The Singapore Wink

by Ross Thomas

  “Doing what?” I said.

  Before Trippet could answer, a voice said: “What happened, Cauthorne?” I knew the voice; the last time I’d heard it was in front of the Los Angeles airport and it had been advising me to take good care of Carla Lozupone. Now it wanted to know why I hadn’t.

  I turned and said, “Hello, Tony.”

  He was dressed for the tropics. He wore a persimmon-colored double-breasted linen jacket with white buttons, dark green slacks, a yellow shirt with inch-wide green stripes, and brown loafers. I decided that he had packed his Miami Beach wardrobe. His fox-faced friend wore a light-weight dark suit and his only concession to the climate was a tie that was loosened and pulled down an inch or so from his unbuttoned collar.

  “This is him,” Tony said to fox-face. “Cauthorne. The guy I was telling you about.” Fox-face nodded and put on a pair of dark glasses, the better to see me with, I thought. “This is Terilizzi. He wants to know what happened, too. That’s why the boss sent him.”

  “This is my partner, Mr. Trippet,” I said. “Mr. Terilizzi—and I don’t think I ever got your last name, Tony.”

  “Cea,” he said to me and “hiyah” to Trippet. Nobody seemed to want to shake hands. “What happened to Carla, Cauthorne?” Cea said. “The boss wants to know bad.”

  “She was strangled.”

  Terilizzi took off his glasses and slipped them into his breast pocket. He nodded his head slightly, as if encouraging me to go on with the story, and then I looked fully into his eyes and I wished that he had kept his sunglasses on. His eyes had the color and warmth of chilled oysters and I had the feeling that if I looked into them long enough, I would discover something that was better left unknown.

  “Where were you?” Tony Cea asked.

  “I was getting beat up.”

  “Who did it?”

  “Who beat me up or who killed Carla?”

  “I don’t give a shit who beat you up,” Cea said. “Who killed Carla?”

  “The cops are looking for Sacchetti.”

  “Sacchetti, huh?” Cea searched his pockets for a cigarette, found one, and lit it with a small leather-covered lighter. “He do it?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Well, here’s something you should know, Cauthorne,” Cea said and his mouth twisted into a crooked grin. “You should know why Terilizzi and me are here. We’re here because we’re going to find who killed Carla and then I’m going to turn him over to Terilizzi who’s just a little nuts. Not much; just enough. You follow me?”

  “It’s not hard,” I said.

  “Quite simple, really,” Trippet said.

  “Who’d you say he was?” Cea said, jerking a thumb at Trippet.

  “My partner.”

  “Tell him to shut up.”

  “You tell him.”

  Cea glared at Trippet who gave him a polite, even friendly smile. “Now if we or the cops don’t find whoever made Carla dead in forty-eight hours, you know what I’m supposed to do?”

  “Something perfectly wretched,” Trippet said.

  “You,” Terilizzi said to Trippet, and made a sharp horizontal motion with his left hand.

  “He can talk after all,” I said.

  “Sure, he can talk,” Cea said. “He’s just a little nuts, like I said, but he can talk all right when he wants to. I was looking to tell you what I’m going to do if whoever killed Carla’s not caught.”

  “All right,” I said. “What?”

  “We’re going to find a reasonable facsimile,” he said, pronouncing the phrase carefully, as if he had just learned it. “We’re going to find the guy who was supposed to look after Carla but didn’t and that’s you, Cauthorne.”

  “You,” Terilizzi said.

  “A little screwy, but good at his job,” Cea said. “Does beautiful work; all hand carved.” Cea laughed at that and Terilizzi smiled and gave me a careful appraisal with his oystery-grey eyes. “You,” Terilizzi said again.

  “I’m afraid you don’t understand the situation, Mr. Cea,” Trippet said.

  “Will you get him off my back?” Cea said to me.

  “You might learn something,” I said.

  “You see, you are not in New York or New Jersey or even Los Angeles,” Trippet said smoothly. “At a word from either Mr. Cauthorne or myself to the proper authorities, the pair of you will be clapped into the local jail—for safekeeping, of course. The civil servants who run the Singapore prison system are most forgetful, I believe, and they might forget about you for one or even two years. It’s been known to happen.”

  “Who is this crumb?” Cea said.

  “His father used to own half of Singapore,” I lied. “Now Trippet does.”

  My partner smiled modestly. “Only a third, Edward.”

  “I don’t care what he owns,” Cea said to me. “You’re the one who’d better be worried because I’m going to be right on your ass from now on. Me and Terilizzi.”

  I shrugged. “You can reach me at the Raffles.”

  “They told me that was a real crummy old place.”

  “Old anyway.”

  “Did you book me a room?” Trippet said.

