Росс Томас - The Singapore Wink

“Have another drink,” I said.

“You know why I look like I do?” Dangerfield asked.

“Why?”

“Because they don’t like it.”

“Who doesn’t like it?”

“The waspwaists down at the bureau. To hell with them. I got twenty-seven years in with three years to go and I know more about it than anybody else so they’re not going to say anything. And I got Charlie Cole for them and because of that they damn sure won’t say anything.”

I walked over and picked up Dangerfield’s glass and poured some more Scotch into it. “Here. Drink this and then you can cry on my shoulder.”

Dangerfield accepted the glass. “I hear you’re a little nuts, Cauthorne. A little screwy in the head.”

“Really?”

“The boys out on the coast say that you went a little crackers because you thought you’d killed old Angelo.”

“What else do the boys say?”

“They say that Callese and Palmisano have been leaning on you.”

“I sat back down on the divan and crossed my legs. “You can tell the boys that they’re right.”

“What’s Charlie Cole want with you?”

“He wants Angelo off his back for one thing.”

“Angelo’s in Singapore. Doing real well, I understand.”

“You got the pictures of him for Cole, didn’t you?”

Dangerfield nodded. “I got them. I hear that Charlie’s been moving big money through Switzerland to Singapore. I figured it was to Angelo. Am I right?”

“You’re right,” I said.

“What’s Angelo got on him?”

“Everything. Everything he ever gave you and unless Cole keeps paying, Angelo’s going to give it to your friends in New York.”

Dangerfield thought about that for a moment. He rubbed his big red nose and frowned. “And Angelo’s got the stuff on Lozupone?”

“The only copy — or copies by now.”

“And where do you fit in?”

“Unless I get it back, Cole is thinking about having some acid thrown in the face of my partner’s wife.”

“What did you tell him?” Dangerfield said.

“I told him I’d go to Singapore. But I was going anyway when I found out about Sacchetti. I was going wherever Sacchetti was.”

Dangerfield nodded his big head slowly as if confirming something to himself. “They said you were a little crazy. They were right.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t know how much trouble you’re in.”

I got up and poured the last of the Scotch into my glass. “You mentioned that before, I think.”

“I didn’t go into details.”

“But you will.”

“Later,” Dangerfield said. “Right now we’ve got some planning to do.”

“Planning what?”

Dangerfield smiled. He looked cheerful and relaxed, even happy. “About how you’re going to get that stuff on Joe Lozupone away from Angelo Sacchetti and back to me.”

After the plane landed at Los Angeles International I took a cab to Santa Monica and La Brea and got there too late for lunch with Trippet, but in plenty of time to learn that I had an appointment at the Beverly Wilshire at six that evening with Miss Carla Lozupone.

“Someone called about an hour ago,” Trippet said. “He didn’t sound very friendly.”

“I haven’t met any of them who are.”

Trippet wanted to know what had happened so I told him, leaving out only Cole’s threat concerning the acid. I also told Trippet about the plan that Dangerfield dreamed up to retrieve the evidence from Sacchetti. I had spent four and a half hours on the plane thinking about Dangerfield’s plan, trying to improve on it, and the only conclusion I had come to was that it would probably land me in either of two places, the hospital or the cemetery.

“Surely, you’re not going through with it?” Trippet said and brushed his long grey hair from his eyes.

“There’s only one thing I know that I’m going to do. That’s fly to Singapore and find Angelo Sacchetti.”

“And the evidence?”

“I don’t know. If he hands it over to me, fine. But I don’t think I’ll wrestle him for it.”

Trippet rummaged through the office desk. “Where do we keep the stationery?”

“Bottom left-hand drawer,” I said.

He found a sheet, took out his broad-nibbed fountain pen, and began to write. “You don’t know anyone in Singapore, do you?”

“Just Angelo Sacchetti.”

“This is a letter of introduction to Sammy Lim. He’s an awfully nice chap. We were at school together, you know.”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes,” Trippet said and kept on writing. “His grandfather and mine founded one of the first Chinese-British export-import firms in Singapore. Trippet and Lim, Ltd. It caused a terrible stir. Sammy’s full name is Lim Pang Sam. He’s now managing director and also principal stockholder, although I still hold some interest. Haven’t seen him in years, but we correspond quite regularly.”

Trippet signed the letter with a bit of flourish, asked me if there was a blotter, and I told him no, that I hadn’t used a blotter in years, probably because I hadn’t owned a fountain pen in years. He said he couldn’t stand ball-point pens and I told him he was against progress. By this time he had waved the letter around enough for the ink to dry, so he handed it to me. Trippet wrote a nice hand and it read:

DEAR SAMMY:

This is to introduce Edward Cauthorne, my good friend and business associate. He is in Singapore on a rather confidential matter and if you could lend him any and all assistance, I would be forever grateful.

You owe me a letter, you know, and when are you making that long postponed trip to the States? Barbara is dying to see you again.

As ever,

“Dickie?” I said and handed the letter back to him.

Trippet rummaged around in the desk until he found an envelope. “Well, after all, we were at school together,” he said as he folded the letter and placed it in the envelope and handed it to me.

“Thanks very much,” I said and put the envelope in an inside jacket pocket.

“Not at all. When do you think you’ll leave?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to get a smallpox shot first and I guess it’ll depend on the fair Carla and her wishes.”

Trippet shook his head. “I fail to see, Edward, why you agreed to serve as her escort or chaperone or whatever you are.”

“Because it was easier to acquiesce than to argue, I suppose. Or maybe I just like to have people walking over me.”

Trippet frowned. “That sounds suspiciously like self-pity.”

“Whatever it is, I plan to get rid of it in Singapore.”

“You’re banking an awfully lot on this trip, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I suppose I am. Wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “In my rather haphazard life I have, upon occasion, attempted the geographical cure, I suppose you might call it. But I always found that it had one distinct drawback.”

“What?”

“I had to go along with me.”

We walked around the corner to one of the bars and had a drink while Trippet brought me up to date on Sydney Durant. He had visited Sydney at the hospital earlier that day and all our principal body repair man could tell him was that there had been four of them. They had picked him up in front of his rooming house at one-thirty in the morning and had driven him to a quiet residential street, just off Sunset. Two of them had held him while another had clamped a gag over his mouth. The fourth member of the party had slammed the door. Then they hopped into their car and sped off, leaving Sydney to wander down to Sunset holding his shattered hands in front of him. It had been dark and he couldn’t give a good description of the men to either Trippet or the police.