Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 86, No. 6. Whole No. 511, December 1985

Last chance in Singapore by Clark Howard[2]

He was sipping a gin at the Dutch Club, a week after his return to Singapore, when he heard a soft voice speak to him.

“Hello. It’s Alan Modred, isn’t it?”

“Hello. Yes.” Alan smiled as his eyes swept over her. Twentyish, wet auburn hair, slight overbite, tall, generally slim but a touch heavy in the hips. He dredged his memory without finding her. “You don’t recognize me, do you?” she chided.

“I’m sorry, no.”

“I’m Wenifred Travers. Wendy. Jack Travers’ daughter.”

Alan’s jaw dropped in surprise. “My God. You’ve grown up to be a woman.”

“Did you think I’d grow up to be a man?” He felt himself becoming flustered. She had an amused look on her face. “Next you’ll be telling me I’m too old to be bounced on your knee.”

“I don’t know about that,” he countered with a smile. He took her hand. “How’ve you been, Wendy? How’s Jack?”

Her expression saddened. “Daddy’s dead, Alan. Lung cancer, two years ago.”

“No. Oh, Wendy.” Alan felt a clutch in his chest. Jack Travers had been a good man. “I’m so sorry,” he told her.

Wendy nodded. “He was a two-pack-a-day man for thirty years. Every year the doctor told him to quit, but you know Daddy. Eventually it got him.” She sighed and shrugged off the memory. “How long have you been back?”

“Just a week.”

Wendy leaned toward him a fraction. “Was it terrible, Alan? The Thai prison?”

“It could have been worse,” he lied. He wondered how she would react if he showed her the scars where they’d beaten him with a bamboo cane. He imagined she’d swoon. Sheltered young British women probably didn’t see much proud flesh. Deciding to change the subject, he bobbed his chin at her wet hair. “Been for a swim?”

“Yes.” She put on a halfhearted smile. “My friend Herman is a member here. He’s a local rep for Heineken beer. We swim once or twice a week.” She tilted her head. “Are you meeting someone?”

“Yes.” Alan knew she expected to be told who he was meeting, but he didn’t say. The less anyone knew about his activities in Singapore, the better. He directed the conversation back to her. “What made you stay on after Jack’s death?” he asked. “You’ve family in the U.K., haven’t you?”

“Not really. Not close, anyway. Singapore has always seemed more like home. Daddy and Mum are both buried here. And I’ve got a super job at the Jurong Reptile Farm, out near the bird park. There didn’t seem much point in going back to England. Anyway, I hate the cold.”

A waiter approached and said to Alan, “Excuse me, sir. Mr. van Leuck telephoned to say he was just getting on his way and would be here in a quarter hour.”

“Thank you.” So much for secrecy, Alan thought. When he turned back to Wendy, she was looking at him curiously.

“Is that Louis van Leuck you’re meeting?” There was a hint of accusation in her voice.

“It is.” A hint of defensiveness in his.

“Oh, Alan. Must you get involved with that sort when you’re just back to make a new start? Louis van Leuck is one of the shadiest characters in Singapore. He’s involved in everything from drugs to gun smuggling. To — to — to white slavery.”

“Is there still a white-slavery trade?” Alan asked. “I’ll have to look into that.”

“It’s not funny, Alan.”

He sighed quietly and fixed her in a steady gaze. “Would you like to know what’s really not funny?” he asked evenly. “A forty-four-year-old man just back from five years in a Thai prison after being caught transporting jade illegally. That, after having failed at running an import-export business into which he had put his life savings. Before which he had two failed marriages, two other failed businesses, and one bankruptcy. At the moment, all he has to show for his life is a bleeding ulcer. That’s not funny.” He shook his head, the momentary hostility gone. “It’s all well and good for you to denounce Louis van Leuck as a social undesirable, but the fact is, he’s the only person in Singapore willing to talk to me about future employment.”

“Yes, but what kind of employment?” She was not about to relent.

“At this point,” Alan said flatly, “I can’t really be selective, can I?”

