Sleuths

Jade

La Croix had not changed much in the three years since I had last seen him. He still had a nervous twitch, still wore the same ingratiating smile. We sat together in a booth in the Seaman’s Bar, on Singapore River’s South Quay. It was eleven-thirty in the morning.

He brushed at an imaginary speck on the sleeve of his white tropical suit. “You will do it, mon ami?”

“No,” I said.

His smile went away. “But I have offered you a great deal of money.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“I do not understand.”

“I’m not in the business anymore.”

The smile came back. “You are joking, of course.”

“Do you see me laughing?”

Again, the smile vanished. “But you must help me. Perhaps if I were to tell you the reason—”

“I don’t want to hear about it. There are plenty of others in Singapore. Why don’t you hunt up one of them?”

“You and I, we have done much business together,” La Croix said. “You are the only one I would trust. I will double my offer. Triple it.”

“I told you, the money has nothing to do with it. I’m not the same man I was before you went away to Manila or Kuala Lumpur or wherever the hell you’ve been.”

“Mon ami, I beg of you!” Sweat had broken out on his forehead.

“No.” I stood abruptly. “I can’t do anything for you, La Croix. Find somebody else.”

I walked away from him, through the beaded curtains into the bar proper. La Croix hurried after me, pushed in next to me as I ordered another iced beer. When the bartender moved away La Croix said urgently, “I beg of you to reconsider, M’sieu Connell. I... as long as I remain in Singapore my life is in grave danger...”

“La Croix, how many times do I have to say it? I’m not in the business anymore. There’s nothing I can do.”

“But I have already—” He broke off, his eyes staring into mine, and then he swung around and was gone.

I finished my beer and went out into what the Malays call the roore hond, the oppressive, prickly heat that was Singapore at midday. There were a few European tourists about — talking animatedly, taking pictures the way they do — but the natives had sense enough to stay in where it was cool.

I walked down to the river. The water was a dark, oily bluish-green. Its narrow expanse, as always, was crowded with sampans, prahus, small bamboo-awninged Chinese junks, and the heavily laden, almost flat-decked lighters called tongkangs. There was the smell of rotting garbage, intermingled with that of salt water, spices, rubber, gasoline, and the sweet, cloying scent of frangipani. The rust-colored roofs that cap most of Singapore’s buildings shone dully through thick heat haze on both sides of the river.

I followed the line of the waterfront for a short way until I came to one of the smaller godowns or storage warehouses. Harry Rutledge, the big, florid-faced Englishman who ran the place, was there, supervising the unloading of a shipment of copra from one of the lighters.

“Can you use me today, Harry?” I asked him.

“Sorry, lad. Plenty of coolies on this one.”

“Tomorrow?”

He rubbed his peeling red nose. “Cargo of palm oil due in,” he said musingly. “Holdover, awaiting transshipment. Could use you, at that.”

“What time will it be in?”

“By eleven, likely.”

“I’ll be here at ten.”

“Right-o.”

I moved on along the river. I had never really gotten used to the heat, even after fifteen years in the South China Seas, and I was sweaty and dry-mouthed and I wanted another iced beer. But not in the Seaman’s Bar, and it would be better if I had something to eat first. I had not eaten all day.

Here and there along the waterfront are small eating stalls. I stopped at the first one I saw and sat on one of the foot-high wooden stools, under a white canvas awning. I ordered shashlick and rice and a fresh mangosteen. I was working on the thick, pulpy fruit when the three men walked up.

The two on either side were copper-skinned, flat-eyed, and stoic. Both were dressed in white linen jackets and matching slacks. The man in the middle was about fifty, short and plump; his skin had the odd look of kneaded pink dough. He was probably Dutch or Belgian, I thought. He wore white also, but that was the only similarity between his clothes and those of the other two. The suit was impeccably tailored, the shirt of silk; the leather shoes were handmade and polished to a gloss. On the little finger of his left hand he wore a gold ring with a jade stone in the shape of a lion’s head — symbolic, probably, of the Lion City.

He sat down carefully on the stool next to me. The other two remained standing. The plump man smiled as if he had just found a missing relative. “You are Daniel Connell?” he asked.

“That’s right.”

“I am Jorge Van Rijk.”

I went on eating the mangosteen.

“You were at the Seaman’s Bar a short while ago. In the company of an acquaintance of mine.”

“Is that so?”

“M’sieu La Croix.”

“The name’s not familiar.”

“Come now, Mr. Connell. What did he want of you?”

“I don’t see that it’s any of your business.”

“Ah, but it is. It is very much my business.”

