Bennett said, though clearly he didn’t understand why that was necessary.

  Well, he didn’t have to understand. In fact, it was better if Bennett were never to understand that Curtis was keeping a wall between them, that Bennett was a non-person in Curtis’s life. Curtis said, “At the airport in Kaohsiung, someone else will meet you and drive you to the docks, where I’ve chartered a small ship. You’ll board and wait for me, and I’ll join you tomorrow.”

  “Okay, Mr. Curtis.”

  Curtis smiled. “And I’ll have a pal of yours with me,” he said.

  Bennett looked puzzled.

  “Mark Hennessy,” Curtis said, and the big man’s grin made him shiver.

  21

  Eating lunch at home, a salad of the perishables he’d already had in the kitchen, Mark Hennessy wondered about the trip, what it would be like and what kind of experiences he’d have there. Mark had worked for RC Structural ever since college, first in the field and the last three years here in the head office, and all he knew of the world was the places where Richard Curtis had sent him.

  Mark Hennessy had nothing against Richard Curtis. In many ways, he liked and admired the man. He certainly was grateful for the job he had. As for the extracurricular activ
ities he’d engaged in over the years, well, his goal wasn’t to hurt the man seriously, just to do his part in a small way to provide some checks and balances. Left to his own devices, Curtis would do things from time to time that could to some extent be harmful to the environment, so keeping Jerry and Planetwatch on his case was probably doing the world some good. But it wouldn’t actually hurt Curtis—it would just keep him honest, or a tiny bit more honest. The man would no doubt be angry if he ever found out, and would probably fire Mark on the spot, but his business wouldn’t be crippled or anything.

  But—

  But Mark thought it was probably time to stop. Jerry had made himself just a little too irritatingly known to Richard Curtis, just a little too annoying all around, and coming here to Singapore was maybe not the smartest thing he’d ever done. Curtis had set that fellow on Jerry’s trail, and was taking it all quite seriously, so it was surely time for Mark to hang up his espionage gloves.

  Particularly with this new level of responsibility and trust that had suddenly come his way. Curtis was taking him along on this trip because he trusted Mark. Which meant, from now on, it would be a good idea if Curtis actually could trust Mark.

  The phone rang. His immediate thought, staring across the room at where the phone was mounted on the wall beside the fridge, was that Curtis had changed his mind. He’d be taking someone else on the trip, after all.

  Mark rose and crossed to pick up the phone, and was both relieved and troubled to recognize Luther’s voice. Troubled, of course, because Luther was part of the conspiracy he’d just foresworn.

  What Luther had to say, though, was worse than he’d anticipated: “Mark, Jerry has disappeared, and we’re talking to the police.”

  “What? You mean he just wandered off?”

  “We think he was kidnapped. We think the man you told us about did something.”

  “Good God, Luther, what do you mean did something? Kidnapped? People don’t kidnap people.”

  “Well, they do,” Luther said. “And Jerry’s disappeared, yesterday, while we were having a beer, after he talked to you.”

  Mark didn’t know what to think. This wasn’t the way he’d visualized what they were doing, with disappearances and police and accusations of kidnapping. There had to be some explanation. He said, “Maybe he’s following a lead.”

  “No, Mark.”

  “Well…” He didn’t want this phone call, he didn’t want any of this. He said, “Thank you for the warning, Luther, and I certainly hope Jerry turns up very soon.”

  “I need to give the police your name,” Luther said.

  “My name? For heaven’s sake, why?”

  “You’re the only link between that man and Richard Curtis. You saw him with Curtis, you saw Curtis give him money, you saw him following us, you told us about him.”

  “Oh, Luther, no,” Mark said. “You’ve got to leave me out of this.”

  “I can’t,” Luther said. “The police have to find Jerry, and they can’t find him unless they go to Curtis, and they won’t go to Curtis just on what Kim and I tell them. You’re the only link to Richard Curtis.”

  “Luther, no, it’s just—it’s just not possible. I’m going to—”

  “Mark, we have to—”

  “It’s Sydney, Luther.”

  A stunned little silence, and then: “What?”

  “Luther, the big secret trip Curtis is taking, he’s going to Sydney! I just found out this morning. And he’s taking me.”

  “Mark, I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, you do,” Mark insisted. “Curtis is going on this trip, you remember I told you I knew he wasn’t really going to Manila, and this morning he told me the truth. He’s going to Sydney, and he wants me to go with him because he trusts me. Don’t you see? I’m going to find out what he’s doing, Luther.”

  “Jerry is more important,” Luther said.

  “Jerry is fine,” Mark assured him. “This is what you’ve been wanting to find out, all this time. I still don’t know what he’s up to, but at least now I know where. Sydney. And I’m going with him.”

  “Jerry—”

  “Luther, if you tell the police I’m the one who’s been spying for you, and if they tell Curtis, he won’t take me with him. He’ll fire me instead, and then where are you? Where am I? Where is anybody?”

  “Where is Jerry, that’s the point,” Luther said.