Their eyes were locked in a mutually accusing stare when a handsome young Dutchman, his hair wet like Wendy’s, walked up to them. Wendy broke the stare to introduce him as Herman Ubbink, the Heineken beer rep she had mentioned earlier. Herman reminded her that they had to meet people for lunch.

“Where can I reach you, Alan?” she wanted to know.

“I haven’t found a permanent place yet,” he said. It would have been too embarrassing to tell her he had a seedy little room on Serangoon Street in the Little India quarter.

“Please ring me up,” Wendy said. “I’m listed.”

“Of course.”

Alan watched them leave, two vibrant young people with good tans, good posture, good prospects, and all the time in the world ahead of them.

Deep inside, his ulcer began to churn.

Louis van Leuck reminded Alan of Sydney Greenstreet. He wore a white linen shirt with a Nehru collar and sat bent very close to the table so that he could keep an elbow on either side of the plate while he ate. They were in the Swatow Restaurant high up in Centrepoint, an ultramodern, multilevel shopping center to which van Leuck had taken Alan after leaving the Dutch Club. They were eating dim sum, a kind of rolling buffet in which trolleys filled with numerous Chinese dishes passed continuously among the tables.

“Try some of that baked tench, my boy,” van Leuck prompted. “It’s the best fish to come out of China in years.”

“I don’t have much appetite for fish after eating boiled fish heads every day for five years.”

“Try the duck skin, then. It’s wrapped around spring onions and cucumbers, coated in black bean sauce. Delicious.”

“I’ll just have a little boiled chicken and rice,” Alan said. “I have a minor stomach problem.” Minor. When it wasn’t causing him nausea, excruciating cramps, or bleeding.

The food trolleys were being pushed by slim Chinese women wearing sarong kabayas slit on one side up to the thigh. They served whichever dishes the patrons indicated they wanted. One of the women had a slight overbite that made Alan think of Wendy Travers. Presumptuous little bitch, he thought. What did she expect him to do, starve? Beg? How simple life always looked to the young.

“Do you have anything for me. Louis?” he finally asked when they were halfway through their second course.

“I wish I did have, my boy,” the overweight Dutchman said. “But things are very, very slow right now. There’s lots of official pressure about. Election year and all that.” He lowered his voice. “If you’d care to get involved with the, ah — snow, shall we call it? — I might be able to arrange something. It would mean moving to Manila, of course. I don’t fool around with that trade in Singapura — too dangerous. Mandatory death penalty, you know.”

Alan shook his head. “I don’t care to get into that sort of business.” Hadn’t he just told Wendy he wasn’t in a position to be selective? Now here he was, being exactly that.

“Locally,” van Leuck said, “I’m expanding my chain of sexual massage parlors, but I really like to have women managing them — they’re so much more reliable, especially Chinese women.” He stuffed his mouth with food and talked around it. “I dabble in contraband ivory here, but only on a small scale — not really enough profit there to share. Stolen airline tickets bring in a little. Counterfeit designer purses and other items make a modest amount, despite some really aggressive competition from Malaysia. And then there’s my pornography operation: magazines, video tapes, uncensored books. Again, the tight customs controls make that a limited-profits enterprise. I expect things to loosen up by this time next year, however.”

“How nice,” Alan said. “If I’d known there was a business recession, I would have arranged to stay in prison an extra year.”

“That’s very funny, my boy,” van Leuck said, a bit of orange yam falling to his chin as he spoke. Then his eyes narrowed to slits that could have held matchsticks. “There is one venture currently in the planning stages,” he said hesitantly. “It could be a bit out of the ordinary for you, as well as somewhat risky, but the reward would be considerable. I myself am involved only in marketing the project and, ah — shall we say, converting the acquired product. The actual planning and operation is being done by someone else, but I understand he’s a man short. I could recommend you, if you like.”

“What’s the venture?” Alan asked.

“I’m not at liberty to say. That would have to come from the man at the other end, once he approved you.”

