The Jade Figurine

Chapter Twenty

She crawled out of the pocket of shadow against the far wall like a black widow out of a dark cellar corner. One of the shafts of pale moonshine fell across her face, and the facade was gone completely. The trusting, pleading, naive little girl had been stripped away like an actress’s make-up, and beneath the carefully constructed mask was a hardened and amoral face etched now in thinly controlled fury.

I thought of the sense of guilt and regret I had felt at what I’d expected to be our final parting earlier that day, and the taste of my own naivete was camphor-bitter in my throat. Oh, she had suckered me beautifully, all right-down the line, from the first minute I had set eyes on her in the Old Cathay. It had been a fine performance while it lasted, played just for me, played for one reason only; but after it was over, the way it happens with so many performances, you could see the flaws in it and you wondered self-critically why you didn’t detect them at the time…

I looked away from her face, to the gun in her right hand. It was of Belgian manufacture, a Browning. 25-caliber automatic with a two-inch barrel and a checkered, hard-rubber grip. I said, “Is that the gun you shot La Croix with, Marla?”

“So you know.” Flat, cold, empty.

“Yeah, I know. I’ve known for a couple of hours now, ever since I saw a copy of the Straits Times and found out that the woman I had thought all along was Marla King was really Penny Carlisle, the mistress of a Swede named Dinessen. Once I knew that, and that the real Marla King was still alive and unaccounted for, it didn’t take long to fit things together.”

“I should have killed you today,” she said. “But I felt sorry for you, just a little. I wanted to give you a chance.”

“Some chance.”

She moved a foot to the right, to the front wall of the shed, and looked out through a gap with one eye, watching me with the other. “What’s going on out there?”

“What do you think?”

“The police?”

“And Van Rijk. Some party, isn’t it?”

The sounds of shouts, of police whistles, drifted into the shed, much louder now. I looked out at the runway. The moon overhead made it seem as bright as the grounds of the New World Amusement Park. Van Rijk’s hirelings were drawn up out there, a hundred yards away; the Eurasian had his arm extended, crouching, and even at this distance I could see the gun in his hand. But before he could use it there was a short, sharp burst from an automatic weapon-a Sten gun, I thought. The Eurasian fell, spilling headlong. The Malay veered off to the right, running in a weave. The automatic weapon sounded again. He went off the side of the embankment feet first, like an Olympic broadjumper, and disappeared from sight.

Two constables came up onto the runway from the mangroves and started toward the outbuildings. There were undoubtedly more converging through the jungle itself. As I watched the two on the airstrip, pistol shots rang out, three of them in rapid succession, and then another burst from the Sten gun. After that, the whistles and shouts ceased and the night wrapped itself in silence.

I turned my head away from the opening. “They’ve got Mikko Field covered from all sides now, Marla,” I said. “It’s all over for you.”

“Is it?”

“You can’t get out of this shed without being seen, and the rest of the police will be down here pretty soon to conduct a thorough search; they won’t overlook us.”

“I’ve still got you.”

“For a hostage? You can forget that idea. The police don’t give a damn about me.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Face it, Marla: you’re fresh out of time and luck.”

Her teeth shone like white bone through the red wound of her mouth. “If I don’t leave here, with the figurine, you won’t be leaving either. I’ll see to that.”

“Where is the figurine?” I asked her. “Still hidden where La Croix put it? Sure. You wouldn’t have had any reason to retrieve it until tomorrow morning. That’s when Shannon is due, isn’t it? He would have told you, when you contacted him this afternoon, that he couldn’t take you out until dawn tomorrow at the earliest. He’d need time to arrange things, and there’s no lighting facilities for a night landing here; moonlight alone isn’t enough on a strip like this one, even for an experienced pilot.”

“You know all the answers, don’t you?”

“Enough of them,” I said. “Listen, even if you did manage to get away tonight, with the Burong Chabak, the police will keep right on watching Mikko Field; they’ll know you were here for a reason, and it won’t take them long to figure out what it is. If Shannon comes in as scheduled, they’ll pick him up with no trouble at all. And you wouldn’t last two days alone and on the run, Marla-not on Singapore.”

“That’s what you think, you smart son of a bitch.”

“You’re a real sugarcake, aren’t you?”

“And you’re a blundering ass. God, I should have put this gun to your head right at the start!”

“Why didn’t you, Marla?”

“La Croix was a coward, but from what he told me about you, I wasn’t sure I could handle you with a gun. The other way seemed better.”

“He picked some partner when he picked you, all right.”

“He was the one who double-crossed me to start all this.”