“Then go ask La Croix.”

“An excellent suggestion,” Van Rijk said. “However, he seems to have temporarily eluded us.”

“Too bad for you.”

“Necessarily, then, I must ask you. What did he want?”

“He wanted to sell me something,” I said. “But I wasn’t buying.”

“No?” Van Rijk smiled again, but his eyes were as cold as dry ice. “You are a pilot, are you not?”

“Not anymore.”

“A pilot for hire, I’m told. La Croix wished you to fly him somewhere.”

“You think so? You weren’t there.”

“To what destination?”

“I didn’t let him get that far.”

“What destination, Mr. Connell? When and from where?”

“Ask as many questions as you want. I don’t have any answers for you.”

Van Rijk was losing patience; his eyes said so and so did the threatening tone when he said, “You would be wise not to play games with me, Mr. Connell.”

“I’m not playing games. Why should I? I don’t know who you are or what your connection is to La Croix and I don’t much care.”

“Then tell me what you know of La Croix’s plans, or—”

“Or what, Van Rijk?” My patience was gone, too. I laid my hands flat on the table, leaning toward him. That brought the other two in closer; one of them put his hand inside his jacket. “Or you sic your two bodyguards or whatever they are on me? I’m sure they’re armed to the teeth, but I doubt you’d have them shoot me in a crowded bazaar. Or try to kidnap me, either. In fact I doubt you’ll make any trouble at all, unless you want to spend some time in a city penjara for street brawling.”

Anger blotched his pink cheeks. The other two were poised on the balls of their feet, watching me, waiting for orders from Van Rijk. But I’d read him right; he didn’t want anything to do with the Singapore polls. He got slowly and stiffly to his feet.

“There will be another time, Mr. Connell,” he said. “When the streets are not so crowded.” Then he stalked off, threading his way between the tables, his two orang séwaan-séwaan at his heels. The three of them disappeared into the waterfront confusion.

I sat there for a time. Van Rijk and his threats didn’t worry me much. There had been a time when they might have, but that time was two years dead; his type didn’t bother me anymore. I wasn’t even curious about his relationship with La Croix.

I drank a couple of iced Anchor beers in a nearby bar, then took a taxi to my flat on Punyang Street in Chinatown. A forty-minute nap, a tepid shower, and a fresh change of clothes put me in a better frame of mind. And by then I was thirsty again.

On Jalan Barat, not far away, there was a bar called the Malaysian Gardens — a gross misnomer. No flower, shrub or plant has ever been cultivated within a radius of one hundred yards of the place. Its façade was reminiscent of a Chinatown tenement and its barnlike interior was scruffy, bare, and redolent of the sweat, blood, and tears of its equally scruffy clientele. A dive the Malaysian Gardens may be, catering to the Caucasian, Eurasian, and Asian dregs, but the beer was cheap and nobody cared who or what you were. You could do your drinking alone or in the company of friendly and sympathetic — for the right price — bar girls. Mostly I did mine alone.

I had been there for perhaps three hours, sitting by myself at a rear table and thinking a lot of old and useless thoughts, when I realized I was being stared at. I was still fairly sober and it wasn’t much of an effort to get my eyes focused. The starer was a woman. Not one of the bar girls — a young Caucasian woman who didn’t belong in the Malaysian Gardens.

She was standing about fifteen feet away, tall and dark-haired and well-dressed. In the smoky dimness of the Gardens it was difficult to determine her age, but she couldn’t have been older than thirty. She had eyes for me alone, no question of that, but not for the usual reason women stare at men in bars. She seemed nervous and uncomfortable and maybe a little scared.

My being aware of her seemed to make up her mind about something. She came forward jerkily and stopped in front of my table. “You’re... Mr. Connell? Dan Connell?” American, I thought. Or possibly Canadian.

“That’s me.”

“My name is Tina Kellogg. I’d like to talk to you. It’s... it’s very important to me.”

I indicated an empty chair and invited her to sit down.

“I don’t know quite how to say this,” she said. “I’m... I have no experience with this sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing is that?”

She hesitated. “Well, intrigue, I guess you’d call it.”

“That’s a pretty melodramatic word.”

“Yes, I know.” She hesitated again. Then, in a rush, as if she needed to relieve herself of the pressure of the words: “Mr. Connell, I’m told that you fly people out of Singapore, people who can’t leave any other way.”

Christ, I thought. First La Croix, then Van Rijk, and now this woman. Some damn day this had been. “Who told you that?” I asked her.