Alan rubbed his chin, his interest piqued. “Considerable reward, you say?”

“Very.”

“But risky?”

“To some degree.”

Alan was silent for a long moment, but finally nodded. “All right, Louis. I’ll accept your recommendation, with gratitude.”

“Excellent, my boy.”

Louis van Leuck smiled and waved over another trolley of food.

That evening, Alan walked slowly up Sago Lane in Chinatown. It was a narrow road, vibrant with streetside activity, sounds, and smells. The fragrance of incense mingled with the smell of frying noodles. Street hawkers chattered among themselves, quieting down and watching as Alan passed to see if he had any interest in their candles, citrus, dry goods, or beansprouts. The cackle of seven Chinese dialects punctuated the night as old women in samfus and homemade clogs gossiped in street stalls and tenement entries. Chinese children, spotlessly clean even at play, dashed about, giggling at their simple games.

At the corner of Trengganu, Alan stopped and looked around. A young Chinese woman spoke to him from a doorway. “Chuang?” she said, opening her kimono a few inches.

Alan shook his head. “Bu” he replied. The fleeting thought of going to bed with her made him think for some reason of Wendy. Irritably, he purged his mind of the thought. “Shu ben shi chang?” he asked the woman in the doorway. She closed her kimono and pointed down the street. Alan nodded. “Xie xie ny,” he said, thanking her.

Walking down to the bookstore he had inquired about, Alan entered. It was a musty little shop, barely four square meters, with no shelves, its books all stacked on several tables as if the owner was prepared to abandon the premises. An old Chinese man in a mandarin coat sat in one corner on an upturned wooden box with a cushion tied to it, smoking through an ivory cigarette holder. He looked sixty, but because Chinese men age so slowly, Alan judged him to be at least seventy-five.

“Wan an, Fu qin,” Alan said respectfully. Good evening, Father.

“My humble shop is yours, my son,” the old man replied in precise English.

“I seek a gentleman named Dao,” Alan said.

The old man shook his head. “You are too late. He is dead. He died from being jiu. Jiu meant very old.”

“I was sent here by the jing ly named van Leuck,” Alan said, referring to the Dutchman as a boss or manager.

“In that case, I am not dead,” the old Chinese admitted. He smiled slyly. “I am jiu, however, and will probably die shortly, but that need be no concern of yours.” He rose and offered his hand. Welcome. I am Dao.”

Alan shook hands and followed him into a curtained corner where there were two more box-and-cushion seats and a small table. “Cha?” the old man asked. Tea?

“Boleh.” Please.

The teapot was set over a burning candle in the well formed by an arrangement of three bricks, keeping it constantly hot without boiling. From a closed wicker basket inside the box on which he sat, Dao removed two beautiful, delicate teacups, each fashioned with symbolic tigers etched in gold, with ruby chips for eyes. Alan, who knew of such things, judged them to be at least one hundred years old. He watched the old Chinese fill them with herbal tea.

The two men sipped their cha in silence until the cups were half empty. Then Dao asked, “Do you know the meaning of my name?”

“I believe it means ‘knife,’ ” said Alan.

“Yes. In my youth, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, I was called Nan Ren Dao. Man of the Knife. An undeserved tribute to a very modest talent. There are those who insist that I could split a swinging pear at fifteen meters. Not being a vain man, I myself never measured the distance. The years, of course, have taken their toll on my eyesight, and my arms have become flaccid and feeble. Fortunately, I have a grandnephew to whom I passed on what little skill I had. He is now the eyes and arms of the man once called Nan Ren Dao. Loyal and respectful young relatives are a blessing to the aged, do you not agree?”

“I do, yes,” said Alan. The old man’s warning was unmistakable: betray me and my grandnephew will throw a knife into you. Alan heard the shop door open and a moment later a young Chinese woman came around the curtain. She was the same woman who had solicited Alan at the corner.

“My grandnephew’s wife,” Dao said. “I am happy to know you are not a man who is easily tempted, even after five years of enforced abstinence.”

