Bill Pronzini: The Jade Figurine

“If you are, you’ve got a very novel approach.”

“You’re almost young enough to be my daughter,” I said again earnestly.

“That doesn’t stop most men.”

The fat man finished his double gin and left hurriedly. I felt a little sorry for him. A tall British sailor sat down in his place, and a plump Chinese whore named Rosie got up onto his lap. He began whispering in her ear, smiling foolishly, and she giggled and patted his leg and put his hand under her dress with practiced expertise.

I said to the girl, “Would you believe me if I told you I only wanted someone to talk with?”

“Now you’ve reverted to the standard line.”

“It’s the truth.”

“It always is.”

“Permit me to introduce myself,” I said. “I am Daniel Connell, ex-smuggler, ex-pilot, American expatriate, and a very lonely, lonely man.”

“Oh God,” the girl said.

“And who might you be?”

“I really ought to tell you to go to hell, you know that, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

She smiled then and she was beautiful and her smile was a sweet, bright thing that illuminated the generation gap between us, the world between us. Eve in the Garden, I thought. Pandora and the box, and Beauty and the Beast, and Jesus, Connell, you shouldn’t drink so goddamned much beer! Two more bottles and you’ll be up on the table, quoting passages from Tennyson and Hemingway and Uncle Remus. Go home, go to bed. Sober up, wise up, grow up, throw up…

“My name is Tina Kellogg,” the girl said. “And I don’t know why I’m telling you even that much.”

I shook my head a couple of times to clear it. “I have a trusting face.”

“As a matter of fact, you do.”

“A very large asset in my former line of work.”

“Were you really a smuggler, Mr. Connell?”

“Dan. Oh yes, I was really a smuggler.”

“What did you smuggle?”

“All sorts of things.”

“It sounds very exciting.”

“It was ugly and cheap and dirty.”

“Oh. Is that why you don’t do it any more?”

“Part of the reason.”

“What’s the other part?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said too harshly, and Tina’s smile faded and vanished. I put on a small, apologetic one of my own to bring it back. “Sorry. I seem to be feeling a little maudlin tonight.”

“I understand.”

“Sure you do. Well now, Tina Kellogg, tell me about Tina Kellogg.”

“She’s not very interesting, really.”

“On the contrary.”

“Well, all right, you asked for it. Let’s see. I was born in the Hawaiian Islands twenty-two years ago, of an American father and a Hawaiian mother. I graduated from the University of Hawaii last year, with a degree in journalism. I’ve been in Singapore only a few days, staying at the apartment of a girl I knew in college; the Orient has always fascinated me, and I decided to combine a vacation trip here with a series of articles on the area. I’m hoping to use the articles to land a staff position with one of the news or travel magazines in the States.”

“A very noble goal,” I said.

“Well, I never thought of it as being particularly noble-”

“Noble is as noble does.”

“I beg-I mean, I don’t think-”

“I’m being ambiguous. Pay me no mind. But tell me, how did you happen to find this infamous little den of iniquity?”

“The Old Cathay? Oh, someone I met on one of the city tours told me it was the place to go.”

“A lot that someone knows.”

Soft laughter. She touched my hand, almost shyly. “You know, for some strange reason I rather like you… Dan.”

“Mutual, little girl. Which is why I offer mild advice: spend not too much time in places like the Old Cathay; dragons lurk in unsuspected corners.”

“That sounds like an Oriental proverb.”

“Only the voice of experience.”

She laughed again. “As a matter of fact, I really can’t stay much longer. It’s a long taxi ride back to where I’m living, and I have to be up early in the morning. I’m going on a tour to Johore.”

“I’ll help you find a cab.”

“Well… that would be nice, I think.”

I got on my feet and offered my arm. She took it, and we spent several minutes struggling through the packed humanity to the door. Outside, it was very dark-the streetlamps on Jalan Barat are few and far between-and the night air was cooler and fresher after the daily, late-afternoon downpour. There were few automobiles on the street, but the foot traffic either coming to or departing from the Old Cathay was relatively heavy.

I steered Tina in a southerly direction. “There’s a taxi stand over on Betar Road,” I told her.

She smiled. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Okay, then.”

We walked down to Bencoolen Street, crossed it, and turned left on Betar Road. My head had begun to clear of the creeping effects of the Anchor Beer, and I thought that by the time I walked all the way to Punyang Street I would be dead-sober.

We had gone a block and a half when I heard the car come into Betar Road from Jalan Barat; from the sound of it, it was traveling very fast. I turned just as Tina began, “You know, Dan-” and the car, a small English Ford, was just coming through the cross street intersection. There was the pig squeal, then, of hurriedly applied brakes, and the driver pulled the wheel hard to the left, skidding the car in at an angle to the curb ten yards in front of where Tina and I stood.

Both front doors opened simultaneously, and two men came out in a hurry. The tropical moon had come out from behind a bank of clouds in the night sky, and in its yellow-white shine I could see their faces clearly.

It was the two flat-eyed men who had been with Van Rijk that afternoon.

I had time to shove Tina out of the way-and for the quick thought that Van Rijk was carrying out his threat after all-and then the driver, the one I had thought to be Eurasian, reached me. His right arm was upraised, across his body, and he brought it down in a backhand chopping motion, karate-style. Considering the amount of beer I had drunk since late afternoon, my reactions were pretty good; and I had taught karate to replacement troops in Seoul during the Korean War. I got my left arm up and blocked his descending forearm with my own. The force of his rush threw him off balance, and he was vulnerable; I jabbed the stiffened fingers of my right hand into his stomach, just below the breastbone. All the air went out of him. He stumbled backward and sat down hard on the sidewalk.

The other one, the Malay, had gotten there by then. But when he saw the Eurasian fall he came up short, and I saw him fumble beneath his white linen jacket. I took three rapid steps and laid the hard edge of my hand across his wrist. He made a pained sound deep in his throat, and there was a metallic clatter as the gun or whatever he had been going after dropped to the pavement. I hit him twice in the face with quick jabs, turning him, and then I drove the point of my elbow into his kidneys. The blow sent him staggering blindly forward, and he collided with the side of the English Ford. He slid down along it and lay still.

I heard the retreating slap of footsteps on the pavement and caught a glimpse of Tina running very fast on the next block; the whole thing must have scared hell out of her. Then I turned to have another look at the Eurasian. He was on his knees now, his face contorted, and there was a small automatic in his right hand; he was less than thirty feet away.

I hesitated for a fraction of a second. But there was only one thing I could do. Karate is effective against handguns, but not at thirty feet.

I fled.

An alley bisected the block on the opposite side of the street, and I cut over there, using the English Ford to shield myself from the Eurasian, running crouched low in a weave. Just as I came up onto the sidewalk at the alley mouth, there was a single, flat report behind me and, an instant later, a whistling ricochet. Brick dust showered from the building wall on my right.