The Singapore Wink

by Ross Thomas

  “What’s Tiger Balm?” Dangerfield asked.

  “It was very powerful medicine that was manufactured by Aw Boon Haw,” the driver said as he nipped past a Honda. “He made many millions of dollars. Then he bought newspapers and when he died they turn his house into a museum.”

  “Why is it called ‘House of Jade’?” I said.

  “Over one thousand pieces of jade inside. Very, very valuable. Very ancient, too.”

  The house of Angelo Sacchetti’s father-in-law, Toh Kin Pui, was about a mile and a half past the patent medicine king’s mansion and located in the Tanglin residential section which, the driver informed us, featured more millionaires per square mile than anyplace else in the world. He may have exaggerated, but the neighborhood looked as if it were trying to live up to the reputation. Toh’s house, set well back from the road, was a rambling white two-story stucco structure with a red tile roof and a five-sided cupola that stuck up an extra story for no apparent reason at all except that the architect may have thought that it would lend a nice touch. The lawn was smooth and green and well-tended, and flowers bloomed everywhere. The asphalt drive curved up to a covered verandah across from which a fountain played lazily into a rocked-in pool. A Rolls-Royce Phantom V limousine was parked in the driveway and a chauffeur was running a dust cloth over its antelope brown finish. I don’t know why he bothered because it looked as if it were going to rain.

  I paid the driver and Dangerfield followed me up the three steps of the verandah. I pushed a button and I suppose that a bell rang somewhere in the house because the door was opened almost immediately by a Chinese man in a white jacket.

  “I’m Mr. Cauthorne,” I said. “Mrs. Sacchetti is expecting me.”

  We followed the man in the white jacket down a hall and despite the air conditioning the palms of my hands began to sweat and I felt drops of perspiration form in my armpits and trickle down my sides. I held out my right hand to admire its quiver. The pain came in short stabs with every step and breath, but the pain didn’t cause the tremor or the perspiration. That came from my obsession, which was finding Angelo Sacchetti so that I could collect whatever it was that he owed me. The end of my obsession, I thought, lay just behind the door that the man in the white coat opened.

  I went through the door first with Dangerfield following. “Don’t be so eager, pal,” he said. “He’s not going to run away.”

  It was a living room and the furniture was ordinary, impersonal and utilitarian. There were a couple of sofas, some armchairs, a rug on the floor, and some pictures on the wall.

  Several tables held vases filled with flowers, the only bright spots in the room. Angelo Sacchetti’s wife sat in one of the armchairs, much as she had sat the night before, leaning slightly forward, her hands resting on the chair’s arms, her knees together and her feet crossed at the ankles, as if it were a lesson she had learned in finishing school and she wanted to demonstrate how well she remembered it. A middle-aged Chinese in a white shirt and dark slacks, the island’s universal business uniform, rose as we entered.

  “Mr. Cauthorne, this is my father, Mr. Toh.”

  He bowed slightly, but did not offer to shake hands. “My associate, Mr. Dangerfield,” I said. “Mrs. Sacchetti and Mr. Toh.”

  Dangerfield wasn’t much for formalities. “Where’s your husband, Mrs. Sacchetti?”

  She ignored him and directed her next remark at me. “You didn’t mention that you were bringing an associate, Mr. Cauthorne.”

  “No, I didn’t, did I? But Mr. Dangerfield has a rather personal interest in this matter. In fact, his interest runs almost as deep as mine.”

  “In what matter?”

  “The matter of stolen property,” I said. “I mentioned it last night. As soon as Angelo arrives, we can discuss it in detail.”

  “I’m afraid that you are going to be disappointed,” Toh said in a curiously deep and resonant voice.

  “Why?”

  “Because, Mr. Cauthome,” Mrs. Sacchetti said as if mentioning her plans for next Tuesday’s bridge game, “the police are looking for him.”

  “Why?” I said again.