Alan bowed his head an inch. “And I am happy to have passed your test, Fu qin. Please tell your grandnephew that it was not easy. His wife is a mei li funu.”

The young woman suppressed a smile at being called a beautiful lady. As she took her coat from a peg and left, Alan had a fleeting thought of Wendy again. She and the Chinese woman carried the same touch of heaviness in their hips. Why, he wondered, could he not get Wendy out of his mind? Was it desire? It was true, as Dao had said, that he had been away from women for five years. Plus a week, as a matter of fact, because he still had not had any sex since his release. That fact was a little disturbing to him — he was beginning to wonder if the years in prison, the beatings and other brutalities, the inadequate diet, the occasional sicknesses, the parasites, the constant close exposure to unrelenting dampness during the monsoon seasons had all conspired to make him impotent?

Dao interrupted Alan’s brief moment of worry by striking a stick match to light a fresh cigarette in his ivory holder. Then he said, “So. You are interested in joining a modest venture we have planned?”

“Yes.”

“Did Herr van Leuck give you any details of the project?”

“No.”

“Ah. Well, as I said, it is a modest venture. We are going to rob the Singapore mint.”

Alan stared incredulously at the old man. Dao smiled and reached for the teapot.

“More cha?” he asked.

The next day, Alan rode one of Singapore’s immaculately clean buses out toward Jurong Town, on the western end of the island where the mint was located. From the road along one side of the compound, where he got off the bus to walk, he was able to take a good, leisurely look at it without arousing suspicion.

Actually, there was not all that much to see. It looked a bit like a small prison — unadorned buildings set some distance back from an electrified cyclone fence topped with accordion wire, with gun towers at the corners. Pretty much impregnable, Alan decided, as far as an armed robbery assault was concerned. Their plan, however — he was already thinking of it as partly his — did not involve assault or arms. As with drugs, the mere possession of cartridges, much less a weapon in which to use them, carried a mandatory death penalty in Singapore. One had to be a fool to tempt such easily administered capital punishment, and Dao was anything but a fool. No, their plan was devoid of violence — much less dangerous and considerably less offensive to the Singapore government. They were not even planning to steal Singapore money, only Malaysian notes printed under contract by the Singapore mint. That way, Dao reasoned, if they were caught the Singapore courts might be a little more lenient.

As for their method, it was quite simple: they were going to execute the robbery through a tunnel, at night.

As Alan walked along the road, surreptitiously scrutinizing the mint, he recalled Dao’s words of the previous night. “The tunnel was already there when the mint was built above it,” the old Chinese had explained. “When the Japanese occupied Singapore during World War Two, in addition to the notorious prison camp at Changi on the eastern end of the island, they also had a smaller camp, for women, at Boon Lay. Prisoners there were nurses, nuns, British officers’ wives and daughters, unmarried Occidentals who had been employed in the city at the time it fell, and a smattering of Eurasian women who qualified for confinement as a result of their mixed blood.

“These women knew their camp was very close to a narrow inlet that came in from the south coast of the island. Many of them had been on family outings around there in happier times and were quite familiar with the area. They reasoned that if they could get out of the camp and reach the inlet, they could, with jewelry many of them had concealed in their hair, barter with the rural natives to acquire dugout boats. With those boats they could sail to any one of the isolated southern islands, which in those days were not developed at all. There they intended to live off wild game and fruit, and possibly cultivate vegetable gardens of some kind. Whatever conditions they encountered, they were unanimously convinced that they would be better off than in their present circumstances, which were resulting in scurvy, rickets, dysentery, and numerous other trying physical problems.

“So they set about digging a tunnel. It had to be deep enough to remain undetected for a long period of time, large enough for a person to crawl through on hands and knees, and long enough to take them outside the barbed-wire fence and far enough away from the camp to avoid the perimeter sentries. They estimated that it would take them two years to complete it. Work was begun in March, nineteen forty-two.

