Росс Томас - The Singapore Wink

“Don’t you ever sleep?” I said.

“You still hanging in there, Cauthorne?” he said as he brushed by me and into the room.

“By my thumbs.”

“Where’s the booze?”

I started the long journey back to the bed. “Over there,” I said.

Dangerfield crossed to the bureau where the Scotch bottle rested, picked up a glass and poured his usual three fingers. He drank it down and for a moment I thought I was going to be sick.

“Hell of a long trip,” he said and poured himself another drink.

“Aren’t you a little off your usual route?” I said and eased myself back into the bed.

Dangerfield took off his hat and sailed it at the couch. The hat landed on the floor but he didn’t seem to notice. “Got a cigarette?” he said and I motioned towards the bureau again. He found the pack, lit one, and settled into an armchair.

“You got a nice room,” he said.

“Are you staying here?”

“I’m paying my own way, Cauthorne. I’m at the Strand up on Bencoolen Street. Six bucks a night, U.S.”

“Why won’t the Bureau pick up your tab?”

Dangerfield snorted. “I didn’t even ask. I just put in for a couple of weeks annual leave, cashed in my savings bonds, and took off. I got a little worried about you.”

“Why?”

“You don’t look too good.”

“I feel the same way.”

“What happened?”

“The Dangerfield Plan happened,” I said. “It’s a wonderfully brilliant scheme, special agent.”

“Okay; you’re funny. What happened?”

“Sacchetti had someone take a shot at me yesterday morning. Last night he had someone beat me up when I dropped by to see him on his yacht.”

“His what?”

“His yacht. The Chicago Belle . Only he wasn’t there.”

“Who was?”

“His wife and two of her friends. But don’t worry; I got the message across. I told her about the three guys in Los Angeles.”

“What else?” Dangerfield said.

“Well, there’s Carla Lozupone.”

“Where’s she?”

“Across the hall, I guess.”

“What about her?”

“She saw Angelo, she said. But she lies a lot.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. She wanted to pay him a million dollars.”

“Goddamn it, Cauthorne, tell it straight.”

“Okay. Sacchetti is not only blackmailing Charles Cole, he’s also blackmailing Joe Lozupone. The Lozupone girl flew here for one reason only. To pay off Sacchetti and to warn him that if he asks for another payment, he’ll be dead. She said that Sacchetti went along except for one provision and that provision is that I get out of Singapore in seventy-two hours — forty-eight hours now, I guess. Then she gave me some more advice. She said that if I caused anything to happen to Sacchetti, her father would take a very dim view of it.”

“What else did you find out?”

“Sacchetti’s got the fix in here.”

“How?”

“He married well.”

“And his father-in-law’s got the clout?”

“He has it.”

I told him the rest of it then in chronological order from the time I left Los Angeles until he knocked at the door. I talked for almost half an hour and when I was through Dangerfield rose and started to pace the room. He paced silently for almost five minutes. Then he stopped and stood by the bed.

“Don’t you ever get dressed?”

“Look, Dangerfield, we’ve only gone through phase one of your plan and it got me shot at and knocked silly. I’m just resting up for phase two. If my guess is right, that’ll call for the water torture and the bamboo shoot that grows right up the ass.”

“When are we going to eat?”

“Always to the point at hand; that’s what I like about you. Just ring the bell over there and give your order to the man when he comes.”

“You want something?” Dangerfield said.

“Coffee,” I said. “Lots of coffee. But right now I’m going to get dressed. That’s after I get out of bed. Then I’m going to take a shower and if it still seems like a good idea, I’ll brush my teeth, and after that, if I’m still conscious, I might even shave. So you see I haven’t been idle. I have the entire morning planned.”

Dangerfield went over to ring the bell for room service. “You sure they didn’t hit you on the head?”

“The only thing I’m sure of,” I said, “is my wild anticipation of events yet to come.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Such as phase two of the Dangerfield Plan and how we put it into operation.”

“Simple,” Dangerfield said and borrowed another cigarette from my pack. “We tell Angelo what I told you we’d tell him.”

“We?”

“You get in trouble, Cauthorne. You need a chaperone.”

“I won’t argue that. But where do we find Sacchetti if he doesn’t want to be found?”

“He lives on that yacht, doesn’t he?”

“So I understand.”

“Then we go out to the yacht.”

I was sitting on the edge of the bed by then. Another hour or so and I’d make it into the bathroom. “All right,” I said. “We go out to the yacht. They don’t like visitors out there, but we go anyway. What makes you think they’ll let us aboard?”

Dangerfield sighed and then yawned. “Sometimes, Cauthorne, I think you’ve got shit for brains. He knows about the three guys and the telegram. You told his wife about that, right?”

“Right.”

“He won’t believe it. But he’ll want to know why we want him to believe it.”

“So he’ll see us?”

Dangerfield cast an exasperated glance at the ceiling. “I swear to God they must have hit you on the head last night.”

It took me a while in the bathroom. The shower drove needles into my back and the razor seemed to weigh ten pounds. When I finally came out Dangerfield looked up from the remains of what seemed to have been an immense breakfast.

“You look real pretty,” he said. “Clean, too. I signed your name to the bill.”

“With a little more practice, you can sign my checks. Any coffee left?”

“Plenty.”

The telephone rang and I crossed over to answer it. When the voice said “Mr. Cauthorne?” I recognized it immediately. It belonged to Mrs. Angelo Sacchetti, and she didn’t bother to identify herself.

“I gave my husband your message,” she said.

“I got his after you left last night. It was just as you promised: most sincere.”

That didn’t seem to require any comment from her. “My husband has changed his mind, Mr. Cauthorne. He would like to see you as quickly as possible.”

“This morning?”

“If possible.”

“It is,” I said. “Where?”

“At my father’s house; it’s more convenient than the yacht.”

“All right. What’s the address?”

She told me and we set the time for eleven o’clock. After I hung up the phone, I turned to Dangerfield who was pouring himself another drink.

“That was Sacchetti’s wife,” I said.

“He wants to see us, right?”

“Right.”

“The Dangerfield Plan,” he said with a contented smile. “It seems to be working out just fine.”

After Dangerfield borrowed my razor and poured himself another drink we caught a cab at the hotel and headed out Orchard Road past the Instana Negara Singapura.

“Who the Christ lives there?” Dangerfield said.

“It used to be the residence of the British governors, but now it’s home to Singapore’s president.”

“That’s not this guy Lee, is it?”

“No. He’s the prime minister. The president is Inche Yusof bin Ishak.”

“How do you remember all that?”

“I like foreign names.”

“That’s some lawn,” he said.

Another mile or so and the driver turned around and said, “This is Tiger Balm King’s house. Over there.”