“I don’t know his name. A man I talked to on the waterfront. I spent most of the day asking around and this man said the person I should see was Dan Connell and that I could find him here most nights, so I...” Her voice trailed off.

“I can’t help you,” I told her.

“But... the man said...”

“I don’t care what he said. I can’t help you.”

“It isn’t very far, where I want to... where I have to go.” Desperation put a tremble in her voice. “Just the Philippines. Anywhere near Luzon.”

I drank from my glass. I thought she might go away if I ignored her, but she didn’t.

“It’s my father,” she said. “The reason I have to get home so quickly. There was a telegram this morning, from the Luzon police. My father has been arrested. There have been terrorist attacks recently and they think he’s involved with the Communist guerillas responsible.” She took a deep, shuddery breath. “It’s not true! I know my father. He’s... we’re Canadian. He owns a small import-export business, his sympathies are all with the present government. He would never become mixed up with the Communists — he’d have nothing to gain and everything to lose. It’s all a mistake, a terrible mistake.”

I sighed. “Why don’t you just take one of the scheduled flights?”

“I haven’t enough money. Nor any credit cards — my father doesn’t believe in them.”

“Can’t someone in your family make the arrangements?”

“There’s no one but my father and me.”

“His business associates? Personal friends?”

She shook her head. “There’s no one. I suppose I might be able to arrange something with his bank, but that might take days. And he has no close friends in Luzon. Even if he had, they’d be afraid to help me — afraid of being implicated with the Communists.”

“What about people here? You have a job or just on holiday?”

“I’ve been working here four months,” she said. “In a department store near Raffles Square. But it doesn’t pay much and the owners won’t help me. I’ve already asked them.”

“Uh-huh. You could try the Canadian consulate, or have you already thought of that?”

“Yes. They wouldn’t help, either, at least not to get me home quickly so I can be with my father.”

I finished my beer. “So you think your only option is somebody like me. That’s too bad because there’s nothing I can do for you. I don’t fly anymore. I haven’t flown a plane in two years.”

“But I can pay you, really I can. After we arrive I’ll arrange with my father’s bank—”

“You could lay a fortune in cash on this table and it wouldn’t make any difference,” I said. “It’s not a matter of money. There’s no way I can help you.”

“Then... then what am I going to do?” She seemed on the verge of tears.

“Find somebody else.” I’d had enough of this. I shoved my chair back and got on my feet. “Good night, Miss Kellogg. And good luck.”

“No, wait...”

But I was already leaving. Without looking at her again I threaded my way through the crowded bar and went outside.

The night was dark — street lamps are few and far between on Jalan Barat. No wind and still muggy, but the fresh air cleared my head. I started away along the deserted street. Behind me I heard Tina Kellogg’s voice calling my name; she’d followed me out. I didn’t turn or slow my pace, then or when I heard her steps hurrying after me. It wasn’t until I heard the sound of the car speeding down Jalan Barat past the Gardens, traveling much too fast from the whiny roar of the engine, that I swiveled my head for a backward look.

The car, its headlights glaring, was less than fifty yards away. There was the pig squeal of brakes locking and tires biting into pavement as the driver swung the car in at an angle to the curb close behind me. Both front doors opened at the same time, and two men came out in a hurry. I saw their faces clearly as they ran through the headlight spill: the two flat-eyed orang séwaan-séwaan who had been with Van Rijk earlier.

I had enough time to turn and set myself before the driver reached me. His right arm was raised across his body; he brought it down in a backward, chopping motion, karate-style. I got my left arm up and blocked his descending forearm with my own. The force of his rush threw him off balance, made him vulnerable. I jabbed the stiffened fingers of my right hand into his stomach, just below the breastbone. All the air went out of him. He stumbled backward, retching, and sat down hard on the sidewalk.

The other one had got there by then, but when he saw the driver fall he came up short and fumbled beneath his white linen jacket. I took three quick steps and laid the hard edge of my hand across his wrist. He made a pained noise deep in his throat and there was a metallic clatter as the gun or knife dropped to the pavement. I hit him twice in the face with quick jabs, turning him, then drove the point of my elbow into his kidneys. The blow sent him staggering blindly forward; he collided with the side of a building, slid down along it and lay still.

I looked at the driver again, but he was still sitting on the sidewalk, holding his stomach with both hands. I let my body relax, breathing raggedly, and scanned the street behind the stalled car. There was no sign of Tina Kellogg.

Other people came running toward me, shouting. I started toward them, thinking that I could decide later what to do, if anything, about Van Rijk. The thing to do right now was to avoid any contact with the polis. My reputation being what it was, the less I had to do with them, the better. Even though it had been two years since the trouble on Penang, memories are long in the South China Seas.