  “You’ve got the one that Carla had.”

  “Fine,” Trippet said.

  “You going to stay in it?” Cea said and he seemed a little shocked.

  “Well, I never really knew the lady, you understand.”

  “Yeah. I guess that’s right. Me and Terilizzi are at the Hilton.”

  “Where else?” I said.

  “What’s that, some kind of a crack?”

  “Forget it,” I said. “If you want to talk to the cops, the ones to see are Detective-Sergeants Huang and Tan.”

  “Write ’em down, will you?”

  I wrote the names down on the back of Cea’s airline ticket.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll go see ‘em. Just remember, Cauthorne, I don’t care how much pull your partner here has, me and Terilizzi are going to be right on your ass. The boss didn’t take it too good about Carla. In fact, he took to the bed when the telegram came. He don’t feel so good and finding who got to Carla might make him feel better.”

  “Should cheer him up tremendously,” Trippet said.

  Cea gave him a sour look. “Just remember what I told you, Cauthorne.”

  “Right on my ass,” I said.

  “You,” Terilizzi said again.

  “You better believe it,” Cea said, turned, and went to pick up his luggage.

  “Pompous bastard, isn’t he?” Trippet said.

  “You know something?”

  “What?”

  “That must be the first time he’s ever been described in just those terms.”

  We collected Trippet’s bag, a bleached pigskin affair that seemed to have solid silver fittings, found a porter who laughed when Trippet said something to him in Malay, and located a bearded Sikh cab driver who agreed to take us to the Raffles in his prewar Jowett-Jupiter that was a marvel to us both.

  “Just what did Lira say to you exactly?” I said, once the cab was rolling.

  “First, he told me that you had been rather badly beaten and from the bruise on your jaw I’d say he was telling the truth—as he usually does, of course.”

  “What else?”

  “That the Lozupone girl had been killed and that you were getting in over your head and had refused any offer of assistance. He strongly recommended that I come out and lend a hand.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Well, I must confess he was rather vague about that.”

  “Dangerfield’s here,” I said.

  “The FBI man?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Lending a hand.”

  “Oh,” Trippet said and gazed out the window at the Singapore scene as we threaded our way through the Indian section that lined Serangoon Road. “It hasn’t changed,” he said as we rolled slowly through the treeless, grubby neighborhood, entire sections of whi
ch could have been transplanted intact from Bombay or Calcutta or Jubbulpore. Ghee and tal cooked in pans over cow dung fires and their odors mingled with those of oil and urine and incense and rose water. Men in white dhotis chewed betel and stared at nothing and everything. Women in bright, even brilliant, saris rattled their gold bangles and a Hindu wise man, his arms smeared with ashes, wandered through the crowd. A Parsee leaned against a post, picked his teeth with a sharp knife, and sneered at the Hindu. An old man hobbled by with the aid of a malacca cane, his mouth wrapped in gauze, his eyes fixed on the ground.

  “What’s the one with the gauze over his mouth?” I said.

  “Must be a Jain,” Trippet said.

  “Afraid of germs?”

  “Not at all. He’s probably orthodox. The gauze keeps insects from committing suicide by flying into his mouth. Notice how carefully he walks; he doesn’t want to step on any of them either.”

  Just past Balestier Road which takes you to the Singapore Island Country Club, if you can afford the dues, the traffic became spotty and the driver urged his aged car on to new efforts. We must have been making forty when the black, four-door Chevelle pulled up alongside and stayed there. Our driver slowed, but the Chevelle dropped back with us. When the Chevelle’s rear window started to roll down, I caught Trippet by the shoulder and gave him a hard, abrupt shove towards the floor. I dropped flat on the seat and one of the two shots plunked into the far door about eight inches from my head while the second one, fired at an angle as the Chevelle pulled ahead, knocked out the taxi’s rear window. The glass wasn’t shatterpoof and a few shards fell on the seat.

  Our driver shouted something and then slammed on his brakes. I rolled off the seat onto Trippet. He squirmed under me and I managed to get back to a sitting position and noticed that a crowd was gathering.

  “The neighbors are here,” I said.

  Trippet raised up to look around. “So they are. Any damage?”

  “The rear window and my nerves.”

  “Do you have any money?”

  “Sure.”

  “Give me fifty dollars.”

  The driver was now outside of the car, explaining to the interested bystanders how it had happened and his gestures were a pleasure to watch. Trippet got out the left door and walked up to the driver and said something into his ear while pressing the bills into a hand that momentarily was not in flight. The driver peeked at the denominations, smiled, and hurried around to open the door for Trippet The crowd watched us drive away. A four- or five-year-old boy waved for no good reason and I waved back.