  “There was a murder last night. A woman was killed and the police say that they have found evidence that my husband committed the murder. Ridiculous, of course.” Even then there was no emotion in her voice.

  “And Angelo ran?” Dangerfield said.

  “Not ran, Mr. Dangerfield,” Toh said. “He simply thought it best to become incommunicado until he could clear the matter up to everyone’s satisfaction.”

  “Who was the woman?” I said, but I didn’t really have to ask.

  “An American, I believe,” Angelo Sacchetti’s wife said. “Her name was Carla Lozupone.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  They found Carla Lozupone’s body a long way from the Raffles Hotel. It had been dumped beside a road on the east coast of the island near Geylang, not far from a Malay kampong or village. She had been strangled with a cord or a rope and there was nothing to identify her, only a wallet that contained an American passport, an expired California driver’s license, a Social Security card, and 176 Singapore dollars. The wallet was clutched in Carla Lozupone’s right hand and the police had been forced to pry the fingers open. The name on the passport, the license, and the Social Security card was Angelo Sacchetti.

  An early-rising Malay fisherman had stumbled across the body. He immediately summoned his neighbors from their thatched huts in the kampong and all of them, men, women and children, had squatted around the dead girl and palavered for a long time about what should be done. Finally, they dispatched a youth on a bicycle to find a policeman. He couldn’t find one at first and it was not until well after nine in the morning that members of Singapore’s Criminal Investigation Department arrived. It took another hour for them to check the major hotels and discover, through the help of a Raffles room clerk, that the dead girl was Carla Lozupone.

  Dangerfield took over after Sacchetti’s wife told us that Carla Lozupone was dead. His questions were direct, logical and curiously compelling and I decided that he was very good at his job. We learned most of the details later because Mrs. Sacchetti and her father didn’t know much, other than that Carla Lozupone had been murdered and the police were looking for Angelo. Ton had his informants in the Singapore police and they had tipped him off that Angelo was the prime suspect. The tip came twenty minutes before the police arrived, but it seemed to have been plenty of time for Sacchetti to vanish.

  “Where is he now?” Dangerfield asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Sacchetti said. “I assume that he will be in touch with me.”

  “Do you know what time the police think that the girl was killed?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “Did they ask where your husband was last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That he was with me, on the yacht.”

  “Did they believe you?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they had already been to the yacht to question the crew.”

  “And the crew said that he hadn’t been there?”

  “Yes.”

  “All night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where was he?”

  “I don’t know. He had a business appointment last night. If it ran late, he probably stayed in the city. We have a pied-à-terre that he often uses.”

  “A what?”

  “An apartment.”

  “Where did you first see Angelo today?”

  “Here.”

  “When did he first get in touch with you?”

  “Early this morning, by radio-telephone to the yacht.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “About Mr. Cauthorne. And what Mr. Cauthorne said last night.”

  “He didn’t mention that his wallet was missing?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t kno
w.”

  “What did he say about Cauthorne?”

  “He said he wanted to see him. This morning. I suggested that we meet here and he agreed.”

  “The Lozupone girl saw your husband the day before yesterday,” Dangerfield said. “She told Cauthorne that she did. You knew she saw him, didn’t you?”

  Toh stirred in his chair. “My daughter has answered enough of your questions,” he said in his deep voice. “She will answer no more.”

  “Yes she will,” Dangerfield said, turning to me. “Got a cigarette?” I handed him the pack and he shook one out and lighted it with a match from a folder. He looked around for an ashtray but couldn’t find one so he stuck the used match behind the ones still in the folder.

  Toh rose. “Since my son-in-law is not here, I suggest that there is no point to this conversation. It is a police matter and you, Mr. Dangerfield, are not of the police. At least, not of the Singapore police.”

  “Sit down,” Dangerfield said. “We’ve got a long way to go.”

  “I’m sorry, but you leave me no choice,” Toh said. He started towards the door.