Somebody came up and asked me what had happened. “An accident,” I said, and kept right on going. No one tried to stop me. And I did not look back.

Somebody was pounding on the door.

I rolled over on the sweat-slick sheets and opened my eyes. It was morning; the sun lay outside the bedroom window of my flat like a red-orange ball suspended on glowing wires. I closed my eyes again and lay there listening to the now-impatient knocking. Whoever it was did not give up and go away.

“All right,” I called finally. “All right.”

I threw back the mosquito netting, got up and went to where my clothes were strewn on the rattan settee. The fan on the bureau had quit working sometime during the night, which accounted for the hot, stale air. I opened a window, then put on my trousers and crossed to unlock the door.

Standing there was a little, wiry, dark-skinned man wearing a pith-style helmet, white shorts, knee-high white socks, and a short-sleeved bush jacket. The outfit was a uniform, and he wore it proudly as native Malayans in an official capacity often do.

“I am Inspector Kok Chin Tiong of the Singapore polis,” he said. “I would like to speak with you, please.”

“What about?”

“May I come in, Mr. Connell?”

“If you don’t make any comments about my housekeeping.”

I stood aside to let him walk in past me. He stood in the middle of the room, looking around, then turned to confront me as I shut the door. His face and eyes were expressionless.

“You are acquainted with a French national named La Croix,” Tiong said. It wasn’t a question.

“I know him, yes.”

“When did you last see him?”

He already knew the answer to that or he wouldn’t be here. I said, “Yesterday. He looked me up. First time I’d seen him in three years.”

“Why did he look you up, as you say?”

“He wanted me to do something for him.”

“And that was?”

“Fly him out of Singapore.”

“To what destination?”

“He didn’t get around to telling me.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“I wasn’t interested enough to ask.”

“Did you agree to his request?”

“No. I don’t fly anymore.”

“Ah, yes,” Tiong said. “There was an accident two years ago on Penang Island. Involving an aircraft belonging to you and a Mr. Lawrence Falco.”

“Yeah,” I said. “An accident.”

“You and Mr. Falco were co-owners of an air cargo company. The plane, piloted by you, crashed late one night in the jungle near a remote airstrip. You escaped serious injury but your partner was killed.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Explain, please, what you and Mr. Falco were doing in such a place at such a late hour. No flight plan was filed for the trip.”

“There was a full investigation at the time. I gave a statement. Look up the records.”

He smiled faintly. “I have already done so. There was strong suspicion that you and Mr. Falco were involved in the smuggling of contraband.”

“Nothing was proven.”

“Yes, both the plane and its cargo were destroyed in the explosion following the crash. But your commercial license was revoked.”

My head had begun to ache. “Listen,” I said, “I don’t know why you’re here, Inspector, but what I was or wasn’t doing two years ago is a dead issue, just like Larry Falco. I haven’t been up in a plane since, and I never will again. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to wash up and get dressed.”

His black eyes searched my face for a few seconds, then he put his hands behind his back and walked to the window. He stood looking down at noisy activity on Punyang Street. After a time, as I finished putting on my pants, he turned and said, “I would like to know your whereabouts last evening, Mr. Connell.”

I told him, leaving out Tina Kellogg and the incident with Van Rijk’s toughs.

He rubbed at his upper lip with the tip of one finger. “You are familiar with the East Coast Road, near Bedok?”

“A little.”

“The French national was found there early this morning,” Tiong said. “He had been dead for several hours. Quite badly used and then shot through the temple with a small caliber weapon.”

I went to the bureau, shook a cigarette out of my pack and lit it. “How do you mean, badly used?”

“Tortured. With lighted cigarettes,” he added pointedly.

I stubbed mine out; it had tasted foul anyway. “So you think I had something to do with it.”

“Did you?”

“I told you where I was last night.”

“Do you own a gun, please?”

“Would you object to a search of your room?”

“Be my guest,” I said. “But you’re wasting your time, Inspector. I didn’t kill La Croix. I didn’t have any reason to kill him.”

“Have you any idea who did?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Look up a guy named Van Rijk, Jorge Van Rijk, and ask him the same questions you’ve asked me.”

Tiong’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know of Van Rijk?”

“He looked me up yesterday, too, after I saw La Croix. Wanted to know where La Croix was and what his plans were. I brushed him off. He didn’t like it, made a few veiled threats — and last night, when I left the Gardens, the two men he’d had with him jumped me. They didn’t have any better luck.”

“I see,” Tiong said slowly. “Most interesting.”

