Росс Томас - The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

Bourland was a little brighter, but not much. He said that the polygraph examination of Li Teh was merely routine.

“What kind of routine, Mr. Bourland?” one of them asked.

“Why, routine procedure,” he said.

They knocked him around until they got tired and then threw him back in a cell, too. He didn’t get a chance to call the Embassy either. I later learned all this from Carmingler.

They questioned us separately, of course, and they were good. At least the man who questioned me and who called himself Mr. Tung was good. Quite good. He said that he was from the Ministry of Defense and Security and I found no reason to doubt it.

I spent the first twenty-four hours in solitary. They had taken away my clothes, cigarettes, keys, wallet, and watch. I missed the cigarettes most of all. It really didn’t seem to matter much what time it was. They gave me the gray cotton, pajamalike uniform, the one that I was to wear for three months without change. The cell was small, five-feet wide and seven-feet long. It was windowless and contained a strawstuffed mattress, a bucket that served as a toilet, and a small plastic jug of water. Nothing else. The walls were built of gray, porous stones that were clammy and wet. The floor was concrete. A single forty-watt bulb was screwed into the ceiling. It never went off. The temperature seemed to be in the upper nineties, right alongside the humidity.

I was fed twice before I saw Tung. The first meal was a large bowl of rice with some pieces of unidentifiable fish mixed into it. The second meal was the same and so were all the other meals during the next three months. From long ago experience I choked down everything they gave me and didn’t lose a pound. Maybe they’re right after all and fish and rice are everything you really need.

The room that Tung questioned me in was on the second floor of the prison that the British had built a hundred years or so before with loving attention to all the details that would make it as uncomfortable as possible. The room had two windows that looked out over the prison yard which was surrounded by walls built of that same gray, porous stone. They must have been at least twenty-five feet high. A number of prisoners were walking around the yard, either by themselves or in twos and threes. I didn’t bother to ask if I could join them.

Mr. Tung (I never knew his other names, if he had any), was somewhere in his thirties, short, slim, and dapper. He wore a crisp white shirt with a neatly knotted blue tie and light blue linen slacks that were pressed to perfection. There were four ball-point pens clipped to his shirt pocket, all different colors. His black eyes seemed to snap a little and he had the nervous habit of tugging at his right earlobe when he was trying to phrase a question. He didn’t smile much, at least not when talking to me, and we spent quite some time talking.

Two prison guards brought me into the room and then left. I stood before Tung’s desk while he carefully looked me over. The room contained only the desk, Tung’s chair, and the one that he motioned me to sit in. There was nothing on his desk other than a round tin of Players, the kind that holds fifty cigarettes. He offered me one and I accepted it gratefully.

We sat there smoking for a while and then Tung said, “Well, you blew it, didn’t you?” I couldn’t place his accent despite the use of the vernacular. It wasn’t American and it wasn’t British. It was that in between, international brand, the kind that Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. used to speak before he began spending too much time in London.

I shrugged at his question and said nothing. There really wasn’t anything to say.

“Too bad about Li Teh,” Tung said. “I take it that you didn’t know about his heart condition?”

“No.”

“He wasn’t a bad chap really.”

“You knew him?”

“Not too well,” Tung said. “He was dickering to open one of his shops here, but I suppose you knew that.”

“No.”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, he’d recently received a promotion. But I’m sure you did know that.”

“No,” I said.

Tung looked at me carefully and then took a tin ashtray from a desk drawer and placed it halfway between us. I put some ashes into it.

“Really, Mr. Dye, I almost believe that you are as ignorant as you pretend to be.”

“I’m just ignorant,” I said.

“Then I’ll bring you up to date. Peking promoted Li Teh six weeks ago. He was told to keep his operations going in Hong Kong, but to set up a shop down here and run it on a part-time basis. When it was a going concern, they would send someone down from Peking to take over. In the meantime, he’d commute between here and Hong Kong. He didn’t tell you any of this?” Tung tugged at his earlobe again. The right one.

“No,” I said.

“I think you’re lying,” Tung said. “But that’s to be expected. At any rate, we approached Li. I confess that our approach was none too subtle. Either he doubled for us, or we’d throw him in jail.”

“Why did you think he was an agent?” I said.

Tung smiled a little, but not much. “Why did you?”

There seemed to be nothing to say to that either. Tung, however, was waiting for an answer. I let him wait while a fat, heavy silence spread through the room.

“The premier’s most unhappy,” he said after a time, “Really? Why?”

“Because of you, Mr. Dye, and your organization which, I might add, fully lives up to its reputation for bungling. Really remarkable. The premier, of course, is just hopping mad. But I’ve said that, haven’t I?”

“Just what am I charged with?” I said.

“We’ll think of something.”

“I’m sure.”

“You should be. But to return to Li Teh. He told us that he thought you’d go as high as three thousand dollars a month. American. Did you?” When I didn’t say anything, Tung continued. “We offered to pay him something. Of course, we could never match your largesse, but we did offer him one thousand dollars a month (our variety) and the promise that he wouldn’t go to jail which was, I think you’ll agree since you’ve seen our jail, a rather enticing fringe benefit. And by the way, he told us all about you — how you used to meet in out of the way places in Hong Kong and so forth. Even gave us dates and times.”

“He talked a lot,” I said.

“We can be rather persuasive.”

“I can imagine.”

Tung rose and walked over to the window and looked out. He was silent for a time and I thought that he may have been counting the prisoners. With his back still to me, he said, “We’re going to ask your people for thirty million dollars.”

“You’ll never get it,” I said and helped myself to another cigarette.

“That’s our asking price,” he said, turning from the window. “We’ll settle for ten cents on the dollar. A million each for you and your two colleagues.” He lowered himself into his chair again, reached for one of the cigarettes, and this time he did smile. He had good teeth. “But the money’s not really important, of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

“What we really want is a letter of apology.”

“From whom?”

“From your Secretary of State. The premier was thinking of going directly to the White House, but he was dissuaded.”

“You won’t get anything,” I said.

“You think not?”

“I think not.”

“Well, let’s see what we have to offer,” Tung said and laid his cigarette in the tin tray so that he could count on the fingers of his right hand. “On the surface, we have the dead body of a Chinese spy; two insurance salesmen from here, and their managing director from Hong Kong. Minneapolis Mutual, isn’t it?”

“Minneapolis Mutual,” I said.