No, it was the other two who were the problem, Luther Rickendorf and Kim Baldur. They were the ones who had to be gotten rid of, before Bennett could report to Richard Curtis on the demise of Jerry Diedrich.
Bennett had decided, at last, that the way to handle the Diedrich matter with Curtis was to tell him a modified version of the truth. That he’d captured the fellow, and brought him home, and trussed him up, and forced him to reveal the name of the spy in RC Structural. But then, he would say, it turned out he hadn’t been a very efficient interrogator, he hadn’t realized exactly how much pressure he was putting on Diedrich, and the fellow had died before he could describe his grievance against Curtis.
Yes, that ought to do it. It wasn’t a murder, it was an accidental death, done in Richard Curtis’s service. Curtis hadn’t asked for it, but he could only be pleased by the result. No more Jerry Diedrich to pester him, ever and ever. Who cares what his grievance was. It died with him.
Last night, when he’d finished talking with Diedrich, Bennett had gone out to a nearby Chinese noodle shop for dinner, a place where they knew him by sight. Then he’d gone to a kung fu movie in the neighborhood, and after that, when he got home, Diedrich was dead. In the darkness of night, it hadn’t been too difficult to carry the body back down the stairs to his Honda and stuff it under the hatchback, the same as he’d brought him here, though this time not breathing. (He’d reclaimed his sock, and now it had definitely gone into the garbage.)
It was a long drive he’d then taken, over to the Central Expressway to get out of central Singapore, then west on the Ayer Rajah Expressway all the way to the end, and on out Jalan Ahmad Ibrahim past the Jurong Bird Park to the Jurong Industrial Estate, the new area reclaimed from swamp and filled with manufacturing and housing.
Down in here, at night, there were quiet dark streets leading south to the water’s edge and the Straits of Jurong. Here is where Bennett stripped Diedrich of all identification, finally removed the lengths of duct tape from his wrists and ankles, and rolled him into the water. He would float or sink or whatever he might do, and eventually be discovered and would most likely be a natural death.
True, there wouldn’t be water in his lungs, so he wouldn’t be thought to have drowned. But he could have fallen into the water and hit his face against something and died that way. In any event, what was there to link this body to Colin Bennett? Nothing.
The other two would be more complicated. Lying in bed, in no hurry to rise, he thought about ways to kill them, and then smiled at his own thoughts. He’d never deliberately considered killing anybody before, and hadn’t originally intended (so far as he knew) to kill Diedrich, but now that it had been done, something new had opened up inside Bennett, because now he saw what a solution this was. How easy, and how permanent. The solution to so many problems.
Well, he should get to it, shouldn’t he? They’d be missing Diedrich, they might have already reported his disappearance to the police. Before they made too many waves, before they did too much talking to too many people, he should stop them. The good new permanent way.
Bennett rose and dressed. The hotel had no restaurant, but they put out a simple breakfast buffet in a corner of the lobby every morning. Bennett went down there to have coffee and a pair of pastries, then crossed to the desk, not expecting any messages, but just to be certain, so long as he was here.
“Yes, Mr. Bennett, one message, it came in this morning.”
Call Richard. Bennett’s pulse jumped, he squeezed the slip of paper tight. He felt like a dog who’s been called by his master, but it wasn’t a bad feeling, a humiliating feeling, it was good, it was positive, it meant he was wanted and useful and productive again.
What should he do first? Call Richard, or take care of the other two? He was tense with the pressure to take care of the other two, not even knowing where they were, if they were in the hotel, who they might be talking to. But how could he not respond to this call, from Richard?
He hurried back to his room, and made the call, and was immediately put through to Curtis, who said, “Colin, I’m going to want you to take a trip.”
Bennett hardly heard that; his own news was so pressing. He said, “Sir, you don’t have to worry about that fellow anymore.”
There was a brief startled silence, and then: “Oh?”
“He’s gone, sir,” Bennett said. “He won’t be back.”
“You’ll have to tell me all about it,” Curtis said. “Later. What I want you to do, Colin—”
“Yes, sir.”
“—is check out of that hotel, but keep your luggage in your car. You have your passport?”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s a foodstall at Changi named Wok Wok, do you know it?”
“I can find it, sir.”
“Good man. One o’clock. Be ready to travel.”
“Yes, sir,” Bennett said, thinking, it isn’t even ten now. I’ll have almost three hours to find them and deal with them, no problem, no problem.
“See you then.”
“Thank you, sir,” Bennett said, and hung up, and got to his feet. Pack first. Pack, check out, load the car, then come back in and deal with them.
He moved quickly, but not scrambling; he was very sure of himself. He packed his one large bag, carried it downstairs, paid the rest of his bill in cash, and took the bag out to the Honda, putting it where Diedrich had recently been. Then he was ready.
He wished he had a gun. The best he had was the length of iron pipe he’d used on Diedrich. Well, it had done the job with him, it would do the job with the other two. When he went back into the hotel, his shirt hung outside his pants, so that the pipe stuck under his belt would not be seen.
He’d kept his room key, and the clerk hadn’t thought to ask for it. He went through the lobby, quietly, attracting no attention, and took the elevator to the fourth floor, where his room had been.
It felt a little odd, to enter a hotel room after one has quit it. As though he’d been wrested, for just a minute, out of the normal movement of time, been jogged back or to the side, like a knight’s move in chess.
His former room was at the back of the building, overlooking a tumble of shed roofs and the rears of other buildings. The rooms of Rickendorf and Baldur were down one flight and also at the back. When he’d installed the listening device in the telephone, he’d come down the fire escape, a quick and simple route. The doorlocks were too good, beyond Bennett’s capacity to pick, but the windows at the back of the hotel had not been changed when the place was refurbished, and were locked with merely an old-fashioned latch that Bennett could open with a tableknife stuck between the sashes. That was the way he’d done it last time, and that’s the way he’d do it now.
The girl first. If she were there, Bennett would find some way to get in and kill her. If she weren’t there, Bennett would go in and search, maybe find out where she was, or wait for her to come back.
He opened the window, and leaned out, and one flight up two Chinese men in white coveralls were painting the fire escape. Painting it shiny black enamel. They saw Bennett and waved and smiled at him, and Bennett waved and smiled back, then withdrew into the room and shut the window.
Damn. Painting the fire escape; who ever heard of such a thing? Yes, fire escapes must be painted, like anything else, but no one’s ever seen a fire escape being painted.