“I take it you’re familiar with Van Rijk. Who is he?”

“A Dutch merchant currently living in Johore Bahru. But we have reason to believe he has other interests illegal and quite profitable interests. He is also known to be an avid collector of rare jade.” Tiong paused. “You are aware, of course, of the recent theft from the Museum of Oriental Art?”

“No,” I said.

“It has been prominent in the newspapers.”

“I’m not much of a reader.”

“Early last week,” Tiong said, “a valuable white jade figurine, the Burong Chabak,was taken from an exhibit at the museum. The robbery was cleverly planned and executed.”

“You think Van Rijk was involved in it?”

“We do. We believe the French national was involved as well.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. La Croix would do just about anything for the right price... but then I guess you know that.”

Tiong nodded.

“If you’re right,” I said, “La Croix must have double crossed Van Rijk and tried to keep the figurine for himself. That’s why he was in such a sweat to have me fly him out of Singapore.”

“So it would seem.”

“Van Rijk and his boys must’ve caught up with him last night. Which means that now they have the figurine.”

“Possibly.”

“Have you picked up Van Rijk yet?”

“No. But we will. Everyone involved in the theft of the Burong Chabak will be taken into custody eventually.”

“If you’ve got some idea that I’m mixed up in it, you’re dead wrong. Everything I’ve told you is the truth.”

“I hope so, Mr. Connell. Is there any more information you can give me?”

“No.”

“Very well. I will take up no more of your time. You will, of course, keep yourself available in the event I need to speak with you again.”

“I hadn’t planned on going anywhere.”

He nodded curtly. “Then, selamat jalan, Mr. Connell,” and he went away and left me alone. For now.

The sun bore down mercilessly on the bared upper half of my body. My khakis were soaked through with a viscid sweat; the back of my neck was blotched and raw from the roote hond.

I rolled another barrel of palm oil from the deck of the tongkang across the plank and onto the dock. One of the Chinese coolies took it there and muscled it onto a wooden skid. An ancient forklift waited nearby.

I paused for a breather, rubbing the back of my forearm across my eyes. I was thinking how good an iced Anchor beer would taste once we were done for the day, when Harry Rutledge came walking over to me.

“How’s it going, lad?”

“Another hour or so should do it.”

“Well, you have a visitor. An impatient one, at that.”

“Visitor?”

“Bit of a pip, too,” Harry said. “You Americans have all the luck.”

“A woman? She tell you her name?”

“Tina Kellogg.”

I frowned. “Where is she?”

“My office. You know where it is.”

I put my shirt on, then went inside the huge, high-raftered godown and threaded my way through the stacked barrels and crates and skids to Harry’s cluttered office. Tina Kellog was sitting in the bamboo armchair near the window, wearing a tailored white suit with a skirt short enough to reveal long, slender legs. She stood as I entered, smiling hesitantly. Her eyes were green and full of pleading.

“Mr. Connell, I... I’m sorry to bother you like this, but I wanted to make sure you’re all right. Those men last night...”

“Uh-huh. Muggers are a hazard in that district.”

She nodded. “I shouldn’t have run away as I did. But I was frightened. It all happened so quickly.”

“You did the right thing.”

She sat in the armchair again, began twisting her hands nervously in her lap.

“Okay,” I said. “Now you can tell me the real reason you’re here. As if I didn’t already know.”

Color came into her cheeks. “I... I went back to the consulate this morning. They still won’t help me. I have nowhere else to turn...” Abruptly she began to cry.

I stood there in the heat and watched her. Then, as the tears slowed and became a series of snuffles, I moved over to Harry’s desk and cocked a hip against it and lit a cigarette.

She looked up at me, her face wet, her eyes shining. “Please, Mr. Connell, please help me. I’ll pay or do anything you ask...”

“I told you last night, I don’t fly anymore. I don’t own a plane anymore, don’t have access to one because my license was revoked two years ago.”

“But... the man I talked with yesterday, the one who gave me your name, he said you keep a DC-3 hidden at an abandoned airstrip here on the island.” She snuffled, brushed at her eyes. “Isn’t it still there?”

I didn’t say anything for a time. The smoke from the cigarette burned my throat; I butted it in Harry’s overflowing ashtray. “Yes,” I said then. “It’s still there.”

“Then...”

“I’m treading on thin ice with the government,” I said. “One more mark against me, I’ll be declared persona non grata and deported. I don’t have any other home to go to.”

“No one will ever know,” she said. “You’ll be very careful, I know you will. And I’ll pay you whatever you ask, any amount, as soon as I can make arrangements with my father’s bank...”

