James Chase: A Lotus for Miss Quon

He remained motionless, watching the policeman who moved slowly to the front of the car and looked at the number plate, then he slouched away, his thumbs hooked in his gun belt to pause a little further up the street to examine yet another car.

Jaffe drew in a sharp breath of relief. He went down the steps to his car, unlocked it and climbed in. He glanced at his wrist-watch. The time was twenty-five minutes past seven. He drove back to the river, past the Club Nautique where he could see a number of people on the terrace having drinks before dinner, on towards the bridge that led to the docks. He pulled up by the little ornamental garden by the bridge, parked his car and went into the garden. At this hour it was deserted except for two Vietnamese who sat on a seat under a tree: a boy and a girl, their arms around each other.

Jaffe moved well away from them and sat in the shade. He lit a cigarette. Now was the time, he told himself, to decide what he was to do. He had a certain amount of money. He had to get out of Vietnam. He couldn’t hope to do this without help. He considered for a moment a quick dash to the frontier in the hope he could get to Phnom-Penh where he was certain to get a plane to Hong Kong, but the risk and difficulties were too great. If it weren’t for the diamonds, he would have been prepared to take the risk, but it would be stupid, he told himself, now that he had a potential fortune in his pocket to go off at half-cock. He was sure that somehow, given the right contacts, it would be possible to get new identity papers and an exit visa. He would have to change his appearance of course. That shouldn’t be difficult. He could grow a moustache, bleach his hair, wear glasses.

He had read often enough of people obtaining false passports. Exactly how this was done, he hadn’t the faintest idea. It would probably be easier to get a faked passport in Hong Kong and have it brought to him here than it would to attempt to get it in Saigon.

He moved uneasily, flicking the ash off his cigarette.

Who could he approach to get him a false passport? He knew no one in Hong Kong. He couldn’t think of anyone in Saigon either. Then he remembered Blackie Lee who ran the Paradise Club. He was a possibility, but was he to be trusted? Once the news broke that Haum had been murdered and the diamonds were missing would Blackie betray him? Even if Blackie was to be trusted, could he get a false passport? Had he contacts in Hong Kong?

Jaffe realized this business couldn’t be rushed. It might take a couple of weeks before he had the slightest chance of getting out of the country. What was he going to do while he was waiting? Where could he stay where he wouldn’t be found by the police?

By tomorrow morning, he felt sure, the hunt for him would be on. He had to get under cover tonight. But where?

The obvious person who would and could help him was Nhan, but Jaffe hesitated to involve her. He had no knowledge of the Vietnam Criminal Code, but he was sure anyone harbouring a murderer would get into trouble, and yet, if he didn't involve her who else could he turn to?

He was wasting time, he told himself. He would have to rely on her: he would see and talk to her. He couldn't stay at her place. He had never been there but she had often described it to him. She lived in a three-room apartment with her mother, her uncle and her three brothers. She often complained sadly of her lack of privacy, but maybe she knew of someone: maybe she would have some ideas.

He got to his feet and walked over to his car.

The boy and girl sitting on the seat didn't look his way. They were too wrapped up in each other to be aware even that he was there.

Looking at them, so obviously happy in their secure, safe dreams, Jaffe suddenly felt more lonely than he had ever felt before in his life.

ON the way up the Boulevard Tran Hung, Jaffe was boxed in on either side by motor cycles, pousse-pousse, enormous American cars driven recklessly by rich Vietnamese and small taxis driven with equal recklessness by amateur taxi drivers who had no idea where they were going, but were quite happy so long as they kept their cars in motion.

For the unwary, the boulevard was full of menace. The multicoloured Chinese signs were dazzling. The older generation of the Vietnamese residents, dressed entirely in black, refused to walk on the sidewalks and marched steadily in the road. It was only when your headlights picked them out, a few yards ahead of you, you realized you were on the point of running them down. Quick braking meant the chance of another car slamming into your rear.

As you approached Cholon, the Chinese district, the street narrowed. The vast, loitering population spilled off the pavements and into the street, offering suicidal hostages to fortune.

Jaffe had been driving in this district for months and he had no difficulty in weaving his car through the congested traffic and avoiding the wandering pedestrians. The distraction of driving took his mind off his immediate problems.

Finally, and not without some difficulty, he managed to park his car within a hundred yards of the Paradise Club. He waved aside three ragged Chinese children who had rushed up to open his car door and help him wind up the windows in the hope of earning a piastre or two, then he walked down the narrow, stifling street, brilliantly lit by Chinese neon signs to the entrance to the Paradise Club.

As he climbed the stairs that led to the club, he heard the Philippine dance band blasting and a girl screeching: the music and her voice trebly magnified by microphones to a nerve shattering volume that delights the Chinese who believe the louder the sound the better the music.

Jaffe lifted aside the curtain that screened the entrance to the dance hall. Immediately a tall Chinese girl her face whitened by powder, her figure under a white Cheongsam provocative, came tip to him. She was Blackie Lee’s wife, Yu-lan, and as soon as she recognized Jaffe she smiled at him.

“Khan hasn’t come yet,” she said, caressing his arm with her slim fingers. “She will be here very soon.”

Her welcome relaxed Jaffe. He went with her into the dance hall. The place was crowded, but the lighting was so dim it was impossible to see more than a crowd of silhouetted heads outlined against the light from the band’s dais.

She led him to a table, away from the band, and in a corner. She pulled out a chair for him.

“Tu va bien?” she asked, smiling at him. She always tu-toi-ed him.

“Ca va,” he said and sat down. “Blackie around? I’ll have a Scotch on the rocks.”

“ Toute de suite ,” she said, and he was aware she looked quickly at him and he realized he had spoken more sharply than he had intended.

She went away and he sat there, his mind dulled by the violent sound of the dance music and the impact of the woman singing into the microphone. The power of her lungs was shattering to Western nerves.

With scarcely any delay, Blackie Lee appeared out of the shadows and eased his fat body gently on to the chair next to Jaffe’s.

Blackie Lee was a squat shaped man of thirty-six with broad shoulders, black oiled hair, parted in the middle and a broad yellow face that at any crisis remained expressionless.

One shrewd glance at Jaffe told Blackie that something was wrong. His alert mind quickened to attention. He liked Jaffe. He was a free spender, a non-trouble maker, and it was good for Blackie’s business to have non-trouble making Americans for clients.

“What contacts have you in Hong Kong?” Jaffe asked abruptly.

Blackie’s face remained expressionless and sleepy-looking.

“Hong Kong? I have many friends in Hong Kong,” he said. “What kind of contacts do you mean?”