Not bad, not good. There was a swelling on my right temple, and the bandage Tina had applied only partially covered the discolored area there. A bruise of unknown origin made a faint, inverted half-moon on my left cheekbone, and my lips were cracked and puffy. My cheeks seemed hollow, the skin parched and dry. The heavy black beard stubble coating each gave me the look of a derelict, and the wild tangle of my hair, the blood-veined whites of my eyes, added substance to the image.
Tina had swabbed iodine on the puncture marks on my left wrist where the langsat mongrel had gripped me with its teeth, and there was no pain in the vicinity. I couldn’t see the bullet wounds in my right arm because of the bandages, but there was no swelling and no localized pain. Infection seemed unlikely.
I found a washcloth and filled the basin full and washed myself awkwardly with my left hand; there was a stall shower in there, but I didn’t think it a wise idea to get any of the bandages wet. Inside the cabinet was a bottle of mouthwash, and I used some of that to dispel the dry, bitter, after-fever taste in my mouth. There was also a Japanese razor with a new blade. I lathered my face with soap and spent ten minutes trying to shave. I couldn’t move my right arm enough to maneuver the razor, and using my left was slow and clumsy. The result was a patchy shave and a couple of bleeding nicks that I covered with moistened shreds of toilet paper.
The shorts I wore were soiled and malodorous, but I decided to leave them on anyway. I wrapped a bathtowel around myself, brushed my hair down, and took my time walking through the bedroom and into the small living room of the apartment. The weakness in my legs seemed to have abated; all things considered, I wasn’t doing badly.
Tina had a plate of brown-crusted eggs and a mug of thick coffee waiting on the half-table. The apartment contained a scorched-food smell. “I’m not much of a cook,” she said apologetically.
“These look fine.”
“So do you. Much better.”
“I’ve got a tough and durable hide.”
“Dan—have you thought about what you’re going to do?”
“Yeah, I’ve thought about it.”
“And?”
“I’m not sure yet. Most of the ways off Singapore by plane or a fast boat cost a hell of a lot more than I’ve got or could get on short notice—unless I want to commit a robbery or two, and I’m not up to that yet.”
“Couldn’t you get somebody to fly you out, say, on credit?”
“No way. Credit is the honest man’s albatross. The men who deal in human cargo can’t afford the luxury.”
“But there must be somebody . . .”
“One man, maybe—but you’d have to have collateral, and be willing to pony up both the fee and a bonus not long after he delivered you out. I don’t have anything for collateral, and I couldn’t make immediate payment.”
“Maybe if you went to him, pleaded with him . . .”
“Christ, little girl, do you think people like him are in the smuggling business for charitable reasons? He’d laugh in my face and kick my ass out the door.”
“Is he an American?”
I gave her a sharp look. “Why?”
“Well, I just thought—”
“It’s that goddam article again, isn’t it? You’re still trying to pump me for information.”
“Not . . .”
“The hell you’re not.”
“Oh all right!” she said with defensive anger. “I suppose I am, a little. I’ve helped you, after all, when you had no one else, and I don’t want much in return, just somewhere I can start on my article, and you flare up and act righteous like you’re my father or something! Well, I’m not as stupid as you think I am! I know what smuggling is and I’m prepared to take the chances involved. Now I think you owe me a favor and I don’t think what I’m asking is too much, Mr. Connell; you said yourself that smuggling was a dirty business in Singapore and if I can do my part to—”
“All right, Jesus, all right! You want a name, God damn it, I’ll give you a name: Steve Shannon, Irish-American, Johore Bahru. He’s killed two men that I know of in cold blood; he’s smuggled everything from heroin to Communist guerrillas; he’s a bastard and a lecher and half a dozen other things. Go to him, ask him questions; hell laugh in your face if he doesn’t rape you first. And he’s one of the better ones. All right? Are you satisfied?”
