Росс Томас - The Singapore Wink

“This is my partner, Mr. Trippet,” I said. “Mr. Terilizzi — and I don’t think I ever got your last name, Tony.”

“Cea,” he said to me and “hiyah” to Trippet. Nobody seemed to want to shake hands. “What happened to Carla, Cauthorne?” Cea said. “The boss wants to know bad.”

“She was strangled.”

Terilizzi took off his glasses and slipped them into his breast pocket. He nodded his head slightly, as if encouraging me to go on with the story, and then I looked fully into his eyes and I wished that he had kept his sunglasses on. His eyes had the color and warmth of chilled oysters and I had the feeling that if I looked into them long enough, I would discover something that was better left unknown.

“Where were you?” Tony Cea asked.

“I was getting beat up.”

“Who did it?”

“Who beat me up or who killed Carla?”

“I don’t give a shit who beat you up,” Cea said. “Who killed Carla?”

“The cops are looking for Sacchetti.”

“Sacchetti, huh?” Cea searched his pockets for a cigarette, found one, and lit it with a small leather-covered lighter. “He do it?”

“How should I know?”

“Well, here’s something you should know, Cauthorne,” Cea said and his mouth twisted into a crooked grin. “You should know why Terilizzi and me are here. We’re here because we’re going to find who killed Carla and then I’m going to turn him over to Terilizzi who’s just a little nuts. Not much; just enough. You follow me?”

“It’s not hard,” I said.

“Quite simple, really,” Trippet said.

“Who’d you say he was?” Cea said, jerking a thumb at Trippet.

“My partner.”

“Tell him to shut up.”

“You tell him.”

Cea glared at Trippet who gave him a polite, even friendly smile. “Now if we or the cops don’t find whoever made Carla dead in forty-eight hours, you know what I’m supposed to do?”

“Something perfectly wretched,” Trippet said.

“You,” Terilizzi said to Trippet, and made a sharp horizontal motion with his left hand.

“He can talk after all,” I said.

“Sure, he can talk,” Cea said. “He’s just a little nuts, like I said, but he can talk all right when he wants to. I was looking to tell you what I’m going to do if whoever killed Carla’s not caught.”

“All right,” I said. “What?”

“We’re going to find a reasonable facsimile,” he said, pronouncing the phrase carefully, as if he had just learned it. “We’re going to find the guy who was supposed to look after Carla but didn’t and that’s you, Cauthorne.”

“You,” Terilizzi said.

“A little screwy, but good at his job,” Cea said. “Does beautiful work; all hand carved.” Cea laughed at that and Terilizzi smiled and gave me a careful appraisal with his oystery-grey eyes. “You,” Terilizzi said again.

“I’m afraid you don’t understand the situation, Mr. Cea,” Trippet said.

“Will you get him off my back?” Cea said to me.

“You might learn something,” I said.

“You see, you are not in New York or New Jersey or even Los Angeles,” Trippet said smoothly. “At a word from either Mr. Cauthorne or myself to the proper authorities, the pair of you will be clapped into the local jail — for safekeeping, of course. The civil servants who run the Singapore prison system are most forgetful, I believe, and they might forget about you for one or even two years. It’s been known to happen.”

“Who is this crumb?” Cea said.

“His father used to own half of Singapore,” I lied. “Now Trippet does.”

My partner smiled modestly. “Only a third, Edward.”

“I don’t care what he owns,” Cea said to me. “You’re the one who’d better be worried because I’m going to be right on your ass from now on. Me and Terilizzi.”

I shrugged. “You can reach me at the Raffles.”

“They told me that was a real crummy old place.”

“Old anyway.”

“Did you book me a room?” Trippet said.

“You’ve got the one that Carla had.”

“Fine,” Trippet said.

“You going to stay in it?” Cea said and he seemed a little shocked.

“Well, I never really knew the lady, you understand.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s right. Me and Terilizzi are at the Hilton.”

“Where else?” I said.

“What’s that, some kind of a crack?”

“Forget it,” I said. “If you want to talk to the cops, the ones to see are Detective-Sergeants Huang and Tan.”

“Write ’em down, will you?”

I wrote the names down on the back of Cea’s airline ticket.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll go see ’em. Just remember, Cauthorne, I don’t care how much pull your partner here has, me and Terilizzi are going to be right on your ass. The boss didn’t take it too good about Carla. In fact, he took to the bed when the telegram came. He don’t feel so good and finding who got to Carla might make him feel better.”

“Should cheer him up tremendously,” Trippet said.

Cea gave him a sour look. “Just remember what I told you, Cauthorne.”

“Right on my ass,” I said.

“You,” Terilizzi said again.

“You better believe it,” Cea said, turned, and went to pick up his luggage.

“Pompous bastard, isn’t he?” Trippet said.

“You know something?”

“What?”

“That must be the first time he’s ever been described in just those terms.”

We collected Trippet’s bag, a bleached pigskin affair that seemed to have solid silver fittings, found a porter who laughed when Trippet said something to him in Malay, and located a bearded Sikh cab driver who agreed to take us to the Raffles in his prewar Jowett-Jupiter that was a marvel to us both.

“Just what did Lira say to you exactly?” I said, once the cab was rolling.

“First, he told me that you had been rather badly beaten and from the bruise on your jaw I’d say he was telling the truth — as he usually does, of course.”

“What else?”

“That the Lozupone girl had been killed and that you were getting in over your head and had refused any offer of assistance. He strongly recommended that I come out and lend a hand.”

“Doing what?”

“Well, I must confess he was rather vague about that.”

“Dangerfield’s here,” I said.

“The FBI man?”

“Yes.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Lending a hand.”

“Oh,” Trippet said and gazed out the window at the Singapore scene as we threaded our way through the Indian section that lined Serangoon Road. “It hasn’t changed,” he said as we rolled slowly through the treeless, grubby neighborhood, entire sections of which could have been transplanted intact from Bombay or Calcutta or Jubbulpore. Ghee and tal cooked in pans over cow dung fires and their odors mingled with those of oil and urine and incense and rose water. Men in white dhotis chewed betel and stared at nothing and everything. Women in bright, even brilliant, saris rattled their gold bangles and a Hindu wise man, his arms smeared with ashes, wandered through the crowd. A Parsee leaned against a post, picked his teeth with a sharp knife, and sneered at the Hindu. An old man hobbled by with the aid of a malacca cane, his mouth wrapped in gauze, his eyes fixed on the ground.

“What’s the one with the gauze over his mouth?” I said.

“Must be a Jain,” Trippet said.

“Afraid of germs?”

“Not at all. He’s probably orthodox. The gauze keeps insects from committing suicide by flying into his mouth. Notice how carefully he walks; he doesn’t want to step on any of them either.”

Just past Balestier Road which takes you to the Singapore Island Country Club, if you can afford the dues, the traffic became spotty and the driver urged his aged car on to new efforts. We must have been making forty when the black, four-door Chevelle pulled up alongside and stayed there. Our driver slowed, but the Chevelle dropped back with us. When the Chevelle’s rear window started to roll down, I caught Trippet by the shoulder and gave him a hard, abrupt shove towards the floor. I dropped flat on the seat and one of the two shots plunked into the far door about eight inches from my head while the second one, fired at an angle as the Chevelle pulled ahead, knocked out the taxi’s rear window. The glass wasn’t shatterpoof and a few shards fell on the seat.