Росс Томас: The Singapore Wink

“Where are they now?” I said.

“The microfilm?”

“Yes.”

“As I said, they were in Toh’s safe.” Lim opened a drawer in his desk and brought out a wrapped package, not quite as large as a cigar box. “He even gave us the combination to his safe. More tea?”

“Thank you, no.”

“I think that this information would prove more valuable to you than to us, Mr. Cauthorne,” he said. “Please,” and he moved the wrapped package towards me, three inches past the Chief’s Special. I picked it up and put it in my lap. “Thanks,” I said.

“Not at all,” Lim said and leaned back in his chair with what seemed to be a real sense of accomplishment. “It has been a most rewarding venture, don’t you think so, Dickie?”

“I have discovered a truth,” Dickie said, “and the truth is that I’m far too old for such adventures. I find I crave the quiet and honest chicanery of a used-car emporium.”

“Nonsense,” Lim said. “You’re in your prime. In fact, I feel so smug and self-satisfied that I think we should have a drink.”

Nobody objected so Lim poured three drinks and then toasted our health. Once again he seemed to think it was necessary to put a little extra feeling into the toast that he proposed to me.

When our flight landed at Los Angeles, Trippet and I went in search of a stamp machine. We fed dimes and nickels and quarters into it until we had almost three dollars’ worth. He helped me lick them and we pasted them on the carefully wrapped package that Lim had pushed across his desk.

I borrowed Trippet’s broad-nibbed fountain pen and printed the address on the package of microfilm. It read: “Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C.”

“You have the zip code?” Trippet said.

“No.”

“What about the sender’s address?”

“I’m coming to that.”

I printed it carefully in the upper left-hand corner and then showed it to Trippet. It read: “Samuel C. Dangerfield, Bowie, Maryland.”

Ten days later I was sitting in my glass cubicle with my feet on the desk trying to remember exactly what Angelo Sacchetti looked like and rejoicing a little over the blank that I almost drew. They came in together and once again the big man paused at the 1932 Cadillac and gave it a lingering glance of mild adoration.

They didn’t stop long at the car, this time. Callese walked into my office, gave it a quick appraisal with his dusty eyes, and said, “What happened, Cauthorne?”

“Angelo Sacchetti finally died,” I said. “That’s all.”

“That isn’t all.”

“What else?”

“They got Charlie Cole.”

“Who?”

“The FBI picked him up yesterday.”

Palmisano was staring at the Cadillac through the glass walls of the office. “They got Joe, too,” he said. “Tell him about Joe.”

“They picked up Lozupone. In Jersey.”

“That’s your problem,” I said.

“And about six others,” Palmisano said. “Maybe seven.”

“I figure it ties in to you,” Callese said.

“You figure wrong.”

“You better hope I’m wrong.”

“I’ll have to think about that,” I said. “Sometime.”

His lips turned up at the corners again in what he passed off to the world as a smile. Then he took out his gold cigarette case and lit one of his oval cigarettes. When he was through with that he sat down and crossed his legs so that I could admire his pearl grey spats. “We’re checking it out, Cauthorne. I just thought I’d let you know.”

“What happens when you’re through checking?”

“We might drop around again.”

“I’ll be here.”

Palmisano was still staring through the glass at the Cadillac when the two men came in. They were in their middle thirties and wore plain dark suits. They looked at the Cadillac, but not long, and then headed towards my office.

“Get rid of them,” Callese said.

“They’re the first customers I’ve had all day.”

“Get rid of them,” he said again. “We’re not through talking.”

“I think we are.”

The two men came into the office and looked at Callese and then at Palmisano. “FBI,” one of them said and they both whipped out their folding identification cases and showed them to Callese and Palmisano. They didn’t bother to let me look.

“What’s this?” Callese said.

“You’ll have to come downtown with us, Mr. Callese,” one of them said.

Callese shrugged, dropped his cigarette on the floor, and ground it out with his neat black, shiny shoe. He stood and looked at me. “I’ll be back,” he said.

“I’ll be waiting.”

At the door Palmisano turned quickly. “That Caddy out there,” he said. “What’s your last price?”

“Still six grand,” I said.

He nodded and smiled as if remembering something pleasant that had happened a long time ago. “I had one like that once. You know what color it was?”

“Green,” I said. “Real dark green.”