Росс Томас - The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

Tante Katerine met us at the dock with a basket of fruit, booze, cigarettes, and her new husband, a wisp of a man, about sixty-five, whom she introduced as M’sieu Gauvreau in French and as Mr. Soft stick in English, assuring us that he didn’t understand a word.

“He does something in the Vichy government,” Tante Katerine said, holding my hand in both of hers, “but nothing in bed.” She shrugged, released my hand, and patted her new husband on the cheek. He smiled, delighted at any attention.

“Lucifer’s too thin and you owe me eleven thousand dollars,” she said to Smalldane. “That Captain Toyofuku was such a nice man, but greedy.”

“There’s a redheaded Mexican on board,” I said.

“Don’t trust him,” Tante Katerine said automatically. “When do you intend to repay me, Gorm?”

“After the war.”

“Yes,” she said and smiled sadly. “After the war.”

“What are your plans, Kate?” Smalldane said.

“Fatten Lucifer up,” she said. “He’s far too thin.”

“He’s been in jail. What are your plans?”

She turned to smile at her husband and to tell him in French that he wouldn’t be shivering if he had worn his long underwear as she had suggested. He replied that the weather was too warm and that it made him itch. She said that she had no desire to become a widow and he said that he would wear it from now on even if it did make him itch. It was all very domestic and it was one of those conversations about nothing that somehow become inextricably stuck in memory. It’s really the only thing I remember that M. Gauvreau ever said.

“I have no plans, Gorm,” Tante Katerine said, turning from her husband. “He talks about returning to France, but he’s only dreaming. They have no use for him there. My only plans are to keep alive. As long as he lives, the Japanese will let me alone. Just promise me one thing.”

“What?” Smalldane said.

“Take care of Lucifer. Get him safely to America,”

“All right.”

“See that he brushes his teeth.”

“All right.”

“Make him change his underwear.”

“All right.”

“Lucifer.”

“Yes, Tante Katerine.”

“Look after Gorman.”

“Yes, ma am.”

“Don’t let him drink too much.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Keep him away from the poules. The bad ones at least.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She leaned down to kiss me and then fussed with my clothing, straightening it here and there. “I’ll miss you, Lucifer. Don’t trust that redheaded Mexican. Stay away from him.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She turned back to Smalldane. “I don’t want to come aboard, Gorm. I don’t think I could.”

“I know.”

He kissed her then. It was a long, friendly, warm, passionate, memorable kiss that I watched with delight. M. Gauvreau turned his head and cleared his throat, but no one paid him any attention.

A harried official from the Swiss Consulate stopped to tell us to get aboard. Tante Katerine backed away from Smalldane, still holding his hands. I think she was doing Ginger Rogers then. “Come back to me, Gorm,” she said. “Come back to me in Shanghai.”

Smalldane winked at her, gathered her up in his arms again, and then smacked her sharply on the butt. M. Gauvreau hissed in some breath.

“We’ll both come back, Kate.”

She nodded, her right fist to her mouth, a few tears streaming down her cheeks, but not so many that they would ruin her makeup. She waved a little with her left hand as we started up the gangplank. When we were halfway up, Smalldane whispered to me, “Don’t ruin her scene. Turn and wave at her and rub your knuckles in your eyes like you’re crying.”

I turned and waved and knuckled my left eye.

“Gorm!” Tante Katerine shouted.

Smalldane turned. “What?” he yelled.

“Make him change his underwear.”

It was the last thing she said, the last time I ever saw her.

We sailed out of Shanghai on June 8, 1942, carrying 1,036 missionaries, both ecclesiastical and medical, nurses, State Department types, correspondents, most of whom Smalldane knew, children, wives, assorted businessmen with varying degrees of influence, a handful of Canadians, two spies (or so Smalldane said), a smuggled kitten, and one redheaded Mexican.

We sailed for Singapore where the Japanese liner Asama Maru joined us on June 10. She was carrying North and South Americans from Korea, Japan, and Manchuria. She was just out of Hong Kong, where she had stopped to pick up some more U.S. and Canadian citizens. As soon as we had cleared Singapore and were sailing south toward the Dutch East Indies and the Coral Sea, Smalldane made me his proposition. We spent the next two days going over figures before I agreed to finance the venture that eventually was to launch Smalldane Communications, Inc.

It was a crap game, of course, and when Smalldane got through explaining the odds to me, he made a projection of the profit potential

“We’ve got about a thousand persons aboard,” he said. “Let’s say that three hundred of them are gamblers. When we reach Lourenço Marques the passengers aboard the Asama Maru will double up with us on the Gripsholm. That’ll give us a total of some sixteen hundred passengers. Out of that there should be five hundred hard-nosed gamblers — the kind who’ll bet their last dime. Now we know that they’ve all got the hundred-dollar draw from the purser. So one hundred times five hundred is what?”

“Fifty thousand,” I said.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “We’re rich.”

“But it is still gambling,” I said.

“Of course it’s gambling.”

“In that event one must lose so that the other might win,” I said, switching to French to help the logic of my thoughts along.

“Oui, M’sieu Petit Merde,” Smalldane said.

“Then I stand the chance to lose my money, and you much face. I would very much like it the other way around.”

“The odds,” Smalldane said. “Remember the odds. We bet only against the dice. We bank the game. Time is on our side. Sixty to seventy-five days. Maybe three months.”

“The risk is great.”

“The rewards are greater.”

“I don’t think—”

“I have been in deep conversation with the redheaded Mexican,” Smalldane said in Cantonese. “He is a man of much wealth but strange tastes. He longs for you, but is shy. He has offered me a modest sum to—”

“When do we start the game?” I said.

“Tonight,” he said. “I was lying about the Mexican, kid.”

“I know,” I said. “Already he sleeps with two of the nurses from Hong Kong.”

The wire services were the first to fall. AP dropped a little more than $300; UP was good for $275, and INS had only $100 to contribute. Smalldane lent it all back to them on markers at ten percent interest for the remainder of the trip. Collectively, they lost somewhere around $2,000. The doctors and businessmen were next. My job was to return the dice to the proper shooter and quote the odds.

“Two to one no four,” I said to a portly physician from New York.

“Hard way, dice,” the portly physician said on his knees and bounced them against the bulkhead for a seven. Smalldane gathered up the money. I handed the dice to the next shooter. By the time we arrived in Lourenço Marques on July 23, 1942, the Conte Verde crapshooters were broke, we were $21,795 in the black and anxious for the fresh meat aboard the Asama Maru.

The Swedish passenger liner Gripsholm was already docked at Lourenço Marques when the Conte Verde and the Asama Maru arrived and docked on either side of her. The crap game was suspended until the new supply of gamblers assembled on the Gripsholm. I wandered up to the deck while the rest of the passengers were packing and getting ready to debark. A Japanese boy of about my age was leaning over the rail of the Gripsholm , spitting into the water. He looked up, and we stared at each other.