The Jade Figurine

Chapter Five

The Penang jungle lies below us like a surrealistic basrelief map done in varying shades of black, and the sky is a smooth black canopy studded with pinpoints of coruscating light. On the seat beside me in the cockpit of the DC-3, Pete sits nervously rubbing his hands back and forth on his whipcord trousers. Neither of us has spoken in a long while, and the only sound is the steady, almost soporific drone of the Pratt amp; Whitney engines, port and starboard. We are flying low-five hundred feet now, by the altimeter — and all the running lights are off.

I glance at my watch. It is twenty-three minutes past midnight. My eyes move to the instrument panel and the magnetic compass there. On course. I peer through the windshield at the ebon jungle below.

Pete turns to look at me; his face is pinched in the flickering red light from the instrument panel. “How much farther?” he asks, and in his voice there is a touch of fear. Stage fright, I think, and I smile. “It won’t be long now, kid. Listen, relax, will you?”

“I don’t know, Dan. I’m not cut out for this kind of thing.”

I laugh a little to myself. I have made similar runs, longer ones, a dozen times. Nothing to them, nothing at all. But it’s his first time. I remember mine, a short push into Sumatra, near Palembang, with the old Belgian grinning beside me: dry throat, hands that shook just slightly on the stick coming in, stomach churning, asshole twitching. I laugh again, silently. He’ll be all right. Once we get down and he sees the money-twelve thousand Singapore dollars this wop, this Spindello, will have for the contraband silk we’re carrying-he’ ll be just fine.

I check my watch again. Twelve twenty-eight. Air speed indicator: one hundred, holding steady. The needle has not moved since I cut to half throttle as we passed over the tin smelters in Wellesley Province. Two more minutes, give or take. Spindello has promised to have signal fires lighting the strip. Nothing to it, nothing at all.

Compass reading: a few degrees off course, now. Soft left rudder. Okay. I watch the altimeter, easing forward on the yoke: three hundred feet, two hundred.

Twelve-thirty.

Below us, dead ahead in the blackness of the jungle, I see the orange-yellow flames of the signal fires. But there are only two of them, one on either side. I can only make out a small section of the strip; the rest is shrouded. Where have they built the two? At the head? In the middle? Where?

Pete leans forward on the seat, staring through the windshield. “I thought they were supposed to fire the length of the runway.”

“Take it easy, kid.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Cinch your belt. We’re on our way.”

I take her down, one eye on the altimeter. One hundred feet. I line up with the fires, cutting the power back. Landing gear down, flaps down. I hit the switch for the landing lights, and twin cones snap on, picking up the strip. I can see it clearly now, for the first time.

“Dan!”

It is short, much too short, and honeycombed with small holes and jagged cracks. God damn you, Spindello, God damn you to hell, you said it was in good condition, you said it was smooth and in very good condition…

“Dan, pull out!”

“Shut up!”

“You can’t land on that! This crate won’t stand up!”

“Shut up, shut up!”

It is my decision, and I know I have to take her down. We’re not carrying much of a payload in terms of weight, we’ll make it all right. And we can’t fly the silk back to Singapore, too dangerous, and the money, twelve thousand Singapore dollars…

“Pull out, Dan, pull out!”

“No! Can’t you shut up?”

“You’ll kill us both!”

“I can make it, hold on!”

I ease back on the yoke, chopping the throttles. The strip rushes up, the wheels touch, bounce, touch again. We’re almost down! I fight off the urge to work the brake pedals; wait, wait until she settles.. There! Now get set: brakes, reverse power-

We hit something: a hole, a crevice. The Dakota begins to roll, yawing from side to side. I can’t hold it! Oh God, oh Jesus! The world tilts, crazily, unbelievably. Lights spin in kaleidoscopic brilliance. Suddenly there is an impact, a shattering bursting impact, and Pete screams, he screams, dear God sweet Mother I hear him scream, and then the stench of high octane fuel erupts in my nostrils and I feel myself being lifted, propelled forward…

After that, there is only blackness.

And the sound of Pete screaming.

Blackness.

Screaming.

Blackness.

Screaming…

I came out of it very quickly, the way I usually come out of it. I was kneeling on the wet, rumpled sheets of my bed, and my body was coated with a hot and viscid sweat. My heart hammered brutally, irregularly, inside my chest cavity.