She clamped her mouth tightly closed, and a thick silence settled in the room. I took a couple of deep breaths. I knew I shouldn’t have told her about Shannon, even though I had laid it on about him a little heavy, but I was in no mood for pressured argument and I still needed her help with fresh clothing. And she was a big little girl now and I wasn’t her father and what the hell was the point in trying to act the saviour? My own life was in jeopardy, I couldn’t afford to concern myself with hers or anybody else’s.
I said, trying to keep the tightness out of my voice, “Have you got a cigarette?”
“In my purse.”
“I could use one, if you don’t mind.”
She got up from the table and went into the bedroom and came out again with a package of Marlboros. I broke the filter off one and lit the shortened cigarette with one of her matches. Watching me, Tina said, “Dan . . . I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m more concerned about you than my article, I want you to believe that.”
“Sure, I believe it.”
“What are you going to do if you can’t get help from this man Shannon?”
“There’s another way. Not good, but then not too bad either.”
“What is it?”
“It’s better that you don’t know what it is. For your sake as well as mine.”
“Where will you be going?”
I shrugged. “As far as I can get on the money I’ve got.”
Tina folded and unfolded a paper napkin between her long fingers. “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing? I mean, wouldn’t it really be the best thing to just turn yourself in to the police? Innocent men don’t go to jail in this day and age.”
“Don’t they?” I asked sardonically. “You’ve got a lot to learn about life, little girl. Listen, I’m doing the only thing I can do under the circumstances. I don’t like the idea of it, but I’ve got no alternative. I want to keep on living, and if I have to run to do that, I’ll run.”
She sighed and pushed her chair back again. “I won’t try to change your mind,” she said. “It wouldn’t do any good anyway. Shall I go and buy those clothes for you now?”
“I think you’d better,” I told her. “Get me a gaudy sports shirt and one of those cheap jungle helmets and a pair of sunglasses. If you don’t want to attract attention in Singapore, the safest way to dress is like a tourist. Nobody pays any attention to tourists.”
Tina had removed my wallet and the few other things I had had in the pockets of my khakis and bush jacket. She produced them for me. There were one hundred and forty Straits dollars in the wallet—more than I usually carry, as a result of my two days of coolie labor at Harry Rutledge’s godown. I gave Tina thirty of that, and my clothing sizes, and she left for the small shops which line Geylang Road.
I propped myself up on the settee, wrapped in the goddam towel, and thought about Wong Sot.
A shriveled Straits Chinese with a face like a yellow prune, he was the owner of a small godown on Singapore River; and for seventy-five or a hundred dollars—depending on how well you bargained—he would hide you among the cargo on one of the small junks he serviced, bound up the coast of Malaya, or across the Straits of Malacca to Kundur Island or Rangsang Island or the coast of Sumatra. That was the extent of his aid; you were on your own once the junk put you ashore. But Wong Sot was a careful man—the inscrutable Chinese—and his operation was unknown to the Singapore authorities; they would have closed him down immediately if they had been aware of his lucrative sideline. And Wong Sot didn’t ask questions. If you had his price, he would smuggle you out. Period.
There was nothing in Sumatra
for me, and yet, what was there anywhere else? In any place I would be an alien without valid identification. But I could get by in Sumatra; there are ways. Construction or road crews working the jungle hire men regularly, without demanding background or identification. I could get by—and I could live with myself, knowing that, essentially, Inspector Tiong had been wrong about me all the way down the line.
I got up after a while and had another of Tina’s cigarettes, then slowly paced the hot and silent room to keep the weakness from settling in my body. What I really wanted to do was to lie down, to sleep; my wounds and infirmities needed more time to heal. But time was something I didn’t have just now. Time was something I had not had in the past eighteen hours. I kept on pacing the room in slow cadence. You can endure a considerable amount of pain and discomfort if the situation warrants it; it’s surprising just how much you can endure . . .
