The Jade Figurine

by Bill Pronzini

  “One hund-ed.”

  “All right.” I would need a few dollars when I arrived in Sumatra, and I had no intention of giving Wong Sot all my money; but this was not the time for haggling. I could talk him down to seventy-five, I was certain, when I met him vis-à-vis. “When and where?”

  “Nine o’clock. You come round heah.”

  “On the river?”

  “Yayss.”

  I put the receiver down and went out into the lobby and bought a half-package of cigarettes from the machine there. Then I entered the darkened screening area, and there weren’t many customers. When I glanced up at the screen I saw why: Japanese Samurai warriors, in full color, swinging red-stained swords at one another in ritualistic slow-motion. I found a seat along the near wall next to one of the exit doors, slumped down, and laid the helmet and sunglasses on the empty chair beside me.

  The first two hours were interminable. I watched every second of them pass on the luminescent green face of the clock recessed into the support pillar next to the screen. But it was cool in there and I was sedentary, and I began to feel as well as I had earlier. I needed to gather as much strength as I could for the crossing to Sumatra; once we were into the Straits, the crew of whatever junk Wong Sot stowed me aboard would allow me out of the hold and I could ride the decks; but twelve hours’ time hidden belowdecks was a fair estimate, and twelve hours in the stench and darkness and airlessness that constituted the bowels of a Chinese junk was no picnic for a man in the best of health, and a taste of hell for one in my condition.

  The clock said 5:50.

  Sleep a little, I thought, unwind a little. But it was no good. I would half-doze and then jerk out of it. I tried watching the screen, but that was no good either. I couldn’t concentrate on the bright, flickering movements of the characters—this was another Japanese film, one of those supernatural-detective things—and the English subtitles seemed to come and go so quickly that they were like subliminal messages registering in the subconscious but not the conscious mind.

  A small gnawing began under my breastbone, and I remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything except for a few bites of the scorched eggs Tina had prepared; nothing of substance since the previous afternoon. The gnawing persisted, in spite of a half-hearted effort to drive it away with cigarette smoke. Hunger. Well, that was a healthy sign. A dying man is never hungry, somebody had told me once. I couldn’t remember who or where. The words had remained, but the source had been swallowed and digested by Time. I wondered if he had been a wise man or a fool. I wondered the same about myself and what I was about to do.

  The hell with it. The choice hadn’t been mine to make, not in the beginning, not at all. Circumstance piling on circumstance, fate manipulating the invisible strings that bind every man to the worldly puppet stage. I hadn’t wanted any part of Van Rijk or Marla King or Dinessen or Tiong or the Burong Chabak—I had gone out of my way to free myself of entanglements—and now I was everybody’s favorite scapegoat. So you run, or they find you and pen you up a few yards from the chute leading to the slaughterhouse. No, you don’t have a choice and you never had one. Fate had this one all set up from the start. No choices at all.

  Buggered by destiny.

  The bitterest pain in the ass of all . . .

  I sat up and shook myself mentally. The kind of thinking I had just been doing—the malignant, self-pitying cry of “Why me”—was pointless and ultimately self-destructive. I couldn’t afford it, not now, not if I wanted to get out of Singapore alive and a free man. This was my home, sure, but I had no real ties here, no family, no woman, no steady work—and one part of Southeast Asia is pretty much like another. Singapore or Sumatra or Jogjakarta—a matter of degree, not of kind. And I would be alive. And free. And my conscience would remain as clean as it had been the past two years.

  The Samurai thing had come back on, and the clock said 6:50. An hour and a half. Not bad now. I smoked and watched the warriors battle to a bloody conclusion, and the clock said 7:30. I watched the opening and disorganized segments of the supernatural detective film, and the clock said 8:00. On the screen a Japanese cop began chasing some poor bastard through the streets of Tokyo, and the irony was virulent. But I had managed to shut out the devils of self-pity; I had no time for the indulgence any longer.

