“Are you kidding?” he asked, an edge to his voice. “Jaffe a queer?
What kind of an idea is that?”
“There’s a rumour going around that he was,” Hambley said quietly. “It’s said he had an association with his house-boy.”
Wade looked disgusted.
“The guy who put that rumour around wants his backside kicked. What does he expect to get out of a foul lie like that?”
Hambley looked at Wade’s indignant face with interest.
“You’re as sure at that?” he asked.
“You’re damn right I am!” Wade said, his face flushed. “What’s all this about anyway?”
Hambley told him of the Inspector’s theory.
“Well, it’s a lie,” Wade said. “I know for a fact Jaffe had a regular girl. He never chased women. That story about why he borrowed my car is so much baloney!”
“Who was his girl, then?” Hambley asked.
“I don’t know. What’s it matter anyway? I do know she used to visit his place about three times a week. You know how you get to hear these things. My houseboy is always telling me who is sleeping with who. When you play golf with a guy, you get to know the kind of man he is. Jaffe was a sportsman: he was okay. I’m telling you.”
“I’d like to talk to this girl of his,” Hambley said. “How can I find her?”
Wade rubbed his fat jowels while he thought.
The most likely one who could tell you is that Chink I slept with on Sunday night: she’s a bitch and a thief,” and he gave Hambley the address.
Hambley reached for his service cap and slapped it on his head.
“Well, thanks,” he said, “I’ll go and see this Chinese girl.”
He looked at his watch. It was just after half past twelve. “You have been a help.”
Fifteen minutes later, he was standing outside Ann Fai Wah’s front door. He rang the bell and waited. After a two-minute wait, he rang again. He was just deciding that she had gone out, when the front door opened and the girl stood in the doorway, looking at him. Her almond-shaped eyes moved over him, taking in the details of his uniform before examining his face.
“Hambley: Military Police,” the Lieutenant said, saluting. “May I come in for a moment?”
She stepped back and made a little flicking movement with her long, beautiful fingers. She was wearing a dove-coloured Cheongsam slit either side to half-way up her thighs. Her long shapely legs were bare and the colour of old ivory. He could see the hard points of her breasts under the grey silk. He didn’t think she had on anything under the Cheongsam.
He walked into the sitting-room. On the table was the morning newspaper. By it a tray containing a cup and saucer, a coffee pot and a half-empty bottle of Remy Martin brandy.
Ann Fai Wah sat on the arm of a big leather lounging-chair and rested her arm along its back. Hambley had difficulty not to stare at her leg as the split skirt parted as she sat down.
“You want something?” the girl asked, lifting painted eyebrows.
Hambley pulled himself together.
“Have you read the paper yet?”
He leaned forward and tapped the headlines that shouted of Jaffe’s kidnapping.
“Hmmmm.”
She nodded, her slim fingers playing with a curl on the side of her neck.”Did you know Jaffe?”
She shook her head.
“He had a girl friend: a Vietnamese taxi-dancer. I’m trying to find her. Would you know who she is and where she lives?”
“Perhaps.”
Hambley shifted from one foot to the other. He found the black almond-shaped eyes extremely disconcerting. She was looking him over the way a farmer would examine a prize bull.
“What does that mean? Do you know her or don’t you?” She leaned forward to pick up a cigarette. Her breasts tightened their grey silk covering. She put the cigarette between her heavily-made-up lips and looked expectantly at him.
Hambley fumbled for his lighter, found it and had trouble to light it. It irritated him as he lit her cigarette to be aware that he was confused and acting like a teenager.
“Why do you want to know?” she asked, leaning back and releasing a long stream of tobacco smoke down her nostrils.
“We’re trying to check his last movements up to the time he was kidnapped,” Hambley explained. “We think his girl could help us.”
“If she could, she would have come forward, wouldn’t she?”
“Not necessarily. She might not want to get involved.”
Ann Fai Wah picked up the newspaper and glanced at it.
“I see there’s a reward. If I told you who she is, will I get the reward?”
“You might. Security Police are paying the reward. You’d have to talk to them.”
“I don’t want to talk to them. I prefer to talk to you. If you will give me 20,000 piastres, I will tell you who she is.”
"So you know?”
Again the painted eyebrows lifted.
"Perhaps.”
“I haven’t the authority to give you the money,” Hambley said. But I’ll put your claim forward through the proper channels. Who is she?”
Ann Fai Wah shrugged her shoulders.
“I forget. I’m sorry. Is that all? You must excuse me.”
“Look, baby,” Hambley said, suddenly becoming the tough cop, “you can please yourself about this but you either tell me or Security Police. You’ll tell one of us!”
Ann Fai Wah’s expression didn’t change, but her quick shrewd mind warned her of her danger. If this American told Security Police he thought she had information, she would be taken to Headquarters and questioned. She knew what happened to people who were reluctant to talk. She had no intention of having her back lacerated with a bamboo cane.
“And the reward?”
“I told you: I’ll put in a claim for you. I don’t promise you’ll get it, but I’ll do my best for you.”
She hesitated, looking at him, then seeing he was determined, she said, “Her name is Nhan Lee Quon. I don’t know where she lives. Her uncle tells fortunes at the Tomb of Marshal Le-van-Duyet.”
“Thanks,” Hambley said. “What’s the uncle look like?”
“He is a fat man with a beard.”
Hambley picked up his cap.
"I’ll go talk to him,” he said and started towards the door.
Ann Fai Wah crushed out her cigarette and sauntered to the door with him.
“You won’t forget the reward, Lieutenant?”
“I won’t forget.”
“Perhaps you will come and see me again one evening?” He grinned at her.
“I might at that.”
She took hold of the top button of his tunic and examined it. Her face was very close to his.
“Her uncle won’t be at the temple until three o’clock,” she said. “You have plenty of time. Perhaps you would like to stay a little while now?”
Hambley removed her hand. The touch of her cool fingers made his heart beat a little faster. She certainly was attractive, he was thinking. He wanted to stay.
“Some other time, baby,” he said regretfully and he smiled. “I’ve work to do.”
He half-opened the front door, paused and looked at her again. She stared steadily back at him; her black eyes were alight with suggested promises.
Slowly he closed the door and he leaned against it. “Well, maybe I could stay awhile.”
She turned and walked slowly across the room to a door. Hambley, his eyes on her heavy, rolling hips, followed her.
2
The food vendor whose name was Cheong-Su had a long wait before he finally stood before Inspector Ngoc-Linh, but he didn’t mind the wait. The activity in the big room fascinated him and there was the suspense of wondering if someone in this long queue waiting to give information would get the reward before his turn came.
When Cheong-Su came to rest before the Inspector, he said simply and firmly that he had come to claim the reward.
“What makes you think you are going to get it?” The Inspector asked, looking at the old man, his little eyes screwed up, a bitter expression on his tired face.