Tina returned twenty minutes later carrying a large shopping bag. She had bought an ostentatious yellow-and-red batik shirt, the kind of white jungle helmet I had asked for, white duck trousers, and a pair of dark wraparound sunglasses. I went into the bedroom to change. The shirt had medium-length sleeves, and as long as I didn’t stretch my arms the bandaged wound above my right elbow was covered. The helmet, cocked low to one side, hid the patch above my temple.
“You really do look like a tourist,” Tina said when I came out again.
“I hope so.”
“Are you still feeling all right?”
“Sure. I’m fine.”
“Do you have to leave now? Wouldn’t it be better if you waited until dark?”
“It would be, but I can’t. I’ve got to make a telephone call as soon as possible.”
“Then—I guess you have to go.”
“The quicker I’m out of here, the better it is for you.”
“I suppose so.”
We went to the door. “Be careful,” she said, and it was one of those trite old lines that seem humorous seen in films or read in books but which are something else again said in earnest parting.
“Sure.”
“We won’t see each other again, will we?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry for that,” she said, and she moved up against me, with her hands gently on my shoulders, and kissed me —soft, moist, warm. “Goodbye, Dan.”
“Goodbye, little girl. Take care of yourself.”
I turned away from her and went out and down the stairs. All the way down I felt an odd sense of regret at the finality of our parting—and a feeling of having used Tina Kellogg without giving anything of substance or importance in return, the way you feel after spending the night making love to a nice girl you care nothing about at all . . .
Chapter Seventeen
THE CITY lay within an enfolding canopy of heat, like stones and sand dabs imprisoned under the smothering weight of a transparent jellyfish. As soon as I stepped from the vestibule of Tina’s building, into the glare of the sun, sweat formed and ran on my face and under my arms, and the weakness made my legs begin to ache again.
I walked slowly, west toward Geylang Road. I felt conspicuous in the bright sports shirt, even though I knew that I wasn’t, and I wondered if passers-by could detect enervation in the way I moved. But no one seemed to look at me. Recogition was still a definite threat; I knew Tiong would have a picture of me on the front page of the morning edition of the Straits Times under one of those scare heads—and while apathy and disinterest are prevalent in Singapore, there are always those who read and observe. Even dressed as I was, I could be spotted at any time, by anybody from an old Chinese nona to a fat British tourist from Liverpool.
The thing I had to do, and quickly, was to get off the streets and into a safe house somewhere. Going to Wong Sot directly and immediately seemed like the answer, but it wasn’t. Tiong would have regular patrols along the river, for one thing, and for another, Wong Sot’s godown was a place which saw hundreds of people in and out every day, rendering it useless as a safe house. Too, he dealt only in the relatively uncomplicated service of smuggling human cargo in a cheap and efficient manner, and for the prices he charged, you couldn’t expect much more than a hollowed-out burrow beneath sacks of rice in the hold of an ancient junk.
No, Wong Sot was out as an immediate destination—but I would have to call him as soon as possible so that he could make arrangements. There was never any waiting period. You called him and told him you wanted passage to Sumatra or Kundur or Bintan or Mersing; then you haggled over the price and settled on a figure, and he gave you a time and a place the same night. Assembly-line smuggling. Guaranteed only as long as it lasts.
A safe house in which to spend the remainder of the day was no real problem. Both North Bridge Road and Victoria Street were lined with movie theaters, showing British imports, American imports, West German imports, Japanese imports. Air-conditioned anonymity. And most of the houses had public telephones, which meant I could make the call from one of them without running additional risk.
I reached Geylang Road, crossed it with a stream of pedestrians at the corner light, and entered Andrews Road; Geylang was too well-traveled, and I thought that my safest course would be to take one of the narrower parallel streets. As I approached the first of these, Merapoh, one of the sleek new city buses pulled to the curb and discharged a clot of passengers. I slowed to make my way through them. In the outside lane on the street a car bearing the insignia of the Singapore Police appeared around the bus, moving without haste. There were four helmeted constables in the car, and they were watching the ebb and flow of foot traffic on both sides of the street.