“By June, nineteen forty-three, the women had progressed beyond the wire and were well on their way through — or shall I say under — the jungle. At that point, however, their Japanese captors closed the camp and moved the entire group to another facility in nearby Sumatra.

“Louis van Leuck learned of the tunnel while visiting London and watching a television show on the BBC called This Is Your Life. It was honoring Brigadier Dame Margot Turner, the former Matron-in-Chief of the Royal Army Nursing Corps. While Dame Margot herself was never in the Boon Lay camp, one of the women who was subsequently with her in the Muntok camp in Sumatra, and who had appeared on the show, had been at Boon Lay earlier, and commented on the tunnel they had dug there.

“Louis van Leuck, whose thinking coincides with my own unfortunate proclivity for felonious endeavors, checked upon his return to Singapore all the land and building records for the area where the Boon Lay camp had been, and where the mint now is, and found no indication that the existence of the tunnel was known. He then took it upon himself to personally explore the acreage in question, in the guise of a botanist studying the island’s flora. After several weeks of diligent effort, his initiative was rewarded. He found that the tunnel does, in fact, still exist. Louis has not divulged the location as yet, but I am told that it leads from a point approximately three hundred meters outside the mint compound and terminates directly under what is now the bundling room, where new currency is packaged for shipment.”

Dao had gone on to explain to Alan exactly how the robbery would be carried out. There would be no guns, no violence, no contact with any of the mint’s nighttime security force. Alan and Dao’s grand-nephew would negotiate the tunnel and, with tools, battery-operated drills, and duffel bags, wait just below the bundling room. At a predetermined time, Dao and the grandnephew’s wife would set off across the road a sequence of spectacular Chinese fireworks, which would have been previously arranged in a wooded area there.

While the mint security guards were distracted by the fireworks display, timed to last at least twenty minutes, Alan and the grand-nephew would break through the bundling room floor (ten minutes), fill the duffel bags — six of them, connected by lengths of rope — with all the packaged Malaysian money and any other foreign banknotes they could find (five minutes), then drop back into the tunnel, pull the bags in behind them, and crawl back through the tunnel (five minutes). At the tunnel mouth, they would drag the connected bags through, remove them, and cave in that end of the tunnel with a light explosive device they would leave behind, the display fireworks covering the sound.

It was, Alan thought, a plan brilliant in its simplicity — comparatively uninvolved, limited in operation to a very few, able to be carried out in an incredibly short period of time. It had the potential of netting, Dao estimated, ten to fifteen million Malaysian dollars.

Alan had already figured out what his share would be. Say they got twelve million Malay. Louis van Leuck would take ten percent (one million, two) off the top, his fee for conceiving the operation. That would leave ten-point-eight million. Louis would further profit by seeing to the transport and conversion of the currency, buying it from Dao at sixty percent of its face value, about six-and-one-half million. Alan’s share of that would be around one-point-six million Malay. At the current exchange rate of $2.20 Malay to U.S. $1.00, he would have somewhere in the neighborhood of seven hundred and forty thousand U.S. dollars.

And that, Alan promised himself, was going to do him for life. There would be no opening of any business with this money, no risky speculation trying to make a big killing, no living it up in the fast lane. Much wiser after his term in the Thai prison, Alan had modified his wants and desires to a sensible minimum. Where once he needed — or at least wanted — tailormade clothes, an expensive car, someplace opulent in which to live, he now yearned for nothing more than a cozy room, peace and quiet, comfortable slippers, some books, a television, medication for his ulcer, and anonymity. The cane beatings had done that to him. The scars on his buttocks and calves would forever remind him that the simplest things in life were by far the most valuable.

This venture, Alan was certain, was his very last chance for a decent existence. Probably his last chance for anything in life. There was no question in his mind that he had to take the chance even though the prospect of doing it terrified him.

Walking away from the area of the mint compound, Alan encountered a directional sign that read JURONG BIRD PARK. He remembered Wendy Travers saying she worked at a reptile farm near there. Without debating it, he decided to go see her. She was more or less constantly on his mind, and he didn’t know why or what to do about it. Perhaps seeing her again would give him a clue.