  When the clock said 8: 15, I got up and went through the lobby and out to Victoria Street. It was dark now and the sidewalks were slick with wetness from another early evening thundershower; headlamps on passing cars glistened in fragmented points of light in the multitude of rain puddles, and tires made hissing sounds on the wet pavement. As usual the early evening crowds were heavy, and I blended with the westward stream on the Victoria Street artery leading into the heart of the city.

  We crossed Stamford Road and passed Fort Canning, approaching the river. The gnawing was persistent under my breastbone now, and I decided it would be a wise idea to eat something before keeping my appointment with Wong Sot; there was no telling when or where I would be getting my next meal. I stopped at a Malaysian food stall and hurriedly ate mutton satay and rice cakes and peanut curry from a paper container. Cheap and filling, and no one paid any attention to me in the milling crowds. More importantly, I saw no police constables in the vicinity.

  I walked to the river and followed its northwesterly course to where it widened considerably just prior to the bridge at Clemenceau Avenue. The same odors lingered in the darkness that lingered in the sunlight: garbage and salt water and gasoline and burning rubber and raw spices and a dozen subtler, less immediately definable smells. Most of the lighters and motorized barges lay silent at their moorings under canvas coverings or bamboo awnings, and there was little activity along the waterfront itself. Most of the godowns were closed for the night, and darkness formed thick pockets in the area.

  I located Wong Sot’s godown and moved along the side of the small, iron-roofed building toward the rear. There did not seem to be any light burning inside, and I wondered if Wong Sot was going to be late—or if he conducted his business in total darkness. Well, maybe he was just being careful; I knew about him by word of mouth, not personal experience.

  I reached the rear of the godown and started along the cement seawall there—and that was when the two of them came out of the surrounding black on either side of me.

  Hands like trap jaws gripped my arms and pushed me up against the rough stone wall, pinning me there. Pain burst in white-hot splinters through my injured right arm, and I swallowed an involuntary cry. The coldness of metal touched my cheekbone. “This is a gun, tuan,” a soft, almost dreamy voice said. “Stand very quiet.”

  And the other one said, “Or else we kill you right here and now, make no mistake.”

  Malayan and Eurasian.

  Van Rijk’s hirelings.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I THOUGHT: Wong Sot, the son of a bitch, sold me out.

  Oh Christ, I had walked into a trap like a bloody goddam amateur! Van Rijk knew his way around Singapore as well as I did, and he would have put the word out on me. So many dollars guaranteed for the delivery of Dan Connell. And with Wong Sot, it wouldn’t have taken many dollars at all. He’d called Van Rijk as soon as I’d hung up this afternoon, and Van Rijk had dispatched his two orang sewaan-sewaan to keep the rendezvous. I was just no good at this kind of game any more; I had stopped thinking the way the brotherhood thought—foolishly, suicidally.

  The Malay moved the gun high along my cheekbone, pressuring it. A sharp edge on the barrel gouged into my skin and I felt a quick cut of pain and then the warmth and wetness of blood. “We will go now, tuan,” he said. “No sudden movements, yes?”

  I felt the pressure lessen on my right arm. I stood motionless, my teeth set against the pain. The hand released me cautiously, and when I didn’t move, the Eurasian backed off two steps. He had a gun, too, and it would have been useless to try anything in this situation. I didn’t think they would kill me just yet—Van Rijk would want to see me first —but I knew t
hey wouldn’t hesitate to work on me with gun barrels and fists and shoes if I tried to resist. And a beating would destroy any subsequent chance I might have for escape. Passivity was the role I had to play now; the frightened co-operative.

  The Malay shoved me away from the wall, still gripping my left wrist. The gun burrowed into the softness beneath my rib cage on that side. We went around the corner and along the side of the darkened godown, the Eurasian hanging back a couple of steps; they were a pair of professionals, all right.

  On the street fronting the string of godowns, a thousand yards from the entrance to Wong Sot’s, the English Ford was parked in heavy shadow. The Malay pushed me into the rear seat and got in next to me; the pressure remained hard on my wrist, and the gun—a Mauser, I saw in the dome light—still nuzzled my side in mute warning. I could smell stale curry and sour wine on his breath. The Eurasian slid under the wheel in front, and a moment later we moved away rapidly into the night.