  “Jerry’s fine.” Mark felt frantic, felt it all slipping away. Everything was perfect, and now this had to happen. “Luther,” he said, being very firm, “don’t tell the police it was me.”

  “I have to—”

  “Don’t use my name, Luther.”

  “Mark, I’m very worried about Jerry.”

  “I understand that, I know you are, but this just ruins everything, destroys everything. Don’t use my name.”

  Sounding unhappy and conflicted, Luther said, “I may have to, Mark.”

  “If you do,” Mark told him, “I’ll deny it. You won’t gain anything, because I’ll just deny the whole thing.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I can. And I will. And if you give the police my name, and I say I have no idea who you are or what you’re talking about, where’s your credibility then? Eh? Luther?”

  “You haven’t listened to me, Mark.”

  “I have listened to you, and I—”

  “Jerry is missing.”

  “He’ll come back! But this chance won’t come back! You are not going to spoil this, Luther.”

  “Don’t you care about Jerry?”

  “Of course I do. Luther, I have to hang up now, I have to pack,” Mark said, and cradled the phone before Luther could say anything more.

  22

  Walking back to police headquarters after Luther’s unsatisfactory phone call to Mark Hennessy, and after a pair of heated exchanges over a bolted lunch, Kim kept insisting they should give Mark’s name to the police anyway and Luther kept explaining that that would be worse than no help, because Mark would deny it and Inspector Wai Fung was just looking for an excuse to do nothing.

  Well, of course he’ll do nothing, Manville thought. If Mark had been willing to come forward, it would have been a bit harder for Wai Fung to do nothing, but he still would have managed it.

  What was there for the Singapore police to do, anyway? Manville and Kim had sworn out their complaints against the unknown assailant, and if the police found the man no doubt they’d be happy to put him in jail, but what would they do, or what could they do, about Richard Curtis? Unless they themselves tied Curtis to the assailant, the Singapore police would have nothing to make them at all interested in going after the man, and given Curtis’s influence locally they weren’t likely to try very hard to find something to make them interested.

  In any event, Curtis’s main crime wasn’t that he was behind the assaults. His main crime he hadn’t even committed yet: mass destruction of some sort while stealing a large quantity of gold.

  When Luther had come back from his phone call to Mark, he’d brought one piece of news with him, which Manville still couldn’t quite figure out. Curtis was going to Sydney. That was the secret behind the false destination of Manila.

  But why Sydney? No doubt there was gold in the banks of Sydney, but was he planning to use the soliton there somehow? Sydney wasn’t an island. There was water there, obviously, but what could he possibly be planning to do? The soliton worked in a confined space, not in open water; you needed divers, working in tunnels, setting controlled explosions. Did he think he could somehow use the technology to raise a tsunami off the coast of Australia? It was preposterous. Any engineer could have told him it wouldn’t work. And even if it could have worked, why there…?

  Manville kept silent as the three of them walked back to the police station, letting Kim and Luther argue out the problem of Mark Hennessy. Luther finally said, “The point now is to find Jerry. If they haven’t…hurt him yet, there’s still a chance.”

  Manville was thin
king about the millions of other people Richard Curtis hadn’t hurt yet. The inhabitants of Sydney, or wherever his target really was. But he appreciated why Luther’s main concern was Jerry. “We can press that point with Wai Fung,” he said. “He might not think he has a reason to go after Curtis, but he certainly has a reason to look for the guy who assaulted Kim and me—and took Jerry.”

  * * *

  But Wai Fung was ahead of them. At first he was late, sending one of his assistants to apologize for the delay; they sat around the conference table for about forty minutes until the inspector arrived. “I do apologize for having made you wait,” he announced, as he entered the room, “but I believe you will forgive me in just a moment.” He took a photograph from his jacket pocket. “Mr. Manville, do you recognize this man?”

  Manville took the picture, a squarish black and white head-shot, for a driver’s license or a passport. It was the man who’d attacked Kim.

  Manville looked up at the expectantly smiling Wai Fung. “That’s him. The man in Kim’s hotel room.”

  Wai Fung dipped his head. “Would you show the photo to Miss Baldur, please?”

  “Of course.”

  Manville passed her the picture and she said, “Yes, that’s him.”

  Wai Fung said, “Excellent,” and extended his hand for the photo.

  Giving it back, Manville said, “Congratulations, inspector. That was fast work.”

  “The man did not make it difficult,” Wai Fung said. “His name is Colin Bennett. He is a Singaporean.” Wai Fung sat. “Although he lives in Singapore, in an apartment near China Street, he has been staying at the Race Course Court Hotel for the last week.”

  “Since we’ve been there!” Kim said.

  “He moved in the day after your arrival, and he checked out this morning, shortly before the attack on you. He used his own name, and he paid in cash. He explained to the hotel clerk that his building was being fumigated and the landlord was paying for him to stay in a hotel until the work was completed.”

  Fairchild said, “But his building was not being fumigated.”

  “No, of course not.” Wai Fung looked around at them all and said, “There was a small radio device installed in the telephone in one of your rooms. As you predicted.”