The Jade Figurine

Chapter Eight

He was sitting on a batik-covered rattan chair, smoking one of his English cigarettes and wearing his gingerbread-boy smile. His suit was the color of cultured pearls this time around, and he had substituted a blue-silk ascot for the tie he had worn the previous day; he looked painfully out of place among the shabby possessions of a man he undoubtedly considered to be one of Singapore’s profanus vulgus.

I stayed where I was, outside the doorway, and looked the room over. It seemed otherwise empty. Van Rijk said, “I’m quite alone, Mr. Connell. You needn’t fear.” He spread his arms in a relaxed, corroborating gesture.

I took a couple of steps forward, cautiously, poised. Nothing happened. I decided he was telling the truth, but I left the door open just the same. “How did you get in here?”

“The locks in these Chinatown tenements are flimsy at best,” he answered and shrugged. He tapped his cigarette out daintily in the shell ashtray on an adjacent table; light from the overhead bulb reflected brightly off the jade lion’s head ring on his little finger. “I have damaged nothing, I assure you.”

“You’ve got a lot of balls after what happened last night. Or don’t your boys confess their mistakes?”

“Mistake is precisely the proper word,” Van Rijk said. “What took place near the Old Cathay last evening was a most unfortunate incident. It should never have happened. Khee was not acting on my orders when he, ah, fired at you, Mr. Connell. I severely reprimanded him for it.”

“I’ll bet you did.”

“He’s quite simple-minded, you know. You hurt him rather badly, both physically and in his Asian pride, and he reacted as one might expect a simpleton to react.” Van Rijk shook his head sadly and sighed. “I apologize deeply for Khee’s foolishness-and yes, for my own rash words yesterday. I was highly agitated, and I, too, allowed my baser emotions to briefly take hold.”

“You’re so full of shit I can smell you from here, Van Rijk. I ought to throw you out on your fat ass.”

He looked pained. “Please, Mr. Connell. Can’t we speak and act like gentlemen?”

“Just what is it you want?”

“Merely a few moments of your time. That is why I came alone tonight. I did not think you would care to talk freely with Khee and Tulloh in my presence.”

“Talk about what? La Croix, maybe?”

“You have heard of his death?”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“The King girl killed him, of course.”

“What King girl?”

“Really now, Mr. Connell, let’s not do any more fencing.”

“Listen, I don’t know anything except that you were looking for La Croix yesterday morning, and last night he turns up dead. He was a friend of mine, Van Rijk. I don’t like to see my friends murdered.”

“You think I had him killed?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Certainly not! If I had, would I be here talking to you this evening?”

“Why not?”

“There would be no need for it. Khee and Tulloh are most thorough. When they ask questions, the proper answers are shortly forthcoming.” He shuddered faintly, as if recalling a past interrogation conducted by Khee and Tulloh.

I thought: If Inspector Tiong talked to him about La Croix’s death-and about the attack on me-he couldn’t have found out much, or been able to prove anything at all. Van Rijk wouldn’t be running around loose if it were otherwise. And he couldn’t have mentioned my name to Van Rijk, either, or the fat bastard wouldn’t have come here alone and smiling. I was going to have to do some of Tiong’s work for him, the way I had done with Marla King.

I said, “What was La Croix to you? Why were you looking for him?”

“He had something which belongs to me.”

“Such as?”

“An item of great value.”

“What sort of item?”

“Perhaps he told you himself, yesterday morning.”

“He didn’t tell me anything.”

“Or perhaps Marla King told you.”

“Who’s Marla King?”

I watched the mildness go out of those liquidy blue eyes of his for a brief instant, as it had the day before at the waterfront eating stall; but he regained control of his temper and gave me one of his gingerbread smiles. “Do you take me for a fool, Mr. Connell?”

“No,” I said truthfully. “You’re a lot of things, Van Rijk, but a fool isn’t one of them.”

“Then why do you persist in playing the innocent?”

“All right. Nobody told me anything. I don’t have any idea what it is La Croix had that belongs to you.”

“That is just as well,” he said. “It is better for all concerned that you do not know.”

It was the sort of thing I had expected him to say-and that was the reason I hadn’t admitted knowing about the figurine. Van Rijk was a dangerous man, and the less he thought I knew, the better it was for me. It was obvious that he didn’t think, as Marla King had, that I had the Burong Chabak; he was after something else, and I was fairly certain I knew what it was.

I said, “Make your pitch, Van Rijk.”

“Pitch?”

“You came here for a specific reason. Let’s hear it.”

“Very well.” He looked at me steadily. “I came here to offer you twenty thousand Straits dollars.”

“For what?”