The farm was a walled area much smaller than he had imagined. Inside the walls were two exhibition structures in which some species of reptiles were on display behind glass. In two exterior areas, others were kept behind fine grille-wire in ground cages with corrugated roofs. Upon inquiry, Alan was directed to one of the cages, where he found Wendy, in safari clothes, holding and stroking a fire-hose-sized snake which hung down to the ground and appeared to be at least seven or eight meters long. Alan stared incredulously until Wendy noticed him.

“Alan! I’m so glad to see you!” Her overbite smile lighted up a freshly scrubbed face.

“I’m not sure I can say the same,” Alan told her. “I expected to find you behind a typewriter, not a snake.”

She smiled. “No boring typewriters for me, Alan. I’m assistant to Professor Angus Ferguson, one of the world’s foremost authorities on reptiles. He’s written several field guides on reptilia and amphibia. You can come a little closer, Alan — they can’t get out.”

Hesitantly, Alan moved up to the cage grille. “Aren’t you afraid that thing might strike?” he asked, regarding the long blue-and-brown-patterned snake with unconcealed revulsion.

Wendy shook her head. “This is a non-venomous species,” she explained. “It’s called a python reticulatus, or reticulated python. It has teeth instead of fangs. Killing of its prey is effected by constriction. This one is quite docile. Would you like to hold him?”

“No,” Alan said.

“He’s really a dear, Alan. Absolutely loves human warmth and stroking. We call him Apollo because he’s so beautiful. He is a bit spoiled, however.”

Wendy put the python on the ground and came out of the cage. Alan had to steel himself not to flinch when she casually took his arm with hands that had just cuddled Apollo.

“What made you decide to come see me?” she asked.

“I was in the area,” he replied vaguely.

“Oh. Well, I’m glad anyway. I’m off in half an hour. If you haven’t a car, you can ride back to the city with me. I might even cook for you this evening if you encourage me a little.”

He touched one of her hands, forgetting about Apollo. “You’ve always been a very sweet girl, Wendy.”

She smiled sadly. “That’s what Daddy used to call me, remember? His sweet girl.”

“Yes, I do,” he said.

When her shift was over, Wendy led him to a BMW with a right-hand drive, and they started for the city. On the way, they drove past the mint compound and Alan could not help staring at it. Wendy noticed his preoccupation with curiosity but did not comment.

She lived in a small apartment at the back of a garden complex off Orchard Link. It was bi-level, secluded, and had a tiny private patio and garden. “This is lovely,” Alan told her.

“A lot of things were Mum’s,” she said, gesturing toward the furnishings. “Or Daddy’s. That’s his leather chair there, remember? Why don’t you sit in it while I fix you a gin?”

Wendy had a drink with him while they reminisced a bit, then left him with a second gin while she went off to the kitchen. “Do you still like those outrageous omelets with all sorts of things in them that you and Daddy used to wolf down?” she asked.

“Yes, but they no longer like me,” he called back. “I’ve a bit of a stomach problem — just eggs-and-cheese will do fine.”

“You’re easy,” she said. “I may keep you.”

It was not a cool Singapore evening, but it was tolerable enough for them to eat on the tiny patio and enjoy the little garden, which she had lit with Chinese lanterns. As they ate, she said, “Listen, Alan, forgive me, but I’m still troubled about your contact with Louis van Leuck. A man of your intelligence and capabilities shouldn’t have to go over to the shady side to earn a living. I’ve been thinking. You remember my friend Herman Ubbink you met at the Dutch Club? Well, Heineken is transferring him to London next month. He has a friend he plays squash with, Steven Howard, who’s head of marketing for Time. Steven’s giving Herman a big going-away bash and there’ll be all sorts of Singapore business types there. Why don’t you come with me and I’ll introduce you around. We can say you’ve just moved back here from South America or someplace and are looking for a niche. I’m almost sure someone would ask you to come around and talk. What do you think?”

