The Singapore Wink

Chapter XVI

There seemed to be only one thing to do so I did it. I moved up another step.

“You’re crazy,” Nash said.

“I know,” I said.

“No more,” the man at the head of the steps said.

“Tell Sacchetti that I want to see him,” I said and stepped on to the next riser.

The man at the top of the steps called something in Chinese but he didn’t turn his head to do it. A male voice answered in Chinese and the man at the top of the steps nodded slightly. “You wait there,” he said to me and the revolver in his hand moved a little as if to underscore the suggestion.

“What did he say?” I asked Nash.

“He sent for somebody.”

“Sacchetti?”

“I don’t know,” Nash said. “He didn’t say, but I wouldn’t take that next step if I was you.”

It was a two-minute wait. I stood on the third step of the accommodation ladder, gripping its rail and staring at the Chinese at the top of the ladder who stared back as he aimed the revolver at what seemed to be the fourth button on my shirt. He didn’t seem to feel that it would be a difficult shot.

The male voice that I’d heard before spoke again in Chinese and the man at the head of the steps replied. Then he waved his gun at me. “You come up,” he said. “The other one, too.”

“I’ll just stay here and mind the boat,” Nash said.

“You come,” the man said and shifted the aim of his revolver so that it pointed down at Nash.

“All right,” Nash said.

“He’s convincing, isn’t he?” I said as I started up the steps.

“For a hundred dollars I don’t get shot at,” Nash said.

At the top of the steps the man with the revolver stepped back. “Follow him,” he said and gestured with the revolver at another man, a stocky Chinese with a crescent-shaped scar on his left cheek and a small automatic in his right hand. We followed the man with the automatic down a flight of stairs and along a corridor that was carpeted in dark grey. The walls looked as if they were paneled in teak and if the yacht had cost as much as I had been told, they probably were.

The man with the scar and the automatic stopped at a door and knocked. Then he opened it, waved at me with the automatic, and said: “Go in.”

I went in, followed by Nash and the two Chinese. The cabin or saloon was larger than I had expected. There was a thick, dark red carpet on the floor or deck and the color was repeated in the silk drapes that covered the oblong portholes. The furniture was of a dark, almost purplish wood that was intricately carved and all of its arms and legs seemed to end in dragons’ mouths and claws. At the far end of the room was a low table that held a silver tea service. She sat behind the table in one of two matched chairs that were large enough to serve as thrones in some minor kingdom. She sat, leaning slightly forward, her hands resting comfortably on the arms of the chair which were carved into the heads of two dragons who seemed to be snarling at each other about something. She wore a dark blue dress whose collar mounted high on a slim white throat and whose hem ended several inches above her knees. Two strands of pearls hung halfway to her waist She wore her black hair piled high, perhaps to give her more height and to lengthen her delicate face which may have been a trifle round. But there was nothing delicate about her gaze which flicked over me, made a bleak assessment, rested briefly on Nash, seemed to discover some more shoddy goods, and then settled again on me.

“Who is your friend, Mr. Cauthorne?” she said.

“He speaks English,” I said.

“I’m Captain Jack Nash.”

“Captain of what?”

“The Wilfreda Maria,” Nash said.

“I remember now,” she said as if she wished that she hadn’t “My husband once spoke of you. I believe you’re a smuggler of sorts.”

“You’re Mrs. Sacchetti?” I said.

“Yes, Mr. Cauthorne, I am.”

“Where’s your husband?”

“My husband is not here.”

“Where is he?”

She was small, delicate, and almost perfectly proportioned. The voice that came out of her full, slightly lipsticked mouth was clear, musical, with no trace of sing-song, and sounded as if she either had been educated in England or had spent a lot of time there. “My husband,” she said, “sent you a message today. He very much hoped that you would understand and accept its content.”

“I got the message,” I said, “but I still have to see Angelo.”

“You really don’t seem to understand, Mr. Cauthorne. My husband is not going to see you and I’m afraid that’s quite final.”

“That’s it, pal. Let’s go,” Nash said.

“You should heed your friend’s advice, Mr. Cauthorne.”

“I’m here for two reasons. One is personal and the other is to give Angelo a message from his godfather.”

“You can give me the message,” she said. “I shall see that my husband gets it.”

“All right,” I said. “Angelo gave me three days to leave Singapore. You can tell him that his godfather has given him exactly the same time in which to return it.”

“Return what?”

“What Angelo stole from him.”

She laughed then. It was a light laugh that tinkled up and down the scale. “You are a ridiculous man, Mr. Cauthorne, and even a little pathetic. You try to force yourself aboard and then you make such melodramatic threats. I hope that there’s more to your performance.”

“There is,” I said. “The rest of it is all about what happens to Angelo if he doesn’t return what he stole.”

“And what is supposed to happen?”

“There are three men sitting in a hotel room in Los Angeles waiting for a telegram. If your husband doesn’t return his godfather’s property to me in three days, then they won’t receive the telegram and they’ll catch the next plane to Singapore.”

“These men are friends of yours?” she said.

“No. They’ve been hired by the godfather.”

“To do what?”

“To kill Angelo Sacchetti.”

It was step number one in the Dangerfield Plan and she laughed at it. I couldn’t blame her. With two guns aimed at me, it didn’t seem to amount to much of a threat. In fact, it didn’t seem to amount to anything at all.

“My only regret,” she said, “is that my husband is not here to watch your performance. He would be highly amused.”

“It was no performance,” I said. “I was just delivering a message.”

“And now you’ve done it,” she said.