  “I said sit down,” Dangerfield said and there was a hard edge to his voice that I hadn’t heard before. Toh paused at the door. He stared thoughtfully at Dangerfield for several moments and then said, “Why?” and the way he said it indicated that there had better be a very good answer.

  “Because your son-in-law has something that I want and unless I get it I’m going to the police with the information about why Carla Lozupone saw Angelo yesterday.”

  Toh turned from the door and crossed to an armchair. He sat down in it slowly. “What information?” he said softly.

  “That Angelo was blackmailing Carla Lozupone’s father and that she was carrying around a letter that would allow Angelo, or anyone else, to get his hands on one million U.S. dollars in a Panama bank, no questions asked. I think the police would be very interested in that letter.”

  Mrs. Sacchetti exchanged a glance with her father. Toh nodded slightly and I assumed that they had some private method of communicating. A lifted eyebrow might mean that cook had given notice again while Toh’s nod perhaps served to inform his daughter that rain had cancelled the party rally at the culture center.

  Regardless of how they managed it, the communication was there and Mrs. Sacchetti picked it up quickly enough. “What do you mean ‘or anyone else,’ Mr. Dangerfield?”

  “Just that,” Dangerfield said. “The letter was just like bearer bonds. Whoever has it collects the kitty—one million dollars’ worth. The Panama banks adopted the system several years ago and it’s a convenient way to transfer big sums anonymously. And it’s also the best motive around for the death of the Lozupone girl.”

  “Why should my husband—”

  Dangerfield interrupted her with an impatient wave of his cigarette and dropped some ashes on the rug. “You mean why should he kill her if he was going to get the letter anyway once Cauthorne here left town?”

  Again the wife of Angelo Sacchetti glanced at her father and again he nodded slightly. “You have made an excellent point,” she said.

  “Then you knew about the letter?”

  “I didn’t know it was transferable.”

  “Whoever killed the girl knew.”

  “What you’re saying, Mr. Dangerfield,” Toh said, rolling his tones up from deep in his stomach, “is that whoever killed the young woman took the letter and then planted evidence to make it appear that my son-in-law murdered her?”

  “You’re right. That’s what I’m saying. But it’s not much help to Angelo, is it? I mean he’s not going to the local cops and say, ‘Look, I was blackmailing this guy in the States, but somebody else killed his daughter and then framed me for the job.’ He’s not going to say that, is he?”

  Neither Toh nor his daughter said anything. They continued to stare at Dangerfield who looked around for something to put out his cigarette in. He spotted a dish on a table, rose and ground the butt into it. It didn’t look like an ashtray to me. He turned to Mrs. Sacchetti again who sat in the chair, her back straight, her feet firmly on the floor, motionless except for her eyes which followed Dangerfield around.

  “I bet I can tell you what Sacchetti’s doing right now,” Dangerfield said. “I bet he’s finding himself two or three witnesses who are going to account for every minute of his time yesterday and last night. And I also bet that he’s going to find two more who’ll swear that his wallet was lost or stolen last week or the week before. And for all I know, maybe it was. So maybe he’ll clear himself of the girl’s murder. I don’t know. I don’t even care. All I’m interested in is one thing and that’s the stuff that he was using to blackmail Joe Lozupone with and I have an idea that when I walk out of this house it’s going to be in my hip pocket.”

  Toh’s deep, bass voice rumbled again. “Your theories are most fanciful, Mr. Dangerfield, and your threats are equally empty.”

  Dangerfield laughed. It was a harsh laugh that had a sharp bite to it. “You like this house, don’t you, friend, and you like that Rolls that’s parked out in front, and from what Cauthorne here tells me, you like the money that Angelo cuts you in on every month. I hear you weren’t doing too well before Angelo appeared on the scene. I mean there was no house and no car and no yacht and no money. All you had was a certain amount of political muscle which was hard to cash in on until Angelo showed you how. Well, it takes money, real money, to get an operation like Angelo’s running.” He paused and turned to me. “Give me another cigarette.” I gave him one and he lit it and dropped the match on the rug this time.