“Not until after the two of you together double-crossed Van Rijk,” I said. “He hired you and brought you onto Singapore to steal the figurine from the Museum of Oriental Art, didn’t he? But you decided to keep it for yourselves, and then La Croix got fancy and went you one better; a triple-cross, his one big gamble. The two of you had arranged for the flat in the Katong Bahru Housing Estate, and you went to ground while La Croix went out to make arrangements for leaving the island. The poor bastard took the Burong Chabak with him, cached it here at Mikko Field, and then came to me, thinking that I would fly him out alone. I refused. So he went to the Swede immediately after leaving my place, and Dinessen agreed to take him to Bangkok, where the two of you had set up a buyer to replace Van Rijk. La Croix went to pick up the figurine, but he never got to it. You found him first.”

“I found him, all right.”

“How?”

“He’d rented a car for the two of us, and he still had it when he disappeared on me. I found a place where I could watch the rental agency, thinking that maybe he’d come back there to turn it in. It wasn’t much of a chance, but it was all I had. And he did show up there, but not for that reason; the rental had been giving him trouble, and he wanted another one for the drive out to Mikko Field to pick up the Burong Chabak.”

“So you surprised him with the gun and forced him to drive you out to the lonely stretch near Bedok-and once there, to tell you where he’d hidden the figurine. He must have told you that I had refused him, too, and why-but before he could tell you anything else, such as whether or not he’d been able to make other arrangements for safe passage and the name of the man if he had, something happened. Maybe he tried to run. Or maybe he found a spark of bravery buried under his cowardice and tried to take the gun away from you.”

“He clawed me like a woman. I didn’t want to kill him yet, but I didn’t have any choice.”

“And so you pumped the rest of the clip into his face in frustration.”

She said nothing.

I went on, “You still had no way off the island, and no contacts here except Van Rijk-and you obviously couldn’t go to him. There was nobody but me. Not to take you out directly, but to provide you with the same name I’d given La Croix, or another one just like it. You came to the Old Cathay and went to work on me, and if Van Rijk’s hirelings hadn’t shown up so abruptly, you’d probably have made your little-girl-journalist pitch sometime that night.

“But the two of them did show up. They’d been watching me ever since that morning, when I brushed Van Rijk off; he’d figured I was hiding something. The hirelings saw the two of us in the Old Cathay, waited until we left, and then moved in; but they weren’t after me at all, the way I thought-they were after you, Marla, and you knew it immediately. So you let me stand them off while you got away.

“You went back to the safe house in the Katong Bahru Estate, and you stayed there. The close escape at the Old Cathay must have shaken you up-and given you a new respect for Van Rijk’s capabilities-and you decided to remain in hiding until you could arrange for passage off the island. The Burong Chabak was safely tucked away where you could get it at any time, and until you were ready to leave, all you had to do was to keep to ground and work on me.

“My refusal to help with your ‘article,’ after I’d responded to your note, infuriated you, didn’t it? My guess is that when you ran out of the apartment living room that night, it was to get the Browning. You were going to drop the little girl role then and there, and force co-operation out of me at gunpoint. I was your only link to freedom, and you couldn’t afford to let me walk out. Only I had already walked out when you returned with the gun.”

I paused, watching her. She was grimly silent, stilt looking at both me and what was transpiring outside. I could hear movement nearby, at my back, but all I could see was one man armed with the Sten gun I had heard earlier, standing out on the runway. Tiong-I was still certain it was Tiong-and the others would be searching the hangar and the duty quarters; but it wouldn’t take them long to get around to here.

I said, “You didn’t know what to do after I’d gone, did you, Marla? You were afraid I’d tumble to who you really were, what with Van Rijk, and the police sniffing around and asking questions. You could have come to my place directly, but the chances were good that Van Rijk was still having me watched and you didn’t want to play into his hands again, like you had at the Old Cathay. So you waited until the next afternoon and called me and gave me the little-girl routine again. I hung up on you. You knew you couldn’t sit in the apartment forever, and yet you were afraid to walk the streets for fear of being spotted by one of Van Rijk’s lookouts. You still hadn’t made up your mind when I showed up on your doorstep last night, ready and prime for plucking, and poured out my story to you.

“If you’d known I was that deeply involved previously, you’d never have stayed where I could find you. And if I’d used my head, and gotten some luck, I’d have tumbled to you a long time ago. But as it was, circumstances worked in your favor-at least for a while.

“When the Australian girl came to see me two days ago, claiming to be you, I took her at her word; I had no reason to doubt her, especially after Van Rijk confirmed Marla King’s complicity in the theft later that night. Dinessen had told his mistress about La Croix and about the figurine-or she’d been present when the Frenchman showed up; and when La Croix turned up dead, the two of them were certain I was the one who killed him, and that I was the one who had the figurine. They didn’t consider you for it because La Croix must have told them there was no way you could find him here on the island-another of the poor bastard’s mistakes-and because La Croix had said that I was the only other person who ‘knew’ where the figurine was hidden.