Alan smiled fondly at her across the table. “I think you’re ’a sweet girl’ to be so concerned about my future. I appreciate it and I’m touched by it. It’s been a long spell since anyone gave more than passing interest to my well-being. But I must tell you, dear Wendy, that I think you’re being naive. Suppose someone at the party was interested? How long do you think that interest would last when I had to provide references for the last five years? Or when they ran a local credit check on me and learned of the two failed businesses and the bankruptcy? Or even worse, applied for a work permit for me and a police check showed I was extradited from here to Bangkok to face jade-smuggling charges for which I was subsequently sent to prison?” Reaching over, he put his hand on hers. “I know you mean well, Wendy, but it simply wouldn’t work. I’ve got only one last chance here in Singapore and that’s with Louis van Leuck.”

Wendy fought back tears and abruptly came around the table and sat on his lap, as she had done as a child. She pressed her face against him and he felt wet eyelashes on his neck. “I’m just so afraid for you,” she said in a strained voice. “It hasn’t been that long since I lost Daddy. Now I’ve found you, Alan, and I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“I know.” Alan patted her head, again as if she were still the little girl he remembered — all the while realizing by the heat and shape of her body against his that she was not.

She felt the heat, too, felt everything, and whispered, “Let’s go in, Alan.”

He slept very soundly for the first hour after they made love. Wendy hadn’t blanched at the sight of his horrible scars, had in fact kissed them in her passion, and his self-consciousness about his age, his physical condition, the fear of impotency had all vanished in the indulgences of their lovemaking.

Then it started to rain, a heavy monsoon deluge that threatened to tear shutters off, and he dreamed briefly about the Thai prison before coming awake and sitting bolt upright in a sheet of sweat. He was not cold but he was trembling. Wendy cradled his head against her.

“You’re afraid, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yes. God, yes.”

“Tell me what of.”

Alan swallowed as much fear as he could and replied, “The tunnel. I’m afraid of the tunnel.”

Then, in the darkness, his face pressed to the softness of her, he told her about the plan to rob the mint. About the hundred-meter tunnel he and Dao’s grandnephew would have to crawl through. And about a punishment in the Thai prison called ‘the trench.’

“It was like a grave,” he said. “A deep, earthen grave with narrow walls. They tied your arms to your sides, tied your ankles together, and put you in a burlap shroud up to your throat. Then they lowered you into the trench on your back. A wooden plank was lowered above you until it almost touched your face. It was held in place by four ropes tied to stakes at the corners of the trench. With the board in place, dirt was shoveled in by other prisoners. While you lay there helpless, you heard shovelfuls of dirt hitting the plank just over your face. Some of the dirt trickled down each side. Slowly the daylight disappeared and you were buried alive.”

Alan pushed his sweating face harder against her, as if her flesh could erase the memory. “I was put in the trench four times,” he told her. “Each time I thought I would lose my mind. Or suffocate. But the bastards always got me out in time. They had it down to a science. A few died in the trench, but not many.”

“The tunnel under the mint reminds you of the trench,” Wendy said.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Daddy,” she told him. “He was a prisoner during the war. Years later he was still having associated nightmares and depression and such. You’re afraid you can’t make it through the tunnel, aren’t you?”

“Yes. The thought of crawling through that long, narrow, dark hole—” Alan shook his head desperately. “It terrifies me.”

“Then don’t do it,” Wendy said. “Say you can’t.”

“They wouldn’t let me. I know all the particulars of the plan now. After all, I did ask to be let in. Anyway, even if they did let me back out, if anything went wrong when they pulled the job they’d never believe I wasn’t somehow responsible. No, I’m afraid I’ll have to stay in.”

“Drop out of sight, then,” Wendy pleaded. “Move in here with me. They’d never find you.”

Alan shook his head. “That would be prison all over again. I’d never be able to go out on the streets for fear one of van Leuck’s people would see me.” He took a deep breath. “I’m just going to have to steel myself for it, that’s all. I’m going to have to get through it.” In the darkness, Wendy whispered, “Maybe we can think of something.”

