Bill Pronzini - The Jade Figurine

“Quite true,” she said, and the smile was back now. She thought things were finally going to go as she’d expected. “But it’s unlikely that you have a buyer for the Burong Chabak, or could find one willing to pay much more than one hundred thousand Straits dollars.”

“But you do have a buyer.”

“Exactly.”

“Where?”

“In Bangkok.”

“How much?”

“Four hundred thousand Straits dollars.”

“Even split?”

“Of course. You produce the figurine and I produce the buyer. Fair exchange?”

“Sure,” I said. “If I had the figurine to produce.”

Anger smouldered in Marla King’s eyes, abrupt and barely contained. She was as unpredictable, and as volatile, as a vial of nitroglycerin. “Do you deny that you’ve got it, even now?”

I shrugged. “But maybe I can get it.”

Another change; the brightness was back in her eyes. “When?”

“I’m not sure. How do I get in touch with you?”

She smiled wisely. “You don’t. I’ll come to you.”

“When and where?”

“At a safe time and location.”

Impasse. I got a cigarette out of the pocket of my bush jacket and lit it and blew smoke at the electric punkah rotating sluggishly on the ceiling. “Tell me,” I said, “where does Van Rijk fit into all this?”

She reacted, but not in the way I had expected. The surface of her forehead crinkled, and she looked suprised and suddenly, inexplicably, unsure of herself. Blankly she said, “Van Rijk?”

“Jorge Van Rijk.”

“Who is he?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“A fat, soft, well-dressed little man who travels with a pair of armed bodyguards. He’s supposed to be a tobacco merchant.”

“No. Why do you mention him?”

“He tried to pry information out of me about La Croix yesterday, and I told him to lump off. Last night he sent his bodyguards to take a couple of shots at me.”

“Shots?”

“Shots.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “How would this Van Rijk know about La Croix?”

“Maybe La Croix agreed to sell him the figurine.”

“No.” She shook her head positively. “He would have gone to the buyer in Bangkok. He couldn’t have gotten anywhere near the price in Singapore.”

“Well, Van Rijk figures in somewhere,” I said. “He knew La Croix, and he was after La Croix; it doesn’t add up that it would be for any reason except the figurine.”

“Do you think Van Rijk killed him?”

“It’s possible.”

“Then… Van Rijk has the Burong Chabak?”

“Maybe.” I smiled at her. “And maybe I’ve got it. At any rate, I know where I can get it.”

She swept up the sun hat and got to her feet in a single motion. There was confusion and uncertainty in her face and in her motions, as if she didn’t know what to say or do next. She looked at me, worrying a corner of her lower lip with sharp white teeth-and somebody rapped out shave-and-a-haircut on the door.

I turned and the door opened and Harry Rutledge put his head inside. He glanced at me, fastened his eyes on the swell of Marla King’s breasts, and said loudly, “Here, here, this ain’t the afternoon tea, y’know. Sorry, miss, but we’ve got a shipment to offload.” He was smiling, but there was an edge to his voice; Harry had some Scottish blood in him, and he wanted full value for the lousy wages he paid.

“Miss King was just leaving.”

“Yes,” she said, “I was just leaving.”

“Will I see you later?” I asked her.

“I’ll call you.” She stepped past me, moved around Harry, and started away toward one of the godown’s side entrances. I went out and watched her; her hips rolled sensually beneath the tight white skirt, and the wide brim of the jarang hat flopped up and down like the wing of a bird about to take flight. When she had gone through the entrance, into the bright sunshine beyond, Harry looked at me a little enviously. “Love-ly,” he said, and rubbed the side of his peeling red nose with a forefinger. “Your current dolly, ducks?”

“No,” I answered. “Just the friend of a friend.”

“You ought to get next to that. She’s prime for a bit of slap and tickle. The Aussies are all bunnies, y’know.”

“Yeah,” I said.

He shook his head sadly. “You bloody Yanks have all the effing luck, I swear it.”

I said, “Yeah,” again, and then I left him there and went out into the midday heat and got back to work with the barrels of palm oil.

But I couldn’t put Marla King and La Croix and this Burong Chabak out of my mind. Some things made sense now. I knew what it was La Croix had been involved in, and I knew why he had wanted me to fly him to Thailand, and I knew at least part of the reason he had been killed. Poor La Croix. A petty crook in way over his head, hooked up with a green-eyed cat like Marla King. He should have known better than to get into it in the first place, and once in, he should have known better than to think he could pull off a double-cross. But La Croix’s kind never learned; they went blind and witless when you dangled big money in front of them, the same way Pavlov’s dogs began salivating at the ringing of a bell.

I wondered whose idea it had been for the theft of the jade figurine from the Museum of Oriental Art. La Croix had never been an idea man; he was a pawn, an android, somebody you programmed to carry out orders. And Marla King was too emotional, too easily flustered, to make much of a plotter. It was very possible that somebody else had put the two of them up to stealing the Burong Chabak. But who? Van Rijk? Marla’s surprise had seemed genuine when I’d sprung his name on her. If it was true that she didn’t know him, just where did he fit?

The hell with it, I thought. Let Inspector Tiong have what I had found out. I didn’t owe Marla King anything, and maybe she knew more than she was telling about La Croix’s death. Let Tiong work it out; that was what the city paid him for. The hell with it.

It was the same thing I had been saying for two days now.

And it was beginning to sound emptier and less convincing each time…

When the last barrel of palm oil was offloaded, and Harry had settled my day’s wages and promised me more coolie work for the next day, I went round to the Seaman’s Bar for a couple of iced beers. I lingered there until after five, stopped in at an Indonesian place for their special curry, and then walked back to Chinatown and my flat in Punyang Street.

There was a folded square of white paper wedged between the closed door and the jamb. I removed it, opened the door with my key, and stepped into the thick, faintly damp mugginess that always seems to gather in any room in Singapore closed off during the day. I opened windows and shutters first, then the folded square of paper.

Tiny feminine handwriting read: Dan — I tried to call you several times today but there was no answer. I’ve been so worried about you, after last night, and I feel so terrible for having run away as I did. I’m sure you’re all right, but I would feel much better knowing for certain. Won’t you come by to see me this evening, if you can?

Below that was a private-residence address out near the old Kallang Airport, and the signature Tina Kellogg.

I smiled a little. It had been a long time since anyone cared whether Dan Connell lived or died-except, sometimes, Dan Connell. A lot of the girls who come to Singapore are filled with the fiction-amplified notion of Southeast Asia as an area of exotic intrigue, and they find a certain adventurousness in associating with men like I am now and men like I once was, in sampling the lives we lead; but when genuine menace presents itself and they find their own security threatened, the glamour fades and the excitement turns to apprehension and fear-and you never see or hear from them again. Tina Kellogg seemed to have more courage and compassion than most; either that, or she was one of these girls who got some sort of thrill out of becoming involved with desperate men and desperate situations, so that the more danger there was, the better they liked it.