  “It was an accident, sir,” the driver said.

  “I’m sure of it,” Trippet said.

  “But the rear window.”

  “A sad loss, but fortunately replaceable.”

  ‘Perhaps after all one should inform the police.”

  “It would only inconvenience them,” Trippet said.

  “If only I could be certain it was indeed an accident,” the driver said.

  Trippet stretched his hand out to me, palm up, and I laid two Singapore twenty-dollar bills across it. Trippet folded them and tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Perhaps this will give you the certainty you seek,” he said.

  The driver’s right hand came up over his right shoulder and his fingers closed over the bills. He didn’t turn his head. He glanced down at the numerals on the bills and then tucked them into his shirt pocket “Truly,” he said, “it was a most regrettable accident.”

  CHAPTER XXII

  Trippet knocked on my door after he had unpacked, showered, and changed clothes. The temperature outside was pushing ninety and the humidity was even higher. Both of us had been sopping by the time we reached the hotel.

  “Gin and tonic?” I said. “My boy brought some fresh limes.”

  “Anything,” Trippet said.

  I mixed the drink and handed it to him.

  “We’ll drink to your first Singapore shoot-’em-up,” I said.

  “I still expect to go into shock any moment,” Trippet said. “I must say that it didn’t seem to bother you much; but perhaps you’re used to it by now.”

  “It scared the shit out of me. I thought you were the one who wasn’t bothered.”

  “I nearly panicked,” he said, “and I must confess that I also noticed a slight looseness of the bowels. Any idea who it was?”

  “It looked like the same car that one of Sacchetti’s men used on Raffles Place the other day. It could have been the same car, but I don’t know if it was the same man.”

  “Perhaps I should call Sammy,” Trippet said.

  “Lim?” I said.

  “Yes. Any objections?”

  “He bothers me.”

  “You mean it bothers you that Sammy said that I called him and I say that he called me. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “Why?”

  “He simply told you what you wanted to hear, Edward. It was a face-saving gesture. It would have embarrassed him to tell you that he thought you needed help.”

  “Sorry. I forgot how sensitive I am.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Everything.”

  “You mean the Dragon Lady and all?”

  “Good Lord, is there another woman mixed up in it?”

  “Sacchetti’s Chinese wife. I think she steals her lines from old Charlie Chan movies.”

  “Extraordinary.”

  “Who’s minding the store?” I said.

  “I shipped both Sydney and my wife off to her parents in Topeka. In fact, their plane left just a few minutes before mine. Jack and Ramón are sharing management responsibilities, if you can call it that.”

  “Who sits in the front office?”

  “They take turns.”

  “Ramón should be useful, providing the customers speak Spanish.”

  “What’s what I thought.”

  “Where did you learn Malay?” I said.

  “Here and in Malaya,” Trippet said. “I spent a year out here in thirty-eight and I also did a turn here after the war.”

  “Doing what?”

  Trippet smiled. “This and that.”

  “Lim said you were in British Intelligence during the war.”

  “For a while.”

  “And afterwards?”

  “For a while.”

  “It’s none of my business.”

  “You’re right, Edward, it isn’t. Tell me about the Dragon Lady. She sounds much more interesting.”

  I told him the same story that I had told first to Dangerfield and later to Lim, but the third time around the account grew thin and stale and it seemed as if I were describing by rote something that had happened a long time ago to some other persons in another place. Trippet listened carefully, not interrupting once, but nodding occasionally at times to show that he understood when the tale grew complicated. He was, as always, a very good listener and I wondered if he had learned the art while in British Intelligence.

  When I was through Trippet gazed up at the ceiling and then ran both hands through his long grey hair. “The pistol,” he said. “I don’t like the pistol.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not like Sammy.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “What?”

  “That he didn’t hand them out lightly.”

  “Where do you keep it?”

  “In a brown paper bag. The bag is in my suitcase.”

  “That fellow Nash,” Trippet said. “Can you describe him?”

  “Medium height, around fifty or fifty-five in a harsh light, compact build, deep tan, blond hair going grey. Rolls his own cigarettes.”

  “Green eyes? I mean really green?”

  “Right. You know him?”

  “I can’t say, but I think so. It’s been a long time.”

  “He came in handy,” I said.

  “So it would seem.”

  “But after all, Nash and I are fellow Americans.”

  �
��A true bond.”

  I yawned and stretched. “What do you say to some lunch?”

  “I say it’s a good suggestion.”

  We had lunch in the room and Trippet helped me to listen for the phone to ring. We listened until four o’clock but nobody called, knocked, or slipped a note under the door. I rang the bell and the houseboy came for the dishes and both Trippet and I beamed at him and Trippet inquired about his family which I thought was polite.

  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.