I was silent again, thinking. Not liking what I was thinking, but there it was just the same.

“Mr. Connell?”

“All right,” I said.

“You’ll help me?”

“I’ll help you.”

She came up out of the chair, threw her arms around my neck. “Oh, thank you, thank you! You won’t regret this, I promise you.”

I pushed her away gently. “I sure as hell hope not.”

“When can we leave?”

“Tonight. It’ll have to be late, around eleven.”

“We couldn’t go sooner?”

“No. Do you know the Esplanade on Cecil Street?”

“Yes. Yes, I know it.”

“Meet me there at ten o’clock,” I said, and left her and Harry’s hot, cramped office and went back to work. Telling myself I was a damn fool and knowing I was going to go through with it anyway.

It rained the early part of the evening, a torrential tropical downpour that lasted for more than an hour and left the air, as the daily rains always did, smelling clean and sweet. But by then, when I left my flat, it had grown oppressively hot and humid again.

Tina Kellogg was waiting in the shadows near the Esplanade when I arrived at Cecil Street. Tonight she wore men’s khakis and a gray bush jacket — her traveling outfit.

“No luggage?” I asked her.

“No. I didn’t want to bother with it. I can send for it later.”

“All right. Let’s get started.”

I hailed one of the H.C.S. taxis that roam the streets of Singapore in droves. The driver, a bearded Sikh, did not ask any questions when I told him where we wanted to go, even though he wouldn’t get many fares to the remote Jurong section of the island that I named. There was nothing much out there but mangrove swamps and a few native fishing kampongs.

It was nearly eleven when he turned onto Kelang Bahru Road, leading toward the abandoned airstrip, Mikko Field. The moon was up and nearly full, lighting the road brightly enough so that you could have driven it without headlights.

When we neared the access road to the strip, the Sikh slowed and asked, “Do you wish me to drive to the field, sahib? The road is very bad.”

“Go in as far as you can,” I told him. “We’ll walk the rest of the way.”

He made the turn onto the access road. It was chuck-holed and choked with tall grass and tangled vegetation. We crawled along for about a quarter mile. Finally, in the bright moonshine, I could see the long, rough runway, raised some ten feet on steep earth mounds from the mangrove jungle on both sides. At its upper end, to our left, were the decaying wooden outbuildings, and farther behind them, the broken-domed hangar. The airstrip had been deserted since the end of the Second World War. Few people remembered, or cared, that it hadn’t yet rotted into extinction.

The Sikh brought the taxi to a stop. The road was mostly impassable from this point; the marsh grass was tall and thick, and parasitic vines and creepers and thorn bushes had encroached thickly in places.

I paid the Sikh, and Tina Kellogg and I stepped out. The night was alive with the buzzing hum of mosquitoes, midges, the big Malaysian cicadas. There was the heavy smell of decaying vegetation, of dampness from the rain.

The taxi backed around a jog in the road, its lights making filtered splashes through the mangroves. I stood looking toward the airstrip, listening to the throb of the engine as the Sikh got turned around and headed away.

Tina Kellogg had not spoken during the ride out. Now she said, “The runway doesn’t seem very well maintained. Are you sure it’ll be safe to take off?”

“You let me worry about that.”

I took her arm and pushed ahead through the grass. We hadn’t gone far when I heard the engine sound. Not the taxi’s; that one had faded to silence. This was a new, different sound — the unmistakable whine of a four-cylinder engine held in low gear — and it was coming this way. Coming fast and without headlights; when I turned to look back, all I could see was moonlight and thick shadow.

“That’s not the taxi,” Tina Kellogg said. Her fingers bit urgently into my arm. “Who—?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve got a good idea.”

We both started to run. We had to stay on what was left of the road; the mangroves were a dense snarl of roots and underbrush, home of a hundred dangers including poisonous snakes. The oncoming car was very close now, and even though the grass was thick here, it wasn’t tall enough to hide us. We were clearly visible in the bright moonglow.

Headlights stabbed on behind us; I heard the familiar pig squeal of brakes. A vine or creeper caught Tina’s leg and she stumbled and fell. I hauled her up again, pulled her along to the left where the grass was thinner and there were more bushes to cast shadow. A hoarse shout cut through the insect hum. I half-expected a gun to start popping, too, but that didn’t happen yet.

Ahead the road curled to the left, paralleling the airstrip and leading to the hangar and outbuildings. Vines and wildly tangled shrubs clogged it completely after forty or fifty yards. If we couldn’t get through, we wouldn’t stand a chance. And even if we could, needle-sharp thorns would shred clothing and skin, slow us down.

