It was a sunburst medallion, a jeweled flower, the same symbol that Linda Riddle and the other girls wore.
12
Durell straightened slowly. The Chinese girl lay partly on her back in the darkness under the oleander, one long leg flexed, her head partly turned to the right. Her black hair, which had been done up in swirls atop her head, had come loose and flowed in thick strands across her neck. She breathed lightly and easily, and there was a faint fluttering to her eyeUds. She would come to soon enough. He looked up and down the path and was surprised to find there was no alarm. Then he weighed the heavy medallion in his hand for a moment, put it in his pocket, and bent down to pick her up.
There was a small decorative pavilion across the dark lawn nearby, not far from the chained bridge. Dragon heads peered down, lacquered red, from the end of long, curved roof beams. It was shadowed black in there. He carried the girl carefully, and when he stepped up on the small platform, he knew she was awake and playing dead for the moment. He heard the tinkle of wind bells, and the sea breeze made the foliage sigh. Tall shrubbery against one side of the little pavilion made a satisfactory cave of darkness there. He put her down and she moaned. He put a cigarette in his mouth, but did not Hght it.
"What's your last name, Jasmine?" he asked quietly. "And if you scream, it will be your last sound, understand?"
Her eyes opened wide, dark and slanted, filled with confused anger. She touched her jaw. "You hit me?"
"I'm not the first who ever hit you, am I? What's your last name?"
Her mouth was getting puffy. "Jones," she said.
"I want the truth. I don't have much time. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I must."
"It's Jones. Jasmine Jones."
"From San Francisco?"
"That's right. That's what I told you.'*
"How old are you, Jasmine?"
"Twenty—twenty-one."
"Which is it?"
"Twenty-one."
"You're Chinese-American? Born in California?"
"My father was a waterfront bum named Jones," she said. Her voice was a sudden bitter explosion. "My mother was Chinese, a housekeeper from Canton. I was brought up in Chinatown, by friends of my mother. When I was thirteen, I was raped by a bum near Fisherman's Wharf. I liked it, you know that? I went into the business then and there."
"But you're American," Durell said.
"An American half-breed whore," she whispered bitterly.
"Tell me how you got here."
"I told you."
"Tell me again."
She rubbed her mouth with the back of her hand. "I think you broke a tooth. What do you want from me?"
"Tell me how you got here," he said again.
"Listen, when they catch you, they'll cut you into little pieces, slowly, sliver by sliver, and feed you to the sharks. You haven't got much time."
"I know that," he said quietly. "But neither do you, Miss Jasmine Jones."
Something in his voice made her suck in her breath with sudden fear. She looked up at him and tried to stand up, and he pushed her down, not using much force, but enough to let her know he meant to keep her quiet. She shivered and hugged herself and looked to right and left, but the grassy lawns were empty, the wind bells made a deserted plaintive sound in the dark night, and she could see no help in sight. The girl pushed her black hair back from her round face. In the dim shadows, Durell could see the traces of her father's origin. But she was still almost all Chinese. He wondered how soon the patrols who wandered about the islands would arrive. He didn't doubt that Jasmine had been sent to trap him. Someone would get impatient soon and come looking.
"Answer me," he said, and there was an urgency in him that made her sit very still, looking up at him.
"What do you want to know?"
"How you got here. How you came to work for Madame Hung."
"I told you. I was snatched."
"I want all the details."
She said bitterly, "Every bastard who lays me wants the story of my life."
"I haven't, yet," he said, and smiled faintly.
"You don't know what you're missing, man."
He bent down and took the thick strands of her black hair and twisted it into a rope about her long throat and tightened it until she couldn't breathe, doing it so quickly that she had no time to squirm aside. Her eyes popped wide with astonishment and sudden fear.
"Don't stall anymore," he said gently.
"All—all right."
"Did you have any special friends back in California? Someone who took special care of you, kept you off the streets, a private trade, so to speak?"