I knelt there without moving for a long time, until the last vestiges of the dream evaporated and the sounds were gone from my ears. Then I drew back the mosquito netting and sat on the edge of the bed with my head hanging between my knees. How many more nights would I relive what had happened on Penang? How many more nights would I feel the blackness surround me, and hear the tortured death cries of Pete Falco? Rhetorical questions. It had been two years now, but the dream still came three or four nights a month-stilt vivid, still frightening, a nightmare within a nightmare.

I stood and crossed on rubbery legs to the rattan chair near my bed, where I had draped my clothes the night before. I put on my khaki trousers and went into the half-bath. My lacerated hands inside the gauze wrappings throbbed and burned, and I put a fresh coating of salve on the cuts and abrasions; then I filled a carafe with tepid water from the tap and poured it over my head and neck.

I was toweling myself dry when the knock came at the door.

Frowning, I went out there, the towel draped around my neck. I stood to one side of the door and listened to whoever it was knock again-soft, insistent. Pretty soon I said, “Who is it?”

“Police,” a cultured and unfamiliar voice answered. The accent was Malay.

Now what the hell? I thought. I unbarred the door and opened it just far enough so that I could look out, blocking it with my body. He was a little man, wiry, dark-skinned, with very large and very intelligent black eyes, kinky blue-black hair that reminded you of poodle fur, and a thin, humorless mouth. A neat, conservative white suit, with a crisply laundered white shirt beneath it, comprised his dress; and his plain black shoes had been polished until they were bright mirrors.

I let my body relax and pulled the door wide. He said, “You are Mr. Daniel Connell?”

“That’s right.”

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

“What about?”

“May I come in?”

“I’m a lousy housekeeper.”

“Tida apa,” he said without smiling.

I shrugged and stood aside for him. When he had entered, he stood looking around and wrinkling his nose as if something smelled peculiar to him. His eyes were expressionless. He waited until I had closed the door before saying, “You have had an accident, Mr. Connell?”

“What?”

“The bandages on your hands.”

“Yes, an accident,” I said shortly.

His black eyes searched my face for a moment, and then he put his hands behind his back and walked to the window. He looked down at Punyang Street below, at the palpitating ebb and flow of Chinese there, at the arcaded market stalls with their infinite variety of goods spread out in rows on the littered street and in the shadows of the Five Foot Ways-covered walkways which are formed by the supporting pillars and the jutting overhang of the buildings. I could hear the voices of hawkers extolling the virtues of their wares, rising above the strident, excited singsong of their potential customers. An automobile horn punctuated the din with short, sharp, angry blasts.

Tiong said finally, turning, “Do you know a French national by the name of La Croix, Mr. Connell?”

I went to the rattan armchair and shook a cigarette from the pack there. “Why?”

“Do you?”

“I might.”

Tiong rubbed at his upper lip with the tip of one forefinger. “Are you familiar with the Severin Road, near Bedok, Mr. Connell?”

“A little. It runs through a mangrove swamp, doesn’t it?”

He nodded. “The French national was found there shortly past two o’clock this morning by a native boy hunting frogs,” he said. “Shot once through the heart-and five times in the face-with a. 25-caliber weapon.”

Very carefully, I stubbed out my cigarette in a ceramic ashtray on the table near the bedroom door. I held a long breath and then let it out slowly between my teeth. “Five bullets in the face does a lot of damage,” I said. “How did you make an identification?”

“His papers had not been disturbed. And we discovered a rented automobile, leased by him, not far from his body.”

“I suppose you think I had something to do with it. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“Did you, Mr. Connell?”

“No.”

“Among the French national’s effects was a scrap of paper containing your name and address,” Tiong said. “Do you know why he would have such a paper?”

I decided to level with him; there was no point in doing anything else. “He came to see me yesterday morning. It was the first time I’d laid eyes on him in over two years.”

“What was the purpose of his visit?”

“He wanted to hire me.”

“To do what?”

“Fly him out of Singapore.”

“To what destination?”

“The Thai coast, near Bangkok.”

“Singapore has excellent airline service to Thailand,” Tiong said pointedly.

“Yeah.”

“What was his reason for not utilizing the normal modes of transportation?”

“He didn’t give me one.”

“He only said he wished you to fly him to Thailand?”

