Bill Pronzini: The Jade Figurine

Which way would it go? Tiong was a hard man, an uncompromising one-but he had cleared up more than a few deaths on this night, and recovered the Burong Chabak, and broken at least two smuggling operations-Dinessen’s and Wong Sot’s. He didn’t need me, too, unless he refused to believe my story and my innocence; unless he wanted to be shut of a man he considered to be in no way an asset to the internal harmony of his city and his island.

Which way would it go, now that we had come to the end of it? Fate would decide, as it had decided everything else which had happened in the past few days. We are all children of fate, I thought-right or wrong, good or bad. It will be fate that makes the final decision.

Soon, though. Please make it soon.

And the door opened and Tiong came back into the office.

He went behind his desk and sat down without looking at me. I got my head up, waiting. A long time passed, and he said, “I have spoken with Van Rijk and with Marla King. Van Rijk maintains it was you who murdered the Carlisle woman.”

“Only because I told him I had done it,” I said. “He wanted to believe it, and I needed a story to get him out to Mikko Field.”

“So you told me.”

“What does Marla King say?”

“Very little, at the moment.”

“Did she try to implicate me too?”

“She mentioned your name not at all.”

“Doesn’t that prove something to you?”

“Perhaps,” Tiong said. His black eyes roamed my face. “I also spoke with the police laboratory. The technicians discovered a quantity of skin under the fingernails of Penny Carlisle; the skin was that of Lars Dinessen. There were two long scratches on each of his upper arms.”

I let breath out softly between my teeth.

“With that evidence, and your co-operation, I have decided that your account of what happened yesterday and last night is the truth. There is still, however, the matter of property damage on Tampines Road, and resisting arrest, and striking a police officer and several civilians, and failure to report a violent death-among other charges.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I know.”

“I cannot ignore them.”

“I don’t suppose you can.”

Tiong looked down at his desk top. He sat there like that for some time, motionless, like a Buddhist monk in religious contemplation. Then, finally, he raised his head. “Go home, Mr. Connell,” he said.

I stared at him. “What?”

“You’ll be summoned before a magistrate shortly. I see no reason to hold you until that time. I will notify you of your appearance, and I will recommend leniency and a mild fine in court. I shouldn’t think, in view of my recommendation, that you will have to worry about deportation.”

“I don’t understand, Tiong.” There was honest wonder in my voice. “Why the change of heart? Yesterday morning, and today too, you were ready to hang me for the slightest transgression. And now you’re willing to testify in my behalf in court. Why?”

“The Asian mind is perhaps difficult for the Westerner to understand. Yesterday morning I did not believe that the death of one person, even a close friend, could completely change a man who had scorned the law all his life. Tonight I do believe it, and because I do, I am willing to offer you the opportunity to continue to make amends for your former life. I cannot persecute a repentant man, Mr. Connell.”

“I… don’t know what to say.”

“Say nothing. And do nothing to bring you back to this office. Remain a repentant man. Selamat jalan, Mr. Connell.”

I got on my feet and we looked at each other for several seconds of deep silence. I thought: The twain have met; Kipling was full of crap. But it was fate, of course-just as it had been fate all along. Making fools of wise men, and wise men of fools. Ensnarling and unsnarling. Bringing fear and offering hope.

“Selamat jalan, Tiong,” I said, and I turned and went out of his office and out of the building and into the quiet, moon-drenched streets-of the Lion City, of the Pearl of the South China Sea, of home.