She nodded, sucked in air as he released the strangling grip on her throat. "You're a bastard. Yes, I had a special friend. An old man. He liked me. He wasn't much good, and the tricks I had to do for him you wouldn't want to hear about. But he kept me off the streets, yes."
"What was his name?"
"George Lim."
"What did he do for a living? Was he an art dealer?"
Something glimmered in her lovely, slanted black eyes. "Yes. How'd you know? Who are you, anyway?"
"An art dealer?" Durell repeated.
"Yeah, he had a fancy shop, he was always buying and selling stuff that came in from Asia; he had European things, too, even owned some Braques, and a Picasso."
"He traveled a lot?"
"Yes. He'd try to teach me stuff about the vases and bronzes and paintings he'd pick up. I guess he meant well, for an old man."
"Did he ever deal with Han Fei Wu, here in Singapore?"
"Sure. He was a good customer."
"And Madame Hung?"
"Yes."
"Often? With Hung?"
"She bought the most."
"How do you know about it?"
"The old man wanted me to help him with his private books."
"What do you mean, private books? Did he have two sets?"
"I guess so. I figured it was to chisel on taxes." She shrugged. "It was no skin off my nose. Is that what you are? A Fed chasing down taxes?"
"No," he said. "How expert was George Lim on art things? Did he try to sell phonies, frauds, copies?"
"Oh, no. He had all the gadgets—infrared, a lot of machinery, to test the paintings and bronzes and all that. He was always tinkering with the things he bought. But I never learned much about all that."
"Did you ever see him fix anything onto a painting?"
"Like what?"
"Glue anything on?"
"No, I never saw anything like that. Labels, you mean?"
"Tiny ones."
"No."
"How was the stuff shipped to Mr. Han and Madame Hung?"
"Mr. Han bought stuff through regular routes. Madame Hung had her own system."
"Tell me about it," Durell said. "How did you happen to be—uh—kidnapped?"
She said bitterly, "The old man—George Lim—was killed."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Why?" he repeated.
"He was good to me, but I guess he tried to chisel something on Madame Hung. He was a miser, sometimes. He got something good—a painting—that she wanted. I saw some of the cables she sent him. It was urgent, it seemed. He was holding out for more money than he'd agreed to accept, I guess. It went on for a week or two, cables back and forth. I pretended I wasn't aware of it, but I knew something big was in the wind. And George was sure of himself; he had all kinds of dreams."
"Dreams?"
"Nightmares, maybe. He talked a lot about Peking. About foreign policy. Crazy, huh?"
"Go on," Durell said.
"Sometimes," Jasmine Jones said, looking straight at him, "I thought George might be a spy. For them, you know?"
"For Red China?"
"That's right."
"Are you a Communist, Jasmine?"
She made a wry face. "Since when does a whore bother with politics?"
"It's happened before."
She looked at him with
sudden awareness. "Oh, Jesus." She began to shiver again. "Is that what this is all about?"
"Yes. And I want you to help me."
"You from Washington?"
"Yes."
"I'm scared."
"You can help me," he repeated.
"Why should I?"
"Because you'll be killed if you do and killed if you don't," he said.
"You'd kill me?"
"Yes."
She looked at him for a long time. Then she said, very softly, "Yes, I believe you would."
He let it sink in for a few moments. The pavilion was dark and shadowed, and the guardian dragons on the roof eaves looked out at the empty lawns and paths of the islet and there was still no alarm. He turned and walked to the edge of the pavilion and stood between two stone dragons and studied the bridge to the innermost island. Nothing moved there. Over the darkly massed shrubbery, he saw the loom of a towering pagoda on the center of the island. He wondered how much time he had left. They would be waiting for the girl to raise an alarm, as a signal to take him. But there was no sign of searchers or patrols out after him.
He turned back to Jasmine Jones. She had not moved. Her face was only a dim blur in the dark shadows.
"Let's go back a bit," he said quietly. "Your—uh— protector had an art object—a painting—that Madame Hung wanted, and he was holding out on her. So he was killed."