“For the delivery into my hands of Marla King.”

“Because you think she killed La Croix.”

“Oh, she killed him. Most certainly.”

“And because you think she’s got this item of yours.”

“Quite correct.”

“What makes you think I know where to find her?”

“She came to you once. She will come again.”

“Why should she have come to me in the first place?”

“For the same reason as Monsieur La Croix.”

“Passage out of Singapore?”

“Exactly.”

“Why couldn’t she get out by the normal means?”

“She has very little money, and she will not be able to dispose of the item now in her possession on the island. She also happens to be on Singapore illegally.”

“Do you think I agreed to take her out?”

“I have no idea. But I do know that she could not have offered you anything approximating the sum of twenty thousand Straits dollars. And we are all mercenaries, are we not, Mr. Connell?”

I smiled at him. “She could have promised me half the worth of this item of yours,” I said. “That might be a hell of a lot more than twenty thousand Straits dollars.”

He blinked, and I knew that the idea hadn’t occurred to him before now. His soft mouth underwent a transformation, and the blue eyes were like chips of bright glass. “Did she make such an offer?” he asked softly.

I was pushing him too much again. I said, “No,” and crossed the room to the ice-cooler. When I had popped the cap on a bottle of Anchor Beer, I turned; Van Rijk was sitting forward in the rattan armchair, watching me intently.

“Well, Mr. Connell?”

I had a long drink from the bottle and went over to the settee near the window and sat down. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He relaxed. As far as he was concerned, our roles were fixed: master and hired menial. The power of the long green — a power I had, for too many years, used and abused with the same confidence and indifference as Van Rijk.

He removed a box of Players from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, opened it, and placed another of the cigarettes carefully between his lips; he fired it just as carefully with the jade-and-gold lighter. “I do not pay in advance for services not yet rendered,” he said. “When you have delivered the girl, I will see to it that you receive the amount I promised you.”

“Or a knife in the back.”

He gave me that injured look again. “You do me a great injustice, Mr. Connell. I am an honorable man.”

“Sure you are.”

“I would extend one word of warning, however.”

“I’m listening.”

“Should you be offered a percentage of the item which belongs to me, or by some method come into possession of it yourself, it would be most unwise for you to consider a double-cross. The grass may seem of a greener hue elsewhere, but green grass ofttimes conceals a shallow grave. Do I make myself clear?”

“The pointed homilies aren’t necessary, Van Rijk. I don’t underestimate you in the slightest.”

The gingerbread smile. “I am glad we understand each other.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Now how do I get in touch with you?”

“I will call you tomorrow evening at seven o‘clock,” he answered. “And each evening after that at the same time, should it be necessary. When Marla King contacts you again, you will arrange to meet her at an isolated location — Bukit Batok Hill, perhaps-at nine o’clock that same evening.”

“And then you keep the date.”

“Certainly.”

“Suppose she balks at the meeting place and wants it public?”

“Then it will be up to you to put her in my hands as best you can.”

“I get the feeling you don’t trust me much, Van Rijk.”

“No more than you apparently trust me.”

I shrugged. “Such is life in Southeast Asia.”

He liked that. He let me hear his burr-edged laugh. “Indeed,” he said. “Oh yes, indeed, Mr. Connell!”

“All right,” I told him. “We’ll do it your way. There’s just one thing.”

“Yes?”

“Keep your boys off my tail and off my neck. I wouldn’t want any more ‘mistakes’ like last night.”

“There will be no further difficulties, I assure you. Unless, of course, such measures are warranted.”

“You don’t have to beat it into the ground, Van Rijk. I told you I’ve got the message.”

“Yes, so you did.” He stood up. “I believe we have discussed everything of mutual interest, Mr. Connell. I will bid you a good evening.”

I made a gesture with my left hand and tilted the bottle of Anchor Beer. Van Rijk moved across the room, trailing curls of cigarette smoke, and went out without looking at me again and without saying anything else; you didn’t observe the amenities with hired rabble.

I said, “Up yours, chubs,” to the closed door and drank off the last of the beer. I was beginning to feel a deep fatigue. The work I had done for Harry Rutledge had been physically exhausting, and it had been a long day in several other respects. Tomorrow promised to be an even longer one. I didn’t much care for the prospect of setting foot inside the walls of the Central Police Station, but that was the one sure way of getting out from under this whole goddam thing and I knew that I didn’t have much choice if I wanted to keep on living clean in Singapore.

I was even going to enjoy it a little, the way the knitting ladies must have enjoyed the public guillotine executions during the French Revolution.

Heads were going to roll, all right.

And Van Rijk’s would be first in line.