Росс Томас - The Singapore Wink

She came into the room wearing another dress that I hadn’t seen, a tan silk sheath that emphasized her figure through indirection. She sank into a chair, crossed her legs so that I couldn’t miss anything interesting, and ran her eyes over me slowly as if reappraising a painting that had turned out to be more interesting than she had thought at first glance.

“You have good shoulders,” she said. “And your stomach’s nice and flat. I like flat stomachs. Most of the men I know have pots, even the young ones. They have that little roll that hangs over their belts and turns their pants tops down.”

“They just need a new tailor to move the belt loops up.”

“I thought you were going to knock on my door when you got back,” she said.

“I wanted to smell nice for you.”

“How sweet. Have you got anything to drink?”

“No, but you can order a bottle. Just ring that bell over there and the houseboy will bring it.” I turned and headed for the bathroom again.

“Take your time,” she said.

I was taking my time by letting the hot water beat down on the shoulder that had landed on the cement sidewalk when a hand reached in and tapped me on that same shoulder. Carla Lozupone pulled the heavy shower curtains aside and stepped into the bath. “I decided to take you up on the invitation,” she said. I couldn’t see any reason to scream so I put my arms around her and found her mouth hungry and her hands curious, then demanding. We left the shower running and made it to the bed where she looked up at me, ran her pink tongue over her lips, and said, “Say them to me.”

“What?”

“The words.”

So I said the words that I thought she wanted to hear, most of them with four letters, invented a few more, and her eyes glistened and her hands became more frantic and her mouth demanded everything. Afterwards she lay staring up at the ceiling as her hands ran over breasts and down to her thighs.

“You’re as good as you look,” she said. “Even better. I like it that way.”

“What way?”

“In a hotel when it’s casual and exciting and sensual. Like when it’s with a stranger almost. But don’t get any ideas, Cauthorne.”

“About what?”

“About me.”

“I was just going to comment that you’re a pretty good lay. One of the best, in fact.”

“We didn’t do everything.”

“No, I suppose we didn’t.”

She propped herself up on her left elbow and her right hand went exploring again. I noticed that the pout was gone and that her tongue was once more playing around her lower lip. “Would you like to try everything?” she said.

“I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t.” And we did. At least there wasn’t anything else that either of us could think of, and she had a rather fertile imagination.

After we were dressed and the houseboy had brought a bottle of Ballantine’s, and some sandwiches and Carla was on her second drink, she looked at me and said, “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, what happened?”

“You mean now that sex time’s over let’s get down to business.”

“I take it when and where I want it, Eddie.”

“Just like a hot bath, huh?”

“Did it mean any more to you than that?”

“No, I guess it didn’t.”

“Well, what did you find out?”

“Oh, that. I found out where Angelo lives. It wasn’t hard. I could have asked the room clerk and saved a lot of time. Angelo’s a rather prominent citizen now. He’s also married, but you already knew that, didn’t you, even before you left the states, so the excuse about stalling for your father was just another lie in what I feel must be a long series of them.”

“All right,” she said. “So I knew he was married. I still have to see him.”

“Come off it, Carla. You’ve already seen him. You saw him last night after you left me. You told him that I was here and that I was looking for him and that I was going to see a man at ten o’clock this morning. You set me up, sweetheart, and when I came out of the building where I had my appointment, Angelo had somebody there to take a shot at me. It was more or less a friendly shot, just a warning. Nobody could have missed at that distance unless he was trying.”

None of what I said caused her to spill her drink. Instead, she gave the fingernails on her left hand a careful study. Then she looked up at me and smiled as if I had just complimented her on the new way that she wore her hair.

“You know what Angelo did when I told him you were in Singapore?” she said. “He laughed. He thinks you’re some kind of a joke. A none-too-funny one that he’s heard before. I don’t think he wants you around.”

“I’m sure of it,” I said.

“Then why stay?”

“Because I want to see him.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s enough.”

She shook her head. “You’re keeping it all very nice and cozy, aren’t you? Angelo laughed until I told him that you were hooked up with his godfather. Then he quit laughing. Why did Uncle Charlie pick you as my babysitter, Cauthorne? Not just because he likes the dimple in your smile, although I’ve heard that he swings that way sometimes.”

“I was available and I was anxious to see Angelo.”

“No,” she said. “There’s something else. My Uncle Charlie wouldn’t have gone outside if there weren’t something else.”

“Outside of what?”

“What do you think?” she said.

“I think you’re clannish.”

“I’m doing what I have to do.”

“And getting me shot at is part of it.”

“That’s your hard times.”

“You seem to have some of your own,” I said.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll spell it out for you. Angelo has something that belongs to my father. I’m here to buy it back.”

It all fell into place then. I could almost hear the click. Angelo was not only blackmailing Charles Cole for having furnished incriminating information about old friends and acquaintances to the proper authorities, he was also blackmailing Joe Lozupone with the letters or records or whatever it was that he had stolen from his godfather’s safe. Angelo Sacchetti, I decided, must be making a great deal of money.

“Why you?” I said.

“Because there wasn’t anyone else.”

“You mean that there was no one else that your father could trust to make the payoff and not keep whatever it is that you’re trying to buy back.”

“That’s right.”

“How much?” I said.

“A million.”

“Where do you keep it, in your cosmetic kit?”

“You’re not funny, Cauthorne. It’s in a Panama bank. They’re better than the Swiss ones; they ask fewer questions. All I have to do is give Angelo a letter and he’ll be a million dollars richer.”

“Then it sounds simple. You could have done that last night, picked up whatever it is that he has, and caught the first plane out this morning.”

“That was the plan.”

“But something came up?”

“That’s right,” she said.

“Angelo wanted something else. More money, I’d say.”

“No. He’ll settle for a million.”

“He will this time, but what about next time?”

“There won’t be a next time,” she said.

“If it’s blackmail, there will be. Your father seems like an easy touch.”

“My father,” she said in a thin, hard voice, “is not easy about anything. And that’s something that Angelo knows. He’ll risk it this time; never again.”

“Blackmailers are strange,” I said. “Their victims make it simple for them and their greed is almost pathological, otherwise they wouldn’t be blackmailers.”

Carla stared at me. “My father gave me a message for Angelo. He made me memorize it. That wasn’t hard to do because it was a simple message. I gave it to him last night.”