Bill Pronzini - The Jade Figurine

“I can make it, I think.”

She worried her lower lip, watching me. She had her dark hair pulled into a horsetail, and in a pair of white hip-hugger slacks and a white blouse she still looked like somebody’s teen-age daughter. “How do you feel?” she asked.

“Not as bad as I should.”

“You gave me an awful scare last night, passing out the way you did.”

“I can imagine. How did you get me to bed?”

“I don’t know, really. You were very heavy. It must have taken me half an hour to get you in here and undressed.”

“It was a bad night all around.”

“You were trembling and half-delirious, and I knew you had a fever. There were some pills in the medicine cabinet and I forced some of them down your throat. I guess they worked.”

“I guess they did.”

“I tried to sleep on the couch,” Tina said, “but you were moaning and tossing so badly in here that I was afraid you were going into a coma or something. I’ve never seen anybody shake the way you were shaking. I put some blankets on you, but that didn’t seem to do any good.” Her cheeks colored faintly. “So I got into bed with you and held you until you calmed down and stopped trembling and slept.”

“I remember, vaguely.”

“Nothing happened. I just held you.”

“I didn’t think anything had, in my condition.”

“You kept saying a name, over and over. Pete.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Listen, what time is it?”

“About one P.M.”

“What did you do with my clothes?”

“I had to put them in the garbage. They were torn and caked with blood and mud.”

“Do you think you could go out and buy me some new ones?”

“I suppose so.”

“Good girl.”

“But I’d better make you something to eat first.”

“All right. I should have some food, I guess.”

“Eggs and coffee?”

“Fine.”

She watched me solicitously as I released my hold on the headboard and took a step, and another, and a third. My legs wobbled a little, but they did not give way under my weight. When Tina saw that I could get around without assistance, she backed out and closed the bedroom door. I shuffled across to a tiny bathroom, moving like a coronary patient, and leaned on the heart-shaped basin to have a look at myself in the medicine cabinet mirror.

Not bad, not good. There was a swelling on my right temple, and the bandage Tina had applied only partially covered the discolored area there. A bruise of unknown origin made a faint, inverted half-moon on my left cheekbone, and my lips were cracked and puffy. My cheeks seemed hollow, the skin parched and dry. The heavy black beard stubble coating each gave me the look of a derelict, and the wild tangle of my hair, the blood-veined whites of my eyes, added substance to the image.

Tina had swabbed iodine on the puncture marks on my left wrist where the langsat mongrel had gripped me with its teeth, and there was no pain in the vicinity. I couldn’t see the bullet wounds in my right arm because of the bandages, but there was no swelling and no localized pain. Infection seemed unlikely.

I found a washcloth and filled the basin full and washed myself awkwardly with my left hand; there was a stall shower in there, but I didn’t think it a wise idea to get any of the bandages wet. Inside the cabinet was a bottle of mouthwash, and I used some of that to dispel the dry, bitter, after-fever taste in my mouth. There was also a Japanese razor with a new blade. I lathered my face with soap and spent ten minutes trying to shave. I couldn’t move my right arm enough to maneuver the razor, and using my left was slow and clumsy. The result was a patchy shave and a couple of bleeding nicks that I covered with moistened shreds of toilet paper.

The shorts I wore were soiled and malodorous, but I decided to leave them on anyway. I wrapped a bathtowel around myself, brushed my hair down, and took my time walking through the bedroom and into the small living room of the apartment. The weakness in my legs seemed to have abated; all things considered, I wasn’t doing badly.

Tina had a plate of brown-crusted eggs and a mug of thick coffee waiting on the half-table. The apartment contained a scorched-food smell. “I’m not much of a cook,” she said apologetically.

“These look fine.”

“So do you. Much better.”

“I’ve got a tough and durable hide.”

“Dan-have you thought about what you’re going to do?”

“Yeah, I’ve thought about it.”

“And?”

“I’m not sure yet. Most of the ways off Singapore by plane or a fast boat cost a hell of a lot more than I’ve got or could get on short notice-unless I want to commit a robbery or two, and I’m not up to that yet.”

“Couldn’t you get somebody to fly you out, say, on credit?”

“No way. Credit is the honest man’s albatross. The men who deal in human cargo can’t afford the luxury.”

“But there must be somebody…”

“One man, maybe-but you’d have to have collateral, and be willing to pony up both the fee and a bonus not long after he delivered you out. I don’t have anything for collateral, and I couldn’t make immediate payment.”

“Maybe if you went to him, pleaded with him…”

“Christ, little girl, do you think people like him are in the smuggling business for charitable reasons? He’d laugh in my face and kick my ass out the door.”

“Is he an American?”

I gave her a sharp look. “Why?”

“Well, I just thought-”

“It’s that goddam article again, isn’t it? You’re still trying to pump me for information.”

“Not…”

“The hell you’re not.”

“Oh all right!” she said with defensive anger. “I suppose I am, a little. I’ve helped you, after all, when you had no one else, and I don’t want much in return, just somewhere I can start on my article, and you flare up and act righteous like you’re my father or something! Well, I’m not as stupid as you think I am! I know what smuggling is and I’m prepared to take the chances involved. Now I think you owe me a favor and I don’t think what I’m asking is too much, Mr. Connell; you said yourself that smuggling was a dirty business in Singapore and if I can do my part to-”

“All right, Jesus, all right! You want a name, God damn it, I’ll give you a name: Steve Shannon, Irish-American, Johore Bahru. He’s killed two men that I know of in cold blood; he’s smuggled everything from heroin to Communist guerrillas; he’s a bastard and a lecher and half a dozen other things. Go to him, ask him questions; hell laugh in your face if he doesn’t rape you first. And he’s one of the better ones. All right? Are you satisfied?”

She clamped her mouth tightly closed, and a thick silence settled in the room. I took a couple of deep breaths. I knew I shouldn’t have told her about Shannon, even though I had laid it on about him a little heavy, but I was in no mood for pressured argument and I still needed her help with fresh clothing. And she was a big little girl now and I wasn’t her father and what the hell was the point in trying to act the saviour? My own life was in jeopardy, I couldn’t afford to concern myself with hers or anybody else’s.

I said, trying to keep the tightness out of my voice, “Have you got a cigarette?”

“In my purse.”

“I could use one, if you don’t mind.”

She got up from the table and went into the bedroom and came out again with a package of Marlboros. I broke the filter off one and lit the shortened cigarette with one of her matches. Watching me, Tina said, “Dan… I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m more concerned about you than my article, I want you to believe that.”

“Sure, I believe it.”