The only other way to the buildings was the runway. We’d be exposed up there, but no more than down here. And it was a straight line to the buildings, no more than seventy-five yards to the first of them. Find a hiding place over there and we’d have a better chance than floundering around in the jungle.

I plowed through underbrush and ground cover, half-dragging Tina along with me. Something ripped at my bare arms; something else brushed my face, whispering, cold. Then we were out of the bushes and at the base of the embankment. The mounded earth was a quagmire from the evening rain, but we managed to fight our way up onto the strip without losing balance. A gun cracked somewhere close behind us, but neither of us was hit.

“Run” I said to Tina. “Off to the left!”

We ran. Our muddied boots slapped wetly on the rough concrete. There was another shout, another pistol crack. I glanced back. Two men were scrambling up the embankment. A third stood in the headlamp beams of a small car slewed on the road where the taxi had let us off. He was doing the shouting. I couldn’t see his face clearly, but I knew it was Van Rijk.

I turned my head, just in time to avoid stepping into a pothole and maybe breaking a leg. We were almost to the first of the outbuildings now. There were no more shots. They’d finally figured out that you can’t shoot accurately while you’re on the run.

The closest building was a long, low-roofed affair that had been used to quarter duty personnel. All the glass had been broken out of its windows years ago, and some of the side boarding had rotted or pulled away, leaving shadowed gaps like missing teeth. Off to one side was a smaller, ramshackle shed of some kind.

I steered Tina that way. We ran around the corner of the low-roofed building, along the side of the shed. At its rear, a jagged-edged hole above the foundation yawned black, like a small cave opening.

I pulled up, fighting breath into my lungs. “Through there!”

She obeyed instantly, dropping to her knees and scuttling through the hole. I followed close behind her.

Thin shafts of moonlight made a pale, irregular pattern on the debris-ridden floor inside. The shed was empty. It was close, humid in there — a pervasive heat like that in an orchid hothouse.

Tina’s breath came in thick gasps. She crouched on her knees with her head lowered. I left her and crawled to the front of the shed. When I peered through one of the smaller gaps there, I had a full view of the airstrip and part of the access road beyond.

Two sets of headlights, one tight behind the other, were coming fast along the road. Seeing them eased a little of the tension in me. I could not see the portion of the road where Van Rijk and his car were, but the two orang séwaan-séwaan, on the runway and pounding toward the low-roofed building, had a good sidewise look at both Van Rijk and the oncoming cars. They pulled up and danced around some, then began running back the way they’d come.

“What is it?” Tina asked. She was beside me now, trying to peer out. “What’s happening?”

The sounds of jamming brakes, doors slamming, men shouting carried to us on the still night air. I said, “The polis are here.”

“The polis?”

Van Rijk’s men were dancing around again, over at the edge of the strip. One of them went into a crouch and fired a round toward the glaring headlights. In response I heard a short, sharp burst from an automatic weapon. The man fell sprawling. The other one veered to his right and disappeared onto the embankment. A few seconds later there was another chattering burst, two pistol shots, a third burst. After that, silence.

I turned away from the opening. “It’s all over now,” I said.

Tina’s fingers bit into my arm. “The plane!” she breathed. “There might still be time to reach the plane, get away...”

“There isn’t any plane.”

“What? I... I don’t understand...”

“There’s no plane here. Hasn’t been one here in a long time.”

She stared at me. Her face was shadowed and I couldn’t see her eyes. I didn’t see the movement of her hand, either, until it was too late to stop her from reaching under her bush jacket and drawing the automatic she’d had tucked into her belt. A shaft of pale moonlight glinted off the surface of its barrel. Small caliber automatic aimed right at my belly.

I said, “Is that the gun you shot La Croix with? After you tortured him?”

She leaned forward slightly, and I could see her face then. It was as cold and hard as white jade. “All right,” she said. “So you know.”

“I’ve known since this afternoon,” I said. “It was a nice little act you put on, but I didn’t believe it last night and I saw all the way through it at the godown. You said your mythical informant told you I keep a DC-3 out here. But damn few people knew it when I did keep one, for obvious reasons. My former partner was one and he’s dead. Another is a German named Heinrich and he’s serving ten years in a Djakarta prison. The only man you could’ve gotten the information from was La Croix.”

Nothing from her. The gun was steady in her hand.

“After I finished work this afternoon, I went down to the government precinct and talked to a polis inspector Tiong. He did some checking with the Canadian consulate. They never heard of a Luzon import-export dealer named Kellogg, or a Tina Kellogg. But the American consulate has a record of one Tanya Kasten. So does Interpol, because of the art theft you were implicated in last year in Amsterdam. Is that where you met or got put in touch with Van Rijk, Tanya?”