“Yes.”

She tapped a finger against the arm of the chair. “My husband thought that you might not heed his earlier message.”

“You mean the one that came with the bullet?”

“If you like. In such an event, he gave me certain instructions. So it would seem, Mr. Cauthorne, that we both have our assignments.”

“Let’s go,” I said to Nash.

She said something in Chinese and the two men with guns moved a step or two towards me. I backed up.

“My husband said that you might need to be convinced of the sincerity of his earlier messages. You will find these two gentlemen most persuasive.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

She rose and moved to the door. “No, I’m not kidding, Mr. Cauthorne. Nor am I quite sure how they will go about convincing you. I really don’t care. Good night.” She opened the door, turned to say something in Chinese to the two men, and then left.

“What was all that?” I said to Nash.

“You mean the Chinese?”

“Yes.”

“She told them to mind the furniture,” he said and backed toward a corner.

The tall, lean Chinese turned to Nash. “You,” he said, “sit over there.” Nash quickly sat in one of the heavy carved chairs.

“What are you going to do, just watch?” I said.

“Friend, I don’t have much choice.”

The stocky Chinese with the crescent-shaped scar tucked his automatic into the waistband of his slacks. The tall, lean one slipped his revolver into his hip pocket. I found that I had backed as far as I could. I stepped away from the wall and turned my left side to the two men who moved in slowly, their arms low and extended before them.

The stocky one was first. He came in fast, his left hand extended with the knuckle of his middle finger sticking out in the proscribed method. He aimed at my throat and I caught his hand, found the nerve that I wanted between his thumb and forefinger, turned, pulled down, and let the weight of his body snap his arm. He yelled once and I kicked at his head but missed and caught him in the neck. The tall, lean Chinese was better. Much better. The edge of his right hand slammed into my jaw just below my right ear. I tried for the base of his nose with my left palm, but he ducked and I caught him on the forehead instead. He stumbled back and stepped on the broken left arm of the stocky man who lay on the floor. The stocky man screamed once and then seemed to faint. The tall, lean Chinese fumbled for his revolver and got it out of his hip pocket as I jabbed at his throat. He brought the gun down hard on my right shoulder and my arm went numb. I tried once more to jab his throat with my left hand, but the revolver came down again, this time on my neck. It may have come down several more times, but by then I was long past caring.

The Indian in the dirty white turban squatted on the fifth step that led down from the quay to the water and grinned at me with yellow teeth. He said: “Aaaah!” when he saw that my eyes were open.

I tried to sit up and the nausea hit. I vomited the puppy and the rest of the dinner I had eaten at Fat Annie’s over the side of Nash’s runabout. When I was through, I sank back on the bench-like seat Somebody groaned and if I hadn’t hurt so much, I would have felt sorry for him. Then I realized that it had been my groan and I was glad that I could feel sorry for myself.

Someone wiped my face with a wet cloth. I opened my eyes again and saw Nash bending over me, a fairly clean towel in his hand.

“How do you feel?” he said.

“God awful.”

“You’ve been out for a half hour or more.”

“What happened?”

“You got beat up.”

“How bad?”

“He knew what he was doing. After he slugged you with the gun, you went down and he kicked you a few times. Twice in the stomach. Does it hurt?”

“It hurts.”

“You damned near killed that other one.”

“The short one?”

“You broke his arm.”

“Good.”

“Well, that made the tall one mad and he kicked you a couple of extra times on account of that.”

“Then what?”

“Then he and I carried you up the stairs. He wouldn’t help me get you down into the boat so I sort of had to bump you down the ladder.”

“Nothing broken?”

“I don’t think so. I checked you over and I don’t think there’s anything broken. He didn’t kick you in the head so you probably don’t have a concussion unless you got one when I bumped you down the ladder.”

I sat up slowly and ran my hands over my face. My right arm ached, but I could move it. My stomach was a sharp separate pain that almost doubled me up when I tried to take a deep breath. He must have kicked me in the legs, too, because they felt as if someone had been jumping on them.

“I feel rotten,” I said.

“You want a drink?” Nash asked.

“Have you got one?”

“Got some Scotch. Nothing to mix it with.”

“Just hand me the bottle.” I took a long drink of the Scotch. It went down and promptly came back up.

“That wasn’t such a good idea,” I said after I wiped off my face again with the towel.

“Maybe you’d better see a doctor,” Nash said.

“I’ll get one at the hotel.”

Nash sent his watchman to find a trishaw. He was back in ten minutes and both of them helped me up the steps of the quay. The watchman grinned at me again, skipped down the steps, tied the line from the boat to his toe, curled up and went back to sleep. I climbed into the trishaw with Nash’s help.

“You can drop me off at Fat Annie’s,” he said. “Unless you want me to go with you to the hotel.”

“No, I can make it okay. You’ve done enough.” I reached into my pocket and found my wallet. I took out five twenties, thought about it, and added another one. “Here,” I said. “I think you earned it.”

Nash took the bills, folded them, and stuck them into his shirt pocket. “What was all that talk about Sacchetti and the stolen stuff and the three guys coming in from Los Angeles?”

“You really want to know?” I said.

He turned to look at me. “Come to think of it,” he said. “I don’t guess I do. But you want to know something? You were lucky.”

“How?”

“Well, nothing’s broken.”

“That’s why I’m lucky?”

“You’re lucky about that,” Nash said, “but you’re even luckier that Sacchetti wasn’t there.”

“And if he had been?”

“Then there damn well sure would have been something broken.”