Росс Томас - The Singapore Wink

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Nash yelled.

“I don’t know that much about yachts.”

“Built in Hong Kong, 1959,” he yelled.

All I could tell about it, or her, was that she looked large, fast, and expensive. We came alongside where an accommodation ladder led down from the deck to a foot or so above the water. Nash tossed me a line and I made the runabout fast to the lowest step of the ladder. I stood up in the runabout and started to step onto the ladder when a blinding light from the deck hit me in the face and a voice asked: “What do you want, please?”

“My name’s Cauthorne. I want to see Mr. Sacchetti.”

“I knew it wasn’t going to be simple,” Nash said as I ducked my head and used a hand to shield my eyes from the glare of the searchlight.

“Mr. Sacchetti is not here,” the voice said. “Please go.”

“I’m coming aboard,” I said and started up the steps.

The blinding light went out and I looked up. A tall, lean Chinese in a white shirt and dark slacks stood at the top of the steps, illuminated by the lights from the yacht. He looked familiar and I suppose he should have because the last time I had seen him he had been pointing a gun at me through the window of a taxicab on Raffles Place. He still had a gun, it was still pointed at me and it looked very much like the one that I had seen before.

There seemed to be only one thing to do so I did it. I moved up another step.

“You’re crazy,” Nash said.

“I know,” I said.

“No more,” the man at the head of the steps said.

“Tell Sacchetti that I want to see him,” I said and stepped on to the next riser.

The man at the top of the steps called something in Chinese but he didn’t turn his head to do it. A male voice answered in Chinese and the man at the top of the steps nodded slightly. “You wait there,” he said to me and the revolver in his hand moved a little as if to underscore the suggestion.

“What did he say?” I asked Nash.

“He sent for somebody.”

“Sacchetti?”

“I don’t know,” Nash said. “He didn’t say, but I wouldn’t take that next step if I was you.”

It was a two-minute wait. I stood on the third step of the accommodation ladder, gripping its rail and staring at the Chinese at the top of the ladder who stared back as he aimed the revolver at what seemed to be the fourth button on my shirt. He didn’t seem to feel that it would be a difficult shot.

The male voice that I’d heard before spoke again in Chinese and the man at the head of the steps replied. Then he waved his gun at me. “You come up,” he said. “The other one, too.”

“I’ll just stay here and mind the boat,” Nash said.

“You come,” the man said and shifted the aim of his revolver so that it pointed down at Nash.

“All right,” Nash said.

“He’s convincing, isn’t he?” I said as I started up the steps.

“For a hundred dollars I don’t get shot at,” Nash said.

At the top of the steps the man with the revolver stepped back. “Follow him,” he said and gestured with the revolver at another man, a stocky Chinese with a crescent-shaped scar on his left cheek and a small automatic in his right hand. We followed the man with the automatic down a flight of stairs and along a corridor that was carpeted in dark grey. The walls looked as if they were paneled in teak and if the yacht had cost as much as I had been told, they probably were.

The man with the scar and the automatic stopped at a door and knocked. Then he opened it, waved at me with the automatic, and said: “Go in.”

I went in, followed by Nash and the two Chinese. The cabin or saloon was larger than I had expected. There was a thick, dark red carpet on the floor or deck and the color was repeated in the silk drapes that covered the oblong portholes. The furniture was of a dark, almost purplish wood that was intricately carved and all of its arms and legs seemed to end in dragons’ mouths and claws. At the far end of the room was a low table that held a silver tea service. She sat behind the table in one of two matched chairs that were large enough to serve as thrones in some minor kingdom. She sat, leaning slightly forward, her hands resting comfortably on the arms of the chair which were carved into the heads of two dragons who seemed to be snarling at each other about something. She wore a dark blue dress whose collar mounted high on a slim white throat and whose hem ended several inches above her knees. Two strands of pearls hung halfway to her waist She wore her black hair piled high, perhaps to give her more height and to lengthen her delicate face which may have been a trifle round. But there was nothing delicate about her gaze which flicked over me, made a bleak assessment, rested briefly on Nash, seemed to discover some more shoddy goods, and then settled again on me.

“Who is your friend, Mr. Cauthorne?” she said.

“He speaks English,” I said.

“I’m Captain Jack Nash.”

“Captain of what?”

“The Wilfreda Maria, ” Nash said.

“I remember now,” she said as if she wished that she hadn’t “My husband once spoke of you. I believe you’re a smuggler of sorts.”

“You’re Mrs. Sacchetti?” I said.

“Yes, Mr. Cauthorne, I am.”

“Where’s your husband?”

“My husband is not here.”

“Where is he?”

She was small, delicate, and almost perfectly proportioned. The voice that came out of her full, slightly lipsticked mouth was clear, musical, with no trace of sing-song, and sounded as if she either had been educated in England or had spent a lot of time there. “My husband,” she said, “sent you a message today. He very much hoped that you would understand and accept its content.”

“I got the message,” I said, “but I still have to see Angelo.”

“You really don’t seem to understand, Mr. Cauthorne. My husband is not going to see you and I’m afraid that’s quite final.”

“That’s it, pal. Let’s go,” Nash said.

“You should heed your friend’s advice, Mr. Cauthorne.”

“I’m here for two reasons. One is personal and the other is to give Angelo a message from his godfather.”

“You can give me the message,” she said. “I shall see that my husband gets it.”

“All right,” I said. “Angelo gave me three days to leave Singapore. You can tell him that his godfather has given him exactly the same time in which to return it.”

“Return what?”

“What Angelo stole from him.”

She laughed then. It was a light laugh that tinkled up and down the scale. “You are a ridiculous man, Mr. Cauthorne, and even a little pathetic. You try to force yourself aboard and then you make such melodramatic threats. I hope that there’s more to your performance.”

“There is,” I said. “The rest of it is all about what happens to Angelo if he doesn’t return what he stole.”

“And what is supposed to happen?”

“There are three men sitting in a hotel room in Los Angeles waiting for a telegram. If your husband doesn’t return his godfather’s property to me in three days, then they won’t receive the telegram and they’ll catch the next plane to Singapore.”

“These men are friends of yours?” she said.

“No. They’ve been hired by the godfather.”

“To do what?”

“To kill Angelo Sacchetti.”

It was step number one in the Dangerfield Plan and she laughed at it. I couldn’t blame her. With two guns aimed at me, it didn’t seem to amount to much of a threat. In fact, it didn’t seem to amount to anything at all.

“My only regret,” she said, “is that my husband is not here to watch your performance. He would be highly amused.”