“That’s all.”

“Did you agree to do this?”

“No.

“And why not?”

“I don’t fly any more,” I said.

“Ah yes,” Tiong said. “Your commercial and private pilot’s license was revoked two years ago, was it not? Because of a certain incident on the island of Penang?”

I said nothing. He was obviously well aware of the incident on Penang, and the ensuing investigation of it.

Tiong smiled faintly. “Why do you suppose, Mr. Connell, that the French national would seek you out in particular with his request?”

“We had dealings once, a long time ago.”

“What type of dealings?”

I met his eyes squarely. “I’d rather not say.”

He touched his upper lip again, and we stood for a time with our eyes locked. Finally he said, “I would like to know your whereabouts last evening, Mr. Connell.”

“The Old Cathay Bar.”

“All evening?”

“Most of it.”

“What time did you arrive?”

“Midafternoon.”

“And what time did you leave?”

“Around ten o’clock.”

“Do you own a gun, please?”

“No,” I said.

“Have you ever owned one?”

“A long time ago.”

“What was it?”

“A German Walther.”

“Where is it now?”

“I don’t have any idea.”

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

“Be my guest,” I said, “but I’ll tell you something, Inspector.”

“Yes?”

“You’re wasting your time coming around to me. I didn’t kill La Croix. I didn’t have any reason to kill him. But I’ve got an idea who might have done it. Look up a guy named Van Rijk, Jorge Van Rijk, and ask him the same questions you’ve just asked me.”

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

I still didn’t want to get involved in whatever this thing was. But what had happened last night on Betar Road, and La Croix’s death-the way Tiong had said he died-seemed to make it necessary now. “We had a little chat yesterday,” I told him. “He knew I had spoken with La Croix, and he thought I knew where La Croix had gone after he left here. He tried to find out what we had discussed. I wouldn’t give him any answers, and he made a few very plain threats. Last night, when I left the Old Cathay, the two men he had had with him earlier jumped me on Betar Road. One of them, a Eurasian, took a few shots at me with a small caliber automatic-a. 25, maybe.” I lifted my bandaged hands. “I had to go over a couple of fences, one of them capped with barbed wire, to get away from him, and that’s how this happened.”

Tiong digested the information. Then he said slowly, “I see.”

“I take it you’re familiar with Van Rijk,” I said.

“We know of him, yes.”

“Just who the hell is he?”

“Ostensibly, a tobacco merchant.”

“Ostensibly?”

“We have reason to believe he has other, more profitable — and less legal-interests.”

“He can’t have been on Singapore long.”

“As a matter of fact, no. Less than a year.” He studied me clinically. “How did you know?”

I shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Look, La Croix was pretty damned shaken up when I talked to him yesterday. He wanted to get out of Singapore in a hurry. Judging from that little incident last night, I’d say it was Van Rijk he was frightened of. And that he had good cause.”

“Perhaps,” Tiong said noncommittally. “You still maintain the French national told you nothing other than his wish to hire you to transport him to Thailand?”

“I still maintain it,” I said, “because it’s the truth. Listen, Inspector, I’ve told you everything I know. I’ve co-operated with you right down the line. I’m sorry La Croix is dead-he was a lot of things, maybe, but he was also something of a friend of mine once-and I’d like to see you get your hands on whoever killed him. I know the kind of reputation I’ve got with you, and there’s nothing I can do to change it-except to stay clean the way I’ve done for the last two years. Am I making my position clear?”

“Quite clear, Mr. Connell.”

“Fine. Now if there’s nothing else, I’d like to get dressed. I have to be at work in less than an hour.”

“You are employed where currently?”

“Harry Rutledge’s godown, on Keppel Road. At least for today, anyway.”

Tiong nodded slightly, studying me, and then he stepped across to the door, opened it, turned again. “You will, of course, make yourself available in the event your assistance is required in the future.”

“I’m not planning to go anywhere.”

“Then, selamat jalan for now, Mr. Connell.”

When he had gone, I stood there for a time in the quiet heat of the room. I had the feeling he had not quite believed me, that he thought I was holding back on something; reputations die very hard in Southeast Asia-as hard, sometimes, as men like La Croix, who help to build them in the first place. I also had the feeling that my assistance would be required again, all right.

And soon-very soon.