Then food arrived. Baked sweet potatoes, fried eggplant, coconut milk, thick slices of roasted pork, heavy with oil. Bananas. Papayas. The King marked that there was no millionaire’s cabbage or lamb or saté of beef and no sweetmeats the Malays loved so much. Yeah, things were tough all right.
The food was served by the headman’s chief wife, a wrinkled old woman. Helping her was Sulina, one of his daughters. Beautiful, soft, curved, honeyed skin. Sweet-smelling. Fresh sarong in their honor.
“Tabe, Sam,” winked the King at Sulina.
The girl bubbled with laughter and shyly tried to cover her embarrassment.
“Sam?” winced Peter Marlowe.
“Sure,” answered the King dryly. “She reminds me of my brother.”
“Brother?” Peter Marlowe stared at him astonished.
“Joke. I haven’t got a brother.”
“Oh!” Peter Marlowe thought a moment, then asked “Why Sam?”
“The old guy wouldn’t introduce me,” said the King, not looking at the girl, “so I just gave her the name. I think it suits her.”
Sutra knew that what they said had something to do with his daughter. He knew he had made a mistake to let her in here. Perhaps, in other times, he would have liked one of the tuan-tuan to notice her and take her back to his bungalow to be his mistress for a year or two. Then she would come back to the village well versed in the ways of men, with a nice dowry in her hands, and it would be easy for him to find the right husband for her. That’s how it would have been in the past. But now romance led only to a haphazard time in the bushes, and Sutra did not want that for his daughter even though it was time she became a woman.
He leaned forward and offered Peter Marlowe a choice piece of pig. “Perhaps this would tempt thy appetite?”
“I thank thee.”
“You may leave, Sulina.”
Peter Marlowe detected the note of finality in the old man’s voice and noticed the shadow of dismay that painted the girl’s face. But she bowed low and took her leave. The old wife remained to serve the men.
Sulina, thought Peter Marlowe, feeling a long-forgotten urge. She’s not as pretty as N’ai, who was without blemish, but she is the same age and pretty. Fourteen perhaps and ripe. My God, how ripe.
“The food is not to thy taste?” Cheng San asked, amused by Peter Marlowe’s obvious attraction to the girl. Perhaps this could be used to advantage.
“On the contrary. It is perhaps too good, for my palate is not used to fine food, eating as we do.” Peter Marlowe remembered that for the protection of good taste, the Javanese spoke only in parables about women. He turned to Sutra. “Once upon a time a wise guru said that there are many kinds of food. Some for the stomach, some for the eye and some for the spirit. Tonight, I have had food for the stomach. And the sayings of thee and Tuan Cheng San have been food for the spirit. I am replete. Even so, I have also — we have also — been offered food for the eye. How can I thank thee for thy hospitality?”
Sutra’s face wrinkled. Well put. So he bowed to the compliment and said simply, “It was a wise saying. Perhaps, in time, the eye may be hungry again. We must discuss the wisdom of the ancient another time.”
“What’re you looking so smug about, Peter?”
“I’m not looking smug, just pleased with myself. I was just telling him we thought his girl was pretty.”
“Yes! She’s a doll! How about asking her to join us for coffee?”
“For the love of God.” Peter tried to keep his voice calm. “You don’t come out and make a date just like that. You’ve got to take time, build up to it.”
“Hell, that’s not the American way. You meet a broad, you like her and she likes you, you hit the sack.”
“You’ve no finesse.”
“Maybe. But I’ve a lot of broads.”
They laughed and Cheng San asked what the joke was and Peter Marlowe told them that the King had said, “We should set up shop in the village and not bother to go back to camp.”
After they had drunk their coffee, Cheng San made the first overture.
“I would have thought it risky to come from the camp by night. Riskier than my coming here to the village.”
First round to us, thought Peter Marlowe. Now, Oriental style, Cheng San was at a disadvantage, for he had lost face by making the opening. He turned to the King. “All right, Rajah. You can start. We’ve made a point so far.”
“We have?”
“Yes. What do you want me to tell him?”
“Tell him I’ve a big deal. A diamond. Four carats. Set in platinum. Flawless, blue-white. I want thirty-five thousand dollars for it. Five thousand British Malay Straits dollars, the rest in Jap counterfeit money.”
Peter Marlowe’s eyes widened. He was facing the King, so his surprise was hidden from the Chinese. But Sutra marked it. Since he was no part of the deal, but merely collected a percentage as a go-between, he settled back to enjoy the parry and thrust. No need to worry about Cheng San — Sutra knew to his cost that the Chinese could handle himself as well as anyone.
Peter Marlowe translated. The enormousness of the deal would cover any lapse of manners. And he wanted to rock the Chinese.
Cheng San brightened palpably, caught off his guard. He asked to see the diamond.
“Tell him I haven’t got it with me. Tell him I’ll make delivery in ten days. Tell him I have to have the money three days before I make delivery, because the owner won’t let it out of his possession until he has the money.”
Cheng San knew that the King was an honest trader. If he said he had the ring and would hand it over, then he would. He always had. But to get such an amount of money and pass it into the camp, where he could never keep track of the King — well, that was quite a risk.
“When can I see the ring?” he asked.
“Tell him if he likes he can come into the camp, in seven days.”
So I must hand over the money before I even see the diamond! thought Cheng San. Impossible, and Tuan Rajah knows it. Very bad business. If it really is four carats, I can get fifty — a hundred thousand dollars for it. After all, I know the Chinese who owns the machine that prints the money. But the five thousand in Malay Straits dollars — that is another thing. This he would have to buy black-market. And what rate? Six to one would be expensive, twenty to one cheap.
“Tell my friend the Rajah,” he said, “that this is a strange business arrangement. Consequently I must think, longer than a man of business should need to think.”
He wandered over to the window and gazed out.
Cheng San was tired of the war and tired of the undercover machinations that a businessman had to endure to make a profit. He thought of the night and the stars and the stupidity of man, fighting and dying for things which would have no lasting value. At the same time, he knew that the strong survive and the weak perish. He thought of his wife and his children, three sons and a daughter, and the things he would like to buy them to make them comfortable. He thought also of the second wife he would like to buy. Somehow or another he must make this deal. And it was worth the risk to trust the King.
The price is fair, he reasoned. But how to safeguard the money? Find a go-between whom he could trust. It would have to be one of the guards. The guard could see the ring. He could hand over the money if the ring was real and the weight right. Then the Tuan Rajah could make delivery, here at the village. No need to trust the guard to take the ring and turn it over. How to trust a guard?