  “Now Angelo’s in trouble, bad trouble. It’s going to take him a while to get out of it, if he ever does. And what happens to the operation when he’s not around? I don’t think it’s going to run itself. So when he gets clear of the murder charge—if he ever does—then he’s going to need money. Lots of it. And if he doesn’t get clear of the rap, he’s going to need it even worse. And there’s only one place he can get it and that’s from Godfather Cole. You know about Angelo and his godfather, don’t you?”

  Once again father and daughter exchanged glances and nods and raised eyebrows and this time the daughter spoke. “We are familiar with my husband’s operations, Mr. Dangerfield.” She paused for a moment “All of them; there are no secrets.”

  “Now that’s just fine,” Dangerfield said. “Because you’re going to have to make a decision in about two minutes and it’s going to be a decision that you can’t check with Angelo so I sure hope that you’ve got the sense to make the right one.”

  “What decision?” Toh said.

  “If I don’t get that stuff on Joe Lozupone, then I’m going to cut off Angelo’s source of money.”

  “I don’t believe you,” the woman said.

  I sat there and watched Dangerfield operate and I was glad that it was them and not me. He ran a hand over his large white dome, brushed a few thick strands of hair into place, and grinned at Mrs. Sacchetti.

  “Well, I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do unless I get that stuff, and then you can make up your mind about believing me. Unless I get the information that Angelo’s been using on Lozupone, I’m going to get word to Joe Lozupone that Charles Cole has been an FBI informer for years. Now once I get that word to Joe, Charles Cole is going to have about two days of living left and Angelo’s going to have a hell of a hard time blackmailing a dead man.”

  It was the Dangerfield Plan, the one that the rumpled man with the red bulb of a nose had thought up in the hotel in Washington, and its merit lay in its implacable simplicity. It didn’t take Toh long to decide. “Get it,” he said.

  “How do we know—” she started to say, but her father interrupted. “Get it,” he said again. The woman rose and crossed to an indifferent oil painting of Singapore’s harbor. The sky was too blue and the sea was too green. She swung the painting open and there was a small safe. She spun the dial on the combination, opened the safe, and took out a small
yellow box, not as large as a cigarette package. She closed the safe, spun the dial on the combination, and swung the painting back into place. She crossed the room to her father and handed the yellow cardboard box to him.

  “Microfilm,” Dangerfield said.

  “Yes, microfilm,” Toh said.

  “I suppose there are other copies,” Dangerfield said.

  “But it doesn’t matter, does it?” Toh said.

  “Not really. Not to me, anyhow, and very soon it won’t matter to anyone.”

  “I take it, Mr. Dangerfield, that you are some sort of a policeman.”

  “It shows that much, huh?”

  “It’s quite evident. And I also take it that you will use this information,” and Toh made a slight gesture with the yellow box, “to indict this Lozupone person.”

  “What do you care what I do with it?” Dangerfield said.

  Toh smiled for the first time since we had arrived. “You have a curious mind, a cunning one, even devious. Such a mind could easily find other uses for such information.”

  “What you’re saying is that I might use it to blackmail Lozupone; that I might cut myself in on all the money we’ve been talking about.”

  “That occurred to me,” Toh said.

  “Do you really care?”

  “Not really. I just want to make sure that Mr. Cole will continue to have a source of income. Some of the funds that he has transferred to my son-in-law have gone for most worthwhile causes.”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to Charlie Cole,” Dangerfield said.

  “But you do want something to happen to the Lozupone person. You want it to happen so badly that you would sacrifice Cole, if necessary.”

  “That’s right,” Dangerfield said. “Now you can give me the box.”

  I rose and walked over to Toh and took the box out of his hand and put it into the pocket of my slacks. “I’ll keep it, Sam.”

  Dangerfield was on his feet. “What do you mean, you’ll keep it?”

  “Just what I said. I’ll keep it. I need some insurance.”

  “Look, kid, give me the—”