  The ride lasted twenty minutes, all of them silent. I turned my head away from the Malay’s breath, but otherwise I held my body still. We went over to Orchard Road and along there toward the exclusive Tanglin sector of the city, and then turned onto a quiet residential street lined with palms and well-landscaped villas and colonials. Upper-class Singapore, where the Chettiar bankers and the Chinese towkays and the British and American investors and businessmen lived. Money and gentility and quiet luxury. And Van Rijk.

  The Eurasian brought the small car smoothly to the curbing before one of the homes—a large villa with light visible behind drapery across a long front window. He stepped out to cover my exit. When he was clear of the car, the Malay released me for the first time and shoved me out, following fluidly to replace the gun muzzle under my ribs. We passed through an iron-framed gate and followed a path lined with Ixora plants and red jasmine and jungle ferns. Night birds sang softly in the surrounding growth, and purple bougainvillea grew lushly across the wide front veranda. I held my breath against the mawkish sweetness of the flowers’ scent as the Eurasian rapped three times on the front door, opened it. The Malay shoved me inside.

  Van Rijk was waiting in a large bilék dudok just off the entrance foyer. It was furnished with a mahogany desk, mahogany-and-leather settee and chairs, a mahogany-and-leather bar. The walls were inlaid, alternate-grained panels of Philippine mahogany, lined with bookshelves on one side, expensive-looking Javanese wood carvings on a second, and jade statuettes and figurines on the remaining two. The rug was Thai-crafted and intricately patterned. Thievery and violence still paid well, and still bought the very best.

  Van Rijk was standing beside the bar wearing a dove-gray suit and a pink ascot and holding a glass in his hand. But his eyes were glacial chips, and there was nothing gingerbread about him tonight. He was no different now from the two guns-for-hire standing behind me; shrewd and educated, which allowed him to assume the role of leader and the whims of wealth, but intrinsically there was no difference at all.

  He said to the hirelings, “The Burong Chabak?”

  “No, tuan,” the Malay answered. “He carried nothing.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes, tuan.”

  “And he was alone?”

  “Yes, tuan.”

  Van Rijk looked at me. “The figurine—where is it?”

  “I don’t know where it is. If I did, do you think I would have gone to Wong Sot’s tonight without it? Would I leave Singapore without it?”

  He couldn’t ignore the logic in that. He slapped his glass down on the bar and paced the Thai rug in front of it. Then, abruptly, he stopped and put his eyes on me again. “Suppose we discuss Marla King.”

  “There’s nothing to discuss. She’s dead.”

  “You did kill her, then. I thought so.”

  “I didn’t kill her. A Swede named Dinessen killed her.”

  “For the figurine?”

  “For double-crossing him.”

  “Then why did you kill Dinessen?”

  “I had no choice. It was self-defense.”

  “And in spite of all these deaths, you still maintain that you know nothing about the figurine.”

  “That’s right.”

  His head and upper body seemed to oscillate rigidly, as if he were undergoing a violent inner battle to maintain control of his emotions. He caught up a folded newspaper lying on the bar and came over to stand in front of me. “I think you’re lying,” he said. “You know something. You have to know something.”

  “I don’t know—”

  He slapped me with the paper. His face was flushed, his teeth bared; the predatory instincts had won the internal struggle. “You’ll talk,” he said. “You’ll talk.” He slapped me again, and again. “You’ll talk.”

  I made a convulsive lunge at him. He scuttled backward, dropping the paper, and shouted, “Khee!” in a shrill voice. One of the hirelings hit me on the back of the neck with his forearm, and I went down onto my hands and knees with my vision momentarily out of focus. Van Rijk was spitting gutter Dutch at me from in front of the bar, like a man unhinged. The Burong Chabak was more than a profit with him; he was obsessed with it.

  I shook my head and regained my vision, and I was staring at the newspaper lying just in front of me on the rug. It had fallen open to the front page, and my picture looked back at me from across three columns—a grim thing taken shortly after the crash on Penang and the death of Pete Falco. There was a headline, too, that said: EX-PILOT SOUGHT IN SLAYINGS. I started to look away, to get back onto my feet, and my eyes went over the lead paragraph of the news story below the headline.

