“La Croix, how many times do I have to say it? I’m not in the business anymore. There’s nothing I can do.”
“But I have already—” He broke off, his eyes staring into mine, and then he swung around and was gone.
I finished my beer and went out into what the Malays call the roore hond, the oppressive, prickly heat that was Singapore at midday. There were a few European tourists about — talking animatedly, taking pictures the way they do — but the natives had sense enough to stay in where it was cool.
I walked down to the river. The water was a dark, oily bluish-green. Its narrow expanse, as always, was crowded with sampans, prahus, small bamboo-awninged Chinese junks, and the heavily laden, almost flat-decked lighters called tongkangs. There was the smell of rotting garbage, intermingled with that of salt water, spices, rubber, gasoline, and the sweet, cloying scent of frangipani. The rust-colored roofs that cap most of Singapore’s buildings shone dully through thick heat haze on both sides of the river.
I followed the line of the waterfront for a short way until I came to one of the smaller godowns or storage warehouses. Harry Rutledge, the big, florid-faced Englishman who ran the place, was there, supervising the unloading of a shipment of copra from one of the lighters.
“Can you use me today, Harry?” I asked him.
“Sorry, lad. Plenty of coolies on this one.”
“Tomorrow?”
He rubbed his peeling red nose. “Cargo of palm oil due in,” he said musingly. “Holdover, awaiting transshipment. Could use you, at that.”
“What time will it be in?”
“By eleven, likely.”
“I’ll be here at ten.”
“Right-o.”
I moved on along the river. I had never really gotten used to the heat, even after fifteen years in the South China Seas, and I was sweaty and dry-mouthed and I wanted another iced beer. But not in the Seaman’s Bar, and it would be better if I had something to eat first. I had not eaten all day.
Here and there along the waterfront are small eating stalls. I stopped at the first one I saw and sat on one of the foot-high wooden stools, under a white canvas awning. I ordered shashlick and rice and a fresh mangosteen. I was working on the thick, pulpy fruit when the three men walked up.
The two on either side were copper-skinned, flat-eyed, and stoic. Both were dressed in white linen jackets and matching slacks. The man in the middle was about fifty, short and plump; his skin had the odd look of kneaded pink dough. He was probably Dutch or Belgian, I thought. He wore white also, but that was the only similarity between his clothes and those of the other two. The suit was impeccably tailored, the shirt of silk; the leather shoes were handmade and polished to a gloss. On the little finger of his left hand he wore a gold ring with a jade stone in the shape of a lion’s head — symbolic, probably, of the Lion City.
He sat down carefully on the stool next to me. The other two remained standing. The plump man smiled as if he had just found a missing relative. “You are Daniel Connell?” he asked.
“That’s right.”
“I am Jorge Van Rijk.”
I went on eating the mangosteen.
“You were at the Seaman’s Bar a short while ago. In the company of an acquaintance of mine.”
“Is that so?”
“M’sieu La Croix.”
“The name’s not familiar.”
“Come now, Mr. Connell. What did he want of you?”
“I don’t see that it’s any of your business.”
“Ah, but it is. It is very much my business.”
“Then go ask La Croix.”
“An excellent suggestion,” Van Rijk said. “However, he seems to have temporarily eluded us.”
“Too bad for you.”
“Necessarily, then, I must ask you. What did he want?”
“He wanted to sell me something,” I said. “But I wasn’t buying.”
“No?” Van Rijk smiled again, but his eyes were as cold as dry ice. “You are a pilot, are you not?”
“Not anymore.”
“A pilot for hire, I’m told. La Croix wished you to fly him somewhere.”
“You think so? You weren’t there.”
“To what destination?”
“I didn’t let him get that far.”
“What destination, Mr. Connell? When and from where?”
“Ask as many questions as you want. I don’t have any answers for you.”
Van Rijk was losing patience; his eyes said so and so did the threatening tone when he said, “You would be wise not to play games with me, Mr. Connell.”
“I’m not playing games. Why should I? I don’t know who you are or what your connection is to La Croix and I don’t much care.”
“Then tell me what you know of La Croix’s plans, or—”
“Or what, Van Rijk?” My patience was gone, too. I laid my hands flat on the table, leaning toward him. That brought the other two in closer; one of them put his hand inside his jacket. “Or you sic your two bodyguards or whatever they are on me? I’m sure they’re armed to the teeth, but I doubt you’d have them shoot me in a crowded bazaar. Or try to kidnap me, either. In fact I doubt you’ll make any trouble at all, unless you want to spend some time in a city penjara for street brawling.”
Anger blotched his pink cheeks. The other two were poised on the balls of their feet, watching me, waiting for orders from Van Rijk. But I’d read him right; he didn’t want anything to do with the Singapore polls. He got slowly and stiffly to his feet.
“There will be another time, Mr. Connell,” he said. “When the streets are not so crowded.” Then he stalked off, threading his way between the tables, his two orang séwaan-séwaan at his heels. The three of them disappeared into the waterfront confusion.
I sat there for a time. Van Rijk and his threats didn’t worry me much. There had been a time when they might have, but that time was two years dead; his type didn’t bother me anymore. I wasn’t even curious about his relationship with La Croix.
I drank a couple of iced Anchor beers in a nearby bar, then took a taxi to my flat on Punyang Street in Chinatown. A forty-minute nap, a tepid shower, and a fresh change of clothes put me in a better frame of mind. And by then I was thirsty again.
On Jalan Barat, not far away, there was a bar called the Malaysian Gardens — a gross misnomer. No flower, shrub or plant has ever been cultivated within a radius of one hundred yards of the place. Its façade was reminiscent of a Chinatown tenement and its barnlike interior was scruffy, bare, and redolent of the sweat, blood, and tears of its equally scruffy clientele. A dive the Malaysian Gardens may be, catering to the Caucasian, Eurasian, and Asian dregs, but the beer was cheap and nobody cared who or what you were. You could do your drinking alone or in the company of friendly and sympathetic — for the right price — bar girls. Mostly I did mine alone.
I had been there for perhaps three hours, sitting by myself at a rear table and thinking a lot of old and useless thoughts, when I realized I was being stared at. I was still fairly sober and it wasn’t much of an effort to get my eyes focused. The starer was a woman. Not one of the bar girls — a young Caucasian woman who didn’t belong in the Malaysian Gardens.
She was standing about fifteen feet away, tall and dark-haired and well-dressed. In the smoky dimness of the Gardens it was difficult to determine her age, but she couldn’t have been older than thirty. She had eyes for me alone, no question of that, but not for the usual reason women stare at men in bars. She seemed nervous and uncomfortable and maybe a little scared.