"That's right," Jasmine Jones whispered. "It was pretty horrible, even though I thought the old man was a twisted pretzel, for my money."
"You witnessed the murder?"
"Why do you think they took me along with the painting? Sure, I saw it. I'm the lucky one, always. The wrong place at the wrong time. I was asleep on a couch in the old man's private gallery, behind his public shop. The Triad; men made enough noise to wake me, I guess."
"You're sure they were Triads?"
"Sure, I'm sure. I'm not stupid. So I was taken, along with the painting."
"To Cairo," Durell said.
"That's right."
"And then where?"
"I don't remember."
"Yes, you do."
"Everything is fuzzy. They shot me full of some damned tranquilizer. I was higher than a kite. Man, I floated."
"But you remember something of it, don't you?"
"God, you're persistent."
"I have to be. What do you remember?"
"Karachi. Bombay, I think."
"By plane?"
"Sure."
"Commercial?"
"I think so."
"Then what?"
"Elephants. Jungle. That damned crate of paintings. A big, fat, slimy nabob who took me into a stinking hut and—well, you can imagine. Not a good night."
"And?"
"Another flight. Mostly by night. And here." In the darkness. Jasmine shrugged sUghtly, turned her head away. "I haven't been treated bad here. I'm making money."
"But you can't get away."
"No."
"Do you want to go home?"
"Oh, God."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"I'll help you," DureU said.
"I think not. I think you'll be the death of me."
"One more thing. The last plane flight. What do you remember about it? Not a commercial line, was it?"
"No. Sun in the East."
"What does that mean?"
"The symbol on the fuselage. After the nabob had his fun and games with me, they forgot the tranquilizer. So I remember seeing this big sunburst thing on the fuselage."
Durell's heart seemed to jump in his chest. At the same time, he thought he heard a sound somewhere out in the darkness beyond the shadowed pavilion. Jasmine Jones heard it too. She started to climb up off her haunches, and Durell pushed her down. Gently, this time. Her mouth was open.
"Please. Let me go. Leave me alone."
He took the sunburst medallion from his pocket, the one he had found around her throat. Her hand went to her fereasts when she saw it in the dim light.
"Where did you get this?" he asked.
"Listen, they smell something wrong, I should've yelled long ago," Jasmine whimpered. "Let me go, huh?"
"Who gave this to you?"
"Mr. Dane. He works for the Hung woman. He just told me to wear it, when he was telling me to intercept you. He said to let you see it."
"Is this the same symbol you saw on the plane that flew the last leg to Singapore?" Durell asked.
"I—yes, I guess it is," she whispered.
It made a. little sense, he thought.
But not much.
13
Steps thudded on the turf beyond the shrubbery that hid them on the pavilion. There was a low shout, and then crouching shadows, like running dogs, scattered and streaked over the dim lawns. Durell put the medallion back in his pocket. Jasmine Jones looked up at him with a shaking mouth and a plea in her eyes.
"It's for your own good," he said.
"What are you going to do?"
He hit her a second time, this time making sure she would be totally knocked out. It might give her some kind of alibi when she was questioned later by those who owned her. He had to think of her as being owned, as a slave, because that was what she was. The world hadn't come too far in human progress, not if Jasmine Jones had been telling half the truth. And he was inclined to believe her.
The girl was unconscious. Durell stood up and climbed the lacquered raihng of the pavilion and dropped into the shadows of the big oleander that had sheltered them. The hunting footsteps were closer and more urgent now. He turned and backed away toward the bridge with the chain across it. A man's voice called out in soft caution. The sound of wind bells came more strongly across the strip of dark water that kept him from the pagoda on the innermost island. A low stone wall edged the watercourse. He eased himself backward into the water near the bridge, still watching the dark shrubbery. Again he saw moving shadows, coursing to and fro, and a sharp, annoyed query sounded in the dark. The hunt for him was swift and discreet, to avoid spreading alarm among the hundreds of clients who patronized the other islands.