“So Penny Carlisle convinced Dinessen that the best way to pry the Burong Chabak out of me was for her to pretend to be Marla King. I let her think I had it, to play her along and set her up for the police, and once she felt sure that I was going to deliver, she played your game and tried to double-cross Dinessen. He found out about it and killed her, and then came to me.

“Christ, you must have been laughing inside when I turned up last night. It was perfect for you. You kept on playing little girl, and then nursemaid and sympathetic confidante-and I kept right on believing in you. You pried Shannon’s name out of me this morning, and when you went out to buy me some clothing, you called Shannon, got him to agree to an offer, and set up a rendezvous here at Mikko Field-where the figurine was cached, a perfect pickup and departure point. As soon as you finished talking to him, you called the police, no doubt anonymously, and told them you’d seen a man answering my description, wearing the clothes you’d bought for me, in the vicinity of Geylang Road and the housing estate. If they’d picked me up as you expected-”

“Shut up!” she said suddenly in a fierce sotto voce. “They’re coming over here now!”

I straightened slightly, placing my hands flat on my knees. “Jesus Christ, you’re a sugarcake, all right,” I said. “Oh, Dan, be careful, Dan, goodbye, Dan-and a Judas kiss so sweet and gentle I couldn’t feel the knife at all-”

“Damn you, shut up!” She moved the automatic, and that was all I had been waiting for. I brought my left hand off my knee, swinging it out and up, palm open. My bunched fingers hit the barrel of the Browning, driving it upward and out of her hand. She made an ugly sound in her throat as the gun hit the far wall with a dull, empty crack, and came at me nails flashing. I hit her on the point of the jaw with my bunched left hand, a clean, sharp blow, and she went down into a loose heap on the littered floor.

I looked at her for a moment, and when she remained motionless I turned away and crawled to the opening in the side wall. “Tiong!” I shouted. “This is Dan Connell, Tiong! I’m coming out unarmed and with my hands in plain sight!”

There were scurrying movements without. I waited. A voice called at length, “Come, then. Slowly.” Tiong, all right.

I eased my body through the opening, into bright moonlight, and gained my feet with my arms upraised. Tiong and two of his constables were there, pistols drawn. I stood unmoving and let them shake me down for weapons; then I said, “Marla King is inside the shed. She’s unconscious, but you’d better get handcuffs on her before she comes out of it.”

He looked at me for a time, his face impassive. Finally, he said something in Malay to one of the constables. The officer nodded and moved away to enter the shed.

I said, “Have you got Van Rijk?”

“We have him.”

“And the other two?”

“Both dead.”

“Then you’ve wrapped it up, Tiong. Or you will have when you’ve got the Burong Chabak. If you’ll let me tell my story, and try to understand the circumstances, I’ll put the figurine in your hands right now.”

“It is here?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“A drop point I used to use in the old days. I did a couple of jobs for an organization fronted by La Croix, and he would leave payment for me there in the beginning.”

“I sere.”

“Will you give me a fair hearing, Tiong?”

“As far as facts warrant.”

“That’s all I ask.”

I led Tiong and the remaining constable past the rectangular building and around to where the huge, broken-domed hangar was located. At its rear were two large, heavily corroded tanks that had been used during the Japanese occupation for the storage of water. I went to the nearest one and put my back to it and counted off fifty paces in an easterly direction. I stood then in a flat area grown with lalang grass. There was evidence, when you looked closely, that someone had been there recently; several of the stalks were bent, others crushed. I knelt and scraped away foliage with my hands, revealing an oblong wooden cover flush with the ground. Beneath it was a wooden box set deep into the earth, housing rusted emergency regulating valves for the airstrip’s oil and gas supply lines.

There was also a small, canvas-wrapped bundle, about the size of a shoebox.

Tiong lifted it out and removed the canvas carefully. A cushioned foam-rubber sheeting was under that, and inside the sheeting was the Burong Chabak.

It was not as large as I had envisioned it. Intricately, painstakingly carved, it depicted a night bird-a burong chabak — in full flight, wings spread, head extended as if into a great wind. The bird itself was of white jade-the purest, most valuable of all jade; the squarish pedestal upon which it rested was of a dark green jade that glistened almost blackly in the moonlight.

Under normal circumstances it might have been a thing of great beauty. Here, now, it seemed malevolent, repellent, with no esthetic qualities at all. I looked away.

From the direction of the ramshackle shed I could hear Marla King screaming obscenities. They were like the shrieks of night birds in the lush and fragrant stillness.