  Coldness fled along the saddle of my back, and I didn’t immediately believe what I saw. I reached out and grabbed up the paper and read the story through, my fingers tightening reflexively at the edges of the newsprint, crumpling it, tearing it. I believed it then. Facts in black-and-white. Irrefutable facts. And irrefutable implications. Jarring my mind. Connections, progressions, answers. Things that had been said, and things that had not been said, and things I had taken for granted that should not have been taken for granted at all. Complexity and treachery far exceeding my original conception.

  Jesus, I had been stupid—monumentally stupid all along! The key was right there on the front page of the Singapore Straits Times, and right there, too, was my chance to clear myself with Tiong—my only chance, a chance the existence of which I hadn’t even known. All I would have had to have done was to buy an edition, but I never read the papers and the thought hadn’t even occurred to me; I had presumed to know, without consideration, what would be said. But I hadn’t known at all, I had had no idea. I was a goddam babe in swaddling clothes after two years, a sucker, a sap, a fool, and stupid, stupid, stupid . . .

  Van Rijk had stopped shouting, and when I looked up at him he was sucking breath through ovaled lips, getting himself under control again. I left the paper on the floor and got slowly to my feet. The Malay and the Eurasian were standing one on either side of me, poised, watching me with one eye and Van Rijk with the other, waiting for instructions. I had it all together in my mind now, and I was no longer berating myself. There was still a chance for me, if I could get away from the three of them; but if I had succeeded in escaping Singapore without seeing a copy of that paper, the one chance to clear myself would have been lost completely. Blundering into Van Rijk’s trap might not have been such a bitter twist of fate after all—if I could get free. But this wasn’t the place to try it; there was a better place, a much better place.

  “One last chance, Mr. Connell,” Van Rijk said thinly. “You know something and you will either tell me of your own volition, or I will allow Khee and Tulloh to extract the information. Both are expert in the art of interrogation.”

  “So you’ve told me,” I said, and I let my face begin to show fear and indecision. “Listen, Van Rijk, maybe we can make a deal.”

  “You have lost the opportunity to bargain.”

  “You want the figurine, don’t you?”
r />   Greed made his eyes shine wetly. “You do have it, then.”

  “All right, I’ve got it. There’s no point in playing games any more, I can see that. I killed the others for it, sure, and I’ve got it cached in a safe location on the island. I didn’t want to take it to Sumatra with me because of the risk; there are too many men like Wong Sot in Southeast Asia, men who’d cut your throat for a few dollars, and if anyone found out I was carrying something as valuable as the Burong Chabak, I would have been a dead man two minutes later. I figured to get clear in Sumatra or one of the Malayan states, and then shop around for a buyer; I thought I could sell the location of the figurine as easily as the figurine itself, if the buyer wanted it badly enough.”

  I watched Van Rijk’s eyes as I spoke, and he was buying it; it was exactly what he wanted to hear. He took a step forward, working his tongue over fat, red lips. “Where is it, Mr. Connell?”

  “Do we deal?”

  “Under the present circumstances, bargaining seems unnecessary.”

  “Does it? Suppose I’m one of those men who can withstand torture? Suppose I die before revealing the location of the figurine? Where would you be then, Van Rijk?”

  The room was silent while he thought that over. At length he said, “Perhaps I should listen to this deal of yours.”

  “Perhaps you should.”

  “Well then?”

  “I’ll take you to the Burong Chabak in exchange for twenty thousand Straits dollars and safe passage out of Singapore.”

  “No more?”

  “No more.”

  “And why not?”

  I smiled tightly. “I figure it this way, Van Rijk: the odds are stacked against me, all the way down the line; you’ve got me, and there’s nothing to stop you from killing me once I put the figurine in your hands. If I ask for half or even a quarter of the value of the Burong Chabak, it’s a certainty that you’ll kill me. I know the kind of man you are, Van Rijk. But twenty thousand Straits dollars and safe passage isn’t much, and maybe you’ll honor a bargain for those stakes. I don’t want to die, and this is the only way I can see to beg off my life.”