“Sure,” Alan said. His tone told her he didn’t for a moment believe it.

The robbery was scheduled for Tuesday night, just before the Wednesday shipment of banknotes to Malaysia.

Alan still had his room in the Indian quarter even though he had been staying with Wendy most of the time. He returned to the room only to get messages. She had gone with him once and found the place disgusting. “This is awful,” she said. “You’re so fastidious, just like Daddy was — I don’t see how you can stand it.”

“I shouldn’t have to stand it much longer,” he said.

Wendy wasn’t with him on the weekend when he got the message that Dao wanted to see him. In the bookstore, the old Chinese told him when the robbery was scheduled. On Monday night, Alan shared the information with Wendy.

“The fireworks are being put into place tonight. Dao and I will go to van Leuck’s house in the morning and he’ll show us on a map where the tunnel entrance is. It’s supposedly well grown over with brush and vines, very difficult to find, but easily accessible once one knows where to look. I won’t be able to stay with you tonight, Wendy. I’ll have to be where Dao can reach me in case there’s a last-minute change of plans.”

“I understand,” said Wendy. “Where does van Leuck live, anyway?”

“Upper Thomson Road. Why?”

She shrugged. “I just wondered where a person like that would live. One always wonders about people like van Leuck. They’re morbidly fascinating, like some of our reptiles at the farm. The venomous ones.”

“I imagine Louis can be venomous, all right,” Alan agreed. “Especially if anyone crossed him.”

“You still don’t think there’s a chance they’d let you pull out?”

He shook his head. “It’s too far along now.” He took both her hands. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you this past week. Gone mad, most likely.”

When Alan and Dao arrived at van Leuck’s house the following morning, they were surprised to find a police car, an ambulance, and a plain, unmarked panel truck there ahead of them.

“We have trouble,” Dao said. He instructed his grandnephew, who was chauffeuring them, to keep driving and park around the corner. Then he sent the young man back on foot to investigate. The grand-nephew returned within five minutes, an expression of shock on his face.

“Mr. van Leuck is dead, Great-uncle,” he said. “A most tragic occurrence. A python somehow got into his house last night, wrapped its body around Mr. van Leuck’s head and face, and smothered him. The panel truck you saw in front is from the reptile farm. They sent two keepers to capture the snake. Alas, for the unfortunate Mr. van Leuck it is too late.”

“As it also is for us,” Dao said quietly. “Take us back to my shop.”

The three men rode in silence back to Chinatown. Only when they arrived did Alan ask the obvious question.

“Will you try to find the tunnel yourself, Fu qin?”

“I think not,” the old man said. “The snake was a sign. It came out of the jungle to tell us that the tunnel belongs to the jungle, not to us. Perhaps the snakes now use the tunnel for their home. In any event, I think we will listen to the snake.”

Alan saw a look of enormous relief come over the face of Dao’s grandnephew. So, he thought, I was not the only one terrified of that hole.

“It shall be as you wish,” Alan told Dao.

He shook hands with the old Chinese and left. On South Bridge, he caught a taxi and rode up to Serangoon where he had his cheap little room. Wendy was waiting in her BMW out front.

“I have your things,” she said. His canvas bag was in the back seat. “And I settled your bill. Let’s get away from this filthy place.”

Alan got in beside her. She drove away, calm and unruffled as if she had not committed murder.

“Was it Apollo?” Alan asked.

“Yes. I told you, didn’t I, he likes human warmth?”

“Yes, I recall you saying that.” Alan s mouth was suddenly dry. “Well, what now?” he asked as casually as he could manage.

“You’ll come live with me,” Wendy said. “You can have Daddy’s chair. I’ll be your little girl. Just like I was his.”

Alan stared at her without blinking.

“All right?” she asked.

Wrapped its body around Mr. van Leuck’s head and face—

“Of course,” Alan agreed. “Whatever you say.”

Inside, his ulcer reminded him it was still there.