Then they found the unconscious girl. There was a sharp hiss of breath, a curse, the inexplicable sound of a blow. Durell lowered himself into the water all the way and sHd silently into the shadows under the bridge. The chain clanked as footsteps slammed overhead on the planking with loud echoes. He moved cautiously along the pillars and struts toward the opposite shore. The channel was not wide. He waited five minutes in the warm water without moving at all. Fish moved against his body, wriggling and vibrating. Slowly, he lifted himself up onto the opposite bank.
The wind off the straits chilled him now. Pabn fronds waved uneasily overhead. The path before him looked empty and inviting. Too inviting. He ducked in a crouch to the left, behind one of the stone lanterns, and waited and heard nothing but the wind. Then he moved forward again. He felt as if each step took him farther along a dangerously smooth strand of a deadly spider's web.
Why was there no overt alarm now? They must know he was here, on forbidden ground. Through the foliage he saw a low compound wall, a heavy painted gate, and the roofs of a long structure facing the opposite beach. There was a glow of light over the lapping sea as the moon began to rise. His wet dungarees clung harshly to his legs. His shirt, plastered to his back, felt clammy. He smelled incense and the perfume of flowers in the night air. He smelled danger. He smelled death. He wanted to go back. But he walked forward in silence.
The deep, brazen mouth of a bronze bell sounded, the reverberations so low as to be sensed almost as bodily vibrations rather than sound. He did not know what it meant. But he knew he was close to Madame Hung. Her presence was like a miasma in the tropic night.
Durell paused. Let Levy Liscomb handle it now, he thought. Give Levy all you have, and he could do it by the book, even from his sickbed. Get out, he told himself,while you can.
He kept going.
The weight of the medallion he had taken from Jasmine Jo
nes seemed abnormally heavy in his wet pocket. He wished he knew whose it was, and he knew that until he answered that question he could not turn back. He swore at the sense of responsibility that made him move deeper into Hung's web. The safety of any of the girls was no concern of his. He had told himself this before, and tried to believe it, and had almost convinced himself that what happened to them must not turn him aside from doing his job. You could get killed doing this. Others had made the same mistake before. You let a personal instinct enter into the assignment, and you lost your perspective, your sense of balance, and you were dead. He walked on.
He wondered if the medallion belonged to Anna-Lise, who was playing her father's game for the greater glory of a new Reich. Or did it belong to Pan, whose strict upbringing kept her under her aged father's control? Or was it Linda's? He wondered if any of the girls were safe. He hoped so. But he didn't know. And he had to find out.
An enormous shadow suddenly loomed up in his path as he approached the compound gate. The man was a frightful vision out of a barbarous era of China's past, complete with antique warrior's costume, a shaven head, a long drooping moustache, and a broad-bladed sword.
"Overthrow the Ch'ing," the apparition growled.
"Restore the Ming," Durell replied.
The giant swung his sword in a vicious arc that would have lobbed off Durell's head as easily as going through cheese. Durell ducked under the whirring arc of steel and slammed his fist into the man's bare belly, threw his left at the broad, stupid face. The giant crashed backward. He started to yell, and Durell stamped his foot on the man's face. Teeth splintered in the open mouth. The scream turned out to be a bubbling groan. Durell picked up the broadsword and ran.
The shadows of other guards stirred at the compound gate. He swung left, toward the glimmering sea. The moon was lifting up over the horizon now. He wished it weren't ; there; it shed too much light. The wall encircled almost the entire island. He followed it, keeping his head low, to the opposite side, where a strip of tropical jungle growth grew up next to it. An old banyan tree—he suddenly remembered Harry's tree home in Key West—offered a quiet ascent, a short leap to the top of the wall, a jolting jump downward.
He was inside. As he straightened, he heard the brazen tongue of the bell tolling somewhere ahead of him, as if calling him forward.
Assignment Nuclear Nude Page 11