Росс Томас - The Singapore Wink

“I assured him that his hands would be all right,” Trippet said. “When he gets well enough to leave the hospital I plan to take him home with me so that Barbara can look after him.”

“I may not get the chance to see Sydney,” I said. “But tell him that when he gets well enough we need him to help out in front until his hands are healed. Tell him we want him to learn the management side.”

“Sometimes, Edward, the humanitarian side of your nature absolutely surprises me.”

“Sometimes, Dickie, it surprises me, too.”

Trippet began his usual leisurely stroll homewards and I stood on the corner for fifteen minutes until I hailed a cab which dropped me in front of the Beverly Wilshire at five minutes after six. I asked the room clerk for Miss Lozupone’s room number and he informed me that the hotel policy was not to give out such information and that if I wished to speak to Miss Lozupone, I should use the house phone. I told him I thought that the hotel policy was sound and asked where the house phones were located. He pointed them out and I picked one up and asked for Miss Carla Lozupone. A male voice answered.

“Miss Lozupone, please,” I said.

“This Cauthorne?”

“Yes.”

“Come on up. She’s waiting for you.”

I asked the voice what the room number was. He told me and I rode the elevator up to the seventh floor, walked down the hall, and knocked on a door. A tall man of about thirty with long, wavy black hair and acne-scarred cheeks opened the door.

“You Cauthorne?”

“I’m Cauthorne,” I said.

“Come on in,” he said and opened the door wide enough to let me enter, provided I turned sideways.

Inside I found myself in what must have been the Beverly Wilshire’s Spanish Fandango suite. The furniture was all black mahogany with red velvet upholstery that was held in place by brass nailheads. There were some tables with beaten brass tops that looked a little Moorish and Mexico got in its innings with some pictures of peasants in wide sombreros leaning against white adobe walls in what looked to be an impossibly yellow sunshine.

She was sitting on a low, long divan that matched the rest of the furniture in the room. Her dress was navy blue and had three large white buttons down the front and ended far enough above her knees for the view to be fascinating. She wore her black hair long and straight and it framed a pair of dark eyes, an almost perfect nose whose nostrils flared just a little, and a full, lipsticked mouth that seemed to have pouted its way through life. Except for the pout, and a chin that some might have thought too small, she could have been called striking, or even beautiful, if you were feeling generous that day. But with or without the pout she was undeniably sexy and I had the notion that she spent a lot of time working at it.

“So you’re Uncle Charlie’s idea of a babysitter,” she said as if she didn’t care much for Uncle Charlie’s ideas.

“Uncle Charlie is Charles Cole?” I said.

“That’s right.”

“Then I’m Uncle Charlie’s idea of a babysitter.”

She bent forward to reach for a tall drink that rested on a long, low table in front of the divan and the navy blue dress gaped open enough to show that she didn’t like to bother with a brassiere. She took a swallow of her drink and looked at me some more.

“Sit down someplace,” she said. “Do you want a drink? If you do, Tony will mix you one. That’s Tony over there.”

I sat down in a highbacked chair that was pulled up to the table in front of the divan and started to say hello to Tony, but the shakes hit, and then the sweating started, and Angelo Sacchetti fell into the ocean again and winked his Singapore wink at me as he fell. Then it was over and Carla Lozupone stared curiously as Tony bent over me.

“I’ll take that drink now,” I said, took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off my face.

“Give him a drink,” Carla said.

Tony looked at me dubiously. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing that a drink won’t cure,” I said.

Tony moved over to a table that was stocked with bottles and mixed me a drink. “Bourbon okay?” he said as he handed it to me.

“Fine.”

“What have you got, some form of epilepsy?” the girl asked.

“No. It’s not epilepsy.”

“Christ,” she said, “it might as well be. You were gone for five minutes.”

“No,” I said. “Not five minutes. Maybe forty seconds or a minute at the most. I’ve timed it before.”

“Does this happen often?” she asked.

“Every day,” I said and took a swallow of the drink. “Except today it was a little early.”

Carla Lozupone pushed her lower lip out a little farther. “What am I supposed to do with a babysitter who throws a fit at six o’clock every evening?”

“The best you can, I suppose.”

“What? Stick a wooden depressor in your mouth so that you won’t bite through your tongue? You’re supposed to look after me, Mr. Cauthorne, or whatever your name is.”

“It’s still Cauthorne,” I said. “Edward Cauthorne.”

“You want I should throw him out?” Tony inquired pleasantly enough and moved over to my chair.

“Tell him not to try,” I said.

Carla Lozupone looked at me and then at Tony. The pout disappeared and she licked a pink tongue over her lower lip. “Throw him out, Tony.”

The tall man with the wavy black hair fastened his hand on my left arm. “You heard the lady,” he said.

I sighed and threw the rest of my drink in his face. Then I was up. His hands went to his face and I hit him twice, a little above the belt. He doubled over just enough for my knee to catch his chin, and as he went down I chopped him, not too hard, on the back of the neck. Tony sprawled on the floor, breathing heavily but steadily through his mouth. I picked up the glass I had dropped and walked over to the table and mixed another drink. There was some Scotch, so I poured that instead of the bourbon. Then I went back to the chair, stepped over Tony, and sat down.

Carla Lozupone stared at me, her mouth slightly parted. At least she wasn’t pouting.

I raised my glass to her and then took a swallow. “I am getting a little sick of being leaned on,” I said. “I am also getting a little sick of the Lozupones and the Coles and the Calleses. But I’m especially sick of Angelo Sacchetti and that’s why I’m going to Singapore. So I can stop being sick of Sacchetti. If you want to tag along, you can. If you don’t, you can always take Tony with you. He should be good at keeping track of the passports and the luggage.”

Carla Lozupone looked at me thoughtfully. “Why do you think I’m going to Singapore?” she said.

“To patch up a busted romance, I understand.”

She laughed and she put a certain amount of bitterness into it. “With Angelo? Don’t be stupid. I can’t stand him and he can’t stand me. We never could, even when we were kids.”

“You weren’t kids together,” I said. “Angelo’s at least ten years older than you are.”

“Nine,” she said. “But he was around when I was twelve and he was twenty-one. I spent a very unpleasant Saturday afternoon with Angelo when I was twelve.”

“I can imagine.”

“I doubt that you can,” she said.

“Then why did you go through with the engagement and the rest of the act?”

She drained her glass. “Mix me another one.”

When I made no move, she added: “Please.”

I rose and picked up her glass. “I thought they must have taught you something at Wellesley. What are you drinking?”

“Vodka and tonic.”

I mixed her drink and handed it to her. “You didn’t answer my question,” I said.

“Do you get The New York Times out here?” she said.