“A trap. All a damn trap.”

“That’s right. To catch you with the Burong Chabak. Tiong figured you were in on the theft, found La Croix before Van Rijk did, and got it from him. But I don’t think you did get it. No luggage, no figurine. What happened? You lose your temper and kill him too soon?”

“Shut up,” she spat at me.

“I think La Croix hid the figurine out here. You think so, too. And you think I know where. If Van Rijk hadn’t been trailing me tonight and started his boys shooting at us, you’d have thrown down on me as soon as we reached the hangar.”

“You do know where he hid it, don’t you? All right. You’re going to take me to it, right now.”

“Don’t be a fool. Tiong and his men will be here pretty quick. You can’t get past them.”

“We’ll get past them,” she said. “With the figurine.”

“If you’re thinking about using me as a hostage, you can forget it. The law doesn’t give a damn about me.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“No,” I said, “we won’t.”

She made an impatient gesture with the gun — just what I wanted her to do. I swept my left hand out and up, palm open and driving against her hand and the automatic’s barrel, knocking them upward. There was a crack and a flash as the gun went off; I felt heat along my forearm, but the bullet thudded somewhere into the shed’s roof. I caught her wrist with my right hand, pressured it until she cried out in pain. The weapon fell thudding to the floor.

I picked it up, sliding back away from her. She stayed put, holding her wrist and cursing me steadily and bitterly. I tucked the automatic into my belt, moved to the jagged wall opening, and squeezed through it backward. Outside I stood and went to where I could see the airstrip.

Half a dozen men were fanned out and closing in on the runway, one of them brandishing an automatic weapon, the others with drawn pistols. Inspector Kok Chin Tiong was in the lead. I stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight, my hands up in plain sight.

Tiong was out of breath as he came running up. “You are all right, Mr. Connell?”

“Yeah.”

“The woman?”

“In the shed. I don’t think she’ll give you any trouble.”

Tiong said something in Malay and two of his officers went to take Tanya Kasten into custody.

I asked, “What about Van Rijk?”

“Shackled and under guard,” Tiong said. “The other two are dead.”

“You could’ve been saying the same about me. You took your sweet time getting here.”

He smiled faintly. “At the Esplanade we saw that Van Rijk was following you.”

“So you decided to nab him along with the woman. But did you have to give him such a bloody big lead?”

“We did not wish him to realize that he, too, was being followed,” Tiong said. “Now, Mr. Connell. The Burong Chabak.”

I’d told him that I had a pretty good idea where La Croix had stashed it — a drop point we’d used in my black market days, where he’d leave cash for me when I brought in a shipment of contraband. I led Tiong to the rear of the hangar, between its back wall and two big, corroded tanks that had once been used for the storage of airplane fuel. Set into the ground there was a wooden box housing regulator valves for the airstrip’s water supply.

The Burong Chabak was inside the box, all right, wrapped in chamois and canvas and tied with string.

I had my first clear look at the figurine later that night, in Tiong’s office. It was very old and beautifully carved in intricate detail, depicting a nightbird — a burong chabak — in full flight, wings spread, head extended as if into the wind. The bird itself was of white jade, the purest, most valuable of all jade; the squarish pedestal upon which it rested was of the dark green variety.

“Is it not beautiful?” Tiong asked.

I didn’t agree with him. It looked and felt cold to me — as cold as Tanya Kasten’s face in the moonlit shed.

“It is said to be worth a minimum of four hundred thousand Straits dollars. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars, American. Tanya Kasten’s buyer in Luzon, whoever he is, may even have been willing to pay more. To some men, such a rarity is worth any price.”

“I suppose so.”

“The money, too, would tempt many men. Particularly one with a past such as yours. Yet you chose to come to the polis,to help us recover the figurine, instead of attempting to keep it for yourself. Why, Mr. Connell?”

“Does it really matter?”

“I would like to know.”

“All right, then. The main reason is Larry Falco.”

“Your former partner?”

“My dead former partner,” I said. “A nice guy, with a lot of ideas about making an honest living from an air cargo company, who died because I had other ideas — like transporting a load of contraband silk to a treacherous jungle airstrip at midnight. He tried to talk me out of it, but I wouldn’t listen. I could land a plane anywhere, I told him, under any conditions. Well, I was wrong and it cost him his life instead of mine.”

Tiong nodded slowly and said, “I see.”

Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I did not really care one way or the other.