Росс Томас - The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

Pai Chung-liang was another living testimony to my skill as a corruptor of civil servants. I wondered how his superiors had found out and even if they had. Perhaps Pai was just bored with Hong Kong and thought that Singapore would be pleasant in late August and if he could get an additional five thousand out of me, it might prove even more pleasant than he had anticipated.

There was the chance, of course, that he was telling the truth and if he were, he would soon be telling them about us. Not that there wasn’t much they didn’t already know, but we still had to go through the motions of maintaining our tattered cover.

“I’m going to pay him,” I said to Vicker.

“You just said he wasn’t worth it.”

“He’s not, but I’m still going to pay him.”

“Of course,” Vicker said thoughtfully, “it could be a setup.”

“I know.”

“I never did trust the little bastard.”

“That puts him at the bottom of a long list,” I said.

The telephone rang then and it was Pai. “Mr. Dye?” he said in his soft, shy voice and I said yes.

“I called earlier this morning.”

“Are you on a safe phone?”

“Yes. Very safe. I did not go to my employment this morning.”

“I understand,” I said.

“I have some vital information.”

“About the bank?”

“Yes and no. But they have become suspicious and the information I have is vital to you. Personally.”

“And you’re asking five thousand dollars?”

“Yes. I would not do so unless I needed it desperately. I must go to Singapore. I have relatives in Singapore.”

“That’s what I hear.”

“Oh, yes. My conversation with Mr. Vicker this morning. He is your trusted colleague, is he not?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

“All right, Mr. Pai, where and when do you want to meet?”

He suggested a number on Upper Lascar or Cat Street. We had met there twice before in a gewgaw shop stuffed with carvings, lacquered ware, ceramics of doubtful merit, very bad Ming-type copies of Chinese mustangs, gongs of various sizes, and the inevitable scrolls. The old man who owned the place locked the doors and left whenever we appeared. His hour’s absence cost another HK $100.

“Anything else?” I said.

“Only one thing, Mr. Dye. I strongly urge that you come alone.”

“Fine,” I said.

I hung up and looked at Vicker. “He suggests that I come alone,” I said.

Vicker smiled a little, but not very much. “Then I’d better go with you.

“Maybe you’d better.”

“How’d he sound to you?” he said.

“Just as you described him: desperate and panicked.”

We arrived at the shop a little before ten, which was the agreed-upon time for the meeting. I paid the old man his $100 and he left, leaving the door unlocked on the promise that I would snap it shut after Pai arrived.

“If he’s skittish, maybe I’d better get in the back,” Vicker said.

There was a rear room, small and stuffy, which the old man used for an occasional nap. It had a six-inch peephole that was shielded by a flimsy see-through of split bamboo.

I stood near the six-hundred-year-old table that the shop owner used for a desk and looked out into Cat Street, which was as packed as usual. I sniffed and thought I could smell opium, but it may have been my imagination, although on Cat Street that wasn’t necessarily true. I saw Pai Chung-liang burrowing his way through the crowd. He wore a white linen suit and clutched a plastic briefcase under his arm. He paused at the door of the shop, looked carefully both ways, and then slipped in looking for all the world as if he’d just made off with the factory’s weekly payroll. He hadn’t been born to the business.

“Mr. Dye,” he said. “You are in good health?”

“Excellent.”

“It is kind of you to meet at such short notice.”

“Time is most valuable to those who suddenly are in short supply,” I said, making it all up as I went along.

He nodded, looked around shyly, and then started to say something, probably about the money. Before he had to embarrass himself I handed him an envelope. He didn’t even look inside, but instead quickly stuffed it into his briefcase which, I thought, demonstrated a pleasant degree of mutual trust.

“I have some information of a most delicate nature,” he said. “I scarcely know how to begin—”

He never got the chance really. The door that I’d forgotten to lock burst open and two chunky Chinese were suddenly in the room. They were mumbling something that I didn’t catch. I’m sure Pai Chung-liang never really heard what it was either because Vicker shot him right through the briefcase that he had clutched to his chest. The two chunky types looked at me, saw that I didn’t have a gun, and then at Pai who was now sprawled on the floor, his briefcase still tight against his chest. They both produced short-barreled revolvers. One of them waved his gun at me, nudged Pai with his foot, and said finished to his partner. The partner nodded, bent down, and took the briefcase. Neither of them seemed to care much about who’d shot Pai as long as he was dead. They backed to the door and disappeared into the crowd.

I bent over Pai. He wasn’t quite dead. He opened his eyes and coughed once. It seemed to hurt him terribly to do so. Then he said in a faint voice, “Mr. Dye, they couldn’t have known... I’m afraid your Mr. Vicker—” He never did finish what he thought Vicker might have said or done. He coughed and died instead.

Vicker came into the room as I rose. I looked at him. He was nodding a little in that self-satisfied way that he did when things went as he predicted. “A setup,” he said. “Just like I—”

“You didn’t have to shoot him,” I said.

“Christ, he set you up. He was about to finger you. If I hadn’t shot him, you’d be on your way to Canton.”

“They weren’t after me.”

“Not after he was dead, they weren’t. Not after he couldn’t finger you.”

It was a poor lie, but Vicker was magnificent. His dark brown eyes didn’t flicker and his voice dripped oily gobs of sincerity. “Good God, Dye, even a child could see what he was up to.”

“You didn’t hear what he said. Just before he died.”

“What?”

“He said three things.” I decided to do some lying myself. “First, he said that you’ve sold out. Second, he said that you tipped off the meeting to the opposition. And third, he said that you’re through. I agree with him on everything.”

“You believe him?” he said in the same, hurt tone that he’d use if I were to disagree with his favorite contention that Marciano could have taken Clay in three rounds.

“He was dying,” I said. “Why should he lie?”

“You’re not that naive.”

“Maybe I am. But then he said something else, too,” I said, rather pleased with my own skill as a liar.

“What?”

“He said you made a mistake. I agree with him.”

That didn’t bother Vicker either. It only caused him to raise an eyebrow. His left one. “What mistake?”

Vicker actually had made a number of mistakes and some of them he couldn’t help, such as the fact that I didn’t much like him. But there were others. One was the call that he’d made from his office just before we left for the meeting with Pai. After that, the two chunky Chinese showed up. That might be called a coincidental mistake, Then he accused Pai of trying to tumble me to the Chinese Communists who already knew everything they needed to know about me. That could only be called a dumb mistake — one very much unlike Vicker. Almost last was the mistake Vicker made when he shot Pai before the Chinese could tell me what he had on his mind. That, I suppose, could be labeled an irritating mistake. But I wasn’t going to tell him about all of them just then — only about the final and worst mistake that he’d made.