I turned abruptly, instinctively, and pushed my way into a small store advertising Malay arts and crafts. The police car stopped for the light at the corner. I moved deeper into the store and pretended to examine a display of silver trinkets, watching instead Andrews Road through the shop’s long front window. The light changed finally and the car pulled ahead, still without hurry, and then disappeared from my view.
My mouth was dry, and I worked saliva through it. It could have been nothing more than a random patrol; and then again, it could be that Dinessen’s body had been found and Tiong had made a connection between the Swede and me, and a bulletin on Dinessen’s Citröen had located the car farther along Geylang Road, where I had parked it the night before. If the latter was the case, the city vehicle I had just seen wouldn’t be the only one patrolling the area. I would have to be more careful—very careful; if it had not been for that bus . . .
A smiling Malayan girl in a brightly colored sarong walked toward me from across the shop. I made a negative gesture with my head and moved to the door. Plenty of vehicular and pedestrian traffic, but no one and no machine with official markings. I wiped oily moisture from my forehead and went out to join the throng on the sidewalk.
Up to the corner and across Andrews Road and west on Merapoh, past the southern greensward of the block-square Royal Palms Hotel. Two blocks, three, four. My head began to ache pulsingly again, and the garish sports shirt was matted to the bare skin on my back and stomach; rancid perspiration burned in my crotch. Heat blurred the edges of my vision. I felt as if I were shambling like a drunk, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it all the way to Victoria Street on foot.
I stopped under a corner awning to rest, keeping my back to the street. A bus, I thought; I’ve got to take a chance on a bus. I waited there until one came along, and boarded it, and stood among the sweating bodies of the natives and the tourists crowded at the rear. It was oppressive, stifling in there. Nausea churned in my belly. I held onto the overhead strap and kept my eyes shut and my head down, enduring the lethargic lurch and sway of the bus.
A long time later we crossed the Kallang River and entered Victoria Street. I got off at Rochore Road, a block from Bugis Street and the teeming open-air food stalls. The thought of food increased the nausea. I bypassed Bugis Street and went along Victoria for another half-block, and there was a small theater with a huge
multicolored marquee shading the sidewalk in front.
I stepped under it and up to the box office, averting my face from the old man inside the cage without being furtive about it. But I needn’t have bothered; he was a sleepy-eyed Oriental who spoke and acted like an android on low charge. He told me in a by-rote voice that there was a telephone in the restrooms, and I bought a ticket. The lobby was air-conditioned, all right. I sucked hungrily at the refrigerated air as I crossed the deserted expanse to a door marked with a Chinese character and with the Malay word Laki and the English word Men. At one of the basins I doused my head with cold water and drank a little to ease the rawness in my throat. The nausea receded. Better now, a little better. The bus ride, in my memory, seemed almost as dim and half-real as last night’s dreams.
The wall phone was just that: a wall phone, with no facilities for privacy. But the toilet was empty. I found one of the coins the old man had given me in change, and then fumbled through the Singapore directory hanging from the bottom of the telephone unit until I located the number of Wong Sot’s godown.
A voice answered in Chinese on the fourth ring. I said, “Wong Sot?”
The voice said, “Yayss?” in sibilant English. If a reptile born in China had the power of speech, it would sound just like that, I thought.
“I’m a sailor looking for a ship,” I said. Catch-phrase.
Pause. Then, “Yayss?”
“I want to go to Sumatra.”
“Yayss?”
“Tonight.”
“You ’Melican?”
“What difference does that make?”
“No diff-lence. Plice one hund-ed fifty dollah.”
“The hell it is.” Americans are prime in Southeast Asia, all through the Orient; when the natives see one coming, the price doubles. Wong Sot was no different from his more legitimate counterparts. “I know the going rate. I can pay seventy-five.”
The Jade Figurine Page 12